Evil is cool

[Janx]

You don't think it's evil, or it's definitively not evil? What if the driller was eventually consumed by the drilling fantasy, bought a cordless drill, and went over to his neighbor's house with the intention of drilling out his eyes. So, it's still in his head, still a thought. While walking over with the drill, he's still not evil? (Buying a drill isn't evil, nor is walking to a neighbors house, I think we can agree. Since we can separate thoughts out, it doesn't matter why he bought the drill or walked to his neighbor's house.)

He arrives, knocks on his neighbor's door, and there is no answer. Turns out, the neighbor has moved on short notice. So, the driller goes back home, without harming or murdering any other person. If actions are all that matters, say if you were looking on at the scene, you would probably imagine he was going over to help with home improvement or was lending him the drill. No evil. If you're inside the drillers head, you see the gruesome fully realized plan. Still not evil?

I think there's 2 vectors on the drill example.

A person who is angry has an idea involving a drill. He then meditates on this and realizes that doing so would be wrong on a number of levels. He abandons the idea, having figured out what was wrong with this idea.

OR

A person who is angry has an idea involving a drill. He dwells on this, getting angrier and angrier. he buys a drill. He makes plans on following through.

As Celebrim mentioned the 8 path thingy, the first 2 steps were right understanding and right thought. You can't have any of that if you don't contemplate WHY an idea is wrong. That means you have to actually think about stuff and destroy a negative idea. This is where a negative idea does NOT make the thinker evil.

In the second example, obviously the person is reinforcing this negative idea. This is where a negative idea CAN make the thinker evil.

Because it's all in the thinker's head, there's not a lot of proof of a crime (equating crime to evil). That in turn makes it hard to convict (being judged by others). This is why the base metric is in their actions. Because whether thought is/becomes evil action or not, evil action is where the rubber meets the road.

It is the philosophical compatibility point. We may not agree where "evil" begins, but we can probably agree on some "what is evil" points.

If we're just talking basic criminal acts like stealing, killing, it's probably cut and dry. If we're there's self-defense or starvation as a factor, it might get fuzzier. That's motivation. Which is something the legal system struggles with as well. Motive isn't supposed to matter in court, but it does to humans.


Celebrim's example of the good is defensive, evil is offensive was a pretty good explanation of the trend towards playing evil. A good defense is a good offense, as some football guy used to say. Evil tends to get the good offense.

 

[Umbran]

Of course Evil is cool. If Evil were lame, kicking Evil's butt would likewise be lame. Evil is cool so that it is fun to beat them.

 

[Kzach]

So the complaint is more that the gods in Forgotten Realms just don't have the domains you happen to want? Vengeance used to not be associated with an evil god in FR, but in their god consolidation they consolidated him under Bane. Oh well.

At the end of the day, my original post wasn't so much a complaint as it was an observation. Obviously working with a DM in a home game will allow a player to change things to their advantage and in LFR it's not that big a deal to be denied access.

It was simply that I noticed a trend that I thought I would point out, that being that WotC seems to, whether on purpose and through design or through simple happenstance and coincidence, given the largest variety and most interesting options to evil rather than good. And it was in Divine Power that this stood out to me, above other sources, but certainly not limited to it.

 

[keterys]

The only feat where I see your point is the Tyranny feat, basically. Save penalties in general are ill balanced in this system and _whether it was for evil or not_ it's a badly designed feat.

Of course, it being evil may mean less groups use the feat, less people tested it, etc. Who knows? Either way, meh.

I still think that for the average group, average fights, using astral seal, even the tyranny one is no big deal. So, evil doesn't get cooler toys. There's no impetus to be evil. It's not more powerful. It gets some toys that good doesn't, but good gets some channel divinity feats that evil doesn't. Whee.

 

[Roger]

As someone who refuses to play evil characters, I find this incredibly frustrating.

If you're unaligned, you can serve any god.
--PHB, pg 62​

Cheers,
Roger

 

[Voadam]

You don't think it's evil, or it's definitively not evil? What if the driller was eventually consumed by the drilling fantasy, bought a cordless drill, and went over to his neighbor's house with the intention of drilling out his eyes. So, it's still in his head, still a thought. While walking over with the drill, he's still not evil? (Buying a drill isn't evil, nor is walking to a neighbors house, I think we can agree. Since we can separate thoughts out, it doesn't matter why he bought the drill or walked to his neighbor's house.)

He arrives, knocks on his neighbor's door, and there is no answer. Turns out, the neighbor has moved on short notice. So, the driller goes back home, without harming or murdering any other person. If actions are all that matters, say if you were looking on at the scene, you would probably imagine he was going over to help with home improvement or was lending him the drill. No evil. If you're inside the drillers head, you see the gruesome fully realized plan. Still not evil?

Of course motivation matters.

Being angry at the neighbor is just an emotion. Deciding to murder the neighbor is an action different from being angry at the neighbor. Buying tools to execute a murder is an action that can be judged evil even though buying tools to put up a wall hanging is not morally good or evil. It is irrelevant whether an outsider can percieve the reality of the situation for the reality of the situation to be defined.

Buying a drill to commit murder and walking over to commit murder are actions in preparation to commit murder.

This is different from walking around angry at a neighbor.

Desire and intention are different.

 

[Herobizkit]

If you're unaligned, you can serve any god.
--PHB, pg 62​

Roger wins the thread by answering the OP's question about evil gods and game mechanics.

In certain 'spiritual circles', no matter how good you try and act and think, you're intrinsically evil. Good is only a measure of how un-Evil you are, and it can't be measured in real life. It CAN in the context of D&D, however.

D&D Evil is just as much "muhaha" moustache-twirling Evil as it is deranged sacrifical spider-worshipping evil as it is serial killing evil. It was not meant to duplicate real-world ethics or morality; murder is wrong, but you get rewards for slaughtering everything that isn't (generally) human, and it's ok so long as your foes are Evil. White Hats and Black Hats are the order of the day. In 3.x, they gave specific mechanical benefits and penalties for alignment by creating spells and items that affect foes who match a certain alignment. In 4e, from what I've gleaned so far, is more character attitude guidelines than actual morality.

Geez.

 

[Hussar]

Let me try to pull this thread back on topic before it dies.
/snip

Gack, I don't think I've ever seen so many walls of text in a thread.

You bring up a point here though Celebrim that should get expounded upon a bit. The idea that good is passive and evil is active. In D&D and in most fantasy, I'd say that's 100% true.

Think of the plot of just about every fantasy story you've ever read. The good kingdom is going along its merry way, when the evil prince/princess/baron/warlord/whatever comes along, smashes things and takes the crown. The heros must now rise up and defeat this horrible menace.

Going all the way back to LoTR, it's pretty much a standard trope. The status quo is generally good and evil comes and threatens that. Good then has to react.

Actually, I would argue that good isn't passive, but, it is reactive. You don't really read too many stories about the good, kind, wise warlord going out and devouring the neighbouring kingdoms. The good, kind, wise leader brings everyone to the table, explains to them what a good idea it would be to have a united front and everyone agrees.

So, of course evil is cool. Evil actually gets to start the ball rolling.

 

[Garthanos]

Historically non-evil people made sacrifices to "evil" deities hoping to avoid being harmed by the harsh aspect of reality which those deities governed... including war and famine etc. Unaligned 'worshipers' doing this does not make them evil or non-heroic. So you can feel safe role playing a nice guy with an evil god.

 

[Celebrim]

Gack, I don't think I've ever seen so many walls of text in a thread.

What, you've never been in a thread I was involved in before?

You don't really read too many stories about the good, kind, wise warlord going out and devouring the neighbouring kingdoms.

It's what King Arthur does. It's also what Beowulf's father Scyld wins approval from the bard for doing when he says, "That was a good king."

I think that part of the problem is that we currently live in a culture which upholds Chaotic principles of liberty and free-will as being inherently good (and I'm not here to argue that they are or not), and so we shun the notion that good ever involves any amount of compulsion. We say things like, "You can't legislate morality." (a very chaotic thing to say), and while that aphorism might contain a bit of truth, when we say it we don't usually mean it in the subtle and nuanced way that I think the person who first came up with that thought meant it, but instead use it in a thoughtless manner as if it was a completely obvious thing to say (and it isn't).

The good, kind, wise leader brings everyone to the table, explains to them what a good idea it would be to have a united front and everyone agrees.

We live in a society that has had prosperity, security, and the rule of law for so long that I think we have come to assume that authortarian threats are the only thing we have to worry about. And I'm not going to minimize that threat, but I think it worth considering that in a society without prosperty, security, or the rule of law the 'good' thing to do (or at least the 'Good' thing to do) might be to bring about those things even over and perhaps especially over the objections of your neighboring warlords. Certainly in a choatic of a period as the Dark Ages, the idea of a strong King uniting the waring factions and forging a peace by the sword if need be had alot of appeal.

So, of course evil is cool. Evil actually gets to start the ball rolling.

That's a very modern trope though, and so is the idea of 'Evil is cool'.