How Good can Evil be?

[Viashimo]

Evil- Ummm, Slave Labor?

Societally speaking that's evil; however, from a ideological point of view in D&D it's a matter of law and chaos. Slaves are very ordered, and can be used to accomplish 'good' deeds. The evil and good come in the treatment of the slaves. If you make the slaves needlessly suffer, and probably enjoy making them suffer, it's probably evil. If the slaves live well(ex. don't suffer, get adequate food/water, and probably a few privileges), it's tending towards a more good sort of slavery. Since slavery has such evil connotations, perhaps servitude would be better for 'good slavery'.

 

[Celebrim]

As far as the expressed question goes, "How good can evil be?" is a rather annoying question.

First, it depends entirely on just how evil the actor in question is. If the actor is an ordinary but slightly selfish human being with a bit of a destructive and cruel streak, then the answer is probably that that person can under the right conditions be very good indeed. After all, there are few people so depraved that they do not mean to do good for thier friends and family. If on the other hand you are talking about an outsider that embodies an evil principal, then the answer to the question is "Not even the tiniest bit". There is absolutely no 'grayness' areas with an outsider that by embodies evil, because if there was even the tiniest bit of good or nuetrality in the outsider then by definition it wouldn't be an outsider that embodied evil but rather something else.

So, look at it this way. How evil can a Paladin be? That's precisely how good evil can be.

Now, I've been down this road before and the first thing someone is going to say is that evil can do good if its beneficial for itself. No, because that would imply that evil is somehow enherently better than good and that the universe was somehow slanted in favor of evil. If something is actually evil then its evil even when it isn't in its own benefit to be evil, but rather because it just can't help itself from being evil any more than a Paladin can help himself from being good. If something is actually evil then it considers evil superior to good all the time and in every situation. If something is actually evil then it believes in evil as a matter of faith, and practices evil as a matter of reflex.

Part of the problem is that people seem to have this idea that you can only stay neutral by being basically good and just a wee bit evil. No, if you are neutral, you can just go out and murder someone. You just have to rationalize that in this particular situation you were justified in doing it and not make a habit of it. Nuetrality is the alignment of people who believe in doing good when the situation calls for it and evil when the situation calls for it. The 'extremists' believe that thier philosophy is superior all the time, and that even if it seems hard to follow thier principals sometimes that they ought to do it anyway. And the reward of that behavior is that once you believe strongly in something, you know longer believe in everything and are protected and defended against being presuaded to act contrary to your beliefs.

 

[moritheil]

Being PCs, they know how detect evil works, so they will know his minimum non cleric level and the binary knowledge of whether he has an evil alignment or not. So "minor" evil is not a significant consideration.

So you advocate a metagame solution to an alignment issue? Am I reading this right?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Sounds Lawful Neutral to me. The dividing line to me is that an Evil person acts out of indifference to pain and suffering, malice, or often simply cruelty and the enjoyment of seeing others suffer. If you don't allow Neutral to cover "selfish", then what does it cover? Remember, by the RAW, Neutral people only need to show compunctions against killing the innocent. They are not prohibited from killing the innocent if it is the only way to get what they want.

Thanks John, for saving me the time of having to write up a similiar argument myself. I agree with you completely.

A LN villain can in many ways serve as a better villain than an evil one, precisely because, although he occasionally does evil things, he's not evil, and therefore not as justifiably killed. At least, in games where moral quandary is sought after and enjoyable. For a beer-and-pretzels game, shelve this guy and replace him with an advisor who's secretly a part of an underground Cult of Demogorgon.

 

[domino]

But the point I'm going for, is that if being evil is all it takes to kill someone, then he IS justifiably killed, because he IS evil. Ideally, I'd like for them to KNOW he's evil, and have to decide what to do about him.

Of course, if they don't bother to detect evil on him, then oh well.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

But the point I'm going for, is that if being evil is all it takes to kill someone, then he IS justifiably killed, because he IS evil. Ideally, I'd like for them to KNOW he's evil, and have to decide what to do about him.

Of course, if they don't bother to detect evil on him, then oh well.

As John's post points out, it takes more than just killing someone to make a person Evil in D&D. Neutrals can and do kill innocents. They'd rather not, but they will if they need to.

So in the scenario you sketched out, he's not Evil, because he's only killing because it needs to be done to protect the country. He's basically a formerly Good character who's fallen prey to the classic "ends justify the means" false argument, and thus shifted to Neutral.

However, to address your question. You'll need to assign a more sinister motivation to his actions, or crueler actions, to get him to bonified Evil.

Out of curiosity, what's there to decide if he actually is Evil? They may have to work on the method, but the "what to do about him" is simple: take him down. Unless you're going for a Watchmen kind of dilemma? (Whoa! Almost typed an insane spoiler here. )

 

[lonesoldier]

I actually editted the alignment system in my game.

Smite Evil/Good, becomes Smite Opposed. Where the opposed is someone who is chaotic/lawful and/or evil/good. (Too many backslashes/inversed-forwardslashes).

So detect evil/good became Detect Transgression. If the person commits an act then it is measured against a scale.

Disturbance means that there is some minor unidentifiable issue.

Note the proper spelling of ebil.

Level o' Ebil      Detect Ebil(Sp)     Example Act
Trivial          - Disturbance       - Stole candy from a child, kicked a kitten
Minor            - Faint             - Lesser of the 7 Sins
Medium           - Moderate          - Greater of the 7 Sins
Major            - Strong            - Killed Innocents
Irredemmable     - Overwhelming      - Ebil God

Now, an Irredemmable Trangression is one that can be detected forever, with a strength of overwhelming. Major is usually in the way of years. Medium is a year or below. Minor is 6 months or less. Trivial is a month or less.

I Find this system works well enough. I am using a modified Relative Alignments variant from BOVD, and I need the pally's abilities to work properly.

(That advisor is Lawful Evil)

 

[I'm A Banana]

ebil.

EBIL?! OH NOES! SHAVE ME JEEBUS!!!!!one!!