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<blockquote data-quote="Stone Dog" data-source="post: 3253549" data-attributes="member: 16705">And also for some it means not taking them regardless of the circumstances.&nbsp; &quot;I must save these people&quot; and &quot;I shall not kill&quot; are both perfectly valid lines of thought for a Good character and either one can take precedence depending on the person.&nbsp; Now the passive role of &quot;I shall not kill&quot; doesn't always make for good adventuring, but it is possible that it could.If you could save a nation by the slaughter a town of innocent and unsuspecting people, that might be a good bargain and worth the price.&nbsp; However that does nothing to change the fact that you have commited murder.&nbsp; What the results are in a cosmological sense it up to debate of course, but I will hold that in D&amp;D and act of evil always strengthens evil and never strengthens good no matter what the immediate results are.What was said about good and evil in (I think) &quot;Faces of Evil: The Fiends?&quot;&nbsp; Something like &quot;Each evil heart is as a grain of sand on the scales of the multiverse and each good soul is like a lead weight.&nbsp; The problem lies in that there are so many grains of sand and so few weights.&quot;I think of an inquisitor reaching hell and being very surprised.Inquisitor: But... but why?&nbsp; With all that I have done...Devil: Oh yes, murder, torture and oppresion for decades.&nbsp; We are very pleased!I: But the lives saved!&nbsp; The stability of the Church!&nbsp; The wicked defeated!D: Yes, yes... all very unfortunate side effects.&nbsp; However, we are still satisfied with the results with you in particular and our long term operations have high hopes for some of those saved&nbsp; lives to grow into complacent old sinners in your safe little world instead of dying as noble heroes and martyrs.&nbsp; Well done!Of course it is much more complicated than all that, but what it boils down to in terms of D&amp;D at least is that there is often mortal goodness (saving lives) and comological Goodness (not taking them) as well as mortal evil (letting innocents suffer) and cosmological Evil (a noble soul sinking to darkness for &quot;the greater good&quot;).Read some Screwtape Letters sometime.&nbsp; Christian philosophy aside there are some very interesting notions regarding temptation, sin and salvation in there.Of course, such thinking isn't really for most games to deal with.&nbsp; Most of the time alignment runs down to L-N-C as; mostly honorable, basically dependable, generally tricky and G-N-E as mostly virtuous, basically decent and generally wicked.&nbsp; Anything more complicated than that is either character dressing or useless stuff getting in the way of a good adventure.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Stone Dog, post: 3253549, member: 16705"] And also for some it means not taking them regardless of the circumstances. "I must save these people" and "I shall not kill" are both perfectly valid lines of thought for a Good character and either one can take precedence depending on the person. Now the passive role of "I shall not kill" doesn't always make for good adventuring, but it is possible that it could. If you could save a nation by the slaughter a town of innocent and unsuspecting people, that might be a good bargain and worth the price. However that does nothing to change the fact that you have commited murder. What the results are in a cosmological sense it up to debate of course, but I will hold that in D&D and act of evil always strengthens evil and never strengthens good no matter what the immediate results are. What was said about good and evil in (I think) "Faces of Evil: The Fiends?" Something like "Each evil heart is as a grain of sand on the scales of the multiverse and each good soul is like a lead weight. The problem lies in that there are so many grains of sand and so few weights." I think of an inquisitor reaching hell and being very surprised. Inquisitor: But... but why? With all that I have done... Devil: Oh yes, murder, torture and oppresion for decades. We are very pleased! I: But the lives saved! The stability of the Church! The wicked defeated! D: Yes, yes... all very unfortunate side effects. However, we are still satisfied with the results with you in particular and our long term operations have high hopes for some of those saved lives to grow into complacent old sinners in your safe little world instead of dying as noble heroes and martyrs. Well done! Of course it is much more complicated than all that, but what it boils down to in terms of D&D at least is that there is often mortal goodness (saving lives) and comological Goodness (not taking them) as well as mortal evil (letting innocents suffer) and cosmological Evil (a noble soul sinking to darkness for "the greater good"). Read some Screwtape Letters sometime. Christian philosophy aside there are some very interesting notions regarding temptation, sin and salvation in there. Of course, such thinking isn't really for most games to deal with. Most of the time alignment runs down to L-N-C as; mostly honorable, basically dependable, generally tricky and G-N-E as mostly virtuous, basically decent and generally wicked. Anything more complicated than that is either character dressing or useless stuff getting in the way of a good adventure. [/QUOTE]

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