Is it possible to be evil and innocent (in D&D)?

[Rel]

I think that for somebody to BE evil they have to DO evil. Part of the reason that I think that is because I regard the reverse to be true as well.

You can sit around all day hoping for the best and wishing people well. But you are not "Good" unless you act upon those hopes and wishes. If you sit by and let something bad happen to an innocent without lifting a finger to aid them, you don't get to qualify as Good just because you wished that hadn't happened. And I'd say that you don't qualify as Evil just because you were glad it happened.

 

[Stalker0]

Good and evil are much stronger stances in dnd than most give them credit for them.

People usually understand good.. not only do you want to help that old lady across the street but your willing to sacrifice a bit to help her do it.

Evil is the same way. In dnd, evil is not just, I'm selfish, I'm willing to hurt people to get what I want. That's neutral with evil tendencies.

An evil individual is willing to go out of his way to inflict pain and misery, even if it brings him no personal gain.

 

[Kalendraf]

An individual lusts to kill a lot of people. In his mind, he meticulously plans his method of creating and delivering a bomb that he will set off to deliver the maximum carnage. His brain continuously works on this day-in-day out for years refining this plan, improving his bomb, his ways to sneak into the location undetected and so forth. His entire existence is dedicated to perfecting his killing. At times, he lets his mind rest from his perfect killing plan, thinking of other ways to maim and murder people. The only thing preventing him from putting his plan into action is the fact he's a been in a terrible accident that took all of his limbs and his life is now directly tied to a life-support machine. He can't move from his bed or he will die. Before he ever gets a chance to put his plan into motion, his heart fails, ending his life.

Was he evil?

 

[HeyLookItsMe]

Evil

In games I run I make it perfectly clear to my players that just because you cast detect evil on someone, and it comes up positive, does NOT make it ok to slaughter them. Mortals aren't the ones who are to make judgements about who is *deserving* of death. In battle, there will always be casualties, but I make sure they understand teh difference between the death of your enemy in combat, and straight up murder. I think if one *were* to go and slaughter said evil fellow, it would be an evil act in itself.

I always tended to use this one NPC from a campaign I ran years ago as an example. There was a dwarf named Dug who was once part of a party that was rivaling the PC's group. Over time, the rivalry became a friendship. Dug was a fairly nice guy most of the time. He had fought with the humans in their war against the orcs for years. He never went around slaughtering humans and dwarves, and was for the most part, a pretty down to earth fellow. However, as with most of his race, he wasn't particularly fond of orcs. He, in fact, took great pleasure in their destruction, and relished every chance he had to engage them. While noone was really aware of it, among the PC's, Dug didn't find the concept of burning orc villages to the ground to be a particularly wicked thought. Orc women and children were still orcs....and of course to him, the possibility of orcs having any redeeming qualities was laughable. However, no orc is *inherently* evil, as I see it. They are the result of their culture, and upbringing, perhaps mixed with stronger natural tendencies towards violence. However, in accepting the possibility for a SINGLE good orc, they become creatures who are capable of redemption.

For this reason... Dug, as far as I was concerned...was evil. He was fallable. He made mistakes. Everyone is, really. But he too, is a sentient creature. The product of his life, and the choices he has made, good or bad. He too has the chance for redemption. To take a life because you have to is one thing. To take a life because you consider yourself the absolute moral authority of right and wrong, clearly able to make judgements about the behaivior of others is to be a horrible tyrant.

I think there are virtually NO people who wake up, look in the mirror, and say "Gosh I am sooooo Evil!" People have reasons for every action they take, and the scary part is, no matter how evil that action may be, as far as they are concerned, it is justified. Insanity not withstanding, if they couldn't justify the action, they couldn't bring themselves to do it.

Gosh that was longer than I thought. If I knew I was going to go on so long, I would have brought some water

 

[Turanil]

This is interesting. It could lead to a memorable NPC (or even PC): the evil paladin who poses as and believes to be a lawful good person. He acts as an avenger and inquisitor, passing judgments on others, etc. Of course he lost his abilities of paladin (or never had them). Now I wonder if he could be of the LE paladin variant class in the UA with this viewpoint...

 

[Gez]

Deep in the heart of the Abyss, a strange pod bursts and releases a brand-new demon. Elminster the wizard immediately imprisons the creature - utterly helpless, the creature has never even had the opportunity to do evil.

Yet it's made of the essence of evil. Demons are "always evil" according to the MM.

So is this hypothetical demon evil or not?

The D&D cosmology more or less says that fiends are made from the souls of deceased evil mortals, so your demon was evil before it was a demon.

 

[Incenjucar]

In regards to good and evil, alignment is in intent.

This is because:

1) Objects and non-sentient creatures are, by and large, unaligned, unless magically altered, including weapons designed for killing innocent children and ONLY for killing innocent children. A snake bred to seek the smell of baby humans when hungry will still generally be neutral, unless their int is above 2.

2) If intent was unimportant, all you have to do to prevent someone from being evil is to disable them permanently. Would Hitler be less evil because he was stuck in a box before he could do anything?

 

[Gez]

This is a different definition of 'attitude' than most people use. Attitude is internal.

I don't think I've ever encountered 'attitude' being defined as 'what someone has actively done.'

I've never encountered attitude to mean something else than behaviour. And the way you behave is the way you act.

 

[FireLance]

Everything here is prefaced with in my opinion, and in my campaign. The mountain analogy is also not my own, but offhand, I can't recall where I heard it.

Good and evil are like the summit of a mountain and its base. It is very difficult to be good. You have to actively want to be good (intent) and take active steps that result in good (action).

On the other hand, it is easy to be evil. Evil thoughts and intentions degrade your soul. Evil actions, even if you are misguided or do them for a "greater good", also taint you. Even if you are apathetic or indifferent (passively fail to say "No" to evil), you can just gradually slide to the base.

So yes, I would say it is possible to be evil by just having evil thoughts and intentions without committing evil acts. It is possible to be evil even if you have the noblest of objectives but use evil means to achieve them. It is possible to become evil because you have grown so jaded and accustomed to it that it seems normal to you. At the same time, you can't become good by just sitting around, thinking nice thoughts and doing nothing.

Does this sound difficult or unfair? No more difficult or unfair than having to walk a straight and narrow path, in my view.

 

[Umbran]

The example of children is a red herring. In order to be Good or Evil (or Lawful or Chaotic), the creature must be capable of making moral decisions. Children, by and large, do not yet have the context for making those choices. They don't know enough to amke an informed moral decision. Children are more akin to wolves than to evil beings

As for intent - let's try this: Loads of people intend to write the Great American Novel. Few people ever do it. Are they novelists? How much can one intend a thing, if they never act towards the intended end?

It is not enough to want evil, in theory. If you don't want it bad enough to actually try to make it happen, you don't want it bad enough to call you Evil.