I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Even if those bystanders are evil (or at least allow evil)? Or even [Evil]?
Does being [Good] include accomodating the existence of [Evil]?
Is killing something Good an inherently Evil act?
- Thread starter I'm A Banana
- Start date
Even if those bystanders are evil (or at least allow evil)? Or even [Evil]?
Does being [Good] include accomodating the existence of [Evil]?
Goblyn
Explorer
Nifft said:
Nice point. I just read the thread, and it looks to me like these forces of good can be game-mechanically [Good], but have actually drifted to neutral.
Say that, these outsiders don't have much free will: they are good because that's what their purchase receipt says.
The big boys, however, do have free will. They have chosen alignments to be and all of their respective followers are of that alignment. They have chosen alignments. How many players have chosen to be lawful good paladins and then sometime in their lives have decided to go out to kill something in order to level up? How many of these paladins lost their paladinhood upon making the decision, rather than performing the act?
I think K - Midgey's [Good] guys may be this paladin: they've decided to do something very un-good, but won't reap the consequential alignment shift until the act is carried out - and it's too late.
Whatcha think?
FreeTheSlaves
Adventurer
The implied setting of the default D&D game tells us that the souls of dead people go to their respective afterlives dependant on their alignment. The various outsiders are implied to spring from the ranks of these souls and almost always have unchanging alignment. Okay, I'll say it, imo, the living life determine the immortal afterlife - so to live is extremely important but the afterlife is the main course.
Killing a Deva to save present lives and future lives yet unborn, can be approached in many ways.
First off, I'll say that killing an innocent (alignment aside) is an evil act that cannot be dismissed. Now I may concede that it icould be necessary and the most correct thing to do but the act in itself is evil, full stop.
Secondly we come to the value of a life * quantity. If this Deva's life was worth $1,000,000
and so was every individual on the planet that was facing oblivion, then the numbers direct to the correct course of action and the Deva would even volunteer it's own destruction given the strong embodiment of goodness that it is. However, if we say a life is priceless then we have the problem of infinite*1 = infinite*6,000,000,000 (e.g.).
Thirdly, the differentiation between mortal lives and immortal lives, if this is going to apply to the campaign (and is dependent on the afterlife set-up). If the loss of a planet merely allows all the souls to enter the afterlife while the loss of a Deva is total oblivion, we could think that it is better to save the Deva. The tragic loss of a whole mortal world could be a drop in the ocean compared to the unending grief felt by all good souls at the loss of their brethren.
Fourthly, the lives of future generations may or might not enter into the equation. Certainly there is the potential for them to eventually live their lives but they do not currently exist (unless the campaign has a 'unrefined soul source', which I had in a previous cosmology).
Is killing a good or bad action? In the best of circumstances it may be highly regretable and solely anguished over afterwards, but necessary for self preservation. The protection of an innocent is a good thing, and the self is not excluded in this regard, the fact that protector and innocent are one does not invalidate the goodness of the action.
As mentioned prior, I would examine the action, intent, and circumstances on a case by case basis before deciding.
Killing a Deva to save present lives and future lives yet unborn, can be approached in many ways.
First off, I'll say that killing an innocent (alignment aside) is an evil act that cannot be dismissed. Now I may concede that it icould be necessary and the most correct thing to do but the act in itself is evil, full stop.
Secondly we come to the value of a life * quantity. If this Deva's life was worth $1,000,000
and so was every individual on the planet that was facing oblivion, then the numbers direct to the correct course of action and the Deva would even volunteer it's own destruction given the strong embodiment of goodness that it is. However, if we say a life is priceless then we have the problem of infinite*1 = infinite*6,000,000,000 (e.g.).
Thirdly, the differentiation between mortal lives and immortal lives, if this is going to apply to the campaign (and is dependent on the afterlife set-up). If the loss of a planet merely allows all the souls to enter the afterlife while the loss of a Deva is total oblivion, we could think that it is better to save the Deva. The tragic loss of a whole mortal world could be a drop in the ocean compared to the unending grief felt by all good souls at the loss of their brethren.
Fourthly, the lives of future generations may or might not enter into the equation. Certainly there is the potential for them to eventually live their lives but they do not currently exist (unless the campaign has a 'unrefined soul source', which I had in a previous cosmology).
Is killing a good or bad action? In the best of circumstances it may be highly regretable and solely anguished over afterwards, but necessary for self preservation. The protection of an innocent is a good thing, and the self is not excluded in this regard, the fact that protector and innocent are one does not invalidate the goodness of the action.
As mentioned prior, I would examine the action, intent, and circumstances on a case by case basis before deciding.
Samuel Leming
First Post
I'll stand with the chorus saying that this deva was no longer good. Her intention was to remove even the possibility of free will by ending and remaking the universe. How can removing everyone's choice in how they act be considered a good thing? Giving "Good" an "ends justifies the means" mentality reduces good from a philosophy to a mere political party bent on winning.
Sam
Sam
In addition to this (remember, I am a religious studies major too) how can a fiend have a concept of truth. Accordingto most modern religions, especially mono-theistic ones, God is truth, therefore, Truth is good.
Now I am sorry for bringing modern religion into D&D but think about it. Would you trust a fiend, a creature that rejected truth over one that is supposedly in the know, in direct communication with truth itself. Even chaos and law don't play as big a part as good and evil.
Plus, why would destroying thousands of innocents be the greater good. To me it seems like the greatest good would be to try and convert everyone to goodness, rather than destroy most and leave only a few good surviving. Isn't the chance to repent a goodness in itself. And what about free will, is that good, or evil.
I think I would have to agree with Nifft, that your good doesn't seem that good.
I am also reminded of a quote
A demon is no less evil when it appears as an angel of light
Think, it sounds like your deva is misinformed for being in direct communication with an aspect of truth.
John
Now I am sorry for bringing modern religion into D&D but think about it. Would you trust a fiend, a creature that rejected truth over one that is supposedly in the know, in direct communication with truth itself. Even chaos and law don't play as big a part as good and evil.
Plus, why would destroying thousands of innocents be the greater good. To me it seems like the greatest good would be to try and convert everyone to goodness, rather than destroy most and leave only a few good surviving. Isn't the chance to repent a goodness in itself. And what about free will, is that good, or evil.
I think I would have to agree with Nifft, that your good doesn't seem that good.
I am also reminded of a quote
A demon is no less evil when it appears as an angel of light
Think, it sounds like your deva is misinformed for being in direct communication with an aspect of truth.
John
Lonely Tylenol
First Post
John Morrow said:
Because I value free will, even if I'm myself Good and Lawful. Perhaps I feel that it's wrong to enforce a metaphysical constraint on the moral decisions that people make because to do so would be to remove the possibility for good action, since there would be no possibility to commit evil. Choice may be necessary for an alignment to have meaning. In this case, free will is essential to Good itself, and having no material plane separate from the celestial planes would mean that there is no "testing ground" for morality to play itself out in, so to speak. Perhaps I'm not interested in shoehorning all the Neutrals into Good, because they're not really hurting anyone and I have compassion and tolerance toward other people's choices in life. A force that demonstrably has no such tolerance and compassion is missing out on one of the principal principles of Good, IMO.
There are Chaotic idealogues just as surely as there are lawful ones. "Never trust an idealogue" is actually a True Neutral argument.
sckeener
First Post
Outsider Constructs
I always liked the way Roger Zelazny did the Chronicles of Amber. I like to think of Outsiders as being constructs of their plane dualing it out with the other planes.
For those that haven't read them, in the Chronicles of Amber there was the Logrus and the Unicorn (Chaos and Law.) The characters in the story would take a test that would destroy them and rebuild them. They'd get some bonuses for doing this, but so would the Logrus or the Unicorn. The pattern would get a copy of you that they can play over again. I liked using that concept for why demons killed on the prime material didn't die. Their plane just resurected an old copy.
Now the copies could have free will, but it required a mortal to do so...in the case of the Chronicles, blood of an Amberite.
I like to think of Outsiders as just being manifestations of their plane. Killing them is just like banishing a bit more of that plane.
Zappo said:
I always liked the way Roger Zelazny did the Chronicles of Amber. I like to think of Outsiders as being constructs of their plane dualing it out with the other planes.
For those that haven't read them, in the Chronicles of Amber there was the Logrus and the Unicorn (Chaos and Law.) The characters in the story would take a test that would destroy them and rebuild them. They'd get some bonuses for doing this, but so would the Logrus or the Unicorn. The pattern would get a copy of you that they can play over again. I liked using that concept for why demons killed on the prime material didn't die. Their plane just resurected an old copy.
Now the copies could have free will, but it required a mortal to do so...in the case of the Chronicles, blood of an Amberite.
I like to think of Outsiders as just being manifestations of their plane. Killing them is just like banishing a bit more of that plane.
Lonely Tylenol
First Post
Corvidae said:
The fiend trusts himself. He's trying to bring about the exact same situation as the deva anyway, the two simply have different expectations about the outcome. And anyway, this isn't just about good vs. evil. Who do you trust, Good or Law? Chaos or Evil? The neutrals that want to stop the whole thing, or the aligned outsiders who all want it to go on, each for very different reasons?
It seems to me that the response of the material plane should be "mind your own business." Or perhaps, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." The material plane seems to be doing just fine at self-regulation. For every evil overlord, there's a good paladin on a mission. For every lawful despot, there's a chaotic freedom fighter. That's the nature of the material plane. It is the location where alignment becomes relevent.
And if even the gods don't know what will happen if the universe breaks down (demonstrated by the way the evil gods are looking forward to it just as much as the good gods...even though both sides believe that they're right), then what all these outsiders are doing is gambling. And they're gambling with the lives of everything that exists in the material plane. A Good deity should not be allowing the cataclysm to occur if there is even a splinter of a chance that the world could be plunged into eternal Evil as a result. Or even eternal Law or Chaos. Or even eternal Good, considering all the innocent fey and dragons that will be wiped out by that event. To plan for the extermination of these races is genocide, pure and simple, and no Good god should be supporting it.
Really, the Deva should be trying to save the material plane, not destroy it. It should be out hunting other outsiders, to get them off the plane so it can then itself leave, the prime being rendered metaphysically secure.
While I often disagree with KM's ideas, I really like the idea he has in this case. It sounds like an incredibly interesting setting, and KM, I'd postulate a new type of Paladin, a Paladin of the Land, or a Paladin of the "Name of homeworld, town, city, king" or even "Paladin of the Dragon" who takes it upon himself to save the world, the dragons, the fey, by smiting all those who choose to willfully murder and kill the inhabitants of his home.
I see him as LG, unquestionably so, and killing Deva's bent on harming his home and his people will absolutely not change his stance, or his powers. In fact, I'd say it is acting in his chosen purpose. I think a new PrC, or a reworked Paladin base class might suit this best, with a "Smite Outsider" instead of Smite Evil.
I love the idea.
I see him as LG, unquestionably so, and killing Deva's bent on harming his home and his people will absolutely not change his stance, or his powers. In fact, I'd say it is acting in his chosen purpose. I think a new PrC, or a reworked Paladin base class might suit this best, with a "Smite Outsider" instead of Smite Evil.
I love the idea.
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