Is killing something Good an inherently Evil act?

[John Morrow]

Because I value free will, even if I'm myself Good and Lawful.

But that's not a Lawful or necessarily even Good argument in D&D terms. I think it's essentially a Chaotic argument. Whether you are I personally agree with it, the D&D alignment demands that characters in the setting be able to view Order and Liberty (essentially Law and Chaos) independently of Good and Evil (which have to do with the preservation or destruction of innocent life or the dignity of innocent life). Your value on free will is a secondary concern, which is what the corner alignments (LG, CG, LE, and CE) are all about. They serve two masters. The Lawful Good character will tell you that Order is the best way to protect the innocent and be Good. The Chaotic Good character will tell you that Liberty is the best way to protect innocent life and be Good. The Neutral Good character will embrace or reject either Order or Liberty on pragmatic grounds as needed to protect the innocent.

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.

I think that's a Chaotic argument. A Chaotic Good character could make such an argument but it's from the Chaotic part of their alignment, not the Good part, in my opinion. And given that D&D alignment system defines Good in such a way that it can be identified even in the absence of Evil (not only via the RAW definition but via auras accessible via Detect spells), I don't think the argument that Choice or Free Will are necessarily really fits here. I'm not saying that you or your character can't make that argument, and I can amagine many CG characters would, but I don't think it's required by the D&D alignment system in the RAW or even supported by other alignment perspectives (e.g., LG).

I suppose you could make this argument on the basis of "concern for the dignity of sentient beings" but I think a Lawful Good character might have a very different perspective on how to show such concern than a Chaotic Good character.

As an analogy with with modern politics (and I don't want to debate the specifics of any particular political spectrum), I personally think that there are people of good character who really do want what's best for others with many different political perspectives. You can get fairly substantial differences in the means that people support toward the same ends, simply by changing some assumptions about how the world works. Similarly, the D&D alignment system allows Good people to exist across the Lawful to Chaotic spectrum, simply by changing some assumptions about how that world works. If you think there is only one right political perspective, one right philosophical perspective, or one best alignment, it can be very difficult to embrace that range which may include perspectives that you don't personally agree with under the Good umbrella. And the easiest way to do that is to view "Good" in the narrow sense that it's used in the RAW, without the other baggage better left to the Law and Chaos axis.

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.

At which point, why would Good Outsiders be supporting the plan if its so obviously Not Good? If the Material Plane is a necessary "testing ground" to allow Good to exist, then wouldn't Good Outsiders understand that?

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.

I would argue that most Neutral characters (on the Good to Evil axis) are "innocent" in the sense used in the RAW unless they have done substantial wrongs to others (e.g., murder, torture, etc.). That, combined with the "concern for the pdignity of sentient beings" does raise important questions about just how far Good can manipulate Neutral sentients before stepping over the line into oppresion, which is defined as an Evil trait.

A force that demonstrably has no such tolerance and compassion is missing out on one of the principal principles of Good, IMO.

That's not a universal perspective in the real world and that's not necessarily a universal perspective in the D&D world unless you want to annoint one single and comprehensive definition of Good as the only legitimate one. And, to me, that's very much like writing a role-playing game and saying only Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Socialists, or whatever are Good and everyone else is wrong. If you want your D&D alignments to have variety just like real world political views do, you need to allow different perspectives to be Good.

If I wanted to point to a real world issue that could be used in D&D, it's that people are often quicker to see their political disagreements with others as a sign of moral failure than as a difference in perspective, worldview, and secondary values. And that's why I suggested making the disagreement one between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good, where the Lawful Good people see Order as a means to insure Good and Liberty as an opportunity for Evil to slip past while the Chaotic Good people see Liberty as a means to insure Good and Order as a tool that Evil can use to take control. Are either Lawful Good or Chaotic Good really Evil? No. But they might look that way to each other, using a morally relative perspective. And that's exactly how they should look because CG is as far removed from LG as LE is and LG is as far removed from CG as CE is. And the LG character fears CE most of all while the CG character fears LE most of all.

There are Chaotic idealogues just as surely as there are lawful ones. "Never trust an idealogue" is actually a True Neutral argument.

Fair enough. So long as it is applied equally to all edges, I agree.

 

[John Morrow]

But either way, it destroys my Good alignment? I can't be a paladin and defend my homeland? I can't be a good cleric and want to save my world?

Well, there is always the question of whether a single alignment violation, especially a well-intentioned one, is enough to destroy a Good alignment or revoke Paladinhood. But if a Paladin or Cleric of an Outer Planes deity go and kill the agents of that deity, why wouldn't that deity revoke their powers? Or do you have Good deities that let their followers exterminate each other without interference or clarification? Druids, on the other hand, are a different matter. But Paladins and Clerics don't serve their homeland or world. They serve a deity and ideology. You should also (re)read the distinction between Good and Neutral in the RAW. I'd argue that placing your homeland or world above the greater Good or your deity is more Neutral than Good as per the RAW.

This is part of what I want to find out! The deities definately want the collapse to happen (for the same reason the other outsiders do), and they're as capable of making mistakes as the other outsiders are.

If the deities can make mistakes, know that they can make mistakes (i.e., are aware that they are not omniscient), have good reason to believe that they might be wrong (the Evil Outer Planes creatures are working for the same thing), yet are willing to gamble the lives of millions, billions, or whatever of innocent sentients on a belief or guess that doing so will bring about Happy Piggyland for everyone, then I'd argue that they are not Good based on the RAW definitions. Einstein felt that God didn't play dice with the universe. I'd argue that Good deities shouldn't be playing Russian Roulette with the Universe, either. The only way this could possibly work is if Good has deceived Evil to go along with it's plans, at which point we are back to killing the Deva being wrong and the Good deities cutting off a Good Cleric or Paladin that does such things.

Again, this is why I think you've created a straw man. If a Good deity's objective (as per the RAW definition) is to protect innocent life and respect the dignity of sentient creatures, they aren't going to flush everyone down the toilet on the hope that all work out for the best. You are basically forcing a situation where Good is as potentially murderous and insane as Evil so that the players doubt that Good really is Good.

The motives of the Fey and Dragons is partially because they are tied to the material plane, and will be destroyed along with it. They also don't know the situation any better than the humans do, and aren't about to trust the words of any one outsider over another, since they're all saying the same thing, and regardless of what happens the dragons and fey won't be able to help recover from the situation if it turns out that, say, the fiends were right and the celestials were wrong and everyone is damned (or vice-versa for the evil dragons and fey).

Well your Celestials should be able to explain why they are so certain. If they can't or aren't certain, then they shouldn't be playing Russian Roulette with the universe.

The Deva is certain....and the fiends are just as certain....and the good gods are as certain...and the evil gods are as certain....they each think the other side is wrong, they all say the same things.

Why is Good certain?

The problem is that what they say is kind of mutually exclusive. This results in the vague morality. It's not that there ISN'T a real Good it's that the only people who are sure of this are saying things which cannot possibly be altogether true, even though to all appearances and magic, they all speak the truth.

Well, why can't what the Celestials are saying be true? Because Fiends disagree with them? The D&D alignment system isn't designed to support vague morality. It's designed to make it easier for the players to sort out the good guys and the bad guys. Good and Evil aren't designed to be random and equivalent teams to pick at random. If you want vague morality, you should drop the RAW labels and let your players figure it out.

So, in the world that I have set up, you cannot be a Paladin, or a life-channeling cleric, and want to protect your home?

Given that Good Paladins and Clerics are likely empowered by Good Outer Plane deities who want to bring about the end of the world, why would such a deity continue to empower a character that is killing their agents and thwarting their plans? So, no, I can't see it unless you have other Good deities who don't want to end the world that would empower them. And that opens up the whole can of worms about certainty and Russian Roulette.

You cannot be Good and want to defend the world?

That depends. On what grounds do you consider your doubts more valid than the certainty of the Celestials? Why are you defending your home (again, see the definition of Neutral in the RAW)? It's like being given a choice between saving your family or saving an entire village of strangers. Yes, there are plenty of valid reasons to save your own family over a village of strangers and few would call you Evil for making that choice, but by the standards of altruism that defines Good behavior in the RAW, you are obliged to put the greater Good above your own personal attachments. As others have frequently said in alignment discussions, nobody ever said that being Good was easy. And the ex-Paladin in my game was faced, in visions from Celestials, with the fact that he could someday have to make a choice between saving his own wife or a village of strangers and he'd have to make a choice. And has the Celestial he followed put it, "No, it never gets any easier."

You have to want to destroy everything to be able to tap the power of Good?

If that's what Good Celestials are telling you. If they aren't powering your Paladins and Clerics, then who is? And if they are, why would they empower someone who is thwarting their plans and killing their servants?

I'm not trying to break the alignment system, I'm trying to think through the outcomes of the world I've created.

Yeah, I think you are trying to break the alignment system by breaking Good so that it isn't the obvious side to choose. That may not be your intent but I think that's what you are doing. The Good alignment isn't designed to be twisted so that Good is bad.

 

[Seeten]

Well, there is always the question of whether a single alignment violation, especially a well-intentioned one, is enough to destroy a Good alignment or revoke Paladinhood. But if a Paladin or Cleric of an Outer Planes deity go and kill the agents of that deity, why wouldn't that deity revoke their powers? Or do you have Good deities that let their followers exterminate each other without interference or clarification? Druids, on the other hand, are a different matter. But Paladins and Clerics don't serve their homeland or world. They serve a deity and ideology. You should also (re)read the distinction between Good and Neutral in the RAW. I'd argue that placing your homeland or world above the greater Good or your deity is more Neutral than Good as per the RAW.

From the SRD:

Code of Conduct
A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

Nowhere in there does it specify the legitmate authority must be a church, or an extraplanar deity. It could be a King, a Land, an idea, an ideal, or any other thing which a person could conceive of. I see no reason, in the circumstances described by KM, a Paladin could not devote himself to the protection of the material plane. His powers will not come from any deity who has devas, and thus will be impossible for them to strip, no matter how much they might like to. As long as he is doing good, in his eyes, and in the eyes of the cosmos(Gods are irrelevant, as they are not omniscient, and thus are not the "ALL") then his powers will remain, per the RAW. Only if he willfully commits an evil act, or violates his code,(such as by letting the deva go) would he lose his powers. Evil acts would certainly not include destroying creatures bent on destroying his home plane and all the people thereon, so no outsider would be exempt. As per my previous post, I'd also remove the Paladin power "Smite Evil" from such a character, and replace it with "Smite Outsider".

 

[Seeten]

Also, this does require the particular set of conditions set forth by KM. If they were set out to me at the start of a campaign, whether they were RAW, or House Rules, they are close enough for me to understand what I am dealing with.

And I still think Warforged are neat.

 

[John Morrow]

Nowhere in there does it specify the legitmate authority must be a church, or an extraplanar deity. It could be a King, a Land, an idea, an ideal, or any other thing which a person could conceive of. I see no reason, in the circumstances described by KM, a Paladin could not devote himself to the protection of the material plane.

It doesn't say "a legitimate authority". It simply says "legitimate authority". There is a difference. If you take the alignment test in the Hero Builder's Handbook, it becomes even more clear what WotC intends by that. It's not a single specific legitimate authority. It is any legitimate authority, which I would argue Good (particularly Lawful Good) Outsiders should be for a Paladin.

His powers will not come from any deity who has devas, and thus will be impossible for them to strip, no matter how much they might like to. As long as he is doing good, in his eyes, and in the eyes of the cosmos(Gods are irrelevant, as they are not omniscient, and thus are not the "ALL") then his powers will remain, per the RAW.

Paladins cast divine spells. It comes down to whether the setting allows characters to cast divine spells without being backed by a deity. If they can, I think that just opens up a whole other can of worms, with both Good Devas out to destroy the Prime Material Plane and Good Paladins who kill them both being powered from some amorphous source that considers both Good. See below.

Only if he willfully commits an evil act, or violates his code,(such as by letting the deva go) would he lose his powers. Evil acts would certainly not include destroying creatures bent on destroying his home plane and all the people thereon, so no outsider would be exempt. As per my previous post, I'd also remove the Paladin power "Smite Evil" from such a character, and replace it with "Smite Outsider".

At which point we are back to saying that the Outsiders are not being Good, which is fine. The key point to take out of this, I think, is that someone is not being Good here.

 

[Seeten]

I think 2 people can both consider what they do to be [GOOD], Justify their actions before a tribunal, and yet still have opposing aims. I see alignment as more grey and amorphous than the RAW does in the beginning, and I am more than willing to subscribe to the idea that someone somewhere is willing to empower their ideals.

As per your "Divine" spells must come from the "Gods" I call rubbish on this statement. I dont subscribe to Paladins must follow a God anymore than the RAW does. It might be the standard, but it is not defacto, or it would be stated in the RAW as such. In fact, they went out of their way to pull such references.

In real life, I am a humanist, and something of an agnostic. I believe in the divinity of the human spirit, and I believe there is enough divine power for the human spirit to tap into which is generated by humanity itself. Ur-Priests can cast divine spells without a Patron deity, so it is obviously not impossible, even by the RAW. I see no reason why Paladins cannot do likewise, being as the RAW supports my belief at least as much as it supports yours, and doesnt so much as mention the term God anywhere in the Paladin description.

Furthermore, I do believe this is central to KM's setting working as described, for Paladins, because I sure wouldnt let a LG Paladin of "Good god" kill "Good god"s followers. Thats just silly.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

At which point, why would Good Outsiders be supporting the plan if its so obviously Not Good? If the Material Plane is a necessary "testing ground" to allow Good to exist, then wouldn't Good Outsiders understand that?

I think this is what rubs me, and the others who share my concerns, the wrong way about KM's deva. We do not know that he's right about what's going to happen to the material plane. But he thinks he's right. We can hypothesize that, should he be right, it would probably be a good idea to support him, and that his actions are [Good]. But equally, he could be wrong, it would be a bad idea to support him, and his actions might turn out to be [Evil] despite his belief to the contrary, and his inability to knowingly perform [Evil] acts.

Why would the deva support such an apparently wrong-headed campaign? Perhaps since he's compelled by his nature to support [Good] above all else, he can't help but bring about what he believes is a triumph of [Good] over the other alignments, despite the cost. Perhaps he's just misinformed. Perhaps we are. But since the gods themselves seem to have mutually conflicting ideas of the nature of the coming apocalypse, it is reasonable to believe that the outcome is unpredictable. And if that's so, we're better off with the devil we know (the current situation on the material plane) than the possibility of a fiendish victory, no matter how certain the deva is that this will not come to pass.

That's not a universal perspective in the real world and that's not necessarily a universal perspective in the D&D world unless you want to annoint one single and comprehensive definition of Good as the only legitimate one. And, to me, that's very much like writing a role-playing game and saying only Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Socialists, or whatever are Good and everyone else is wrong. If you want your D&D alignments to have variety just like real world political views do, you need to allow different perspectives to be Good.

Well, yes. That my perspective conflicts with the deva's (presumably) and both are valid Good perspectives, illustrates the problem with the deva's mentality. He's attempting to bring about a paternalistic kind of good, while I think that a tolerant kind of good is superior. Obviously, we don't see eye to eye on the nature of good, he and I. Your comments here could be just as easily levelled at the deva, since his pursuit of good excludes the possibility for my pursuit of good. Which, really, was the point I was trying to make. I disagree that the deva's actions represent Good in its entirety, claiming that they really only represent his perspective on good. He's a friggin' deva, and he should represent all Good, not just his favourite parts. If he doesn't include tolerance and compassion in his appraisal of the alignment, then he's missing the point, as far as I'm concerned. And since that's the case, he has no more claim to speak for Good than I do, in my opinion. And since that's the case, I see no reason to support his campaign, especially considering how uncertain it is.

If I wanted to point to a real world issue that could be used in D&D, it's that people are often quicker to see their political disagreements with others as a sign of moral failure than as a difference in perspective, worldview, and secondary values. And that's why I suggested making the disagreement one between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good, where the Lawful Good people see Order as a means to insure Good and Liberty as an opportunity for Evil to slip past while the Chaotic Good people see Liberty as a means to insure Good and Order as a tool that Evil can use to take control. Are either Lawful Good or Chaotic Good really Evil? No. But they might look that way to each other, using a morally relative perspective. And that's exactly how they should look because CG is as far removed from LG as LE is and LG is as far removed from CG as CE is. And the LG character fears CE most of all while the CG character fears LE most of all.

I just use Good and Evil for convenience here, since I do agree with you on this point. Actually, we could take the conflict between me and the deva I illustrate above as being a Lawful Good vs. Chaotic Good argument. The deva is parochial, paternal good, while I'm individual, conscience-driven good...or something. The details don't really matter.

The point still remains that neither one of us has a claim to speak for our shared alignment in totality (and neither could the Neutral Good character, whom neither of us could convince), and neither of us can predict what will happen when the material plane collapses. The only difference between me and the deva is that I have doubt and he doesn't. But I could surmise that doubt is not something that any deva can possess in any quantity (since for a deva, "to doubt" may be equivalent to "to fall from grace"), and so I have a reason, at least by suspicion, to not trust him. Certainly when I compare him to the inevitables that claim that the coming collapse will bring about a perfect order of Law. I don't expect that they'd lie to me (although perhaps Chaotic or Evil outsiders would).

The bottom line here is whether I, no matter what my alignment, can support any side. But it seems that there's too much unknown. I don't know if I can trust the deva. I certainly don't know if I can trust him more than the inevitables. If I doubt that I can trust him, it means that I'm gambling on an outcome. The outcome happens to be the end of the material plane. At the moment, the material plane isn't so bad. Certainly not as bad as it could be if the deva is wrong. It could be that it will simply cease to exist and no rebirth is forthcoming. I have no basis for predicting the outcome, so I must weigh the risks versus the rewards. And it does not appear that the rewards are worth the risks, especially since so much evil must be done (specifically, genocide) to realize the rewards. I'll support the cause of the material plane against the outer planes, because they've given me no reason to believe that the universe will be improved, and some suspicion to believe it will get wrecked. And by wrecked, I mean either destroyed utterly or changed to align against my personal alignment goals. So if I'm Chaotic, I fear a Lawful victory, and if I'm Evil I fear a Good victory.

As an aside, if I assume that there's an equal chance for any of the four alignment forces to "win" the material plane, then it's still a weak gamble. If I'm Lawful Neutral, I'll suffer if either Good, Evil, or Chaos win, although more if Chaos wins. If I'm Lawful Good, I suffer greatly if either Chaos or Evil win, but only benefit moderately if Good or Law wins. Either way, it's a non-zero sum game. Especially if I happen to like dragons or fey.

Einstein felt that God didn't play dice with the universe. I'd argue that Good deities shouldn't be playing Russian Roulette with the Universe, either.

Precisely. Which is why I don't trust the deva, and think he should be supporting the material plane against the other outsiders.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Ur-Priests can cast divine spells without a Patron deity, so it is obviously not impossible, even by the RAW. I see no reason why Paladins cannot do likewise, being as the RAW supports my belief at least as much as it supports yours, and doesnt so much as mention the term God anywhere in the Paladin description.

Clerics can cast spells without a patron deity. I played a cleric who worshipped the abstract forces of Trickery and Chaos. He didn't care one whit about the gods, whom he saw as being simply powerful beings that had set themselves up inbetween the mortal world and the world of Ideas (platonic ideas, corresponding in that campaign to the Domains) in order to siphon off power from belief. The RAW don't require that your game world even have gods at all, since nobody really needs them for any reason.

 

[palleomortis]

Ok, If your still on the topic, my answer is no. What would you do if a crazed golden dragon was charging you? Sit there and be eaten!!!! QUICK MAN!!!! CHANGE YOUR ALIGMENT AND SLAY THE BASTERD!!!!

 

[John Morrow]

I think 2 people can both consider what they do to be [GOOD], Justify their actions before a tribunal, and yet still have opposing aims. I see alignment as more grey and amorphous than the RAW does in the beginning, and I am more than willing to subscribe to the idea that someone somewhere is willing to empower their ideals.

Which I addressed earlier. So what are they doing while these Good Outerplanar beings are trying to destroy the Prime Material Plane?

As per your "Divine" spells must come from the "Gods" I call rubbish on this statement. I dont subscribe to Paladins must follow a God anymore than the RAW does. It might be the standard, but it is not defacto, or it would be stated in the RAW as such. In fact, they went out of their way to pull such references.

I didn't say it had to be, but I think it's a common and reasonable assuption. After all, they cast "divine" spells and "divine", according to Merriam-Webster anyway, means "of, relating to, or proceeding directly from God or a god". But even if the power doesn't come from a deity, it must come from some source that has the ability to know when a Paladin has been naughty and should be shut down, which suggests that at the very least, the universe has a sense of alignment, Good, and Evil and that implies some ability to know and reason. Even such a pantheist setting would have reason to shut down the power of the Paladin or the Celestials.

In real life, I am a humanist, and something of an agnostic. I believe in the divinity of the human spirit, and I believe there is enough divine power for the human spirit to tap into which is generated by humanity itself.

That's fine, and I'm a monotheist, but neither of those real-world perspectives is the default assumption of D&D. Otherwise, they'd have something like a Humanism and Ur-Priests hardcover instead of books like Gods of Faerun and Deities and Demigods. And things like the Outer Planes and Outerplanar creatures wouldn't be such an integral part of the setting. They emulate a source mythology that is not humanist and not Judeo-Christian.

Ur-Priests can cast divine spells without a Patron deity, so it is obviously not impossible, even by the RAW.

Ur-Priests are considered an special case by the RAW and don't appear in the three core books. Sure, it's possible to include such things. Is that the sort of cosmology that is being suggested here? That's not what I'm seeing. It sounds very much like every powerful being in the Outer Planes is on a single page -- Destroy the Prime Material Plane.

I see no reason why Paladins cannot do likewise, being as the RAW supports my belief at least as much as it supports yours, and doesnt so much as mention the term God anywhere in the Paladin description.

Paladins must be Lawful Good. And whatever powers a Paladin must have some sense of when a Paladin violates their code or shifts alignment and whether they have atoned. That generally implies something intelligent is calling the shots, even if the Paladin doesn't refer to it by name. And even if you dismiss the problem with Paladins, the Cleric class does mention a deity and KM also asked about Good Clerics.

It's certainly possible for a GM to create a humanist D&D setting where the Paladin keeps or loses his or her powers based on their own sense of their Paladinhood and Goodness. And if KM wants to run a game of Ur-Priests and similar humanist characters against crazed Outerplanar deities out to destroy the Prime Material Plane, that could certainly be interesting. But that's a bit removed from the standard D&D cosmology and alignment system, in my opinion, and not what KM seemed to be asking about.

Furthermore, I do believe this is central to KM's setting working as described, for Paladins, because I sure wouldnt let a LG Paladin of "Good god" kill "Good god"s followers. Thats just silly.

Which is why I think KM needs to answer some more questions about that cosmology.