Is killing something Good an inherently Evil act?

[John Morrow]

I definately want to reveal The Truth by The End, and have the PC's want to be the Heroes....but part of the problem I'm coming to ENWorld to help me with is what do the Heroes look like when saving the world means allowing people to be bad, and destroying the world could mean happiness for all? What would be *satisfying* for the PC's?

I think that what will satisfy the players is likely the knowledge that they picked the right side. As such, I think you need to pick which side you want to be right (i.e., Is it right to save the Prime Material Plane or destroy it?) and then let the players discover which side is right. Part of that might be that Good Outsiders stop being Good (hinting that they are wrong) or that the heroes develop alignment-related problems for thwarting Good outsiders (hinting that they are right). And I think it's OK if that happens fairly early in the game because I think many players will not want to spend a large part of your campaign fighting for the wrong side, only to find out they were mistaken near the end. You know your players better than I do, though, so think about how they'd react.

So is Good inherently a little Chaotic (valuing Free Will, Free Choice, even if expressed in an ordered way)? And Evil is inherently a little Lawful (valuing oppression, subjugation, even if expressed purely through random acts of cruelty)?

Not that I'm not okay with that, it just seems to be an implication...

I think Good is inherently a little Neutral (on the Law to Chaos axis), which goes back to what I said about the corner alignments being unstable and serving too masters. At some point, both too much Order and too much Liberty (i.e., too much Law and too much Chaos) will produce results which are not Good, since Good ultimately requires a moderate amount of both Order and Liberty (i.e., Law and Chaos) to be maximized. Similarly, the maximization of Order or Liberty (i.e., Law or Chaos) requires moderation of both Good and Evil while the maximization of Evil also requires moderation of Order and Liberty (i.e., Law and Chaos). In fact, the alignment diagram for my game is a rounded diamond (a square tilted 45 degrees), not the regular square. A circle might also work. Either way, the maximum points of Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are within NG, NE, LN, and CN while LG, CG, LE, and CE are basically slippery slopes that try to balance two interests, maximizing neither in the process.

Well, that's part of why no creature who advocates it views it as a gamble. It is only in mortal minds (and the minds of a few rebel, lukewarm Outsiders, now) that it's considered a gamble.
[...]
The mortals can't see/haven't yet seen the equasion, and the deities are more interested in adding than in explanation.

This is where you start to touch on oppression. The Good deities would have an interest or even obligation to explain why they are certain to their followers if they are asking them all to drink the Grape Kool-Aid and destroy their world. And don't forget that D&D has spells that let followers talk directly with their deities.

How are neutral beings innocent? They lie, they cheat, they steal, they do sometimes cruel things. They are selfish and mean.

Yes, but you don't kill people just because they are selfish and mean. Paladins don't get "Smite Neutral" or "Smite Not Good" for a reason. Good is required to be altruistic and respect the dignity of others. That includes measured justice with punishment that fits the crime. Yes, there may be plenty of Neutral people who lie, cheat, and steal and are selfish and mean. There are also plenty of other Neutral people (the side toward Good) who don't do any of those things but simply don't raise a finger to help others. They follow the rules, provide for their own family and friends, and want to be left alone. Do they warrant extermination or forced conversion? Does that really sound "Good" to you?

They might not be as inherently corrupt as Evil, but they are on the slippery slope, so to speak. They will not always have respect for sentient life, they will not always help those in need, and sometimes they may even take advantage of their fellow being. Must Good accomodate this?

The answer could be "yes."

If they aren't Evil, I think the RAW implies that they do. That doesn't mean that you can't assume that all outside alignments are fanatical and view all other alignments as a slippery slope to the other side. But I think the RAW definitions are crafted so that Good is Good, not simply the flip side of Evil with a different name. Like I said, I don't think the alignments are designed to be symmetrical.

One way to handle this might be that the battle isn't about Good or Evil at all but about Law and Chaos. The Lawful Neutral view the destruction of the Prime Material Plane as the culmination of its existence, to be replaced by an orderly and static order. Everyone has had their chance to pick sides and once the Prime Material Plane is destroyed, everyone will be sent to their own Outer Plane Corner to live out the rest of eternity among those with like ideas. The Chaotic Neutral view is that the destruction of the Prime Material Plane will open the boundaries between the various Other Planes and allow Chaos to sweep through the heavens, freeing those in the Lawful Outer Planes from the tyranny of an unchanging eternity. I could see both sides of that being convinced that they have "an angle" and are right.

So what happens is that Lawful Good Outsiders get sucked into the Lawful side on the grounds that you've already stated -- isolating all of the Good souls in the Good Outer Planes will spare them from any suffering at the hands of Evil and the Neutral souls will also be protected from Evil. The Chaotic Good Outsiders get sucked into the Chaotic side on the grounds that they'll be able to venture forth into the Evil Outher Planes and save souls. That leaves the Neutral Good Outsiders as your doubters, with some backing either Law or Chaos while others look at the uncertainty and doubt that this is a good idea. What this gives you is that the battle is not one of Good or Evil at all but one driven Law and Chaos with Good and Evil factions on both sides.

That gives your PCs the opportunity to sway the Good (and even Evil, because they'll need to get everyone to agree) deities away from this plan as part of the campaign. And the ultimate flow the the campaign would be to shift a battle that the Prime Material Plane is losing (LE, LN, LG, CE, CN, and CG vs. NE and NG to LE, NE, CE, LG, NG, and CG vs. LN and CN).

The downside is that you lose your question of whether Good PCs should be backing the destruction of the Prime Material Plane. But I think that's a question you'll have to resolve quickly, anyway, unless you think your players will enjoy working for the wrong side or not knowing who the right side is for a while. Most players, in my experience, aren't too happy with that sort of situation but your players might enjoy it. But it does maintain the possibility of Good fighting Good but on ideological grounds, not simply because they have a different guess about what will happen if the Prime Material Plane is destroyed.

The answer the [Good] Outsiders believe is "No." In fact, every alignment's exemplars see things that way: they don't have to tolerate wishy-washy inbetweeners. They don't have to do it on Elysium, why should they have to do it here? To make Heaven on Earth (in the D&D sense), why should you have to tolerate the nonbelievers?

I don't really agree with that. The pure Outer Planes have their problems as far as each alignment is concerned. The Chaotics lose their diversity, the Goods lose their ability to help others who are Neutral or even Evil reform their ways, the Lawfuls lose their ability to bring order to others, and the Evil are left to prey only on either other rather than Neutrals or Goods. Each alignment has use for the other alignments.

Now, the question is, is this view *accurate*. If you have to tolerate the occasional bad thing/abusive parent/unfortunate tragedy to be Good, then the Outsiders are wrong, and the Good ones will start losing their alignment and their adherence to that cosmological power of Good. They'll fall (by the end of the campaign), and they'll be the bad guys.

Well, you can cast your Outsiders as fanatics on the very edge of the alignment diagram. While that could certainly be interesting, I think that will produce a game biased toward the Neutral alignment and Druidism, because that's the only real way to escape the fanatical Outsiders. Could be interesting but just be aware that many players will likely gravitate toward Neutrality and the outside alignments will all take on negative connotations.

If you can have Good exclusive of all other alignments (like it is in Heaven, as it should be on Earth), though, then to allow for the slightest bad thing/abusive parent/wishy-washy noncommittal miser/unfortunate tragedy is to be [Not Good Enough], and the Dragons and Fey are wrong and they'll start losing their alignment and adherence to the cosmological power of Good. They'll become debased (by the end of the campaign), and they'll be the bad guys.

Well, Neutral isn't necessarily bad at all. It simply isn't altruistic. The person in that old house who works, pays their taxes, and keeps to themself might be Neutral because they never put themselves at any risk to help others but they sure aren't Evil. You keep looking at the Evil side of Neutral. Sure, it has that, but has a Good side, too, in people who are harmless but not helpful or altruistic. Good should care about what happens to them, as well as what happens to those on the Evil side of Neutral and even inside the Evil alignment that can be reformed and made Good. If your setting allows for alignment shifts and redemption, then Good should be willing to take risks even to help those who are Evil.

Two outsiders working together would then require (a) for those outsiders to meet on the Material plane, (b) for them not to kill each other on sight, (c) for them to have a long enough conversaton to understand that they actually want the same thing, and (d) for them to doubt their own surity enough to believe that the other's goals have as much a chance for success as their own.

I think you are neglecting the fact that their followers can and will talk, especially if you want your players to realize that all the sides have different opinions about what will happen. And given that those followers can talk to the Outsiders both directly and indirectly (there are spells that do that sort of thing), the Outsiders shouldn't be in the dark for long. And if they really don't know much beyond their own slice of the Outer Planes, I think you wind up back at the problem of how they are so certain that things will turn out how they think they will if they know so little about the big picture. Not being omniscient is one thing. Deities that are largely in the dark about how the whole universe works is another. And if your Good have such limited information, they should know that their opinions may be wrong, which brings us back to why they are so certain.

Cosmological Issues: Hitchhiker's Guide to KM's Universe

You've got some really good ideas in there.

Just bear in mind that it may cast your battle as one between Neutral and all other alignments, so that's the choice you are giving your players. There are several possible themes you can have based on which outcome you pick:

1) Faith over Doubt -- You should trust the Good Ousiders because they are ultimately right.

2) Doubt over Faith -- The Outsiders don't know what they are talking about because they are ultimately wrong.

3) The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions -- The Good Outsiders are so wrong that they wind up letting the other side win.

4) Pick Moderation over Extremism -- Even if the Outsiders are right (one or all -- perhaps the universe "forks" into 8-9 separate copies of the original where each faction gets one copy in which they are right), you won't really like the results better than what you have.

Think about the message that each possible outcome will give the players about your setting and alignments.

When a cleric or paladin falls from favor, it's much like what happens when a monk ceases to be lawful, or a barbarian starts to be lawful -- the flow of energy through you has changed so much that it interferes with the pathways you develop.

That's a decent model for Clerics and Paladins who are not dependent on deities for their power.

So the question for this campaign becomes "Does killing a creature with a lot of your energy dilute some of that energy in you?" Can the identical points of the magnet be brought together?

I don't think you are dealing with a magnet because, like I said, Good and Evil are not symmetrical. Evil can certainly prey on and kill other Evil without an alignment violation. Good normally cannot prey on and kill other Good without an alignment violation.

Put another way, Evil is about cruelty and murder (as distinguished from killing), regardless of the alignment of the victim. Good is about altruism and respect, which is at least extended into Neutral and possibly even Evil, in those cases where redemption is possible. Neutral is all about doing one's own thing. It's reluctant to kill when it hasn't been wronged but is willing to kill out of self-preservation or self-interest. That's not symmetrical with respect to who can kill what.

Using your model, Good energy would be drawn toward altruism, respect, and life while Evil energy would be drawn toward cruelty, oppression, and murder. So I don't think it really matters what the alignment of your opponent is. If you are acting out of cruelty, oppression, or are killing someone who has done nothing to warrant their death, then you are attracting Evil energy. If you are acting out of altruism, respect, and the preservation of life, they you are attracting Good energy.

Evil can certainly kill other creatures with the same energy and may even be strengthened by it. Evil is allowed to be cruel and murderous toward Evil. That's what makes Hell Hell. Good, on the other hand, would probably be weakened by it, because through respect, compassion, and a respect for life, both should be able to find a non-violent or at least non-fatal alternative to killing each other. That's what makes Heaven Heaven. Reducing it to magnetism simply makes the alignment system a way to define teams and turns Good into a different flavor of the same sort of thing that Evil is, in my opinion. While you can do that, I think you lose a lot of the flavor of what makes Good seem Good rather than simply another extremist ideology in the process. And if you do that, you'll wind up with a setting that's biased toward viewing all outer alignments as extreme and bad and biased toward Neutral. Is that what you really want?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Thanks for all the advice everyone, I think I've reached a tentative descision on it.

Killing something [Good] is not inherently [Evil]. Kind of for the same reasons that hurting someone with a Fireball isn't. In a world where resurrections and reincarnations can be bought and sould, death is another weapon, another tool, another basically neutral agent whose affect on your alignment depends on what you're using it for.

So yes, you can kill a Deva who is saving a drowning puppy and still be [Good] for it. It is just remarkably difficult to make sure you keep the right mindset while doing these killings -- you shouldn't gain pleasure from it, and you should try to stop it, and you should do what you can to save that drowning puppy yourself. Of course, you're no Deva, so it's gonna be harder, and yes, killing that Deva did lessen the overall [Good] in the world (something you should not be happy to do), but it is not in itself [Evil] and can even, in the right circumstances, be [Good].

It's a case of "sometimes to be Good you have to let some not-good things happen." I've come to the same idea Milton has -- the fall is fortunate. True Good can only be realized if people have the ability to *not* be it. This is why the celestials don't wage constant war on the Outlands...without a station to rise up from, you can't really rise up.

Which means, as far as my own campaign setting goes, that the Good Outsiders are part of the Bad Guys. They're only following orders, and they are technically correct (I think I'm going to go with the splintering idea), but there is a reason the Material Plane exists aside from "no one has taken it over yet." It will be Heaven (or Hell, or....Limbo) on Earth. But there's a reason that things weren't just made that way in the first place...the material plane exists because it is where mutual purity of element and alignment can exist. All of Elysium can be a reward for [Good], but it can never be as Good as a Good Guy on the Material Plane. Because in order for Good to be Truly Good, it needs to have people who aren't good. And in order for Evil to be Truly Evil, it needs to have people who aren't Evil (you can't torture innocents when no one is really innocent, can you?).

...I still don't know what suddenly makes the Gods all think that it would be better not existing. But I think that its existence *is* essential for the continued functioning of all the planes as they are, and that if this plane is taken out of the mix, they will all gradually collapse...

.....which leaves me needing to answer some questions I never thought I'd have to ask in D&D.....but hey, that's for the next thread!

Thanks a lot everyone.

 

[John Morrow]

Killing something [Good] is not inherently [Evil]. Kind of for the same reasons that hurting someone with a Fireball isn't. In a world where resurrections and reincarnations can be bought and sould, death is another weapon, another tool, another basically neutral agent whose affect on your alignment depends on what you're using it for.

Two things to consider here.

First, the SRD definition of Good pretty much revolves around protecting and respecting life, not souls. You'll need to change that if you want, but you might want to look at what happens historically in the real world when people stop caring about lives and only care about souls (e.g., "Kill them all and let God sort them out."). Infamous killer John List, who murdered his own family, claimed that he did so to save their souls because he felt that he needed to kill them before they fell any deeper into what he saw as evil behavior. There are nastier examples not suitable for anyone's grandmother to read. Simply be aware that there are some very nasty implications of this mindset.

Second, spells like resurrections and reincarnations in the RAW don't work out Outsiders. "Unlike most other living creatures, an outsider does not have a dual nature--its soul and body form one unit. When an outsider is slain, no soul is set loose." This is true unless they also have the "Native" subtype. So if the characters slay a Deva, they aren't simply releasing a soul. They are destroying the creature.

The rest of your cosmological ideas seem OK to me.

What you might want to consider as an alternative is requiring your Good players treat the Outsiders the way the legal system treats the insane. They aren't morally responsible for their behavior and aren't Evil. Therefore, your players need to figure out some way to stop them other than slaying them and you should provide some suitable options in the form of magic items, artifacts, or simply high enough character level to cast spells like Dismissal. The challenge for Good players would then be similar to dealing with a fellow party member who is being mind controlled to fight the party. How do you stop them without killing them or do they take the easy route and kill them and take the consequences?

...I still don't know what suddenly makes the Gods all think that it would be better not existing. But I think that its existence *is* essential for the continued functioning of all the planes as they are, and that if this plane is taken out of the mix, they will all gradually collapse...

You could go with something as traditional as an artifact that warps their perception of reality (the objective of the campaign being to find and destroy that artifact). If you want something more radically different, you'll need to think of a good reason why Good Outsiders are on board with the destruction of the Prime Material Plane that's a little more satisfying than "They just know it's the right thing to do."