Limits of morality in the game?

[Falkus]

No, but you can kill a spider before it bites you. And you can kill a fox or a weasel before it successfully kills your hens and starves your family.

A spider isn't a sapient being. That's a very poor example.

I refuse to accept that it can be considered moral to kill a person simply because it will be convenient in the long run. Killing, for a good person, should only ever be done when there is no other possible choice. And I simply refuse to believe that there can be a situation where slaughtering infants is the only available option.

 

[mmadsen]

I refuse to accept that it can be considered moral to kill a person simply because it will be convenient in the long run.

Is it moral to kill a straw man simply because it's convenient?

 

[moritheil]

You can't kill people for crimes they haven't committed yet.

You can. It's not moral in real life. The question is, might it be moral in DnD?

 

[Raven Crowking]

You can. It's not moral in real life. The question is, might it be moral in DnD?

I, for one, would argue that "moral" and "good" are not the same thing in D&D. Many neutral creatures, and even evil creatures, may behave in an overtly "moral" fashion; that doesn't mean that they meet the SRD definition of "Good".


RC

 

[moritheil]

I, for one, would argue that "moral" and "good" are not the same thing in D&D. Many neutral creatures, and even evil creatures, may behave in an overtly "moral" fashion; that doesn't mean that they meet the SRD definition of "Good".


RC

When moral does not correlate with good, I don't believe it has any particular meaning in DnD mechanics.

 

[Set]

When moral does not correlate with good, I don't believe it has any particular meaning in DnD mechanics.

The D&D alignment system is an impediment to good role-playing in these matters. When any sort of moral or ethical quandary is entirely a matter of casting Detect Evil or chatting up one's god, it seems to me that everyone on the planet would have an encyclopaedic list of what is evil and what is good.

People having a moral quandary, like not knowing whether or not to kill evil humanoid babies, would be as rare as people who don't believe in magic.

And, totally OT, love the avatar moritheil! Muetar! (I had to check my map. I thought it was gonna be in Shucassam, because I misremembered the colors.)

 

[Mallus]

My players have done an excellent job limiting the morality in our campaign. We've been playing for nearly 3 years and no morality to speak of has gotten in...

 

[CruelSummerLord]

After skimming the many, many posts on the goblin issue, I have to say a few things.

1) The paladin was not stripped of his paladinhood, he was just denied spells for the day. In the example, I meant to say that the paladin commited a MINOR sin in letting the goblins (who would, as I envisioned it, still have the females to take care of them) live. I can certainly understand the perspective of posters who would just walk out if the DM revoked their paladinhood, but in this case, as I will say agian, he did not. The player merely had to go without spells for a day because he sinned, just like any other character who receives divine magic had to. That's all.

2) Comparisons with real-world morality in the case of the goblins are imperfect, I think. In every case in the real world, the other creature is a fellow human, who may or may not have started the fight. The truly vast majority of goblins, in D&D, spend their days fighting and killing. Not all humans do that-many are farmers or traders, and would likely be quite content to live in peace if it weren't for the violent ones. But in D&D canon, it's generally assumed that goblins will grow up to be killers, raiders and marauders.

In such a case, especially when the aggressors are not human (or nearly human, as is the case with dwarves, elves, gnomes and halflings), I can certainly see a religion distinguishing between humans and their kindred races, and the wicked races that are always trying to enslave and kill other beings, and who seem to delight in torture and slaughter. In either case, comparing them to humans IRL is rather a stretch, IMO.

3) Getting back to the original subject I had in mind when I started this thread, I don't see anything wrong with making some places and societies place restrictions based on race or gender, so long as it's made clear to the reader or player that this does not apply in every part of the game world, and while some places may have restrictions and laws that are oppressive and discriminatory, others do not.

Besides which, ancient and medieval history have quite a few examples of women, for instance, transcending the gender roles one normally expects from a patriarchal society. There's no reason why female PCs can't aspire to follow in the footsteps of Joan of Arc or Queen Bodeacia (I know I mangled that name-she was the Celtic warrior-queen who led British resistance to the Roman invasions), or Brunhilde (queen who played a major role in the history of the Carolingian empire in the tenth century). Women clerics played roles in developing the medieval church, and widows sometimes held and controlled the estates of their deceased husbands. All these things can be accomplished by female characters...and if they're done in a part of the setting that has restrictions on women, in some ways they're that much more meaningful.

All of the above, of course, can also apply to demihuman characters.

 

[delericho]

1) The paladin was not stripped of his paladinhood, he was just denied spells for the day. In the example, I meant to say that the paladin commited a MINOR sin in letting the goblins (who would, as I envisioned it, still have the females to take care of them) live.

Two notes:

1) In the RAW there is no mechanism at all for a Paladin, Cleric or other divine caster to be denied the use of some or all of his class features (including spellcasting) short of being stripped of the class entirely. So, denying the use of the spells for a day is a House Rule, and so the assumption that no spells == loss of status was not unjustified.

2) I wouldn't be walking just because the Paladin lost his status (or his spells, whatever). I would be walking because I wouldn't be comfortable playing in a game where the murder of children (of whatever not-interently-Evil race) is considered Good, or even non-Evil. I have absolutely no problem with such things being a facet of the game, and have absolutely no problem in playing in an Evil campaign, or allowing Evil PCs (in the appropriate context). I have a major problem with things that are Evil being labelled 'Good', and vice versa.

2) Comparisons with real-world morality in the case of the goblins are imperfect, I think. In every case in the real world, the other creature is a fellow human, who may or may not have started the fight.

True...

The truly vast majority of goblins, in D&D, spend their days fighting and killing. Not all humans do that-many are farmers or traders, and would likely be quite content to live in peace if it weren't for the violent ones.

And that's where the issue comes in. 'Truly vast majority' isn't enough to justify killing an infant of the species. If it was 'all', then maybe, but if it's just a vast majority, even of 99% you have to judge on the merits of the individual case... which in this case have to favour sparing the child. It has, as of this time, done absolutely nothing. You can't kill over something the child might do, because most of us, if we're being truly honest, have some level of outrage we can reach where we ourselves might commit murder.

You also run into the problem that, if you look at statistical data from the real world, virtually every negative behaviour you care to name is more prevalent amongst specific groups, whether by religion, ethnicity or (most commonly) economic standing. So, should a poor man be judged differently by the courts than a rich man just because it is more likely the poor man stole a loaf of bread? Or should they both be judged equally, and strictly on the merits of the case?

It is also worth noting that from the perspective of the English villagers they attacked, the vast majority of Vikings were bloodthirsty savages who lived to raid an attack them. Now, suppose by some circumstance a child of that people were somehow found abandonned in England. Is it acceptable then to kill the child?

Getting back to the original subject I had in mind when I started this thread, I don't see anything wrong with making some places and societies place restrictions based on race or gender

This I take no issue with and, in fact, agree.

 

[Raven Crowking]

When moral does not correlate with good, I don't believe it has any particular meaning in DnD mechanics.

Let me expand. I once played an evil wizard who was, by nearly any standards, the most moral member of his party -- he didn't expect pay to do his duty, and he believed in protection of the helpless (LE) even though he thought victimizing the strong was perfectly acceptable. IOW, while he might murder the Lord Mayor, he wouldn't cheat the Lord Mayor, or even accept recompense for helping the Lord Mayor if he believed it was his civic duty. Yet there was no question that he was evil -- he proved it all the time.

In D&D, some acts that are defined as evil, such as killing, are necessary and often laudible from a moral standpoint. This is not different from the concept of "sin" vs. "evil action". Every god in my campaign views certain things as sins, although often these are not otherwise "evil" or anti-alignment actions. The God of War, for instance, demands that his stalwarts not flee the field while their companions fight. Doing so isn't evil, but it is a sin in that god's eyes.

(And, yes, these "sins" are spelled out ahead of time.)

Likewise, "killing" might be considered an evil act in D&D (based off my reading of the SRD, at least), but I doubt any good character would change alignment for killing the red dragon attacking the village....or that any good deity would punish a character for so doing.


RC