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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gez" data-source="post: 1372249" data-attributes="member: 1328">About capital punishment...On the one hand, magic allows binding or geas for criminals. (I'm a bit deviating from D&D by mentionning geas, as I'm more thinking of mythical geas, oaths to never do certain things, with magical doom falling on you if you did.) This allows to remove a perceived threats from society without having to use mundane life sentences or capital execution.On the other hand, a D&D world is a violent place, with frequent battles and confrontations, between "good" and "evil" races, between races on the same side, and between members of the same race. Between living and undead, between mundane and extraplanar outsiders, between people and wild beasts, and so on. Death is an everyday occurence. People are going to be less shocked at the idea of killing someone than in a policed, civilised modern western society in the real world.That's not moral relativism -- or rather, it is, but on the universe's scale. Killing, in D&D, is not evil. Gratuitous murder is evil, but killing is damn easy to justify. Just being a goblin in a goblin's lair is a sin grave enough for deserving death (in other words, it will not be an evil act for a party of good adventurer to slay that goblin, despite he merely being defending his home).</blockquote>