2WS-Steve said:
I think Wulf's criticism of the DM is well-motivated. Also, attacking the Wulf's weakest point while ignoring several good ones isn't a good way to get at the truth.
I was commenting that Wulf's and everyone else opinions that agree with his stance of "Black and White" as expresses in his quotation is inconsitant with how "Good" is defined in D&D.
Good is doing the least damage to get what needs to be done, done.
It's talking when talking will work. It's punching when only punching is needed, it's drawing a blade only when absolutely necessary. Because (Book of Exhalted Deeds) "violence is not just a failure of diplomacy, it is a failure of good and a victory for evil."
This isn't to say that you don't kick ass and take names. This is to say that you kick ass and take names
once every other possible attempt has been made to avoid kicking ass and taking names. This is what D&D good is.
It's not detecting evil and smiting anything that detects. It's not killing goblin babies. It's not choosing to kill a rapist when subdual is just as effective. Good people use their words more than their swords. Even when it means that being good may mean being dead. Because being good and dead is more important than being not good and alive.
Book of Exhalted Deeds: "Some good characters might view a situation where an evil act is required to avert a catastrophic evil as a form of martyrdom: "I can save a thousand live by sacrificing my purity." For some, that is a sacrifice worth making, just as they would not hesitate to sacrifice their lives for the same cause. After all, it would simply be selfish to let innocnets die so a character can hang on to her exalted feats.
Unfortunately, this view is ultimately misguided. This line of thinking treats the purity of the good character's soul as a commodity (like her exalted feats) that she chan just give up or sacrifice like any other possession. In fact, when an otherwise good character decides to commit an evil act, the effects are larger than the individual character. What the character sees as a person sacrifice is actually a shift in the universal balance of power between good and evil,
in evil's favor. The consequences of that single evil act, no matter how small, extend far beyond that single act and involve a loss to more than just the character doing the deed. Thus, it is not a personal sacrifice, but a concession to evil, and thus unconscionable."
joe b.