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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6620191" data-attributes="member: 4937">I see this in the D&D framework as being fully equivalent to saying that evil is a permissible and desirable and indeed correct end to human striving even if it is explicitly labeled as evil.   Or to put it another way, just because it is evil doesn't mean it is wrong.   You keep assuming that it's not possible to celebrate being evil as being the most correct and appropriate approach to life.   But that's not even true in the real world, much less in a world were philosophical beliefs sit around the universe as peers at some great round table.I have never suggested that it does.   This isn't true in the real world, why should it be true in a world where every ends has an advocating force arguing for that end.  The powers of Neutral Evil don't concede that their ends are inferior to those of good.  The only real difference here is they are more likely to concede that the label 'evil' applies to them, but like Darth Sidious, they don't have to concede that they are in the wrong and any decent evil advocate can make an argument for why "good" and its advocates are worse than evil (less honest, less feeling, more judgmental, more pathetic, etc. depending on exactly what the advocate sees as the means of and reason for evil).  Yes, if you have a party that already agrees on the ends but doesn't agree on the means, then yes the "efficacy of means will be thrown into sharp relief".   But I think you are glossing over the fact that even the ends are in question with your assertion that arguing about the ends is a "recipe for game-ending arguments".   Maybe, but if this is the case, either your player pool probably isn't mature enough to make alignment, philosophy, politics or whatever you want to call it a focus of play because they aren't actually ready for their perceptions to be challenged, or don't have the RP tools for developing characterization that doesn't quickly devolve to violent disagreement.</blockquote>

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