On Evil

[N'raac]

Which loops right back around to my point that most if not all PCs in 1e would be defined (here, anyway) as evil.

If their sole motivation is money, I find them hard to classify as "good". The problem is that we don't want to label our characters as "evil", often because we somehow see that being labelling ourselves by extension.

So can I, but in games where the xp-for-gp idea had been abandoned. (secondary side effect: dropping this idea slows level advancement to a crawl, allowing more focus on character and story rather than numbers).

I'm thinking of games where the xp remained by the book, including xp for gold. If there was any modification, it was "defeated need not mean destroyed", so a fleeing opponent, or one converted to an ally, was not lost xp. The players were more focused on playing their characters than on maximizing xp and gaining that next level, or maximizing their wealth (except for those characters for whom wealth maximization was an in-character objective, of course). There were still plenty of combat encounters, and no shortage of loot, but the xp and the gold were a consequence of playing the characters, not their primary goal.

That said, they still need money for other things not least of which is the occasional revival from death...

And they weren't generally looking to live a life of poverty. But they also weren't compromising their principals when someone with a heavy purse walked by. The group I got into gaming with, anyway, were not playing D&D like a video game, looking for a high score. That meant maximizing xp, or gp, or any other in-game reward never took precedence over the characters' own goals and beliefs.

We used training (and still do); and 1e also had the idea that at "name level" (usually 9th) you could - and were sort-of expected to - build a castle/temple/stronghold/guild appropriate to class and staff it. This often cost a big pile of money to accomplish, and then proceeded to drain lesser amounts of money as time went on; rare indeed was the character who could make even the tiniest profit doing this.

We often had the vague concept of some form of stronghold/base in the future, sometimes even realized (I recall paving a trail to the castle with copper pieces at one time...), but often more a team stronghold than one per character. While it was certainly in the rules, it seemed like the big "benefit" was a bunch of low level followers that just created more costs and administration.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not. I'm merely trying to point out that your definition flies in the face of RAW 1e D&D, where wealth and experience (i.e. character level advancement) were joined at the hip by the xp-for-gp rule; which (assuming, not unreasonably, that players want their characters to bump now and then) either makes avarice non-evil or marks as evil every played character in the game...which is ridiculous.

Err... I'm trying to get my head around whatever twisted logic gets you to believe that, and I'm not getting it. So basically you are saying that because carting treasure out of a dungeon made you powerful, that greed is good? You do realize that nothing in the rules requires you to keep any of that treasure. Indeed, many classes were required to give at least some of it away, and notably the Paladin had to give a portion of it away and the other explicitly good class the Ranger had to give away all of their excess.

So, yeah, I don't get where you are coming from at all. There doesn't even seem to be a tissue of logic here.

[I also soundly disagree with the sex-is-evil tone your definitions take.

Err... Sex is definitely not evil in the above definitions. In fact, sex is inferred to be good, but on the whole is generally not discussed except to point out explicitly that when people conflate sin with a sexual act they are misled or thinking unwisely. So, did you even read the definition? I no more claim that sex is evil than I do material possessions, food, or alcohol is evil. Indeed, again, it is inferred that all of those things are actually good.

Lan-"I have no patience for full-frontal prudity"-efan

Oh well. I'll have to have patience for the both of us then.

 

[Celebrim]

If the object is evil ("I want to hurt that man")

I start one step further back than you have begun with. I'm trying for a definition that explicates why it is evil to hurt the man. If you attempt to answer that question, I think you'll end up where I began.

Once we agree upon the definition of evil, then if we want to judge individual acts by a mortal mind as to whether they are indicative of evil or not, then we can begin to apply all of the moral reasoning you are bringing to bear. But none of that moral reasoning is of any good until we establish the definition. Otherwise, we can't distinguish whether it is more good to hurt or to help.

 

[Celebrim]

Which loops right back around to my point that most if not all PCs in 1e would be defined (here, anyway) as evil.

I've already agreed that most PCs - regardless of edition - fit the stereotype of dysfunctional psychotic deranged greedy murder hobos and that therefore, yes most but not all PCs are in fact evil. Any PC that fits the Munchkin stereotype is probably evil, and is I think already widely recognized that such characters are evil. It's certainly not something confined to or special to 1e regardless of the loot = XP mechanics of the system, as players still play in that manner even if gold isn't XP.

But I do not think that all characters actually were played in this manner, and I certainly don't agree that characters need to be played in this manner. Nor do I even remotely understand the logic that attempts to claim that because unrestrained self-interest could advance your own interests, that unrestrained self-interest must be good.

 

[Dandu]

Nor do I even remotely understand the logic that attempts to claim that because unrestrained self-interest could advance your own interests, that unrestrained self-interest must be good.

 

[Celebrim]

View attachment 70154

First, that's something of a simplification of Rand's moral philosophy, as Rand would not have claimed greed is good. Indeed, Rand very much would have agreed with the outline I gave on the evils of Greed in the original essay. Rand's self-motivated persons had no use for acquisition as an end goal, and it's her villains that generally have this trait. A long discussion of this would be tangential to the essay and probably overly political, but feel free to read the Cliff notes version of either Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead for the details

Second, even so, I don't and don't feel compelled to equate Objectivism as a good. Indeed, my suspicion us that you are not in fact doing so either, but if you are intending to make your pictorial assertion of your own belief that Objectivism is Good, something I doubt simply because you seem to know very little about it, then I'm prepared to discuss that as well.

Third, while I have a great deal of empathy with Rand regarding the life circumstances that led her to advance Objectivism as good and altruism as Evil, I personally feel that she was terribly confused. Understanding why she would feel compelled to justify a set of beliefs is not the same as agreeing with them, nor is it the same as saying that I understand her logic (or rather, in this case, I do understand her logic and her logic is flawed).

 

[Dandu]

First, that's something of a simplification of Rand's moral philosophy, as Rand would not have claimed greed is good.

Oh very well...

Second, even so, I don't and don't feel compelled to equate Objectivism as a good. Indeed, my suspicion us that you are not in fact doing so either, but if you are intending to make your pictorial assertion of your own belief that Objectivism is Good, something I doubt simply because you seem to know very little about it, then I'm prepared to discuss that as well.

Actually, I read The Fountainhead in highschool, because I intended on getting the Ayn Rand Scholarship for college. However, upon completing the novel, I came to the conclusion that she and her supporters were not individuals I felt like associating with or getting money from.

 

[Celebrim]

Oh very well...
View attachment 70155

And now the attempt carries the sort of farcical tone it deserves.

 

[Lanefan]

I've already agreed that most PCs - regardless of edition - fit the stereotype of dysfunctional psychotic deranged greedy murder hobos and that therefore, yes most but not all PCs are in fact evil. Any PC that fits the Munchkin stereotype is probably evil, and is I think already widely recognized that such characters are evil. It's certainly not something confined to or special to 1e regardless of the loot = XP mechanics of the system, as players still play in that manner even if gold isn't XP.

But I do not think that all characters actually were played in this manner, and I certainly don't agree that characters need to be played in this manner.

I've seen very few if any that weren't played this way at least to some extent. The game in all editions gives experience points for killing things, and in 1e for taking their stuff as well; and as at the most basic level the object of the game is to gain experience and thus get better at what you do it serves no purpose from a game perspective to define these things as evil. This is one significant area where a real-world definition and a game-based definition of evil probably ought to differ.

In the game the definition of evil isn't based around whether you kill or not, but more by what you kill, and why, and how; which in the real world is of course absurd in any situation other than declared warfare. Paladins and Assassins both kill things and make a profit doing so yet the game specifically defines one as good and the other as evil.

And before I start making mistakes all over the place, how are you defining "Munchkin" here? I ask because when I read "Munchkin" pertaining to a PC I don't think of greed.

Nor do I even remotely understand the logic that attempts to claim that because unrestrained self-interest could advance your own interests, that unrestrained self-interest must be good.

As I said above, when stripped down to its absolute essence the basic objective of the game is to get better at what you do. Self-interest, be it unrestrained or not and at the individual or party level, is what ultimately makes your character better at what it does. So from a game perspective it becomes at least neutral if not good simply out of necessity...again differing from a real-world outlook.

Either that or you're in effect defining the game itself as evil, and that's a bunch of worms best left in the can.

Lan-"there's a rabbit hole around here somewhere"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

Err... I'm trying to get my head around whatever twisted logic gets you to believe that, and I'm not getting it. So basically you are saying that because carting treasure out of a dungeon made you powerful, that greed is good? You do realize that nothing in the rules requires you to keep any of that treasure. Indeed, many classes were required to give at least some of it away, and notably the Paladin had to give a portion of it away and the other explicitly good class the Ranger had to give away all of their excess.

Carting treasure out of the dungeon was a major objective of the game, good or not; and the more you brought out, the better. What you did with it afterwards doesn't mitigate the fact that the acquiring of it in the first place usually involved a series of actions steeped in greed...and probably bloodshed as well.

Err... Sex is definitely not evil in the above definitions. In fact, sex is inferred to be good, but on the whole is generally not discussed except to point out explicitly that when people conflate sin with a sexual act they are misled or thinking unwisely. So, did you even read the definition? I no more claim that sex is evil than I do material possessions, food, or alcohol is evil. Indeed, again, it is inferred that all of those things are actually good.

I'd buy into this a bit more if the whole "fornication" section wasn't there.

Lan-"seeking logic in an alignment discussion just might be a short path to madness"-efan