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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7067488" data-attributes="member: 42582">I thought 5e was meant to be the &quot;best of&quot;, &quot;back to the source&quot; edition. How can past alignment understandings not be relevant?I'm sure that Graz'zt conscience doesn't keep him awake at night either! On the other hand, killing someone doesn't seem like &quot;helping others according to their needs&quot; - it's hardly helping the one that you kill!Good means valuing life and wellbeing. It's inherent in the word. Casually killing others ie outside contexts of defensive violence, legitimate punishment or where they have staked their own life (eg in a duel) is hardly treating others with respect. It's the sort of thing that, classically, the game has characterised as evil.That's probably why, in UA, thieves can't be good. In the AD&amp;D PHB they can be NG, but that is described as rare (PHB p 27). For obvious reasons. I don't think it's ever been suggested (in D&amp;D rulebooks, or by real-life moralists) that being good requires never acting contrary to any value. But obviously if you're not honouring the truth (which a thief doesn't, in his/her deceptive mode of attack) then you'd better be honouring other values in your conduct.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7067488, member: 42582"] I thought 5e was meant to be the "best of", "back to the source" edition. How can past alignment understandings not be relevant? I'm sure that Graz'zt conscience doesn't keep him awake at night either! On the other hand, killing someone doesn't seem like "helping others according to their needs" - it's hardly helping the one that you kill! Good means valuing life and wellbeing. It's inherent in the word. Casually killing others ie outside contexts of defensive violence, legitimate punishment or where they have staked their own life (eg in a duel) is hardly treating others with respect. It's the sort of thing that, classically, the game has characterised as evil. That's probably why, in UA, thieves can't be good. In the AD&D PHB they can be NG, but that is described as [I]rare[/I] (PHB p 27). For obvious reasons. I don't think it's ever been suggested (in D&D rulebooks, or by real-life moralists) that being [I]good[/I] requires never acting contrary to any value. But obviously if you're not honouring the truth (which a thief doesn't, in his/her deceptive mode of attack) then you'd better be honouring other values in your conduct. [/QUOTE]

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