D&D General The Problem with Evil or what if we don't use alignments?

[Bagpuss]

And if a child murderer can be lawful good, then the system is obviously utterly useless for describing morality!

Depends... are orcs born to be evil, without hope of change. That was the case when that example was set.

It's like if you went back in time, is killing Hitler before he commits his crimes, a evil act, when you can be sure he will?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Depends... are orcs born to be evil, without hope of change. That was the case when that example was set.

No it wasn't. Orcs in D&D never were automatically evil.

It's like if you went back in time, is killing Hitler before he commits his crimes, a evil act, when you can be sure he will?

I don't know. And there is no obvious correct answer to such questions. That's why black-and-white morality is dumb.

 

[jasper]

(Note session 0 must always have an Alignment discussion with the DM being the final ruler in what is good and evil.)
What happens when you totally drop alignment? Not much. DM will just quit asking why the PCs burned down the orphanage because Little Ricky kicked the Paladin in the ankle.

Adventure League will have to come up with a rule which covers Evil actions but without using Alignment. Heck, two or more of my PCs were Lawful Evil in my Icewind Dale campaign. The only official thing I could do was change their alignment to evil and banish their PC from the campaign. But during Season 9 the AL team stated you can change non Mechanical stuff between sessions. So hair color, sex, eye color, height, alignment, weight, and sports team could change. So Bob would just write lawful good on his pc sheet in dry erase.

Spells would have some descriptions. Protection from good would Protection from Non Material. ETC.

I think 5E has hit the sweet spot on the Alignment. I think the monster manual needs a bold edit. Change ...The alignment specified in a monster’s stat block is the default. Feel free to depart from it and change a monster’s alignment to suit the needs of your campaign.....
To "THE ALIGMENT SPECIFIED IN A MONSTER'S STAT BLOCK IS A SUGGESTION ONLY." Yes bold it. And some of the more RAW people here can then start quoting and paging the Monster manual.

 

[Bagpuss]

Back in 1E I allowed Cleric's to be near their gawd's alignment. Ex LG gawd. Cleric CG or NG.

Didn't they normally have to be one step from their God's alignment? LG God, LG, NG or LN clerics. I've seen that as a common rule.

We played a God level campaign once, I had a CN God of "Change through Fire" - One side of the faith he was worshiped by blacksmiths and bakers, who tended to be Good or neutral aligned, but also got lip service from raiders and red dragons... I did nothing to discourage wars between both sets of followers.

 

[Bagpuss]

No it wasn't. Orcs in D&D never were automatically evil.

Even if they aren't automatically evil, what's he meant to do with these children after their parents have been killed, leave them to starve to death? No human family would take them in, and left to their own devices they would probably seek revenge if they survived at all.

It might not be a LG in itself to kill them, but a LG character could, because a LG Character doesn't need to be LG all the time.

I don't know. And there is no obvious correct answer to such questions. That's why black-and-white morality is dumb.

But that's kind of the point Alignment doesn't have to mean a black and white morality. Maybe for Demons and Angels it could, but even then you can be a bit flexible with it.

 

[FrozenNorth]

People like to point to murder and torture when talking about how their moral objectivism is supreme and how alignment 'really' works, but morality is more than just the extremes. Lying, theft, mind control, or causing disproportionate harm (literally any fire spell for example) are all also issues that are going to be harshly judged in the service of determining alignment and those are the places where the arguments start and people start talking about the DM getting to decide what's right and wrong for all the other people at the table.

What about classic “hilarious” pranks like using sovereign glue to glue a phallic onject to the hand of someone who was an arrogant jerk?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Even if they aren't automatically evil, what's he meant to do with these children after their parents have been killed, leave them to starve to death? No human family would take them in, and left to their own devices they would probably seek revenge if they survived at all.

Sounds like a serious moral dilemma to me! Ok, not really. "Having these kids around is inconvenient, so should we just kill them?" rarely is a moral dilemma most people would need to think about, and if they would, I'd be very worried to be around them. Granted, what exactly to do with the kids might be a problem, but that's more of a practical problem than a moral one, once you've come to the bloody obvious conclusion that murdering them is not an option.

It might not be a LG in itself to kill them, but a LG character could, because a LG Character doesn't need to be LG all the time.

Yeah, a little bit of child murdering never made anyone evil if they're a decent person most of the time!

But that's kind of the point Alignment doesn't have to mean a black and white morality. Maybe for Demons and Angels it could, but even then you can be a bit flexible with it.

I mean it isn't black and white if you effectively just ignore it. If you think child murderers can be 'good people' then what the hell makes someone evil? At this point you might as well get rid of the system as it obviously doesn't describe anything any more.

 

[Cadence]

Gygax also thought storming a creche and murdering Orc children by the score by bashing their brains in with a hammer was 'Lawful Good' because 'Nits make Lice'.

Not exactly the greatest moral arbiter.

Further down the forum page where he had that quote, didn't he also note that the NG and CG characters wouldn't do so? Iirc correctly, he also responded positively to a posting DM who just avoided ever putting the players in that situation.

In AD&D it feels like he wanted to be able to easily set the game in various pseudo-historical settings, where the leaders and societies would act roughly like one might extrapolate from their real world analogs. And so, if he simultaneously wanted to use alignment, wanted leaders and societies to act "realistically", and didn't want almost all of the leaders and societies to be labeled as evil (since many/most/nearly all of the real world ones engaged in some combination of slavery, genocide, pillaging etc...), was using "morality of their time" the easy thing to go with? Would this have also been an easy thing to go with since people generally don't like to view their own ancestors (familial, societal, or religious) as evil if they can avoid it?

With the benefit of hindsight and being from the subsequent generations, it feels like either giving up having the good guys do things we now view as evil or giving up alignment would have been easier and better solutions.

 

[Bagpuss]

If you can't describe that difference without the alignment, then there was no difference in the first place. Demons and devils being a different things is one of those D&D weirdnesses that do not appear in mythology and other fictions, and I've never heard anyone to care about yugoloths.

I think the point was alignment does a decent job of describing some of those differences in a very small amount of text. Without that how are you going to describe those differences?

 

[Bagpuss]

I mean it isn't black and white if you effectively just ignore it. If you think child murderers can be 'good people' then what the hell makes someone evil? At this point you might as well get rid of the system as it obviously doesn't describe anything any more.

So I'm glad to see you arguing that morality is black-and-white and that child murders can't be good people, because I have this great system that reflects that called Alignment, you will love it.