Thoughts about the nature of evil

[NoOneofConsequence]

I once had my pcs attacked by the ghost of a little girl that had been tortured to death. It lured them in with weeping like a lost child and then attacked. The ghost began life as an innocent child, and was a ghost only because of the suffering inflicted by her death, but it was still an evil force that desired to slay.

It's said that Adolph Hitler used to instruct his driver to slow down after rainstorms so that his car didn't splash pedestrians when it went through puddles. That's the kind of evil I use in my campaign.

 

[MasterOfHeaven]

Good point Kamakaze Midget, villians don't have to be evil in alignment- just someone who is strongly opposed to the goals and motivations of the PCs. IMC, one of the longest running villains is a lawful good paladin who is in the same church as the PC paladin- for some reason the two have never gotten along, and what started as a friendly rivalry has escalated to bitter enemies. While he isn't evil or cruel, if the NPC figured out a way to discredit or sully the PC paladin's reputation, he would do so without hesitation. And to be honest, the PC paladin would likely do the same, although he would probably be a little more hesitant. All this came from a theological debate the two had early in the campaign!

I completely disagree with this. The "Paladin" villian you talk about in your campaign is clearly not LG if he is taking the actions you describe. He's attempting to ruin the reputation of a fellow Paladin over a petty feud they have. That is certainly not Good, and given that they are members of the same church, not very Lawful either.

In my games, Evil and Good are defined by actions, not beliefs. A man can believe he is the most wonderful and caring person in the world, when in fact he is one of the most vile and cruel people in existence. I also define Evil with selfishness. Evil, at the very base of it's being, cares for itself above and beyond other beings. This can have a variety of expressions, but the selfishness is always there at the core.

I don't believe in "the ends justify the means", as well, so I consider it a good act for you to refuse to murder someone to save a hundred others, and an evil act to do the opposite.

 

[Atticus_of_Amber]

I completely disagree with this. The "Paladin" villain you talk about in your campaign is clearly not LG if he is taking the actions you describe. He's attempting to ruin the reputation of a fellow Paladin over a petty feud they have. That is certainly not Good, and given that they are members of the same church, not very Lawful either.

In my games, Evil and Good are defined by actions, not beliefs. A man can believe he is the most wonderful and caring person in the world, when in fact he is one of the most vile and cruel people in existence. I also define Evil with selfishness. Evil, at the very base of it's being, cares for itself above and beyond other beings. This can have a variety of expressions, but the selfishness is always there at the core.

I don't believe in "the ends justify the means", as well, so I consider it a good act for you to refuse to murder someone to save a hundred others, and an evil act to do the opposite.

Maybe I'm just pessimistic by nature, but I don't see selfishness as the essence of evil - in fact I see selfishness as the essence of neutrality (on the good-evil axis).

My reasoning is that most people are selfish in RL and most people are neutral in DnD. Moreover, some of the most vile people in history weren't selfish, many were selfless in that they sacrificed themselves for a greater cause, though that cause was evil [I won't say anything here except to point to a recent anniversary of a tragic event].

It ties in with what I was saying before - evil people take pleasure in the suffering of others and, at bottom, that's not a selfish but an other-regarding act (though in a negative, destructive sense).

Truly selfish (neutral) people can be pretty disgusting, but they rarely start murderous crusades.

Having said that, a LN villain could well decide to destroy a whole planet for, say, a construction project or for a magical experiment. He takes no pleasure in the death of billions, it's just necessary. THAT is what makes such a villian so terrifying, that he isn't evil...

 

[Atticus_of_Amber]

I completely disagree with this. The "Paladin" villian you talk about in your campaign is clearly not LG if he is taking the actions you describe. He's attempting to ruin the reputation of a fellow Paladin over a petty feud they have. That is certainly not Good, and given that they are members of the same church, not very Lawful either.

In my games, Evil and Good are defined by actions, not beliefs. A man can believe he is the most wonderful and caring person in the world, when in fact he is one of the most vile and cruel people in existence. I also define Evil with selfishness. Evil, at the very base of it's being, cares for itself above and beyond other beings. This can have a variety of expressions, but the selfishness is always there at the core.

I don't believe in "the ends justify the means", as well, so I consider it a good act for you to refuse to murder someone to save a hundred others, and an evil act to do the opposite.

I'm not so sure this is evil, IMHO. If the paladins truly believe that each is a threat and or a disgrace to the order - and so long as they don't lie or cheat or murder, etc - I don't see this sort of ongoing fued as evil.

Of course, taking pleasure in your rival's downfall and lacking compassion for the "deluded fool" is perhaps the first step to evil. But feuding with arival is not.

For example, Sturm Brightblade and that stiff-necked senior Knuight of the Rose in the second Dragonlance novel really dispised each other (well, the stiff necked guy certaind dispised Sturm, nearly had him executed), but I'd say they were both LG.

(Though I'll confess that the stiff-necked knight (What was his name?) might have been LN...)

 

[Celtavian]

Re

Evil is as evil does. Evil is defined by actions in my campaign. An evil person is one who has done some evil act and no longer stands on the line of neutrality. They are evil and they do evil in the world.

I play with adult players. I have always played my villains truly evil. They have little regard for the enemy and they do not play games with the heroes.

For example, the pc party was captured by cyricists who had made a less potent version of the Cyrinishad. They were going to small towns in the Dales and making people look into it to drive them mad and make them worship Cyric. The cyricists were going to make the pc's gaze into it. One pc fighter kept babbling at the Cyricist head priest after being told to shut up a few times. This pc did not shut up. The head priest broke his jaw and two of his fighters pulled it open. Then the head priest cut his tongue out while he was alive.

I really don't believe evil should be sanitized or kind. Evil people are vile and often mad. Even when one studies true human examples of cruel, evil, mad people, you realize that some humans can carry out acts so evil and cruel that most humans can't even imagine them. That is how I like to play my villains.

About the only thing I don't like to deal with in my campaigns is violence towards children. It is far too difficult to graphically illustrate such an act even in my imagination. Harming a child in anyway is the worst crime a human being can do.

 

[Hand of Evil]

My Soapbox please...

A DM should define what evil is in their game, he/she should create a world view.

Just list them out for the players and say, this IS evil. This creates a benchmark for the DM and players to go by. Doing one or two items on the list every now and then does not make you evil per say but may make you neutral. Doing them everyday, does make you evil, doing a lot of them makes you very evil.

Something I noticed in the Monsternomicon for the Iron Kingdoms, they talk about a mark on the PC's soul. In the book it is a lessening of your shadow and a loss of protection from your god in the afterlife for dealing with the Infernal. I would love to find out more about this.

 

[Kyramus]

As much as I like 3rd edition, I rather have the detect evil of 2nd ed added into the 3rd edition version.

In 2nd edition, it calls for "Evil intentions".

In 3rd edition, it's just evil.

Gone were the days that a villian would pass by wanting lunch at a local establishment, and get jumped on by do gooders.

In my campaign, I have evil characters that the players want to defeat only to find that they are working for the greater good. So they back off. (hopefully until the end of the war only)

 

[Bryan Vining]

Evil is as evil does

Interesting topic, and one that is sure to stir up debate, eventually. If we don't watch it, it'll become one of those alignment discussions (yikes!)

Anyway, my personal view of evil in the real world and how I use evil in my campaigns are very different. To me, one of the central elements that makes an RPG interesting is the idea that one is battling evil. For that to be interesting to me, evil has to be something that exists somewhat apart from any individual, which is to say that I treat it like a force. Let's see now, that's two points I just made, so let me say more about them. First, there are those who enjoy running and playing RPGs in which evil is not a force and moral dilemmas abound. While this may more accurately model our reality, and I sometimes use this device, I still prefer to play a character who will be involved in stamping out something that threatens the quality of life for people. I mean, if I'm not playing a character whose purpose is to combat people and forces who make life suck for other people, then, IMO, I might as well play a barber. There are people who like that, and that's cool. But me... I find it boring. Second, making evil a strictly personal thing rather than a force brings in moral ambiguity. Now, that *can* be interesting to a point, but it removes a lot of the heroic aspect of an RPG for me. Why? Well, once you introduce this element, then the motives of any villian are somewhat understandable, and one could perhaps even feel some sympathy with the villian. While that is perhaps more true-to-life, it is, to me, pretty unrewarding. I don't want to go through the hell of defeating the machinations of a villian just to end up saying, "Poor guy." I want to feel good about what my character has done, without reservation. If good and evil aren't black and white, I don't get that satisfaction. That comes about for me because, in the real world, villians always have reasons for what they do, and we can almost always sympathize with them, even while we disagree with their choices. I don't want a carbon copy of that in my RPGs. Once you introduce that element into an RPG, it's no longer fantasy, it's a model of reality, and that isn't exciting to me.

 

[Umbran]

I completely disagree with this. The "Paladin" villian you talk about in your campaign is clearly not LG if he is taking the actions you describe. He's attempting to ruin the reputation of a fellow Paladin over a petty feud they have. That is certainly not Good, and given that they are members of the same church, not very Lawful either.

Well, I think it would depend on the specifics. If the NPC waits until the laws oftheir order apply, for example, he's not being unlawful. If he sincerely believes the PC to be a detriment to the order, he may well be Good as well.

So, if he waits until the PC commits some infraction, and then prosecutes that infraction to the fullest extent of the order's laws, the NPC is probably still in good shape.

To a certain extent the ends must be allowed to justify the means (in the game, of course), or no Paladin could ever pick up a sword. The usual justification that killing the orc prevents more killing would not be allowed.

 

[kengar]

In my campaign, "natural evil" or good, for that matter, do not exist. In other words, if you face a serial killer in combat, your protection vs Evil spell wouldn't work. Why ? Because I decide in my campaign that mortals have the right of choosing their path. Therefore, there is no absolute alignment for them.

Now supernatural evil does exist and can be detected, protected against, etc. Evil artefacts, outsiders, etc. can exist. Furthermore, clerics and divinely aligned mortals are also subject to "absolute alignment" effects even though they may not behave accordingly. In other words, a cleric of the god of war and destruction could be neutral and still be subject to a detect evil / prot from evil because the supernatural force he stands for is evil.

So the alignment of NPCs or PCs really is only an indication of behaviour.

Hear! Hear!

This is one of my pet peeves with the Detect _____ spells in 3e. IMCs, I have always played the Detect Evil will not tell you if some guy on the street is of Evil alignment. These spells only detect things like Outsiders, Undead, Magical Creatures (dragons), etc. NOT people or sentient beings. The only exceptions to that are people like clerics and paladins/blackguards. They have a "supernatural" connection with extraplanar Good or Evil.

I wrote a rant for my players once to aid in roleplaying and understanding how I view alignment in my games. I think I've even posted it before on these boards. But -what the heck- here it is again: (kinda long, IMHO, YMMV, etc.)

"Your character doesn't know their Alignment."

One of the things that causes a bit of head-shaking/scratching in D&D is "Alignment." The idea that a person or creature is definitively in a particular moral camp. This elf is Good, that orc is Evil, etc. What's more, there are even *kinds* of Good & Evil; "Chaotic" Good, "Neutral" Evil, etc. This can present problems in the realism department. It strains credibility sometimes that creatures and people are walking around with these "labels" hanging on the souls or auras or whatever; classifying them one way or the other.

Sometimes, as with Outsiders -demons, etc.- it makes sense that they fall into a particular category. It is a supernatural creature that is metaphysically aligned by definition one way or the other. People and sentient "natural" creatures, are a different issue.

A paladin is Lawful Good. Everyone knows that. If they don't act Lawful Good, they aren't paladins anymore and their horse won't talk to them, etc. Here's the thing; a paladin doesn't *know* he's "Lawful Good"; he knows he's RIGHT. He behaves according to the tenets of his faith and in harmony with the wishes of the divine forces that favor him. If he steps too far out of line, he loses that favor. The concept of "Lawful Good" is a player aid for understanding how to *roleplay* the character.

Likewise, a Neutral Evil assassin doesn't necessarily think of himself as "Evil." He obviously doesn't hold sentient life in high regard (other than perhaps his own), but he doesn't prance about humming Michael Jackson's "I'm Bad." Evil is about the ends, Good is about the means. Your typical assassin wants power and/or money. He's good at killing people and uses that skill towards his ends. That people have to die to further his goals doesn't bother him much. Better him than me, he thinks. He doesn't know he's Evil, he knows he's ahead of the game and that the other guy is cooling meat. Except in cases of the mentally ill, almost no one labels themselves "E-V-I-L." If an assassin started caring too much about the people he was killing, or feeling a great deal of remorse, he might well become an ineffective assassin and -in alignment terms- non-Evil.

"Good/Evil is as Good/Evil does"

Kobolds. You hate 'em, right? Hey, who doesn't? They're sneaky little scaly ugly critters that skulk around in the dark, steal whatever isn't nailed down, attack from ambush but run from a fair fight.They set up traps to skewer, crush, poison or otherwise mutilate you. They kill, they torture, they loot. They are B-A-D; horns to tails, scales to bones. Alignment in MM: Lawful Evil, right?

Wrong.

It says "Usually Lawful Evil." Same thing, right? Nope. It means that these little buggers are sentient creatures. Just like humans, elves, dwarves and so on. Typical Kobold culture/society is set up on a Lawful Evil model; i.e. the Strong rule the Weak. Order is essential for survival/success. No mercy to enemies, etc. etc. Not a nice place to live by our standards, but think about this:

Biggers. I hate 'em, don't you? 'Course you do! Huge, vicious loud giant spongy-looking brutes that come stomping into our nice quiet caves with their air-stealing, blinding fires. They'll try to pin you up against a wall and slaughter you where ya stand. We try to protect the nest, we dig deep, we post guards. The foolish biggers hardly even notice the "surprises" we leave for them until they've stepped in them. So Stupid! Sure we take from them what we can! But are we not the spawn of the great dragons? Does the noble blood of wyrms not flow in our veins? We are cunning, we are wise. We fight with our minds, not just our muscles. They come to foul and destroy the nest, to take the hoard! We fight for the glory of the nest, to protect the eggs and protect the hoard! Humans? Elves? Bah! The biggers are rotten to the core. Take it from me, they are BAD!

Now, that's a pretty simple profile of Kobold thinking. Not that most of them are mental giants or anything. However, in any situation where you're dealing with a group of individual minds, there are bound to be some that don't think like everyone else. I mean let's face it, adventurers have some pretty abnormal ideas about how to live/act/dress/behave by most folks' standards. Just as you can have a Chaotic Good drow and an Lawful Evil gnome, you might run across a Lawful Neutral or even Neutral Good Kobold. I mean, why not? They are smart enough to have tools, languages and spells for crying out loud, why not different morals?

Now, the life of a Good Kobold in an Evil Kobold tribe/nest would not be an easy one. The truth is, survival rates for such individuals would be low. But a Neutral or Lawful Neutral one could maybe get by. He might see the value of protecting the group and why it could be unwise to be soft on enemies, but he may also believe in a time for mercy, or kindness. He may feel that sometimes, just sometimes, it's better to save a life than to take it or let it end.

So, how do you know whether the kobold you're looking at is evil?

Well, if you are in the middle of a melee with the bugger, I doubt anyone will fault you for walloping it into paste. Even if combat hasn't started yet, having a little lizard-guy point a crossbow at you is justification for defending yourself with lethal force. So, in those cases, alignment is a secondary issue at best. Even a paladin would be on safe moral ground cutting a Good-aligned being in half if they attacked him in earnest (especially if the Paladin didn't know it was Good). So what about non-combat situations?

Well, as a DM, I work under the idea that "Evil is as Evil does." What this means is that the way to know if something or someone is "Evil" is by its actions. To assume alignment by species when dealing with sentient non-Outsiders, while statistically a fairly safe bet, is morally no different than racism. For instance, Gnomes and Goblinoids feelings about each other are a lot like the Palestinians and the Israelis; they've got a lot of history of bloodying each other up and when it comes to the feud between them, none of the hats are white to all eyes. I'm not saying that a Good character would necessarily be "breaking alignment" by killing a kobold just because it was a kobold, but consistently acting in that way might eventually cause an alignment shift that reflects the character's obviously limited regard for the value of life. This is, of course, the point of this rambling:

Your alignment is a guide for roleplaying, not something the character itself is aware of. Therefore it changes to fit the character if the character doesn't fit it.

thus endeth the rant.