Tips On Being Evil

[Leatherhead]

I think the easiest summation of the difference between "good" and "evil" is the following: If you put the group ahead of yourself, you are good. If you put yourself ahead of the group, you are evil.

Looking out for yourself is neutral. Going out of your way to impede others is evil.

Of course, someone will argue with me on this.

 

[TheNovaLord]

I think the easiest summation of the difference between "good" and "evil" is the following: If you put the group ahead of yourself, you are good. If you put yourself ahead of the group, you are evil.

actually thats more the difference betwene law and chaos

 

[TheNovaLord]

IE: instead of a fight, you decide to play a game of cards with X

cos the stake is low, who wins a game of cards, i dont this is an important enough issue
Almost any of the 9 alignments could cheat at cards, or tweak the rules, or read an interpretation of the rules and not be in an alignment violation, and certainly not be seen to do anything evil

IMO, as stated, its all about how you view the life of other sentients

 

[Cor_Malek]

IMO, as stated, its all about how you view the life of other sentients

Um, that would make the forces of good adventurers consist of several girlfriends trying the whole RPG thingie, and maybe some groups playing exclusively campaigns against undead.

 

[TheNovaLord]

Um, that would make the forces of good adventurers consist of several girlfriends trying the whole RPG thingie, and maybe some groups playing exclusively campaigns against undead.

Why?

Lawful Good can take life,

id say its

why, how , when, where, what

you take life that is important in decidng whether its Evil or not.

 

[Diamond Cross]

So lying, breaking contracts and forcing someone to kill someone else are not being evil?

What lie? Everybody lies. There are soft lies and there are hard lies, but everybody lies. There is no such thing as a completely honest person. Lying is normal. A woman giving a man a white lie to not let him down on why she doesn't want to date him. People lie to get out of trouble. People deny things that happened but will never admit to it under any circumstances. Then there's gossip, which is also a bunch of lies being spread about a person. So, are all these people evil if lying is evil? If so then don't lie. However, it would not be a lie to say something like "I have no answer for you" or "I'm uncomfortable discussing this with you and do not wish to".

Breaking contracts? also a normal thing to do. But first you have to define a contract. If a contract is a legal document signed by two or more parties, then no, not everybody does this. If a contract is just a verbal agreement between two or more parties, then yes, everybody does this. For example, you agree with somebody to meet on Saturday to go archery shooting. Then some other friends get to you on Saturday and take you to the lake and you don't even tell the friend you went to the lake with other friends who asked you to go with them on Saturday. Therefore, you broke a contract. That kind of thing is normal and is something everybody does.

Define force. Force to me suggest something akin to having a firearm pointed at the back of one's head and forcing him or her which loved one dies first. So suggesting that someone take a certain action is not force, it is simply giving the person another option and not restricting the choices a person has.

So really, how is any of this kind of thing evil when the vast majority of it is what normal everyday people do?

 

[Cor_Malek]

Why?

Lawful Good can take life,

id say its

why, how , when, where, what

you take life that is important in decidng whether its Evil or not.

Yeah, right. While I do enjoy players that can be anything close to actual good... Well - they tend to think of themselves as neutral, or are vastly genre blind (hence the girlfriend). PC's go across the forest and notice five goblins eating around a fire.
"Oh, hello there, fellow sentient beings!" Yeah, right. Even if they don't attack themselves, they are going to slay them if goblins even think of defending their camp. Another example - there's an artefact guarded by hobgoblin tribe. The question won't be "should we really rob them of this possibly holy artefact?" but rather "so do we steal it all stealthy-like, or just kill anyone standing up to us?".

Fantasy is built around hyperboles, and one of them is "us goodies vs them uglies", one of oldest ways to make good people do bad things. Caring about sentient beings just doesn't enter FRP equation all that often, and even then, there are "good" characters disregarding life for very poor reasons. Actually giving two S's about sentients that look ugly is still considered somewhat edgy, which isn't all that strange, fantasy is pretty much built around that premise of ugly beings deserving death by sparkly blades.

It's like with the chain thread. It's a chain, of course it's here to be pulled, dude!.
Well of course we can kill those guys - they have fangs and st. And they attack us! After we marched into dungeon armed to teeth, trapping them since it's the only entrance.

Breaking those views is one of basic points of any story I try to tell, which doesn't mean I'm blind to the fact that it's not the norm, in fact far from it. The nature of evil is a reasonably known subject, it has been for years, but it's very... unsettling. And fantasy hyperbolic system of evil and good is far more reassuring, though again - it has nothing to do with caring about others, as we tend to turn empathy off for anything that looks different enough.

 

[Chainsaw]

I think the easiest summation of the difference between "good" and "evil" is the following: If you put the group ahead of yourself, you are good. If you put yourself ahead of the group, you are evil.

Not sure it's QUITE that simple.. what about kamikaze pilots or suicide bombers or a nazi soldier who sacrifices himself to guard a pass while the rest escape or something? Anyway, just saying..

 

[OSEZNO]

1. Save the princess.
- Have your way with her.

 

[Meatboy]

The difference between "good" and "evil" isn't subjective at least not in regards to DnD. Its what you ARE, an intangible aspect of being. You can't say oh good doesn't lie, kill or steal because there are always going to be examples that overcome the basic assumptions. Here are some examples of good guys doing evil things.... 1. [Lying] Party disguises themselves to enter the enemy stronghold. 2. [killing] ... well pretty much any time things get sticky swords come out in dnd... 3. [stealing] usually the end result of 2.
But really a paladin can slay some orcs to protect the town then take the chest of gold they have not because those are "good" acts but because he IS good.
We all need to remember that dnd isn't real life and so sometimes complex things get folded up into simple terms so that they can actually be used in a game.