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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1269968" data-attributes="member: 3146">Leaving aside the question of whether the medieval Christian church was actually good aligned as a whole (myself, I would maintain that it was nominally good aligned but had quite a number of neutral and evil members--even, at times, in positions of leadership), I don't think one can use the Crusades (against the saracens or against the Hussites, etc) as evidence that it's realistic to assert that 20-40% of any given community has committed crimes wothy of death under a [Good] set of laws.First, the Crusades against the Saracens were a matter of war between two civilizations. That does not necessarily imply that all of the enemy are evil any more than the hundred years war waged by the good folk of England <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> demonstrated that all the French are evil. (Although, I have other evidence to that effect <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />) In a war between nations--whether just or not--the enemy need not be evil to be lawfully and rightly slain.The persecution of various heresies falls under the same category for regional heresies. By and large, they were persecutions of one large community by others. (The Hussite community in Bohemia was certainly an independent community). Thus, even assuming the "heretics" were evil and that the church was right to attempt to destroy them, they don't demonstrate that 20-40% of a given community is evil but rather that enough of a community may be seduced by evil that the entire community needs to be destroyed.When one begins dealing with smaller heresies, it's significant to see how they were variously handled before assuming that they demonstrate that 20-40% (the default evil populations remember) of any given community is guilty of something deserving of death. AFAIK, most of those heretics were guilty of nothing more than heresy--no murder, child molestation, fraud, counterfeiting, etc--which makes them a far cry from your standard D&D cultist. Other than disagreeing with the church, there's little to indicate that the Lollards, Hussites, and even Arians or other heretics were generally evil aligned. In fact, there's a lot to indicate that, in D&D terms, many of them were good aligned. That's one of the reasons that their persecution is generally seen as a black spot on the church's history.And, furthermore, all of them were not put to death immediately (Luther, for instance, was tolerated for quite some time, was eventually excommunicated, and it was only after years and an appearance before the Emperor that he was finally sentenced. Other more minor heresies were dealt with by fines, teaching, etc. (Luther's opponent Tetzel, who IIRC was a leading defender of indulgences was shut up for what was eventually decided to be false teaching but was never executed). And, of course, suggesting that, at any given time, 20-40% of medieval Europeans were part of some officially condemned heresy stretches credibility just a wee bit.No, the crusades certainly won't justify the contention that all evilly aligned people deserve to die.Well, there certainly are a lot of death penalties there. However, as I pointed out in my first post, a lot of ancient justice systems  are too harsh for most gamers to accept as standards of what is actually [Good] in game. And second, they do actually have a few examples of things that are clearly considered wrong/evil but which don't draw the penalty of death:Clearly thought of as wrong/evil yet not deserving of death unless it happens three times.Admittedly these aren't obviously moral issues except 13 (hospitality was historically though of as a moral issue). No mention of death here though. And it doesn't seem reasonable to assume that all of these were on pain of death when he didn't specify--as one can see, he usually did.Not obviously moral here but clearly shows that there are penalties other than death.These look like moral issues (although one is of more significance than another). Neither of them are always death penalty offenses. (And I suspect that beaten with sticks was more common than death for letting an animal escape).This is often thought to be a moral issue and the high esteem line confirms it. However there's no mention of the death penalty for drunkards....One would think that asking a [Good] moral system to have offenses that were considered evil but were no a matter for the death penalty would be setting the bar rather low indeed. And it seems that nearly every system is able to make it over that bar. What does it say that the Detect+Smite code can't make it over a hurdle that allows the Crusades and the Maxims of Chingis Khan to pass by? It was after all the Crusades that gave us the maxim, "kill them all and God will know his own." (I believe it was a Sir Simon De Montfort in a crusade against a group of French heretics--maybe the Cathars). And it was a representative of the Mongols (Ghengis Khan) who said that happiness is to destroy one's enemies, see them driven before them and to ravage their women and children. So those aren't exactly leading candidates for finding [Good] codes. But even they pass a muster that Detect+Smite doesn't.I hope it's not being too presumptious to claim that it says that Detect+Smite is not a [Good] code. Based on the arguments I made a few posts ago, I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say that it's not even a neutral code. It's an evil one.</blockquote>

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