Using Poison Evil?

[jgsugden]

Perhaps someone should make a list of all of the changes required to remove alignment from DnD.

This is not a novel idea. People have tried before. The game is so heavily influenced by alignment that removing it causes incredible problems.

Instead of asking how it can be removed, you'd be better asking why such an incorporeal concept was added to the game in the first place? It serves a definite purpose. It gives definiton to the game's entities.

 

[Vaxalon]

I've seen quite a few games derailed when players left a session depressed because they killed the orc chief and all his warriors, but were forced to either slaughter the orc women and children or leave the widows and orphans to be picked off by neighboring monsters.

This is an important issue.

After having encountered this myself, I am resolved to avoid it in the future.

Either the females and young will be dangerous in and of themselves (such as dragons) or they will be off-stage for the adventure.

For example, if an orc horde invades, they will all be warriors; the brood females and pups will have been left home.

If a dungeon has a community of humanoids, the females will have escaped to a haven in another community of their kind before the opportunity arrives to slaughter them.

If the PC's encounter a whole city of enemies, then there will be enough power that killing all of them is impossible.

No more genocidal PC's. I'm through with that.

 

[Philip]

I see a lot of real world logic. That logic is meaningless.

Why are demons evil? Devils? Undead? Why? Because the books say so. Because someone determind that in D&D fantasy settings, certain things are evil regardless of circumstances.

I could accept that. But then, why doesn't the Cloudkill spell have the evil descriptor, or the Poison spell?

Why does the Book of Exalted Deeds come up with 'Ravages', which are essentially poisons with another name?

Even though I don't think using poison is inherently evil, I could accept it if the rule is applied consistently, but since it isn't, I feel kind of left in the dark.

 

[Apok]

The fact is, morality in DnD isn't shades of gray.

You are either evil, or not; good, or not. A couple of first level spells will tell you your status.

Not the way we play.

Granted, this all a matter of opinion; the WotC Rules Enforcement Squad isn't going to send their Rules Ninjas to your house if you don't play strictly by the book. However, the original point of the thread wasn't to determine weather or not poison is evil, but rather why it is construed as evil in D&D. I am simply stating my position.

We know what the rules say, but that's not what this thread is about.

 

[Apok]

Fine. But realize that you are using house rules to do so. The game is written with few 'shades of grey'. It is written with as much black and white as possible.

Indeed it is. That's why Rule 0 is the most important one in the game.

As for 'shades of grey' helping to attain some level of internal logical consistency, if carried to an extreme, you end up with the same problems that haunt many young authors that try to avoid the 'black and white' that most successful authors use: Everything that the protagonists do is ethically questionable and the players/readers never get a sense of satisfaction from doing/reading questionable triumphs. I've seen quite a few games derailed when players left a session depressed because they killed the orc chief and all his warriors, but were forced to either slaughter the orc women and children or leave the widows and orphans to be picked off by neighboring monsters. Fantasy settings where things are balck and white instead of 'shades of grey' often fall into easier logic than real world situations where there is no single right answer and a variety of answers that are different degrees of wrong.

As far as taking things to the extreme goes, I would hope that most DM's would have enough common sense to employ moderation. Sure, if everything the protagonists (read PC's) do is ethically questionable, then it becomes almost as unrealisitic as the pure Good v. Evil approach, but that's true of any extreme. It's also true that you can achieve a high level of logical consistency using black & white morality, but that doesn't necessarily make it better. That's just the tack the writers of D&D took when building the game, but it's not set in stone. It's all a question of what style of play you prefer, weather or not you want to use real world logic or game logic, the latter of which tends to sacrifice consistency in favor of game balance.

Many DMs really enjoy giving their PCs 'real world' shades of grey in the campaign. In my experience (24 years of pretty solid role playing with dozens of different groups), this often is far more enjoyable for the DM than the players. Players enjoy the sense of satisfaction from besting a truly vile foe. They feel less happy when their heroic character is forced to battle to the death with a champion that is only trying to protect his tribe from people with conflicting goals. This is not true of all players, but even those that profess that they enjoy the moral quandries have shown themselves to really enjoy kicking the butt of a great evil.

Of course, everybody likes to kick the butt of truly vile opponents, I agree 100%. But, like you said, not everyone likes their morality drawn in such clear lines. Some players do and others don't.

The best solution I've found is to provide a mix. Yes, there are truly evil SOB's out there that are irredeemably corrupt and need to be smited for the greater good of all, but I try to make such confrontations rare (true evil doesn't grow on trees, y'know? ). Most situations are alot more complicated than "those are the bad guys, we kill them and good triumphs" and that's the way I like to both play and DM.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If you feel a need to house rule it so that poison use is not evil, feel free. It is your game. But if you want to stick to core rules, you'll need to accept that they made poison use evil as a small foundation of the alignment system.

Is it stated in the Core Rules that use of poison is an evil act? Or only in the BoED?

-Hyp.

 

[Apok]

Is it stated in the Core Rules that use of poison is an evil act? Or only in the BoED?

-Hyp.

I think it's in the Core Rules, but of course I don't know exactly where and I don't have my books handy.

 

[swrushing]

From the SRD

"Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.
Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents."

From this i conclude poison is a dishonorab;e act, a violation perhaps of the lawful part of the code. It is not however an evil act. otherwise, it would not need be under the "additional" honor based list.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

And so they were.


Jeff

Sorry, I killfile liars.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

This is not a novel idea. People have tried before. The game is so heavily influenced by alignment that removing it causes incredible problems.

To you. I won't say and you alone, because I'm sure others have problems, but I play games where supernatural allignment is just that - the concern of outsiders and divine casters and no one else - and never had a single problem with it. In fact it makes the game a lot better when somebody doesn't think they can tell who their friends are and aren't without fail by using a first level paladin ability.

I wouldn't remove the supernatural component of it entirely, but applying it to mudane mortals and ethically grey areas like poison use is not neccassary for a good game of D&D.

And yeah, I'm still playing D&D, it sure ain't GURPS.

Kahuna Burger