Was V's act evil? (Probable spoilers!)

[hamishspence]

It was indiscriminate, targeting every relative, no matter how good or evil.

I think its like the difference between BoED and BoVD-

BoVD- reason killing a whole town of "evil people" is evil- because of the risk there might be a few non-evil people

BoED- reason killing a town of orcs is evil- because its attacking non-combatants, and because you need just cause- "being evil" is not enough.

 

[billd91]

I would like to point out this is not a case of indiscriminately killing, it is quite discriminatory in fact, by any definition of the word I have come across.

It is. Yet it isn't as well. Discriminatory means you are doing something based upon a particular criteria, in this case, familial relationship to the black dragon. But there are other criteria upon which you may discriminate and, if you consider them to be important (like, say, whether or not the creature actually deserves to be killed because of their previous behavior), then V's killing is indiscriminate.

 

[billd91]

This thread has taught me that most folks think there is a greater moral imperative to preserve the sanctity of your own soul than to save the lives of countless people.

Put one soul on one side of the balance, and an infinite number of lives on the other, and most folks here choose the soul.

1 soul > countless lives

1 innocent life > countless innocent lives

Makes for some interesting moral calculus.

Given the power (from whatever source) to kill all those evil black dragons, you guys are arguing that is it more good to use that power for the sole selfish purpose of just saving one's own family.

It's not that unusual actually. For one thing, we don't know how many innocent lives will be involved. The one person corrupted is certain. The countless innocent lives that may be lost by avoiding the corruption are uncertain. They may happen. They may never happen.

But morality outside of the show 24 has usually been about this. It's best to behave properly at the risk of someone else behaving improperly and causing injury. For one thing, that's what you can control.

 

[Drowbane]

Welcome to the Darkside.

Yes (but so is casting Animate Dead or :snicker: Deathwatch).

Familicide is (clearly, IMO) an [Evil] spell. Using evil tools for good is still an evil act.

Wiping out 64+ black dragons in one fell swoop (emphasis on fell) is ultra-shiny-good. Using ultimate evil to do it... gain some Darkside Points V!

Should this leave an indelible mark on V's soul that damns him for eternity? Naw... the Good gods should be doing the happy-dance that so many Evil creatures won't be threatening thier flock in the future.

edit: someone early on in the thread mentioned only one 1/2 Dragon... I counted 3. (platemail, 1/2 centaur, and red-robed caster)

 

[Vegepygmy]

This thread has taught me that most folks think there is a greater moral imperative to preserve the sanctity of your own soul than to save the lives of countless people.

I think your conclusion is flawed, and here's why: I'm not Good (as D&D uses the word). Nor are most folks in the real world.

Put one soul on one side of the balance, and an infinite number of lives on the other, and most folks here choose the soul.

I wouldn't choose the soul. I simply recognize that the choice I would make is Evil (as D&D uses the word).

Remember, most Evil creatures in the D&D game don't think of themselves or the things they do as "evil." (Neither do I, of course.) But alignment isn't subjective in D&D; it's objective. And what I think is the "greater moral imperative" in the hypothetical situation you posit is objectively Evil in D&D World.

 

[hamishspence]

deathwatch

Given there's a "Must be Good" class (healer) and Exalted Prestige Class (slayer) and several Good aligned clerics have been statted out with it in D&D sources, I treat the Evil descriptor on it as a bug- since a slayer would Fall for casting it- and having it on PRC spell list is just silly, if it really is evil.

(since its multiple sources, I remove descriptor, rather than removing the spell from the class lists)

 

[Vegepygmy]

What I find interesting is that I think if V had killed every one of those dragons individually, during the course of adventuring (and remember that "adventuring" means "invading their home for the express purpose of killing them for XP and taking their treasure"), no one here would be saying that was an evil act.

Wanna bet?

I would say invading a creature's home for the express purpose of killing them and taking their treasure (XP is a metagame concept and could not motivate a PC to act, IMO) is Evil, no doubt about it.

 

[pawsplay]

I'd call it slightly evil, simply because it has a collateral effect on some dragons that are not guilty of any specific effect. However, since it mostly kills evil dragons, it is something a neutral character might do. Also, she does imply she wants to make sure there are no relatives left to try to avenge the dragon against her family. So, not likely to cause an alignment shift to evil, but still not okay.

Btw, I love the fact that a half-dragon centaur appears in that picture. Ha!

 

[jeffh]

How is this even remotely controversial? S/he GLEEFULLY slaughters 60-odd sentient creatures s/he has no way of knowing are evil or up to anything particularly harmful FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN TO MAKE ONE OF THEM SUFFER. If that kind of remorseless cruelty isn't evil I don't know what is.

To some of the counterarguments being made:

• "Turnabout is fair play" has never, to the best of my knowledge, been a principle of D&D's moral system nor of any credible real-world one.
• I'm mostly a consequentialist philosophically, but in this case the utilitarian argument assumes way too many facts that are simply not in evidence.
• Even if the utilitarian argument is correct and we should approve of the consequences of what V did (something for which we have, at best, circumstantial evidence), we still shouldn't approve of what this action implies about V's character. D&D alignment is concerned with the latter, not the former.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

In D&D, everyone's moral code and values falls into one of nine basic categories. The real world is infinitely more complex than that.

Morality in the real world is more complex, but not because of the number of alignments. The alignment grid in D&D covers everybody. If you extrapolate it to the real world, it covers everybody.

The complexity arises not from the fact that some people don't fit in the alignment grid (how is that possible, when the alignment grid covers all possible standards of ethics and morality?), but rather how you do the sorting.