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

[Jeff Wilder]

From Rich Burlew's "Order of the Stick" ongoing web-comic, strip 639:

Under your D&D's alignment system, was V's act evil? (If you don't play D&D, or use alignment, just answer using your best knowledge of "D&D morality.)

 

[DaveMage]

The act would have been treated as an evil one IMC.

 

[ExploderWizard]

What was V's act exactly?

 

[Flatus Maximus]

Under your D&D's alignment system, was V's act evil? (If you don't play D&D, or use alignment, just answer using your best knowledge of "D&D morality.)

Are we talking about the TV miniseries from the 80s?

Just kidding. Who's V?

 

[Tuft]

What was V's act exactly?

Just kidding. Who's V?

See this thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/252764-oots-639-a.html

 

[Quartz]

Nope. Not evil. A harsh but fair punishment. Remember that the dragon was going to soul bind V's children. V hasn't done that. What he's done isn't a nice thing, but it's not Evil.

 

[Cadfan]

If its morally acceptable to kill one dragon just 'cause its evil, its morally acceptable to kill lots.

That's why I'm not a big fan of alignment by species. The idea of inherent evil gets screwy really fast. And you can't make exceptions, even though they do, because if your exceptions exist because of anything other than divine intervention, the original version of the monster must not have been inherently evil in the first place.

 

[Gulla]

I voted "no" since I tend to subscribe (in D&D) to the "killing evil is good" and black dragons (like goblins, drow and orcs) are a vermin on D&D society that should be exterminated.

The spell OTOH would in my world be *Evil* in itself so that makes using it Evil as well. Difficult situation when you have to place morality into a world where good and evil are measurable quantities and not relative at all...

Håkon

 

[Blackrat]

Yes, in my mind that was evil. Contrary to what one might read from my post in the other thread, I do give my dragons some variety in my games. Therefore, in that alignment system, some of his victims might have actually been innocent, and killing innocents is evil IMO.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Abuse of power -- slaying those that have no chance to protest, robbing them of life based solely on your egomaniacal judgment, and disrespecting the concept of life in general -- is certainly Evil.

If its morally acceptable to kill one dragon just 'cause its evil, its morally acceptable to kill lots.

The "slippery slope" argument doesn't really hold up. If most D&D adventurers are more "practical neutral"/"unaligned," they can do the occasional wicked deed, and, more to the point, killing a dragon usually comes in the context of stopping it from killing the PC's, or stopping it from rampaging accross the countryside, or in some other way justifying its eradication. Murder for the sake of murder -- death for the sake of tormenting, for the sake of vengeance -- probably should be evil.

I play in some very morally ambiguous games, but this was not very morally ambiguous to me.