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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9223981" data-attributes="member: 6877472">I mean, there have been infamous man killers in the animal kingdom.&nbsp; The Lions of Tsavo, for example.&nbsp; The African Cape Buffalo kills 200 humans a year.&nbsp; But nobody is going to call them &quot;evil&quot; by default (though an individual adventure could have animals influenced by evil).We have examples of undead who aren't necessarily evil, even in the MM.&nbsp; So it's not that undead = evil (though many are).&nbsp; It's that the act of animating something as an undead is evil, with very little room for debate, compared to all the other things in D&amp;D that should be equally &quot;evil&quot; but aren't strictly defined as such.This strikes me as an interesting distinction, much like how previous editions treated poison use, despite the existence of non-evil things that use poison.&nbsp; &quot;This thing, this is bad.&nbsp; These other things, we won't address, despite moral ambiguity&quot;.And again, sure, I get it, maybe D&amp;D is meant to be a heroic game about people who don't raise skeletons- but the option is there in the PHB.&nbsp; In fact, if it wasn't, and Animate Dead was in the DMG, I think people would complain, much the same way they complained when 4e said &quot;adventurers shouldn't be evil&quot; (though amusingly, Necromancers were eventually added to that game).Now maybe in 2024, WotC will take a stronger stand about mind control and gaslighting and summoning things from other planes or creating golems that might go berserk.&nbsp; I still won't like having absolute morals dictated, especially in light of how vestigial alignment itself has become, but at least it will be more consistent.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9223981, member: 6877472"] I mean, there have been infamous man killers in the animal kingdom. The Lions of Tsavo, for example. The African Cape Buffalo kills 200 humans a year. But nobody is going to call them "evil" by default (though an individual adventure could have animals influenced by evil). We have examples of undead who aren't necessarily evil, even in the MM. So it's not that undead = evil (though many are). It's that the act of animating something as an undead is evil, with very little room for debate, compared to all the other things in D&D that should be equally "evil" but aren't strictly defined as such. This strikes me as an interesting distinction, much like how previous editions treated poison use, despite the existence of non-evil things that use poison. "This thing, this is bad. These other things, we won't address, despite moral ambiguity". And again, sure, I get it, maybe D&D is meant to be a heroic game about people who don't raise skeletons- but the option is there in the PHB. In fact, if it wasn't, and Animate Dead was in the DMG, I think people would complain, much the same way they complained when 4e said "adventurers shouldn't be evil" (though amusingly, Necromancers were eventually added to that game). Now maybe in 2024, WotC will take a stronger stand about mind control and gaslighting and summoning things from other planes or creating golems that might go berserk. I still won't like having absolute morals dictated, especially in light of how vestigial alignment itself has become, but at least it will be more consistent. [/QUOTE]

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