D&D General Worlds of Design: Is Fighting Evil Passé?

When I started playing Dungeons & Dragons (1975) I had a clear idea of what I wanted to be and to do in the game: fight evil. As it happened, I also knew I wanted to be a magic user, though of course I branched out to other character classes, but I never deviated from the notion of fighting evil until I played some neutral characters, years after I started.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” Albert Einstein

To this day I think of the game as good guys against bad guys, with most of my characters (including the neutrals) on the good guy side. I want to be one of those characters who do something about evil. I recognize that many do not think and play this way, and that's more or less the topic of this column. Because it makes a big difference in a great deal that happens when you answer the question of whether the focus of the campaign is fighting evil.

In the early version of alignment, with only Law and Chaos, it was often Law (usually good) against Chaos (usually evil). I learned this form from Michael Moorcock's Elric novels before D&D, though I understand it originated in Pohl Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. That all went out the window when the Good and Evil axis was added to alignment. That's the axis I'm talking about today.

This is a "black and white" viewpoint, versus the in-between/neither/gray viewpoint so common today. But I like my games to be simple, and to be separate from reality. I don't like the "behave however you want as long as you don't get caught" philosophy.

Usually, a focus on fighting evil includes a focus on combat, though I can see where this would not necessarily be the case. Conversely, a focus on combat doesn't necessarily imply a focus on fighting evil. Insofar as RPGs grow out of popular fiction, we can ask how a focus on fighting evil compares with typical fiction.

In the distant past (often equated with "before 1980" in this case) the focus on fighting evil was much more common in science fiction and fantasy fiction than it is today, when heroes are in 50 shades of gray (see reference). Fighting evil, whether an individual, a gang, a cult, a movement, a nation, or an aggressive alien species, is the bedrock in much of our older science fiction and fantasy, much less so today.

Other kinds of focus?

If fighting evil isn't the focus, what is?

• In a "Game of Thrones" style campaign, the politics and wars of great families could provide a focus where good and evil hardly matter.
• "There's a war on" might be between two groups that aren't clearly good or evil (though each side individually might disagree).
• A politically-oriented campaign might be all about subterfuge, assassination, theft, and sabotage. There might be no big battles at all.
• A campaign could focus on exploration of newly-discovered territory. Or on a big mystery to solve. Or on hordes of refugees coming into the local area.

I'm sure there are many inventive alternatives to good vs evil, especially if you want a "grayer" campaign. I think a focus on good vs evil provides more shape to a RPG campaign than anything else. But there are other ways of providing shape. YMMV. If you have an unusual alternative, I hope you'll tell us about it.

 

[Fenris-77]

Wow. I feel like we just had this whole thread very recently. And it was exactly the same. Maybe the armchair moral reletavism will be more interesting the second time around. I love it when people descend down off their soapbox and take the time tell us plebs what to think. That's a whole semester of PHIL 101 I don't have to take. Plus all the time it take to translate that over to my gaming stuff. I learned my lesson though, you don't have to individually change every instance of CE in the MM to "irrelevant", you can just use find and replace.

 

[Oofta]

Wow. I feel like we just had this whole thread very recently. And it was exactly the same. Maybe the armchair moral reletavism will be more interesting the second time around. I love it when people descend down off their soapbox and take the time tell us plebs what to think. That's a whole semester of PHIL 101 I don't have to take. Plus all the time it take to translate that over to my gaming stuff. I learned my lesson though, you don't have to individually change every instance of CE in the MM to "irrelevant", you can just use find and replace.

Yeah, in the real world tribalism is a real thing. Labeling different people as "other" and then declaring that they are heathens or wrong somehow is a real thing. Groups of people are not good nor evil. On the other hand I do believe that individuals can be.

On the other hand I just don't think that necessarily applies to fictional creatures. But I should just go back to ignoring this, it always ends with the same old same old.

 

[Flamestrike]

You certainly can kill demons if you are in the abyss. Some extremely powerful demons can create an amulet to store their essence but that's rare.

Personally I'm okay with saying Jeffrey Dahmer was evil. There's no moral ambiguity to me. The guy kidnapped, tortured, killed and ate people because it's how he got his jollies. If you want to hide behind moral relativism that's fine. But do you seriously think Mr D was not evil?

If there's a monster who thinks and acts like Dahmer, then yes, they are also evil. No monster manual needed.

No I think Dahmer was evil indeed. Ditto Demons.

And if I were ever to encounter one in real life, and they tried anything violent towards me (or were just about to) I would react with reasonable force (including lethal force).

Im not saying I dont think they're evil. Im just saying that If i go around and start serial killing Dahmers and the like... what makes me any different to them?

 

[Flamestrike]

Yeah, in the real world tribalism is a real thing. Labeling different people as "other" and then declaring that they are heathens or wrong somehow is a real thing. Groups of people are not good nor evil. On the other hand I do believe that individuals can be.

You dont consider the Nazis (generally speaking) to be evil? What about the Sith from Star Wars?

Im sure there were good people caught up in the whole Nazi thing, and thus good individuals in there. But as a group, they were clearly evil, and any willing participant in the Genocide and similar naughty word was evil as well.

 

[Oofta]

No I think Dahmer was evil indeed. Ditto Demons.

And if I were ever to encounter one in real life, and they tried anything violent towards me (or were just about to) I would react with reasonable force (including lethal force).

Im not saying I dont think they're evil. Im just saying that If i go around and start serial killing Dahmers and the like... what makes me any different to them?

So we agree that some individuals are evil.

As to killing Dahmer, where do you draw the line? If he's about to kill you? A child? What if you know that he's about to kill someone in the near future and there is absolutely no other way to stop them?

Because in many cases adventurers often have no option. There is no internment camps, no jail. If they tell the monster to leave that just means the monster will hunt people somewhere else.

That and I have no problem that some monsters are just inherently evil psychopath murderers by nature.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The answer to the OP question is entirely subjective. Sure, good versus evil has been done quite a bit, so I can see how it would be labeled passé....but then most stories have been told in one form or another, so aren’t they all a little passé?

All it boils down to is what the group finds to be fun. If it’s fun for your group to play in a very good vs evil style game where thinks are black and white and you don’t really examine things beyond that....it’s fine. You’re intentionally keeping things simple. So in this game, the paladin slaughtering non-combatant orcs is no different than someone exterminating cockroaches. That’s fine.

But that doesn’t make it the “righ” way to play. If others want to go a bit deeper and use their game as a means to examine some tropes in a more complex way, that is also fine. For them, the act of killing is something that may take its toll, even if justified. So their paladin maybe a bit haunted. Or he may be an outright psychopath.

Again, it’s a matter of preference. All of it is fine, it all just depends on what you want out of the game.

What I don’t get is all the attempts to justify the simplistic view according to real world logic. “If Good Gods really existed and told me to slaughter babies, then I’d know I was doing good”.....really? Because I’d take it as your god isn’t all that good. I mean, magic exists and yet slaughter is still the most acceptable and preferable answer to problems? Okay.

It’s okay to just say “I like my game to be simple where the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad and we don’t think too much about it”. That’s perfectly fine. Don’t try and explain how this simple approach is actually just as complex as more nuanced views “because in the real world.....”

I’ve played and continue to play in simpme games like that. I also play in more morally complex games. And in games that contain some of both. It’s all fine....but folks should recognize which they are playing rather than claim it’s something else.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

In previous discussions it's regularly "but fiends are different". Why?

because Fiends are literally Evil given form.

 

[Oofta]

because Fiends are literally Evil given form.

So it's okay that some monsters are evil given form.

I may simply draw that line at a different place because wherever we draw the line about a fictional creature that does not and cannot exist (as far as we know) is always going to be arbitrary. I just happen to follow RAW on this one as a preference.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

So it's okay that some monsters are evil given form.

I may simply draw that line at a different place because wherever we draw the line about a fictional creature that does not and cannot exist (as far as we know) is always going to be arbitrary. I just happen to follow RAW on this one as a preference.

Understandable, just remember that other people may disagree or dislike your interpretation, which is perfectly valid, just as much as yours is.

 

[Oofta]

You dont consider the Nazis (generally speaking) to be evil? What about the Sith from Star Wars?

Im sure there were good people caught up in the whole Nazi thing, and thus good individuals in there. But as a group, they were clearly evil, and any willing participant in the Genocide and similar naughty word was evil as well.

I consider what the Nazi movement did in general as evil. But individual Nazis? Not inherently evil. Many became evil, others were just soldiers fighting for their homeland. Some committed evil acts based on what they were told and believed ... and yes there are major gray areas for some of them because they are human.

I would consider very few humans inherently evil. Heck, approximately 1% of people have antisocial personality disorder. The common term would be psychopath or sociopath. Roughly 35% of people in jail fall into this category. Effectively they have little or conscience.

But many people with antisocial personality disorder are still functional members of society even if they lack empathy or empathy. What they do and how they function, IMHO is what makes them evil.