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.

 

[jayoungr]

I think your thread title is a bit misleading. I came in here all prepared to answer "No" (or perhaps "Maybe, but who cares as long as you're having fun?"). But when I read the article, it seems like what you really want to ask is this:

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

 

[jayoungr]

Nobody talks about the Dungeon Master who says that they want simple, idealistic heroes... and throws morality traps into the game, has the lawful authorities and the common folk treat their "Shining Heroes" like hot garbage, and then expects the player characters to selflessly defend that status quo like the heroes they are.

Or where the player wants one thing and the DM wants another. If I may indulge by quoting myself from another thread...

I agree. To expand/riff on this, I think that when the paladin player is forced to ask "What is right?", there should be an answer to that question that both the GM and the player can feel good about.

For example, say you want to play a paladin because you want to feel like you're doing some good in life, even if it's only in your tabletop fantasy. If the GM throws an endless string of "trolley problems" at you, where the only question is "Which of these choices is less evil/destructive?" and none of them really makes you feel like you've actually done good, then that won't be a really successful game. It's challenging and nuanced, and by many standards, it's good storytelling. But you as the player aren't going to get what you wanted out of your paladin character.

On the other hand, if you're a GM who wants to present NPCs who can do good or bad things depending on the situation, and your paladin player classifies all of them as either "good" or "evil" while ignoring evidence to the contrary, and without any self-awareness of how reductive that is, you're going to feel like your work is wasted on at least one member of the party.

In the first case, the GM is withholding the answer to "What is good?" that the player wants to engage with. In the second case, the player is insisting on being the sole arbiter of what is good, and denying the GM's input.

 

[Umbran]

Do you mean Thor's first appearance in Thor 2 where he laughs off murdering someone that was not cowering to Asgard's control after spending an afternoon slaughtering others?

That's an interesting interpretation of the scene. Are you sure you didn't miss some of the context of it?

 

[jgsugden]

That's an interesting interpretation of the scene. Are you sure you didn't miss some of the context of it?

Ah, yes, context. Like the context that justifies murderhobo activities. "They'd just have murdered the nearby peasants eventually."

And, no. No significant missing context. Thor is sent to "undue the chaos" that Loki brought by destroying the Rainbow bridge - the tool the Asgardians needed to keep the 9 Realms under their control. He goes to Vanaheim to wage war and subject the people back under the "benevolent" control of Asgard. He flat out murders their champion - during a lull in the fighting - and laughs about it. He doesn't consider the champion a threat - he just executes him to frighten the other combatants into a full surrender.

This was an intentional decision - and is something Loki has just noted in the prior scene was what Asgard truly did. He asks: How is what he attempted to do on Earth different than what Odin and Thor have done for the 9 Realms? "They're well reminded of our strength", Odin comments to Thor afterwards. This is something revisited in Ragnarock by Hela who notes that Odin was once a bloodthirsty concqueror just like her.

Asgard was tyranny.

 

[Umbran]

He goes to Vanaheim to wage war and subject the people back under the "benevolent" control of Asgard.

Interestingly, the fact that Hogun's people had been under threat from the people that Thor was fighting is not present in your statement of the context. In that fight, Thor was fighting people who had decided to engage in violence already. That champion was not a farmer minding his own business.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Do you mean Thor's first appearance in Thor 2 where he laughs off murdering someone that was not cowering to Asgard's control after spending an afternoon slaughtering others? Or is this a veiled reference to him learning the lesson of always go for the head?

I have technically seen but literally no memory of the utterly forgettable second Thor movie. I'm talking about the pretty consistent character who appears in all the other movies. Pretty sure from the little I remember (which is more the trailers than the movie) that he wasn't committing genocide and also it may have been in the past? There were some like dark vortexes maybe? Natalie Portman I think? Failed attempts at comedy? Ragnarok blasted it from my mind as if it were never there.

EDIT - I am quite impressed some people do remember that movie because wow I surely do not. And that is really unusual for me. Normally I can scene-by-scene recount a movie if I think about it (usually I'll miss a couple but Dark World - I think it was called - that's like "Scene Deleted". I literally remember the trailer better than the movie.

Thor is, admittedly definitely Avenger you'd vote "Most likely to be seen in a D&D party" and not just because of his outfit/background, he certainly is the least reliable (100% has a Chaotic alignment) and has the lowest WIS score (definitely an 8). But change it to whichever Avenger you like if you feel Thor would slaughter "younglings" like he was Anakin Skywalker.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I'm not sure I've ever played in a game where the players were "Big Good". They've been employed by Good before, but mostly the epic plotlines have been more Everyone vs Oblivion. Others were mostly shades of grey games, if they weren't straight up murderhobo looting simulators.

But man, I'd love to play in a game where the entire party was filled with selfless people doing selfless things. Would be a nice change of pace.

 

[Oofta]

I don't want to go off too far into what is alignment territory but I do think there can be extremes of all alignments. I always kind of liked the old alignment chart (see below) where I would have described my first dwarf character as barely above the "good" line. He was not a paragon of virtue, even if he did usually try to do right. If there was a profit to be made at the same time, all the better.

 

[TheDelphian]

I primarily ignore alignment telling players write it down if you feel you need to but I'll tell you what your alignment is based on how you act and why if i can tell that. It has no mechanical effect in 5th ed and I don't add one.

I do however tel players I run Hero based campaigns. You don't have to be a nice guy but you do have to do good or the right things on a moral axis. At least in the big picture. Yeah the rogue can steal but not from the starving poor, They can loot and it is part of the game. All the Bad guys (Goblins, giants etc) that are suppose to be evil are unless I indicate through story or actions one may not be. So no "Gotcha" GMing that you killed the one LG Goblin in the tribe.

Now Killing the offspring that may or may not be evil yet well I like those moral complexities and let the players decide what they think is evil. I usually decide based on their reasoning did they do it to be expedient, maybe a little evil, did they wrestle with the dilemma or just kill them to kill them. I ill play into those decisions but mostly this is not, for me, intended to be an overly introspective game for everyone at the table some players are more into that and I try to give them chances to explore that but seldom is the entire table interested in that.

I have other games I run in other systems when that is the type of game I want to run. D&D can do that without changing a thing I just run more narrative styled games in more narrative styled systems. Right tool for the right job and all.

 

[Ath-kethin]

I don't necessarily care about a "good vs. evil" game or plot. But I vastly prefer my PCs to be "good." That so, they care about helping innocent people and showing compassion to the downtrodden.

I see nothing appealing about playing a character that has no regard for anyone but themself and/or enjoys furthering the goals of a colonialist empire.

Rereading the old Princess Ark series brings this kind of idea for he forefront; Haldemar is absolutely a colonialist and imperialist furthering the goals of an imperial power. He is not without compassion and not without morals, all of which makes him an interesting character, but it's a character type that works far better in fiction (or even a video game) than in a cooperative TTRPG.