YAAT Good is just passe?

[Patrick-S&S]

The suicide bombers of 9/11 are indeed considered heroes all over the muslim world. They have a very different view of the context of events that led to that day.

Uh... You might get flamed for that. Surely you mean amongst the fanatics, anti-americans and so on? Not the WHOLE muslim world. That is like saying 1.3+ billion people were celebrating... Including those muslims in the US.

edit: In the real world there are a lot of reluctant heroes that we could consider to be evil or at least corrupt. The same should go for any fantasy setting I would think.

 

[Henry]

Some Muslims don't consider mulsims in the U.S. "part of the Muslim world," however.

As for what makes Good "Good," sacrifice for the well-being of others is the most deciding hallmark. The example of someone devoting their lives to caring for a loved one who has become invalid, is an example of sacrifice, just as giving your live to assist those in trouble (a la the World Trade Center) is just another variant of sacrifice. You might find one more "heroic" than the other, but both are sacrifice.

Be mindful of not just sacrifice, but sacrifice for the well-being of others. For an example of sacrifice that still has elements of selfishness, see an example from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In it, a vampire named Spike refuses to talk under torture to reveal the name and location of an innocent girl. His reason is not for the concern of the innocent girl, but that the woman he loves could not bear it if anything happened to the girl (her sister, incidentally). It is a sacrifice out of love, but not necessarily unconditional love.

I do have to disagree with the poster who said that how you react AFTER being consumed by fear is what makes you good or evil. Self-preservation is not an evil act, but neither is it good. It is an amoral act, neither good nor evil, and to be halted by fear is a reaction of self-preservation. Label it neutral if you will, but it is most assuredly not good.

ARE there "good" characters anymore? I will play one from time to time. Last year, one of my characters was fully ready and willing to blow himself sky-high to destroy a vampire lord and his castle. Unfortunately, it didn't come to that, but was I ready to toss the character in the can heroically if it needed to be done. And he wasn't even Lawful Good, just Chaotic Good.

TSYR:
I myself don't really find fault with Snoweel's earlier "character" analogy, but I'll tell you why: For those who seek to leave as much metagaming behind as possible, and who wish to have characters to act as realistically and consistently as possible, it is totally well worth emulating the characteristics of those brave men and women who sacrificed all to help their fellow citizens in the World Trade Center.

That defining characteristic that says, "Take your every instinct of self-preservation that has been ingrained into you since Day One and set it aside, because there is something more important at stake here" -- that is the characteristic that if someone wants to be a HERO, they need to emulate. They had FAR MORE invested than time in a piddly character in a game, and they did it anyway. Rather than belittling the memory of these people, it says," Do you want to want to portray a REAL hero in this game? Look at this."

SNOWEEL:
I would advise you to take a look at plenty of examples of love and selflessness in the world every day. Here in the United States, for example, almost every single year, we have major disasters that wipe out people's homes, their livelihoods, and threaten their lives, and we have countless private citizens, of their own initiative, helping fellow countrymen, giving them shelters, food, clothing, donating time to help repair and save. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is the central core of aid, but they ALWAYS have huge help from the local populace any time an emergency threatens that local community.

They can be seen on CNN and such, but more visible on local news spots, helping dig through rubble in earthquakes, helping position sandbags against rising rivers, putting people up for extended stays, etc. etc. Back in 1996, when the Murrah Federal building as bombed, citizens turned out by hundreds to try to find survivors, help people get medical attention, etc. In the U.S. the outpouring of love and support and devotion of time and assistance is nothing new to us -- it's just that this is the first time that it outpoured to the extent that it did. The ENTIRE COUNTRY desired to give and help for this instance - and nobody showed it better than the people of New York.

It's hard to play true Good because it involves sacrifice. And sacrifice is often illogical - but that's good for you. Nobody ever said it was logical.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Positive meta-thinking is GOOD. Consider the old example of characters that exterminate and kill all who oppose them. For fear of retribution they even kill the ones that surrender to them. Now, if I was a player (which I am from time to time) I would spare as many as possible. Why?

-It's not like I won't have to fight if I spare them. If they don't come back to haunt me or seek revenge some other misguided monster will. In either case my fighting days are far from over. So why not let the DM have his fun?

That's what I mean with positive meta-gaming. I know the DM enjoys building characters as well I do so by killing (i.e. dstroying his work) I'm actually keeping the game back.

Good is the best alignment. What's the point of playing undecided? That's like being a referee in the world cup.

 

[Henry]

Re: "Hero"

I was always of the mind that the term "Hero" doesn't necessarily refer to one's virtue, or moral worth... Checking the entry for "hero" and "heroism" on dictionary.com, it appears that my suspicions were (at least partially) correct.

An act of heroism is the display of great courage, fortitude or strength. (More or less, I gather...)

A dictionary CAN be wrong.

Mike Tyson is the epitome (or was, if you look at his days back in the late 80's / early 90's) of fortitude and strength. For all intents and purposes, he is a gorilla in human form.

Is he a hero? Is he worth emulation?

Only if you are a reconstructive surgeon.

Courage is sometimes a category to gauge an actual hero on, but courage can stem from different sources, as stated earlier. I can be courageous in the face of gunfire if I am struggling to gain some sort of personal treasure, but it isn't particularly heroic.

Sacrifice for someone else's well-being tends to define heroism in my opinion. Good is to me defined by altruism; evil by sadism; and neutral ground by self-preservation (though that is not the only defininition of "neutrality" in D&D).

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Since we're discussing heroism now, it's worth noting that the idea of a hero is not constant. Heroes are people who embody our values--people worthy of emulation. They're people we honor (and, conversely, unheroic things are generally considered shameful and to be hidden). Consequently, our idea of a hero says a lot about who we are and what we value.

Consider the heroes of the Norse sagas. They were strong, they were bold, and they started killing men before they were 13 (in some cases).

Beowulf was similar but displayed a few differences. He was strong, tough, and courageous but he the poem spends almost as much time demonstrating his loyalty and generousity as his strength and courage.

19th century tales of King Arthur's knights portrayed them as strong, brave, and courteous.

All of these say a lot about the values of the societies that produced those works.

In short, a discussion about who real heroes are is really a discussion about what values are good and valid.

It's quite possible that what JXLC and Arcady have observed is actually the result of people getting comfortable with the idea that the prime values are personal comfort, safety, and affluence. If those are your highest ideals then the mercenary who demands money to save the village and doesn't risk his neck unless there's something in it for him is a hero. On the other hand, if you believe that heroes do their duty no matter what the cost and will climb into a burning building for a slight hope of saving one person at grave risk to themselves, such mercenaries will not look at all like heroes--rather they will look like cowards.

 

[kengar]

characters' perpectives on alignment

This is a little long. It's something I wrote for my players a while back that is not exactly but partially- related to this topic:

Just a few thoughts that had rattling around in my head. I thought I'd inflict- I mean, SHARE with people.

"Your character doesn't know their Alignment."

One of the things that causes a bit of head-shaking/scratching in D&D is "Alignment." The idea that a person or creature is definitively in a particular moral camp. This elf is Good, that orc is Evil, etc. What's more, there are even *kinds* of Good & Evil; "Chaotic" Good, "Neutral" Evil, etc. This can present problems in the realism department. It strains credibility sometimes that creatures and people are walking around with these "labels" hanging on the souls or auras or whatever; classifying them one way or the other.

Sometimes, as with Outsiders -demons, etc.- it makes sense that they fall into a particular category. It is a supernatural creature that is metaphysically aligned by definition one way or the other. People and sentient "natural" creatures, are a different issue.

A paladin is Lawful Good. Everyone knows that. If they don't act Lawful Good, they aren't paladins anymore and their horse won't talk to them, etc. Here's the thing; a paladin doesn't *know* he's "Lawful Good"; he knows he's RIGHT. He behaves according to the tenets of his faith and in harmony with the wishes of the divine forces that favor him. If he steps too far out of line, he loses that favor. The concept of "Lawful Good" is a player aid for understanding how to *roleplay* the character.

Likewise, a Neutral Evil assassin doesn't necessarily think of himself as "Evil." He obviously doesn't hold sentient life in high regard (other than perhaps his own), but he doesn't prance about humming Michael Jackson's "I'm Bad." Evil is about the ends, Good is about the means. Your typical assassin wants power and/or money. He's good at killing people and uses that skill towards his ends. That people have to die to further his goals doesn't bother him much. Better him than me, he thinks. He doesn't know he's Evil, he knows he's ahead of the game and that the other guy is cooling meat. Except in cases of the mentally ill, almost no one labels themselves "E-V-I-L." If an assassin started caring too much about the people he was killing, or feeling a great deal of remorse, he might well become an ineffective assassin and -in alignment terms- non-Evil.

"Good/Evil is as Good/Evil does"

Kobolds. You hate 'em, right? Hey, who doesn't? They're sneaky little scaly ugly critters that skulk around in the dark, steal whatever isn't nailed down, attack from ambush but run from a fair fight.They set up traps to skewer, crush, poison or otherwise mutilate you. They kill, they torture, they loot. They are B-A-D; horns to tails, scales to bones. Alignment in MM: Lawful Evil, right?

Wrong.

It says "Usually Lawful Evil." Same thing, right? Nope. It means that these little buggers are sentient creatures. Just like humans, elves, dwarves and so on. Typical Kobold culture/society is set up on a Lawful Evil model; i.e. the Strong rule the Weak. Order is essential for survival/success. No mercy to enemies, etc. etc. Not a nice place to live by our standards, but think about this:

Biggers. I hate 'em, don't you? 'Course you do! Huge, vicious loud giant spongy-looking brutes that come stomping into our nice quiet caves with their air-stealing, blinding fires. They'll try to pin you up against a wall and slaughter you where ya stand. We try to protect the nest, we dig deep, we post guards. The foolish biggers hardly even notice the "surprises" we leave for them off until they've stepped in them. So Stupid! Sure we take from them what we can! But are we not the spawn of the great dragons? Does the noble blood of wyrms not flow in our veins? We are cunning, we are wise. We fight with our minds, not just our muscles. They come to foul and destroy the nest, to take the hoard! We fight for the glory of the nest, to protect the eggs and protect the hoard! Humans? Elves? Bah! The biggers are rotten to the core. Take it from me, they are BAD!

Now, that's a pretty simple profile of Kobold thinking. Not that most of them are mental giants or anything. However, in any situation where you're dealing with a group of individual minds, there are bound to be some that don't think like everyone else. I mean let's face it, adventurers have some pretty abnormal ideas about how to live/act/dress/behave by most folks' standards. Just as you can have a Chaotic Good drow and an Lawful Evil gnome, you might run across a Lawful Neutral or even Neutral Good Kobold. I mean, why not? They are smart enough to have tools, languages and spells for crying out loud, why not different morals?

Now, the life of a Good Kobold in an Evil Kobold tribe/nest would not be an easy one. The truth is, survival rates for such individuals would be low. But a Neutral or Lawful Neutral one could maybe get by. He might see the value of protecting the group and why it could be unwise to be soft on enemies, but he may also believe in a time for mercy, or kindness. He may feel that sometimes, just sometimes, it's better to save a life than to take it or let it end.

So, how do you know whether the kobold you're looking at is evil?

Well, if you are in the middle of a melee with the bugger, I doubt anyone will fault you for walloping it into paste. Even if combat hasn't started yet, having a little lizard-guy point a crossbow at you is justification for defending yourself with lethal force. So, in those cases, alignment is a secondary issue at best. Even a paladin would be on safe moral ground cutting a Good-aligned being in half if they attacked him in earnest. So what about non-combat situations?

Well, as a DM, I work under the idea that "Evil is as Evil does." What this means is that the way to know if something or someone is "Evil" is by its actions. To assume alignment by species when dealing with sentient non-Outsiders, while statistically a fairly safe bet, is morally no different than racism. For instance, Gnomes and Goblinoids feelings about each other are a lot like the Palestinians and the Israelis; they've got a lot of history of bloodying each other up and when it comes to the feud between them, none of the hats are white to all eyes. I'm not saying that a Good character would necessarily be "breaking alignment" by killing a kobold just because it was a kobold, but consistently acting in that way might eventually cause an alignment shift that reflects the character's obviously limited regard for the value of life. This is, of course, the point of this rambling:

Your alignment is a guide for roleplaying, not something the character itself is aware of. Therefore it changes to fit the character if the character doesn't fit it.

End of ramble

Sorry if this is too OT

 

[Henry]

Your alignment is a guide for roleplaying, not something the character itself is aware of. Therefore it changes to fit the character if the character doesn't fit it.

Amen, Kengar.

It still begs the question of people playing good, and how do your reconcile good and evil and law and chaos to your players when they tell you that the paladin cutting down the frail old woman because she was possessed is a good act?

The only answer I can see is the DM setting down basic guidelines for his definition of good and evil at the beginning of the game. If the character violates that, then his or her alignment changes. Simple as that.

 

[JLXC]

Kengar, nice post. Yes alignments are not absolute. That's why I argue that Good is in the Actions, not the character. You may THINK you are a good person, but if you do nothing about bad things all the time, it's just your THINKING not reality.

Also, remember this IS A world different than our own. Good and Evil DO show up in alignment spells, and have actual physical and spiritual forces for them. Do not dismiss the idea that someone CAN know if someone else is good by looking into them with magic. That's what it's for. Yes in Real Life alignment is silly, luckily this is NOT real life. I CAN Detect Evil on the Kobolds and Know that my God is telling me that they are Evil if I am a Paladin. I can create a Ward of Magic that only targets EVIL or GOOD and guess what... they work. This means something.

Some of us in this world hate the concept of alignments because it is too limiting. That's fine. Some of us LIKE the concept of alignments in an imaginary game, like me for example.

Being Good is all about what you do. Being a HERO is culturally defined. There is a difference I know.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

It still begs the question of people playing good, and how do your reconcile good and evil and law and chaos to your players when they tell you that the paladin cutting down the frail old woman because she was possessed is a good act?

The only answer I can see is the DM setting down basic guidelines for his definition of good and evil at the beginning of the game. If the character violates that, then his or her alignment changes. Simple as that.

Isn't that just another form of DM megalomania? I would think that a dialogue between the players and DM about the nature of good and evil might be preferable. Simple guidelines leave a lot of wriggle-room. In your example, for instance, the player could say he was simply following his dictate to smite evil outsiders. Unless the DM SPECIFICALLY states at some point that compassion is more important than smiting evil, he's holding a character to rules the character doesn't know. After all, some DM's have a sadistic streak whereby they like to make traps for the players that they really can't escape. The whole mercy issue above can be deliberately used as a player trap. "If the paladin kills the surrendered necromancer, he breaks his code and I can strip him of his powers, but he knows that if he DOESN'T kill him now, he'll be an even bigger threat to the Halfling village. Foolish player! I will crush you under the weight of your own moral code! None can stand against the ALL-POWERFUL DM! BWA HA HA HA HA!"

I'm not saying that all DM's have abuse of power issues, but pretty often you find a twinkle in the eye of one who has a player squirming under a cleft stick.

 

[kengar]

Also, remember this IS A world different than our own. Good and Evil DO show up in alignment spells, and have actual physical and spiritual forces for them. Do not dismiss the idea that someone CAN know if someone else is good by looking into them with magic.

Actually, Detect Evil etc. won't show that a person or orc, etc. is Evil. Only outsiders, undead, evil divine spellcasters -like Clerics of Hextor- and so forth. There has to be a magical aspect to their alignment to have it register on a Detect spell.

Caveat: Except possibly the Know (Detect?) Alignment spell, which is a higher level spell. I don't have my books with me.