This may get a little philosophical... what is evil in DnD worlds?
One line of reason is that the gods dictate what evil is. The existence of gods is common knowledge in these realms, they bestow power upon their followers, some have seen them in person, they are known to meddle in the affairs of humanoid races, and others have been brought back from the dead with memory of them. If it is the case that it is the gods that dictate evil, how is this process done? Since there are many gods, is it like a democracy? Is it a matter of might is right, whichever god has the biggest stick and is willing to enforce it dictates what is evil and not? Are there wars waged amongst the gods who care about such things and are willing to enforce it?
Another line of reason is that evil is a source of power, like "negative energy" from Pathfinder, could be from a particular magical leyline, or from the Shadowfell. If evil is a source of power, why does it have a label with a heavy connotation and not something more reflective of it as a force like gravity or inertia?
Another line of reason is that evil relates to morality or ethics. If this is the case, what ethical system is it based upon? There are multiple ethical systems that have cogent reasoning in support of them, like Utilitarian or Virtue Ethics. Not that I am a moral relativist, but considering the existence of multiple well-reasoned ethical systems, what would determine what is evil and not?
Another line of reasoning is that evil is a popularity contest, and simply means what enough people believe it to be. When you think of the word "bird" what do you think of? What is included amongst the umbrella term is simply what enough people claimed is a bird, not necessarily what is objectively similar between them. Is this the same case with what evil is in DnD?
In short, what is evil? Dictations of some gods? Source of power? Ethically based? A popularity contest? Something else?
Hard to pinpoint. In my opinion it is something in between a kind of power/energy and an ethical concept. A mix of life, creation, altruism, tolerance on the good side vs. death, destruction, egoism, intolerance on the evil side. Both cannot exist without the other, and there is the neutral in between. Everything is tempered in the law and chaos axis on top of that. Gods are mere products of that overarching concept.
Hopefully this will be as short as it is in my head. To start, attaching good and evil to positive (divine) and negative (necrotic) energies is a fallacy. The deepest darkest evil character can still tap into Sacred Flame and vise versa with Chill Touch. Just because necrotic or shadow might seem like a path to attain easier power, would attract the kinds of characters that are just looking to take the shortest path without the regard to the long term affect it will have.
Next, good or bad, all the gods war and usually the most powerful/devious will come out on top and quell any uprising from lesser powers. They might color it as a honorable challenge or plan for a hundred years to assassinate each other, but "might is right" is definitely their rule of law.
Now down to my opinion of evil vs. good, this is mostly based on how it affects others. If you choose to cause harm for solely selfish reasons, then evil. If you choose to harm for protection or defense of yourself or others, then good. If you are a lord that oppresses the people for the betterment of the kingdom and safety of its people, but always keeping the people's best interests in mind, then good. If you are a lord in the same boat, but consider the peasants to be fodder for personal enjoyment instead of necessary sacrifice with no alternative, then evil. To me it all comes down to how a character views others and how willing they are to use them for personal gain.
The movie Hero with Jet Li represents this in one of the most perfect ways. The Emperor is a villain leaving a scar of destruction and death across all of China. At the end, Jet Li's character realizes that the Emperor is not seeking total domination and control for personal gain. He is ending endless centuries of bloodshed between warring states by seeking to unify all of China and its people for all time. It is the responsibility of the Emperor to look past the 10's of thousand's deaths in the short term with the knowledge that it will end bring a lasting peace for all of China.
Now, the Fire Lord from Avatar: The Last Airbender is seeking the same exact goal, but his intent is not to unify the lands for peace. It is solely to gain total power for himself and destroy all of the other nations.
Evil is what ever the most people believe it is. For a very long time sacrificing people was ok. Now you do it and you are a murder(evil). So evil is subjective.
Prior editions were big on Good and Evil, Law and Chaos, Positive Energy and Negative Energy all being tangible mechanical concepts. You can't touch such and such item without taking damage unless you "are evil," this class requires you to be "lawful good," positive energy heals the living and damages the undead, and negative energy vice versa, cast "Detect Good and Evil" and good people glow white and evil people glow red, entire planes of existence fall into arrangement based on their alignment with the metaphysical truths of these alignments...
But 5E is going through a bit of an adolescent phase, where some of those concepts are still true, while others are being dropped by the wayside. Detect Evil and Good detects magical creatures, not moralities. Paladins can be any alignment they wish, as can Barbarians and Monks, and theres no alignment restriction on Cleric domains or gods. Cure Wounds works on any creature unless the creature says otherwise, including Skeletons. In the Player's Handbook, the concept of Alignment is introduced as essentially being "personality," although the section then comes back around to qualify that statement by making it less true for monstrous humanoids, and completely untrue for outsiders.
Alignment
A typical creature in the game world has an alignment, which broadly describes its moral and personal attitudes. Alignment is a combination of two factors: one identifies morality (good, evil, or neutral), and the other describes attitudes toward society and order (lawful, chaotic, or neutral). Thus, nine distinct alignments define the possible combinations.
These brief summaries of the nine alignments describe the typical behavior of a creature with that alignment. Individuals might vary significantly from that typical behavior, and few people are perfectly and consistently faithful to the precepts of their alignment
...
Alignment in the Multiverse
For many thinking creatures, alignment is a moral choice. Humans, dwarves, elves, and other humanoid races can choose whether to follow the paths of good or evil, law or chaos. According to myth, the good-aligned gods who created these races gave them free will to choose their moral paths, knowing that good without free will is slavery.
The evil deities who created other races, though, made those races to serve them. Those races have strong inborn tendencies that match the nature of their gods. Most orcs share the violent, savage nature of the orc gods, and are thus inclined toward evil. Even if an orc chooses a good alignment, it struggles against its innate tendencies for its entire life. (Even half-orcs feel the lingering pull of the orc god’s influence.)
Alignment is an essential part of the nature of celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be lawful evil, and it doesn’t tend toward lawful evil, but rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil.
Most creatures that lack the capacity for rational thought do not have alignments — they are unaligned. Such a creature is incapable of making a moral or ethical choice and acts according to its bestial nature. Sharks are savage predators, for example, but they are not evil; they have no alignment.
There are still some items that care about Alignment (see e.g. Talisman of Pure Good. Some monsters interact with alignment (see e.g. Hollyphant). Some creatures have innate alignments which cannot be changed (fiends, celestials), (although recent published campaigns indicate that that isn't really the case when plots dictate otherwise). The Outer Planes still align (ha!) to certain Alignments, although their interaction with and relevance to mortal creatures and the decisions they make in life is somewhat more abstract now.
All in all, I think that in 5E the intent is still that Alignment is a real and tangible force, as real as a Strength score. But the writing, and class/spell design are moving in the opposite direction, towards Alignment being a function of personality and free will. I think in the future, this trend will continue, as writers and designers continue to embrace complex moral choices and robust multi-faceted characters instead of two-dimensional stereotypes.
What is good or evil is a question that can't be answered. What is good to you is not the same for me or someone else. Its all a matter of perspective. Alignment has all but been purged from DND. This is evidenced by Paladins no longer need to be LG. The few alignment spells have no mechanical effect based on alignment and instead are based on creature types.
I reject the 'Alignment is subjective' argument. It is far too often used as an excuse than as any actual argument. Societal definitions of what actions are Good and which Evil are constantly debated, but there are objective definitions that can be applied. Good is typically defined as 'providing the maximum overall benefits for all' and Evil as 'maximizing benefit to self at the expense of all others and all else.'
Different cultures and societies end up with different definitions because they perceive their situations to be different, combined with the issue that being truly 'Good' is really actually rather difficult (also why many players rail against it). It is far easier to scapegoat a perceived cause of your troubles than to actually find and accept an solution, or to accept that there may be no viable solution at all and learn to accept your situation as simply reality.
Toss in the fact that communication is imperfect, that no one has all the knowledge needed to make perfect decisions and the proverbial better decisions often require some level of self sacrifice and therefore tend to be tough sells, especially in the face of massive amounts of misinformation and rumour competing with such 'higher messages' and it becomes clear why there is evil in the world.
However this does not mean the attempt to better society is a lost cause. There has been progress over the course of history. Not everything tried has worked. Some solutions have caused more problems than they attempted to solve but nevertheless, there has been progress. That we can never have a perfect sense of what brings the most Good does not mean we have zero sense or that the effort has no value.
We are human, here on this planet Earth, and imperfect, however we can, and should, still always do our best.
I reject the notion that the individual acting in their own best interests even if it is counter to the group's interests is evil. Good and evil can't easily be defined since they essentially break down to Good=anything that furthers my own interests and Evil=anything that hinders/prevents my interests. This may sound like everyone is selfish but we all do things because we get something out of it. Everything we do is based on incentive/disincentive. The something isn't necessarily tangible it could simply be a good feeling. Like how when you volunteer for a charity you have a good feeling/accomplishment that you were able to help someone less fortunate.
Take theft for example. Lets say someone steals a loaf of bread from the shop keeper to feed his family. The thief views this as necessary for the "greater good" of his family. The shop keep doesn't know the motivations/reasons for the theft just that something was stolen from his shop that he runs to provide for his family. For him the theft is an evil act. So how can an act be both evil/good because they are not objective terms they are subjective based on perspective.
I reject the 'Alignment is subjective' argument. It is far too often used as an excuse than as any actual argument. Societal definitions of what actions are Good and which Evil are constantly debated, but there are objective definitions that can be applied. Good is typically defined as 'providing the maximum overall benefits for all' and Evil as 'maximizing benefit to self at the expense of all others and all else.'
Different cultures and societies end up with different definitions because they perceive their situations to be different, combined with the issue that being truly 'Good' is really actually rather difficult (also why many players rail against it). It is far easier to scapegoat a perceived cause of your troubles than to actually find and accept an solution, or to accept that there may be no viable solution at all and learn to accept your situation as simply reality.
Toss in the fact that communication is imperfect, that no one has all the knowledge needed to make perfect decisions and the proverbial better decisions often require some level of self sacrifice and therefore tend to be tough sells, especially in the face of massive amounts of misinformation and rumour competing with such 'higher messages' and it becomes clear why there is evil in the world.
However this does not mean the attempt to better society is a lost cause. There has been progress over the course of history. Not everything tried has worked. Some solutions have caused more problems than they attempted to solve but nevertheless, there has been progress. That we can never have a perfect sense of what brings the most Good does not mean we have zero sense or that the effort has no value.
We are human, here on this planet Earth, and imperfect, however we can, and should, still always do our best.
The difference between interpreting alignment as subjective vs. objective is really not the thing IMHO. The difference is, does one interpret Alignment as representing a character’s Ethics, or their Morals. Society has indeed defined “right and wrong” or “good and evil” ethically. An individual decides of those definitions are correct based on their morals.
So it’s not really a matter of Objective vs Subjective. The issue is a matter of if one interprets the character’s/creature’s alignment as described them based on an external societal view, which people think of as “objective,” even though that all depends on which society one uses as the baseline for their ethics. Or if instead one perceives alignment as representing that character’s personal concept of right and wrong, which people refer to as subjective.
As an example, in Germany during WWII, their societal Ethics dictated that certain people were “evil” based on ethnicity or religion, and that exterminating those “evil people” by any means necessary was the “ethical” thing to do. It was up to individual people to decide if their “morals,” their personal conscience, agreed with their societal ethics.
Another example, things we in America think of as perfect normal, like two-piece women’s bathing suits, makeup, and beer are considered absolutely evil in countries governed by Sharia Law based on their societal ethics. Does that make bikinis “evil?” Certainly not by our western ethics, but I’m sure that there are many in America that still find bikinis “immoral” if not “unethical.”
So, judging by your post you take the “Alignment = Ethics” as dictated by our present day IRL societal ethics. That’s a perfectly reasonable interpretation. But it is also equally reasonable for others to choose to interpret it as Alignment = Morals.
Morality is really a struggle to find the best set of guidelines for sentient beings to coexist with as little unrest as possible.
Therein lies the misconception I was trying to explain. “Ethics” is the “struggle to find the best set of guidelines for sentient beings to coexist with as little unrest as possible.” ”Morality” is ones own personal guideline as to if one agrees with society’s ethics.
So, my point was: It is a valid a position to say that alignment represents the character as viewed through that society’s ethics, how closely that individual follows what everyone around them agrees is “right” or “wrong.” It is also equally valid treat Alignment as a measure of that individual’s personal morality, their own conscience if you will.
Going back to my example of Nazi Germany, if someone followed their “moral alignment” and opposed the Nazis, they would have considered themselves “good” and the Nazis as “evil.” But when judged by that society as a whole, their “ethical alignment” would have been viewed as evil.
So, does one’s alignment represent how they are perceived by society, their “ethical alignment?” Or does it instead represent their own personal concept of right and wrong, their “moral alignment?” Every DM (in fact every player) is free to make that decision for themselves.
Considering this is a query about evil specifically in the DnD environment, getting into human morality and ethics seems more dodgy of a conversation. In the end, the GM is the only god that matters and their ideology of Good and Evil are what stands. Nazis were evil just as the Fire Nation in Avatar are evil, their goal is not a better way in the end, only selfish extermination with nothing else. Aztec ritual sacrifice, much like biblical sacrifice, may have began as a positive action hoping to enrich the 'land/people/add general prosperity' across the empire. It becomes evil if the people in power are using it with the intent of concentrating that power into themselves and not honoring the the ethical dictates of the actions. A beheading or heart removal on a living person is both good and evil depending on the institution and the societal influence. You all are discussing morality which is a personal choice and how that can be bent to assess good or evil, but these ideas are not "two sides of the same coin" as they try to equate it in a role playing game rule-set. Good and Evil are false equivalencies and not bound opposites. It is a fallacy to attempt to judge one as being more or less of the other. A single act can be both good and evil, co-existing within the identical framework of thought. It is this nuance that breaks most of these debates. Try to think less about how they are connected and more about what makes an apple an apple and what makes an orange an orange.
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IMHO, Earthdawn is still the best fantasy realm, Shadowrun is the best Sci-Fi realm, and Dark Sun is the best D&D realm.
When you stated, "It might actually be the best available choice for all.", is when it stopped being evil. It is not about benefiting self, it is about only benefiting self at the harm to others. Committing a selfish act is neither good nor evil, but how it affects others with your knowledge and intent is. I think it is why self-sacrifice is always placed as the greatest virtue because it is inherently placing others well-being above your own. Diminishing your own person sense of station and value to uplift another would fall under good no matter the surrounding cause, diminishing another to uplift your own personal sense of station and value would fall under evil...dependent on circumstance though.
This is that issue with evaluating actions against their counteractions and deriving false equivalencies about good and evil. Good always seems easy to identify: was there sacrifice without the foreknowledge of certain gain? GOOD. Evil has so much nuance that is up to the GM to figure out if the selfish motivation would be a malicious act on the environment of your world or if it is just neutral.
Neutral is all your gray area pushed into a giant sack with the letter N embroidered on the side. Practical joke=N, making the bad guy suffer a little more than they need to=N, giving a person with selfish tendencies their proper due in a way that might enrich you=N, Minor evil act , but you are generally not a bad person=N. It is the eas fix to fit every gray question in.
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IMHO, Earthdawn is still the best fantasy realm, Shadowrun is the best Sci-Fi realm, and Dark Sun is the best D&D realm.
Morality is really a struggle to find the best set of guidelines for sentient beings to coexist with as little unrest as possible.
Therein lies the misconception I was trying to explain. “Ethics” is the “struggle to find the best set of guidelines for sentient beings to coexist with as little unrest as possible.” ”Morality” is ones own personal guideline as to if one agrees with society’s ethics.
So, my point was: It is a valid a position to say that alignment represents the character as viewed through that society’s ethics, how closely that individual follows what everyone around them agrees is “right” or “wrong.” It is also equally valid treat Alignment as a measure of that individual’s personal morality, their own conscience if you will.
Going back to my example of Nazi Germany, if someone followed their “moral alignment” and opposed the Nazis, they would have considered themselves “good” and the Nazis as “evil.” But when judged by that society as a whole, their “ethical alignment” would have been viewed as evil.
So, does one’s alignment represent how they are perceived by society, their “ethical alignment?” Or does it instead represent their own personal concept of right and wrong, their “moral alignment?” Every DM (in fact every player) is free to make that decision for themselves.
However from any third party viewpoint including the viewpoint of a great many Germans of that time period, it is really difficult to make the case that the Nazis were anything other than evil. In North America during WWII, a great number of Japanese ex-patriots and people of Japanese descent had their property and freedom confiscated on the theory that 'they are all alike.' German ex-pats less so, but also minimum under suspicion. Are you really trying to make the case that the subjective views equalled an objective assessment? Or are you saying that everyone is a Nazi because the Nazis thought they were in the right?
Or are you just trying to get this thread shut down via Godwin? I do not understand what you are trying to say here.
In any given DM's world, does the DM have a right to define good and evil with respect to their world or not? If not, why not?
I used Nazi Germany as an example purely because it fit certain criteria:
Knowledge about that stain on human history is readily available and widely taught. Statistically speaking, you (or anyone else with internet access and the disposable income to afford a hobby like D&D), would be familiar with the example. That means I wouldn’t have to explain a more obscure reference to someone who might not have learned about it.
It is a perfect example to illustrate the difference between societal Ethics and personal Morals.
(Your example of the American internment of Japanese expatriates is another example that also fulfills those criteria.)
But let us not get hung up debating an example instead of discussing the point. The example has served its purpose.
The entire point I have been trying to get across is that “Ethics” and “Morality” are two very different things. The first is a societal metric of right and wrong, the later being a personal viewpoint on that same subject.
I am merely trying to get across the simple concept that it is certainly very possible that “goodness,” “neutrality,” and “evil” are not all measured using the same metric in all circumstances by all people. That the ethics of a society might say “X is good and Y is evil” and that the morals of an individual within that society might tell that individual the complete opposite is true. You yourself just illustrated my point when you wrote:
However from any third party viewpoint including the viewpoint of a great many Germans of that time period, it is really difficult to make the case that the Nazis were anything other than evil.
IMHO, the true evil was the fact that so many people knew morally that what was going on was wrong, and it still happened anyway. (That is an example of my own personal morality being used to determine the “alignment” of someone else. That is yet a third yardstick for measuring someone’s alignment.)
So, I again ask the question. Which metric do you feel WotC used to measure alignment in D&D:
By the Ethical standards of the society in which the character lives at that time? (Presuming the Forgotten Realms)
By that individual character’s personal moral compass.
By another completely different metric?
There is no incorrect answer here. When you personally see L/E or C/G on an character sheet, do you conceptualize that as representing that PC’s personal viewpoint, or does it represent how that PC’s actions are judged by society? Morals, or Ethics?
The reason I think that question is important is because whichever metric WotC used is more than likely the same metric that they expect their customers to use. But the very existence of this conversation we are proving that expectation to be flawed.
If you and I can not simply agree on a metric for the simple purpose of this conversation, how can we possibly agree on a metric for actual game use? And if you and I cannot agree, then how is everyone else supposed to? And if we all can not agree with each other, then it is mathematically impossible for all of us to agree with WotC.
It makes it hard to discuss something between us if we are approaching the topic from polar opposite perspectives. Here, maybe this link will explain what I am talking about better than I have been able to do:
Nazis were evil just as the Fire Nation in Avatar are evil, their goal is not a better way in the end, only selfish extermination with nothing else.
[sic]
According to Hitler’s writings and speeches, he legitimately thought he was doing a service to all humanity by “removing impurities from the human genome.” In his mind he would have seen his own actions as the ultimate expression of L/G. (We don’t have to actually debate the relative sanity of a meth addicted mass murderer.) By our standards, he would have been closer to the ultimate example of N/E. I am not attempting to debate the relative alignment Nazis. I am just want to know where I should stand to best view your thoughts. That’s my point.
Which perspective do you personally use at your D&D games? When drop a PC’s alignment on a metaphorical scale, do you look at it as how the NPCs in that setting view that PC, by how that PC views concepts of right and wrong, or by your own personal code? There is no wrong answer here.
This isn’t a debate folks, it’s a question. I am asking for clarification from youse all about your personal take on Alignment in D&D. I honestly don’t understand why people are arguing with me. I made a technical clarification about the difference between Ethics and Morals, and then I asked which one of the two y’all use at your D&D games. An inquiring mind wants to know.
So, I again ask the question. Which metric do you feel WotC used to measure alignment in D&D:
By the Ethical standards of the society in which the character lives at that time? (Presuming the Forgotten Realms)
By that individual character’s personal moral compass.
By another completely different metric?
There is no incorrect answer here. When you personally see L/E or C/G on an character sheet, do you conceptualize that as representing that PC’s personal viewpoint, or does it represent how that PC’s actions are judged by society? Morals, or Ethics
Objection, asked and answered: "By the moral compass of the DM for that campaign, their being the creator and ultimate judge of all actions in that world."
It is a lot less important in 5e than it was in earlier editions, due to a lot less alignment restricted content, however it still in theory affects how any given NPC individual or society reacts to any given action.
What is your alternative?
- The DM sets the ethical standards of every society of that time or of every time within their campaign.
- Using the character's moral compass would be any given character dictating how NPCs should react to them. Non-starter.
- For collaborative efforts, DM's involved would have discussions such as this to work out some generally accepted conceptual base.
Okay then, thank you. You went with the third option.
To answer your question:
- The DM sets the ethical standards of every society of that time or of every time within their campaign
That‘a the one I use, but I mostly only worry about the “present” and a few specific instances in the past that influenced current events in some significant way.
This may get a little philosophical... what is evil in DnD worlds?
One line of reason is that the gods dictate what evil is. The existence of gods is common knowledge in these realms, they bestow power upon their followers, some have seen them in person, they are known to meddle in the affairs of humanoid races, and others have been brought back from the dead with memory of them. If it is the case that it is the gods that dictate evil, how is this process done? Since there are many gods, is it like a democracy? Is it a matter of might is right, whichever god has the biggest stick and is willing to enforce it dictates what is evil and not? Are there wars waged amongst the gods who care about such things and are willing to enforce it?
Another line of reason is that evil is a source of power, like "negative energy" from Pathfinder, could be from a particular magical leyline, or from the Shadowfell. If evil is a source of power, why does it have a label with a heavy connotation and not something more reflective of it as a force like gravity or inertia?
Another line of reason is that evil relates to morality or ethics. If this is the case, what ethical system is it based upon? There are multiple ethical systems that have cogent reasoning in support of them, like Utilitarian or Virtue Ethics. Not that I am a moral relativist, but considering the existence of multiple well-reasoned ethical systems, what would determine what is evil and not?
Another line of reasoning is that evil is a popularity contest, and simply means what enough people believe it to be. When you think of the word "bird" what do you think of? What is included amongst the umbrella term is simply what enough people claimed is a bird, not necessarily what is objectively similar between them. Is this the same case with what evil is in DnD?
In short, what is evil? Dictations of some gods? Source of power? Ethically based? A popularity contest? Something else?
Hard to pinpoint. In my opinion it is something in between a kind of power/energy and an ethical concept. A mix of life, creation, altruism, tolerance on the good side vs. death, destruction, egoism, intolerance on the evil side. Both cannot exist without the other, and there is the neutral in between. Everything is tempered in the law and chaos axis on top of that. Gods are mere products of that overarching concept.
Hopefully this will be as short as it is in my head. To start, attaching good and evil to positive (divine) and negative (necrotic) energies is a fallacy. The deepest darkest evil character can still tap into Sacred Flame and vise versa with Chill Touch. Just because necrotic or shadow might seem like a path to attain easier power, would attract the kinds of characters that are just looking to take the shortest path without the regard to the long term affect it will have.
Next, good or bad, all the gods war and usually the most powerful/devious will come out on top and quell any uprising from lesser powers. They might color it as a honorable challenge or plan for a hundred years to assassinate each other, but "might is right" is definitely their rule of law.
Now down to my opinion of evil vs. good, this is mostly based on how it affects others. If you choose to cause harm for solely selfish reasons, then evil. If you choose to harm for protection or defense of yourself or others, then good. If you are a lord that oppresses the people for the betterment of the kingdom and safety of its people, but always keeping the people's best interests in mind, then good. If you are a lord in the same boat, but consider the peasants to be fodder for personal enjoyment instead of necessary sacrifice with no alternative, then evil. To me it all comes down to how a character views others and how willing they are to use them for personal gain.
The movie Hero with Jet Li represents this in one of the most perfect ways. The Emperor is a villain leaving a scar of destruction and death across all of China. At the end, Jet Li's character realizes that the Emperor is not seeking total domination and control for personal gain. He is ending endless centuries of bloodshed between warring states by seeking to unify all of China and its people for all time. It is the responsibility of the Emperor to look past the 10's of thousand's deaths in the short term with the knowledge that it will end bring a lasting peace for all of China.
Now, the Fire Lord from Avatar: The Last Airbender is seeking the same exact goal, but his intent is not to unify the lands for peace. It is solely to gain total power for himself and destroy all of the other nations.
IMHO, Earthdawn is still the best fantasy realm, Shadowrun is the best Sci-Fi realm, and Dark Sun is the best D&D realm.
Evil is what ever the most people believe it is. For a very long time sacrificing people was ok. Now you do it and you are a murder(evil). So evil is subjective.
Prior editions were big on Good and Evil, Law and Chaos, Positive Energy and Negative Energy all being tangible mechanical concepts. You can't touch such and such item without taking damage unless you "are evil," this class requires you to be "lawful good," positive energy heals the living and damages the undead, and negative energy vice versa, cast "Detect Good and Evil" and good people glow white and evil people glow red, entire planes of existence fall into arrangement based on their alignment with the metaphysical truths of these alignments...
But 5E is going through a bit of an adolescent phase, where some of those concepts are still true, while others are being dropped by the wayside. Detect Evil and Good detects magical creatures, not moralities. Paladins can be any alignment they wish, as can Barbarians and Monks, and theres no alignment restriction on Cleric domains or gods. Cure Wounds works on any creature unless the creature says otherwise, including Skeletons. In the Player's Handbook, the concept of Alignment is introduced as essentially being "personality," although the section then comes back around to qualify that statement by making it less true for monstrous humanoids, and completely untrue for outsiders.
There are still some items that care about Alignment (see e.g. Talisman of Pure Good. Some monsters interact with alignment (see e.g. Hollyphant). Some creatures have innate alignments which cannot be changed (fiends, celestials), (although recent published campaigns indicate that that isn't really the case when plots dictate otherwise). The Outer Planes still align (ha!) to certain Alignments, although their interaction with and relevance to mortal creatures and the decisions they make in life is somewhat more abstract now.
All in all, I think that in 5E the intent is still that Alignment is a real and tangible force, as real as a Strength score. But the writing, and class/spell design are moving in the opposite direction, towards Alignment being a function of personality and free will. I think in the future, this trend will continue, as writers and designers continue to embrace complex moral choices and robust multi-faceted characters instead of two-dimensional stereotypes.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
What is good or evil is a question that can't be answered. What is good to you is not the same for me or someone else. Its all a matter of perspective. Alignment has all but been purged from DND. This is evidenced by Paladins no longer need to be LG. The few alignment spells have no mechanical effect based on alignment and instead are based on creature types.
I reject the notion that the individual acting in their own best interests even if it is counter to the group's interests is evil. Good and evil can't easily be defined since they essentially break down to Good=anything that furthers my own interests and Evil=anything that hinders/prevents my interests. This may sound like everyone is selfish but we all do things because we get something out of it. Everything we do is based on incentive/disincentive. The something isn't necessarily tangible it could simply be a good feeling. Like how when you volunteer for a charity you have a good feeling/accomplishment that you were able to help someone less fortunate.
Take theft for example. Lets say someone steals a loaf of bread from the shop keeper to feed his family. The thief views this as necessary for the "greater good" of his family. The shop keep doesn't know the motivations/reasons for the theft just that something was stolen from his shop that he runs to provide for his family. For him the theft is an evil act. So how can an act be both evil/good because they are not objective terms they are subjective based on perspective.
The difference between interpreting alignment as subjective vs. objective is really not the thing IMHO. The difference is, does one interpret Alignment as representing a character’s Ethics, or their Morals. Society has indeed defined “right and wrong” or “good and evil” ethically. An individual decides of those definitions are correct based on their morals.
So it’s not really a matter of Objective vs Subjective. The issue is a matter of if one interprets the character’s/creature’s alignment as described them based on an external societal view, which people think of as “objective,” even though that all depends on which society one uses as the baseline for their ethics. Or if instead one perceives alignment as representing that character’s personal concept of right and wrong, which people refer to as subjective.
As an example, in Germany during WWII, their societal Ethics dictated that certain people were “evil” based on ethnicity or religion, and that exterminating those “evil people” by any means necessary was the “ethical” thing to do. It was up to individual people to decide if their “morals,” their personal conscience, agreed with their societal ethics.
Another example, things we in America think of as perfect normal, like two-piece women’s bathing suits, makeup, and beer are considered absolutely evil in countries governed by Sharia Law based on their societal ethics. Does that make bikinis “evil?” Certainly not by our western ethics, but I’m sure that there are many in America that still find bikinis “immoral” if not “unethical.”
So, judging by your post you take the “Alignment = Ethics” as dictated by our present day IRL societal ethics. That’s a perfectly reasonable interpretation. But it is also equally reasonable for others to choose to interpret it as Alignment = Morals.
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Therein lies the misconception I was trying to explain. “Ethics” is the “struggle to find the best set of guidelines for sentient beings to coexist with as little unrest as possible.” ”Morality” is ones own personal guideline as to if one agrees with society’s ethics.
So, my point was: It is a valid a position to say that alignment represents the character as viewed through that society’s ethics, how closely that individual follows what everyone around them agrees is “right” or “wrong.” It is also equally valid treat Alignment as a measure of that individual’s personal morality, their own conscience if you will.
Going back to my example of Nazi Germany, if someone followed their “moral alignment” and opposed the Nazis, they would have considered themselves “good” and the Nazis as “evil.” But when judged by that society as a whole, their “ethical alignment” would have been viewed as evil.
So, does one’s alignment represent how they are perceived by society, their “ethical alignment?” Or does it instead represent their own personal concept of right and wrong, their “moral alignment?” Every DM (in fact every player) is free to make that decision for themselves.
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Considering this is a query about evil specifically in the DnD environment, getting into human morality and ethics seems more dodgy of a conversation. In the end, the GM is the only god that matters and their ideology of Good and Evil are what stands. Nazis were evil just as the Fire Nation in Avatar are evil, their goal is not a better way in the end, only selfish extermination with nothing else. Aztec ritual sacrifice, much like biblical sacrifice, may have began as a positive action hoping to enrich the 'land/people/add general prosperity' across the empire. It becomes evil if the people in power are using it with the intent of concentrating that power into themselves and not honoring the the ethical dictates of the actions. A beheading or heart removal on a living person is both good and evil depending on the institution and the societal influence. You all are discussing morality which is a personal choice and how that can be bent to assess good or evil, but these ideas are not "two sides of the same coin" as they try to equate it in a role playing game rule-set. Good and Evil are false equivalencies and not bound opposites. It is a fallacy to attempt to judge one as being more or less of the other. A single act can be both good and evil, co-existing within the identical framework of thought. It is this nuance that breaks most of these debates. Try to think less about how they are connected and more about what makes an apple an apple and what makes an orange an orange.
IMHO, Earthdawn is still the best fantasy realm, Shadowrun is the best Sci-Fi realm, and Dark Sun is the best D&D realm.
When you stated, "It might actually be the best available choice for all.", is when it stopped being evil. It is not about benefiting self, it is about only benefiting self at the harm to others. Committing a selfish act is neither good nor evil, but how it affects others with your knowledge and intent is. I think it is why self-sacrifice is always placed as the greatest virtue because it is inherently placing others well-being above your own. Diminishing your own person sense of station and value to uplift another would fall under good no matter the surrounding cause, diminishing another to uplift your own personal sense of station and value would fall under evil...dependent on circumstance though.
This is that issue with evaluating actions against their counteractions and deriving false equivalencies about good and evil. Good always seems easy to identify: was there sacrifice without the foreknowledge of certain gain? GOOD. Evil has so much nuance that is up to the GM to figure out if the selfish motivation would be a malicious act on the environment of your world or if it is just neutral.
Neutral is all your gray area pushed into a giant sack with the letter N embroidered on the side. Practical joke=N, making the bad guy suffer a little more than they need to=N, giving a person with selfish tendencies their proper due in a way that might enrich you=N, Minor evil act , but you are generally not a bad person=N. It is the eas fix to fit every gray question in.
IMHO, Earthdawn is still the best fantasy realm, Shadowrun is the best Sci-Fi realm, and Dark Sun is the best D&D realm.
I used Nazi Germany as an example purely because it fit certain criteria:
(Your example of the American internment of Japanese expatriates is another example that also fulfills those criteria.)
But let us not get hung up debating an example instead of discussing the point. The example has served its purpose.
The entire point I have been trying to get across is that “Ethics” and “Morality” are two very different things. The first is a societal metric of right and wrong, the later being a personal viewpoint on that same subject.
I am merely trying to get across the simple concept that it is certainly very possible that “goodness,” “neutrality,” and “evil” are not all measured using the same metric in all circumstances by all people. That the ethics of a society might say “X is good and Y is evil” and that the morals of an individual within that society might tell that individual the complete opposite is true. You yourself just illustrated my point when you wrote:
IMHO, the true evil was the fact that so many people knew morally that what was going on was wrong, and it still happened anyway. (That is an example of my own personal morality being used to determine the “alignment” of someone else. That is yet a third yardstick for measuring someone’s alignment.)
So, I again ask the question. Which metric do you feel WotC used to measure alignment in D&D:
There is no incorrect answer here. When you personally see L/E or C/G on an character sheet, do you conceptualize that as representing that PC’s personal viewpoint, or does it represent how that PC’s actions are judged by society? Morals, or Ethics?
The reason I think that question is important is because whichever metric WotC used is more than likely the same metric that they expect their customers to use. But the very existence of this conversation we are proving that expectation to be flawed.
If you and I can not simply agree on a metric for the simple purpose of this conversation, how can we possibly agree on a metric for actual game use? And if you and I cannot agree, then how is everyone else supposed to? And if we all can not agree with each other, then it is mathematically impossible for all of us to agree with WotC.
It makes it hard to discuss something between us if we are approaching the topic from polar opposite perspectives. Here, maybe this link will explain what I am talking about better than I have been able to do:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/betterlifecoachingblog.com/2010/07/23/five-blind-men-and-an-elephant-a-story-about-perspective/amp/
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According to Hitler’s writings and speeches, he legitimately thought he was doing a service to all humanity by “removing impurities from the human genome.” In his mind he would have seen his own actions as the ultimate expression of L/G. (We don’t have to actually debate the relative sanity of a meth addicted mass murderer.) By our standards, he would have been closer to the ultimate example of N/E. I am not attempting to debate the relative alignment Nazis. I am just want to know where I should stand to best view your thoughts. That’s my point.
Which perspective do you personally use at your D&D games? When drop a PC’s alignment on a metaphorical scale, do you look at it as how the NPCs in that setting view that PC, by how that PC views concepts of right and wrong, or by your own personal code? There is no wrong answer here.
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This isn’t a debate folks, it’s a question. I am asking for clarification from youse all about your personal take on Alignment in D&D. I honestly don’t understand why people are arguing with me. I made a technical clarification about the difference between Ethics and Morals, and then I asked which one of the two y’all use at your D&D games. An inquiring mind wants to know.
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Okay then, thank you. You went with the third option.
To answer your question:
That‘a the one I use, but I mostly only worry about the “present” and a few specific instances in the past that influenced current events in some significant way.
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