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I've been thinking lately... With all the topics about 'where is evil' and 'criminal RP on amia', added with both of them mentioning a large amount of goody characters almost everywhere.

What actually -defines- Good? What -defines- Evil?
What is an act of Good?
An act of Evil?
What sort of behaviour dictates each of these?

A lot of characters I see who are good, are extremely nice. Those who are evil, complete assholes in every sense of the word. I don't understand why, because personally I don't define 'good' with 'nice' or 'evil' with 'jerk'. Added on that a lot of the people in the Criminal thread were talking about how all Criminal's were Evil. I don't see crime as an act of 'evil', either. Merely selfishness, looking to further ones self with disregard to others. While it most definately isn't good, I wouldn't define it as evil.

I'm curious as to all of Amia's players thought on the matter. What -defines- Good and Evil? as a good/evil character player, what things do you do to represent what they are? I'm curious if any of these characters actually have any evil / good about them, as well. I don't see how any character could be 'all good' or 'all evil', well except Paladins. >_>

Edit; I left out some stuff but I'll post more when I get back from work.

Oh Gods in green heavens, another one of these threads.

It's a huge philosophical premise that's more assumed than assured and when you reduce it logically to a certain end, you get that they are both the same thing.

But for FR specifically, I find it easier to look at the two as this:

Good: Empathy
Evil: Selfishness

There are dozens of discussions about this topic. Read those first.

Yes. Let's please not go here.

I'll answer anyway, though:

Good actions and good objects are something that partake in the metaphysical energy of Good.
Evil actions and evil objects are something that partake in the metaphysical energy of Evil.

The ethics of Faerûnian people should not be confused with this issue. It just so happens that the distribution of these energies roughly coincides with general opinions on ethics, but the two couldn't be apriorically linked.

As for what kind of actions are actually good and evil in practice? That's completely up to you and the DM you're dealing with. I am sure every player and every DM has a different view on this, and it's only counter-productive to creativity to try to define it. Too much emphasis on alignment distracts from story and character developement.

Good and evil is less relevant than dogma, especially divine classes.

And more importantly, less relevant than what you and your culture think is right and wrong. Your values, goals and norms affect you much more than some metaphysical principles that are probably pretty unknown to the common man.

like racism is perfectly acceptable in a world with well defined evil beings

What's evil?
Women are evil.
They only hear half of what you say (and those are only the parts they want to hear), and twist most of what they hear to for their own evil intentions.

But they smell so good, and they're so soft, and warm...

hendrack wrote:

Good and evil is less relevant than dogma, especially divine classes.

Good and Evil and LAw and Chaos are actually most relevant to the Divine classes, since if you are say a Good caster, you cannot cast any divine spell with the Evil descriptor, and vice versa and as well for Law and Chaos.

If you want a list of Evil Acts, check the Book of Vile Darkness.

jimbono1 wrote:

If you want a list of Evil Acts, check the Book of Vile Darkness.

Stuff like that is really up to the player (primarily) and DM (ultimately) to interpret and implement, though. If we were to use every D&D source published by TSR and WotC to build a consistent system of Good and Evil, it would be 1) inconsistent, 2) stupid and 3) limiting the creativity of players. Use it as a guideline if you feel you need it, but I wouldn't put much weight on it.

People get to choose whether Lying and murdering is Evil? Awesome! I'll keep that in mind.

What is with the obsession with defining these words OOCly? Find some characters, chat about it, and go from there. Because the OOC side of what is Evil/Good is so far removed from the IC side of it anyway. And that's the DMs burden to worry about, not ours! (And it's definitely a burden when you're talking about OOC!)

Do it IC. (I'm so bragging about myself right now.) Here are some options, and some ideas of where to start:

viewtopic.php?f=80&t=51716

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=44389

viewtopic.php?f=66&t=51757

viewtopic.php?f=58&t=51331

jimbono1 wrote:

People get to choose whether Lying and murdering is Evil? Awesome! I'll keep that in mind.

Dude. It's a game in an imaginary world full of imaginary people with imaginary ethics. Who do you think creates the imaginary reality of the game if not the people who play and run it? Is there maybe a Role-Play Fairy who tells us what's right and wrong in a game of pretend? :roll:

If you're going to be sarcastic, at least think it through.

When I say it's primarily the job of the players and ultimately the job of the DM, that means that player creativity gives shape and substance to themes in the story while DM judgement limits and directs it as appropriate. The game designers are outsiders and probably not as well-educated and intelligent as many of our players and DMs. Why should their opinion hold any more weight than anyone else's?

But it boils down to what Estara said: it's certainly not our job to discuss imaginary right and wrong OOC. It's not helpful or interesting, it's actually quite harmful to RP. It's our job to make our interpretations real in the game world.

List of some spells which are evil:

Blasphemy, Contagion, Curse, Deathwatch, Desecrate, Eyebite, Unhallow, Nightmare, Prot from Good/Circle Against good, Unholy Aura, Unholy Blight, Symbol of Pain.

List of some spells which are good:

Bless water, Consecrate, Dispel Evil, Hallow, Holy Aura, Holy Smite, Holy Sword, Holy word, Magic vs evil, prot vs evil.

Last edited by IronAngel on Tue, Nov 09 2010, 21:54 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Yes. There are spells (just like there are creatures and objects) which are apriorically evil, because they simply partake in the energy of Evil. How they're used is irrelevant; they're evil because of their relation to Evil. That's a key point in understanding why ethics and human sense of right and wrong is ultimately unconnected to (though certainly correlates with) the energies of Good and Evil. It might not be wrong or frowned upon to use an Evil spell to do the right thing, and you certainly wouldn't be praised for committing crimes with a Good spell, but the alignment of the spell itself remains the same. Nobody would argue IC that saving the word with a Protection From Good was vile, or that using Holy Sword to buthcer innocents was saintly, and yet those spells are Evil and Good respectively, no matter their use.

There's a relevant distinction to make, though: object X, and utilizing object X, are two different things. If Spell A is Evil, it does not logically follow that casting Spell A is also Evil. Of course, this is probably the case in most situations and I'm not commenting on any actual specifis. I'm just pointing out the logical invalidity of such a conclusion. Also, it depends entirely on what's the scope we're evaluating: do we evaluate the moment of casting the spell, the immediate context, the larger context of a consistent plan to achieve an end, or maybe the peron's entire life? Because we can arbitrarily choose how close or far we're looking at something when we call it Good or Evil, it follows that there is a mixture of Good and Evil in most things and the final label is chosen based on which side is more prevalent.

Disclaimer: contrary to popular belief, I am not an advocate of "whatever you feel like" in RP, and I take my PCs' ethics very seriously. In all likelyhood, my ideas of good and evil, right and wrong in the game world are roughly the same as the public opinion. I do not, however, approve of the invalid arguments and blind bias with which people too often defend their interpretations.

Can of worms, Jack. Have fun with that.

I'll just say this, though: the true nature of good and evil is defined only by what is thematically appropriate for the story, or, if you want to go this far, the meaning or message of the story. All of the myriad viewpoints of good and evil are valid because the concepts themselves are distractions.

I am not arguing moral relativism here. I am arguing the superiority of the artist over the details.

Traditional DnD positions good and evil not merely as abstractions, but to an extent active and concrete forces in the world. Which can sometimes be personified, or even quantified in terms of energy.

Amia is a setting that, in my opinion, has the ability to give traditional DnD the finger if it wants to. My ideal or dream is that the definitions of good and evil for the setting change depending upon what story is being told, but you all value consistency so much...and I think I know why, I don't begrudge anybody that, but it isn't how I think, and it is one of those things I have to think about often since I am a storyteller here.

Yossarin wrote:

Amia is a setting that, in my opinion, has the ability to give traditional DnD the finger if it wants to. My ideal or dream is that the definitions of good and evil for the setting change depending upon what story is being told, but you all value consistency so much...and I think I know why, I don't begrudge anybody that, but it isn't how I think, and it is one of those things I have to think about often since I am a storyteller here.

Hooray. In this, in fact, I dismiss consistency. Not in that I would approve of inconsistent explanations! If you try to present an overarching theory on the substance of alignments, I'll tear it apart. However, I think it's appropriate and completely consistent to say that the contents of Good and Evil are defined and redefined by player imagination and DM judgement or, if you will, The Story. If you assume there's consistent contents to Good and Evil, you're bound to run into inconsistencies since different players and different DMs will certainly portray these things differently. So it seems the only option you'd have is to ignore their existance because they "play wrong." But if you truly want to be consistent, you need to accept that the contents of Good and Evil vary on a metalevel based on who you're dealing with and what the situation is.

So in this I actually trump you, Yossarin: inconsistency is consistent!

Honestly, when you introduce the somewhat linier definitions of Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic to the Good and Evil debate it does become far easier to define. Considering that, in the context of representing our character acurately, these three definitions present preconcieved notions that must be adhered to this is a debate that is probably healthy to ressurect every now and then; more so because of the OOC alterations Disco's recent announcemnt re PG13 has made to the game world.

For me, good and evil are concept my main character doesn't reallly have to worry too much about. They are both there, the character interacts happily with each and make any moral and ethical decisions based on the specific context.

For Divine based PCs(be it actual character class or PC history) then what Good and Evil actually are should be a simple matter of comparing actions to dogma. If the dogma says it's evil, it's evil. If the character doesn't agree, they should be having a crisis of faith.

The important thing to remove is an arbitrary notion of what it is to be good and what it is to be evil. That ball sits firmly in the court of the DMs and they can serve it out to us as they, or or the dogmas of the setting see fit.

If you can remove your 'real life' notions of ethics and morality from your 'in game' notions of good and evil then you're on the right track. We're sitting in the cave watching the shadows on the wall here, the tricky thing is we know the shadows are shadows and have to try and forget it.

EDIT: Damnit Yoss why so you ALWAYS have to say it better...

Yay, Iron, you know how much I yearn for your approval!

I don't want to get into another long debate with Iron about the exact nature of good and evil (actually, I do because they're fun and we usually agree, but I don't want to litter the boards with said debate). To paraphrase the PHB, good and evil are the forces that drive the universe.

Whether an action or object is good or evil depends on how much it affects this cosmic balance - is saving a child's life good? What if said child was secretly a super-evil being? Is the act now evil, despite its good intentions? I don't actually want an answer to this, just something to think on.

There is no way to divide the world into two and say "This is universally good" and "This is universally bad".

Yurell wrote:

I don't want to get into another long debate with Iron about the exact nature of good and evil (actually, I do because they're fun and we usually agree, but I don't want to litter the boards with said debate). To paraphrase the PHB, good and evil are the forces that drive the universe.

Whether an action or object is good or evil depends on how much it affects this cosmic balance - is saving a child's life good? What if said child was secretly a super-evil being? Is the act now evil, despite its good intentions? I don't actually want an answer to this, just something to think on.

There is no way to divide the world into two and say "This is universally good" and "This is universally bad".

One of the ways, in my opinion, to describe 'good and evil', and in light of your example, is to let 'good and evil' be defined based upon an individual's knowledge of things in general. 'Good and evil' are sometimes a product of society's view on certain things. Look at ancient times and modern times. Stoning someone was once acceptable as a form of punishment, now it would be illegal and/or 'unjust'. (Yes, I know there are other forms of killing as a criminal sentence, but -I think- the general rule of thumb is that they should still be as 'humane' as possible [ie death should come quick]). Or something.

Yurell wrote:

There is no way to divide the world into two and say "This is universally good" and "This is universally bad".

Actually, in D&D there is. Whatever the DM says is evil, is evil. Whatever the DM says is good, is good. That controls what is universally anything and really is all we, as players, need to know.

To go past that point, in my opinion, is purely an exercise in futility unless we all happened to be DM's and trying to come to a unified point so as to avoid confusion among our players.

ainjyll wrote:

Yurell wrote:

There is no way to divide the world into two and say "This is universally good" and "This is universally bad".

Actually, in D&D there is. Whatever the DM says is evil, is evil. Whatever the DM says is good, is good. That controls what is universally anything and really is all we, as players, need to know.

To go past that point, in my opinion, is purely an exercise in futility unless we all happened to be DM's and trying to come to a unified point so as to avoid confusion among our players.

No, no there isn't, not even in D&D. You can't slip every action under one of these two umbrellas. 'Committing a good deed' you could argue, is universally good. What if I were using that good deed towards evil ends in a deliberate manner? Then it would be evil ... and from there we continue to subdivided into more and more specifics. I'm sure there exist some things that can be arranged like that, but many others depend on circumstance.

I believe this was the conclusion of many previous alignment threads.

I'll just conclude this post with links, since I don't want to get the topic locked.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=47303&start=0
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=46984&start=0 (I think this one becomes an alignment debate)
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=42883&start=0 (A pally thread)
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=41509&start=0 (Another Pally thread)
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=40209&start=0 (On spells being inherently evil)
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=35978&start=0
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=36311&start=0 (Lawful Good)

That's all I could find with a quick search, anyway.

Edit: While I was in the shower, it occurred to me that I may not be communicating clearly enough. Individual circumstances can be classified into good and evil, but circumstances in general cannot.

FR lore is pretty much clear about what is defined as good or evil in the FR world.

Really I think good and evil are incredibly hard to define. Some people do things considered good by a whole but the means of accomplishing it are considered evil or the opposite. I play neutral because of this.

Haha. Well, I wasn't getting the responses I was expecting, but I still enjoyed reading them all.

I apologize if this has been done up before, I had work in twenty minutes so I was rushing to put my thoughts into a post before I was going to be late. I'll start reading through the topics Yurell posted, though!

I honestly believe that evil and good deeds can be separated rather easily. I believe it is dependent upon also what the character reacts to that also denoes evil/good. There are many acts that can be divided into ultimate categories based on the act itself, how the one performing it feels, and why.

I mean...you cannot rape someone for the greater good. There's no disputing rape is an evil deed, regardless of your reasons for doing so.

A level of enjoyment matters as well...a person who enjoys torturing someone for the greater good, no matter what your dogma or god asks...is NOT good. It's just the same as a person who gives charity for evil purposes, because the inner thought is evil. You are laughing and having a good time at someone's else's suffering....you are evil.

Likewise there are assassin's who actually only take certain jobs because the target in question is evil, or then take the pay and give it to charity....a main reason why I see the assassin class as porrly done, being evil only.

It's how a rogue who steals and pick pockets can be defined as good.

Paladins who enjoy suffering should be fallen, automatic. Blackguards who risk themselves to save a life that's not theirs should get the same treatment.

Rape/Torture are evil regardless of whatever excuses a player makes to say it contribute to the greater good....cause it's not...it's contributing to evil all around and compromising your goodliness in fact.

Likewise true charity/mercy(meaning you're not doing it for your own selfish gain) are good, no matter how evil a player says he is(and yes...there are characters in books and stories who make claims to their own evilness when they are in fact, good)

IronAngel wrote:

Yes. Let's please not go here.

You shouldn't have explained! xD

Yurell.... you have managed to over-complicate and over-think my point.

If a DM says something is Evil... it is. If that DM says something is Good... it is. The only way that changes is if you can somehow persuade the DM otherwise. If the DM wants to make something a blanket or "universal" call, then that's their choice. If they don't, that's their choice as well.

But unless, we as a player, can persuade our DM otherwise said act, universal or specific, will be judged by the DM by their own criteria.

This can be discussed until we're all dead, but it won't matter a lick because very few of us have any real bearing upon the matter whatsoever. The few that do are our Amian DM's and those who DM tabletop games. Everyone else (myself included) is just blowing hot air.

Lutra wrote:

FR lore is pretty much clear about what is defined as good or evil in the FR world.

ainjyll wrote:

If a DM says something is Evil... it is. If that DM says something is Good... it is. The only way that changes is if you can somehow persuade the DM otherwise. If the DM wants to make something a blanket or "universal" call, then that's their choice. If they don't, that's their choice as well.
.

Yossarin wrote:

I'll just say this, though: the true nature of good and evil is defined only by what is thematically appropriate for the story, or, if you want to go this far, the meaning or message of the story. All of the myriad viewpoints of good and evil are valid because the concepts themselves are distractions.

Amia is a setting that, in my opinion, has the ability to give traditional DnD the finger if it wants to. My ideal or dream is that the definitions of good and evil for the setting change depending upon what story is being told, but you all value consistency so much...and I think I know why, I don't begrudge anybody that, but it isn't how I think, and it is one of those things I have to think about often since I am a storyteller here.

I don't think you have to "persuade a DM" otherwise. Like has been said many times... the OOC concepts of Good/Evil and the IC concepts are so completely, radically separate that it's not worth trying to compare them to one another. And DMs play a variety of OOC/IC roles within plots. So it's not persuading them. It's persuading/manipulating/affecting the story. Which is, in a nutshell, Roleplay!

IRL you would separate good and evil by actions. In FR, those actions are context sensitive. You can perform an evil act on a good creature and its an evil act. You can perform the same evil act on an evil creature, with everything else identical, and its now not evil anymore.

I remember playing in a PnP campaign with a cleric very much like the EO here. We came across a village of skeletons: mummy skeletons pushing baby skeletons on the swings, whole skeleton families sat on rugs eating chicken bone picnics, etc. It was the sweetest place we had ever been to. Until, that is, our Lawful Good cleric went in, smiting like crazy. It was the most f-ed up thing in the whole campaign! :twisted:

Sounds like a James Ensor painting.

Muzlims = Evil

Amerikans = Good

Ainjyll, we probably then agree. In my first post, I meant broad categories rather than specifics although apparently communicated this sentiment poorly. A DM defines if the specific event is Good or Evil, and their decision on the nature of Good and Evil in this universe stands.
However, I doubt the DMs will assign a Good or Evil label on broad categories (if 'murder' is always Evil, then how come my Pally can slaughter demons in the Abyss?).

That's al I was trying to say, and apologies for my miscommunication!

And even if the DM says he does, you can prove him wrong with superior arguments. The DM is omnipotent only insofar as his arguments are rational. The DM is not quite God, and most classic theology agrees that even God can't be logically contradictory.

The job of the DM is to facilitate player creativity, not show off his own excellence. That's why players can and should argue with the DM about alignments and what is the most fruitful way to deal with them. After all, the justification for the existance of alignments is that they supposedly improve the gaming experience; if they don't or there's a way they could do it better, they have to be ditched or altered without hesitation.

Also, I lol at anyone who thinks ethics is simple or that Good and Evil in the Forgotten Realms are drawn in clear lines. You can't have read much FR or encountered real ethical dilemmas in your life. (Or, you know, even read the topics where we've discussed this before.) I also lol at boobookitty's arbitrary arguments that seem to be based on nothing but personal taste and the ethical norms you're used to. It's because of exactly this boiling down to subjective opinion that we need to give the categories of Good and Evil open for the story to shape. Otherwise we risk adopting a very naive definition.

You can prove the DM wrong but in the end of the day it's his table and probably his house. Of cours,e you can leave the house, ut that doesn't stop him from making his grand ruling in a world of One.

True. But at least there's the warm fuzzy satisfaction from making him show his true colors! I'm too optimistic, but I like to hope that once someone really understands why they're wrong they must change their mind or their consciousness implodes. Not doing so is a crime, IMO. In practice, though, reasonable people can usually work together to reach some satisfactory understanding.

Murex wrote:

Muzlims = Evil

Amerikans = Good

...
What?

Don't feed the troll. Ignore it.

I am fairly sure he/she/it is just portraying the awesomeness of a black and white setting.

Wolfking6116 wrote:

A lot of characters I see who are good, are extremely nice. Those who are evil, complete [removed] in every sense of the word. I don't understand why, because personally I don't define 'good' with 'nice' or 'evil' with 'jerk'. Added on that a lot of the people in the Criminal thread were talking about how all Criminal's were Evil. I don't see crime as an act of 'evil', either. Merely selfishness, looking to further ones self with disregard to others. While it most definately isn't good, I wouldn't define it as evil.

I think this has something to do with the image of school bullies...

Kudark wrote:

What's evil?
Women are evil.
They only hear half of what you say (and those are only the parts they want to hear), and twist most of what they hear to for their own evil intentions.

But they smell so good, and they're so soft, and warm...

Dayyyyyyyyyyymn right, brotha!

What defines good and evil? Personal opinion.

There are some actions in FR which are evil, black as night. No ends justify their use as a means. Evil and good are not nebulous abstract concepts in FR, they are real and incarnate in the multiverse in which Amia is set. The lack of subjective interpretation in these cases is what makes this multiverse so damned cool, in my opinion.

Dwagin wrote:

There are some actions in FR which are evil, black as night. No ends justify their use as a means. Evil and good are not nebulous abstract concepts in FR, they are real and incarnate in the multiverse in which Amia is set. The lack of subjective interpretation in these cases is what makes this multiverse so damned cool, in my opinion.

That's an excellent point, the same can be said about alignments as well. The way divine and arcane magic work has a lot to do with what is considered good/evil, or (add alignment here). So sometimes there has to be a solid line separating these things. This is a fantasy setting, which is nothing like our own and is difficult to compare to.
We have no clue what it would feel like to have someone be able to focus a thought and then just know that another is good/evil, or feel the magic flowing through your body as the spell you're casting is taking form with every intonation and gesture, to the sweet release, or hell, even walk the streets with scales and wings. These are a part of everyday life in D&D.
The nature of good/evil in our world is more muted and blended together because we have no real way to tell, other than by words and deeds. Here, an evil little boy screwing catholic priest can go into a lutheran church and none are the wiser.
In D&D, those lathandarans are all over that priest of bane.
The nature of good/evil in D&D has guidelines, and has ways to tell your alignment. Why else would you need to request an alignment change? Or have your DM assign you points away from your listed alignment based on things you've done or said in role-play?

Dwagin and Kudark, you both confuse moralith with the amoral energies of Good and Evil. The two are just logically seperate and independent. An action isn't right or wrong, good or bad because it partakes in the energy of Good or Evil. It's right or wrong because of societal norms in a cultural context. It just so happens, out of pure coincidence, that the norms in the most classic of societies in the Realms seem to correlate with these energies of Good and Evil. The connection is just that, incidental, because it cannot be logical. You cannot deduce right and wrong from tangible facts of the multiverse, which is exactly what makes the usual argument so weak. Dwagin, you seem to present it too: that morality is somehow easier because Good and Evil aren't "abstract concepts" (which they actually are, but I get your point) but rather real and incarnate in the multiverse. On what planet does that make the issue easier? It makes it all the more complex. Not only do you have to justify morality just as we have to justify it in our world, but you also have to account for its relation to these energies labelled Good and Evil.

Example: Why is murder wrong? Alright, because it partakes in Evil, in other words, because it is Evil. But this still leaves the bigger problem: why is Evil wrong? It's a valid question that's often asked in one shape or another in our world, and I am certain that anyone reasonably intelligent will also ask it on Faerûn. Your "black and white" world crumbles at that point and you're back to square one. I've never put it in terms as clear as this problem before, but it sums up my dismissal of the usual answers. They completely fail to notice this critical issue that is at the very root of morality.

The reality of Good, Evil, Lawful and Chaotic energies/universals in the Realms doesn't make morality simple. It adds another layer of complexity that we can avoid in the real world. If you use it as an excuse to ignore ethical dilemmas, I think you're probably just lazy.

Kudark: there's no reason to believe that Good and Evil correspond with what people consider good and evil (or right and wrong). There's no reason to believe the reality of FR is so much different from our world, really. In fact, I daresay it's exactly like our world in most respects, or else we couldn't possibly play it. The "parts of everyday life" on Faerûn you describe are anything but. I wager most of the world's population have never met adventurers, let alone encountered these rare alignment-related spells in action. And even if they have, there's no reason to think they would've automatically accepted them as the final say on matters ethical. To most Faerûnians, alignment definitions would be unintelligible fringe theory or the despotism of zealots. If something doesn't correspond with your everyday worldview, you probably won't accept it no matter how strong the evidence. You don't have to look too far in the real world to find comparisons. How many people took Hume's incredibly strong arguments on causality seriously when he presented them, and how many just ignored them because they were inconvenient? How many people are willing to accept fatalism or determinism and that we have no free will? How many people are willing to reduce our sense of self to physical reactions in the brain? These are all things that can be fairly convincingly "proven" like you could try to prove right and wrong with Detect Alignment, but they're not accepted if people feel they're unintuitive.

Good and Evil are real, but they are game concepts with very little relevance to the IC reality of most people.

Eh, that's probably tl;dr. I'll just sum up my answer to everyone who thinks D&D cosmology lets them off the hook easy:

X is Evil. Alright. But why is Evil wrong? Why is Good right? Why should we choose one rather than the other?

This question is existentially relevant to every character IC, and they get no help from priestly divination, Detect Alignment spells or paladin sermons. This is the same problem we're faced with in our lives. It's incorrect to assume Faerûnians have it any easier.

IronAngel wrote:

Eh, that's probably tl;dr. I'll just sum up my answer to everyone who thinks D&D cosmology lets them off the hook easy:

X is Evil. Alright. But why is Evil wrong? Why is Good right? Why should we choose one rather than the other?

This question is existentially relevant to every character IC, and they get no help from priestly divination, Detect Alignment spells or paladin sermons. This is the same problem we're faced with in our lives. It's incorrect to assume Faerûnians have it any easier.

To my mind the most salient point to come out of this is that regular Joe Cordor the NPC Fishmonger may well see the concepts of Lawfull Good as being absolutist, facist opression. I mean, how many people look at their respective nations laws and think 'man, some of this shit just goes way to far'. The majority of the NPC population would likely not feel the same way about good and evil as the majority of adventurers that have real contact with it.

IronAngel wrote:

I wager most of the world's population have never met adventurers, let alone encountered these rare alignment-related spells in action. And even if they have, there's no reason to think they would've automatically accepted them as the final say on matters ethical. To most Faerûnians, alignment definitions would be unintelligible fringe theory or the despotism of zealots. If something doesn't correspond with your everyday worldview, you probably won't accept it no matter how strong the evidence. You don't have to look too far in the real world to find comparisons.

But you see, we are not talking about those people in those remote places are we?
We are in the cities where these things I described are commonplace, and myths and legends are only a few hundred years past, or ten thousand, and magic is available to all with the coin to spend.
I re-iterate, it is fantasy.
You are still trying to compare it to what you are comfortable with, which is our world that you actually live in. That is where your failure lies, that comparison to what you know is real and what is imaginary.
Come, join me, immerse yourself into the unknown.

Iron wrote:

Dwagin and Kudark, you both confuse moralith with the amoral energies of Good and Evil. The two are just logically seperate and independent. An action isn't right or wrong, good or bad because it partakes in the energy of Good or Evil. It's right or wrong because of societal norms in a cultural context.

I see nothing Amoral of good and evil in the energy in Faerun. I see completely the opposite. Evil things exist. I don't care about mortal society values in this discussion, its superfluous. If it utilizes evil energy, it is evil. Example: Undead which function on energy from the negative energy plane are evil, versus Baelnorns which do not.

Iron wrote:

Example: Why is murder wrong? ....

Killing isn't wrong, nor evil. Divine law supersedes mortal law, and I'd like to think the divine law is what determines something's status as Lawful, Chaotic, Evil, Good, most specifically the framework laid out by the Overgod, whether you believe it Ao/Io/whatever.

Iron wrote:

The reality of Good, Evil, Lawful and Chaotic energies/universals in the Realms doesn't make morality simple. It adds another layer of complexity that we can avoid in the real world. If you use it as an excuse to ignore ethical dilemmas, I think you're probably just lazy.

Ethical dilemma can more easily arise when there is something which you know beyond a shadow of a doubt is evil, yet are forced to consider it anyway. When its grey its a lot easier to dismiss it as 'they did what they had to.' or 'the ends justify the means', which is trite and boring to me, a cop out. I did a bad thing, I saved lives, but it was a bad thing. I know it was a bad thing. The dilemma from that? That is HEAVY for a character with a conscience to deal with.

Iron wrote:

There's no reason to believe the reality of FR is so much different from our world, really. In fact, I daresay it's exactly like our world in most respects, or else we couldn't possibly play it. The "parts of everyday life" on Faerûn you describe are anything but. I wager most of the world's population have never met adventurers, let alone encountered these rare alignment-related spells in action. And even if they have, there's no reason to think they would've automatically accepted them as the final say on matters ethical. To most Faerûnians, alignment definitions would be unintelligible fringe theory or the despotism of zealots. If something doesn't correspond with your everyday worldview, you probably won't accept it no matter how strong the evidence.

In their world, Vampires, zombies, skeletons, demons, devils, elementals, dragons, fae, elves, werecreatures are real, not superstition, old wives tales, stories, fiction or unproven beyond faith that they exist. I daresay the fact that curses are real, necromancy exists, demon/devil summoning can happen and aren't just legends, magic exists.. Evil races exist. FR's world and ours are very different. A lot of our concepts of 'evil creatures' are things which go bump in the night, or explanations for psychosis for those with aberrational thoughts.

Iron wrote:

...Why should we choose one rather than the other?

That question is something each character has to answer for themselves or struggle with trying to. It is the quintessential element by which grand stories are made of. Some things should be left to be mysterious, otherwise stories, and life would be very boring.

Good? Evil? What are they?

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