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Not to put too fine a point on it, but it has happened in the real world that suicide bombers surrender so that they can get closer to their target. In a world where you aren't only dealing with bombs, also magic, things get a bit more dicier.
Again, this is going to depend on what kind of campaign setting the GM has created, but killing someone who surrenders may well be the right thing to do.
As I mentioned in the other current "nature of good vs. evil" thread, I think you're confusing good / evil and right / wrong. It's what we do in the "real world". I think both good and evil in a D&D / PF world think they are "right" and the other is "wrong". In the real world everyone wants to be "right" because we assume good = right and evil = wrong, so everyone thinks they are "good" (and therefore "right"). I don't think people in a D&D setting decieve themselves about the moral nature of their choices. Slaughtering the helpless is evil, no two ways about it. Is it "right" (or expedient), well that depends on your alignment on the good / evil axis. An evil character would find it "right", certainly, but he would not say it was "good". He knows he's evil :)
An evil character would find it "right", certainly, but he would not say it was "good". He knows he's evil :)
The traditionnal "for the greater good" BBEG would argue that point. Ok, he knows that detect good doesn't work on him, but such short-sighted considerations on cosmologico-philosophico-political matters are not relevant to his works.
An evil character would find it "right", certainly, but he would not say it was "good". He knows he's evil :)The traditionnal "for the greater good" BBEG would argue that point. Ok, he knows that detect good doesn't work on him, but such short-sighted considerations on cosmologico-philosophico-political matters are not relevant to his works.
He can argue and be delusional all he wants -- fact of the matter is he's still not good, it still wasn't a good act, and the magic is detecting him as evil for a reason.
Before I can consider entertaining the possibility that you are correct, I'm going to need you to help me out a bit.
Define for me what "right", "wrong", "good", and "evil" means to R_Chance.
Right is what your alignment says to do. Wrong is doing what your alignment says not to do. Simple really. If you are evil then murder and torture are "right", or perhaps "proper" would be a better term. They are acceptable tools to pursue your agenda. If you are good, then they are "wrong" and not acceptable. In a setting in which you have religions and creatures that are upfront about evil, and in fact demonstrably "evil", what is right (for them) is not what we would consider "right". I doubt demon worshippers slap the "good guy" lable on themselves. They probably revel in being what they are -- evil. The Judeo-Christian tradition of Europe is, in theory and as it has evolved, about being the good guy. It colors our perspective about "right and wrong".
My view of good and evil? Well, that bit is fairly traditional. Butchering the helpless, torture for fun and profit -- definitely evil. Saving damsels in distress and rescuing kittens from trees for little kids -- definitely good. Some stuff -- shades of grey.
The traditionnal "for the greater good" BBEG would argue that point. Ok, he knows that detect good doesn't work on him, but such short-sighted considerations on cosmologico-philosophico-political matters are not relevant to his works.
So he's deluding himself. If he's evil, then evil is right. So, in that sense it's for the greater "right", but not good. Just my take on it. If you think it through it makes sense for a setting in which there is not one concept of "right" / one philosophy, but many, often contradictory ones.
Isn't it more accurate to say, "There is a reason those people are claiming that he is detecting as evil"?I mean, it'd be a fairly trivial matter for the guy to claim that the Cleric who allegedly cast that spell has their own agenda.
I mean, really, if you play like the way you seem to, I'd -love- to be your GM and drop an NPC in (maybe an Illusionist, maybe a Rogue or Bard) who would screw with you hard with your heavy handed reliance on these kinds of spells (or, to be more precise, people who claim certain results from certain spells).
Yeah I bet your players love you for screwing them too, I'm not saying I would rely on spells. However they DO give me a starting point for figuring out what's going on.
If you've read my posts up until this point you would realize my positions are much more nuanced than that.
Detect evil is a good starting point. However just because they are evil doesn't mean I have to kill/imprison/attack them immediately. In fact I have no reason to do anything to them until they do something evil in front of me. Even then I would rather start with dialog and see if a *peaceful* solution is available.
However when it comes to DM vs Player Player always loses. The DM has infinite resources... the player doesn't, so your statement has no value. Of course you can screw people over as a DM... that's not the point of DMing though.
However when it comes to DM vs Player Player always loses. The DM has infinite resources... the player doesn't, so your statement has no value. Of course you can screw people over as a DM... that's not the point of DMing though.
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However when it comes to DM vs Player Player always loses. The DM has infinite resources... the player doesn't, so your statement has no value. Of course you can screw people over as a DM... that's not the point of DMing though.<threadjack>
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Exactly. The DM isn't supposed to go easy on the players -- but there is a fine line between giving your PCs challenges and attacking your player's characters out of maliciousness to "prove a point"
Protip:
If you are "proving a point" to a player, you've already missed the point of the game.
So he's deluding himself. If he's evil, then evil is right. So, in that sense it's for the greater "right", but not good.
You're putting words in his mouth.
He did not come to do his baddie stuff because he thought evil was right, but because he thought the results would be good. And for that reason only, the things he does are the right things to do in his book, despite them being evil.
You really consider than fighting against a guy with greatsword and armor when you are naked is a fair fight ??A lot of monks might.
All these years of 3rd edition have clearly established this fact :
the Multiversal Congres of Psychiatry now acknowledges that taking a level in the monk class is an obvious attempt of suicide.
You're putting words in his mouth.
He did not come to do his baddie stuff because he thought evil was right, but because he thought the results would be good. And for that reason only, the things he does are the right things to do in his book, despite them being evil.
So... he's doing evil to do good. Like I said, he's deluding himself. This rationale has been used by people for a long time. Somehow that "greater good" never seems to come out of it. He's doing what he does because he thinks it's right. If what he's doing is evil, then he thinks evil is right, whatever the end result might, or might not, be. I'm not putting words into his mouth (he can claim it's all for the greater good until he turns blue), I'm just cutting through the rationalization he's using to justify it.
And that's my whole point, we "justify" (literally make it right) what we do because "good" = "right". And we want to be "right", therefore what we do must be good. In a setting with a wide open range of moral stances like D&D, right is what your particular moral compass says it is. We think the way we do because we only have one moral compass. They have many.
Yeah I bet your players love you for screwing them too,My players appreciate being expected to play smart, not just solve things the easy way.
Of course you can screw people over as a DM... that's not the point of DMing though.Screwing over players for being stupid is part of being a DM, because a campaign setting where stupid people can progress to great power breaks suspension of disbelief.
Yes skip the rest of the post.
I was speaking specifically to the part where I pointed out that I wouldn't rely on magic alone (something you seem to think highly likely) and that even if they do detect one way or the other doesn't give the character grounds to go off his gourd and attack them or what not.
Your basic implications were that:
A. I would rely only on magic.
B. That is stupid.
C. You have an obligation as a DM to punish stupid, and had a point to prove.
My comments to the contrary were ignored.
However in the long run it doesn't really matter... probably just me being edgy at the implications, and not being in the best of moods due to recent surgery, so in the end probably a wash all the way around.
However when it comes to DM vs Player Player always loses. The DM has infinite resources... the player doesn't, so your statement has no value. Of course you can screw people over as a DM... that's not the point of DMing though.<threadjack>
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Exactly. The DM isn't supposed to go easy on the players -- but there is a fine line between giving your PCs challenges and attacking your player's characters out of maliciousness to "prove a point"
Protip:
If you are "proving a point" to a player, you've already missed the point of the game.
Heh. Although I've said countless times how much I appreciate and use organic storylines and allow some semblance of reality to guide all the in-game decisions of my NPCs to allow story development, I have been known to shoot a laser or two at a PC who builds for max AC and send a party consisting of a 3.0 Telepath and a Rogue against a dungeon of undead and constructs. Sometimes you gotta remind people that they aren't invincible. I guess what I'm saying is that intentionally player-targeted encounter design has its place, I don't think it should be the majority of encounters. That's about 500lbs of DM suck.
stuffBoard ate my post. That's not the first time. I'm very angry and frustrated.
Nonetheless, here's the gist of it : I'm right you're wrong.
I know how the lost post bit goes. These days I copy long ones before I post just in case. Still, my way, I'm right... and you are too :) See how easy that is? It's all relative to your alignment.
stuffBoard ate my post. That's not the first time. I'm very angry and frustrated.
Nonetheless, here's the gist of it : I'm right you're wrong.
Because :
-Ozymandias succeeded
-It's a sophism
-I can think whatever and do it in character
- Nice poem. But no one will ever know what he succeeded at.
- It's only a sophism if I'm wrong. And I'm not. Imo, of course :D- Good. Then it should be pretty straight forward.
Seriously though, for there to be accepted evil alignments / philosophies / religions they have to be able to recognize what they do is (for lack of a better term) "evil" and be fine with that. In short, they have to believe that their take on life, evil as it is, is right. They are not going to think like the good guys that they (evil) are wrong / should be defeated / etc. Our frame of reference in which good = right is the outcome of a system in which "good" (if you will) has triumphed and other philosophies have been cast in the role of "wrong" / losers whose primary role is to provide examples of what happens if you don't get with the program.
I wasn't talking about the poem, I was talking about alan moores' fiat. IRL, that line of thought is stupid on two counts:
- the means usually have consequences that corrupt the end
- good and evil have no reality nor definite meaning
But a DM, or any story teller, can't understand or reproduce the workings of a complex society, and the BBEG can achieve what he expected.
Of course, as you said, on the really long run, all that sink in the sands, but the PCs do too.
And though you are right that some accepted religions or philosophies can have evil for ideal, every evil character do not adhere to those, and one can believe that he is right not because he is evil, but despite that. It's possible to be evil within the "good" framework in DnD.
It's even relatively easy, for good and evil are not exact opposite in the DnD system. That's what allow a paladin to make people suffer and call it a right and good act. The antagonist just push this reasonning to a larger scale.
Our own ideological landscape is more open that you say. Good is not the ultimate reference for most people. But even if that was the case, nothing prevents one to make a character like that.
I prefer fictional examples, because IRL good and evil are just words, so let's think about the batman. He has the choice between killing the joker, who probably won't come back, or putting him behind bars, and he probably will come back. The first choice is the right one, but it's evil. So batman choose the other solution, and endanger the life of many innocents. And he's good for that reason.
There should be an equivalent of Godwin Law related to debates about the morality of killing, where you're automatically concede your point the moment you try bringing up Batman and the Joker (or other comic books hero/villain pairs of similar status) as an example. First off, let's be stop pretending we're eight years old here and admit that we all know the main reason Batman didn't cap Joker's ass yet - popularity of the latter. Almost as importantly, the whole superhero codex of non-killing was formed in the times when villains hardly ever killed people either. Well, they tried, but, as far as I know, for many years things like violent deaths were simply forbidden to appear in comic books. In the present day, when Joker is not this:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LaughablyEvilbut this:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SerialKiller
...moreover, when he and his likes consciously abuse it to get away with horrible crimes, the non-killing superhero code is a f***ing travesty. At best, it's an illustration that sometimes kindness is not enough in this twisted world and you must resort to justice; at worst, it's the heroes' hypocritical self-justification of the fact that the villains hold the city/the country/the world hostage and will wreck them for real as soon as they stop being de-facto untouchable (this is, you know, was the explicit reason for one of crisis crossovers in DCU). Oh, and Batman in particular follows it because his very tenous grip on sanity can only be maintained by sticking to the self-imposed rules no matter how amoral they are in existing circumstances.
Of course the sorcerer cried out in pain, he's a girlie-man... But seriously...
And the damage was non-lethal, though he did claim that he broke some ribs. (see first statement :P)
The problem boils down to this, if there is a problem: the striking down of the unarmed woman pleading for her life and her lovers life. No-one had any doubt about them being evil. This issue is out of the question. It's the actual slaying of the unarmed, already surrendered more than once, woman. By a cleric of Gorum.
You should ask yourself, as a GM, a question. A very important question, the answer to which will strongly define your gameworld and campaign:
Are PCs supposed to be judges, jury and executioners, who hardly ever can truly rely on anyone else in protecting the neighborhood from villains? If yes, what's your problem (remember, surrendering to the law enforcement won't give you a protection from capital punishment)? If no, how they are actually supposed to deal with their enemies?
And remember, that DnD's default answer is YES.
Are PCs supposed to be judges, jury and executioners, who hardly ever can truly rely on anyone else in protecting the neighborhood from villains? If yes, what's your problem (remember, surrendering to the law enforcement won't give you a protection from capital punishment)? If no, how they are actually supposed to deal with their enemies?And remember, that DnD's default answer is YES.
Source? because I've never thought or felt that way.
There should be an equivalent of Godwin Law related to debates about the morality of killing, where you're automatically concede your point the moment you try bringing up Batman and the Joker (or other comic books hero/villain pairs of similar status) as an example.
Godwin's Law is a really dubious way to refuse political discussion. "You talked about hitler, so you're wrong" is as valid an argument as "your grammar is wrong, so your ideas are too". The original intent, I think, was to denote the inanity of the way people debate over the internet, always trying to discredit the other side with stupid comparisons, not to further enhance it by providing an easy way for one side to feel superior.
Extending it in that way to every classic example for a particular topic, even when it is just an example, and not a comparison between the other's side ideas and something undebatable, is pushing inanities a little far.But anyway, that example here was valid because we were discussing the limits of morality in the particular framework of a fictionnal universe with moral absolutes not unlike batman's gotham.
Not exactly like it either, since in DnD that limit comes after killing people, and for batman it stands just before that. But both have that moral limit.
In the real world, that would be hypocrisy at best, ignorance at worst, but in the real world moral absolutes do not exist.
Charlie Bell
(Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Adventure Path, Campaign Setting, Companion, Battles Case, GameMastery Maps Subscriber)
