I feel it necessary to distinguish between in-game "goodness" and real-world "goodness". Since, I believe, a truly good person would have to adhere to some level of pacifism, I'd hazard to say that few of the characters we play could be considered truly "good" by real-world standards. A big focus of the game and the characters we make is combat-related; which weapons they use, what sort of armor they sport and the battle-tactics they favour. They also don't pursue non-violent careers. On the contrary, they usually go looking for trouble and so draw their (very lethal) weapons in combat regularly. Although some characters might be truly pacifistic, they're the rare exception rather than the norm. The best of adventurers only practice their trade when confronting monsters or truly evil people. But again, their first instinct is usually to beat their opponents to death with sharp pointy things rather than capturing them alive; even if the latter is feasible. When the grisly business is done, they then collect loot for their own personal use or for resale. Again, the best among adventurers may seek to share some measure of their loot with the bad guys' victims, the poor or a church of their choice, but most of the treasure usually remains with the PCs.
In the real world, such adventurers might be hailed as heroes by some people under the right circumstances. But would anyone hold them up examples of "goodness"? To measure up to real-world standards, it seems to me that an entire group (because good people who abide morally-deficient behaviour amongst their buddies aren't really all that good themselves) would strive to take anyone alive whom they consider redeemable, and then also take the subsequent steps to redeem them if possible. Of course abominations (such as undead and evil outsiders) might be exempted since they're considered irredeemable by their very nature and should be destroyed for the sake of goodness. In most campaigns however — with their horde of evil cultists, misguided cohorts and sentient "monsters" — that kind of kid glove treatment would quickly devolve into untenable tedium.
So, for the sake of keeping the game rolling and fun we generally accept a certain amount of bloodlust and self-serving greed in our "good" characters. In the real-world, such characters would, at best, be considered well-intentioned and possibly heroic.
I'm curious to hear whether others disagree with this assessment or if it's widely accepted (even if not discussed overmuch) as being self-evident.
Yeah, but... so what?
If you can call yourself good or not, and if other people do. What does it matter?
Welp! You've got a lot going here, so I'm going to respond to different parts.
I feel it necessary to distinguish between in-game "goodness" and real-world "goodness".
Since, I believe, a truly good person would have to adhere to some level of pacifism, I'd hazard to say that few of the characters we play could be considered truly "good" by real-world standards.
This is a really sticky word-choice, and the major thrust of your argument. Dependent entirely on what you mean by "pacifism" and your view of the world in general. I might agree or disagree entirely... it's too variable because too many people have too many different meanings for the same word(s).
Pacifism is... complicated. Would you stand aside while evil is performed on another? If violence was necessary would anyone condemn someone who performed it? Are soldiers inherently lacking in "good" because their entirety is trained to respond to violent conflict with violent conflict? I'd hazard a "no" on that, and, in fact, argue that inaction with the first two would be the height of evil (or paralysis caused by fear), and for the last... of course not!
Is peace the preferred method of dealing with others? Of course. But just because peace is "better" doesn't mean it's always viable. And at certain periods of history and in many circumstances, it's less viable than it is for most of us in our first world countries. Violence is not always the answer to violence or wrongdoing, and is often not the best solutions, but it sometimes can be, and presupposing that those whose career is violence because they face evils are somehow corrupted is dishonoring the fact that those people are doing something necessary for those who (through circumstance or ability) cannot.
A big focus of the game and the characters we make is combat-related; which weapons they use, what sort of armor they sport and the battle-tactics they favour.
Agreed.
They also don't pursue non-violent careers. On the contrary, they usually go looking for trouble ...
We obviously play with very, very different groups!
...and so draw their (very lethal) weapons in combat regularly. Although some characters might be truly pacifistic, they're the rare exception rather than the norm. The best of adventurers only practice their trade when confronting monsters or truly evil people.
Agreed.
But again, their first instinct is usually to beat their opponents to death with sharp pointy things rather than capturing them alive; even if the latter is feasible.
Again: we obviously play with two very, very different groups! In the Kingmaker campaign that I play in, for example, I've gone to extravagant lengths to ensure that we can either take our enemies alive and convert them to good, or raise them from the dead as soon as possible later (with a shiny, new, good alignment).
When the grisly business is done, they then collect loot for their own personal use or for resale. Again, the best among adventurers may seek to share some measure of their loot with the bad guys' victims, the poor or a church of their choice, but most of the treasure usually remains with the PCs.
One more time: very different groups. I'll point to the KM AP that I play in again - I may be duke, but the vast majority of the treasure that we pull in goes directly into the kingdom, and especially to the education program I've started to make the entire society magical and fully capable of defending themselves.
In the real world, such adventurers might be hailed as heroes by some people under the right circumstances. But would anyone hold them up examples of "goodness"?
Unlikely. Then again, it's unlikely anyone in the real world is over sixth level, can utilize magic, or has visible divine power and acceptance backing up their inherent right to delve into ancient tombs and loot stuff.
To measure up to real-world standards, it seems to me that an entire group (because good people who abide morally-deficient behaviour amongst their buddies aren't really all that good themselves) would strive to take anyone alive whom they consider redeemable, and then also take the subsequent steps to redeem them if possible.
To measure up to real-world "standards" (i.e. that which people would look upon them and judge), they'd have to be inhumanly good in every conceivable way and then still fall short. Real people are far too selfish and short-sighted to accept that a person is truly good, especially if they're truly good (conversely, we have a strange ability to make flawed people into god-like figures of perfection... we can be a perverse people, can't we?).
Further blurring this line is the fact that "real world" standards of good, sadly, are not coherently defined or universally backed up, unlike in Pathfinder. There's no "detect" spell. While I might believe in absolute values of right or wrong (I do) there will be people with very compelling arguments to prove me wrong. I don't have shiny glowy holy powers that tells everyone I'm right.
Of course abominations (such as undead and evil outsiders) might be exempted since they're considered irredeemable by their very nature and should be destroyed for the sake of goodness.
Agre- oh, wait, no, our group tends to fix this too. Different campaigns and all that!
In most campaigns however — with their horde of evil cultists, misguided cohorts and sentient "monsters" — that kind of kid glove treatment would quickly devolve into untenable tedium.
Depends entirely on what you would consider "kid glove" treatment, evil, and misguided. Also tedium. And, of course, the group. One man's "dude, this is boooooooooooooooooooooooooooring" is another's "oh, sweet, he's a good guy now!" I might agree with "most campaigns" because, despite the fact that most of our campaigns regularly work to redeem people of all stripes whenever possible, we don't represent the majority of people playing. :)
So, for the sake of keeping the game rolling and fun we generally accept a certain amount of bloodlust and self-serving greed in our "good" characters.
Agreed.
In the real-world, such characters would, at best, be considered well-intentioned and possibly heroic.
Depends entirely on their PR vehicle.
I'm curious to hear whether others disagree with this assessment or if it's widely accepted (even if not discussed overmuch) as being self-evident.
Did I discuss it thoroughly enough?
I feel it necessary to distinguish between in-game "goodness" and real-world "goodness". Since, I believe, a truly good person would have to adhere to some level of pacifism, I'd hazard to say that few of the characters we play could be considered truly "good" by real-world standards.
I disagree. The problem is that, even if morality is objective in the real world (I think it is, but most do not), we can't tell with certainty what is good and what is evil, we can only do our best. That's why some level of pacifism is probably needed to be Good in the real world.
But, imagine if, in the real world, you could know for an absolute fact that someone was Evil. Inquisitors, for example, can, at will, tell what alignment anyone is. They could tell when someone was objectively Evil. If one could do that in the real world, I would actually find it "un-good" to not kill such an objectively Evil person.
The world of D&D/Pathfinder is not our own. It is built on absolutes of morality. Destroying Evil is Good, even in the real world, but we can't tell what is Evil with certainty, and it's worse to kill someone unjustly than to avoid killing someone even if their death is justified, so the default is "Not Killing." There is no need for such a default in Pathfinder.
Also, that. :)
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That really doesn't work. To be just (and thus good) you have to punish people for the bad things they do, not their tendancy to do good or evil.
Someone could be technically evil and just do mostly selfish things. You couldn't justify just walking up and killing them just because they detect as evil. Evil can range from mostly just selfish to a psychopathic serial killer so the punishment for the behavior has to fit the behavior.
discussion on IRL morality & ethics vs. fantasy morality & ethics
I wouldn't have the guts, or the stupidity, to do the things my characters do in game. By stupid, I mean making enemies and participating in violence. By guts, I mean risking my life and living day by day, diving headlong into the unknown.
In a fantasy setting, you can make up whatever mindset you want.
Take a current thread on slavery as an example. It begs the question: is slavery immoral?
In real life, yes. Slavery as a policy is the trivialization of equally moral beings into objects of ownership and property. That's about as obviously immoral as it gets, once you take 5 seconds to delve into the philosophy of it.
Is anyone who owns a slave participating in immorality? That's far more complicated. The slave owner could be "master" only in legal terms, yet treats the slave as an equal, or even as someone to elevate.
In fantasy is slavery immoral? Maybe.
Fantasy settings can have all kinds of made up laws which wouldn't work IRL, but work fine as per DM fiat. Such things could even make slavery a LG activity. Consider the following fantasy laws:
- A slave's life and health is the responsibility of the slave's owner.
- The health and wellness of a slave must be tended to by the slave's owner. Neglect in this is punishable by losing the slaves to freedom, losing the necessary property to the slaves (who are now free) to provide the means to regain their health, and the slave owner being incarcerated.
- Should a slave die due to negligence or action of the slave owner, the slave owner will be charged by the state with murder.
That's simplified, but you get the idea. There would also be laws barring abuse (psychological, physical, sexual) of slaves and so on.
Laws like that would make slavery not nearly as evil. Heck, it would make slavery merely a sort of indentured servitude, or class system. Yes, freedom is restricted, but if the slaves were only criminals or prisoners of war, and were slaves only temporarily as a way to be rehabilitated or integrated into society ...
As an aside, the notion of "LG societies" or "NE societies" is itself ludicrous, and trying to shoehorn something as complicated as a society of thousands or hundreds of thousands into a 3x3 alignment pigeonhole ... it's oversimplification to absurd degrees.
Yes and a little bit no.
Unless you define pacifism very differently that I have ever seen it, I do not believe pacifism is always (or not even very often) 'good.' But that is whole ‘nother hugantic morass argument that I'm not going to get into.
Even granting very different definitions of 'good,' very rarely do the actions (not the stated beliefs) of adventuring parties actually match up with very many people would call 'good' behavior.
At the very simplest, many people like the batman (or whatever superhero) movies. However, whenever anyone I've ever heard about in news reports across the world starts behaving like a vigilante, almost everyone agrees they have to be stopped.
So yes, for the game to move on we do usually have to suspend our own real world definitions and use what’s in the game (or house rules).
To Tacticslion, campaigns based on redeeming evil such as you described seem to be few and far between as far as I have ever heard about. I think it is great you found a group like that and are enjoying it. But I would have to say it is rare. I would love to try one like that. I don't think my current group could handle it.
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Paladins go into "Lairs" (think homes for those who dwell into caves) and hack apart the denizens who try to defend their homes without talking quite regularly. They then sift through the corpses for any spare money and goods these creatures are holding. If the creatures surrender they then demand (often on pain Of death) for them to sell out their friends before evicting them from their home into a hostile environment with no goods or money.
The rogue, naturally, would do all of the above, but slit the baddies' throat after they get the info.
So, I really don't think real world ethics apply to Pathfinder :).
I like this kind of discussion!
Actually, good deeds in PF may vary from our real world.
As said before, the majority of "us" that live in confortable homes, have plenty of food at disposal, develop some kind of regular work or study, have personal freedom and rights guaranteed, have a distinct view of life and goodness that someone that lives in a country ravaged by Civil War or famine.
I prefer to abide to the Chivalry Code of Conduct (or Bushido) in order to define goodness in a PF game.
Goodness means bringing hope to the hopeless, defend the defenseless, be trustworthy, be honorable, be merciful, use of adequate force against others, prevent harm to be done etc.
A paladin would be against raiding a lair of humanoids, unless they were preparing something harmful against a peaceful community.
Just my 2 cents.
That really doesn't work. To be just (and thus good) you have to punish people for the bad things they do, not their tendancy to do good or evil.
Not in a world like Pathfinder you don't, because Evil is an objective force. If you are Evil, then, well, you are.
Besides, justice does not require that people be punished only for what they do. Fairness might require that, but not Justice.
Someone could be technically evil and just do mostly selfish things. You couldn't justify just walking up and killing them just because they detect as evil. Evil can range from mostly just selfish to a psychopathic serial killer so the punishment for the behavior has to fit the behavior.
No, Evil does not work that way. Someone who is just selfish is not Evil, they are some kind of Neutral. Evil is Evil. It's a cosmic force. You can't be Evil without doing Evil things, and it's Good to kill Evil. That's how D&D's cosmology works, at least without GM modification.
Paladins go into "Lairs" (think homes for those who dwell into caves) and hack apart the denizens who try to defend their homes without talking quite regularly. They then sift through the corpses for any spare money and goods these creatures are holding. If the creatures surrender they then demand (often on pain Of death) for them to sell out their friends before evicting them from their home into a hostile environment with no goods or money.
The rogue, naturally, would do all of the above, but slit the baddies' throat after they get the info.
So, I really don't think real world ethics apply to Pathfinder :).
It's not that the ethics don't apply, it's that the premises don't. In the real world, those people who live in that lair might not be Evil. In Pathfinder, the Paladin can know with absolute certainty that they are. Destroying Evil is Good, thus, doing as you described would be Good.
The main difference between morality in Pathfinder and the real world is certainty in moral absolutes.
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Well, PFS (and many module paths) regularly send in Pallies and other good guys into a location for no better reason than there is an artifact and the Society believes they are better off controlling it than the denizens accidentally figuring out how to use them. Such scenarios often have Pally and friends chump dozens of uncivilized beings to return the artifacts to the PFS.
Is taking an artifact from weaker hands to give it to a superpower who knows how to use them REALLY a smart idea?
Well, they are not making this job offer exclusively to good aligned people. Anyone who wants to take the job can have it. If you don't like it, don't do it.
What is "good" to do in a given society and in given circumstances is often going to be different from pure altruism (what the game labels as "good"). One society may determine it is "good" to be ambitious and ruthless. Another may determine it is "good" to be self-sacrificing. This is as true in the real world as it is in the fictional worlds we create.
If the question being asked is, does a society's perception of "good" affect a character's alignment that is also labeled "good"? No. Else you end up having Drizzt Do'urden considered evil aligned because he goes against the mores of the society he grew up in.
The game defines the Good Alignment clearly, even if broadly.
Good characters and creatures protect innocent life.Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.
If the PC matches this description in the majority of his deeds and preferences, he is good aligned.
Whether society sees him as "good" is an entirely different issue that will not affect the game mechanic of alignment.
Note that whether one kills or not is not listed--I think that's because it needs to be left up to the players and GM in a given campaign to determine when a kill is determined "good" or not. If someone kills a demon--evil given anthropomorphic form--who is trying to cut a baby's throat, most would probably believe that is a good-aligned act---even if the local society calls it a bad thing because they worship the demon. If someone kills someone over a political argument, that may fall into a much greyer area. It should be left to the GM to determine (with an added note that no single action should ever cause an alignment to change--alignment is a sum of a character's deeds, a single deed usually isn't going to alter the total sum dramatically, so to speak).
Tangent:
And whether pacifism and killing are the ultimate good is even very debatable in this world. I belong to a religious society which is known for its very strident adherence to pacifism, and yet even we debate amongst ourselves the "rightness" of fighting in situations such as defending our lives or the lives of an innocent who is threatened, where words and other deeds have failed. I myself would fight to defend myself if I saw no other course of survival--I'd consider it the greater harm to let the attacker get away to hurt another. Another person I know would pray for the person but take whatever harm the other dished out, without responding in kind. I can't say they're wrong. I can't say I'm right either. I think we both do our best to protect and help others in the way we find truest to ourselves.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is we can't even define "good" in a way that people in our own world could agree on. Determining what a society decides is right is complicated and needs to be handled on a case-by-case basis, and should never be conflated with the in-game mechanic of alignment.
Part of the difference between killing someone in the game world and real life is that in game, the people know 100% that there is an afterlife, and death does not have to be permanent. Some people have even seen the afterlife with their own eyes.
It doesn't excuse everything, but I think it makes a big difference.
Part of the difference between killing someone in the game world and real life is that in game, the people know 100% that there is an afterlife, and death does not have to be permanent. Some people have even seen the afterlife with their own eyes.
It doesn't excuse everything, but I think it makes a big difference.
I disagree.
Note that most religions in the real world teach there is an afterlife, but also teach that killing is wrong (at least, most scriptures say so, even if there are factions that ignore it).
Doing harm to a person is still doing harm, even if you know they're going to heaven afterwards. That's IMO, however.
Part of the difference between killing someone in the game world and real life is that in game, the people know 100% that there is an afterlife, and death does not have to be permanent. Some people have even seen the afterlife with their own eyes.
It doesn't excuse everything, but I think it makes a big difference.
I disagree.
Note that most religions in the real world teach there is an afterlife, but also teach that killing is wrong (at least, most scriptures say so, even if there are factions that ignore it).
Doing harm to a person is still doing harm, even if you know they're going to heaven afterwards. That's IMO, however.
I completely agree. I'm just saying that it should be something to consider.
Another thing to consider is that death for some people in game is a minor inconvenience. Obviously a low level brigand is never going to get resurrected, but when you assassinate the king of a nation you might only have just stained his favorite outfit with blood. Again, not saying that its ok, just that in the game world death isn't quite the same, and it's something to think about.
Goodness, real or fictional, is striving toward altruistic action using whatever tools one has under whatever circumstances one is under. So no, I don't distinguish between real and D&D morality.
(That's not to say there aren't a whole lot of evil and neutral PCs, just that the good ones are good even by my standards.)
While I do agree that some of the things that "good" parties to might be a little iffy -- I think that much of that depends on circumstances.
However, I completely refute the idea that pacifism = good. Maybe it's me, but I tend to believe the old adage: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
And, so, accepting that, we then have to remember that the PF world is a very, very different one than the real world -- our world is not filled with humanoids who are actively evil. Not just highwaymen who are trying to feed their families -- but capital-E Evil. [Recommendation: Read the bestiary entries on Ogres and/or Goblinoid evil to get an idea of what the PF world is like.. and then remember that these are the lowliest of the totem pole of evil, and think of what fun demons and devils must be.]
Now, based on your description of "good" party behaviour, I will admit that some of that stuff could very much be on the line -- but I will also echo that not every party is like that.
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I think it is nearly impossible to be both a pacifist and be good. You arent good you are apathetic. I agree with tilnar in that Evil wins when good men(or women) stand and do nothing. If you stand and do nothing you are commiting a greater evil in my mind then the evil man who harms another. An act of violence itself can be good if done for the right reasons. Human beings are not such that they can all just 'get along'. There are those that will try to harm, and 'good' people must make an effort to stop them. In many cases that means violence.
There is ofcourse a matter of scale. In most of the developled world, you couldnt kick down the worst criminal's door and start killing people. But in some cases there are objective evils that can be dealt with with unmitigated force. The soldiers who raided the compound of and killed Bin Laden were certainly not doing an evil act.
To be good means to hold a respect for life and for others' well being. That does not mean it is sacrosanct. Again, it all depends on the circumstances. I mean there are obvious problems with the comparison like the objective evil of certain creatures and races in pathfinder, but similarly there are people in the real world who are such objective evils with which only force and violence will work.
OT, but pacifism isn't inaction or passive-ism. It's acting--please note, ACTING--in a way in which you avoid doing physical harm to others.
If you think you accomplish nothing by nonviolent action, I suggest you read up on the works of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
OT, but pacifism isn't inaction or passive-ism. It's acting--please note, ACTING--in a way in which you avoid doing physical harm to others.
If you think you accomplish nothing by nonviolent action, I suggest you read up on the works of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
The ability to do so is very situational -- It generally works in situations where the general public can be won over because of their own consciences and inherent morality. (To put it in game terms, you're forcing a Neutral crowd who wants to be good/considers themselves good but is apathetic into taking good actions -- or shocking/shaming them out of the evil actions they're taking).
However, such actions require that sort of scenario and have very limited utility when dealing with the darker aspects of humanity -- those who truly are acting in an evil way -- it would not help prevent a mugging, rape or murder in progress, or - for that matter stopping the tanks from rolling in (such as either Tiananmen Square, or 1939 Poland).... and would be less than useless against (PF-game-type) truly evil beings.
The different alignments recruit people differently. Evil forces, dehumanises, threatens, seduces and taints. Good provides ideals and role models. Forcing someone to act in a good way doesn't really do much to improve a situation, because you will then need to keep watching them every second of every day. If we must discuss military actions, I don't see that soldiers would be any less moral than anyone else - so them NOT using their tanks to kill people would be a concrete decision for good. The Nuremberg trials defined clearly that "I was following orders" is irrelevant when on trial for war crimes, the responsibility for one's actions is still on each person's shoulders.
True, a behaviour that would be called good does not have much to apply in a situation with violence, but I hope we can agree that defending yourself is not an evil act if truly threatened, and neither is defending another. It is not reasonable to claim that inaction in the face of violence toward another is evil, however. Throwing your life away is just stupid.
I distinguish some between fantasy vs. real life "goodness" and some between medieval/Renaissance-era vs. modern-era "goodness".
EDIT: And also between frontier vs. urban "goodness".
OT, but pacifism isn't inaction or passive-ism. It's acting--please note, ACTING--in a way in which you avoid doing physical harm to others.
If you think you accomplish nothing by nonviolent action, I suggest you read up on the works of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
A policy of non violence in a given situation is not in my mind a pacifist. Obviously non violence can accomplish many things, but only in a completely civilized situation. There must be courts, public oppinion, and political systems to manage.
Pascifism worked against the british in india and in the civil rights movement in the united states, but it would not have worked in Nazi Germany. Pascifism only works if your enemy also has an aversion to violence on at least some level, otherwise it is just a massacre.
Preferring non-violent solutions is fine, but being a true pacifist, is unrealistic, particularly when facing truly evil people.
Actually pacifism has worked, or at least worked as well as violent resistance in many more brutal situations.
Solidarity in Poland before the fall of the Soviet Union.
There was non-violent resistance to Nazi Germany in many of the conquered territories as well.
For example what the village of Le Chambon accomplished during the Nazi occupation in France.
You also need to look more closely at Gandhi's movement in India. There were massacres. That didn't stop them.
Exactly. Part of being a good pacifist/nonviolent activist is indeed in a way also part of what makes a good soldier: being very willing to face a violent, brutal death while standing for what you believe is right.
Good post all around, thanks.
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I think it is nearly impossible to be both a pacifist and be good. You arent good you are apathetic.
Many 'Doctors without Borders', a few of the I know personally are pacifists, they would probably disagre with you, as would some people engaged in building schools or hospitals in third world countries, many of whom are outspoken pacifists.
'Vanquishing evil' is not the only and, in my opinion, not even the best way to act and be 'good'
As for the OPs question, while I distinguish between real lif morals and in game moral - if only because I would not know how it is to live as a trained fighter or wizard or cleric in a world as ravaged by violence and war as the average d&d world - but even in these worlds (aka in my games) killing evil is not a good act in itself. It may not be an evil act (if motives of the killing party are fun, profit and general sadistic tendecies they may well be), but they are not good.
Protecting the village (possibly by means of killing the dragon that constantly attacks and threatens the villagers) or rescuing the innocent travellers (possibly by slaying every single member of the Lamashtu Cult that took them prisoner) could be the good acts - not the killings themselfs.
I will not claim that one can't be both a pacifist and good, but I would point out that one of the hallmarks of good is protecting the innocent. That is difficult to do when you are a pacifist. The most you can do is give your life for the innocent, but then they would still be vulnerable to harm.
I will not claim that one can't be both a pacifist and good, but I would point out that one of the hallmarks of good is protecting the innocent. That is difficult to do when you are a pacifist. The most you can do is give your life for the innocent, but then they would still be vulnerable to harm.
Exactly. I never said there were no good pacifists. My issue was with the assertion that you needed to be a pacifist to be good -- which doesn't even seem to hold true in the real world, let alone a fantasy one.
However, we seem to have strayed somewhat from the original topic at this point.
We live in a different world than most adventures, because adventuring would be pretty boring otherwise. So, yeah, very few "good" people in my experience are nearly as violent as the average adventurer, because you don't just find that amount of violence in an average American town unless you're wantonly causing it.
I mean, even the folks I know in the military aren't racking up the kill counts (although my cousin's son controls some pretty decent missiles, so if he got any at all he'd rocket ahead of my PCs. No pun intended. Maybe.)
But without some people, dedicated to violence, who are at the very least On the Right Side, we never would have ended slavery, or defeated Hitler. So, yeah, there's that. Not all the people on the winning sides of those conflicts would qualify for good alignments. I'm sure a large number of folks in the Real World are closest to some sort of neutral. Some might even qualify for an evil alignment. But I wouldn't say that their actions, violent as they may be, disqualified them from being good.
OT, but pacifism isn't inaction or passive-ism. It's acting--please note, ACTING--in a way in which you avoid doing physical harm to others.
If you think you accomplish nothing by nonviolent action, I suggest you read up on the works of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
There are many different definitions of pacifism.
On one end, some people do not consider MLK Jr. to be a pacifist because he was agressive in public speaking, marches, gettin gin the way, etc... You can only be a true pacifist if you do your best not to bother or offend anyone.At the other end, some people consider a preference for non-lethal solutions to be pacifism.
I personally define it somewhere in the middle.
Pacifism is... complicated.
Agreed. That's why I said "some level of pacifism". Please note, I didn't say "absolute pacifism".
Would you stand aside while evil is performed on another? If violence was necessary would anyone condemn someone who performed it?
Although there are some who believe any sort of violence is abhorrent, I believe that most people would agree that violence is acceptable when defending oneself or others from harm. I'd count myself in the latter group.
Are soldiers inherently lacking in "good" because their entirety is trained to respond to violent conflict with violent conflict?
That's a pretty loaded question. I'd say that "goodness" in soldiery and warfare, in general, are largely a matter of luck and circumstance. Certainly some soldiers might be very good people and conveniently find themselves in a position to do good deeds; say during peace-keeping duties or while protecting civilians from enemies who would do them harm. But what about when good soldiers are ordered to carry out duties they might otherwise object to on moral grounds? Disobeying such orders would be considered very very bad behaviour by that same soldier's superiors; certainly a tough position to be in.
If I dare, I'd say that as a whole the armed forces are trained to be neutral. They exist to defend their nation and to fight those their nation's government orders them to regardless of the individual soldiers' desires. Personal bias is actively drummed out of the armed forces as a necessity of their function.
But that's a gross oversimplification of the matter which largely ignores the differences in various nations' training methods, cultures and government policies. So take what I'm saying with a big ol' grain of salt.
Another question: Do your "good" PCs practice restraint when actively battling evil? That is to say, do they attempt to normally attempt to talk before resorting to violence? If possible, do they usually attempt to subdue rather than kill opponents? Do they take prisoners and, if so, do they try and redeem/reform them?
...Another question: Do your "good" PCs practice restraint when actively battling evil? That is to say, do they attempt to normally attempt to talk before resorting to violence? If possible, do they usually attempt to subdue rather than kill opponents? Do they take prisoners and, if so, do they try and redeem/reform them?
My group tries to talk sometimes. But they are wildly inconsistent about it (very nearly bi-polar on this subject). They swing between no warning before striking to continuing to try and talk while the other side has already attacked them.
However, once they decide to strike they almost never give the other guy the opportunity to surrender or run away.