Racism and Alignment


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Anguish wrote:
Observation. Dozens of generations of marauding orc tribes who are virtually all very strong, very stupid, very cruel and destructive creatures gives pretty strong evidence that they're not like say... elves. It's not the same as on Earth observing that certain visible ethnicities tend to be criminals while ignoring their socioeconomic background. Adopted orcs and goblins and, and, and have a mysterious nearly universal tendency to grow up into evil bastards.

It's not possible to separate the observation from the social realm and get at something purely biological. You point to generations of orcs as evidence they are inherently stupid and evil, but those orcs don't exist independent of their culture. They don't exist independent of being a marginalized race, one that "civilized" races hunt, kill, and drive to the edges of the world. Orcs adopted by humans grow up in a culture where they are told they are inherently evil and lesser. They are told that regardless of their choices, their biology condemns them to being savage and evil. They experience more overt prejudices as well. If the only living you can make is banditry (because no one will shop at a store owned by an orc, no craftsperson will take an orc as apprentice, no wizard school will accept an orc, etc.), then of course you will become a bandit. It's your only option.

Just observing generations of orc tribes doesn't establish that they are cruel and destructive due to some innate trait. Just the observations doesn't establish any mechanism by which such an innate trait would exist and propagate. It doesn't provide any reason to believe that orcs are innately violent and evil, as opposed to other explanations. Remember, any explanation of orcs as innately evil and savage has to establish why half-orcs are exempt.


pres man wrote:
My personal view is that alignments should be based more on what characters do rather than what they think or say. Someone who sits at home and dreams of ways to murder innocent children, but never acted on such schemes, wouldn't necessarily have an evil alignment in my mind.

I can agree with "think", but when it comes to saying, we're far into the "do" territory for me. Saying something is interacting with your surroundings, affecting things. It very much is doing something. Encouraging people to murder innocent children is an evil action in my book, especially if there's reason to believe they might act on the encouragement.


MagusJanus wrote:
One, "default" allows everyone an equal starting point for discussion that allows all of us to discuss it with the same knowledge base as well as come up with alterations from the default that address any problems. Not using default means we need probably another ten pages just to established a shared knowledge base outside of default, and by then it's possible most people who comment wouldn't read it.

The point is, not everybody uses the default. Thus harkening back to my point that this is entirely a table-issue, not a rules-issue. In some games, this is acceptable behavior. In other games, it is not. It's up to the DM to decide where the line falls, and make sure his players are fully aware of it before they make characters, if for no other reason than some players may not care for that kind of game (like, say, me).

Quote:
Two, the majority of the write-up about alignment, including the definitions of what each alignment is like, is pure fluff. If we ignore the fluff, we pretty much have no basis for discussion of alignment at all.

Exactly.


Anguish wrote:
You don't. In a fantasy world like Golarion, racism is common sense, not evil. There is no reason for an elf to give an orc a "fair try" because in this world, all men are not created equally. Many, many of them monstrous. Literally.

And this is why I would never use Golarion as a campaign world as written. Eberron FTW.


Zhayne wrote:
MagusJanus wrote:
One, "default" allows everyone an equal starting point for discussion that allows all of us to discuss it with the same knowledge base as well as come up with alterations from the default that address any problems. Not using default means we need probably another ten pages just to established a shared knowledge base outside of default, and by then it's possible most people who comment wouldn't read it.

The point is, not everybody uses the default. Thus harkening back to my point that this is entirely a table-issue, not a rules-issue. In some games, this is acceptable behavior. In other games, it is not. It's up to the DM to decide where the line falls, and make sure his players are fully aware of it before they make characters, if for no other reason than some players may not care for that kind of game (like, say, me).

Quote:
Two, the majority of the write-up about alignment, including the definitions of what each alignment is like, is pure fluff. If we ignore the fluff, we pretty much have no basis for discussion of alignment at all.

Exactly.

I have to agree with you that it is definitely a table issue. And it gets frustrating that one of the main items the rules depend so heavily upon happens to be so fluffy when it comes time to actually discuss those rules in a discussion like this one.


Vivianne Laflamme wrote:
Anguish wrote:
Observation. Dozens of generations of marauding orc tribes who are virtually all very strong, very stupid, very cruel and destructive creatures gives pretty strong evidence that they're not like say... elves. It's not the same as on Earth observing that certain visible ethnicities tend to be criminals while ignoring their socioeconomic background. Adopted orcs and goblins and, and, and have a mysterious nearly universal tendency to grow up into evil bastards.

It's not possible to separate the observation from the social realm and get at something purely biological. You point to generations of orcs as evidence they are inherently stupid and evil, but those orcs don't exist independent of their culture. They don't exist independent of being a marginalized race, one that "civilized" races hunt, kill, and drive to the edges of the world. Orcs adopted by humans grow up in a culture where they are told they are inherently evil and lesser. They are told that regardless of their choices, their biology condemns them to being savage and evil. They experience more overt prejudices as well. If the only living you can make is banditry (because no one will shop at a store owned by an orc, no craftsperson will take an orc as apprentice, no wizard school will accept an orc, etc.), then of course you will become a bandit. It's your only option.

Just observing generations of orc tribes doesn't establish that they are cruel and destructive due to some innate trait. Just the observations doesn't establish any mechanism by which such an innate trait would exist and propagate. It doesn't provide any reason to believe that orcs are innately violent and evil, as opposed to other explanations. Remember, any explanation of orcs as innately evil and savage has to establish why half-orcs are exempt.

As I suggested above, use a simple test:

Have a paladin butcher a bunch of orc babies. See if he falls.
(Or better yet, have him use a Phylactery of Faithfulness and find out before actually doing it.)

This is a magical world. It's a world with actual evil, which can be detected and possibly even measured. It is possible to determine whether certain acts are good or evil in ways that you simply cannot in the real world. There are findable hard and fast answers to moral questions.


MagusJanus wrote:
I have to agree with you that it is definitely a table issue. And it gets frustrating that one of the main items the rules depend so heavily upon happens to be so fluffy when it comes time to actually discuss those rules in a discussion like this one.

That's probably because when alignment was invented for 1e/2e, table variation was the norm. Few if any people bothered worrying about what the Official RAW/RAI was, they just played how they wanted.

When 3e was designed, that was what the developers had in mind. They later expressed surprise at the emphasis a lot of people put on RAW/RAI.

That also happens to be the reason the really broken stuff in 3.X (and hence in PF as well) are from the core rules. The designers intent was not for people to spend so much time worrying about standardized rules. The true RAI in the core rules is "Don't worry too much about RAI/RAW" :)

After the core rules showed up, the developers noticed a change in player culture, in which "official rulings" were highly valued. Which is why the content in 3.X/PF improved later on.

...but we still have the core rules, written with a much less rigid kind of game in mind. So yea, the parts of the game that cause the most arguments are in core. And that includes alignment.


thejeff wrote:

As I suggested above, use a simple test:

Have a paladin butcher a bunch of orc babies. See if he falls.
(Or better yet, have him use a Phylactery of Faithfulness and find out before actually doing it.)

This is a magical world. It's a world with actual evil, which can be detected and possibly even measured. It is possible to determine whether certain acts are good or evil in ways that you simply cannot in the real world. There are findable hard and fast answers to moral questions.

That only works if good (as in the sense of alignment) acts are necessarily moral (in the sense of actual morality). If killing infants is a good act, that sounds like evidence that good acts aren't necessarily moral, rather than evidence that killing infants is moral.


Vivianne Laflamme wrote:
thejeff wrote:

As I suggested above, use a simple test:

Have a paladin butcher a bunch of orc babies. See if he falls.
(Or better yet, have him use a Phylactery of Faithfulness and find out before actually doing it.)

This is a magical world. It's a world with actual evil, which can be detected and possibly even measured. It is possible to determine whether certain acts are good or evil in ways that you simply cannot in the real world. There are findable hard and fast answers to moral questions.

That only works if good (as in the sense of alignment) acts are necessarily moral (in the sense of actual morality). If killing infants is a good act, that sounds more like an evidence that good acts aren't necessarily moral rather than evidence that killing infants is moral.

Or it could be seen as evidence that the orcs really are, in that particular setting, just monsters who are without question chaotic evil. Soulless abominations that it is not a bad thing to slay. Etc, etc.

More likely, in even a semi-realistic world, where the orcs are usually, but not always evil, such tactics would be used to convince the racists that orcs really weren't soulless abominations. Given human nature, that's likely to be the far harder task.

But are you really arguing that good is actually not-good? Does that make any sense at all?
Seriously, you can feel free to tell the GM you won't play in his game anymore and walk out, but you really can't override the GM about how his setting works.


thejeff wrote:
Vivianne Laflamme wrote:
thejeff wrote:

As I suggested above, use a simple test:

Have a paladin butcher a bunch of orc babies. See if he falls.
(Or better yet, have him use a Phylactery of Faithfulness and find out before actually doing it.)

This is a magical world. It's a world with actual evil, which can be detected and possibly even measured. It is possible to determine whether certain acts are good or evil in ways that you simply cannot in the real world. There are findable hard and fast answers to moral questions.

That only works if good (as in the sense of alignment) acts are necessarily moral (in the sense of actual morality). If killing infants is a good act, that sounds more like an evidence that good acts aren't necessarily moral rather than evidence that killing infants is moral.

Or it could be seen as evidence that the orcs really are, in that particular setting, just monsters who are without question chaotic evil. Soulless abominations that it is not a bad thing to slay. Etc, etc.

More likely, in even a semi-realistic world, where the orcs are usually, but not always evil, such tactics would be used to convince the racists that orcs really weren't soulless abominations. Given human nature, that's likely to be the far harder task.

But are you really arguing that good is actually not-good? Does that make any sense at all?
Seriously, you can feel free to tell the GM you won't play in his game anymore and walk out, but you really can't override the GM about how his setting works.

Remember, in D&D, and by extension PF, "Good" and "Evil" are defined, measurable qualities. However, under a world where killing orc babies is not only not an evil act, but is actually a 'good' one, I'd take that as a sign that the "good" and "evil" referred to by alignment are often in harmony with actual morality, but are not synonymous.

Essentially, it also plays into the fact that an evil person doesn't generally think they're evil; all alignment is is a set of two axes of morality and ethics. They are titled "good", "evil", "law" and "chaos" mostly because they are titled from a largely "good" (and probably leaning "lawful") perspective. A lawful evil society would probably call the alignments by different terms, because in their mind, they're not evil.


thejeff wrote:
But are you really arguing that good is actually not-good? Does that make any sense at all?

I'm saying that the alignment system can fail to match morality. If a DM rules that killing infants in their world is a good act, they haven't legislated morality. All they have done is establish that alignment in their game fails to match morality. In their world, good (as in alignment) isn't necessarily good (as in morality). A DM can no more declare that infanticide is moral any more than they can declare that modus ponens doesn't hold in their setting.


I suggested this as a test when you questioned how inhabitants of a setting would be able to know that orcs are irredeemably, innately, evil and savage. Being able to prove that it wasn't evil to kill even baby orcs seems to me to be a very good step in that direction.

Please note that I never actually said that it would be a good action. Simply not an evil one, since it wouldn't cause a paladin to fall. Again, assuming that in this hypothetical setting it passed that test.

Are you claiming at this point that even if the babies in question were guaranteed, beyond any shadow of a doubt to grow up to be evil, that their entire species was irredeemably and unchangeably evil, that it would still be evil to kill them? (Could you leave them to die naturally? Or would you have to take them in and raise them until, inevitably they committed atrocities?)
Or are you simply denying the possibility of such creatures even in the face of the GM supplying in-world evidence that it was the case?

Either way, why bother with the argument about how people would know, if it would make no difference?


The argument was

1. Orcs are innately evil. They are irredeemable and unchangeable.
2. Therefore, it is always justified to kill orcs.

My contention is that even if we assume it's always justified to kill irredeemably evil creatures, you first have to know the creature is irredeemably evil for it be justified for you to kill it.

Killing an orc infant and not falling (or querying a Phylactery of Faithfulness) establishes neither 1 nor 2. It only establishes that killing orc infants is good (as in the alignment). Saying "my phylactery told me to do it" isn't really a justification for your actions. It doesn't provide you knowledge of 1 or 2. How do you know you can trust your phylactery for moral advice? How do you know you can trust your deity (or what you think is your deity)? How do you know that good acts are moral?

An orc paladin of Lamashtu queries her Phylactery of Faithfulness whether she would be in danger of falling if she killed a human infant. She learns that she would not fall. A human anti-paladin of Erastil queries his Phylactery of Faithfulness whether he would be in danger of falling if he killed an orc infant. He learns that he would not fall. Are they both justified? Are neither? If only one is justified, what's different?


This reminds me of this exchange

Some spoilers, if you haven't seen Genesis of the Daleks:
SARAH: Get it off! Get it off!
(Sarah and Harry pull at the gelatinous thing and finally get it off the Doctor's throat. Harry throws part of it back into the incubation room, the Doctor does the same with the remainder and closes the door. They move a little way down the corridor, and the Doctor holds the two wires. Then he hesitates putting them together to close the circuit and detonate the explosives.)
SARAH: What are you waiting for?
DOCTOR: Just touch these two strands together and the Daleks are finished. Have I that right?
SARAH: To destroy the Daleks? You can't doubt it.
DOCTOR: Well, I do. You see, some things could be better with the Daleks. Many future worlds will become allies just because of their fear of the Daleks.
SARAH: But it isn't like that.
DOCTOR: But the final responsibility is mine, and mine alone. Listen, if someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child?
SARAH: We're talking about the Daleks, the most evil creatures ever invented. You must destroy them. You must complete your mission for the Time Lords.
DOCTOR: Do I have the right? Simply touch one wire against the other and that's it. The Daleks cease to exist. Hundreds of millions of people, thousands of generations can live without fear, in peace, and never even know the word Dalek.
SARAH: Then why wait? If it was a disease or some sort of bacteria you were destroying, you wouldn't hesitate.
DOCTOR: But I kill, wipe out a whole intelligent lifeform, then I become like them. I'd be no better than the Daleks.

I'm firmly of the camp that it is not just or right to kill them, even if it is known that they will be irredeemably evil; it may not be evil, but it is in no means good, nor lawful. However, this doesn't even matter much, as the point has already been raised that only unintelligent monsters and planar outsiders are to the point of unchangeable alignment. In such a case, it is completely evil to kill orc children for the sole crime of being orcs. It's not even borderline, it's very far along there in terms of the evil spectrum.


pres man wrote:
Possibly, if the GM so chooses that to be the case. Another GM may decide that it is not, and that those evil tendencies are actually culturally determined and well treated adopted orcs and goblins do not show those tendencies in greater numbers than other races. This is entirely the domain of the campaign setting in play.

Seriously? If a GM decides that orcs and goblins and balors aren't as written in the bestiary yes of course that changes things. But that argument holds as much weight as answering "do longswords deal 1d8 damage?" with "it depends on what your GM says."

The rules define how monsters act, by default. The published setting doesn't deviate from that. So... houserules aside, I think my point stands.


Zhayne wrote:
And this is why I would never use Golarion as a campaign world as written. Eberron FTW.

For what it's worth, the effective loss of Eberron is my biggest gripe about WotC's release of 4e. I personally just don't find the work required to reskin things to fit the setting enjoyable. But we really liked Eberron.


Vivianne Laflamme wrote:

The argument was

1. Orcs are innately evil. They are irredeemable and unchangeable.
2. Therefore, it is always justified to kill orcs.

My contention is that even if we assume it's always justified to kill irredeemably evil creatures, you first have to know the creature is irredeemably evil for it be justified for you to kill it.

Killing an orc infant and not falling (or querying a Phylactery of Faithfulness) establishes neither 1 nor 2. It only establishes that killing orc infants is good (as in the alignment). Saying "my phylactery told me to do it" isn't really a justification for your actions. It doesn't provide you knowledge of 1 or 2. How do you know you can trust your phylactery for moral advice? How do you know you can trust your deity (or what you think is your deity)? How do you know that good acts are moral?

An orc paladin of Lamashtu queries her Phylactery of Faithfulness whether she would be in danger of falling if she killed a human infant. She learns that she would not fall. A human anti-paladin of Erastil queries his Phylactery of Faithfulness whether he would be in danger of falling if he killed an orc infant. He learns that he would not fall. Are they both justified? Are neither? If only one is justified, what's different?

According to the rules of the paladin class, a paladin falls if she willfully commits an evil act. That particular clause has nothing to do with what her deity, if any, approves of or does not approve of. Alignment is a real, objective thing under the PF rules.

There are no Paladins who are Lawful Good in the eyes of their culture, but Chaotic Evil to their enemies fighting other paladins who they think are Chaotic Evil. There's no cultural relativity here. Paladins are Lawful Good by an objective standard. If not or if they willfully commit a single evil act, they are no longer paladins.

I suppose the phylactery could be cursed or something so you thought it worked, but it actually tricked you. If so, you'd get your hard evidence when you killed the orcs and fell.

Obviously, the GM could house rule any of the mechanics around alignment and/or paladins, but RAW and RAI, if a paladin does it and retains her abilities, it's not an evil act. It's really that simple.

As for your example, it doesn't work. First, there are no paladins of Lamashtu. Or anti-paladins of Erastil. Assuming paladins & anti-paladins of different gods and that both get those responses from correctly functioning phylacteries, then it would have to not be an evil act to kill the human infant and not a good one to kill the orc infant. I suppose it's possible to imagine a world where all the humans are innately evil, but it's harder since they're us and such humans wouldn't actually be human. It's a little easier to imagine with fictional races.


Anguish wrote:
pres man wrote:
Possibly, if the GM so chooses that to be the case. Another GM may decide that it is not, and that those evil tendencies are actually culturally determined and well treated adopted orcs and goblins do not show those tendencies in greater numbers than other races. This is entirely the domain of the campaign setting in play.

Seriously? If a GM decides that orcs and goblins and balors aren't as written in the bestiary yes of course that changes things. But that argument holds as much weight as answering "do longswords deal 1d8 damage?" with "it depends on what your GM says."

The rules define how monsters act, by default. The published setting doesn't deviate from that. So... houserules aside, I think my point stands.

First of all, longsword damage is crunch. Alignment is largely fluff. There are crunch mechanics that interact with it, but it's still mostly fluff.

Secondly, The bestiary hardly means anything. The quote MagusJanus pointed out, that said in no uncertain terms that the only creatures whose alignment is effectively immutable are planar outsiders and unintelligent (less than INT 2) creatures, for one, but also (playing into your point about longsword damage), just because it says a creature uses one weapon, does that mean that they'll never use other weapons? Because, by your logic, that's changing how they are in the bestiary, which Paizo does do (pick up one of many AP books, to see for yourself; they also do occasionally change alignments from what's in the bestiary, but lets ignore that part too).

thejeff wrote:
I suppose it's possible to imagine a world where all the humans are innately evil, but it's harder since they're us and such humans wouldn't actually be human. It's a little easier to imagine with fictional races.

Yes, I suppose it is easier to pretend that a subset of sentient beings are "innately evil." Doesn't make it any more right than when humans believe that of another subset of humans.


Anguish wrote:
pres man wrote:
Possibly, if the GM so chooses that to be the case. Another GM may decide that it is not, and that those evil tendencies are actually culturally determined and well treated adopted orcs and goblins do not show those tendencies in greater numbers than other races. This is entirely the domain of the campaign setting in play.

Seriously? If a GM decides that orcs and goblins and balors aren't as written in the bestiary yes of course that changes things. But that argument holds as much weight as answering "do longswords deal 1d8 damage?" with "it depends on what your GM says."

The rules define how monsters act, by default. The published setting doesn't deviate from that. So... houserules aside, I think my point stands.

Seriously then, you are incorrect with the RAW, see the above comments about how the bestiary says only outsiders and unintelligent animals/beasts have set alignments. You are the one houseruling it in this case.


Anguish wrote:
pres man wrote:
Possibly, if the GM so chooses that to be the case. Another GM may decide that it is not, and that those evil tendencies are actually culturally determined and well treated adopted orcs and goblins do not show those tendencies in greater numbers than other races. This is entirely the domain of the campaign setting in play.

Seriously? If a GM decides that orcs and goblins and balors aren't as written in the bestiary yes of course that changes things. But that argument holds as much weight as answering "do longswords deal 1d8 damage?" with "it depends on what your GM says."

The rules define how monsters act, by default. The published setting doesn't deviate from that. So... houserules aside, I think my point stands.

Actually, Golarion does vary from base rules. In several areas, at that.

But, on monster alignment? Here's the actual rule, yet again, on that:

Spoiler:
Alignment, Size, and Type: While a monster’s size and type remain constant (unless changed by the application of templates or other unusual modifiers), alignment is far more f luid. The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters—they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign. Only in the case of relatively unintelligent monsters (creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or lower are almost never anything other than neutral) and planar monsters (outsiders with alignments other than those listed are unusual and typically outcasts from their kind) is the listed alignment relatively unchangeable.

Saying they only act as the Beastiary has them written up is actually the houserule. So your point doesn't stand because the rules don't support it.


Tholomyes wrote:

Essentially, it also plays into the fact that an evil person doesn't generally think they're evil; all alignment is is a...

That doesn't work if good and evil are objective. If they're measurable, extant energies/forces, then you can just cast Detect Evil, look at your hand, and realize that you're evil.

Sovereign Court

don't we all game to kill monsters get gold and level up?

all i'm saying is if the DM 'constantly' makes the monsters 'good' to throw off the players, he's just messing with the players and taking the fun of it all


Anguish wrote:

The rules define how monsters act, by default. The published setting doesn't deviate from that. So... houserules aside, I think my point stands.

No, they don't. Rules only define a monster's capabilities. Any behavioral aspects are purely fluff and flavor.

Sovereign Court

...once in a while, if the DM wants to have a moral debate... then he should give clear hints (sense motive DC 5) that the particular orc is behaving abnormally (i.e. he's polite, nice, and GOOOOOOOOOOD....)


Zhayne wrote:
Tholomyes wrote:

Essentially, it also plays into the fact that an evil person doesn't generally think they're evil; all alignment is is a...

That doesn't work if good and evil are objective. If they're measurable, extant energies/forces, then you can just cast Detect Evil, look at your hand, and realize that you're evil.

You can cast Detect Evil, sure. But how do you know that it's really evil you are detecting. Sure in most cases they overlap, but all that is really truly known is there are two perpendicular axes: one labeled the good-evil axis, the other labeled the law-chaos axis. But these are just labels. It doesn't mean that the good-evil axis aligns perfectly with morality.


Tholomyes wrote:
thejeff wrote:
I suppose it's possible to imagine a world where all the humans are innately evil, but it's harder since they're us and such humans wouldn't actually be human. It's a little easier to imagine with fictional races.
Yes, I suppose it is easier to pretend that a subset of sentient beings are "innately evil." Doesn't make it any more right than when humans believe that of another subset of humans.

Really? Seriously?

An author or a game master creating a fictional race of evil sentients is innately evil is just as bad as someone who actually believes that of some racial subset of real world humans?

That just doesn't make any sense. One is actually discriminating against real people, who objectively aren't anymore evil than anyone else. The other is fiction. And within the confines of that fiction is correct by Word of God.


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Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

don't we all game to kill monsters get gold and level up?

all i'm saying is if the DM 'constantly' makes the monsters 'good' to throw off the players, he's just messing with the players and taking the fun of it all

Or perhaps the DM isn't trying to trick the players, but actually trying to set up a world where "monsterous" races don't simply exist to raid towns and get killed by adventuring parties.


Tholomyes wrote:
Zhayne wrote:
Tholomyes wrote:

Essentially, it also plays into the fact that an evil person doesn't generally think they're evil; all alignment is is a...

That doesn't work if good and evil are objective. If they're measurable, extant energies/forces, then you can just cast Detect Evil, look at your hand, and realize that you're evil.
You can cast Detect Evil, sure. But how do you know that it's really evil you are detecting. Sure in most cases they overlap, but all that is really truly known is there are two perpendicular axes: one labeled the good-evil axis, the other labeled the law-chaos axis. But these are just labels. It doesn't mean that the good-evil axis aligns perfectly with morality.

And at this point I give up.

The game mechanics define this. There is no hint in either RAW or RAI that "good" and "evil" mean something different than morality in the game.

Now, obviously, the GM and the players could have differences of opinion about what constitutes good or evil, but those are meta-game disputes. Within the world Good is Good and Evil is Evil.

Unless of course the GM house rules it differently.


Tholomyes wrote:
Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

don't we all game to kill monsters get gold and level up?

all i'm saying is if the DM 'constantly' makes the monsters 'good' to throw off the players, he's just messing with the players and taking the fun of it all

Or perhaps the DM isn't trying to trick the players, but actually trying to set up a world where "monsterous" races don't simply exist to raid towns and get killed by adventuring parties.

That's fine and actually my preferred style of play.

In such a world, the players should avoid killing monstrous races just for existing and the GM should avoid messing with the players by sticking them with monster babies when he's given them good reasons to kill their mommies and daddies.

Silver Crusade

Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

don't we all game to kill monsters get gold and level up?

all i'm saying is if the DM 'constantly' makes the monsters 'good' to throw off the players, he's just messing with the players and taking the fun of it all

Nope. I play to explore a fantasy world and to play a Big Damn Hero, neither of which hinge on gold or having people tagged as being okay to guiltlessly murder.

Anti-fun for me: Purge the orcs and take their stuff

Fun for me: Defeat the villains causing trouble on both sides

Anti-fun: Genocide

Fun: Redemption and actually having Good be good rather than just a team jersey

Cripes, I can't start playing Wrath of the Righteous early enough.


thejeff wrote:
Tholomyes wrote:
Zhayne wrote:
Tholomyes wrote:

Essentially, it also plays into the fact that an evil person doesn't generally think they're evil; all alignment is is a...

That doesn't work if good and evil are objective. If they're measurable, extant energies/forces, then you can just cast Detect Evil, look at your hand, and realize that you're evil.
You can cast Detect Evil, sure. But how do you know that it's really evil you are detecting. Sure in most cases they overlap, but all that is really truly known is there are two perpendicular axes: one labeled the good-evil axis, the other labeled the law-chaos axis. But these are just labels. It doesn't mean that the good-evil axis aligns perfectly with morality.

And at this point I give up.

The game mechanics define this. There is no hint in either RAW or RAI that "good" and "evil" mean something different than morality in the game.

Now, obviously, the GM and the players could have differences of opinion about what constitutes good or evil, but those are meta-game disputes. Within the world Good is Good and Evil is Evil.

Unless of course the GM house rules it differently.

I'm going to back you up a bit on this. Here's what the book says on the Lawful Good alignment:

Spoiler:
Lawful Good: A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished.

The way it is written, it is inherently tied to morality. There's no arguing otherwise; you cannot have a good person without having some kind of moral judgement involved. It might be that the setting has what is a good person vary by culture... but good itself is still an inherent part of the universe.


Purple Dragon Knight wrote:
don't we all game to kill monsters get gold and level up?

No.

How deep a group roleplays is entirely dependent on that group, not the game system. I've been involved in a lot of deep-characterization games of D&D of ALL editions, and I've been involved in games that were supposedly 'all storytelling' like White Wolf games that were nothing more than monster-of-the-week shoot-and-loots.

The game system can't make you roleplay, and it can't make you not roleplay. That's COMPLETELY dependent upon the group.


thejeff wrote:
As for your example, it doesn't work. First, there are no paladins of Lamashtu. Or anti-paladins of Erastil.

Sorry, I was using the orcish words. I should have been more clear. "Paladin" in orcish translates to "anti-paladin" in common and "anti-paladin" in orcish translates to "paladin" in common. But yeah, the orcish paladin of Lamashtu queried her Phylactery of Faithfulness. She learned that killing human children is a LG (or, as they say in common, "CE") act. Since growing up she has been fervently dedicated to good---the importance of strength and power, raiding nearby human settlements for food and supplies, dominating the weak, etc. She knows that she is good (lawful good even!) by an objective standard.

She has heard that humans believe that evil is good (literally, "evil" in orcish translates to "good" in common), but she's dismissed that as hearsay. How could anyone think that it's good to share with those weaker than you, to sacrifice your autonomy to a communal tyranny, or to heal the sick and dying so the tribe grows weaker? That's absolutely preposterous! It goes against the objective alignment standards!

Now obviously, I don't think violently expressing your dominance on everyone around you is right or moral. But I don't appeal to some alignment system to justify that. The point of this little story is to demonstrate that in fantasy roleplaying setting, "my god says it's okay and my alignment hasn't changed" doesn't justify anyone's actions. The question is, for the person in the setting, what is the actual justification, if any? How do they know that it's justified to arbitrarily kill orcs? If you say because orcs are inherently evil, then how do they know that? What does it mean for orcs to be inherently evil? If you say it's justified because their god/phylactery told you so,then how do they know that? How do they bridge the gap between "commanded by my deity" and "morally permissible"? If you say it's justified because [appeal to alignment], then how do they know that? How do they know that alignment always matches morality?

We know, from reading the rulebooks, that the alignment system is [meant to be] equivalent to morality in the setting. Good is good and evil is evil. But how does the human paladin in the setting know this? We know that what good gods say is good is what is good. But how does this paladin know this? We know, due to ruling from the DM, that in this setting, orcs are inherently evil. But how does this paladin know this?

I think there is a simple solution to this dichotomy between what moral reasoning tells us and what the alignment system tells us. Namely, conclude that the alignment system fails to match morality. It does a good job of this in some areas and a terrible job of it in others. It sometimes falsely decides an action is evil and it sometimes falsely decides an action is good. But its flaws mean we cannot appeal to it to argue morality. Genocide and infanticide are not justified, regardless of what the alignment system says.


thejeff wrote:
Tholomyes wrote:
Zhayne wrote:
Tholomyes wrote:

Essentially, it also plays into the fact that an evil person doesn't generally think they're evil; all alignment is is a...

That doesn't work if good and evil are objective. If they're measurable, extant energies/forces, then you can just cast Detect Evil, look at your hand, and realize that you're evil.
You can cast Detect Evil, sure. But how do you know that it's really evil you are detecting. Sure in most cases they overlap, but all that is really truly known is there are two perpendicular axes: one labeled the good-evil axis, the other labeled the law-chaos axis. But these are just labels. It doesn't mean that the good-evil axis aligns perfectly with morality.

And at this point I give up.

The game mechanics define this. There is no hint in either RAW or RAI that "good" and "evil" mean something different than morality in the game.

Now, obviously, the GM and the players could have differences of opinion about what constitutes good or evil, but those are meta-game disputes. Within the world Good is Good and Evil is Evil.

Unless of course the GM house rules it differently.

If the DM rules that killing orc babies isn't an 'evil' act, then there are two options. Either orcs are irredeemably evil or 'good' and 'evil' don't actually mean good and evil. I refuse to believe the former is more likely than the latter.


Tholomyes wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Tholomyes wrote:
Zhayne wrote:
Tholomyes wrote:

Essentially, it also plays into the fact that an evil person doesn't generally think they're evil; all alignment is is a...

That doesn't work if good and evil are objective. If they're measurable, extant energies/forces, then you can just cast Detect Evil, look at your hand, and realize that you're evil.
You can cast Detect Evil, sure. But how do you know that it's really evil you are detecting. Sure in most cases they overlap, but all that is really truly known is there are two perpendicular axes: one labeled the good-evil axis, the other labeled the law-chaos axis. But these are just labels. It doesn't mean that the good-evil axis aligns perfectly with morality.

And at this point I give up.

The game mechanics define this. There is no hint in either RAW or RAI that "good" and "evil" mean something different than morality in the game.

Now, obviously, the GM and the players could have differences of opinion about what constitutes good or evil, but those are meta-game disputes. Within the world Good is Good and Evil is Evil.

Unless of course the GM house rules it differently.

If the DM rules that killing orc babies isn't an 'evil' act, then there are two options. Either orcs are irredeemably evil or 'good' and 'evil' don't actually mean good and evil. I refuse to believe the former is more likely than the latter.

And if the GM has also told you OOC that orcs in his game world are irredeemably evil?

Telling the GM he is wrong about facts he has invented about his setting seems very wrong to me.

Mind you, saying "Thanks, but I'm not interested in playing in such a setting" is perfectly reasonable.


Vivianne Laflamme wrote:
thejeff wrote:
As for your example, it doesn't work. First, there are no paladins of Lamashtu. Or anti-paladins of Erastil.

Sorry, I was using the orcish words. I should have been more clear. "Paladin" in orcish translates to "anti-paladin" in common and "anti-paladin" in orcish translates to "paladin" in common. But yeah, the orcish paladin of Lamashtu queried her Phylactery of Faithfulness. She learned that killing human children is a LG (or, as they say in common, "CE") act. Since growing up she has been fervently dedicated to good---the importance of strength and power, raiding nearby human settlements for food and supplies, dominating the weak, etc. She knows that she is good (lawful good even!) by an objective standard.

She has heard that humans believe that evil is good (literally, "evil" in orcish translates to "good" in common), but she's dismissed that as hearsay. How could anyone think that it's good to share with those weaker than you, to sacrifice your autonomy to a communal tyranny, or to heal the sick and dying so the tribe grows weaker? That's absolutely preposterous! It goes against the objective alignment standards!

Now obviously, I don't think violently expressing your dominance on everyone around you is right or moral. But I don't appeal to some alignment system to justify that. The point of this little story is to demonstrate that in fantasy roleplaying setting, "my god says it's okay and my alignment hasn't changed" doesn't justify anyone's actions. The question is, for the person in the setting, what is the actual justification, if any? How do they know that it's justified to arbitrarily kill orcs? If you say because orcs are inherently evil, then how do they know that? What does it mean for orcs to be inherently evil? If you say it's justified because their god/phylactery told you so,then how do they know that? How do they bridge the gap between "commanded by my deity" and "morally permissible"? If you say it's justified because [appeal to alignment], then...

You're mixing levels in way that I don't think makes any sense. As near as I can tell you're arguing that the alignment system fails and sometimes tags things good when they should be evil because it can't be shown to be correct with in-world knowledge. But I don't see that it does. Breaking the link between good/evil and morality doesn't really make any sense to me.

We started with the OOC knowledge that orcs were innately evil and thus okay to kill. You objected that people in the game world could not know that it was okay to kill them and I provided a way that they could know. There is no clash. The in-game alignment mechanics mesh with our OOC decisions about the morality of game actions. They have to, because it's the GM deciding what the in-game alignment mechanics report. In this case, it's correct because of information they don't have. Or at least don't have proof of.

In-game, you're sort of right, I guess. They can't ever know that what the magic and the gods and whatever else runs the alignment mechanics are actually moral. OTOH, neither can we actually prove any of our moral systems. Theirs at least are consistent and they've got a lot more hard data than we do.


thejeff wrote:

As I suggested above, use a simple test:

Have a paladin butcher a bunch of orc babies. See if he falls.
(Or better yet, have him use a Phylactery of Faithfulness and find out before actually doing it.)
This is a magical world. It's a world with actual evil, which can be detected and possibly even measured. It is possible to determine whether certain acts are good or evil in ways that you simply cannot in the real world. There are findable hard and fast answers to moral questions

But what if a paladin of Sarenrae (a god of redemption) falls, but it doesn't cause the fall of a paladin of Torag (a dwarven god with the old testament style I've brought up several times before)?

Since going against your sworn oaths is also a chaotic and/or evil act, it is impossible to clearly parse out an action without outside factors still apply, even if you have a definitive test of alignment. Including all the various variables and trying to eliminate or mitigate the influence of the ones you aren't testing is a fundamental part of creating a valid test.


lemeres wrote:
thejeff wrote:

As I suggested above, use a simple test:

Have a paladin butcher a bunch of orc babies. See if he falls.
(Or better yet, have him use a Phylactery of Faithfulness and find out before actually doing it.)
This is a magical world. It's a world with actual evil, which can be detected and possibly even measured. It is possible to determine whether certain acts are good or evil in ways that you simply cannot in the real world. There are findable hard and fast answers to moral questions

But what if a paladin of Sarenrae (a god of redemption) falls, but it doesn't cause the fall of a paladin of Torag (a dwarven god with the old testament style I've brought up several times before)?

Since going against your sworn oaths is also a chaotic and/or evil act, it is impossible to clearly parse out an action without outside factors still apply, even if you have a definitive test of alignment. Including all the various variables and trying to eliminate or mitigate the influence of the ones you aren't testing is a fundamental part of creating a valid test.

Some deities may approve or disapprove. It may violate some paladin's sworn oaths or other parts of her code. So some paladins may fall even if it's not an evil act.

But if a paladin does not fall, it was not an evil act.


thejeff wrote:

But what if a paladin of Sarenrae (a god of redemption) falls, but it doesn't cause the fall of a paladin of Torag (a dwarven god with the old testament style I've brought up several times before)?

Since going against your sworn oaths is also a chaotic and/or evil act, it is impossible to clearly parse out an action without outside factors still apply, even if you have a definitive test of alignment. Including all the various variables and trying to eliminate or mitigate the influence of the ones you aren't testing is a fundamental part of creating a valid test.

Some deities may approve or disapprove. It may violate some paladin's sworn oaths or other parts of her code. So some paladins may fall even if it's not an evil act.

But if a paladin does not fall, it was not an evil act.

Still, you might accidentally try to use a paladin with spoken or unspoken restrictions (cultural norms?) against the act, when someone with a slightly different background would get a different result. As in, you might get your data from a sarenrae paladin but a Torag paladin wouldn't test positive for evil.

The real problem here is getting a large enough data set. Or really, the problem is that it is hard to get paladins to agree to "data sets of evil acts" without...well working with you at all being evil. What are you going to say? "Hey, could you guys each try killing a different type of baby to see whether it forces the universe to strict you of your divine powers?" If they don't smite you then and there, they might already be taking a step away from LG.

This is kind of a problem in the real world too, since you can't exactly go around doing intense psychological and moral experimentation on people with facing ethics violations. At best (in game), you might get some form of scrying to simply observe various acts, and trying detect alignment spells throughout. But that would require some very highscale magic to get reliable results, and people with that much magical power often have better things to do with their time (and if they aren't using their considerable abilities for the betterment of society, there is a very large chance they wouldn't care about morality in the first place)


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How do the characters in the game world know who are PaladinsTM and who are "paladins" (i.e. who have levels in the paladin PC class and who are called paladins in game due to their roles in religious organizations and/or oaths but have levels in other classes instead)?

EDIT: I would also suggest that allowing evil to live and do evil acts is a neutral act and not an evil one. So leaving evil young to mature would not be an evil act (and cause a paladin to fall). Aiding them might be.

These issues are part of the reason I usually suggest that if someone wants to play a paladin but doesn't know if they can trust the GM, they should instead play a ranger and just describe themselves as very "paladin-ish".

Shadow Lodge

Vivianne Laflamme wrote:
Remember, any explanation of orcs as innately evil and savage has to establish why half-orcs are exempt.

In 2E, orcs and half-orcs didn't have souls (and couldn't be raised from the dead as a result). In a slightly different world, orcs may lack souls, but half-orcs somehow gain a soul from their human parent, which makes them capable of morality – but possibly still more evil than average because of social prejudice.

As a nod to game history, in my current campaign there's a racist rumour that orcs don't have souls, which was disproven when spells like Raise Dead worked normally on them, but persists because people like to cling to their prejudices despite evidence.

]Anguish [/quote wrote:
The rules define how monsters act, by default. The published setting doesn't deviate from that. So... houserules aside, I think my point stands.

As quoted, the rules say: “The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters—they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign.

RAW is: nonevil orcs are exactly as common as the GM wants them to be.

thejeff wrote:
In such a world, the players should avoid killing monstrous races just for existing and the GM should avoid messing with the players by sticking them with monster babies when he's given them good reasons to kill their mommies and daddies.

...or provide a good-aligned temple or individual to adopt the babies so that the PCs don't have to retire their characters to care for them?

Zhayne wrote:
That doesn't work if good and evil are objective. If they're measurable, extant energies/forces, then you can just cast Detect Evil, look at your hand, and realize that you're evil.

I always assume a character can't use Detect Alignment on themselves, because it makes introspection a little more interesting.

pres man wrote:
How do the characters in the game world know who are PaladinsTM and who are "paladins" (i.e. who have levels in the paladin PC class and who are called paladins in game due to their roles in religious organizations and/or oaths but have levels in other classes instead)?

Some class abilities tend to be distinguishable by people in the know. Paladin-specific spells might be a giveaway that an individual is a member of the paladin class with the enforced code. Lay on Hands with a Mercy might also be a strong indicator (without the Mercy, it looks too much like other healing abilities). The average person probably wouldn't be able to confirm a Paladin's status for sure.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
137ben wrote:
After the core rules showed up, the developers noticed a change in player culture, in which "official rulings" were highly valued. Which is why the content in 3.X/PF improved later on.

The change in player culture was called "the Internet". It transformed what used to be a collection of independent homebrew gamemasters to a culture of sheep so desperate to be affirmed right, that they no longer do any home innovation unless they get a massive "yes" vote from a league of messageboard posters.


thejeff wrote:

As I suggested above, use a simple test:

Have a paladin butcher a bunch of orc babies. See if he falls.
(Or better yet, have him use a Phylactery of Faithfulness and find...

If you pose this to 100 GMs, you are going to get at least 100 different answers.


Racism has no connection to alignment. Period. It is a philosophy or life style yes but it is not one connected to good or evil until such time as one uses it as motivation that brings about deeds that are good or evil. Hitler used fear and racism to bring about a dark chapter of history. In the US racism brought political gains for politicians. But on the other end racism brought about civil right movements across the world that many say improved the world. Take it how u want.


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Renegadeshepherd wrote:
Racism has no connection to alignment. Period. It is a philosophy or life style yes but it is not one connected to good or evil until such time as one uses it as motivation that brings about deeds that are good or evil. Hitler used fear and racism to bring about a dark chapter of history. In the US racism brought political gains for politicians. But on the other end racism brought about civil right movements across the world that many say improved the world. Take it how u want.

Wow... I can't believe this argument. I really need a moment to digest this. So you're saying, essentially, 'racism isn't always so bad: look at the civil rights movements it's brought.' Racism is evil and usually LE. The fact that it brought about civil rights movements doesn't make it any less evil or any more removed from the concept of alignment. Civil Rights movements came about to end the unjust, evil laws and social institutions brought on by racism.

I'm completely baffled that it's the 21st century and it still needs to be said that racism is Evil with a capital 'E', and that racism apologists still exist to say that it's not so bad, as just a philosophy or life style, and that there's no inherent immorality in believing that a person can have an inherent inferiority or superiority based solely on their race.

Liberty's Edge

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Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Renegadeshepherd wrote:
Racism has no connection to alignment. Period. It is a philosophy or life style yes but it is not one connected to good or evil until such time as one uses it as motivation that brings about deeds that are good or evil. Hitler used fear and racism to bring about a dark chapter of history. In the US racism brought political gains for politicians. But on the other end racism brought about civil right movements across the world that many say improved the world. Take it how u want.

*boggles*

How did racism bring about civl rights gains? If there wasn't racism, most of those civil rights gains wouldn't have been needed in the first place because without racism, the people whose civil rights needed to be improved to match others would have been already equal. You don't get bonus points for fixing the problems you caused.


Zhayne wrote:
Tryn wrote:

I think the biggest problem with all of these alignment dicussions is that people tend to judge action based on their onw experience/moral etc.

But Pathfinder isn't the Earth!
A Paladin of Immodae rides into a a small town, showing who he is.
He approaches the house of a local woman and drag her onto the street. Then he says "This is the evil witch of Blackwood, she's guilty of murdering innocent people" and then he behead her.

In this situtation in Golarion (and most other D&D Worlds too) no one of the villagers will raise their voice, try to intervene or try to attack the Paladin. Also this act is not evil!

Buuullllllllllllllcrap. Big, huge, steaming piles of pure unadulterated bullcrap.

And your answer isn't?^^

For me the gods in Golarion (and their churches) have similar influence to the common folk like the christian church in medival europe.

If in this time a priest accused a women of witchcraft there was no real hearing or needed proof, the priest speaks in the name of god and so his words are right.
Same goes for the Paladin in my example, he is, in some way, a priest of his god, so he will speak the word of his god (at least this is what normal townsfolks will beleive).

My suggestion to such situations is not to judge it from our point of view, but from the "world you play in"-point-of-view.

@Liam Warner:
Of course if the Paladin wouldn't be a Paladin and only impersonating one, this act is in fact evil.

And for the "I don't recall the gods acting that directly they empower priests and paladins": All divine spellcasters get their powers from their gods and if they violate their gods teachings/principles they will loose this powers, that the rule part.
For the normal townsfolk on the other side, they know about this from the tales and stories. And what do you think, which story will prevail, the one of the priest who slaugthered an innocent and remain his power or the one where a priest violated his gods teachings and then he will be punished by the wrrath of his god. - Of course the second one, because it has some meaning for the common folk.

I think people overestimate the intelligence and enlightment of the common townsfolk, especially in medival worlds...


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Renegadeshepherd wrote:
Racism has no connection to alignment. Period. It is a philosophy or life style yes but it is not one connected to good or evil until such time as one uses it as motivation that brings about deeds that are good or evil. Hitler used fear and racism to bring about a dark chapter of history. In the US racism brought political gains for politicians. But on the other end racism brought about civil right movements across the world that many say improved the world. Take it how u want.

"Hitler's not so bad. After all, he did kill Hitler."


Tholomyes wrote:
Renegadeshepherd wrote:
Racism has no connection to alignment. Period. It is a philosophy or life style yes but it is not one connected to good or evil until such time as one uses it as motivation that brings about deeds that are good or evil. Hitler used fear and racism to bring about a dark chapter of history. In the US racism brought political gains for politicians. But on the other end racism brought about civil right movements across the world that many say improved the world. Take it how u want.

Wow... I can't believe this argument. I really need a moment to digest this. So you're saying, essentially, 'racism isn't always so bad: look at the civil rights movements it's brought.' Racism is evil and usually LE. The fact that it brought about civil rights movements doesn't make it any less evil or any more removed from the concept of alignment. Civil Rights movements came about to end the unjust, evil laws and social institutions brought on by racism.

I'm completely baffled that it's the 21st century and it still needs to be said that racism is Evil with a capital 'E', and that racism apologists still exist to say that it's not so bad, as just a philosophy or life style, and that there's no inherent immorality in believing that a person can have an inherent inferiority or superiority based solely on their race.

In the real world, where we're just distinguishing between flavors of human, that's absolutely true.

In a fictional world where the differences people imagine they see in the real world can actually be true is it really evil? Or really racism?

Is it really racism to believe that a species that has an intelligence penalty is dumber than yours is? Is it evil to believe the truth?
Is it really racism to believe that a species that consumes other sapient beings to live is not something you can peacefully live alongside?
Is it racism to believe one species is physically superior to others? "No, Johnny you can't say that. It's not nice to say that giants are naturally stronger than us."

Or do we have to, to avoid being racist, make all the sapient species have exactly the same stats and cultural variation? Including the truly non-human ones? Something like that was suggested earlier.

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