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We've deviated, again, from the topic at hand into pet projects. AD's comments mirror those found in the rule books and in fluff like Orcs of Golarion -- so you may want to address the devs with your thoughts on their misogyny.
The push back you tend to get in these threads is telling folks they are bad for what they are saying based on your current cause. We've seen this across a wide number of threads now, and it does little for the conversation other than derail it.
One can certainly hold these issues close to heart and feel strongly about them. However, the witch hunts and proselytizing becomes offensive after a while to a number of posters -- it means they stop listening to anything you have to say much like you would someone trying to shove ANY agenda or thought down your throat, from "Believe in Zeus!" or "Go Broncos!"
To paraphrase a comment that I personally find offensive, I think you should check your perspective at the door. The vast number of posters aren't anti-anything. They are talking about the subject and little else.
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Incidentally, I've qlways viewed the 'women and children are not combatants' more in the 'the guys are expendable, the next generation and those who raise them are not."
And yes, I realize you are just going to pop up and say its sexist to assume that the woman is the most likely primary child raiser. But then again, just about any reply other thannagreement is liable to elicit that response, so I'm not going to worry about it.
For me murder and killing are the same thing. How protected you are from the legal penalties of such behavior varies from species to species, race to race and region to region.
By the definition 1 of the OP
Murder with intent. Even non Non deliberated non premeditated.
See a bear? Attack the bear with intent to kill the bear? Thats murderin.
Self defense against a bear that thinks its also protecting its babies from your invasion into its territory? Unless your intent is to beat its butt blue until it runs away, Its murderin. I rarely see the non lethal damage rules used especially against wildlife.
Hunting is murder. War is murder. Fishing is murder. Chopping down a tree is murder. Picking a flower is murder. Mowing your lawn isn't murder because when you mow your lawn your grass doesn't die. Sometimes its sanctioned by local authorities, sometimes it's not.
Murder with intent means "I'm gonna kill that thing' and then you do. War doesnt undo murder, hunting licence doesnt undo murder. Calling it hunting doesn't remove the 'kill part' or the 'intent part'.... In modern society the law won't let you hunt an elk outside of season or fish without a licence, or hunt wolves in alaska without a license. You cant hunt people out of season either.
Its murder alright. Killin humans and killin kobolds and killin cows and chickens and killin trees and killin flowers and stomping on bugs, killing in self defense, and even 'putting something out of its misery' and euthenasia are all murder (intent to end a life followed by ending it), (some legally justifiable or with mitigating circumstance, some written off as survival of the fittest or 'the natural order of things' or in the case of bugs or picking flowers something that maybe isn't even frowned upon or encouraged) but each is weighed differently by both morally and legally by both the society and the individual. I laugh that vegetarians think being vegetarian isn't murder on the grounds that what they eat doesnt cry or scream or bleed...
Your immune system is killing a large number of microorganisms even as I write this. A definition of murder in which every single person who ever existed is a murderer isn't very useful, or logical IMO.
To speak to the OP, killing creatures which are irredeemably evil isn't murder. Killing the enemy in a state of war isn't murder. Slaughtering orcs is murder if orcs are capable of choosing to not be evil. If they are irrevocably evil then destroying them isn't murder.
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And yet my poor microorganisms lives coming to an end are not murder, for their death was never my intent.
I'm not telling anyone they have to agree with me. The OP asked for an opinion and I'm giving mine. Disagree to your heart's content. I'm not here to convince you.
My personal definition of murder both in and out of game is that intent to kill plus success equals murder. My definitions operate on a different scale than simple absolute unqualified legal terms.
And yet my poor microorganisms lives coming to an end are not murder, for their death was never my intent.
I'm not telling anyone they have to agree with me. The OP asked for an opinion and I'm giving mine. Disagree to your heart's content. I'm not here to convince you.
My personal definition of murder both in and out of game is that intent to kill plus success equals murder. My definitions operate on a different scale than simple absolute unqualified legal terms.
Sure. I'm merely offering my own opinion also.
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And yet my poor microorganisms lives coming to an end are not murder, for their death was never my intent.
I'm not telling anyone they have to agree with me. The OP asked for an opinion and I'm giving mine. Disagree to your heart's content. I'm not here to convince you.
My personal definition of murder both in and out of game is that intent to kill plus success equals murder. My definitions operate on a different scale than simple absolute unqualified legal terms.
Intent...you intended to keep breathing so by your opinion you are murdering those microorganisms.
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I didn't intend for my breathing to kill anything. My immune system may be a filthy genocidal murderer but unfortunately they are not under my command. Knowing every single person is somehow a murderer is useful in the context that it's illustrative of a good reason to find a way down off of one's moral high horse.
I didnt realize this thread was built off of the other thread's devolution into yet another endless alignment thread debate. I'm not interested in having the conversation about if a race is labeled evil will the baby's be contaminated with original sin and thus be paladin-smitable.
I do follow the RAW that any creature that has a sufficiently high intelligence score can be any alignment it chooses but I'm also not interested in chatting about it with anyone who's not interested in discussing it outside the framework of 'NOES! AAARG! YOU'RE WRONG!!!!!'
'If I can't kill everything I meet with impunity then what kind of imagination land is this!' is not the kind of table I tend to play at, but there's a whole world of players who don't share that particular reservation.
Have a field day.
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I'm driving down a rural road and a small furry animal runs out in front of my vehicle. In the split second I have to re-act I decide not to possibly wreck my vehicle by swerving and hope the animal isnt hurt. The animal runs right under the tires of the vehicle and is run-over. Did I just committed murder and if so why?
All this thread necromancy is murder on my patience.
Jacob Saltband, I'm not certain if you're serious or just having some fun/making a point, but ... I'll be pedantic and respond to each of your last three posts, on the odd chance it's the former.
You did not murder the bear. You killed it in self-defense.
You did not murder the small furry animal, because murder requires intent and you had none. In addition, you were again acting in self-defense, though more obliquely than in the first instance.
You did not murder the insects. You were, again, acting in self-defense.
I would have to say he was making a point against the absolutist point that was taken by Vincent that all intentional killing was murder, period.
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Absolute statements aside, there's only one correct answer to the original question: It really depends on the game (and setting). Which is kinda funny when you introduce people who have been playing D&D for 10 years to a 'real world' setting. A lot of well-established tactics suddenly seem rather... psychotic.
Anyway. 'Murder' is a legal definition, so going "well, I think killing orc babies is murder" is not a very useful argument. The word you are looking for is 'wrong'. You don't get to decide what is considered murder unless you're, like, the king or something.
But I'm sure this has been covered before.
Absolutist points don't really work. Nothing is absolute.
Except the Sith.
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"Nothing is absolute" is a tautology.
Again, and I think I was involved with this conversation at some point (or with something similar, so I need to restate.
Killing someone does not equal murder.
Murder is an unlawful act of killing. People might differ on what precisely the appropriate law is to follow (the DM Should make this pretty damn clear).
If I execute someone, do I murder them? Only if I do so unjustly.
If someone attacks me, do I murder them? No, I have a right to protect myself.
If I kill a bear attacking me, even if its the last bear in the world did I murder it? No.
If I kill a group of orcish women and children because they will 'one day cause trouble' did I murder them? Yes. And I'm an a+%%&*!.
If I kill a child because one day he'll be a horrible dictator and murder 6.5 million people, did I murder him? Yes. And I'm an a!%#~$$.
Why in the later cases? Because just by existing, or what they supposedly will do, isn't suitable justification to pass the test of whether it was just and therefore right to do.
Whether society decides if the orcs are to be erradicated to the last man or not, its still a moral question.
And thus you can have lovely situations where something legally won't be murder, but can morally be murder (where those higher law things come in).
In Pathfinder, thank goodness, we have an objective standard. So you can, and should, just ask your DM, he's a clear obvious arbiter of that sort of thing.
If you prefer a more subjective thing, then your enitre presence in this discussion is pointless since your entire position is 'I feel, ergo you should,' and this conflits with everyone else's 'feel.'
People who set an objective standard can in discussion disagree on those standards, but at least they are having a more fruitful discussion, whereby they attempt to convince one another logically of the superiority of their position.
Attempting to argue moral issues subjectively leads us around in pointless circles.
I just think its funny that he's trying to refute my point
Then Jaelithe answers him with the exact same answers I would give him
And because it was Jaelithe it's considered proof that absolutism doesnt work
and when I answer it that exact same way it's considered absolutist and doesnt work.
My definition of murder is and has always been in this thread murder=intent+success.
Once again he provided 3 examples where intent was not present
and once again he was shown the difference between reactive self defense against a situation where he was not purposefully in advance pursuing the death of another [self defense] and advanced purposeful pursuit of the death of another [intent]
he was then shown once again that all 3 situations showed a lack of 'intent' which makes them 'not murder' which is exactly my point.
but instead if Jaelithe makes the point then the point is made and I still get to be wrong even if thats my exact same point?
Are we picking flowers, chopping down trees and making hamburgers in self defense now?
Arguing the legal definition of murder is the one where we're talking in circles because different campaigns will have different laws... What is and isn't sanctioned murder is a moving goalpost.
The moral murder is the conversation about murder that occurs not on the lawful/chaotic spectrum but on the good/evil spectrum and I don't think is an irrelevant point considering its mostly argued as peachy if say... a paladin thinks he's doing both lawful and good by murdering orc babies. It may be sanctioned and lawful... Good on the other hand I'm not convinced.
Again some tables don't like to dig that deep into the moral question and just prefer to play it as 'sure. orc babies have original sin. smite away valiant paladin' and I tend to avoid those tables. If your table wants to explore a more complicated moral framework then the moral definition of murder is an important detail to sort out. Every table plays it differently though and that's what makes the hobby strong, but complicated. Nothing wrong with playing at a table where orc babies are evil by their existance alone. I just don't choose to do that myself.
I just think its funny that he's trying to refute my point
Then Jaelithe answers him with the exact same answers I would give him
And because it was Jaelithe it's considered proof that absolutism doesnt work
and when I answer it that exact same way it's considered absolutist and doesnt work.
My definition of murder is and has always been in this thread murder=intent+success.Once again he provided 3 examples where intent was not present
and once again he was shown the difference between reactive self defense against a situation where he was not purposefully in advance pursuing the death of another [self defense] and advanced purposeful pursuit of the death of another [intent]
he was then shown once again that all 3 situations showed a lack of 'intent' which makes them 'not murder' which is exactly my point.but instead if Jaelithe makes the point then the point is made and I still get to be wrong even if thats my exact same point?
Are we picking flowers, chopping down trees and making hamburgers in self defense now?
Well, that hamburger was looking at me mighty meanly.
But I think you and Corathon won the Internet earlier when you agreed that it was indeed your opinions and you were under no obligation to convince anyone of anything. Which is how it should be.
I know. Thanks for that. I'm having a bit of fun with it myself..
Making hamburgers may be morally murder because we killed a cow intentionally and not in self defense...
The argument on the lawful spectrum is the absurd one... If the self defense were 'I was trying not to die of starvation, your honor I beseech you to rule this a case for justifiable bovicide!' Well. We all get to have a good laugh except the vegetarians, who still know that cheeseburger=morally murder. They're not wrong on that point.
And of course if the vegetarians/vegans (i'm not entirely up to speed on the distinction between the two) are arguing that intentional killing is morally murder and is 'unjustifiable life-icide', well... You did murder some plants to make your boca burger... But since plants don't scream and writhe in agony when you turn them into faux cheeseburgers that makes it more morally ok? I'm not really on board with that. Spinning silk and shearing sheep gets us silk and wool without killing an animal but leather and cotton on the other hand are both 'icide' style aquisitions. Eating fruit is actually killing apple and banana babies! Justifiable Fructicide? Sure... Thank goodness you spit out the watermelon seeds, but you probably killed them by leaving them homeless during those important developmental years.
Obviously most of those points are both funny and mostly irrelevant to gaming.
Again the only real relevance in these threads at least is who's trying to justify murder.
Most of the times it's paladins standing on the legal sanction of the murder alone.
I prefer paladins that hold themselves to the moral constraints of the definition as well.
Which still would allow you to kill things in self defense or in response to evil acts as well.
Some tables let 'evil act' be defined as 'born a goblin' and though the ping evil mechanics in the game indicate that goblin babies have not technically done enough evil to ping as evil, its ok to houserule it that way at your table if you're not into giving paladins hard choices.
I don't play that way but its not a wrongbad way to play.
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I had no idea of the depth of the moral ambiguity involved in rolling polyhedrons around.
I had no idea of the depth of the moral ambiguity involved in rolling polyhedrons around.
Thats why I like gaming so much.
To me it's never been simply about rolling dice and having fun.It's also an amazing tool to help folks learn and explore complex ideas and concepts.
That's why gamers rock.
YMMV, but i'm going to keep being an absolutionist and say that it shouldn't.
IMHO. All gamers should rock.
Do Dwarves automatical know the depth of every character?
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I'm walking in the woods and a bear attacks me. In the instant that the bear attacks I decide to defend myself and as far as I could tell by its actions it intends to kill me. I kill the bear because I didnt want to die. Have I just committed murder and if so why.
After the fight I come to find that the bear was protecting its territory and cubs.
Ah. I see this is true of bananas. Bananas are not the vehicle by which banana seeds nourish themselves, because banana seeds don't exist. Seeded fruits on the other hand...
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At some point in these posts someone said werent sure what the difference between vegetarian abd vegan was but my scanfu failed to find the post.
Its my understanding that the difference is that vegetarian will eat honey and milk and maybe few other animal products, while vegans will not eat anything from the fauna side of the spectrum.
Of course I could wrong about that someone in this thread had asked.
Intent occurs the second you've discovered you had other options that would have spared the animal and you instead chose not to bother. Slamming on the brakes and swerving is a you action taken by you, hopefully with the intent of trying not to hit the animal. Whether the attempt succeeds or fails, the intent was to not hit the animal and thus for it to live. Legally the intent occurs the second a jury feels you would have had a moment to take any other option even if the option didnt occur to you at the time.
Even if the swerve was simply 'I don't want to hit it because if I hit an elk with my car I might die myself' the intent was still not 'I'm just gonna kill this elk and see if this Dodge Ram lives up to its namesake.' If you intend to hit the animal and intend to kill it, thats intent. Usually this conversation happens in milliseconds inside your brain but occasionally even that conversation doesnt happen fast enough and the animal gets hit anyway. The only parts of that conversation that happen to an observer are a quick foot jerk towards the break pedal and a noise that sounds a lot like 'oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiii....'Thats why such things are called accidents. You didn't intend it. Couldn't prepare for it. Couldn't take decisive action in time.
If you had a chance to run from the bear and tried that, then the bear kept chasing you and you had to then shoot it to make it stop chasing you, thats self defense. If a bear roars at you and then runs into its cave and you chase the bear into the cave with your shotgun... Self defense is getting a little hard to sell.... If a bear chases you up a tree so you kick it in the nose and then it runs away, you've spared the animal. It's chosen to leave you alone and so far you've chosen to leave it alone... If you then climb down from the tree to find that bear and kick it in the nose a few more times.... That's intent. If you climb down and instead try to find its cave for treasure and maybe loot some live bear babies to sell in town to the locals... That may not be 'intent' to kill a bear' but it's 'askin for trouble' and is on some shaky moral ground. If you then find, as one often does, that finding the bears cave results in finding a very pissed off bear again.... You still have the option to not kill the bear. Intent happens when you once again choose 'this is the bear's home. it wants me to go away. I'm not going away. even if it attacks me. I'll just have to kill it instead if that happens.'
Clearly any time you're acting in the interest of self preservation it's self defense, but even the law has drawn lines of decision making about intent that separate things like 'a burglar is in my living room carrying out my television' as 'not self defense' and 'a burglar in my living room coming at me with an unidentified object in his hand which I, unable to see it could have reasonably in the dark presumed to be a gun or knife or screwdriver or baseball bat that made me feel my life was in danger.'
If you shoot a burglar while he's in your living room carrying your tv out the front door its not self defense. It's murder. Justifiable homicide? Maybe. Rarely. It's a mitigating circumstance for sure, but if that guy isn't rushing you when you shoot him? You've clearly had time to make a decision to shoot him or not. Hopefully you can argue that you just wanted to wound him and you're a crappy shot. But again thats all 'legal definition murder' not moral definition murder. In most cases, legally even a 'stand your ground law/make my day law' doesnt give you the legal right to even 'shoot-to-wound a guy' as he carries your tv out to his truck. If you do shoot-to-wound a guy as he carries your tv out to his truck, that was 'intent to harm' and is frequently illegal in and of itself. If you wound him, then head out and shoot him in the head to finish the job? Thats intent and murder. Legally and morally.
Legally and Morally it's wrong for the guy to be stealing your TV. That doesnt make it morally right for you to paint your walls or your yard with his brains.
If he's coming at you and you shoot him once to stop him from continuing, thats intent to harm with mitigating self defense... If he's coming at you and you dump 15 rounds center mass... Thats not 'intent to wound' and even harder to argue as 'I'm a bad shot. I'm so foolish I just held the tip of the gun to his chest and kept squeezing and releasing until the gun stopped making the satisfying popping sound of 'safety'. Lawyers and Jury's do not like this kind of self defense. Somewhere between round 1 and round 15 a conversation should have started happening in your head that went 'uh... he's less coming at me and more messing up my carpet. Even if you recognize his face and hate him and fear for your life in his presence.
When insects attack you, even if you perhaps don't intend to kill them, it's not hard to do. Bugs being fragile as they are... but you were clearly under direct siege by the bugs before you started your rampage of swatty revenge. Self defense from a legal standpoint. Not morally wrong either since, given the opportunity, you'd love to have them stop attacking you and go away instead without bloodshed... They have not chosen that option and you now have both the legal and moral right to defend yourself. In this case clearly you've probably realized defending yourself means killing the bugs outright, which in doing so becomes 'intent' and thus 'murder' but in this case self defense means the murder is justifiable insecticide. Not murder in a legal sense, but still morally murder with mitigating circumstances.
A bug zapper on the other hand is killing a bug before it has the chance to even decide to attack you. Preemptive killing in self defense is laughably not legally or morally justifiable but you'd run into a lot of Paladins and frightened townsfolk that would disagree. It is however why in certain campaigns, with certain GMs, paladins would be frowned upon for killing the remaining bear cubs or goblin babies after the fact. Killing a relatively helpless baby goblin may be considered 'a preemptive act of self defense' which depending on the campaign may be a legal imperative... but morally its a gray area at best in a fantasy setting and in the real world.
Some folks don't think the wholesale slaughter of yeast colonies to make donuts is 'evil' or unlawful.
Some folks don't think cheeseburgers are 'evil' or 'unlawful'
I happen to be a steak and donut eater myself but at least I have respect for the fact that in order for me to live something else must die. I take responsibility and recognize the gravity of my decisions.
That might be a hard truth for some folks to swallow but it is a truth and changing the evilness of that truth by changing the scale from 'oh it's not ok for cows but it is ok for plants' is just self medicating to hide the painful inevitable truth from those that haven't made peace with the cycle of life as we experience it. IMHO.
I definitely wont make a paladin fall for eating a cheeseburger.
I dont like my paladins killing bearcubs after mamabear died...
I dont like my paladins smiting goblin babies because I
- like the idea (supported by raw) that alignment in intelligent creatures is a tendency, not an absolute
- love the idea that even stuff thats gone full blown evil can be redeemed (there are strong rules available for such things to happen both in 3.5 and pathfinder)
A goblin might have to constantly fight his natural bred instinctive desire to stab things and blow things up (thats just how goblin minds are wired), but I like the possibility of a goblin paladin happening in my campaigns by successfully combating his natural programming by choice. And it would be awesome.
I definitely don't hold any other table to this standard.
Well, that hamburger was looking at me mighty meanly.
Not mighty MEATily?
I would argue that if an Arby's sandwich stared at me meatily then it's just asking for it.
It wasn't self defense your honor. I was complying with its charm effect. I was enchanted at the time. Weak will save your honor. Weak will save.
For me an arbys sandwich isn't something I eat.
I'm the object of that interaction, not the subject.
An arbys sandwich is a situation that happens TO me.
There is no free will or decision making process.
If arbys were placed as ubiquitously as starbucks, i'd likely not be here to type this.
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Anyway, regardless of whether certain races are irredeemably evil or even just strongly predisposed that way, or whether they've just all had a bad upbringing and could be made into proper civilized people if we just killed the parents and took their children and raised them in our culture (which has no moral implications or historical parallels anywhere, of course), my preferred approach as a GM is to avoid the question: I don't push situations where baby-killing is even a pragmatic option on my players.
That means I lose the classic "Hack your way through the entire underground village of humanoids" trope. Oh well, no big loss. I can still use them as bandits or as mercenaries if I want disposable mooks. I can use them as whole tribes if I want something that needs to be negotiated with.
And generally the whole "Are they Always Chaotic Evil" question doesn't even have to come up. These particular ones you're fighting are a threat for <plot reason>. You're not committing genocide or even exterminating a village, so whether there might be innocent ones elsewhere isn't really important.
In the end, I prefer to have a talk with the players beforehand, or the GM if I am playing, and ask what their take on this is. Because if I am playing and I keep running across baby monsters while the GM gleefully rubs their hands and waits for us to solve the moral crisis, I'll likely find another group.
Similarly, if we take the supposed redeemable monsters back to town to raise in the Orphan Monster Home and I come back two weeks later to find out the Cthulhu babies have grown up and are eating the towns people while the GM rubs their hands gleefully and tells us how we made the wrong moral choice, I'll likely find another table, and perhaps beat the GM with a Crown Royal bag full of dice.
The 'mwahaha what do you do' bits wore thing for me the second time I ran across it. If that is the style of play the GM is interested in, I'd prefer to do something else somewhere else. Debating 'what is murder?' isn't how I tend to want to spend my gaming experience.
I don't know, most of my moral dilemmas - which are not clear choices like "do I slaughter the orphanage?" - come with both good and bad effects, where the dilemma is which goods and which bads to pick. It's not a trap, its a painful choice but it is a legitimate choice, and not a sword of Damocles hanging over your head waiting for you to step out of line, no win scenarios generally suck and suck hard. Bittersweet wins, on the other hand can be useful.
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I've run into that as well knightnday. The GM who did it had one answer to all moral dilemmas. Whatever answer the PC chose is wrong, and will come back to bite them. So I have a dim view of such things as well. I am so glad none of my groups play with this guy any more, and even happier I don't have to sit through any of his games.
I had a guy like this, but he apparently thought we should all behave in a class-warfare focused morality.
He made me roll will saves against killing people because they were richer then me and obviously were 'repressing' my freedoms.
Incidentally, I couldn't tell from earlier in the thread if I was being the guy talked about as a pain in the butt. If I was, I apologize.
I'm a little on the opinionated side.
While I always expect the heavy moral dilemmas to be faced, I'll agree that such encounters should be used sparingly and punishing players for making the right choice should work out well as often as it works out poorly, just like in real life. If every time you do the right thing you suffer I don't think anyone wants to play that for long, but if it doesn't occasionally go difficult and doesn't occasionally go bad it feels like too much of a walk in the park for me. I don't beat my players over the head with it though because I'd hate a world where no good intention goes unpunished. I wouldnt make goblin babies turn into assassin infiltrators or a pack of killers but they would perhaps cause a little destruction of property and need to be rounded back up... That kinda thing.
Yeah. I'm ok with that as long as it at least still allows for a distinction between some murder being ok. Picking flowers may be murder of a flower, but it's not 'chaotic or evil'
Killing babies of any creature type doesn't feel like it should go unpunished if your characters count themselves as 'good' and I'd never make paladinhood require a paladin to do it. I wouldn't require him necessarily to save the goblin babies either.
It gives me a warm feeling when my players choose the good alignment and then make an effort never to be the first one to swing in a fight. I love it when they voluntarily choose something that can often be a crunch disadvantage for thematic fluff reasons and stick to it. Even moreso in a game as rocket taggy as pathfinder.
Such players happen more often when you're the kind of gm who doesn't make a habit of arbitrarily nerfing their players with restrictions on magic item crafting or having unplayable classes like gunslinger or synthesist summoner... Not rabidly following wbl. I found that such things make for a more authentic and enjoyable experience for everyone at the table. As always YMMV.
Being good has always been the harder but more rewarding path at my table. I'm the same way about non lethal damage. Occasionally you'll find someone who chooses to fight to the death. But *most* of the time getting a full rack of hitpoints worth of subdual damage means the bad guy gives up. If you don't reward players for using a mechanic they'll never use it.
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Well this is where we start wading further into darker waters.
A flower isn't a human being, nor a bear, nor a rabbit, or a bee.
The death of these creatures may be a cruelty, but its a cruelty of far less extent then the murder of a human being (and lets avoid the 'well what about elves' bit of sophistry here).
Trying to make the death of an animal equivalent to the murder of a human being is pretty damn awful.
Killing an animal for food is not murdering it. Killing a human for food is, and a barbarity of cannibalism.
I bring this up before someone starts on the 'paladin can't walk across a field of posies' or wear 'leather,' or 'eat veal' argument because he'd be unlawfully murdering the flowers underfoot, or tacit in the torture of a calf, or some silliness.
I agree. I don't make a paladin fall for picking flowers. I don't think anyone reads that from my posts, and I wouldn't sit at a table that played like that either. The people who don't like the fact that picking flowers is actually flower murder are simply the folks who only want the word murder to be a binary act of evil, so in fact they want a definition of the word that's more 'black and white' than I do. A level of black and white that is essentially 'lets choose not to call picking flowers murder because murder should always be a word that means 'alignment changingly evil' which I don't think is an authentic reflection of reality. I prefer acknowledging the reality and understanding that just because something is murder and murder is bad doesn't mean you're going to hell for picking flowers. I like my gaming to be as much about navigating the grays between black and white as real life is. Making it black and white takes away one's ability to explore the ideas and takes away a certain gravitas to a lot of scenarios. This view tends to send games into simple gamist crunchfests and I don't enjoy those games as much.
When my players start hungering for a game with less moral dilemmas they'll make a party where everyone's neutral on the good/evil spectrum or we'll fire up a zombie apocalypse combat festival against the undead or a palladium/rifts campaign where the alignment tropes are at least a little more specifically defined.