# Was V's act evil? (Probable spoilers!)



## Jeff Wilder (Mar 20, 2009)

From Rich Burlew's "Order of the Stick" ongoing web-comic, strip 639:

Under _your_ D&D's alignment system, was V's act evil?  (If you don't play D&D, or use alignment, just answer using your best knowledge of "D&D morality.)


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## DaveMage (Mar 20, 2009)

The act would have been treated as an evil one IMC.


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## ExploderWizard (Mar 20, 2009)

What was V's act exactly?


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## Flatus Maximus (Mar 20, 2009)

Jeff Wilder said:


> Under _your_ D&D's alignment system, was V's act evil?  (If you don't play D&D, or use alignment, just answer using your best knowledge of "D&D morality.)




Are we talking about the TV miniseries from the 80s?

Just kidding.  Who's V?


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## Tuft (Mar 20, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> What was V's act exactly?






Flatus Maximus said:


> Just kidding.  Who's V?




See this thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/252764-oots-639-a.html


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## Quartz (Mar 20, 2009)

Nope. Not evil. A harsh but fair punishment. Remember that the dragon was going to soul bind V's children. V hasn't done that. What he's done isn't a nice thing, but it's not Evil.


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## Cadfan (Mar 20, 2009)

If its morally acceptable to kill one dragon just 'cause its evil, its morally acceptable to kill lots.

That's why I'm not a big fan of alignment by species.  The idea of inherent evil gets screwy really fast.  And you can't make exceptions, even though they do, because if your exceptions exist because of anything other than divine intervention, the original version of the monster must not have been inherently evil in the first place.


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## Gulla (Mar 20, 2009)

I voted "no" since I tend to subscribe (in D&D) to the "killing evil is good" and black dragons (like goblins, drow and orcs) are a vermin on D&D society that should be exterminated.

The spell OTOH would in my world be *Evil* in itself so that makes using it Evil as well. Difficult situation when you have to place morality into a world where good and evil are measurable quantities and not relative at all...

Håkon


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## Blackrat (Mar 20, 2009)

Yes, in my mind that was evil. Contrary to what one might read from my post in the other thread, I do give my dragons some variety in my games. Therefore, in that alignment system, some of his victims might have actually been innocent, and killing innocents is evil IMO.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 20, 2009)

Abuse of power -- slaying those that have no chance to protest, robbing them of life based solely on your egomaniacal judgment, and disrespecting the concept of life in general -- is certainly Evil. 



> If its morally acceptable to kill one dragon just 'cause its evil, its morally acceptable to kill lots.




The "slippery slope" argument doesn't really hold up. If most D&D adventurers are more "practical neutral"/"unaligned," they can do the occasional wicked deed, and, more to the point, killing a dragon usually comes in the context of stopping it from killing the PC's, or stopping it from rampaging accross the countryside, or in some other way justifying its eradication. Murder for the sake of murder -- death for the sake of tormenting, for the sake of vengeance -- probably should be evil.

I play in some very morally ambiguous games, but this was not very morally ambiguous to me.


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## Jeff Wilder (Mar 20, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> That's why I'm not a big fan of alignment by species.  The idea of inherent evil gets screwy really fast.  And you can't make exceptions, even though they do, because if your exceptions exist because of anything other than divine intervention, the original version of the monster must not have been inherently evil in the first place.



In 3.5, "inherent" evil is represented by the "[evil]" descriptor.  Alignment for creatures goes to "Always evil," which is tempered by the description of "always evil," which says, in short, "well, not _always_."  Just FYI.


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## Betote (Mar 20, 2009)

Black dragons: always evil.
Slaying all the black dragons in the world: triple-ultra-plus-good.


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## Grymar (Mar 20, 2009)

Unquestionably evil, in my game.  Unless it is an outsider, alignment is a rough descriptor of what the person/creature has done and what they are likely to do in the future, but nothing is ever 100%. I have good goblins, evil gold dragons, and everything in between.

V just committed genocide. 

Genocide.


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## Jeff Wilder (Mar 20, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> That's why I'm not a big fan of alignment by species.  The idea of inherent evil gets screwy really fast.  And you can't make exceptions, even though they do, because if your exceptions exist because of anything other than divine intervention, the original version of the monster must not have been inherently evil in the first place.



In 3.5, "inherent" evil is represented by the "[evil]" descriptor.  Alignment for creatures goes to "Always evil," which is tempered by the description of "always evil," which says, in short, "well, not _always_."  Just FYI.


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## avin (Mar 20, 2009)

Are we talking about V from Vendetta? Or that other Alan Moore's book?

*possible spoiler*

If we are talking about the blonde guy, by the feeling I get from the comics I don't think he was acting evil at all.

He was wrong doing that, but he wanted the greater good. 

On the movie this guy sound a little less intelligent...


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 20, 2009)

This really should be a public poll so all the namby-pambies could out themselves.



> Black dragons: always _chaotic _evil.
> Slaying all the black dragons in the world: triple-ultra-plus-good.




You, sir, are not a namby-pamby.

This was an act of _ultimate good_ for which all true heroes should strive.

It would be a good act *even if* there's some backwards namby-pamby campaign where there is an occasional "good" black dragon.

How many "good" black dragons are too steep a price to pay for wiping out an overwhelmingly evil force in the world? 

One?

(cf Watchmen)


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## Nymrohd (Mar 20, 2009)

Betote said:


> Black dragons: always evil.
> Slaying all the black dragons in the world: triple-ultra-plus-good.




By the 3.5 MM pg 305, Alignment, _Always_: It is possible for individuals to change alignment.


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## jensun (Mar 20, 2009)

definately on the bad guy scale. 

Killing this here Black Dragon which is trying to eat my family, definately a good thing.

Killing any old Black Dragon which might be lurking in some swamp, probably a good thing if its eating the locals.  If not leave it alone, havent you people seen Dragonslayer. 

Killing every Dragon (irrespective of whether they are good, evil, dont care or are generally not causing any nuisance to anyone) related to the Dragon you have just killed using epic evil necromantic powers granted to you by a bunch of fiends because you are pissed.  I'm sorry, you have now boarded the evil bus, next stop damnation.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 20, 2009)

> Black dragons: always evil.
> Slaying all the black dragons in the world: triple-ultra-plus-good.




"Always" means "Well, not ALWAYS," as Jeff pointed out. 

Plus, at least IMC, alignment is about what you do, not what you do it to. Murder for the sake of schadenfreude doesn't help you. If you torture Hitler, that's as evil as if you torture Mother Teresa. What's evil is the torture.

And the "end justifies the means" argument doesn't work well from my perspective either. I mean, that's kind of the argument for killing civilians in peacetime: if a few innocents get hurt, that is an acceptable price to pay for the continuation of our (good) plans and the death of some (evil) people. 

But heck, in games where black dragons truly represent cosmic "i'm made of it!" evil universally? 

Nah, even there, I'd say that turning someone into an undead bound to your will in order to make them watch while you murdered their family is Evil, Evil, Evil.


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## Jeff Wilder (Mar 20, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> This really should be a public poll so all the namby-pambies could out themselves.



I guess I'm a namby-pamby.

Killing an innocent willfully or with depraved indifference is, IMO, absolutely evil.  (And for those of you who are wondering exactly what "depraved indifference" is? Lemme save you those 10 minutes in law school.  Just reread strip 639 and note V's behavior.  _Textbook_ depraved indifference.)


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## billd91 (Mar 20, 2009)

Evil. Very much so. A spell that kills all of a creature's family, across the globe, indiscriminately? Evil. Even if it happened to kill only evil creatures, it would still be an evil thing to do.


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## Nymrohd (Mar 20, 2009)

Deleted.


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## Jarrod (Mar 20, 2009)

Not evil. Indicriminate, and possibly a bad idea, but not evil. 

Let's look at the order of events:

V uses his/her/its most powerful spell (Disintegrate) to slay a dragon. 
Because of this, the dragon's parent spends all of its wealth to *hurt* V as much as possible. It locates V's family and threatens to not only kill them, but bind their souls and spend the rest of its life fleeing from V.
V kills the dragon, again using a powerful spell.

At this point, it's perfectly logical to assume that, with no other steps taken, *another* dragon will arrive at some point in the future and attempt to carry on this revenge cycle. Therefore, kill the dragon's family. 

Now, if the parent dragon hadn't threatened to soul bind V's family and depart for other planes (again, *specifically* to hurt V), I would agree that this was over the top. But given the dragon's threat, I think it's perfectly acceptable.


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## Cadfan (Mar 20, 2009)

Nymrohd said:


> By the 3.5 MM pg 305, Alignment, _Always_: It is possible for individuals to change alignment.



This just goes to show the ultimate futility of attempting to merge modern assumptions about morality operating on the level of the free willed individual with fantastical and historical assumptions about inherently, objectively, and permanently evil monsters and races.


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## Nymrohd (Mar 20, 2009)

So the fact that one dragon decided to react this way leads to the logical conclusion that all dragons of his kind would react in the same way?


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## Tuft (Mar 20, 2009)

billd91 said:


> Evil. Very much so. A spell that kills all of a creature's family, across the globe, indiscriminately? Evil. Even if it happened to kill only evil creatures, it would still be an evil thing to do.




Note that "family" is rather undefined. Theoretically, it could recurse back to the first black dragon, and then down to all its descendants.

That for example includes all sorcerers that trace their lineage back to black dragons. And then their human/elf/etc families. Are all those fair target for slaying because they are related to someone who had a drop of black dragon blood in their veins?


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## Vorput (Mar 20, 2009)

I voted not evil.

But, to be fair, a black dragon ate my Wizard once.  So I may be a little biased.


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## AntiStateQuixote (Mar 20, 2009)

*Q*



Wulf Ratbane said:


> This really should be a public poll so all the namby-pambies could out themselves.



I'm out!

IMC the spell would have the [evil] descriptor, and this discussion would never come up.  I suspect it has the [evil] descriptor in Rich's campaign too.


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## Krensky (Mar 20, 2009)

Evil. So Evil it needs to be capitalized. So Evil it really should be spelled  E-VEEL, like it's being said by a caricature of a southern baptist preacher. 

The implication given is that V just killed every black dragon and half-black dragon in the world, and it's possible he just killed everything with black dragon blood.

Genocide. Causing the extinction of a species. V just did far worse then the dragon was going to do with the same motivations.

Legally, V *might* have an 'out' since he wasn't in the right frame of mind when he agreed to the deal and while subject to fusing thing he's probably only barely in control of his actions. At the least he's hearing voices telling him to do evil things. Still though, E-VEEL, and the legalistic argument might help in regards to the afterlife, but it doesn't make the act any less E-VEEL.


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## Zephrin the Lost (Mar 20, 2009)

There seems to be a reasoning that if there are irredeemably evil beings then there can be no irredeemable actions taken against them. If dragons exterminate elves, it's evil, but if elves exterminate dragons, it's not, because dragons are evil. What actions are being taken becomes almost meaningless- what matters is who you are doing it to. Any action that results in less evil in the world is by definition good.

I wouldn't subscribe to this in my game, but if that's what's meant by 'always evil' then V's action can't be called evil and indeed, if he focuses exclusively on evil beings, he could do far 'worse; and still come out fine. 

--Z


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## Thasmodious (Mar 20, 2009)

Of course it was evil.  He indiscriminately killed a great number of beings without regard to their own guilt or innocence.  If you want to argue that all black dragons are evil, that's fine (despite the note about always), but half-dragons and other dragonspawn are not, so some of the progeny could well have not been evil themselves.  You even see one half dragon biting the dust.  

Another sign it was evil - the three most evil and powerful wizards of all time thought it was awesome and one of them invented the spell, which was certainly [Evil].  

Casting an [Evil] spell is an evil act, no exceptions.

Another note - killing evil is not always good.  A devil does not commit a good act when he kills a demon.  V was certainly consumed by evil when he fought the dragon.

Raising the dragon as an undead - evil

Doing it just to torture him further - extra evil

This was the no going back type of evil.


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## Cadfan (Mar 20, 2009)

Zephrin the Lost said:


> There seems to be a reasoning that if there are irredeemably evil beings then there can be no irredeemable actions taken against them.



Not necessarily.  That characterization is coming from the people who voted "evil."  The people who voted "not evil" tend to take a little less extreme position: that if there are inherently, irredeemably evil beings, then its ok to kill them.  I'm sure we could come up with something worse than killing if we tried.

I voted "not evil," but I also think that classical D&D morality is incomprehensible and inconsistent.  You just can't have "this race of beings is always evil" and redeemed succubi in the same moral system, unless you define "always" to mean "mostly," and "race" to mean "its really about the individual."

Which just doesn't make sense.


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## Uzzy (Mar 20, 2009)

Indiscriminately slaughtering huge numbers of sentient beings for the sole purpose of making one suffer even more? (See the 6th panel) That is horrifically evil, and I hardly think V is going to stop there. I would not be surprised to see V keep the undead dragon head around, or just bind her soul.

I'm also thinking this is an even more evil act then Xykon's bouncy ball. There was at least a legitimate reason behind Xykon's actions, namely his desire to get to the gem containing the tare in the fabric of reality. The only reason behind V's actions here are to cause the Dragon to suffer more. (His excuse that it's to protect his family is nonsense, given V's disregard to his family's welfare earlier in the strip)


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## Thasmodious (Mar 20, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I'm sure we could come up with something worse than killing if we tried.




Like killing, then raising it from the dead so it can be destroyed with the knowledge that every single living relative is dying with it?  Yeah, I'm sure we can think of something...  

It's hard to get past that the spell itself is clearly [Evil] and casting [Evil] spells is evil, period.


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## Cadfan (Mar 20, 2009)

Thasmodious said:


> Like killing, then raising it from the dead so it can be destroyed with the knowledge that every single living relative is dying with it? Yeah, I'm sure we can think of something...
> 
> It's hard to get past that the spell itself is clearly [Evil] and casting [Evil] spells is evil, period.



If I awoke to find that I lived in a multiverse where a being who's entire race was objectively "always evil" wasn't necessarily evil itself, yet where casting a spell with the "evil" descriptor WAS always evil regardless of the effects of the spell, I would picket outside god's house until this obvious error was resolved.


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## Nymrohd (Mar 20, 2009)

Zephrin the Lost said:


> There seems to be a reasoning that if there are irredeemably evil beings then there can be no irredeemable actions taken against them. If dragons exterminate elves, it's evil, but if elves exterminate dragons, it's not, because dragons are evil. What actions are being taken becomes almost meaningless- what matters is who you are doing it to. Any action that results in less evil in the world is by definition good.
> 
> I wouldn't subscribe to this in my game, but if that's what's meant by 'always evil' then V's action can't be called evil and indeed, if he focuses exclusively on evil beings, he could do far 'worse; and still come out fine.
> 
> --Z




But there is no irredeemably evil creature in D&D. By the RAW you could sanctify Pale Night and she'd become lawful good. You could probably do it to Tharizdun if you could beat his Will save!


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## Savage Wombat (Mar 20, 2009)

Hey, that half-dragon in full armor was CLEARLY a LG paladin.  So you can't make the case that "they're all evil" because you don't KNOW.

There's a spell somewhere in the core 3.5 rules that kills a creature's nearest living relative - I'm pretty sure it had the EVIL descriptor.  This spell is a gajillion times worse.


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## DreadPirateMurphy (Mar 20, 2009)

Possible spoilers.

Let's rephrase the question.

Would killing a line of mosquitos be evil?  Probably not, or we have some wicked, wicked exterminators in the real world.

Would killing a whole horde of illithid be evil?  Aberrant, brain-sucking monsters?  What if one of them was a vegetarian (ate the brains of Treants, maybe)?  I suspect a LOT more people would say "not evil."

Miko, the pala-monk of questionable sanity, was perfectly fine with slaying the baby dragon because "its scales weren't all shiny."  Roy had a run-in in the prequel books with a "good" party that was perfectly fine slaughtering orcs who were just waiting in line for concert tickets.

In the real world, up until relatively recently, you were considered good if you killed other humans who weren't of your tribe/religion/ethnicity/book club.

The only "correct" answer is that V's acts are evil if Rich Burlew defines them as such, since he is in fact the Dungeon Master of his world.  Any other answer is arguable.


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## FireLance (Mar 20, 2009)

I vote for evil.

First off, assuming that V was motivated by a desire to keep his family safe, could he have achieved the same objective without killing so many creatures? With all the magical power at his fingertips, I'm fairly sure that he could have. At the very least, he could have teleported his mate and children to Hinjo and Durkon, who would be able to afford them some degree of protection. The fact that this action was his first resort is one strike against him.

Next, I am not so sure that his motives were that pure in the first place. Even if he felt it was necessary to kill all black dragons in the world, why did he animate the dead dragon and tell her what he was about to do first? Unless that was a necessary element of the spell, that would imply he was motivated more by revenge and the need to make the dragon suffer mentally instead of simply wanting to keep his family safe. That's a second strike against him.

Of course, none of the above matters if you accept that killing every single black dragon in the world, including children and eggs, is not an evil act. I personally think that it is at the very least unjust to kill a creature simply because it is likely to commit evil, and the scale and extent of the killing pushes it into definitely evil territory for me. That's strike three against V.

Quite frankly, I am now waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm fairly sure that you don't use a spell named _familicide_ without some kind of karmic backlash. Or, given that it's an epic spell, some _literal_ backlash, and not necessarily against the caster.


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## Tarau (Mar 20, 2009)

If Rich taught us something, it's that the world of OotS is not as morally objective as the classic D&D world. However, we also know that usually evil and always evil don't usually apply (except for fiends and angels, I presume). I would be surprised if all the black dragons of the 'verse were evil. Killing one, and only one innocent dragon/half-dragon simply because he or she is related to the mother, is obviously an evil act. Also, this is clearly an act of vengeance. I believe that in D&D, the intention is as much important as the act itself.

That's not even considering the fact this spell probably has the Evil descriptor.


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## Nymrohd (Mar 20, 2009)

DreadPirateMurphy said:


> Possible spoilers.
> 
> Let's rephrase the question.
> 
> ...




Whether certain cultures and the gods that support them judge something as evil or not does not translate to whether it is evil by our morality, or even by the generic D&D morality.


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## Zephrin the Lost (Mar 20, 2009)

Nymrohd said:


> But there is no irredeemably evil creature in D&D. By the RAW you could sanctify Pale Night and she'd become lawful good. You could probably do it to Tharizdun if you could beat his Will save!




Someone should do that! In this instance, I doubt if 'sanctify' was included in V's now very deep spell catalog.

My vote was evil, btw, because at the end of the day, there needs to be a difference in how good and evil beings approach their struggles, and that seems to be in line with the spell descriptor logic. 

--Z


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## Nymrohd (Mar 20, 2009)

"Sanctify the wicked" is an exalted spell that costs one character level as a sacriifice. It is a sancitified necromancy [Good] spell that traps a soul into a gem for a year and forces it to reflect upon past evils and slowly find itself a spark of goodness. All you need to do is beat a Will Save and keep the very fragile gem safe for a year (if it is broken earlier, a very pissed evil creature comes out). The first book of the Empyrean Trilogy in FR shows an astral deva trying to do something like this to an alu.


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## DaveyJones (Mar 20, 2009)

create greater undead by RAW is evil.


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## Plane Sailing (Mar 20, 2009)

IMC it would be Eeee-vil. No ifs and buts, nothing to do with any spell descriptor (c'mon do you make someone evil because they cast Deathwatch to monitor the health of their buddies while frying them alive is OK?).

Indiscriminate slaughter, genocide, for the purpose of being really horrible to someone who threatened your family on the off chance that a relative might attempt revenge? Out and out evil. Doesn't matter what alignment the target race is.

Regards


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## F5 (Mar 20, 2009)

Krensky said:


> Legally, V *might* have an 'out' since he wasn't in the right frame of mind when he agreed to the deal and while subject to fusing thing he's probably only barely in control of his actions. At the least he's hearing voices telling him to do evil things.




I don't think V gets off the hook that way.  V IS in control of his/her actions.  Explicit in the Demon's deal-making was that V would be in control.  Getting input from the 3 evil souls, sure, but V was driving, so V can't get out of it by saying "I was being controlled".  V let hirmself be influenced, and that's different.



			
				FireLance said:
			
		

> Quite frankly, I am now waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm fairly sure that you don't use a spell named familicide without some kind of karmic backlash. Or, given that it's an epic spell, some literal backlash, and not necessarily against the caster.



  Ooh.  That's nasty.  I could see the backlash from an epic evil spell designed to kill a target's entire family skip over the caster, and do its backlash damage to the CASTER'S extended family.  If V winds up killing the kids in order to fuel the spell, is there still any debate as to whether it's evil?

One last thing...even if ridding the world of a type of evil dragon was a good act, that's not what V did.  V committed genocide, just to get back at one particularly nasty dragon.  The arguably good act was an unintended consequence.  Didn't Roy ultimately get off the hook in his own afterlife for some of the unintended bad consequences of his actions?  In the long run, accidental Good or Evil doesn't count.

Evil act.  No doubt in my mind.


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## Agamon (Mar 20, 2009)

I prefer morally objectionable.  Evil is subjective (and I just realized that stating that this far into the thread is redundant).


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## Nymrohd (Mar 20, 2009)

F5 said:


> One last thing...even if ridding the world of a type of evil dragon was a good act, that's not what V did.  V committed genocide, just to get back at one particularly nasty dragon.  The arguably good act was an unintended consequence.  Didn't Roy ultimately get off the hook in his own afterlife for some of the unintended bad consequences of his actions?  In the long run, accidental Good or Evil doesn't count.
> 
> Evil act.  No doubt in my mind.




I think this is the best argument. An actual outsider in charge of judging alignment in the OotS universe makes it clear that intent is the primary criterion for ones alignment and for judging ones actions.


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## Krensky (Mar 20, 2009)

F5 said:


> I don't think V gets off the hook that way.  V IS in control of his/her actions.  Explicit in the Demon's deal-making was that V would be in control.  Getting input from the 3 evil souls, sure, but V was driving, so V can't get out of it by saying "I was being controlled".  V let hirmself be influenced, and that's different.




But can V tell right from wrong at the moment? I'm not saying it makes the act less evil, legally however, he might count as insane, acting as a mitigating factor on his punishment.

Or, in this case, make the Atonement spell work easier. Maybe. Depending on the actual mechanics involved. Still, agreeing to the deal in the first place is a good argument against mitigation by lack of faculties. Why I said 'might'.

And: 



Spoiler



I'm half expecting to find out that V's partner and kids had a little black dragon blood in their veins.


 Possibly because that's the sort of thing I'd do as a GM. Oh, and in every game I ran, this is E-VEEL. Hand me your character sheet and thanks for the new villain E-VEEL. Granted, agreeing to the pact would likely have triggered that.


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## Aberzanzorax (Mar 20, 2009)

Evil intent, not evil act in and of itself (at least the familicide).


Three things:

1. He created greater undead. That is an evil act.

2. The familicide spell is not evil if used to destroy all and only evil things. All black dragons are evil. Much moreso than all orcs. It's not their culture, it's their makeup. There are no innocents.

3. His intent was pretty clearly evil. The voices were talking to him about suffering and "the pain ended too soon". He agreed. Causing suffering for its own sake is evil. Had he done it purely to safeguard his family, it would have been less evil or not evil (the create greater undead is pretty uncool). He didn't. He did it to "win".

If you want to see real evil, I suspect that he won't kill the undead head. He'll put it in a magic box or something so it can live undead forever knowing that it brought on the death of every family member that it ever had.


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## DreadPirateMurphy (Mar 20, 2009)

Nymrohd said:


> Whether certain cultures and the gods that support them judge something as evil or not does not translate to whether it is evil by our morality, or even by the generic D&D morality.




Never said it did.  Just said it would be evil in the world that is based on gaming rules only if the person controlling the rules says so.


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## Nymrohd (Mar 20, 2009)

DreadPirateMurphy said:


> Never said it did.  Just said it would be evil in the world that is based on gaming rules only if the person controlling the rules says so.






> > Originally Posted by F5 View Post
> > One last thing...even if ridding the world of a type of evil dragon was a good act, that's not what V did. V committed genocide, just to get back at one particularly nasty dragon. The arguably good act was an unintended consequence. Didn't Roy ultimately get off the hook in his own afterlife for some of the unintended bad consequences of his actions? In the long run, accidental Good or Evil doesn't count.
> >
> > Evil act. No doubt in my mind.
> ...




^^^

The person controlling the rules has said so.


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## Janx (Mar 20, 2009)

I voted evil, but for slightly different reasons (that some touched on).

I will accept that killing all the black dragons in the world, either one at a time or in one fell swoop is not an evil act.  The MM says they're evil, and that means they're OK to kill.

In theory, killing them one at a time, allows for a safety check of "is this one evil", but let's assume most parties don't do a detailed background check when they encounter a black dragon and it comes rushing at them, presumably not to hug them.  So it's a wash.

What is evil is torturing them, not for information (which has it's own issues), but for the sole purpose of making them suffer.  Whether V killed and re-animated the dragon, or held her, making the dragon watch as he killed her family (or species) was meant to hurt the dragon.  Casting Familicide may qualify as a a pre-emptive strike.  Making the dragon watch was torture for the sake of torture.

IMC, the D&D code of combat morality is as follows:
It is OK to kill something that is attacking you or somebody else (self-defense)
It is OK to kill something that attacked you or somebody else earlier (retribution)
It is OK to kill something that is actually planning to attack you or somebody else (pre-emtive strike)
It is OK to torture "bad guys" for immediately verifiable information (where's the bomb)

The first rule is pretty obvious.  If you get jumped by orcs, you kill them.  If you come across a caravan attacked by orcs, you kill them.

The second rule covers past attacks.  You come across a village that was raided by orcs last week.  You go hunt them down and kill them so they don't do it again.

The third rule covers an attack that is pending, but hasn't happened yet.  You have information that shows the orcs are going to attack, so you beat them to it.  This rule is also the fuzziest to apply.  What if the information is suspect?  Guilt is obvious in the first rule.  Relatively proveable in the second.  However, someone planning to do something is not the same kind of crime as actually doing it.  There's still the chance they may change their mind, or even that the intent for the plan is misunderstood.  What if the orc plan to attack the castle is simply a contingency plan and build up of forces due to increased tension and patrols by the king?

V's use of Familicide is a pre-emptive strike.  Black Dragons are "always Evil" so there's some safety in the plan.  However, he has no proof that more black dragons are going to continue the vendetta.  So it's a grey area, and I'll call it a Neutral act, simply because there's good logic on both sides.

The forth rule, on the use of torture is there because some scenarios come up where a good party does need an answer from a bad guy.  I'm not a pro-torture guy, but rather than tangling the game up in morality, I leave a valid scenario open, which is to torture to get a specific piece of information that is verifiable.  "Who's working with you" isn't too verifiable, as the Salem Witch trials proved.  "Where's the key to the door" is verifiable.  If the bad guy knows it, he can tell it, and if he tells it, the party can get the key, proving the accuracy (and thus ending the torture).  Like the third rule, there's some grey area if the bad guy doesn't talk.  Is it because he doesn't know, or because he's resisting.  This is where torturing quickly turns from a useful tool, to an Evil act.  That's sort of the brinksmanship of torture.  Imagine it as a set of skill checks with the DM vs. the party.  They either get the information, and the party is not doing an evil act, or they fail.  Since failure isn't "known" to the party, they either have to stop and accept the prisoner doesn't know (still remaining good), or risk another round of torture to try again.  On a prisoner that knows the answer, it's a safe bet, they'll get the answer.  However, if they push to far on a highly resistant prisoner, or they over-torture a prisoner that doesn't know the answer (didn't stop when they reasonably should have believed him), then the party fails and has done an evil act.

I just made up those general rules, but they describe how I generally look at things and rationalize what a "good" party is allowed to do in a typical D&D game.  The trick is to make it OK to go around killing orcs for the most part, but point out scenarios where that isn't OK.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 20, 2009)

Tarau said:


> I believe that in D&D, the intention is as much important as the act itself.




A campaign governed by Kantian philosophy! 

Sounds like tons of fun.



Plane Sailing said:


> Indiscriminate slaughter, genocide, for the purpose of being really horrible to someone who threatened your family on the off chance that a relative might attempt revenge? Out and out evil. Doesn't matter what alignment the target race is.




Or that the end result creates the maximum good for the maximum amount of people...

I'd kill myself IYC. 

I'm not playing patty-cakes with _always evil_ creatures on the off chance that they might be good.

(And in my experience, placed there for the sole purpose of screwing with the moral assumptions the players think they're playing by.)

I grapple with enough grey morality in the real world; I don't need it served up in my leisure time.


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## Slife (Mar 20, 2009)

If Miko is willing to agree with "color coded for your convenience", when she's taking everything about the PCs in the worst light possible, I'm going to assume that black dragons are indeed 100% evil.



If V had wanted to, though, he could have cast heroics, embrace the dark chaos, shun the dark chaos, and then stuck "purify spell" onto it so it gained the [good] descriptor and didn't hurt good creatures. 

Would that have been evil?


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## the Jester (Mar 20, 2009)

Aberzanzorax said:


> 2. The familicide spell is not evil if used to destroy all and only evil things. All black dragons are evil. Much moreso than all orcs. It's not their culture, it's their makeup. There are no innocents.




Actually, generally, necromantic death magic is evil, period. 

I call this an evil act. If you look, you can see that V kills several half-dragons, as well, and there's no real reason to believe that they are all evil.

This was an act of revenge. Evil.


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## billd91 (Mar 20, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Not necessarily.  That characterization is coming from the people who voted "evil."  The people who voted "not evil" tend to take a little less extreme position: that if there are inherently, irredeemably evil beings, then its ok to kill them.  I'm sure we could come up with something worse than killing if we tried.
> 
> I voted "not evil," but I also think that classical D&D morality is incomprehensible and inconsistent.  You just can't have "this race of beings is always evil" and redeemed succubi in the same moral system, unless you define "always" to mean "mostly," and "race" to mean "its really about the individual."
> 
> Which just doesn't make sense.




Even if D&D morality were completely consistent, it still would not necessarily follow that killing an irredeemably evil creature was not an evil act in and of itself, particularly when the method of doing so was so indiscriminate that creatures that may not be evil, much less irredeemably evil, would be included.


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## Cadfan (Mar 20, 2009)

billd91 said:


> Even if D&D morality were completely consistent, it still would not necessarily follow that killing an irredeemably evil creature was not an evil act in and of itself, particularly when the method of doing so was so indiscriminate that creatures that may not be evil, much less irredeemably evil, would be included.



If you leave aside the possibility that somewhere in the tree of dragons and dragonspawn, there might have been something interbred with something not inherently evil, would you still feel the same way?

In other words, is the only thing that makes his act evil the fact that it might have hit an innocent bystander?


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## Ourph (Mar 20, 2009)

V was sporting purple, glowy eyes, black robes and fangs when the spell was cast. Of course it was evil. Duh!


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## Vurt (Mar 20, 2009)

The three very evil souls providing V with power were clearly happily anticipating the idea of V casting _familicide_.  To me, this is a very strong indication that in the OOTS universe, the act would be considered evil.

Sorry: EEEEEvil...


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## Umbran (Mar 20, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> This really should be a public poll so all the namby-pambies could out themselves.





Dude, if you want to insult people who don't agree with you, do it elsewhere.  

Everyone - you know the rules.  Don't get personal.


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## Aberzanzorax (Mar 20, 2009)

the Jester said:


> Actually, generally, necromantic death magic is evil, period.




Not according to the SRD. Necromantic and [death] descriptor (but no evil descriptor or flavor text):

Finger of Death
Slay Living
Destruction
Circle of Death

EDIT: BUT it would be evil to _fireball_ an orphanage of innocent humans in D&D (despite _fireball_ not being an evil spell) and it would be evil to _heat metal_ a captive to torture them (despite _heat metal_ not being evil).


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## WalterKovacs (Mar 20, 2009)

V is currently "effectively evil" in terms of having 3 unquestionably evil souls attached.

If an evil creature kills other evil creatures using an evil spell, is it a good act? That's basically what's going on.

And there is the matter that it definitely killed half-dragons, and could hyptothetically get into quarter/eight/etc ... i.e. eventually getting to sorceror's and their ilk, who are definitely not 'always evil'.

Ultimately, you either go with:

(a) All black dragons are evil, so nothing you do to them can be good. If that is the case, casting an evil spell is always evil, not matter what good comes out of doing so.

(b) Casting an evil spell isn't inherently evil, you can do it for good reasons/good effect and have it be a net good. However, if that is possible, it is equally possible for black dragons or their off springs to not all be uniformly evil.

Either way, there is at least some evil involved in V's act.

If nothing else, V isn't Ozymandius. V is hardly feeling every death, nor is V intending to make the world a better place by these actions.

Another list:

1 - Intent: Clearly evil. V made the dragon know that it's family was to be killed. It was revenge meant to one-up the dragon's escalated plan of retribution.
2 - Spell use: Two evil spells used back to back. The creation of undead is known as evil, and the new spell is almost assuredly evil since it could just as easily be cast on a good creature. (It can't be a good spell as the evil caster would be unable to do anything with it).
3 - Result: First one has to determine whether there were any non-evil targets of the spell. This depends on how far down the family line it goes (i.e. past half-dragons), whether black dragons are born evil (or even pre-born in the case of the eggs), and whether a black dragon could be made not-evil through some method. Now, even if some were non-evil (not necessarily good, but potentially neutral) there then becomes the issue of the omlette. It's ok if only a small percentage weren't evil [party's regularly kill neutral creatures, like animals or some mercenaries, etc].

One other thing: V can't make the cop out that V could not control V's actions because of being under the influence. If that were the case, than all dragons, being _always_ evil are also under the influence of some external force that _makes_ them evil. They aren't choosing to be evil, while V rejected an alternate plan that would have prevented the need to agreeing to become influenced by the evil souls of the other casters.


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## billd91 (Mar 20, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> If you leave aside the possibility that somewhere in the tree of dragons and dragonspawn, there might have been something interbred with something not inherently evil, would you still feel the same way?
> 
> In other words, is the only thing that makes his act evil the fact that it might have hit an innocent bystander?




No. It was also done specifically to torment another creature. It's evil on quite a few levels and from quite a few angles.


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## Filcher (Mar 20, 2009)

To OP, re: D&D morality ...

This is no different than fireballing a tribe of orcs ... on a planetary level.


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## Aberzanzorax (Mar 20, 2009)

WalterKovacs said:


> Ultimately, you either go with:
> 
> (a) All black dragons are evil, so nothing you do to them can be good. If that is the case, casting an evil spell is always evil, not matter what good comes out of doing so.
> 
> ...




I have to agree that he has done some evil, but disagree with some of your statments.

First, the biggest disagreement is that the epic spell is evil. I think we can all admit create greater undead is evil (what with the evil descriptor and all). Why is the epic spell evil? Not because it can kill innocents, that is up to the caster to be cautious of (just like fireball can kill innocents). Not because it is a death effect, the spells I listed prior to your post are all death effects and not evil. So why is the spell itself evil?

Other than animating the dead, he did two evil things: 1. He was uncautious about innocents (like if some half/quarter/one-onehundreth dragons who were innocent or good got killed). 2. He had evil intent to mentally torture the dragon. Torture is always evil.

Like I said in my prior post, it's not the spell that was evil, it was the use of it. Just like a hammer and insecticide aren't evil. If I used them on a captive to break his fingers or spray up his nose, THAT would be evil.


EDIT: One other thought, though. Either the dragon HAD to be undead to cast the spell (that WOULD make the epic spell evil because it required an evil spell component-the undead) or it did not (that would mean he raised it just to be a jerk). Either way...evil.


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## Jeff Wilder (Mar 20, 2009)

In one of my games (Night Below, I assume heavily modified for 3.5), our PCs were on the verge of destroying an entire generation of kuo-toan "fingerlings."  In the end, we couldn't go through with it.  My character, a cleric of Moradin, made the final call when we were literally on the doorstep.  He was _seriously_ conflicted about it, but just couldn't bring himself to commit the act.  This occurred just last session.  So this whole discussion is particularly timely for me!

The thing that I find fascinating is that I don't even think this OotS case is even close.  I find it so clearly evil -- even under D&D morality -- that I'm flabbergasted that 15 percent of respondents can argue the other way, except (almost literally) as a devil's advocate.  I am an I-like-alignment diehard, but I guess this definitely illustrates one of the system's shortcomings.


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## Scribble (Mar 20, 2009)

Not sure if anyone mentioned this...

Even if "all Black Dragons are evil," the strip shows that not just 100% black dragons were killed. Notice the Black Dragon centaur? I think this gives support for there being a whole lot more then just "black dragons" caught in the spells grip. 

Once you start getting into half/dragon and their respective children and decedents... you start getting into the V possibly killed a number of other alignments- Maybe even some lawful Good types.


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## Snapdragyn (Mar 20, 2009)

I voted evil. Enough reasons for that have been put forth already.

The more interesting point, I think, is just how incredibly, astoundingly, mind-blowingly STUPID V's act was. You kill a dragon. Dragon's parent shows up to take retribution. You kill the parent & all dragons, half-dragons, & dragonspawn related to it in order to prevent the situation arising again.

Hmm. How far does the spell go? Does it kill friends? No? Then you're going to have some ticked off new enemies searching you down. Yes? Then what about their relatives who are now seeking vengeance? What about mates? Again, if it doesn't kill them, they're after you; if it does kill them, their relatives are after you.

Basically, the only way this spell could truly fulfill the purpose for which he claimed to cast it would be to utterly annihilate ALL life on EVERY plane. So, V either wasted V's time casting something that will bring even worse retribution down upon V & V's family, or V killed everyone everywhere (including Vself).

Epic FAIL.


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## Halivar (Mar 20, 2009)

I vote Chaotic Kickass: an alignment heroes and villains alike can respect.

For those who think V was evil: consider the fact that no matter _where you are_, he can kill you. And he can scry. And perhaps even read your thoughts, if he didn't take that as an opposed school.

Now, answer the question _again_.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 20, 2009)

I voted evil. It is highly likly that the spell is evil and since it goes farther than pure dragons its going to catch creatures on non evil alignment so I would go for evil. 
Also I would agree that it is mind blowing stupid. There is no knowing who might have part black dragon lineage. V might even have black dragon linage or fiends or family.


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## DreadPirateMurphy (Mar 20, 2009)

Would casting familicide on the Manson Family be evil?


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## BryonD (Mar 20, 2009)

Even if all are evil, blindly killing them all is also evil.

Killing other mobsters did not make Al Capone a good guy.  
Killing everyone with ties to the mob with no clue what they had or had not actually done is "more baderer" than targeting a particular mobster.

So yes.
However, I'd still put it on a pretty small number on the 1 - 10 scale of EVIL.  

I also agree that it probably serves vastly more good than evil overall.  But an evil means to a good ends is still an evil means.  And that doesn't even question whether the ends justified the means.  The matter at hand is purely with regard to the means itself.


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## Corathon (Mar 20, 2009)

On the one hand, if all black dragons are utterly and irredeemably evil, exterminating them is a good thing. 

Of course Varsuvius also eliminated lots of half-dragons. Were all of them evil also?

On the other hand, even if all those slain were evil, Varusivius' motives count. IMO, his/her actual motives were revenge and sadism, with the safety of her/his family a distant third.

So I voted "evil".


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## ProfessorCirno (Mar 20, 2009)

The Blood War must make millions of demons and devils good aligned, according to some people in this thread/poll 

It's EVILE.  Yes, it's a combination of evil and _vile_.


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## RefinedBean (Mar 20, 2009)

This dragon toyed with with me and my family, broke the legs of my children, tied my spouse up to a tree to watch them die.

All because why?  It was stupid enough to leave its kid guarding a ton of treasure in a world where it's PATENTLY CLEAR that adventurers will go after said treasure?

Since I cast the disintegrate spell, I am the one that's getting blamed for the entirety of my group's actions?  And therefore, my family must be tortured?

C'mon now.  The black dragon parent took this to another level, and V is now making sure that no other member of this family will take it upon themselves to exact revenge on V and his/her family.

What if that stupid half-dragon centaur was GOOD?  Who cares?  It could just as easily find out about V's actions and try to kill V, leaving V's children with only one parent.  Just because it's good doesn't mean it's going to go down every other peaceful avenue, figuring out what its cousin did to deserve this, etc.

It was, at worst, a neutral act as far as D&D goes.


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## Nymrohd (Mar 20, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> The Blood War must make millions of demons and devils good aligned, according to some people in this thread/poll
> 
> It's EVILE.  Yes, it's a combination of evil and _vile_.




Well considering that several celestials of all races are doing the best they can so the blood war can continue, sure it is a good act (Simplification is the death of reason. Simplification of morality may well be the reason behind the majority of the atrocities mankind has commited).


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## Relique du Madde (Mar 20, 2009)

Committing Genocide no matter what the alignment's race/species is, is an evil act.  To say that genocide, no matter how little, is a "good" act gives the megalomaniacs of the world the benefit of the doubt since they could argue that the people they wiped off the world were "evil."


Since the Bloodwar was mentioned what V's action did was tipped the balance in favor of LE (assuming all black dragon spawn are evil), thus allowing them hoards of Devils the ability to gain a sizable foothold in the lower planes (since NE tends to side with the stronger side).


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## Ktulu (Mar 20, 2009)

I voted yes.  Not because of killing evil dragons, but because one in there is clearly a half-dragon, which is not, by the rules, inherently evil.


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## Nymrohd (Mar 20, 2009)

RefinedBean said:


> This dragon toyed with with me and my family, broke the legs of my children, tied my spouse up to a tree to watch them die.
> 
> All because why?  It was stupid enough to leave its kid guarding a ton of treasure in a world where it's PATENTLY CLEAR that adventurers will go after said treasure?
> 
> ...




So you are saying, revenge against a creature that is inherently evil, has a predispotion towards evil and is raised in a society that exalts evil and therefore has far less choice in aligning itself with good or any inherent inhibition against evil acts who commited an evil act by a creature who is raised in a society that exalts choice and respect for others (as elven society supposedly does since it is CG), and chooses to exercise such revenge on an extremely disproportional scale, is justified.


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## Aberzanzorax (Mar 20, 2009)

I'll agree that what he did was evil.


HOWEVER, it seems in some people's points they're using real world morality to define D&D morality (often these are conflated).

This is a game about killing things and taking their stuff. If you see an orc, you kill it. Why? Because it is an orc...and orcs are evil.

Black dragons are more evil than orcs but not as evil as fiends.


"Commiting genocide" against an evil people in D&D is a good act. It is done on a small scale every day. Doing something good on a larger scale is not less good, it is MORE good. (Caveat: Doing any act for evil reasons, even if it ends up a good act/consequence is still evi).

If I can kill an orc (without knowing anything about it other than that it is an orc) and steal its property morally, then I can kill hundreds of orcs, also without reason.

If dragons are worse than orcs, then I can do the same. 

If I had a spell that would wipe out every fiend in the multiverse simultaneously, would it not be a good act?


But, what V did was evil. He tried to torture the creature, and he also killed some non dragons. Those reasons, along with the creating undead, made it evil.


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## Humanaut (Mar 20, 2009)

Although i voted Evil.  I would have done the same thing to prevent the endless parade of "you killed my father, prepare to die" encounters that would follow.


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## Alzrius (Mar 20, 2009)

Just for fun, the closest spell I've ever seen this one is the Extinction spell - a *twenty-third* level spell - from _Eclipse: The Codex Persona_, a *FREE* d20 supplement from Distant Horizons Games.


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## SolitonMan (Mar 20, 2009)

There's an interesting default assumption running through this discussion which is touched upon but not explicitly stated.  That is that destroying an evil creature ultimately and unambiguously makes the world, on the whole, a better place.  More "good".

But I think that in a realistically run campaign, matters are more complicated than that.  It isn't just a creature's nature that matters, it's their complete affect upon their world.  While it's true that evil black dragons wreak mayhem and destruction, it's not necessarily true that their removal would result in the living community suddenly all turning into shiny happy people.  In fact, their mayhem and destruction will cause their victims to act, perhaps even to work together to defeat a common enemy.  

The bottom line is that so much thoughtless destruction will have unforeseen consequences as power shifts and new opportunities arise.  While it's possible that this will result mostly in good, it's not definite.  Simply a simple conclusion.


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## Nivenus (Mar 20, 2009)

Evil, RAW. Arguing by any other moral philosophy is pointless, since that's not the question that was asked, which was, "in D&D terms was V's act evil?" The answer is yes, unambiguously.

Vengeance, as defined by the official rules, is not necessarily evil, but is definitely on the slippery slope and is _nongood_. After all, the gods of vengeance are often evil or neutral. Retribution is not justice. Retribution, is about feeling good about something you shouldn't feel good about (which is, namely, killing or other forms of cruelty).

Let's also not forget here that V was being deliberately cruel which is, most definitely, RAW, E-VEEL (as another put it). Deliberately inflicting pain upon others who are helpless to resist lacks in mercy, which is a quality of good, RAW. As such, the very least that can be said about V's act was that it was not good. But a detailed look at the act will define it as evil as well.

For those indicating that black dragons are all evil, the alignment rules, as placed in D&D (particularly since 3e) do not make this a universal truth. Rather, it's a strong tendency. This tendency breaks down further in settings such as Eberron, where alignment archetypes are played fast and loose. While OotS does not seem to be as radical as Eberron, it should be noted that Burlew has already played with alignment stereotypes in the past (note the goblins from StoD or Miko acting in the way a stereotypically Lawful Stupid paladin would act and as a result becoming un-paladinified). It's also pretty clear that this is supposed to be a further demonstration of V falling down the slippery slope (I mean, what good's a Faustian deal if you don't get the slippery slope)?

For those more concerned about intentions than acts (even though, RAW, acts are more important by far) - V's intentions are not good either. It's crystal clear that V's intent is not justice, nor the safety of the world but pure sadistic vengeance. V wants to make the dragon suffer in a way that it is beyond even what the dragon was going to do to his/her family. It is not his/her intention even to keep her family safe. After all, surely, somewhere down the line, there's a friend or ally who will be rather displeased at V's act? No - it's about getting back at the dragon and doing it a way that demonstrates V's superiority of power better than the dragon could ever hope to match.

Let's phrase it differently shall we... "was it evil for the dragon to threaten to kill and trap the souls of V's family, due to the fact that V had killed her son?" The answer, of course, is no. Vengeance, RAW, isn't good. Likewise, V's act, which goes beyond even what the dragon intended to do, is most definitely _evil_.


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## Aberzanzorax (Mar 20, 2009)

Nivenus said:


> For those indicating that black dragons are all evil, the alignment rules, as placed in D&D (particularly since 3e) do not make this a universal truth. Rather, it's a strong tendency.




RAW?

From here: Dragon, True :: d20srd.org


> Black dragon:
> Alignment: Always chaotic evil




From here: Reading The Monster Entries :: d20srd.org
Aligment
This line gives the alignment that the creature is most likely to have. Every entry includes a qualifier that indicates how broadly that alignment applies to the species as a whole.


Black dragons are ALWAYS chaotic evil.

(Half dragon-centaurs might not be) 



Contrast that with:
orcs: sometimes chaotic evil.
and
drow: usually neutral evil.


If you can kill an orc on sight, or a drow on sight, you can sure as heck be a paladin who kills a black dragon on sight.


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## Halivar (Mar 20, 2009)

Nivenus said:


> Retribution is not justice. Retribution, is about feeling good about something you shouldn't feel good about (which is, namely, killing or other forms of cruelty).



I'm picking this nit only because we're using pretty precise language, here.

The definition of retribution is "something justly deserved; recompense." Retribution is, in fact, justice. It has nothing to do with the motive of the individual meting out the justice.


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## Alzrius (Mar 20, 2009)

Aberzanzorax said:


> RAW?
> 
> From here: Dragon, True :: d20srd.org
> 
> ...




Read the corresponding entry in the MM (emphasis mine):



			
				The Monster Manual said:
			
		

> *Alignment*
> 
> This line gives the alignment that the creature is most likely to have. Every entry includes a qualifier that indicates how broadly that alignment applies to the species as a whole. See the Glossary for details.






			
				The Monster Manual said:
			
		

> *Alignment:* This line in a monster entry gives the alignment that the creature is most likely to have. Every entry includes a qualifier that indicates how broadly that alignment applies to all monsters of that kind.
> 
> _Always:_ The creature is born with the indicated alignment. The creature may have a hereditary predisposition to the alignment or come from a plane that predetermines it. It is possible for individuals to change alignment, but such individuals are either unique or rare exceptions.
> 
> ...


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## RefinedBean (Mar 20, 2009)

Nymrohd said:


> So you are saying, revenge against a creature that is inherently evil, has a predispotion towards evil and is raised in a society that exalts evil and therefore has far less choice in aligning itself with good or any inherent inhibition against evil acts who commited an evil act by a creature who is raised in a society that exalts choice and respect for others (as elven society supposedly does since it is CG), and chooses to exercise such revenge on an extremely disproportional scale, is justified.




I have no idea what your run-on sentence said.  I see the word justified.  Yes, it's justified.

Broke my family apart, physically and almost mentally.  Tied up my spouse for torture.  Would make sure my children suffered eternal punishment.

Where you see disproportional scale, I see an extremely high-level caster making sure his family is safe from retribution.  It's not V's fault this dragon happened to be so stupid and obstinate.

It's the OotS world.  Most of its characters know exactly what's going on as far as D&D tropes go.  A few eggs get broken to make omelets.  The only thing that might make it an evil act is V taking a wee bit too much enjoyment in it.


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## ProfessorCirno (Mar 20, 2009)

JustAboutEveryone said:
			
		

> Killing evil creatures is good!




If you came across a tribe of orcs or goblins that wasn't rampaging and murdering humans - maybe they're even trading with them - would you decide to go in and start killing indiscriminately?

If there was a black or green dragon that just sat in it's cave and never bothered the nearby town of humans, would you run in and slay it and proclaim yourselves to be paladins?

I understand that, for some people, D&D is little more then "Hey, there's an angry monster"  "I kill it!"  But that *very* clearly hasn't been the case for OotS, and trying to typecast it as such is kinda weird.

Edit: Also, no, it's not justified.  The whole idea of evil is that it's the easy path.  Being the good guy isn't supposed to be sunshine, flowers, and rainbows.  You see some do something unquestionably evil, yes, you stop it and then.  You don't then *kill it's family* because they _might_ be evil too, that makes you *no different then the evil bad guy you stopped*.  I can't think of a single game or setting that has a meter of alignment or morality that wouldn't mark you down for it.


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## Klaus (Mar 20, 2009)

The motives weight as much as the act.

Killing someone who is evil, even though you don't know he is evil, just because you can, is an evil act.

V commited genocide just to cause further pain to an enemy. That's teranazi material!


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## Cadfan (Mar 20, 2009)

Arguably, even the deaths of the occasional non-evil black dragons and half dragons is not enough to make this act evil.  It seems to me that you've got to go with intentions, if you want to argue that this act is evil.  Either that of you're committing yourself to a moral position that says... not very nice things, lets say... about every modern act of warfare or embargo to occur since at least world war 2.  I can only pursue this line of reasoning so far under the code of conduct, and the analogy between enemy soldiers and inherently evil monsters isn't perfect, but the basic idea- that its not generally considered morally wrong to kill off even relatively large amounts of civilians (non-objectively evil creatures) in pursuit of the reduction of your side's casualties- remains the same.

Maybe we'd have a better world if people didn't think that way, but they do.


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## Wormwood (Mar 20, 2009)

It wasn't a Good act or an Evil act.

It was a METAL act, and I can only approve.


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## Aberzanzorax (Mar 20, 2009)

Thanks Alzrius. I didn't schlep upstairs to get the MM.


That said, unique (1) or very rare (<1%, and probably a lot less when we compare that to unique- i.e. only one in existence) is a pretty reasonable casualty of war when your job is to go out and kill stuff every day (i.e a D&D adventurer).

Add to that that the very rare or unique individual is just as likely to be LE, NE, N, CN, or LN...and all of those are reasonably acceptable kills in D&D.

Mathematically, if you give all the other alignments an equal chance, the individual who is not CE still has a 5/8 chance of being an acceptable non-good kill

Statistically, if you use my 1% or less, and my 5/8 chance, for every 267 acceptable dragons killed one good dragon would be killed.


In real life, I couldn't live with that. In D&D, I TOTALLY could. 

This was not problematic because of killing an evil race in D&D. THAT IS THE GOAL in D&D, much of the time. This WAS evil for a number of other reasons.


Anyone who has ever shot a kobold brigand (or, heck a human brigand) in the back while they are running away from their botched highway robbery should appreciate that the morals in D&D are a bit different than in our world.


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## ShinHakkaider (Mar 20, 2009)

*in reference to Warfare...*

This wasn't conventional warfare. This wasn't the equivalent of one country attacking another country and the other country retaliating to protect it's citizens. 

This was the equivalent of some guy trying to kill me and my family, failing then me killing the guy and proceeding to hunt down and kill EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF HIS FAMILY. His mom, his dad, his paraplegic cousin Dwight, his sister and her 3 kids aged 3, 12 & 16. This is me killing my way across creation to end his bloodline. 

I'm sorry but that's just frakkin EVIL.


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## Aberzanzorax (Mar 20, 2009)

Yes-

His mom, who boils children to death.

His dad who flays virgins.

Dwight- paralyzed because he was shot while taking hostages and now rots in jail, organizing bombing attempts on orphanages for ransom.

His sister and her three kids- all cannibals. They like to find hikers who they drug and then eat alive.


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## Thasmodious (Mar 20, 2009)

I'm with the guy surprised that 13% of those polled think it was a good act.

V makes a deal for his soul with epically powerful archfiends for power.  This makes him an unambiguously evil character at this point.  He is evil, the actions that follow are evil by default, but moving on, we have -

He allows the souls of the most evil, powerful wizards to be grafted to him.
After killing the dragon, he uses that power to turn the dragon undead.
He casts an epic level [Evil] spell created by the most powerfully evil necromancer in all of the Abyss.
This spell exists to kill off an entire family line, no matter how far it stretches. 
These deaths include plenty of evil black dragons, but not every single black dragon is evil (as the MM glossary establishes)
It also includes non-dragon offspring such as half dragons and other spawn which are not alignment restricted, so hundreds of good and neutral beings could have been killed and V has no way of knowing, nor does he care.
He tortures the dragon with the knowledge that her entire line will end.

Really, where do people find the good in this?  This is about real world morality.  D&D alignment has rules and V's actions are outright evil, starting with the deal with the devils and anything that flows from that, even saving his family, is tainted.  He became an evil creature.  Can a Balor apply for paladinhood after killing enough devils?  Evil creatures killing evil creatures are not committing good acts and V has certainly become evil.  Rich hints at this with the _subtle_ changes in V's appearance.


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## Krensky (Mar 20, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Arguably, even the deaths of the occasional non-evil black dragons and half dragons is not enough to make this act evil.  It seems to me that you've got to go with intentions, if you want to argue that this act is evil.  Either that of you're committing yourself to a moral position that says... not very nice things, lets say... about every modern act of warfare or embargo to occur since at least world war 2.  I can only pursue this line of reasoning so far under the code of conduct, and the analogy between enemy soldiers and inherently evil monsters isn't perfect, but the basic idea- that its not generally considered morally wrong to kill off even relatively large amounts of civilians (non-objectively evil creatures) in pursuit of the reduction of your side's casualties- remains the same.
> 
> Maybe we'd have a better world if people didn't think that way, but they do.




V's spell was E-VEEL because of his intentions (torture the dragon, demonstrate his superiority, etc.) and because of the act (killing everything related to her). This would be like dropping a nuclear bomb on Detroit because someone from Detroit tried to kill your grandmother. Or, engineering a virus to kill everyone of a specific ethnic group for doing the same.

Heck, the demons (devils, whatever) even gave him an out in having the Imp take his head to Durkon. Which he rejected because of his pride and arrogance.

It was an E-VEEL act with E-VEEL intentions and it is going to cost him.

Also, unpreventable civilian casualties in pursuits of military goals are not moral (they aren't necessarily immoral either). They may, depending on a number of factors, be legal. They may also be illegal. The laws of war don't say where the line is, for good reason. Killing an entire population to prevent them from maybe attacking you at some indeterminate point in the future is both immoral and illegal.


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## WalterKovacs (Mar 20, 2009)

RefinedBean said:


> Since I cast the disintegrate spell, I am the one that's getting blamed for the entirety of my group's actions? And therefore, my family must be tortured?




V stopped the dragon. What is being discussed is what happened afterwards.



> C'mon now. The black dragon parent took this to another level, and V is now making sure that no other member of this family will take it upon themselves to exact revenge on V and his/her family.




Genocide isn't taking things to a whole other level?

V killed a black dragon, and in such a way to make it very difficult to raise it (disintegrate leaves no corpse). The mother wanted to go beyond simply killing V, but killing V's _immediate_ family. Now, the extra things the dragon was going to do (soul bind) were escalating things. However wiping out not just the immediate family, but tons of relatives, is a whole other level of escalation.

At _best_ V was being EQUALLY evil as the dragon. Was the dragon stupid for leaving it's child behind to defend the horde? Perhaps. V was equally stupid for not trancing, for going off alone, and choosing a banned school that ended up preventing access to teleportation (although that was unintentional on V's part an was due to changes to the universe). V made mistakes that enabled the dragon to achieve it's plan ... JUST like the dragon made mistakes that allowed V to kill the dragon's child. 

[quot]
What if that stupid half-dragon centaur was GOOD? Who cares? It could just as easily find out about V's actions and try to kill V, leaving V's children with only one parent. Just because it's good doesn't mean it's going to go down every other peaceful avenue, figuring out what its cousin did to deserve this, etc.
 [/quote]

No it will wipe out the entirety of V's family line, because that is at best neutral 

Also, if it was actualy V's plan to avoid retribution and _not_ revenge (there is _no_ indication by V that this is any more than spiteful revenge on V's part) then there is a huge gap in that logic as BLOOD relatives aren't the only people that may go after V. For example, the centaur half of the half-centaurs family are just as likely to be upset about the massive slaughter. Not to mention Tiamat.

If the goal is kill anyone that _might_ be upset and come after V in revenge ... it would require destroying all intelligent life (and unlife, and sentient immortals, etc). If anything the greater the slaughter the more likely there is going to be someone seeking revenge.


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## Relique du Madde (Mar 20, 2009)

Aberzanzorax said:


> Anyone who has ever shot a kobold brigand (or, heck a human brigand) in the back while they are running away from their botched highway robbery should appreciate that the morals in D&D are a bit different than in our world.




In the real world, I don't think shooting a brigand in the back as they are fleeing is not "good" or "evil," it's unsportsmanlike (and often a cowardly act if the brigand was completely unarmed).   Just ask Robert Ford.


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## Quartz (Mar 20, 2009)

Guys! I think a large number of posters are missing that in D&D 'Not Good' is not the same as 'Evil'. In D&D there is the third, Neutral, way. V's act is clearly not Good, but it is not Evil. The dragon's descendants that died are simply dead. Not tortured. And note that some of them survived - not all have Xs for eyes - like the dragon next to the eggs and the flying dragon in the middle of the 3rd from bottom row.


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## hamishspence (Mar 20, 2009)

*half-dragons*

Yes- while the template says "alignment- same as base creature" the actual sample half-human half black dragon is "Often Chaotic Evil."

BoED is the only source which goes into issue of killing evil beings in depth.

According to it: killing beings that detect as evil, in the absence of specific wrongdoing, is an evil act.  "Violence must have just cause."

Heroes of Horror says something pretty similar- that not all evil beings are lawbreakers, and "just killing" the townsman that detects as evil, will lead to murder charges for the killer.

Fiendish Codex 2: Murder- 5 pt corrupt acts- where corrupt acts are Evil acts that have a strong effect on your afterlife destination in enough amounts. Even if your alignment is Good.

I'd say, killing something with absolutely no evidence of crimes committed, no issue of self-defence or defence of others, etc, is murder- every half dragon, and possibly every dragon, if Rich Burlew treats them as more Usually Evil than Always Evil, has been murdered.


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## Relique du Madde (Mar 20, 2009)

Quartz said:


> And note that some of them survived - not all have Xs for eyes - .




Sorry to break it to you, but according to window's "magnify.exe" those are x's.


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## Krensky (Mar 20, 2009)

Quartz said:


> And note that some of them survived - not all have Xs for eyes - like the dragon next to the eggs and the flying dragon in the middle of the 3rd from bottom row.




Zoom in close. All Xs. All dead.


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## WalterKovacs (Mar 20, 2009)

Aberzanzorax said:


> Anyone who has ever shot a kobold brigand (or, heck a human brigand) in the back while they are running away from their botched highway robbery should appreciate that the morals in D&D are a bit different than in our world.




Except of course this isn't even comparable. This isn't shooting someone in the back that is fleeing the seem of a crime. None of the dragons "saw it coming", they did not have the option of surrender, some of them, like the dragon eggs had yet to commit an evil act.

While it can be morally ok to kill neutral creatures, that doesn't mean it is _always_ ok to do so. If the bartender in town is not good, a paladin can murder that guy in his sleep and not fall? It's not evil right?

Murdering neutral creatures that pose absolutely no threat to you nor anyone else (at the moment) is hardly a neutral act. If the brigand in the original question is neutral, is not commiting a crime, and in fact has yet to commit a crime (it's possible in the future that it may) then shooting them in the back while they are sitting at the bar ... is a more accurate comparison.


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## Mikaze (Mar 20, 2009)

Jeff Wilder said:


> From Rich Burlew's "Order of the Stick" ongoing web-comic, strip 639:
> 
> Under _your_ D&D's alignment system, was V's act evil?




Evil.

Undeniably evil.

Satan-ramping-a-motorcycle-over-twenty-Hitlers-EVIL.

Using a creature's alignment _alone_ as an excuse to kill it is never justified. "Always _____" does not mean ALWAYS ______, even with angels and fiends(canon examples abound). 

V's action itself and his/her intent were both solid platinum evil. Put them together and you get double-fudge evil, with no milk to wash it down.


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## Halivar (Mar 20, 2009)

Ah! But here's a twist! If the "always" in "always evil" isn't always "always", is the evil in "always evil" always "evil"?

Let that cook your noodle. Then cover and simmer.


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## Friadoc (Mar 20, 2009)

Given the situation, while the root action that V took was evil (it's a necromancy spell that I bet has an Evil tag on it), I can totally see the how and why of the action and, even though it is evil, it's justifiable, in my book. The dragon took it to the Nth degree, V had little choice, save to follow and return, in kind, what was being given.

Evil?

Yes, at its root the spell is evil, thus the act was evil, but it's a justifiable evil and, as a DM, while I would enforce a penalty for V's action, which is obvious from the deal that was made to gain such power, not all of it was evil. While I'm sure some may disagree, in and out of game, I've been of the opinion that sometimes bad things have to happen, in order to protect the greater good.

The dragon obviously had a blood feud, one that would have continued, so V, caught in parental rage, did what had to be done, sadly I'm sure that V's family is going to be, understandably, disconnect for some time, though.


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## Krensky (Mar 20, 2009)

Friadoc said:


> Given the situation, while the root action that V took was evil (it's a necromancy spell that I bet has an Evil tag on it), I can totally see the how and why of the action and, even though it is evil, it's justifiable, in my book. The dragon took it to the Nth degree, V had little choice, save to follow and return, in kind, what was being given.
> 
> Evil?
> 
> ...




V had two choices. The head delivered by Imp thing. V also could have, you know, not have ethnically cleansed the dragon's relatives. It's all evil, all the time, regardless of intentions. This wasn't eye for an eye (which tends to leave everyone blind, one of it's main problems) this was a head for an eye (which is the other main problem). If someone kills you family, you don't get to go out and kill them. If someone kills threatens and tries to kill your family, you don't get to kill their entire lineage.


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## mlund (Mar 20, 2009)

Well, wiping out an entire species or family isn't evil in and of itself. Vaporizing all those darn face-huggers of "Aliens" fame, for example, wouldn't be an act of evil. Wiping out a strain of bacteria wouldn't be either.

We're talking about sapient creatures here, though. One could argue that there are some races or classifications of sapient creatures that don't really have free-will: that they are always and automatically forces of malice and evil. Wiping them out wholesale could likewise be argued as not evil in and of itself.

What make's V's act evil in D&D is its indiscriminate nature. It could very well kill Good and Neutral creatures who would never think to V or V's family. Though collateral damage is an ugly fact of life when major have a conflict around bystanders, this was no such exchange. 

This was akin to executing everyone around the battlefield so that no potential enemy combatant could escape. The possibility of catching a few innocents in your net is the reason why non-Evil folks would take prisoners in such circumstance rather than resort to indiscriminate mass-killings.

- Marty Lund


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## Aberzanzorax (Mar 20, 2009)

In a game of killing things and taking their stuff, V has commited the ultimate sin.




He killed things....


....but then DIDN'T TAKE THEIR STUFF!


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## WalterKovacs (Mar 20, 2009)

Friadoc said:


> Given the situation, while the root action that V took was evil (it's a necromancy spell that I bet has an Evil tag on it), I can totally see the how and why of the action and, even though it is evil, it's justifiable, in my book. The dragon took it to the Nth degree, V had little choice, save to follow and return, in kind, what was being given.




Killing an entire bloodline compared to killing the immediate family is "in kind"?

There is a definite escalation between killing a spouse and two children, and the sheer number of dragons killed. There were generations there, not just the children/spouses of that dragon.

If the dragon went to the Nth degree (which was going from a child killed to a pair of children and a spouce killed), then V went exponentially higher up the degree scale.



> Yes, at its root the spell is evil, thus the act was evil, but it's a justifiable evil and, as a DM, while I would enforce a penalty for V's action, which is obvious from the deal that was made to gain such power, not all of it was evil. While I'm sure some may disagree, in and out of game, I've been of the opinion that sometimes bad things have to happen, in order to protect the greater good.
> 
> The dragon obviously had a blood feud, one that would have continued, so V, caught in parental rage, did what had to be done, sadly I'm sure that V's family is going to be, understandably, disconnect for some time, though.




However, while the dragon was in a blood feud, it was only able to act because of a number of mistakes on V's part. Because V:

(a) was split from the party
(b) was unable to teleport
(c) was not resting (and thus missed a touch attack against a black dragon)
(d) was wasting spells on a minor nuisance

The dragon had an opportunity to strike, and V's family was put at risk. Knowing that there was/would be a dragon coming after then would have made things a lot easier to protect them. It would be nearly impossible for the same situation to occur unless the dragon relative was even higher level than the dragon in this instance.

The argument that this will _prevent_ a powerful creature from seeking revenge seems unlikely. If anything it will definitely call the attention of something like say ... Tiamat, or perhaps a dragon that is high level enough to survive the spell, or just relatives that aren't directly related. More deaths makes it more likely that someone will notice.


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## Mikaze (Mar 20, 2009)

Halivar said:


> Ah! But here's a twist! If the "always" in "always evil" isn't always "always", is the evil in "always evil" always "evil"?




Yep, the frequency isn't a definite, but the alignment segment is.  Though the degree to which one is evil can vary.  Bubba Cowbotherer is going to be less evil than Xanthos Souleater, but that doesn't make him _not_ evil.  Then there are the whys and wherefores of their evilness, which could, and sometimes should, weigh on whether it's justifiable to shank 'em.


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## Mr. Wilson (Mar 20, 2009)

I view it as a Vile act, not just an Evil act.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 20, 2009)

Exterminating a family of living, thinking beings, while gloating about it to their parent, whom you force to watch, is evil. 

The act. Not the intention. The act. 

Note that the alignment of the things you kill doesn't figure into it. If I somehow had a succubus in a cage and I made her watch as I summarily killed every one of her half-satanic bastard-children, that would be evil.

I don't really see how that could NOT be evil.

I mean, this is the basic ACT:

I make you watch while I kill your sons and daughters and grandchildren.

There isn't a mitigating factor of "intent to help the world by killing black dragons."

There is only the action itself. 

And the complete disregard for life and mercy that it showed.

V went the extra step to ENSURE that suffering would come to the mother.

Inflicting suffering, devaluing life, murder, murder, murder.....evil, evil, evil.

Not that it wasn't also AWESOME.


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## Halivar (Mar 20, 2009)

Mikaze said:


> Yep, the frequency isn't a definite, but the alignment segment is.  Though the degree to which one is evil can vary.  Bubba Cowbotherer is going to be less evil than Xanthos Souleater, but that doesn't make him _not_ evil.  Then there are the whys and wherefores of their evilness, which could, and sometimes should, weigh on whether it's justifiable to shank 'em.



Ah! Now Dungeons and Dragons meets Calvin and Rousseau. There are merits to the argument that no one in D&D is ever _not_ evil. Just less evil.

Except maybe the Apostle of Peace from BoED; but then, I don't know anyone that ever played one.


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## Leatherhead (Mar 20, 2009)

I would like to point out this is not a case of indiscriminately killing, it is quite discriminatory in fact, by any definition of the word I have come across.


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## mlund (Mar 20, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Exterminating a family of living, thinking beings, while gloating about it to their parent, whom you force to watch, is evil.
> 
> The act. Not the intention. The act.
> 
> ...




I don't know. Making [insert vile dictator here] watch while his rule was demolished and his most loyal rapists and butchers were executed probably wouldn't elicit that same sort of response.

Our perceptions of *mothers*, *children*, and *family* that are shaped by basically decent people - rather than (literally) inhuman monsters - shape a lot of our sympathies.

The real evil stems from the fact that the killings are directed based on bloodlines, not culpability.



> And the complete disregard for life and mercy that it showed.



Neutral characters don't really have to show regard for mercy, nor do good characters need to show much regard for malicious and evil life-forms.



> V went the extra step to ENSURE that suffering would come to the mother.



Generally any punishment for a crime short of execution is designed to ensure suffering on the part of the criminal. That's the core value of punishment - deterrence.

Again, V's act was evil not because of the amount of killing involved, but the indiscriminate nature of said killing. Oh, and probably because the spell came with the [EVIL] descriptor embossed in gold letters ... with 30 pt. font.



Leatherhead said:


> I would like to point out this is not a case of indiscriminately killing, it is quite discriminatory in fact, by any definition of the word I have come across.




Actually, it can easily be both at once. The meaning of "indiscriminately" in a sentence depends on context. "Indiscriminately killing black dragons," is not an oxymoron despite the fact that killing black dragons instead of blue dragons is discriminating.

Within this dragon's family it definitely kills the good with the evil, the malicious with the benign, and the guilty alongside the innocent. That's killing indiscriminately among a pre-determined population.

To argue otherwise is to say that killing persons at random isn't "indiscriminate killing" because the murderer isn't also targeting ants, trees, and stray dogs.

The meaning depends on the context.

- Marty Lund


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## mlund (Mar 20, 2009)

Whoops. Double post.


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## resistor (Mar 20, 2009)

I am... honestly, kind of sickened that anyone can possibly say it's not evil.


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## Leatherhead (Mar 20, 2009)

I don't know why we are arguing over this to be honest. Sometime in the future Rich will reveal that V killed some innocent sorcerer kid and/or a converted saint half-dragon (or something equally good), and/or just let everyone know the spell was [evil] if he wants it to be know that V did an evil act. Otherwise it will be written off as acting under the influence of evil just as fast.


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## Nivenus (Mar 20, 2009)

For those of you are saying, "would it be wrong to kill a few good people to destroy several thousand evil ones" - _you're missing the point_.

This is not about your own personal morality. The question was, in D&D terms, was V's act evil. You might believe intention/ends justify the means but D&D rules do not follow such a moral philosophy. Acts, with a wee bit of mindframe, are the determinator of alignment in the D&D rules. A creature is chaotic evil not because they maliciously _intend_ to destroy everything sight but rather because they _act_ in such a way thats results in said widespread destruction.

Similarly, a good character is defined by their qualities of mercy, generosity, and benevolence, by acts that benefit others. It is not intent that matters, at least not primarily.

Also, take a quick look at the comic. It's clear from the images portrayed that not all of the dragons are malevolent monsters. Some aren't even _born_ yet (hence, being incapable of acquiring evil karma) and others appear to be adventurers (perhaps half-dragons?). It seems clear that Burlew at least doesn't look at this as a good act.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 20, 2009)

> I don't know. Making [insert vile dictator here] watch while his rule was demolished and his most loyal rapists and butchers were executed probably wouldn't elicit that same sort of response.




Making Calligula watch while Rome burned and all of his favorite minions were killed would be evil.

Not that it wouldn't be awesome. Not that it wouldn't be totally understandable. Not that Calligula would really care. But it would still be evil.

The act is evil.

Doing to something that is ALSO evil doesn't mitigate that fact. Cosmic Evil like D&D Evil isn't just "evil under certain conditions." It is what it is -- it likes it when you try to make things suffer. It doesn't really care WHAT you make suffer. Clearly, V is trying to make the dragon-momma suffer.



> Generally any punishment for a crime short of execution is designed to ensure suffering on the part of the criminal. That's the core value of punishment - deterrence.




Actually, no, a Just punishment is specifically designed to make sure the criminal does NOT suffer.

I mean, that's the philosophy behind jail and even execution. It's not there to make the people experiencing it suffer, it is there to isolate those who cannot function in society without being a risk to others (and to remove them when isolation isn't enough). 

It's true that that's not the way they usually get applied, but most people aren't Good or Just. Most people are unaligned (or neutral, if you prefer). Most people are emotional and are quite fond of bloody spectacle, and want to see those who are guilty punished. But just because most people want to see the guilty suffer doesn't mean it's good for the guilty to suffer. Good doesn't want suffering. Good wants to stop suffering. Adding suffering -- specifically, going out of your way to add suffering to the world -- is pretty freakin' evil.


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## aurance (Mar 20, 2009)

There are are almost as many definitions of "D&D Morality" as D&D players, so this is not an easy one to answer.

Heck, even for myself it could be evil OR good, depending on what style of campaign I was running.


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## Leatherhead (Mar 20, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Making Calligula watch while Rome burned and all of his favorite minions were killed would be evil.




I thought that was Nero?


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 20, 2009)

Well, Calligula was slightly more infamous for being totally depraved, but Nero works, too.  

The overall point being: Who you do an act to does not change whether or not that act is evil or not. If you do bad things to bad people, even if it's deeply satisfying, it's still bad -- it just makes EVERYONE bad. Evil wins, in that case.  

I play my D&D games usually with alignment, and also with a lot of moral ambiguity, and this is part of the reason: it's totally possible to be Evil just by doing bad things, even if you're doing them to bad people for good reasons. The mayor who wants to torture the evil orcs isn't any less evil because the orcs in his torture chamber are ALSO evil. Just because a mind flayer only preys on rapists does not make the mind flayer a good (or even neutral) character.


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## Nivenus (Mar 21, 2009)

aurance said:


> There are are almost as many definitions of "D&D Morality" as D&D players, so this is not an easy one to answer.




Not really.

I mean, yeah, players and DMs usually interpret D&D alignment how they want to, but the definition of the alignments _is_ written down, plan and simple, in several sources. And while 4e simplified alignment, it doesn't seem to have changed the overall difference between good and evil in D&D-style ethics.

So, no, there's the correct definition and then there's the ones that players and DMs who don't know any better (or more likely don't care) use. But there is a canon, official definition.


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## grimslade (Mar 21, 2009)

*Evil going into Vile*

Killing every Black Dragon with a drop of the original Black Dragon's blood. evil
Creating an Intelligent Undead from the reanimated head of your foe for the express purpose of showing said foe the eradication of its entire family. Mega-evil. Mephistopheles would think V went a little too far.
I am not sure there is anything else left to do to the dragon at this point other than use the reanimated head as a commode.   

Evil killing evil is not good. It is business as usual. There are half dragons, dracotaurs and probably kobolds also slain who may not be evil. So casting familicide is an evil act. Epic evil even.
Reanimating a fallen foe. Channelling Negative energy. Separating her from her mate and child in the hereafter is definitely evil.
There is not enough extenuating circumstances for V not to be damned after this.


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## mlund (Mar 21, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Making Calligula watch while Rome burned and all of his favorite minions were killed would be evil.




Actually, I think the whole "burning Rome where all these innocent bystanders live, work, and raise their children," would be the evil part, not making Calligula watch.

Making Calligula watch would be rather ineffectual for the reason you already noted.



> Doing to something that is ALSO evil doesn't mitigate that fact. Cosmic Evil like D&D Evil isn't just "evil under certain conditions." It is what it is -- it likes it when you try to make things suffer. It doesn't really care WHAT you make suffer. Clearly, V is trying to make the dragon-momma suffer.



Um ... not really. The idea that Suffering == Bad or that causing someone else's suffering is automatically evil is rather unfounded.

Heck, putting someone through the DTs is some of the most painful suffering you can inflict on another human being. Relieving that suffering by feeding their addiction, however, is immoral.

Suffering isn't morally charged. *Why* suffering is caused gives the act its moral onus. Making someone suffer to make yourself feel better is typically textbook cliched villainy Evil.



> Actually, no, a Just punishment is specifically designed to make sure the criminal does NOT suffer.



Um, that's your opinion, I suppose. D&D takes place in a setting where "Just punishment" for thievery and vandalism is typically corporal punishment - inflicted suffering to deter the offender from further transgression. Pain and loss are natural teaching tools that can help positively shape an animal's behavior (humans included) or they can be abused to negatively shape that behavior.



> I mean, that's the philosophy behind jail and even execution. It's not there to make the people experiencing it suffer, it is there to isolate those who cannot function in society without being a risk to others (and to remove them when isolation isn't enough).



Actually, the philosophy of non-corporal punishments such as imprisonment and fines stems from the idea that hurting a man's livelihood and liberty is more effective way of getting what society wants than simply hurting his body.

- Marty Lund


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## Tiew (Mar 21, 2009)

Sure, it was an evil act, but the awesome kind of evil. 

A question for the people who don't like killing a bunch of things just because they're evil. What if we rephrase and say we're killing a bunch of dragons because they're dangerous? I can see killing a bunch of retired outlaws or super evil hamsters who can't hurt anyone being a bit questionable. Killing a bunch of dragons who will probably kill many hundreds of people each over the course of their lives seems pragmatic. It almost seems evil not to do it if you have the chance. Think of the lives you'd be saving.


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## grimslade (Mar 21, 2009)

mlund said:


> Um ... not really. The idea that Suffering == Bad or that causing someone else's suffering is automatically evil is rather unfounded.
> 
> Heck, putting someone through the DTs is some of the most painful suffering you can inflict on another human being. Relieving that suffering by feeding their addiction, however, is immoral.




I'm going to have to disagree with your example. The purpose of detox is to remove the toxins and begin to treat the addiction. Methadone exists expressly to alleviate the suffering of heroin addicts. There is great care taken to alleviate the suffering to get to the goal. The actual suffering is seen as a bad/evil thing that deters people from DTing and getting help for their addiction. 


mlund said:


> Suffering isn't morally charged. *Why* suffering is caused gives the act its moral onus. Making someone suffer to make yourself feel better is typically textbook cliched villainy Evil.




Not seeing too many examples of where suffering is seen as a positive or even neutral. The best case is necessary evil, i.e. evil. The human brain is hard coded to reward aversion to suffering. Suffering is always a negative stimulus.  



mlund said:


> Um, that's your opinion, I suppose. D&D takes place in a setting where "Just punishment" for thievery and vandalism is typically corporal punishment - inflicted suffering to deter the offender from further transgression. Pain and loss are natural teaching tools that can help positively shape an animal's behavior (humans included) or they can be abused to negatively shape that behavior.




Sure. I'll buy that. That is why most humans are neutral I guess. The negative (inflicted suffering) is offset by the greater good angle of deterrence and punishment for the wrong. 
The populace at large is detached from the event by the laws. The NPC inflicting the punishment can stay at neutral or go for evil by adding personal enjoyment to mix. The enjoyment augments the negative of the suffering overwhelming the greater good. PHB definition of evil is enjoying suffering.




mlund said:


> , the philosophy of non-corporal punishments such as imprisonment and fines stems from the idea that hurting a man's livelihood and liberty is more effective way of getting what society wants than simply hurting his body.
> - Marty Lund


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## MarkB (Mar 21, 2009)

RefinedBean said:


> This dragon toyed with with me and my family, broke the legs of my children, tied my spouse up to a tree to watch them die.
> 
> All because why?  It was stupid enough to leave its kid guarding a ton of treasure in a world where it's PATENTLY CLEAR that adventurers will go after said treasure?
> 
> ...




Leaving aside the question of whether it was an evil act, this supposed motivation just doesn't add up. Killing an entire familial line of dragons and dragonkind is far likelier to provoke a punitive response than killing any one dragon. V now almost certainly has far more numerous, deadly and implacable enemies than s/he did before becoming Spliced.


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## WalterKovacs (Mar 21, 2009)

Tiew said:


> Sure, it was an evil act, but the awesome kind of evil.
> 
> A question for the people who don't like killing a bunch of things just because they're evil. What if we rephrase and say we're killing a bunch of dragons because they're dangerous? I can see killing a bunch of retired outlaws or super evil hamsters who can't hurt anyone being a bit questionable. Killing a bunch of dragons who will probably kill many hundreds of people each over the course of their lives seems pragmatic. It almost seems evil not to do it if you have the chance. Think of the lives you'd be saving.




There are ways to justify evil acts, if only to yourself. Heck, there is a movie out right now that addresses the very issue of whether the ends justify the means.

However, eliminating that many dangerous creatures is likely to have an effect on the ecosystem. It's like removing one of the predators from the top of the food chain ... the ecosystem will react.

In the OOTS cosmology monsters were created, in part, as a means for clerics (and other divine classes) to get experience and thus expand the reach of their respective dieties into lands they don't directly control. V just eliminated a lot of potential XP for future (heck, in one example current) adventurers. V has created a power vaccuum that will need to be filled. Not to mention there are treasure hordes out there without protectors ... that could invite other types of dragons to migrate to new locales. Suddenly the town with the agreement with a black dragon that keeps them safe at the cost of certain ammounts of money has to deal with a red dragon that has claimed the treasure horde and wants a new deal ...

While it's possible to justify something like this in theory, odds are anything with an effect that huge is hard to truly comprehend the long term repercusions. Part of the problem with the ends justifying the means is that there isn't an "end". You can't just tack on "and everyone lived happily ever after ...", the story continues. And, because the story continues, there are going to be repercusions to the action. 

And ultimately, justifying an action to yourself or to others doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't evil. In fact, the way that faustian deals like the one that V made work is that people try to justify their actions. "I can use evil to do good ..." is an important pit stop on the road to evil. When you get to the point of thinking that "bad things to bad people isn't bad", that's another one.

Star Wars example (or Dark Knight example, take your pick). The bad guys actively ask to be struck down in anger because they know it will damn the good guy. Heck, that Anakin Skywalker's path towards becoming Vader and you will see some parallels to V's actions. You have the arrogance, you have the turning away from his friends and allies, you have the turning to a dark power in order to save his loved ones, you have the revenge slaying of a large group, you have the killing of an unarmed baddie ... all that's left is the ironic "kill your family because you tried to save them" moment and we'll be a few comics away from V needing a bio suit and screaming "No!" at the top of his lungs. 

Ultimately it's for the Gods/DM to decide whether something will cause an allignment change, or will cause a paladin to fall, etc.


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## Slife (Mar 21, 2009)

Again, what if V had put the "purify spell" metamagic on familicide (totally possible if he trades away his elven weapon proficiencies using embrace the dark chaos)?

Then the final spell would have the [good] descriptor, and only harm nongood targets.

Under that circumstance, is casting the spell still evil?


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## garyh (Mar 21, 2009)

grimslade said:


> I am not sure there is anything else left to do to the dragon at this point other than use the reanimated head as a commode.




Besides, that's Belkar's shtick.


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## Vegepygmy (Mar 21, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Actually, no, a Just punishment is specifically designed to make sure the criminal does NOT suffer.



This concept is not a part of any "justice" that I'm aware of (and FWIW, I'm a criminal lawyer).

_Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice._ (H.L. Mencken)


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## dmccoy1693 (Mar 21, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Or that the end result creates the maximum good for the maximum amount of people...




I know people that make excellent arguments for why should have no free will, complete mind control, extermination of the human race, etc using that exact line.  

Call me a namby-pamby if you desire, but I stand by my morals.  Genecide is genecide, regardless of who is being slaughtered.


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## Skallgrim (Mar 21, 2009)

List me as another who cannot understand any system of morality in which this is not Evil.

Grant that vengeance, even DELIGHT, in suffering isn't evil.

Grant that every single black dragon ever, anywhere, is absolutely evil, irredeemably.

Grant that killing any evil creature, ever, in any method, for any reason, is not evil.

We are SPECIFICALLY shown creatures which are NOT black dragons.  You have NO evidence, infomation, or reason, to assume that these creatures MUST be evil.  We have been given no information to suggest that V. has done the research to establish that every family relation of the dragon is evil.  There is nothing to suggest that in the OOTS world, every familial relation of a evil entity is evil, or that every familial relation of a dragon shares its alignment.  There is nothing to suggest that all of these beings are even aware of V., or even aware of the dragon itself.

I can't see any possible, intelligible way for anyone to argue that V. knows that this Familicide spell will only target Evil, or even Neutral, members of the Dragon's family. 

Thus, given the information that we have, and not any made up information, V. freely chooses to use a spell which will kill all beings, related by blood to an evil dragon, because one of them might conceivably, possibly do something to hurt his family, IF they even learn about the existence of V.

This rationale would justify killing every single person in the universe, because it is conceivably possible that person might be able, at some point, for some reason, to hurt your family.

How is this not Evil?  You are murdering someone you know nothing about, who knows nothing about you, and who may have lived and died never interacting with you, based SOLELY on their family relation to someone else.  If this isn't an evil act, then I think your alignment system must be pretty fricking useless.


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## Cadfan (Mar 21, 2009)

Skallgrim said:


> How is this not Evil? You are murdering someone you know nothing about, who knows nothing about you, and who may have lived and died never interacting with you, based SOLELY on their family relation to someone else. If this isn't an evil act, then I think your alignment system must be pretty fricking useless.



Do you feel that his action was evil because of its motivation, or do you feel that it would have been evil even if his motivation was otherwise?

Lets say that 500 of the black dragons killed were definitely evil and absolutely going to come after V and his family.  500 weren't, and probably weren't even bad people.  What then?  Is there a numeric tipping point?

Does the morality of the situation change because V killed "all" of the dragon's family members, thus creating a sort of "genocide?"  Would things be morally different if the dragon had three times this many family members, and V only killed a random selection of them calculated to include as many of the most evil ones as possible?  Does the "100% of the dragon's family" aspect make it more evil than if he killed an equal number but they weren't 100% of a family group?

What if V were at war with the Nation of Black Dragonia, which consisted of many evil dragon soldiers who were out to get V and his family, but also many non evil dragon civilians who supported the soldiers because that's what civilians do in a country, but who did not directly contribute to the conflict?  If V's actions were the most efficient way of ending the battle with minimal casualties on his side, would it have been morally acceptable?

Do the answers to any of these questions say anything about real world morality?  Shouldn't real world moral law be even more strict, since no one is born with "always evil" written on the forehead like the Mark of Cain?  Does real world morality, particular on a national level, even come close to the standards expressed in this thread?  Does it even _aspire_ to be close?


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## Teemu (Mar 21, 2009)

Hey, if you kill good creatures, they go to an eternal afterlife of bliss, but if you kill evil creatures, you condemn them to an eternal afterlife of horrible evil existence. So killing evil creatures is kind of evil always, but killing good ones is sorta good...


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## Vegepygmy (Mar 21, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Lets say that 500 of the black dragons killed were definitely evil and absolutely going to come after V and his family. 500 weren't, and probably weren't even bad people. What then? Is there a numeric tipping point?



Assuming just for the sake of argument that it is never evil to kill an evil creature...killing even 1 innocent non-evil creature in order to kill 999 (or 999,999,999) evil creatures would still be an evil act.

It might be wonderfully beneficial to the world as a whole, but it's unambiguously Evil according to D&D morality.


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## ProfessorCirno (Mar 21, 2009)

If this thread has taught me anything, it's that some people will go to _any_ length to claim that PCs aren't allowed to commit evil actions - because apparently even when they do, it's just redefined as somehow being good.


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## Gunpowder (Mar 21, 2009)

Casting Familicide is an evil action because the spell has the [Evil] descriptor. 
It was personally designed by an evil necromancer, she would have had throw in the evil just to keep up appearances.


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## RefinedBean (Mar 21, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> because apparently even when they do, it's just redefined as somehow being good.




Well, I'm not claiming this was a good act, by any means.  It was definitely a neutral act.

This is OotS.  This is D&D rules, and thus D&D morality.  If you mess with a thief's family, the thief will stab you in the back, and maybe twist the knife.

If you mess with a high-level magic user's family, you end up having your family messed with.  Your ENTIRE family.

Fair's fair.  Maybe V's defense went a little far, but it was, in the end, merely a defense.  No evil in that, as far as I'm concerned.


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## Derren (Mar 21, 2009)

RefinedBean said:


> Fair's fair.  Maybe V's defense went a little far, but it was, in the end, merely a defense.  No evil in that, as far as I'm concerned.




With this reasoning you can justify any sort of genocide or ethnic cleansing everywhere as "It was just defence. The might have attacked me in the future"

Also, don't forget that V started this thing, so according to you what ACB did was totally justified and fair as V messed with her family first.
That means if the ABD would have succeeded in killing Vs family and bind the souls then this would not have been evil.




Teemu said:


> Hey, if you kill good creatures, they go to an eternal afterlife of bliss, but if you kill evil creatures, you condemn them to an eternal afterlife of horrible evil existence. So killing evil creatures is kind of evil always, but killing good ones is sorta good...




Considering what the ABD says when V raises her as undead it doesn't sound like that she comes from a very horrible place.


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## hagor (Mar 21, 2009)

No-brainer for me: evil.

To be more precise:

E-V-I-L

I honestly do not understand the people who see this as something different.
Alignment of "victims": irrelevant
The act, the intent, the means: Evil

Hagor


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## MarkB (Mar 21, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Do you feel that his action was evil because of its motivation, or do you feel that it would have been evil even if his motivation was otherwise?
> 
> Lets say that 500 of the black dragons killed were definitely evil and absolutely going to come after V and his family.  500 weren't, and probably weren't even bad people.  What then?  Is there a numeric tipping point?




Even if all 1,000 of the dragons were evil, this would still be an evil act.

An Evil alignment is not an all-purpose "all morality bets are off, go ahead and slaughter me" badge - it means only that the creature in question is predisposed towards selfish, unkind actions. An evil creature - even a black dragon - might go through its entire existence without ever commiting acts so vile as to require a death sentence, even under medieval-style penal codes. Killing someone just because you know they're not a nice person is unambiguously evil.


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## roguerouge (Mar 21, 2009)

Put me down in the camp that 

a) he cast a spell with an [evil] descriptor; 
b) the intent was revenge as well as self-defense; 
c) what about that half-dragon guy?; 
d) once used, it will tempt and corrupt V, as V will find excuses to start using the spell again and again to solve problems; 
e) you can't be that cold-blooded without it coming back to haunt you, as repression of all empathy and feeling simply doesn't work long-term; 
f) it's not like V has even had the ability to offer a feeble apology to a grieving mother even before the dragon mother's plan was unveiled;
g) he just ramped up the arcane arms race, which has dire consequences as well;
h) the spell requires the hubris to believe that you know what ultimate fate creatures deserve even though you've never met them.

The "EVIL" stamp comes out and its red ink stains the character sheet indelibly.


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## roguerouge (Mar 21, 2009)

Why does this always happen to the black folks? Can't a black girl catch a break in the white elf's world?


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## roguerouge (Mar 21, 2009)

Couldn't V have resolved this problem, by, you know, getting the dragon child raised?


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## Quartz (Mar 21, 2009)

Relique du Madde said:


> Sorry to break it to you, but according to window's "magnify.exe" those are x's.




I checked and they're not Xs, they're shadings for the eyes.


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## Lord Xtheth (Mar 21, 2009)

Good? Evil? Who cares? How much XP is that worth?

[/munchkin powergaming] [/joke]


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## Betote (Mar 21, 2009)

Ktulu said:


> I voted yes.  Not because of killing evil dragons, but because one in there is clearly a half-dragon, which is not, by the rules, inherently evil.




Half-dragons have, by the rules, the same alignment as their dragon parent. So if you think that killing every black dragon is not evil, therefore killing every half-black dragon wouldn't be evil, either.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 21, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> If this thread has taught me anything, it's that some people will go to _any_ length to claim that PCs aren't allowed to commit evil actions - because apparently even when they do, it's just redefined as somehow being good.




This thread has taught me that most folks think there is a greater moral imperative to preserve the sanctity of your own soul than to save the lives of countless people.

Put one soul on one side of the balance, and an infinite number of lives on the other, and most folks here choose the soul.

1 soul > countless lives

1 innocent life > countless innocent lives

Makes for some interesting moral calculus.

Given the power (from _whatever _source) to kill all those evil black dragons, you guys are arguing that is it _more good_ to use that power for the sole selfish purpose of just saving one's own family.


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## Krensky (Mar 21, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> This thread has taught me that most folks think there is a greater moral imperative to preserve the sanctity of your own soul than to save the lives of countless people.
> 
> Put one soul on one side of the balance, and an infinite number of lives on the other, and most folks here choose the soul.
> 
> ...




I'm arguing that any use of the power V is evil, and that killing something because it has and evil alignment just because it has an evil alignment is evil. I'm also arguing that comitting mass murder and making the dragon watch for aggrivated assault and attempted murder
is evil.


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## Cadfan (Mar 21, 2009)

MarkB said:


> Even if all 1,000 of the dragons were evil, this would still be an evil act.
> 
> An Evil alignment is not an all-purpose "all morality bets are off, go ahead and slaughter me" badge - it means only that the creature in question is predisposed towards selfish, unkind actions. An evil creature - even a black dragon - might go through its entire existence without ever commiting acts so vile as to require a death sentence, even under medieval-style penal codes. Killing someone just because you know they're not a nice person is unambiguously evil.



What this sounds like to me is a flat out rejection of the entire concept of alignment as a meaningful descriptor or guide to actions.

If you're going to judge everyone based on their actions, and you're going to presume that an evil creature might just not bother ever doing anything meaningfully evil... what is alignment accomplishing?  Alignment is normally supposed to speak to a creature's innate, objective nature.  It stems from a historical and fantastical notion that certain creatures or races are just plain evil, no matter what.  Once you've shifted to an action/punishment based morality, the concept of alignment is obsolete.

Which is cool and all.  I don't really like alignment.  But I'm just saying, there's no point in declaring that a dragon is inherently evil if you aren't allowed to judge the dragon on whether its inherently evil.  That requires having rejected the idea of inherent nature.


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## hamishspence (Mar 21, 2009)

*half dragons*

The SRD just has the template, but the MM gives it context, since the sample half-black dragon human is "Often CE"

So "same as the base creature" should be remembered as being "by default, but not all the time"- if you're creating a random half dragon, generally give it same alignment, if you want to know what proportion actually have that alignment, entry suggests its 40-50%, by use of the term "Often"

as for "inherent behaviour" D&D PHB says alignment is a tool, not a straitjacket, creatures can behave in a fashion atypical of their alignment.

If black dragons had Evil subtype, there would be a slightly better case. But just as Evil can corrupt even celestials, Good can redeem even demons- Fall-From-Grace, succubus in Planescape Torment.

alignment is a guideline, and one that gets broken often. Good people sometimes do Evil things, and vice versa.


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## cmbarona (Mar 21, 2009)

*What about the Daleks? (spoilers for old-school Doctor Who fans)*

Interestingly, this reminded me of the moral wrestling in an old Doctor Who episode. The Doctor ended up on Skaro at the time of the creation of the Daleks (for those of you unfamiliar, they are an alien being designed as a political commentary toward nazis: cold, inhuman, and ruthless killers who would EX-TER-MIN-ATE all non-Dalek life if they could). The Doctor ultimately couldn't bring himself to set off the bomb in the nursery in which they were being developed. That would be genocide.

To this day (unless there have been new developments since I last saw the new series), he still hopes for the possibility of their redemption.

Was V's act evil? IMHO, of course. Killing is always worse than redeeming, or even the hope or attempt of redeeming.

Plus, torture? Totally not cool.


P.S.: Sorry if someone else has mentioned this, but the thread is getting long and I have work to do this fine Saturday.


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## MarkB (Mar 21, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> What this sounds like to me is a flat out rejection of the entire concept of alignment as a meaningful descriptor or guide to actions.
> 
> If you're going to judge everyone based on their actions, and you're going to presume that an evil creature might just not bother ever doing anything meaningfully evil... what is alignment accomplishing?  Alignment is normally supposed to speak to a creature's innate, objective nature.  It stems from a historical and fantastical notion that certain creatures or races are just plain evil, no matter what.  Once you've shifted to an action/punishment based morality, the concept of alignment is obsolete.
> 
> Which is cool and all.  I don't really like alignment.  But I'm just saying, there's no point in declaring that a dragon is inherently evil if you aren't allowed to judge the dragon on whether its inherently evil.  That requires having rejected the idea of inherent nature.




I'm not rejecting the concept of alignment, I'm just rejecting the notion of treating it as a black-and-white, either-or condition.

By the rules, murdering somebody is evil, but so is short-changing them. I don't believe that a person who consistently short-changes people, commits petty thefts and tends to be unpleasant and hurtful in conversation is as deserving of death as a depraved murderer - but they're both Evil in alignment, and a racial tendency of Always Evil may contain numerous examples at both ends of that scale, as well as everything in between.


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## Grog (Mar 21, 2009)

Derren said:


> With this reasoning you can justify any sort of genocide or ethnic cleansing everywhere as "It was just defence. The might have attacked me in the future"




You can't apply D&D reasoning to the real world. In D&D, everyone's moral code and values falls into one of nine basic categories. The real world is infinitely more complex than that.

What I find interesting is that I think if V had killed every one of those dragons individually, during the course of adventuring (and remember that "adventuring" means "invading their home for the express purpose of killing them for XP and taking their treasure"), no one here would be saying that was an evil act. So I guess the fact that V did it more efficiently than most others is what makes the act evil?

I guess the message here is "kill all the dragons you want, just don't be too good at it."


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## hamishspence (Mar 21, 2009)

It was indiscriminate, targeting every relative, no matter how good or evil.

I think its like the difference between BoED and BoVD-

BoVD- reason killing a whole town of "evil people" is evil- because of the risk there might be a few non-evil people

BoED- reason killing a town of orcs is evil- because its attacking non-combatants, and because you need just cause- "being evil" is not enough.


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## billd91 (Mar 21, 2009)

Leatherhead said:


> I would like to point out this is not a case of indiscriminately killing, it is quite discriminatory in fact, by any definition of the word I have come across.




It is. Yet it isn't as well. Discriminatory means you are doing something based upon a particular criteria, in this case, familial relationship to the black dragon. But there are other criteria upon which you may discriminate and, if you consider them to be important (like, say, whether or not the creature actually deserves to be killed because of their previous behavior), then V's killing is indiscriminate.


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## billd91 (Mar 21, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> This thread has taught me that most folks think there is a greater moral imperative to preserve the sanctity of your own soul than to save the lives of countless people.
> 
> Put one soul on one side of the balance, and an infinite number of lives on the other, and most folks here choose the soul.
> 
> ...




It's not that unusual actually. For one thing, we don't know how many innocent lives will be involved. The one person corrupted is certain. The countless innocent lives that *may* be lost by avoiding the corruption are uncertain. They may happen. They may never happen.

But morality outside of the show _24_ has usually been about this. It's best to behave properly at the risk of someone else behaving improperly and causing injury. For one thing, that's what you *can* control.


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## Drowbane (Mar 21, 2009)

*Welcome to the Darkside.*

Yes (but so is casting Animate Dead or :snicker: Deathwatch).

Familicide is (clearly, IMO) an [Evil] spell.  Using evil tools for good is still an evil act.

Wiping out 64+ black dragons in one fell swoop (emphasis on fell) is ultra-shiny-good.  Using ultimate evil to do it... gain some Darkside Points V!

Should this leave an indelible mark on V's soul that damns him for eternity? Naw... the Good gods should be doing the happy-dance that so many Evil creatures won't be threatening thier flock in the future.

edit: someone early on in the thread mentioned only one 1/2 Dragon... I counted 3. (platemail, 1/2 centaur, and red-robed caster)


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## Vegepygmy (Mar 21, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> This thread has taught me that most folks think there is a greater moral imperative to preserve the sanctity of your own soul than to save the lives of countless people.



I think your conclusion is flawed, and here's why: I'm not Good (as D&D uses the word).  Nor are _most_ folks in the real world.



			
				Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> Put one soul on one side of the balance, and an infinite number of lives on the other, and most folks here choose the soul.



I wouldn't choose the soul.  I simply recognize that the choice I would make is Evil (as D&D uses the word).

Remember, most Evil creatures in the D&D game don't think of themselves or the things they do as "evil."  (Neither do I, of course.)  But alignment isn't _subjective_ in D&D; it's _objective_.  And what I think is the "greater moral imperative" in the hypothetical situation you posit is objectively Evil in D&D World.


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## hamishspence (Mar 21, 2009)

*deathwatch*

Given there's a "Must be Good" class (healer) and Exalted Prestige Class (slayer) and several Good aligned clerics have been statted out with it in D&D sources, I treat the Evil descriptor on it as a bug- since a slayer would Fall for casting it- and having it on PRC spell list is just silly, if it really is evil.

(since its multiple sources, I remove descriptor, rather than removing the spell from the class lists)


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## Vegepygmy (Mar 21, 2009)

Grog said:


> What I find interesting is that I think if V had killed every one of those dragons individually, during the course of adventuring (and remember that "adventuring" means "invading their home for the express purpose of killing them for XP and taking their treasure"), no one here would be saying that was an evil act.



Wanna bet?

*I* would say invading a creature's home for the express purpose of killing them and taking their treasure (XP is a metagame concept and could not motivate a PC to act, IMO) is Evil, no doubt about it.


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## pawsplay (Mar 21, 2009)

I'd call it slightly evil, simply because it has a collateral effect on some dragons that are not guilty of any specific effect. However, since it mostly kills evil dragons, it is something a neutral character might do. Also, she does imply she wants to make sure there are no relatives left to try to avenge the dragon against her family. So, not likely to cause an alignment shift to evil, but still not okay.

Btw, I love the fact that a half-dragon centaur appears in that picture. Ha!


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## jeffh (Mar 21, 2009)

How is this even remotely controversial? S/he GLEEFULLY slaughters 60-odd sentient creatures s/he has no way of knowing are evil or up to anything particularly harmful FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN TO MAKE ONE OF THEM SUFFER. If that kind of remorseless cruelty isn't evil I don't know what is.

To some of the counterarguments being made:

"Turnabout is fair play" has never, to the best of my knowledge, been a principle of D&D's moral system nor of any credible real-world one.
I'm mostly a consequentialist philosophically, but in this case the utilitarian argument assumes way too many facts that are simply not in evidence.
Even if the utilitarian argument is correct and we should approve of the _consequences_ of what V did (something for which we have, at best, circumstantial evidence), we still shouldn't approve of what this action implies about V's _character_. D&D alignment is concerned with the latter, not the former.


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## Jeff Wilder (Mar 21, 2009)

Grog said:


> In D&D, everyone's moral code and values falls into one of nine basic categories. The real world is infinitely more complex than that.



Morality in the real world is more complex, but not because of the number of alignments.  The alignment grid in D&D covers everybody.  If you extrapolate it to the real world, it covers everybody.

The complexity arises not from the fact that some people don't fit in the alignment grid (how is that possible, when the alignment grid covers all possible standards of ethics and morality?), but rather how you do the sorting.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 21, 2009)

Grog said:


> You can't apply D&D reasoning to the real world. In D&D, everyone's moral code and values falls into one of nine basic categories. The real world is infinitely more complex than that.
> 
> What I find interesting is that I think if V had killed every one of those dragons individually, during the course of adventuring (and remember that "adventuring" means "invading their home for the express purpose of killing them for XP and taking their treasure"), no one here would be saying that was an evil act. So I guess the fact that V did it more efficiently than most others is what makes the act evil?
> 
> I guess the message here is "kill all the dragons you want, just don't be too good at it."




Exactly.

Some folks are clearly uncomfortable with the use of power.

V had godlike powers and acted in a godlike fashion (capricious? certainly). No matter how ultimately good the outcome, some folks just can't help but get squirrely about that kind of thing.

Old Testament God? Evil.


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## Maggan (Mar 21, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> some folks just can't help but get squirrely about that kind of thing.




IMO you are drawing way too far-reaching conclusions as to how people view this world and how power is and should be used in it, based on how people view a web comic character wielding true ultimate power to kill imaginary dragons.

Again, IMO what V did is evil in the context of D&D.

Whether or not this reflects my view on what evil is in our own world, is in all probability not something which can be divined from that.

/M


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## Burrito Al Pastor (Mar 21, 2009)

Lawl alignment debates.


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## BryonD (Mar 21, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> This thread has taught me that most folks think there is a greater moral imperative to preserve the sanctity of your own soul than to save the lives of countless people.
> 
> Put one soul on one side of the balance, and an infinite number of lives on the other, and most folks here choose the soul.
> 
> ...



I disagree with this assessment.
I'm not gonna try to blanket defend the whole thread.  I haven't even read every single post in it.  But I've read a good bit.

Saying that killing one innocent is an evil act period full stop does not state that this 1 innocent life is greater than countless others.  It simply states that taking the one innocent life is evil.  I believe that is pretty hard to refute.

Frankly, I find the idea that we can turn a blind eye to vast evil so long as it helps us convince ourselves that we have stopped some minimal evil that is thrust into our face to be one of the horrid flaws with society today.  It is a very arrogant and narcissistic moral short cut.  The refusal to embrace and accept hard choices is itself an evil.

What V did was evil.    End of discussion to me.
But if someone had the choice to push that same button and commit that evil act, and choose not to, despite the vast amount of evil it would prevent, simply because it made them feel more comfortable with their own self, then that person is weak and selfish and harmful to society.

It is not 1 innocent soul > countless innocent souls. 
It is 1 innocents soul + self delusion of own morality > countless innocent souls.

The idea that all evil may be avoided is a bad starting point.  Making tough, correct choices that may not be fun but have the best overall expected result is as close to good as it comes.


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## Grog (Mar 21, 2009)

Maggan said:


> Again, IMO what V did is evil in the context of D&D.




So, killing to safeguard your family = evil.

Killing to increase your personal power and wealth = not evil.

Gotta love D&D morality.


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## Grog (Mar 21, 2009)

Vegepygmy said:


> *I* would say invading a creature's home for the express purpose of killing them and taking their treasure (XP is a metagame concept and could not motivate a PC to act, IMO) is Evil, no doubt about it.




First, XP is not a metagame concept in Order of the Stick. They know about XP; they talk about it all the time.

Second, I can't comment on you specifically, but way back when the OotS invaded the first black dragon's lair and killed him in order to get the starmetal to reforge Roy's sword, I don't remember _anyone_ saying that that was an evil act on their part.


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## Relique du Madde (Mar 21, 2009)

Grog said:


> So, killing to safeguard your family = evil.
> 
> Killing to increase your personal power and wealth = not evil.
> 
> Gotta love D&D morality.




Let me throw out a curve ball..  

Would it have been evil to have used an epic spell to completely retroactively wipe that dragon out of existance*?  That is, to make it so that that specific dragon never existed, and as a result to make it's children to never be born?


* I'm well aware of the temporal paradox that it would create, and would most likely do more damage to the multiverse than the snarl itself.


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## Nightson (Mar 21, 2009)

Wandering into something evil's lair and killing it for XP and treasure isn't evil in D&D.  I mean seriously, that's pretty core D&D experience.


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## Miyaa (Mar 21, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> If its morally acceptable to kill one dragon just 'cause its evil, its morally acceptable to kill lots.
> 
> That's why I'm not a big fan of alignment by species.  The idea of inherent evil gets screwy really fast.  And you can't make exceptions, even though they do, because if your exceptions exist because of anything other than divine intervention, the original version of the monster must not have been inherently evil in the first place.




Quoted for Truth, mostly. I would add that some races can be as close to "inherently" an alignment as possible, but if they change alignments, they change races, i.e. angels, demons, & devils.


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## ProfessorCirno (Mar 22, 2009)

Again, I have to ask - how many people in their games come across dragons that just sit in their lair and don't do anything?  Orcs that don't raid other villiages, but just live in theirs peacefully?

Saying "It's not evil to find something to kill and take their stuff" is a misnomer, because in just about every case I've seen, _that's not how it goes_.  First the thing does something evil, THEN adventurers come to kill it and take their stuff.  I don't know of many situations in which the players just stumble on a dragon lair, and the dragon tells them to leave it alone because it hasn't done anything.  And yes, if the players then decided to kill it anyways, it would be an evil act.


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## Grog (Mar 22, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I don't know of many situations in which the players just stumble on a dragon lair, and the dragon tells them to leave it alone because it hasn't done anything.  And yes, if the players then decided to kill it anyways, it would be an evil act.




First, how many of the dragons that V just killed do you suppose fall into that category?

And second, I'll again remind you that the OotS invaded the lair of the first black dragon and killed it to get the piece of starmetal they needed to reforge Roy's sword. They were not out to stop an evil, rampaging monster - they just wanted to acquire a magic item to increase their power. Back when that strip ran, I don't remember anyone claiming that the OotS had just committed an evil act.


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## Zimri (Mar 22, 2009)

Savage Wombat said:


> Hey, that half-dragon in full armor was CLEARLY a LG paladin.  So you can't make the case that "they're all evil" because you don't KNOW.




I voted not evil, then saw this post to glom on to before going much further.

V killed a black dragon who was in combat with her party. A family member of said dragon went to great ends to find her, humiliate her in battle then attack her family because it thought she was powerless to stop it. 

So we know they are vengeful, resourceful, long lived, and have fantastic memories.

It is therefore not illogical to assume that unless you want to be glancing over your shoulders forever you eliminate the threat in as quick and concise a manner as you can. 

Where have we seen that logic before ?


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## dmccoy1693 (Mar 22, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> If this thread has taught me anything, it's that some people will go to _any_ length to claim that PCs aren't allowed to commit evil actions - because apparently even when they do, it's just redefined as somehow being good.






Wulf Ratbane said:


> This thread has taught me that most folks think there is a greater moral imperative to preserve the sanctity of your own soul than to save the lives of countless people.
> 
> Put one soul on one side of the balance, and an infinite number of lives on the other, and most folks here choose the soul.
> 
> ...




Riddle me this: Would you consider it a justifyible killing if your wife and kids died because your wife's father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate was evil and the killer felt that everyone that any kind of relation to them needed killing as well?

Those dragons in those eggs had no time to commit a single evil act. The half dragons may not have been evil. Why should they die because they have some distant sadistic relative?


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## billd91 (Mar 22, 2009)

Grog said:


> So, killing to safeguard your family = evil.
> 
> Killing to increase your personal power and wealth = not evil.
> 
> Gotta love D&D morality.




Let's try not to reduce this into ridiculousness. Killing to safeguard your family from immediate threat = not evil. Hence, killing the dragon that's right there and attacking the family isn't evil.

Projecting that particular dragon's motivations to any number of dragons, related by blood but who may well never have encountered or even heard of the dragon in question, and then holding them accountable for the same actions, murdering them, in some cases before they have even hatched = not the same as killing to safeguard your family.


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## Zimri (Mar 22, 2009)

billd91 said:


> Let's try not to reduce this into ridiculousness. Killing to safeguard your family from immediate threat = not evil. Hence, killing the dragon that's right there and attacking the family isn't evil.
> 
> Projecting that particular dragon's motivations to any number of dragons, related by blood but who may well never have encountered or even heard of the dragon in question, and then holding them accountable for the same actions, murdering them, in some cases before they have even hatched = not the same as killing to safeguard your family.




Except we already know that 1 relative of 1 black dragon that was slain in fair (enough) combat came seeking vengeance not just on the slayer (V) but on V's family. What is the best way to make sure another family member doesn't try that or worse again ?


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## resistor (Mar 22, 2009)

I take issue with some of the interpretations of "Always Evil" people are espousing here.  I've always viewed it that dragons, like most other creatures of the Prime Material plane, are mortals, capable of free will even if they may be strongly predisposed in certain ways.  Just like orcs and gnolls _tend_ to raid villages, red dragons _tend_ to collect hordes and burn things.  But the dragons, like the orcs and the gnolls, are free-willed.  It's not impossible for a red dragon to come out good, or for a formerly evil one to be reformed.  Just unlikely.

IMO, and in any campaign I run, genocide of a free-willed race is, and will always be, EVIL.

A more interesting question would be whether genociding a breed of demon or devil would be EVIL.  It depends on the setting: if planar exemplar races are literally manifestations of their home planes, then they don't have free will, and literally cannot be non-evil.  So genociding them would not be _inherently_ evil (though it could be because of motivations, etc.).

Of course, a reformed demon/devil is itself a common plot point.  IMC, I'd probably say that a reformed demon/devil stopped being a demon/devil when their alignment changed.


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## resistor (Mar 22, 2009)

Zimri said:


> Except we already know that 1 relative of 1 black dragon that was slain in fair (enough) combat came seeking vengeance not just on the slayer (V) but on V's family. What is the best way to make sure another family member doesn't try that or worse again ?




So if two siblings were murderers, it'd be OK to kill the other three, including the baby, and murder the pregnant mother too?


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## billd91 (Mar 22, 2009)

Zimri said:


> Except we already know that 1 relative of 1 black dragon that was slain in fair (enough) combat came seeking vengeance not just on the slayer (V) but on V's family. What is the best way to make sure another family member doesn't try that or worse again ?




Best, as in most effective, has absolutely nothing to do with morality. It never did. There are stories throughout history of people engaging in what they thought were the best efforts, held up for moral condemnation. Think of prophecies about first born male children and programs of infanticide from both Biblical and Arthurian legends.
Moral and effective do not always align.


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## Zimri (Mar 22, 2009)

resistor said:


> So if two siblings were murderers, it'd be OK to kill the other three, including the baby, and murder the pregnant mother too?




Seriously, are you saying that if entity A kills entity B for a perfectly reasonable ummm reason and then entity B's family member entity B1  humiliates entity A and threatens with death and eternal torture (and indeed plans to carry out said threat) entity A's family (in what is clearly NOT a reasonable manner) that once entity B1 is taken care of that entity A should presume safeness from entities B2 through B12 ?

It didn't end with the first one why do we think it would end with the second ? or third ? or tenth ?

To answer your question without any pretense ... Should I kill sibling one in self defense (or say a mutually agreed upon fight) and sibling 2 then decides my untrained wife and kids are fair game while I am helpless to stop it you are darned right I don't stop at sibling 2. They bring in my family I bring in theirs. Of course I also don't think you get involved in escalating violence to "tie" you fight to win. Combat has to be as bloody and vile and distasteful as it can be made to be so that it is always and forever the last resort. I also think that if you believe in vigilante justice you should expect the same visited upon you involving others isn't kosher unless the other guy does so first.


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## Hejdun (Mar 22, 2009)

I said it wasn't evil, but then again I view DnD reality has very far removed from real world morality.  Such a spell would be extremely evil in the real world, but I just can't get that upset about killing Always Evil monsters in DnD.  

The way I see it, DnD is about killing people and taking their stuff.  If you're good aligned, that means you kill Evil people and take their stuff before they kill all the Good people and take their stuff.  So it is a good creature's moral imperative to kill all the Evil people.  In DnD (or at least every campaign I've played in), the world is basically a warzone already.  Every day the forces of Evil raze a helpless village and drink the blood of babies.  The forces of Good are always on the defensive and barely holding their own in an eternal fight to the death.

In that context, I'd view killing 3 *possibly* non-evil creatures in the process of killing off 60+ powerful, drink-the-blood-of-babies-Evil creatures as an acceptable loss.  But that's because in all of the campaigns I play in, the forces of Good and Evil are in an eternal deathmatch, and the stakes are high.  Those 60 black dragons could've caused immense damage to innocent people.  Therefore, I'm not going to get into a tizzy just because they possible weren't, *at that moment*, killing innocents.

Again, coming from the perspective of an average person in the average DnD campaign I play in.  Also, I haven't read any of this comic, so I have no idea of the context that this is taking place.  I also took a narrow view of what V's "act" was--I'm thinking specifically of casting Familicide.


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## tsadkiel (Mar 22, 2009)

Grog said:


> And second, I'll again remind you that the OotS invaded the lair of the first black dragon and killed it to get the piece of starmetal they needed to reforge Roy's sword. They were not out to stop an evil, rampaging monster - they just wanted to acquire a magic item to increase their power. Back when that strip ran, I don't remember anyone claiming that the OotS had just committed an evil act.




That's . . . not actually what happened.  The Order didn't set out to kill the dragon and retrieve the starmetal, they set out to retrieve the starmetal, and were attacked by a dragon, which didn't exactly give them a chance to negotiate.


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## Zimri (Mar 22, 2009)

billd91 said:


> Best, as in most effective, has absolutely nothing to do with morality. It never did. There are stories throughout history of people engaging in what they thought were the best efforts, held up for moral condemnation. Think of prophecies about first born male children and programs of infanticide from both Biblical and Arthurian legends.
> Moral and effective do not always align.




But according to many fine enworlders being the "most effective you can be" is the "only goodrightfun" way to play.

It is always "good" to protect you and yours from threats both clear and present , and vague and distant (and some would argue real and imagined).


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 22, 2009)

Aberzanzorax said:


> This is a game about killing things and taking their stuff. If you see an orc, you kill it. Why? Because it is an orc...and orcs are evil.



This is a falsehood perpetuated on and on (in most all editions) and there is nothing supporting it in the RAW.

First, for the larger majority of the people I know, this game is about WAY more than just killing things and taking their stuff.  Maybe in a lite beer and pretzels game, but not a rich campaign experience.  IMC, if you just kill things and take it's stuff, you will be hunted and/or incarcerated, or simply damned.  This is where alignment comes into play, as vague as it is.  Just killing things and taking it's stuff would place you firmly in the Chaotic Evil department.



Aberzanzorax said:


> If I can kill an orc (without knowing anything about it other than that it is an orc) and steal its property morally, then I can kill hundreds of orcs, also without reason.
> 
> If dragons are worse than orcs, then I can do the same.




This is where we disagree.  According to RAW, an orc is "Often chaotic evil".  According to the glossary, often assumes a plurality (40%-50%) of individuals.  Killing an orc, without knowing anything about it other than that it is an orc, would be evil.  In many campaigns, it could be considered murder.

Dragons being "Always" might mean that 98%+ are evil.  But just killing them for no reason (or especially because the reason is vengeance, and the added layer of "and you will watch it happen to everyone you and your offspring have spawned in the past 801-1000 years") is still an evil act.  The reason can't just be "I am pretty sure that he's still evil because the odds are in my favor".  Even if 99.9% are evil, the sheer number of offspring over that may years, multiplied exponentially, will still result in many, many, many more "non-evil" deaths than just 3 (to make up for his wife and two kids).

I am reminded of the old Faberge Organics shampoo commercial.  "If I told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on".


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## jeffh (Mar 22, 2009)

Zimri said:


> Seriously, are you saying that if entity A kills entity B for a perfectly reasonable ummm reason and then entity B's family member entity B1  humiliates entity A and threatens with death and eternal torture (and indeed plans to carry out said threat) entity A's family (in what is clearly NOT a reasonable manner) that once entity B1 is taken care of that entity A should presume safeness from entities B2 through B12 ?



You made that way more confusing than it needed to be, but once I get through it, I find a good argument for doing _something_ to provide further protection. What I don't find is an argument for committing this kind of _indiscriminate slaughter_. This was not even remotely the only option available for seeing to his/her family's safety.

And I _certainly_ don't find an argument that morally justifies doing it with _obvious glee_, in a manner deliberately calculated to make one of those beings suffer as much as possible.

Seriously people, the _whole point_ of this strip was the utterly gratuitous cruelty with which V acted. That was screamingly obvious to me and I can't believe it seems to have slipped right by so many otherwise intelligent people. Even if you think the _consequences _are good, gratuitous cruelty is the _definitive_ Evil attitude. That's not a grey area.


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## Starbuck_II (Mar 22, 2009)

Thasmodious said:


> Casting an [Evil] spell is an evil act, no exceptions.



 Dude, we both know that isn't true. 
By that reasoning, casting Holy Word is good beccause it is an [Good] spell?

Say I'm in a orphanage: is it still a good act? or just aligned [Good]?

That said: it was evil because she killed possible innocent dragons.


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## Grog (Mar 22, 2009)

tsadkiel said:


> The Order didn't set out to kill the dragon and retrieve the starmetal, they set out to retrieve the starmetal, and were attacked by a dragon,




After they invaded its lair.


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## resistor (Mar 22, 2009)

Zimri said:


> To answer your question without any pretense ... Should I kill sibling one in self defense (or say a mutually agreed upon fight) and sibling 2 then decides my untrained wife and kids are fair game while I am helpless to stop it you are darned right I don't stop at sibling 2.




Wow.

Just... wow.

Glad to know that you might come murder me out of the blue for something sister (or cousins, or great-grandfather, or ...) did.

---------

I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but I can't sit here and not say it.

This is the most morally repugnant, sickening, and revolting philosophy I have ever heard an actual person profess, and I'll consider myself lucky never to meet you or anyone who thinks like you in real life.


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## drothgery (Mar 22, 2009)

Killing this particular black dragon? Clearly not evil, and in fact clearly Good by D&D morality. It's attacking innocents (V's family), and even the most exalted paladin would have no trouble striking it down.

Killing an entire family of black dragons in a world where dragons are 'color coded for your convience'? Prettly clearly not evil (even if a handful of non-evil half-dragons and such are killed). Maybe not Good (depends if non-evil creatures killed were a handful of extreme outliers, or a significant percentage)

Raising a black dragon you killed as undead creature? Clearly evil (spell has an [evil] descriptor on it).

Doing so expressly so you can watch said black dragon suffer? EVIL.

So V's actions were evil under D&D morality, but I don't think wiping out the black dragon's family was. OotS doesn't take place in Eberron; black dragons are 'always evil'.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 22, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I don't know of many situations in which the players just stumble on a dragon lair, and the dragon tells them to leave it alone because it hasn't done anything.  And yes, if the players then decided to kill it anyways, it would be an evil act.




Do your players believe everything that _always evil_ creatures tell them?


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 22, 2009)

resistor said:


> Wow.
> 
> Just... wow.
> 
> ...




Gotta say, I'm sympathetic, particularly since the previous poster specified that any and all violence must be done in the maximally horrific way, if it is to be done at all, in order (contradictorally, it seems to me) to ensure its "last resortness."


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## wingsandsword (Mar 22, 2009)

Okay, for the people who think this is okay just because the victims are (mostly) evil (or who think they are all inherently evil because they are Black Dragons or related to them). . .

What if there was an Epic Spell called "Evilcide" that necromantically snuffed out the life of every evil-aligned intelligent being on the planet.  If you don't have an Evil alignment, it doesn't affect you, and if you are Evil-aligned it's Save Or Die at a pretty dang high DC.

Is it a good act to cast this spell because you are slaughtering millions upon millions of evil beings?

So. . .you cast Evilcide. . .and across the world millions of beings fall dead.  You did good, right?  An old miser that a kindly priest is talking to every day trying to get him to see the error of his ways and repent is struck down before he can be redeemed.  The ruthless but reliable mercenaries that the sickly pilgrims are paying to escort them through wilderness infested with dangerous animals like bears and wolves drop dead.  The cold-hearted but skilled navigator helping guide his ship home through treacherous waters just died suddenly leaving his shipmates to probably drift until they die, the extremely selfish but brilliant and skilled wizard that the Duke keeps in his court to help keep the ancient planar gate to the Abyss sealed dies in his sleep and nobody else knows how to maintain the seals.  Yeah, good act indeed.

"It's okay to kill it just because it's evil" is a poor justification indeed.  In the typical D&D game yes you are killing evil creatures without a trial and detailed examination of the facts, but the typical adventure also puts some context or reason into why they are being killed besides just their alignment entry in the MM.  The orcs have been raiding settlements or declared war on the Kingdom, the kobolds ambushed you as you walked along the trail, the dark cult is kidnapping children to use as sacrifices, the black dragon swooped down and attacked you the moment you entered it's territory or breathed on you when you opened the door to it's lair without so much as a "get out!".


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## prosfilaes (Mar 22, 2009)

catsclaw227 said:


> This is a falsehood perpetuated on and on (in most all editions) and there is nothing supporting it in the RAW.




Looking through a random adventure, G1, I see nothing about any of the alignment of the giants or other creatures, and no implication that the characters should be concerned about killing the women and children, who are merely provided with hit points. Nor do I remember any concerns about who to attack in the Keep on the Borderlands.


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## Deset Gled (Mar 22, 2009)

I find it hard to fathom that there is any definition(s) of Good and Evil where the act of bringing something back from death entirely for the purpose of torturing that life further, only so that you can take personal pleasure in experiencing that creature's pain, is not an Evil act.

The type of creature involved, the method of torture, and the circumstances for the initial killing are all just details.  What V has done is an inherently evil act with nothing but evil intent.


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 22, 2009)

prosfilaes said:


> Looking through a random adventure, G1, I see nothing about any of the alignment of the giants or other creatures, and no implication that the characters should be concerned about killing the women and children, who are merely provided with hit points. Nor do I remember any concerns about who to attack in the Keep on the Borderlands.




Ok, so maybe our recollections of our own experiences clashes a bit.  I recall DMing this series [_wow, many moons ago..  _] as a very role-playing heavy game.  I just opened my copy of G1 here....  And let's see... [_I love these old adventures..._]


			
				G1 said:
			
		

> Background: Giants have been raiding the lands of men in large bands, with giants of different sorts in these marauding groups. Death and destruction have been laid heavily upon every place these monsters have visited. This has caused great anger in high places, for life and property loss means failure of the vows of noble rulers to protect the life and goods of each and every subject - and possible lean times for the rulers as well as the ruled. Therefore, a party of the bravest and most powerful adventurers has been assembled and given the charge to punish the miscreant giants. These adventurers must deliver a sharp check, deal a lesson to the clan of hill giants nearby, or else return and put their heads upon the block for the headsman's axe!
> 
> Yet this charge is not as harsh as it may seem I for all have been fully equipped with all standard items needed for both wilderness an dungeon exploration; and each member of the party has likewise been given the finest horse available. Guides are available to help, and the leader has a splendid map showing exactly where the great timber fortress of the chief of the hill giants in the area is.
> 
> This chief, one Nosnra, is a grossly fat and thoroughly despicable creature, sly and vicious, loving ambush and backstabbing. Furthermore, the party has been cautioned to expect a secret force, some motivational power behind this unusual banding of different races of giants. More surprises might be in store ... Finally, the party has been instructed to keep any and all loot they chance upon, this to be their reward for the perils they are to face. They are to follow any clues discovered if such point towards the sinister hand suspected of guiding the rising, but to return at once if they should determine exactly the reason or force behind the unholy alliance. Some relic of great evil might be at hand.



This is high adventure!  And there's lots of intrigue and motivation.  This is an evil band of Hill Giants.  Terrible and devastating, they've been marauding the local villages and baronies.  

Now, the "take the loot" part, that's here.  I can't knock you that!    But you gotta love ya some treasure!

But, judging from some comments, this is an interesting intro to a hack'n'slash adventure that a lot of people must've missed out on. 

I dunno, we had a lot of intrigue.... Our party had decided to "visit" them as emissaries to the Giants, asking for peace.  It was only, after some bad diplomacy, did it become a combat.  And the guys I DMed spared the children and the women that didn't try to smash them with oversized kitchen tools.


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 22, 2009)

All this nostalgia makes me want to try out Treebore's Castles and Crusades, or OSRIC games. 


Nah.... I'm having too much fun with 4e right now.  Maybe sometime later.


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## Cadfan (Mar 22, 2009)

wingsandsword said:


> So. . .you cast Evilcide. . .and across the world millions of beings fall dead. You did good, right? An old miser that a kindly priest is talking to every day trying to get him to see the error of his ways and repent is struck down before he can be redeemed. The ruthless but reliable mercenaries that the sickly pilgrims are paying to escort them through wilderness infested with dangerous animals like bears and wolves drop dead. The cold-hearted but skilled navigator helping guide his ship home through treacherous waters just died suddenly leaving his shipmates to probably drift until they die, the extremely selfish but brilliant and skilled wizard that the Duke keeps in his court to help keep the ancient planar gate to the Abyss sealed dies in his sleep and nobody else knows how to maintain the seals. Yeah, good act indeed.



Yes, thank you for illustrating how little sense it makes to declare regular, selfish, every-day people to be Evil, gleefully placing them into the same category as actual demons.

Fun fact!  If your necromancy-focused wizard makes it to 10th level by nothing but killing orphaned babies, you still detect to a paladin as only faintly evil!  That's the same as the level 1 commoner who shortchanged the paladin three copper pieces at the convenience store.  Of course, take two levels as a cleric of an evil deity, and you're up to moderately evil, even if all you do is tend the altar and light candles.


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 22, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Yes, thank you for illustrating how little sense it makes to declare regular, selfish, every-day people to be Evil, gleefully placing them into the same category as actual demons.
> 
> Fun fact!  If your necromancy-focused wizard makes it to 10th level by nothing but killing orphaned babies, you still detect to a paladin as only faintly evil!  That's the same as the level 1 commoner who shortchanged the paladin three copper pieces at the convenience store.  Of course, take two levels as a cleric of an evil deity, and you're up to moderately evil, even if all you do is tend the altar and light candles.



Yes, but you and I both know that any DM worth a pinch of salt would know how to adjudicate this to make it fair.  That's a forced, obviously nonsensical ruling that comes out of a mechanical error, a technicality, that 95% of DMs would just judge around and not make it a stupid situation that makes no sense.


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## Cadfan (Mar 22, 2009)

catsclaw227 said:


> Yes, but you and I both know that any DM worth a pinch of salt would know how to adjudicate this to make it fair. That's a forced, obviously nonsensical ruling that comes out of a mechanical error, a technicality, that 95% of DMs would just judge around and not make it a stupid situation that makes no sense.



I don't think its an error.  Its straight from a chart in the Detect Evil description.

Lets drop the guy who killed all the orphaned babies.  What if he was just a marauder and a rapist for 20 years?  Unless he's got 10 hit dice, he's faintly evil.  The game's definitions of what is or is not evil just don't make much sense.  When you start from a premise "always evil does not mean that all creatures of this type are evil," its not surprising that things get weird fast.  You just can't merge a universe in which everyone has to be judged on their own actions with a universe where a sentient being can be born with the trait: inherently evil.


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## Nightson (Mar 22, 2009)

wingsandsword said:


> Okay, for the people who think this is okay just because the victims are (mostly) evil (or who think they are all inherently evil because they are Black Dragons or related to them). . .
> 
> What if there was an Epic Spell called "Evilcide" that necromantically snuffed out the life of every evil-aligned intelligent being on the planet.  If you don't have an Evil alignment, it doesn't affect you, and if you are Evil-aligned it's Save Or Die at a pretty dang high DC.
> 
> ...




And the next day no one is raped, no one is murdered, no towns are burned to the ground.  Do you really think the good done by evil creatures outweighs the evil done by evil creatures?


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## Intense_Interest (Mar 22, 2009)

The problem with killing massive groups of people, even ones that are "(Almost) Always Evil" is that they are not Always Evil to a Fault.  Evil characters, even Black Dragons, impact and shape the world around them, commonly in ways that provide stability or limitations on other random or evil acts.

V's act was absolutely Chaotic, in that it destroyed so many creatures that it could not but absolutely destabilize lawful societies: even the town under the thumb of the Evil Black Dragon du jour is going to have arguments and conflicts with spliting the loot.

Any act that kills as many creatures as V's act did is always Chaotic, and the fact that the spell had no limits with regard to the possible good these creatures could do means that it is also an act that is always Evil.


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## JetstreamGW (Mar 22, 2009)

Ultimately, whether the end result of the act was a good thing or not, Vaarsuvius' REASON for doing it is based wholly around the concept of revenge, around the concept of making that creature feel PAIN.

For that reason, regardless of whether killing every black dragon in the world is good or not, what Var just did was extraordinarily evil based upon his motivation.


Also, you know, accepting the deal from the Archfiends, creating an undead creature... Both evil acts in their own right  He's goin' to hell, ya'll!


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## Orius (Mar 22, 2009)

It's evil, no question about it. I said as much over in the thread about the strip and I'm not going to repeat everything I said again here.  

V did it to make the dragon suffer, which itself is evil.  And the whole justification of protecting V's family is ridiculously flimsy.  Dragons often don't have the same bonds of kinship that humans (or elves in this case) have, so many of the dragon's family is simply not going to care that V offed her and come looking for revenge.  As evil beings, they're likely to care even LESS.  It's also a highly disproportionate response.  

There's no way a spell of this nature could be anything less than evil.  

Of all the points made in this thread, I will agree with this one:



ProfessorCirno said:


> Also, no, it's not justified.  The whole idea of evil is that it's the easy path.  Being the good guy isn't supposed to be sunshine, flowers, and rainbows.  You see some do something unquestionably evil, yes, you stop it and then.  You don't then *kill it's family* because they _might_ be evil too, that makes you *no different then the evil bad guy you stopped*.  I can't think of a single game or setting that has a meter of alignment or morality that wouldn't mark you down for it.




Yes, that's it.  Two wrongs do not make a right.  That's one of the whole points of good.  Evil wouldn't think twice about proactive mass-murder or genocide, but good would, and might even try to stop it because that it what distinguishes it from evil.  Good and evil could be defined like obscenity, you don't know how to define it, but you know it when you see it.

V did this for an evilgasm, and it's self-evident from the strip.

And the whole argument, "kill this person who's about to do a nasty evil act to protect innocents", is a lie.  When we see this argument being used in fiction, who's using it?  Always an evil tempter.  I can't recall seeing the agents of good using this argument.  The future isn't set in stone.  And hey, let's bring some quantum theory into this: if alternate realities exist for every decision we ever made and will ever make, then killing someone to prevent an evil act doesn't just kill that person in the quantum realities where he does that act, it kills him in the realities where he choose NOT to make that act.  It kills him in that realities where he spends an entire lifetime not doing evil or even living virtuously.  Is that not evil?  (And yes, if the theory is true, there are probably quantum realities out there where Hitler spent his whole life as a painter.)  

Anyway, I see more or less two arguments being made for not evil here.  One is V fans defending their favorite.  Sorry, but V has crossed into the dark side here.  Anything else is denial.

The other is the side that thinks D&D alignment is stupid as written, and the side that tends to come up with some truely ridiculous moral arguments to say alignment should be banned.  Yes, there are occasional flaws to the alignment system, but as I've said before in alignment thread, often they're a result of a DM throwing a half-assed ethical dilemna on a party so the paladin becomes a fighter, or to screw some other alignment-dependant character for little more than whim.  In any case, the logic behind "killing evil = good" can't possibly be sound in my mind.

And careful folks, there's a couple of places where this thread has danced around the politics and religion bans.  Don't get this thread locked.


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## Ariosto (Mar 22, 2009)

These are things that may be defined differently from campaign to campaign. Alignment is a contentious subject, and the Good-Evil axis seems to account for 90%+ of debates.

In my campaign, I would not take a utilitarian approach.

Significant deeds are not things that "just happen" but results of volition. A natural phenomenon such as the wind is morally neutral. The very needed rain it brings to my fields is denied to someone else who may thereby suffer drought. In that light, it is sensible that the D&D Druid (treated, at least in not very closely examined theory, as regarding the Natural Order above all) should be rated Neutral. That is likewise the alignment of natural animals; only beings in the realm of "people" are Good or Evil, unless they are somehow extensions of the power of people.

Deeds are the product of _character_. What else can it mean to rate a _creature_ as Good or Evil than that its thoughts are so inclined?

Suppose the Red Dragons see what has happened to the Black, and (using _the same reasoning_ as V) commit "Familicide" against V's family?

In the real world, a list of dire vices is likely to be a litany of character traits rather than of kinds of action. Hatred and Selfishness tend to be prominent, and I see those qualities expressed in V's deeds. Those deeds are by intent cruel, and it appears that V takes pleasure in the cruelty.

But what if the element of torture were removed, and the genocidal massacre viewed in dispassionate and utilitarian terms? Dispassion is a falling away from the _compassion_ widely held as a virtue in real-world moral metaphysics, especially when it becomes _callousness_. Witch-hunts and pogroms have been furthered in part by people who apparently thought that the atrocities were "for the greater good."

The scope of slaughter furthers the removal, requiring as it does a further denial of relationships with individuals as individuals. If Orcs (based on Tolkien's portrayal of Morgoth's creatures) are irredeemably Evil, then I can as DM countenance as non-Evil at least as much lack of compassion as might be shown Neutral natural pests and predators. I cannot easily quantify where to draw it, but there is a line that one can cross.

Perhaps it makes most sense if one considers Evil a form of insanity.

If Dragons are by nature Evil, then it seems to me that the more a man (or Elf) embraces Draconic values, the more Evil his own nature becomes.


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## tsadkiel (Mar 22, 2009)

Grog said:


> After they invaded its lair.




They didn't know it was its lair.  Or that the dragon existed at all.


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## Ariosto (Mar 22, 2009)

Oops -- double post


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## Derren (Mar 22, 2009)

tsadkiel said:


> They didn't know it was its lair.  Or that the dragon existed at all.




And yet they made no attempt to flee when they discovered that they invaded a dragons lair.
Also when you go back you will see that V killed that dragon not in defence. It didn't posed any threat at this point, so actually what V did back then was not self defence but cold blooded murder.

To those who think that familicide was not evil, do you also think that Miko would have been justified to kill Belkar?


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## tsadkiel (Mar 22, 2009)

Derren said:


> And yet they made no attempt to flee when they discovered that they invaded a dragons lair.




Running back into the sphere of darkness isn't attempting to flee?



> Also when you go back you will see that V killed that dragon not in defence. It didn't posed any threat at this point, so actually what V did back then was not self defence but cold blooded murder.




The suggestion spell had just ended that second, and the dragon was about to, you know, kill them.


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## Maggan (Mar 22, 2009)

Grog said:


> So, killing to safeguard your family = evil.




V was done safeguarding her family after she slew the dragon.

What she did after that was simple enough: she condemned her family to doom and suffering. Assume there are other black dragons alive. Will they stand for this? Will the rest of the evil dragons stand for this? Heck, will the rest of dragonkind stand for this? What will Tiamat do about it?

And what will every single evil being in the world think about the fact that there is a flat out lunatic elf with glowing eyes that can kidnap one of their family and then ... murder anyone who traces blood to that person?

What will the forces of good think? What will the kings and queens, the emperors and empresses, the lords and ladies think about the possibility that somewhere, there's an elf with the power to wipe out a whole dynasty, seemingly at whim? Add to that any organisation with strong familial ties (such as any mob equvivalents) and countless other beings who would have reason to fear such a power.

In my campaign, once news got out (and it would get out, there's too many scrying spells for it not to), the hunt would be on. Quests would be issued, assassins would be dispatched, heck, crusades would be formed ... all with the express purpose of taking out the elf with the killer spell.

I could even see me having good and evil join forces to put the threat down (which would probably damn some of the good people, but hey, win some, lose some).

Else they would live under the shadow of fear of their whole families being wiped out, should they happen to entertain the wrath of V.

And V's family would be prime targets for anyone out to get V. Control the family and you control V.

So, casting familicide was not in any shape or form V safeguarding her family. Quite the opposite, IMO.

/M


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## Zimri (Mar 22, 2009)

jeffh said:


> You made that way more confusing than it needed to be, but once I get through it, I find a good argument for doing _something_ to provide further protection. What I don't find is an argument for committing this kind of _indiscriminate slaughter_. This was not even remotely the only option available for seeing to his/her family's safety.
> 
> And I _certainly_ don't find an argument that morally justifies doing it with _obvious glee_, in a manner deliberately calculated to make one of those beings suffer as much as possible.




How , precisely, does the frame of mind or emotional response of the killer change the results of the action ? Grandma or 64 dragon's are no less or no more dead than they otherwise would have been had the killer been angry or morose instead of gleeful.

The reason for it being that "obfuscated" is because I know where my mind is going with the example and I'm trying to stay on the "not getting a holiday from posting" side of "don't mention RL politics".


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## Zimri (Mar 22, 2009)

resistor said:


> Wow.
> 
> Just... wow.
> 
> ...




And I'll consider myself lucky to never meet anyone who thinks it's fine and dandy to want to kill my wife and kids because their brother and I got in a bar fight.


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## Zimri (Mar 22, 2009)

Maggan said:


> V was done safeguarding her family after she slew the dragon.




Really ? I posit that if the dragons stopped coming after you killed one then THIS  fight never would have taken place. If black dragon's didn't come seeking revenge (and upping the price of poker along the way) then this black dragon wouldn't have come seeking revenge against V's family for V killing her son. Seeing as how she DID come seeking revenge and revenge against innocent people at that what leads you to believe something else wouldn't have come after the ABD was dead.


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## MarkB (Mar 22, 2009)

Zimri said:


> How , precisely, does the frame of mind or emotional response of the killer change the results of the action ? Grandma or 64 dragon's are no less or no more dead than they otherwise would have been had the killer been angry or morose instead of gleeful.




D&D alignment cares more about motivation than results. Killing someone with regret and remorse is a lot less evil than taking pleasure in the act of slaughter.



Zimri said:


> Really ? I posit that if the dragons stopped coming after you killed one then THIS  fight never would have taken place. If black dragon's didn't come seeking revenge (and upping the price of poker along the way) then this black dragon wouldn't have come seeking revenge against V's family for V killing her son. Seeing as how she DID come seeking revenge and revenge against innocent people at that what leads you to believe something else wouldn't have come after the ABD was dead.




Extrapolating the behaviour of an entire race from the actions of one person is the worst kind of stereotyping, and not even vaguely realistic.


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## Maggan (Mar 22, 2009)

Zimri said:


> If black dragon's didn't come seeking revenge (and upping the price of poker along the way)




And all black dragons do that?

Irrespective, what V did was display a power that will have profound and long-term consequences to the safety of her family; thus the action puts them into further jeopardy.

/M


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## ProfessorCirno (Mar 22, 2009)

You know, I think I found one of the issues with this thread.

I'm going to throw this out there.

You can do something evil and, through it, achieve something good.  _But what you did is still evil._

V's actions might - *might* - result in something good.  Or they might not.  But the end result *does not matter*; both the action itself and the reasons FOR the action are evil.  *Both* of them.  The "It's totally not evil" people have yet to talk about HER DOING IT SPECIFICALLY TO TORTURE SOMEONE SHE JUST RAISED FORM THE DEAD.  *That's a bit of an important thing to note*.


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## Starfox (Mar 22, 2009)

Irredeemably evil

However he justifies it to himself, those dragons had done nothing to him, nor were most of them threatening to. Removing their right to choose is an evil act however you look at it.

It can be excused from a lawful point of view. "I do this to save my people, sacrificing my own immortal soul so that generations of my friends and their children can live safely." Still evil, you still go to hell (if you subscribe to hell), but maybe worth it.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 22, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> The "It's totally not evil" people have yet to talk about HER DOING IT SPECIFICALLY TO TORTURE SOMEONE SHE JUST RAISED FORM THE DEAD.  *That's a bit of an important thing to note*.




My bad. I've been operating under the assumption that the "act" referenced in the thread title was the overwhelmingly salient point-- casting Familicide. In that light I kind of overlooked the unsportsmanlike conduct charge.

So, good catch.

V also seemed kinda cold and distant to the spouse and kids and couple of panels back, let's not forget that. That's got to be weighed against his actions, too.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 22, 2009)

Starfox said:


> Irredeemably evil.




Irredeemably, like a black dragon? Like always evil?

Or is there a new definition of irredeemably to go along with the new definition of always?


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## Fenes (Mar 22, 2009)

One thing many are not considering is that in "olden times" (and unfortunately, in many lands today) you are expected to avenge a killed family/clan member - no matter why he was killed. Even if he was killed to avenge someone he killed. See where this goes?

The acepted good/honorable/lawful behaviour for many human societies was and in a few cases still is to have bloodfeuds. One cousin of yours tries to rob your neighbor, and is killed in self defense. You are obligated to kill one of your neighbours (male) family in response. And they are obligated to kill one of yours, should you succeed, in return.

Now, call me cowardly, evil or whatever, but if I was living in a world where I'd have to expect such acts of vengeance even and especially from good and honorable people then I would see "familicide" as just anotehr form of self defense, sparing me the untold suffering such a blood feud would bring on my family.

Given to what length that evil dragon went to make V suffer, and how important family was to her, I'd guess that most of her brood share her views, and I'd assume that even the non-evil of her brood would most likely feel compelled to enact some revenge after the first wave of dragons trying to avenge their ancestor were killed.


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## Fenes (Mar 22, 2009)

Also, not to nitpick, but I saw the raising of the dragon as a needed part to be able to center the spell - it goes out from the undead head. It may not have worked with a corpse as initial target.


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## MarkChevallier (Mar 22, 2009)

Zimri said:


> And I'll consider myself lucky to never meet anyone who thinks it's fine and dandy to want to kill my wife and kids because their brother and I got in a bar fight.




Is that what you're suggesting resistor's saying? Because that doesn't follow at all from anything they've said. 

If instead you are saying "thank god I will never be in a position to have to make this tremendous decision to wipe out someone's entire family", well, somehow I doubt you actually would get around to doing that. More likely, you wouldn't, given that we live in civilised society where professionals take on the tough job of providing justice and protection so that you don't have to commit abhorrent, repellant and disgusting mass-murder so that you can pretend to provide it.

In many moral debates that take place in someone's comfy front room (or the electronic equivalent), there are different kinds of people who engage in debate. Some people are sincere and try to engage in the debate, thinking not only "what would I do?" but also "what would be the right thing to do?"

Some people stop at the "what would I do?" question, and once they've ascertained that, they rationalise their proposed actions with a moral justification. This is still sincere, if not very reflective or thoughtful.

Some people say instead "what would I want to do?" And the whole issue becomes a form of fantasy for them; if I was attacked, I'd totally kill the attacker. If my family was attacked, I'd totally kill their family. If my nation was attacked, I'd nuke them from orbit. This is insincere, in my opinion, because they're not actually debating morality. They're fantasising about revenge. In this personal fantasy, morality is irrelevant and only the weakest of all possible "eye for an eye" moral arguments are deployed.

But it's fine: these are armchair morality debates. I've discussed things with people who claim to hold a variety of repugnant views, but I'm not particularly worried about them: someone can claim to hold a view that they would discard in a second if face with the reality of the situation. Like a professed white racist, who if he actually meets a black guy in a social context, may behave well enough due to social mores until he learns that, actually, he quite likes the guy.

There is always a danger that you're dealing with an armchair moralist who actually takes the issue seriously. But many people who claim to hold repugnant views actually would never put them into practise if they had to be ones to do it. Some do. But I'm hoping no-one like that is here.

Apologies for the digression.


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## wingsandsword (Mar 22, 2009)

Nightson said:


> And the next day no one is raped, no one is murdered, no towns are burned to the ground.  Do you really think the good done by evil creatures outweighs the evil done by evil creatures?




Why would there be nobody raped, nobody murdered, no arson?  Neutral people sometimes commit evil acts.  Also, people change alignments, it's part of the whole "free will" thing, and you think that maybe 1/3 of sentient lifeforms dropping dead suddenly won't drive some neutral or even good people to evil?  Like someone who saw his parents die and wasn't on a dark path. . .until he had to turn to a life of theft to survive when the breadwinner for his family died, or someone who swore vengeance against the person who killed his parents/wife/children/best friend.  

What about the chaos and mayhem caused through society at so many deaths, like dynasties falling, armies being decimated, important guilds being massacred, do you think this on it's own wouldn't do huge damage and cause much suffering?  It's not just waving a magic wand, everybody with an Evil alignment drops dead and now the world is a happy sunshine and fairy dust place because there is no Evil anymore.

Being Evil is not a capitol crime in and of itself.  In fact, I'd say that in terms of committing actual crimes, you'll probably find more committed by Chaotic Neutral people who just plain disregard the law and commit occasional evil deeds (and occasional good ones) but not enough to have an Evil alignment, than by Lawful Evil people that are dark-hearted but stick to the laws of society (mostly).

Even then, you're saying it's actually not evil to slaughter millions of people instantly just because their alignment detects as Evil, without regard for any acts they have actually taken that are evil?  As was pointed out, a merchant who regularly shortchanges by a few copper his patrons might could have an Evil alignment (especially if he also regularly commits other very petty Evil like maybe spreading false rumors about his competitors), that could get you a LE or NE alignment if you do it often enough.  Alignment is a rough gauge of law/chaos and good/evil in someones intents and deeds, and not a very just way of deciding who lives and who dies.


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## Byronic (Mar 22, 2009)

Fenes said:


> Also, not to nitpick, but I saw the raising of the dragon as a needed part to be able to center the spell - it goes out from the undead head. It may not have worked with a corpse as initial target.




That's something that I noticed as well. It didn't have to be out of a desire to torture (although under influence of the other three souls it might be)


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## Piratecat (Mar 22, 2009)

Guys, I note some high emotions earlier in the thread. Please - if you start feeling the need to address a person instead of a point, walk away from the thread for a bit.

Keep religious references out of it as well, please.

Thanks.


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## hagor (Mar 22, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> You know, I think I found one of the issues with this thread.
> 
> I'm going to throw this out there.
> 
> ...




QFT!



Fenes said:


> Also, not to nitpick, but I saw the raising of the dragon as a needed part to be able to center the spell - it goes out from the undead head. It may not have worked with a corpse as initial target.




To be honest, I had not considered this possibility. Still does not make it anything else than Evil in my book, though.
Also, looking back to the strip: before raising the dragon's head V agrees with the voices, which to me strongly indicates that torturing the dragon plays a big role in V's next actions. It is much more than just "providing the material component of the spell".

Hagor


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## Cadfan (Mar 22, 2009)

Fenes said:


> Also, not to nitpick, but I saw the raising of the dragon as a needed part to be able to center the spell - it goes out from the undead head. It may not have worked with a corpse as initial target.



I made the same assumption.


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## Cadfan (Mar 22, 2009)

MarkChevallier said:


> There is always a danger that you're dealing with an armchair moralist who actually takes the issue seriously. But many people who claim to hold repugnant views actually would never put them into practise if they had to be ones to do it. Some do. But I'm hoping no-one like that is here.



Are you sure?  The modern face of warfare is the strategic bombing of countries several levels of technology below yours where the civilians haven't freely consented to their own government.  Civilian casualties, both from the bombing and from the resulting destruction of infrastructure, are inevitable and are typically rather high.  

From a results-based moral code that only analyzes who does or does not die (instead of looking at long term consequences like the benefits of a world without black dragons), its not all that different from what V did.  In fact, it may be worse.  V offed a bunch of giant, evil, marauding lizards that spit acid.  He may have roped in the trace amounts of creatures from the "always evil" alignment who aren't always evil.  Lets say, what, 2%?  If you presume that being "always evil" is at least as bad a moral offense as joining an army that's opposed to mine, those were justifiable kills, with a 2% or so error rate.  I'm not sure that any war ever in the history of the human race has ever had a ratio of civilian deaths that humane.

From a motivational perspective on morality... well, under that, V's screwed.  The only thing I can say is that this decision stemmed logically from what V would do if he were totally amoral.  Problem: dragons may come for revenge again, and I can't do this every time.  Most Efficient Solution: kill all dragons now, while I can.  So OotS gets credit for great characterization.


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## Nymrohd (Mar 22, 2009)

If we actually take the entire event into account there is further evidence of V being driven by revenge far more than a desire to protect her/his spouse and children. At any point in the fight, the dragon could have chosen to simply breath acid all over them, yet V only acted so as to kill the dragon and even with the benefit of the timestop, did not raise a single protective ward over her/his family, while showering her/himself with protective magic. Even after neutralising the immediate threat, she/he moved on to torture the dragon (and casting Familicide which is the act in question in this thread) instead of picking his/her family and teleporting them to the nearest healer. Her/his children have broken most of their limbs, her/his spouse was impaled on a tree, yet it is more important to torture the dragon than relieve them from pain as soon as possible.

So yeah, whether her/his genocidal act against black dragons is evil or not, V certainly cares more about proving his/her arcane strength (which she/he did not even gain her/himself but rather bargained for moronically with three fiends) and gloating than about her/his family's welfare.

PS. What gender is that damned elf already!?


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## Nymrohd (Mar 22, 2009)

tsadkiel said:


> Running back into the sphere of darkness isn't attempting to flee?
> 
> 
> 
> The suggestion spell had just ended that second, and the dragon was about to, you know, kill them.




Feel free to read those strips again V had commanded the dragon to watch over the party, and eat any of them if they tried to leave until Durkon could rest and remove curse from her, and then he/she took the time to memorize spells for the day, at which point the suggestion ended and the disintergration began. They had several hours in which they could have escaped.

Also the young black dragon had his father killed by adventurers. If anyone thinks Familicide is a non-evil preemptive strike, then killing adventurers who intrude in a dragon's lair also qualifies as such.


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 22, 2009)

Nymrohd said:


> ...yet V only acted so as to kill the dragon and even with the benefit of the timestop, did not raise a single protective ward over her/his family, while showering her/himself with protective magic. Even after neutralising the immediate threat, she/he moved on to torture the dragon (and casting Familicide which is the act in question in this thread) instead of picking his/her family and teleporting them to the nearest healer. Her/his children have broken most of their limbs, her/his spouse was impaled on a tree, yet it is more important to torture the dragon than relieve them from pain as soon as possible.



This.  This puts the act over the fence from "protect my family at all costs (by casting Familicide)" into the "you have been killed and now I will bring you back from death and have you watch over my shoulder as I waste your entire lineage. (My Family?  Oh, they're here?)"


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## Shemeska (Mar 22, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Irredeemably, like a black dragon? Like always evil?
> 
> Or is there a new definition of irredeemably to go along with the new definition of always?




Note the lack of an [Evil] tag on black dragons, even if they're _always evil_ (which doesn't actually mean always).

Not all black dragons are evil, and ultimately they still have the possibility of being different. They're mortal, and have some (albeit rare) chance of being something other than their racial norm. They're not fiends. They aren't physically made of EVIL. They don't exist as manifestations of abstract malevolence.

An act of genocide strips each and every member of that black dragon race of the possibility of redemption. Even if 99% of them are evil, it's an overwhelmingly, grossly, and yes irredeemably evil action.


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## Nymrohd (Mar 22, 2009)

Shemeska said:


> Not the lack of an [Evil] tag on black dragons, even if they're _always evil_ (which doesn't actually mean always).
> 
> Not all black dragons are evil, and ultimately they still have the possibility of being different. They're mortal, and have some (albeit rare) chance of being something other than their racial norm. They're not fiends. They aren't physically made of EVIL. They don't exist as manifestations of abstract malevolence.
> 
> An act of genocide strips each and every member of that black dragon race of the possibility of redemption. Even if 99% of them are evil, it's an overwhelmingly, grossly, and yes irredeemably evil action.




In 3E you can even redeem creatures with the evil descriptor. Heck if you tried hard enough you could even redeem a crossdressing arcanoloth.


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 22, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Irredeemably, like a black dragon? Like always evil?
> 
> Or is there a new definition of irredeemably to go along with the new definition of always?



I am still looking and I cannot find any rule text stating that black dragons are irredeemably evil. Can you point me in the direction where you are getting your facts?


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## Aberzanzorax (Mar 22, 2009)

Nymrohd said:


> In 3E you can even redeem creatures with the evil descriptor. Heck if you tried hard enough you could even redeem a crossdressing arcanoloth.





Which is exactly why nothing evil should EVER be killed by good characters in D&D.


Why, that would be monstrous! Are good characters to stoop to the level of killing? Then they're just as evil as the "always evil" creatures they're supposed to redeem!


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## Grog (Mar 22, 2009)

Maggan said:


> V was done safeguarding her family after she slew the dragon.




The fact that this dragon targeted V's family for revenge after one of its own family members was killed proves you wrong on this point.

Also, I still have to note that no one seems to think that killing the first black dragon was evil. So we're back to, it's okay to kill things to become rich and powerful, but not okay to kill things to protect your family members. That's a heck of a twisted moral code.


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## Nymrohd (Mar 22, 2009)

"Raises hand" I think killing the first black dragon, in the way it was killed at least was borderline evil. There was no element of self-defense anymore, at that point they had simply intruded on a creature's lair and instead of running away, which they had both the time and opportunity to do, decided to kill it and take its stuff. Moreover the ease with which V killed that dragon pretty much proved the point that if he/she wanted to, V could have subdued the dragon instead of killing it.

As for whether V's priority was to protect his/her family, read the previous posts. V did not actually do anything to protect her/his family until now. At best V removed the stakes with which her/his spouse was impaled (and for all we know said spouse may be bleeding more profusely now because of it). V prioritised revenge instead of getting his/her family healed.


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## Maggan (Mar 22, 2009)

Grog said:


> The fact that this dragon targeted V's family for revenge after one of its own family members was killed proves you wrong on this point.




How would this dragon still be a threat to V's family after it being killed? I'm so not following your line of reasoning here.

/M


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 22, 2009)

Grog said:


> Also, I still have to note that no one seems to think that killing the first black dragon was evil. So we're back to, it's okay to kill things to become rich and powerful, but not okay to kill things to protect your family members. That's a heck of a twisted moral code.



Wait... who said that it's OK to kill things to become rich and powerful?  It certainly isn't Good, and the D&D alignment system would agree.

I haven't seen many posts that state that killing things to become rich and powerful is a trait of Good characters.  It's even questionable for neutral PCs.


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## Ripzerai (Mar 22, 2009)

Note that many of the creatures Vaarsuvius killed were half-dragons (judging from the illustration). Even if there are no non-evil black dragons, does this extend to their half-humanoid kin?


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 22, 2009)

If you're playing the Dungeons and Dragons where the goal of your PC is to fastidiously avoid the accumulation of wealth and power in your pursuit to redeem the souls of evil creatures through... I don't know, tough love or something-- then you have deviated just a teensy bit from the core experience of seeking out evil creatures, slaying them righteously, and accumulating wealth and power so that you can slay ever more powerful evil creatures.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 22, 2009)

> Which is exactly why nothing evil should EVER be killed by good characters in D&D.




What's wrong with killing things that aren't evil?

Self-defense and defense of others don't just fly out the window because it's not evil. If my PC's were attacked by a crusading angel of goodness and light who attempted to burn them to ash for some vendetta the creature had, they wouldn't shift to evil for killing it. If my PC's were attacked by a troop of evil orphans, clearing out their evil orphanage wouldn't be evil. 

"Being evil" isn't a reason to kill something any more than "being an orc" or "being over the age of 50" or "being a person with green eyes." Similarly, "not being evil" isn't a reason to stay your hand, any more than "not being a person with green eyes" isn't a reason to spare their life.

It's about what they do, not what they are.



> If you're playing the Dungeons and Dragons where the goal of your PC is to fastidiously avoid the accumulation of wealth and power in your pursuit to redeem the souls of evil creatures through... I don't know, tough love or something-- then you have deviated just a teensy bit from the core experience of seeking out evil creatures, slaying them righteously, and accumulating wealth and power so that you can slay ever more powerful evil creatures.




I think you misapprehend the core experience. The core experience isn't to seek out evil creatures, slay them, and repeat on an escalating scale. The experience is to stop evil, then stop greater evil.

The difference is that you're not seeking out evil creatures to slay, you're just stoping evil acts from being done (by evil creatures, by good creatures, by neutral creatures). If the neutral thief is murdering neutral citizens in the neutral street, you don't ignore him and go fight the evil goblin five kingdoms away just because he's not evil and the goblin is.


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## Barcode (Mar 22, 2009)

Rich, as a storyteller, has portrayed this as an evil act.  V is influenced by evil souls, he is casting evil spells, he looks eeeevil.  The dragon, on the other hand, was in his last moments, given some sympathetic qualities - she surrendered, she was horrified.  If genocide itself didn't ring any evil bells, the genocidal act was deliberately shown to have killed half-dragons who were possibly, even probably, innocents.  As a storyteller, Rich has shown V as evil.

As a DM, Rich would be putting the V's player in a bad, and wrong, position, IMO.  If you want to allow your players to have fun hacking and slaying the evil creatures of the world, you can't be giving them sympathetic qualities at the moment of death.  You can't be pulling on the heartstrings of the players by illustrating the plight of the creatures children, orphaned by the PC's acts.  You can't be making the players feel bad for following the core ethic of the system, killing things and taking their stuff.

D&D really needs a level of moral absolutism to be fun, and Rich as DM would have made a mistake in degrading that absolutism by giving irredemably evil characters sympathetic qualities.

Thank goodness that OOTS is not a campaign, Rich is a storyteller and not a DM, making this a good story and not a bad game.


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## hamishspence (Mar 22, 2009)

Not everyone goes with- "kill things and take stuff" is primary- sometimes its secondary to "rescuing people from attack"

Some of the creatures don't even have wings (medium half-dragons shouldn't, but the one with axe and shield does, sugesting that OOTS half-dragons are winged)

If you just look at "Same as base creature" then you might say they are same morally, but if you read the actual sample half-dragon's alignment in MM- "Often Chaotic Evil" then killing them becomes even more dubious than killing the full dragons.


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## Hejdun (Mar 22, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> If you're playing the Dungeons and Dragons where the goal of your PC is to fastidiously avoid the accumulation of wealth and power in your pursuit to redeem the souls of evil creatures through... I don't know, tough love or something-- then you have deviated just a teensy bit from the core experience of seeking out evil creatures, slaying them righteously, and accumulating wealth and power so that you can slay ever more powerful evil creatures.




QFT.  I think people are using a bit too much of their modern morality to judge this action, and that's also one reason some emotions are getting heated.  There's a giant gaping chasm between saying "V's act wasn't evil" and "Hitler had the right idea."  It seems like almost everyone who has responded to this is coming from a Frodo perspective.  And it's fine that Frodo never killed anybody, but if Sam hadn't killed those Orcs, he'd never have rescued Frodo.  And if all of Gondor was like Frodo, they'd never have lasted.  It sure seems that almost everyone here as a vastly different DnD experience than I have.  

I'm not too interested in what his motivation was.  I'm far more interested in actions and results.  From my perspective, an act is to be judged by what actions you took and what results were had.  Motivations are important in-so-far as they give you insight into what that person is going to do in the future.  

If you're an evil (maybe even black) dragon and you slaughtered a village because you were hungry and bored, then killing the village was obviously an evil act.  If you're a band of adventurers and you had no way to stop the BBEG from destroying the world but to also destroy the village he's in, it's also evil to kill the village.  They're just going to feel a whole lot worse about it.  But motivation only matters in regard to future actions.  In the dragon's case, he's obviously going to do something just as evil in the future the next time he's bored and hungry.  You don't have to worry about the adventurers razing the next village they visit to the ground.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 22, 2009)

Barcode said:
			
		

> As a DM, Rich would be putting the V's player in a bad, and wrong, position, IMO. If you want to allow your players to have fun hacking and slaying the evil creatures of the world, you can't be giving them sympathetic qualities at the moment of death. You can't be pulling on the heartstrings of the players by illustrating the plight of the creatures children, orphaned by the PC's acts. You can't be making the players feel bad for following the core ethic of the system, killing things and taking their stuff.
> 
> D&D really needs a level of moral absolutism to be fun, and Rich as DM would have made a mistake in degrading that absolutism by giving irredemably evil characters sympathetic qualities.
> 
> Thank goodness that OOTS is not a campaign, Rich is a storyteller and not a DM, making this a good story and not a bad game




You're being WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too judgmental about people's games, here. A lot of games (mine included) get a lot of entertainment from playing with what it means to be cosmically Good or Evil against a practical or personal background, that conflict between this objective force in the world and your personal needs and desires.

I mean, the game plays the same whether you're Good or Evil or Neutral, so there is no "wrong alignment" to be. So V comitted evil. So their alignment might be evil. So they might have a damned soul. As far as the player is concerned: So what? Maybe that's more fun. 



> It seems like almost everyone who has responded to this is coming from a Frodo perspective. And it's fine that Frodo never killed anybody, but if Sam hadn't killed those Orcs, he'd never have rescued Frodo. And if all of Gondor was like Frodo, they'd never have lasted. It sure seems that almost everyone here as a vastly different DnD experience than I have.




What's wrong with some PC's not being Good?

It's a label. It's the old "would an adventurer by any other alignment not kick so much goblin butt?"

It doesn't matter.

I mean, if it matters to your character, then obviously you need to hold your own character to higher (or lower, or whatever) standards. 

But it really, mechanically, narratively, doesn't matter. 

V did evil. So what? It made for a more interesting game/story/plot, and so it was the fun thing to do. No one got hurt, no player experience changed, all that happened was that things got more interesting. Yay, yay for evil actions and evil PCs! Hooray! 

Why is it a problem for V to be evil? What does it change?


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 22, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I think you misapprehend the core experience. The core experience isn't to seek out evil creatures, slay them, and repeat on an escalating scale. The experience is to stop evil, then stop greater evil.




In that case I'd say rather too much of the core rulebook is given over to ways to "stop" evil _by killing it_-- complete with rules on how to escalate in power, rules for ever more powerful tools for accomplishing the task of killing things, and rules for easily discerning the good guys from the guys you're supposed to kill.

But maybe I'm misapprehending the core experience. I'm a little too easily swayed by staggering mountains of evidence, I suppose.


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## Maggan (Mar 22, 2009)

Hejdun said:


> And it's fine that Frodo never killed anybody, but if Sam hadn't killed those Orcs, he'd never have rescued Frodo.




And what if Frodo hadn't spared Gollum?

/M


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## robertliguori (Mar 22, 2009)

Maggan said:


> And what if Frodo hadn't spared Gollum?
> 
> /M




Sam: "I'm so sorry, Mr. Baggins!"  *dropkick*

Everyone knows he was the real hero of the story, anyways.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 22, 2009)

> In that case I'd say rather too much of the core rulebook is given over to ways to "stop" evil by killing it-- complete with rules on how to escalate in power, rules for ever more powerful tools for accomplishing the task of killing things, and rules for easily discerning the good guys from the guys you're supposed to kill.




You don't kill evil itself, you kill the things that commit evil, if that is the only way to stop the evil (and it usually is). 

Evil isn't the bad guy. The bad guys are the bad guys. Evil is just what some of the bad guys happen to be. Not every Evil action is committed by an Evil thing.

The monster manuals have blink dogs, angels, faery spirits, crocodiles, vermin, and all sorts of non-Evil things that you kill. 

The spells help you determine what is evil, but it doesn't tell you that killing such a thing is automatically permitted, or even much of a good idea. 

Evil is in the action, not in the creature.

The core experience is not a fight against evil creatures -- the fights against giant beetles and mindles golems and angry crocodiles and vengeful angels and self-interested assassins and all sorts of other non-evil things argue in spades against that. Indeed, in OotS, it has involved fights against good creautres (Miko before her fall) as well as evil. You're not looking at all the evidence.


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## JRRNeiklot (Mar 22, 2009)

Imo, yes, it was an evil act.  But if I was in V's shoes, I'd have done the same.  If someone broke my children's legs, I'd visit so much hurt on them, it wouldn't even be funny.  The law be damned.  I'd hunt the person down.  I'd break his arms, his legs, his fingers, his toes.  I would in fact, make his suffering legendary.  Then, if I thought there was a chance, no matter how small, some relative of the dragon would come seeking revenge on MY KIDS, not me, I'd genocide every damn one of them.  My kids living is worth an infinite number of beings dying.  

That said, it's still evil, no matter how you justify it.  V knows this, and she chose to live with the consequences to protect her family.  Now, might a red dragon come calling, he will know what fate is in store for his family, should he fail to take out V.  She just cashed in the biggest insurance policy in history.  An eternity in hell is a small price to pay for the safety of her family.


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## Maggan (Mar 22, 2009)

JRRNeiklot said:


> She just cashed in the biggest insurance policy in history.




That's one way of looking at it. If I were the DM, it would be quite the opposite. It's not as if every lunatic and evil mastermind, be they dragon or not, has a family to worry about.

And if that person could control V, maybe through her family, then that person would become very, very powerful indeed.

Would the evil dude succeed in enslaving V? Maybe, maybe not. But boy would he try. 

/M


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## Nymrohd (Mar 22, 2009)

Honestly does anyone believe that Familicide was an efficient way for V to protect her/his family from retribution? It is utterly moronic. From having to worry about some associate or family member of one dragon V now has to worry about the associates of dozens of dragons and half-dragons if we go simply by what was shown in the strip, to potentially hundreds of dragons who will take an act of genocide against a strain of their species quite seriously, as well as an evil deity who has retribution on her portfolio and her entire church. And V will not always have the infinite power of the splice to make victory against any force feel certain. V is powermad and either amazingly deluded and stupid for a high level wizard or simply entirely driven by vengeance and ignoring all practical concerns involving the safety of his/her family.


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## jeffh (Mar 23, 2009)

Zimri said:


> How , precisely, does the frame of mind or emotional response of the killer change the results of the action ?



It doesn't. That was my _point_. You're treating these two _separate_ issues as though they were interchangeable. This muddies the debate generally and, in this particular context, also betrays a deep misunderstanding of how alignment works.

Even if - and I can't emphasize enough the _if_ - this turns out to have good overall consequences and to protect rather than further endanger V's family - it _still_ was not an act that was even remotely compatible with a Good, or even GE Neutral, alignment.


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## Zimri (Mar 23, 2009)

MarkB said:


> Extrapolating the behaviour of an entire race from the actions of one person is the worst kind of stereotyping, and not even vaguely realistic.





Are you sure about that Mark ? Would you say most people of reasonable intellect would share that position ?


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## Zimri (Mar 23, 2009)

jeffh said:


> It doesn't. That was my _point_. You're treating these two _separate_ issues as though they were interchangeable. This muddies the debate generally and, in this particular context, also betrays a deep misunderstanding of how alignment works.
> 
> Even if - and I can't emphasize enough the _if_ - this turns out to have good overall consequences and to protect rather than further endanger V's family - it _still_ was not an act that was even remotely compatible with a Good, or even GE Neutral, alignment.






			
				jeffh said:
			
		

> And I certainly don't find an argument that morally justifies doing it with *obvious glee,* in a manner deliberately calculated to make one of those beings suffer as much as possible.




I don't think I am using them interchangeably at all. I don't care if she was happy sad or just doing the business that needed doing. I am not considering her "feelings" on the matter. I am looking at what was done and finding it was a logical and understandable thing to do.

you were the one to mention "obvious glee" to which I was replying. How she feels about doing what she did doesn't make them less dead if she feels badly or more dead if she is obviously gleeful.

Some people seem just fine with what the ABD proposed doing as they want to toss V to the nine hells for doing something far less long term and painful. She "just" killed things, mostly evil things that an archetype of their species had just proved were vengeful, malicious, and devious. Whereas on this first trip round the spiral V's family was going to be tortured forever.

Parents protect their children  (biological offspring or not), Lovers guard their mates. And her standoffishness may very well be tied to "of all people I don't want them to see me like this"


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 23, 2009)

Zimri said:


> Are you sure about that Mark ? Would you say most people of reasonable intellect would share that position ?




Whether or not Mark is, I am. And I do think others of reasonable intellect would agree. In fact, it would be one of the means I would use to evaluating if they were in fact of reasonable intellect.


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## Zimri (Mar 23, 2009)

Nymrohd said:


> Honestly does anyone believe that Familicide was an efficient way for V to protect her/his family from retribution? It is utterly moronic. From having to worry about some associate or family member of one dragon V now has to worry about the associates of dozens of dragons and half-dragons if we go simply by what was shown in the strip, to potentially hundreds of dragons who will take an act of genocide against a strain of their species quite seriously, as well as an evil deity who has retribution on her portfolio and her entire church. And V will not always have the infinite power of the splice to make victory against any force feel certain. V is powermad and either amazingly deluded and stupid for a high level wizard or simply entirely driven by vengeance and ignoring all practical concerns involving the safety of his/her family.




Thank you for calling me a moron. I rather appreciate it.

What would you have done in Her position ? You don't know how long you'll have the power to act, you can't cast divine spells, when your power fades anything you cast before hand will eventually fade with it. It has been shown that at least this particular family of black dragons WILL come seeking revenge, and will likely not come at you straight on but attack those close to you instead. Not just killing them mind you but torturing them for as long as possible after they are dead.

If the ABD wanted revenge kill V, kill the whole order but that wasn't what she did. She brought this about by involving family and loved ones.

"They pull a knife" was the title the rest of the saying is "you pull a gun, they send one of yours to the hospital you send one of theirs to the morgue" It is a statement made to Elliot Ness about how far he is willing to go to get Al Capone.

I am not "armchair quarterbacking" as some have suggested I may be. I know who I am and what measures I would put into play. If I have a problem with person 1 I take it to person 1 . If person 1 brings it back around to me more power to him I respect that. If instead he makes life more difficult for my kith and kin then I assume those are the rules by which he wants to play and involve his more so than he involved mine hoping that he learns that he ought not to do that.


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## Zimri (Mar 23, 2009)

Remus Lupin said:


> Whether or not Mark is, I am. And I do think others of reasonable intellect would agree. In fact, it would be one of the means I would use to evaluating if they were in fact of reasonable intellect.




There are a number of heads of state (former and current) of varying countries, creeds, and ethnicitys  I would like to introduce you to.


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## Creamsteak (Mar 23, 2009)

Grymar said:


> Unquestionably evil, in my game.  Unless it is an outsider, alignment is a rough descriptor of what the person/creature has done and what they are likely to do in the future, but nothing is ever 100%. I have good goblins, evil gold dragons, and everything in between.
> 
> V just committed genocide.
> 
> Genocide.




This, but with the caveat "depending on the campaign setting, the campaign itself, and the game we're playing at the time."


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## Umbran (Mar 23, 2009)

Zimri said:


> There are a number of heads of state (former and current) of varying countries, creeds, and ethnicitys  I would like to introduce you to.





No Politics, please.


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## Zimri (Mar 23, 2009)

Remus Lupin said:


> Gotta say, I'm sympathetic, particularly since the previous poster specified that any and all violence must be done in the maximally horrific way, if it is to be done at all, in order (contradictorally, it seems to me) to ensure its "last resortness."




I don't see the contradiction (which isn't that odd considering I'm the one who said it first in this thread but not the first ever)

Combat, war, if you will, should not be something entered into lightly. It is a grave undertaking and should not be anywhere near the top of the list of "how do we solve this disagreement". There are consequences, dire ones for all sides the winners, the losers, those in the middle and those left behind. If you are going to do it, you should do it to win definitively, so definitively that it takes generations for people to think "hey this war thing may be a good idea instead of this talking or just ignoring one another"


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## billd91 (Mar 23, 2009)

Zimri said:


> "They pull a knife" was the title the rest of the saying is "you pull a gun, they send one of yours to the hospital you send one of theirs to the morgue" It is a statement made to Elliot Ness about how far he is willing to go to get Al Capone.
> 
> I am not "armchair quarterbacking" as some have suggested I may be. I know who I am and what measures I would put into play. If I have a problem with person 1 I take it to person 1 . If person 1 brings it back around to me more power to him I respect that. If instead he makes life more difficult for my kith and kin then I assume those are the rules by which he wants to play and involve his more so than he involved mine hoping that he learns that he ought not to do that.




The problem here being that the creature upon whom you want to impress the lesson is already dead. That's unlike the context in the Untouchables in which Ness was advised to put Capone's man in the morgue (if Ness's was put in the hospital)... not Capone himself. It was Capone you wanted to impress - the boss man, the man making the decisions, the man you wanted to realize was playing with fire. In the case of V and the dragon - who's the target to impress? The reanimated dragon that V now controls?

V is following the idea by escalating, but doing so foolishly because there's no higher individual upon which to make the impression. Unless Rich decides that V's spell has consequences... which I suspect he will.


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## Zimri (Mar 23, 2009)

billd91 said:


> The problem here being that the creature upon whom you want to impress the lesson is already dead. That's unlike the context in the Untouchables in which Ness was advised to put Capone's man in the morgue (if Ness's was put in the hospital)... not Capone himself. It was Capone you wanted to impress - the boss man, the man making the decisions, the man you wanted to realize was playing with fire. In the case of V and the dragon - who's the target to impress? The reanimated dragon that V now controls?
> 
> V is following the idea by escalating, but doing so foolishly because there's no higher individual upon which to make the impression. Unless Rich decides that V's spell has consequences... which I suspect he will.




I quoted Untouchables because Rich did in the title. The target left to impress however is the same one that posters are saying now poses a problem for V and her family. That being "the kith and kin of the kin that was just slain". There could also be Tiamat  but what she will do about this has been known to her for quite some time. That this was going to happen would not have escaped her knowing. 

I'm also not so sure that Ness was so much trying to "impress" Capone.


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## dmccoy1693 (Mar 23, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> In that case I'd say rather too much of the core rulebook is given over to ways to "stop" evil _by killing it_




I agree.  Mind you this is from a guy that is currently playing a character that has taken a vow to never inflict lethal damage.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 23, 2009)

dmccoy1693 said:


> I agree.  Mind you this is from a guy that is currently playing a character that has taken a vow to never inflict lethal damage.




I hope you don't get more than a half share of loot.


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## Mikaze (Mar 23, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> I hope you don't get more than a half share of loot.




Oh yes, we wouldn't want people being rewarded for badwrongfun now would we?

(has never run a campaign driven by killing things and taking their stuff)


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 23, 2009)

Zimri said:


> There are a number of heads of state (former and current) of varying countries, creeds, and ethnicitys  I would like to introduce you to.




Show me a head of state who did what V did, and I'll show you a candidate for a war crimes tribunal. 

And what makesyou think that because a head of state does it, that renders it the act of a "reasonable intellect"?


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 23, 2009)

Umbran said:


> No Politics, please.




My bad, I didn't See this before posting my reply.


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## Krensky (Mar 23, 2009)

Remus Lupin said:


> Whether or not Mark is, I am. And I do think others of reasonable intellect would agree. In fact, it would be one of the means I would use to evaluating if they were in fact of reasonable intellect.




This.



Zimri said:


> What would you have done in Her position ? You don't know how long you'll have the power to act, you can't cast divine spells, when your power fades anything you cast before hand will eventually fade with it. It has been shown that at least this particular family of black dragons WILL come seeking revenge, and will likely not come at you straight on but attack those close to you instead. Not just killing them mind you but torturing them for as long as possible after they are dead.




It has been shown this black dragon would come seeking revenge. It does not follow that any others would. They might, but the adult dragon's actions tell us nothing of her family or species.



Zimri said:


> I am not "armchair quarterbacking" as some have suggested I may be. I know who I am and what measures I would put into play. If I have a problem with person 1 I take it to person 1 . If person 1 brings it back around to me more power to him I respect that. If instead he makes life more difficult for my kith and kin then I assume those are the rules by which he wants to play and involve his more so than he involved mine hoping that he learns that he ought not to do that.




That you would do it does not mean that it's not Evil. V's actions were Evil. You killing someone's entire family tree to show then the error of their ways in threatening your family would be Evil.


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## MarkB (Mar 23, 2009)

Zimri said:


> Are you sure about that Mark ? Would you say most people of reasonable intellect would share that position ?




Well, extrapolating a large group's behaviour from a single sample is, essentially, the _definition_ of stereotyping. And applying that process to an ethnic group would be racial stereotyping, which is, to my knowledge, widely considered to be one of its worst forms.

So yeah, I'm pretty certain about it. And I don't have to speak for others, regardless of intellect - they can, and have, spoken for themselves on this subject.


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## Jeff Wilder (Mar 23, 2009)

This is incredibly fascinating.

For those of you who continue to say "not evil," may I ask:

If a paladin in your game performed the act of slaying the dragon and all of its kin to the Nth generation, said paladin would _not_ fall?  Is that right?

"Not fall" is the logical result if you believe the act is "not evil," but I just want to make sure.


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## Fenes (Mar 23, 2009)

Jeff Wilder said:


> This is incredibly fascinating.
> 
> For those of you who continue to say "not evil," may I ask:
> 
> ...




In my games, gods and characters do not follow our modern values, but fantasy/medieval ones. The paladin would not fall for killing black dragons, just as she doesn't fall for killing evil people.

Also, in my games, revenge is usually a common motivation, and honor and customs being as they are, you have to expect that if you kill someone, their relatives will take revenge. The son that does not want to avenge his father is the exception, not the norm.

And finally, in my game, my NPCs - especially my evil ones - are not suicidal. After such a spell, just about everyone would think twice about messing with such a power. Some fanatic priest of Tiamat might - might, if Tiamat did not simply write this off as the ABD  making a fatal mistake - want to take revenge, but almost all dragons, for example, would simply write a memo to themselves "Do not mess with that elf, ever!".

To borrow some old image: If I don't expect level 1 PCs to go after the ancient red dragon they hear about, I don't have dragons going after the "epic dragonbane mage" they hear about. Not unless those dragons have some very low intelligence and wisdom.


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## Jeff Wilder (Mar 23, 2009)

Fenes said:


> In my games, gods and characters do not follow our modern values, but fantasy/medieval ones. The paladin would not fall for killing black dragons, just as she doesn't fall for killing evil people.



The act did not kill only black dragons.  Nor are all black dragons evil.



Fenes said:


> Also, in my games, revenge is usually a common motivation, and honor and customs being as they are, you have to expect that if you kill someone, their relatives will take revenge. The son that does not want to avenge his father is the exception, not the norm.



So in your games, paladins aren't help to any higher standard than "common motivations" in terms of morality?  And, by extension, in your games "taking revenge" by killing someone who had nothing to do with the act for which you're taking revenge is also okay for paladins?

Like I said, incredibly fascinating.


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## Fenes (Mar 23, 2009)

Jeff Wilder said:


> The act did not kill only black dragons.  Nor are all black dragons evil.
> 
> So in your games, paladins aren't help to any higher standard than "common motivations" in terms of morality?  And, by extension, in your games "taking revenge" by killing someone who had nothing to do with the act for which you're taking revenge is also okay for paladins?
> 
> Like I said, incredibly fascinating.




As I said: In my games, tribal and clan loyality is a given. 

As an example: My game contains a barbarian. If his clan is in a bloodfeud with another clan, then killing any warrior of said clan, no matter if they are attacking him or not, no matter their alignment, is not an evil act.

Yes, paladins are held to a higher standard. But that doesn't mean they are held to a _modern _standard. They have to act honorable, and their honor allows, in many cases _demands _that they kill people who insulted them. If the insult came form a noble, that would mean in a duel, if the insult came from a commoner, that would mean on the spot.

As an example, if a peasant would throw "You filthy arrogant orc-loving child-out-of-wedlock" at a paladin, most of my paladins would have to kill the peasant or they'd fall for violating their code.
Of course in my campaign paladins are widely known as champions of their god, on missions with a divine mandate, and peasants would not insult them anyway. And if a paladin would receive the option to use such a familycide spell, I'd make sure the paladin would also know his or her god's stance on it. 

As a more specific example, if a paladin of mine would get the option to kill every priest and follower of say Shar, she could use that option without falling - I'd most likely rule that she would risk falling if she did not take it, and allowed those people to continue spreading harm and misery.


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## Zimri (Mar 23, 2009)

MarkB said:


> Well, extrapolating a large group's behaviour from a single sample is, essentially, the _definition_ of stereotyping. And applying that process to an ethnic group would be racial stereotyping, which is, to my knowledge, widely considered to be one of its worst forms.
> 
> So yeah, I'm pretty certain about it. And I don't have to speak for others, regardless of intellect - they can, and have, spoken for themselves on this subject.




Since I am prohibited from using some excellent modern examples of people who have some nicely framed pieces of paper from highly touted educational institutions who have acted counter to what it is you are saying I will instead give you two words and ask you a question.

the two words Civis Romanus

The question What is the virtue of a proportional response ?


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## Zimri (Mar 23, 2009)

Jeff Wilder said:


> This is incredibly fascinating.
> 
> For those of you who continue to say "not evil," may I ask:
> 
> ...




What is the difference between doing it one at a time with a sword, or all at once with a spell. They dragons are still just as dead, one way takes longer. Which is better motivation "my deity said go forth and rid the world of all things distasteful to me " or "my mate and children whom I love were in peril"


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## ProfessorCirno (Mar 23, 2009)

I'm INTENSELY glad Jeff brought up paladins, because I was trying to skirt around this, but here goes:

People who are saying not evil, _have you ever had a paladin fall in your games?_


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## Zimri (Mar 23, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I'm INTENSELY glad Jeff brought up paladins, because I was trying to skirt around this, but here goes:
> 
> People who are saying not evil, _have you ever had a paladin fall in your games?_




Yup he (I) helped and ummmmm "associated" with a succubus.


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## Fenes (Mar 23, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I'm INTENSELY glad Jeff brought up paladins, because I was trying to skirt around this, but here goes:
> 
> People who are saying not evil, _have you ever had a paladin fall in your games?_




No. Paladins in my game only fall if the player wishes it so - and I never put them in front of choices where they can only pick the lesser of two evils - they always have at least one or more non-evil options open, and at least the player, but usually the character as well know what those options are.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 23, 2009)

There is an underlying assumption in many of the replies that, generally speaking, killing a black dragon who is not a current or imminent threat is considered "good" or at least "not evil," and therefore, the mass murder of potentially hundreds of them falls into the same category.

However, I want to call that assumption into question.

A party of adventurers entering a town are told "there's a black dragon living in the swamp a few miles away, but he hasn't harmed any villagers in hundreds of years, and as long as the alligator population stays high, he doesn't bother the livestock. You see, the local cleric brokered an agreement between the village and the dragon long ago, which the dragon has complied with for all of these years."

Under such circumstances, if the party of adventurers sought out the dragon in order to kill it, I would consider that an evil act. They would be justified in killing the dragon only to the degree that the dragon represents a direct threat. Same with goblins, orcs, and kobolds. 

In the case of OotS, the original black dragon slaying took place, they blundered into the dragon and were immediately attacked. Arguably, they could have attempted to escape, prepare spells, and then reassess, instead of staying put and doing so, leading to the "disintegrate" moment, but it was nevertheless a situation where the dragon was hostile to them, attacking them, and representing a threat. That is what made the dragon killable, not "being a black dragon."


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## Piratecat (Mar 23, 2009)

Ah, who doesn't love threads about alignment?

Oh, yeah. Me.

Everyone, please take a second before posting and *make sure* you're not insulting the people who disagree with you. It's fine to have a differing opinion; it's not okay to take a cheap shot at other people. If you can't do this, our vengeance will be closer to suspension than familicide, but we'll still start a thread discussing whether or not Piratecat's action was evil. 

Thanks!


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 23, 2009)

Piratecat said:


> we'll still start a thread discussing whether or not Piratecat's action was evil.
> 
> Thanks!




As a moderator, you're actions are beyond good and evil, aren't they? You are as inscrutable as the cosmos!


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## steenan (Mar 23, 2009)

I voted No. Black dragons are evil - and evil to a level that makes them irredeemable. Mass-killing such creatures is not a good act (killing never is - risk taken when fighting to protect someone may be), but definitely isn't evil. It's hard to find a better example of when killing is justified.

I haven't had a PC paladin fall (as in "turn evil") in any of my games. I had NPC paladins turn evil and I had PC paladins temporary lose their powers. The latter was never caused by really evil acts - rather by an unhonorable behavior, like arguing with superiors (or older family members), breaking given word or backing from a (winnable and justified) conflict.


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 23, 2009)

Zimri said:


> the two words Civis Romanus
> 
> The question What is the virtue of a proportional response ?



Actually, it's Civis Romanus Sum.  "I am a Roman Citizen".

And it looks like you watch West Wing with the question. 

Anyways..... in V's case, are you saying that his response was proportional?  A proportional response is one where the punishment matches the crime.  V laid down punishment far, far, far beyond the crime.


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## steenan (Mar 23, 2009)

I voted No. Black dragons are evil - and evil to a level that makes them irredeemable. Mass-killing such creatures is not a good act (killing never is - risk taken when fighting to protect someone may be), but definitely isn't evil. It's hard to find a better example of when killing is justified.

I haven't had a PC paladin fall (as in "turn evil") in any of my games. I had NPC paladins turn evil and I had PC paladins temporary lose their powers. The latter was never caused by really evil acts - rather by an unhonorable behavior, like arguing with superiors (or older family members), breaking given word or backing from a (winnable and justified) conflict.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 23, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I'm INTENSELY glad Jeff brought up paladins, because I was trying to skirt around this, but here goes:
> 
> People who are saying not evil, _have you ever had a paladin fall in your games?_




Yes. He abandoned the rest of the party to be eaten by ghouls, and ran away to save his own skin.


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## JRRNeiklot (Mar 23, 2009)

Fenes said:


> In my games, gods and characters do not follow our modern values, but fantasy/medieval ones. The paladin would not fall for killing black dragons, just as she doesn't fall for killing evil people.




No?  Suppose there's a despicable fellow, who watches children undress, secretly rejoices every time there's a murder in the street, in his heart of hearts he wants to be a serial killer/rapist, but just doesn't have the courage to even hold a knife, much less use it.  Paladin walks into the bar, detects evil and lops his head off, even though he's broken no law.

In MY games, he'd no longer be a paladin.


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## Fenes (Mar 23, 2009)

JRRNeiklot said:


> No?  Suppose there's a despicable fellow, who watches children undress, secretly rejoices every time there's a murder in the street, in his heart of hearts he wants to be a serial killer/rapist, but just doesn't have the courage to even hold a knife, much less use it.  Paladin walks into the bar, detects evil and lops his head off, even though he's broken no law.
> 
> In MY games, he'd no longer be a paladin.




If said fellow would have his fascination under control, and not give in to temptation once he feels he can get away with it - or gets enough liquid courage - he'd not detect as evil in my game. If he detects as evil killing him is a good deed, but at the very least not evil.

In other words - I have a lot broader "Neutral" area in my game than most. Evil is restricted to the clear-cut cases, not the morally ambigous ones. Ruthless mercenary that enjoys torturing criminals? Not Evil in my game. Cheating merchant? Not Evil. Racist Guy that hates elves, but won't ever kill or attack them, just sneers at them and wants them out of his town? Not Evil.

My paladins still have to make moral choices with those cases, but if something or someone detects as Evil, then killing it won't make them fall.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 23, 2009)

JRRNeiklot said:


> No?  Suppose there's a despicable fellow, who watches children undress, secretly rejoices every time there's a murder in the street, in his heart of hearts he wants to be a serial killer/rapist, but just doesn't have the courage to even hold a knife, much less use it.  Paladin walks into the bar, detects evil and lops his head off, even though he's broken no law.
> 
> In MY games, he'd no longer be a paladin.




Paladins are the arbiters of justice, invested with that power by the gods, and they're expected to use it to further the cause of good.

If I tell him, as the DM, that despicable fellow radiates *evil*-- well, what should I expect to happen?

That's not to say there might not be _worldly _repercussions for the paladin-- it depends on whether or not the locals view paladins as legitimate authority or not-- but he certainly wouldn't  fall out of favor with his god, for goodness sake.

The gods don't give the paladin the ability to detect evil in order to force them into moral dilemmas and trick them into falling from grace.

As far as I am concerned, detect evil is the gods' way of saying, "Needs killin'." 

If that's not the message they want to send, then I (as the DM) don't send it.


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## dmccoy1693 (Mar 23, 2009)

dmccoy1693 said:


> I agree. Mind you this is from a guy that is currently playing a character that has taken a vow to never inflict lethal damage.






Wulf Ratbane said:


> I hope you don't get more than a half share of loot.




I make the character as a personal challange.  My 3.0 Cleric/Bard is the best warrior of the group.  I take down more creatures than anyone else.  Granted I built my character to be a spellcaster first and a trip specialist and and my spells had little use until recently.  I have earned my keep.  And I have yet to inflict a single point of lethal damage.

Killing is overrated.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 23, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Paladins are the arbiters of justice, invested with that power by the gods, and they're expected to use it to further the cause of good.
> 
> If I tell him, as the DM, that despicable fellow radiates *evil*-- well, what should I expect to happen?
> 
> ...




But Paladins are also the representatives of law. Now, a lot has to do with how this all plays out in your campaign world. But if your world has systems of due process and "innocent-til-proved-guilty" [of a crime, rather than just of being evil], then the Paladin as a lawful person ought to take the matter before the magistrate (even those "Roman Citizens" referred to above got to do that, ask the Apostle Paul, who got to appeal all the way to the Emperor).

However, if the Paladins are designated as the enforcers of righteousness (say, in a theocracy), and/or if simply BEING evil is punishable by death in your world, then the Paladin may not only be authorized but obligated to do the head-lopping.

For me, as GM or player, I'm far more comfortable with the idea of due process and people being punished for what they DO rather than what they ARE (even if what the *are* is EVIL), and I'd play a Paladin that way. If it's anachronistic, so be it. It's my character and/or my campaign.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 23, 2009)

Remus Lupin said:


> But Paladins are also the representatives of law.




Not worldly law, no.

Paladins are not glorified cops.



> Now, a lot has to do with how this all plays out in your campaign world.




That has _everything _to do with it.



> But if your world has systems of due process and "innocent-til-proved-guilty" [of a crime, rather than just of being evil], then the Paladin as a lawful person ought to take the matter before the magistrate.




Real-world concepts of justice and due process are as out of place in D&D as dragons and demons are in the real world.

Paladins don't NEED a court to prove to them that someone is evil. That's the point of the ability. They supercede due process by virtue of being agents of the gods themselves. 

A world with such an infallible system has no need for due process. The paladin *is *due process. 

For hundreds of years, Trial by Combat was considered due process-- in the real world, by "rational" people. It's the same concept.



> For me, as GM or player, I'm far more comfortable with the idea of due process and people being punished for what they DO rather than what they ARE (even if what they *are* is EVIL), and I'd play a Paladin that way.




You don't detect as evil unless you are seriously evil-- evil as defined by D&D:

Mundane or "free willed" evil < Undead < Evil Outsiders & Clerics

You have to dedicate your life and your soul to evil to register as anything more than faintly evil.



> If it's anachronistic, so be it. It's my character and/or my campaign.




Yes, it's anachronistic. 

More power to you and your game, though!


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## Umbran (Mar 23, 2009)

Fenes said:


> And finally, in my game, my NPCs - especially my evil ones - are not suicidal. After such a spell, just about everyone would think twice about messing with such a power. Some fanatic priest of Tiamat might - might, if Tiamat did not simply write this off as the ABD  making a fatal mistake - want to take revenge, but almost all dragons, for example, would simply write a memo to themselves "Do not mess with that elf, ever!".




I dunno.  Dangerous or not, V has shown the ability and will to take down a large chunk (if not all) of an entire species.  I would think that a god devoted to a species might well take this as a serious threat.  The dog is no longer sleeping, so lettign it lie may not be a hot idea.

From a practical viewpoint, "almost all" is not sufficient.  All it takes is one member of your species to screw things up.  If suddenly all the elves were killed by a spell,. would you trust _every human_ to not try to make sure it was never cast on humans?

If you can't trust them all, you might as well help make sure the threat is taken care of once and for all...


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## JRRNeiklot (Mar 23, 2009)

I still play first edition, so it's not anachronistic to me.  Any being with an evil alignment detects as evil to one degree or another, and killing them just because they are evil is both unlawful and evil.  If a paladin detects evil on someone, he'd better be sure they have committed a crime punishable by death before he lops any heads - in his deity's eyes, not by the laws of man.

Of course, this should be another thread, I'll not hijack this one further.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 23, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> That has _everything _to do with it.




If we agree on that, there's nothing else for us to fight about then.



> Yes, it's anachronistic.
> 
> More power to you and your game, though!




We all make our peace with certain levels of anachronism in this game. And I suspect it might be fun to have a campaign with YOUR kind of Paladin in the same party with MY kind of Paladin, as long as we didn't wind up killing each other (in game, of course!)


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 23, 2009)

Umbran said:


> I dunno.  Dangerous or not, V has shown the ability and will to take down a large chunk (if not all) of an entire species.




Hmm. I assumed the spell was called Familicide (and not Genocide) for a reason.

I don't think V. wiped out all Black Dragons, everywhere, thought I have never been good enough with genealogy to figure out exactly how it would work.

I don't think it kills all blood relatives all the way back to the Adam and Eve of black dragonkind.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 23, 2009)

Remus Lupin said:


> I suspect it might be fun to have a campaign with YOUR kind of Paladin in the same party with MY kind of Paladin, as long as we didn't wind up killing each other (in game, of course!)




Well, since my paladin derives his authority from his God, and yours cedes his authority to the State-- smart money's on my guy.


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## hamishspence (Mar 23, 2009)

The claim "you have to dedicate life to evil to register as more than faint" is in error- a high level person who has only just crossed the line, will radiate more powerfully than a low level multiple murderer.

Its very easy to be Evil in D&D without being a Complete Monster- BoVD, Champions of Ruin, Exemplars of Evil, alll show this.

Heroes of Horror- "Evil people are not necessarily lawbreakers" and goes on to say a paladin who smites without other evidence of wrongdoing can expect to be charged with murder.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 23, 2009)

hamishspence said:


> Its very easy to be Evil in D&D without being a Complete Monster- BoVD, Champions of Ruin, Exemplars of Evil, alll show this.




Optionalrulebooksayswhat?


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 23, 2009)

I would say both our Paladins derive their power from their respective Gods, but mine recognizes a variety of spheres of authority to which a civilized person is required to be lawfully subject.


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## jgsugden (Mar 23, 2009)

This is up for debate - but there is no broad answer that is correct. It is a campaign specific answer that only a DM can provide. If I were a PC contemplating such an act, I'd certainly wish to make use of a spell like Hand of Fate, Commune, etc... to get a determination before I acted.

In a game I ran: Alignment is relative to the views of the Gods. One good God might look on this act and praise it as a great achievement for the forces of light that will save the lives of hundreds, thousands or millions of righteous beings. Another might look on the act and condemn the spellcaster for murdering thousands indiscriminately. Regardless, the PC with that type of power - and the willingness to use it - would likely be hunted down and killed by someone before they could use it again. Once killed, the PC's soul would travel to where his or her God felt it should go.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 23, 2009)

I think this is a fine solution, but it assumes that the God's are above alignment. In standard D&D, the God's are also subject to alignment, so a LG God would praise things that conform to LG behavior, and a NE Goddess would praise things that conform to NE behavior. So, these things are certainly consistent with your appraoch, but begin from what I think is the standard assumption in D&D, which is that alignment is absolute, not subjective, even if the subject is a God.

This, of course, is why there are so many contentious alignment threads.


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## Zimri (Mar 23, 2009)

catsclaw227 said:


> Actually, it's Civis Romanus Sum.  "I am a Roman Citizen".
> 
> And it looks like you watch West Wing with the question.
> 
> Anyways..... in V's case, are you saying that his response was proportional?  A proportional response is one where the punishment matches the crime.  V laid down punishment far, far, far beyond the crime.




The two words and the quote are from the west wing, and I'll eat a "mea culpa" on the ACTUAL  quote being Civis Romanus Sum but I only found that out after researching the west wing quote.



			
				westwing said:
			
		

> Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the Earth unharmed, cloaked only in the protection of the words civis Romanus -- I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens




And no I am not saying V's response was proportional not in the slightest

I don't know how close to the line I'll be skating for quoting a fictional government I'll just hope it isn't over it.



			
				westwing said:
			
		

> Bartlet: What's the virtue of the proportional response?
> Admiral Fitzwallace: I'm sorry?
> Bartlet: What is the virtue of a proportional response? Why's it good? They hit an airplane, so we hit a transmitter, right? That's a proportional response. They hit a barracks, so we hit two transmitters.
> Admiral Fitzwallace: Yes, that's roughly it, sir.
> ...


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## Alzrius (Mar 23, 2009)

Zimri said:


> The two words and the quote are from the west wing, and I'll eat a "mea culpa" on the ACTUAL  quote being Civis Romanus Sum but I only found that out after researching the west wing quote.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




It's worth noting that by the end of that episode, the President had been convinced that a proportional response was the right one, both after the Generals and the National Security Team had shown him that they could bomb Hassan Airport and cripple the distribution of water and medicine to the region (Sudan, I think), and after Leo talked to him about how (I'm paraphrasing here) a proportional response is one that doesn't ratchet up the body count.

The virtue of a proportional response is that it's proportional - it doesn't start a war. Escalation means that when it's the other guy's turn to respond - and make no mistake, there's *always* someone who'll respond - their response will be that much worse than yours.


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## Savage Wombat (Mar 23, 2009)

Remember that, if Roy's experience is any indicator, the good/evil of V's action will be determined when he sits down with a celestial bureaucrat (of whatever alignment) and defends his actions and decisions face to face.

It's not going to be "cosmic" or "subjective" at that point.


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## Zimri (Mar 23, 2009)

Alzrius said:


> It's worth noting that by the end of that episode, the President had been convinced that a proportional response was the right one, both after the Generals and the National Security Team had shown him that they could bomb Hassan Airport and cripple the distribution of water and medicine to the region (Sudan, I think), and after Leo talked to him about how (I'm paraphrasing here) a proportional response is one that doesn't ratchet up the body count.
> 
> The virtue of a proportional response is that it's proportional - it doesn't start a war. Escalation means that when it's the other guy's turn to respond - and make no mistake, there's *always* someone who'll respond - their response will be that much worse than yours.




And I submit to you and others that in the Case of "V Vs Black Dragon Clan" there was already escalation taking place the ABD went after V's family instead of V. I suppose V just should have rolled over and played dead, not bothered saving her family at all, because even had she stopped there someone bigger and badder would come for worse vengeance against her and her family for killing the ABD . You said yourself "there is "ALWAYS" a response." V just accomplished 2 things 1) Lowered the number of beings that want to respond and take that risk and 2) Raised the ante high enough in this particular poker game that only the really powerful and brave can afford the buy in.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 23, 2009)

The virtue of a proportional response, in addition to what others have said, is that it forces us to view war (or any violent conflict) as a rule-governed activity, in which only those parties who are directly involved are subject to attack. It says, "even in war, there are moral limits." In short, it situates us as members of a moral world.

As for escalation, you are right, sort of: V killed the dragon's offspring. Therefore, the dragon's action was, up to a point, "proportional." The additional torture and subjecting their souls to torment was *not* however proportional and amounted to escalation.

But V's escalation was of a much more basic type: He changed a conflict between individuals, or at worst, between families, to a conflict between SPECIES. Even if V hasn't wiped out every black dragon, he has now become an existential threat to all dragon-kind, and thus he is now subject to a *genuinely* proportional response: One that eliminates him as a threat, but not one that subjects all elvenkind.

The best way to carry this out: Let the elves condemn him, thus demonstrating to the dragons that this was not an action taken on behalf of all elves.


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## Alzrius (Mar 23, 2009)

Zimri said:


> And I submit to you and others that in the Case of "V Vs Black Dragon Clan" there was already escalation taking place the ABD went after V's family instead of V.




Each person involved in a conflict can choose whether or not to escalate it when they take action. The fact that the dragon did doesn't mean that V had to then escalate things even further.



> _I suppose V just should have rolled over and played dead, not bothered saving her family at all, because even had she stopped there someone bigger and badder would come for worse vengeance against her and her family for killing the ABD._




Had she killed the dragon, there may have been someone who came after her for that. Killing an entire species, however, is much more likely to draw unfavorable attention to her and hers (see below).



> _You said yourself "there is "ALWAYS" a response." V just accomplished 2 things 1) Lowered the number of beings that want to respond and take that risk_




I doubt that. In addition to the friends/associates/gods etc. of all the dragons V killed, that was a highly visible display of power. Now there's also going to be groups that want to destroy that power, or possess it, or something else, that will also be involved.



> _and 2) Raised the ante high enough in this particular poker game that only the really powerful and brave can afford the buy in._




This isn't a poker game - there is no "buy in" to getting involved; where power is concerned, people become fearful and/or greedy, usually in direct proportion to the amount of power displayed, prompting those people who were previously uninvolved to take action. V made things worse, not better - that's the problem with escalation; it makes things escalate.


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## MarkB (Mar 24, 2009)

Zimri said:


> Since I am prohibited from using some excellent modern examples of people who have some nicely framed pieces of paper from highly touted educational institutions who have acted counter to what it is you are saying




And I'm sure there are plenty of such individuals - but I'm also sure they don't represent anywhere near the majority opinion.

That's the whole point about stereotyping - you can't just find a few supporting examples, and then just assume they represent everybody else's opinion on the subject, because even within a particular group there will be a myriad of different viewpoints.



> I will instead give you two words and ask you a question.
> 
> the two words Civis Romanus
> 
> The question What is the virtue of a proportional response ?




Well, for one thing it doesn't lead to wasted innocent lives. Escalation, by its very nature, sucks more and yet more people into the conflict until it eventually becomes all-encompassing.

Since you seem to think that turnabout is fair play, let's turn this around: What is the virtue of an escalationary response?


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 24, 2009)

> As far as I am concerned, detect evil is the gods' way of saying, "Needs killin'."




I don't make that particular leap. For my milage, "detect evil" is the gods' way of saying "This is on MY side." It's the rules' way of saying "SHAPECHANGED SUCCUBUS!" or "The king is a doppelganger!" or "The portal to Hell is probably behind Door #3." In other words, it reveals the truth about something hidden.

Whether or not that thing needs killin' isn't based on its alignment, but on the character's motives and the thing's actions. There is no "free pass" for killing; rather, each death needs to be considered on its own terms. 

Violence is probably the most common solution in my games, but it is not always the best solution, and it is rarely the only solution. Fighting evil doesn't always mean killing things that are evil.


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## Slife (Mar 24, 2009)

Detect evil IMC is houseruled so it's a little less stupid.

As is, the LG ghost of a level 20 paladin detects the same as a bone devil.

The paladin ability is altered as well - it's essentially "detect divine enemy".  If someone pings, the question isn't "should I smite them", but "when and how should I smite them?".  Magic can prevent you from pinging, but can't create false pings.

You don't get an alignment unless you're actively committed to and pursuing it.  The merchant that routinely shortchanges customers?  Neutral.  The town guard who secretly hates elves?  Neutral.  Grunt #57?  Neutral.  The guy who works in the animal shelter all day helping sick puppies?  Still neutral.

I'm also ignoring facepalm-worthy supplemental books like the BoED (Ravages?  Really?) and the BoVD for alignment purposes.  

I also ignore alignment-based class prerequisites.  If you wanted, you could have a Paladin10/BabyEatingPuppyKicker10.  As long as you didn't actually eat babies, you wouldn't lose your paladinhood, even if the flavor text on abilities is stuff like:
Depraved Hunger (Ex) "Your insatiable lust for delicious humanoid veal gives you the foul sight of unlife.  As such, you can detect the location and condition of babies within a 50' radius."
On the other hand, if you actually used the class abilities in an evil way, like, well, pretty much any usage of
Baby Consumption (Su) "Every live baby humanoid you consume gives you a +1 morale bonus to all rolls for the rest of the day, up to your levels in Baby Eating Puppy Kicker",
you'd be an ex-paladin in nothing flat.

So, in my campaign, where negative energy is just as neutral as fire or earth, where races that are always evil really are raw malevolence given flesh, and always evil races kill off (or refuse to acknowledge as a member of their family) any of their nonevil halfbreed spawn, V is committing a good act, ridding the world of an irredeemable and dangerous menace.


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## grimslade (Mar 24, 2009)

Ok. So for 16 pages we're still hung up on the killing the dragons part of the equation?
V used Create Greater Undead to not only bring back the Black Dragon but separate its soul from its mate and child in the hereafter. V has to earn some demerits for this.
V then casts an epic custom Necromancy spell Familicide to kill several dozen branches of said Dragons family tree. I don't think we are talking all of black dragon kind here, just a good small chunk.
What is V's motive for killing the family of the Black Dragon? Revenge, pure and simple. Defense did not require the creation of a greater undead to witness. Heck, witness was the least of his/her plans. The black dragon would have seen all of its relatives appear in the hereafter after familicide was cast. No V wanted the Black dragon to witness the death of its entire family and know that it will be forever separated from them. Soul trapped in the undead head while the rest go to Dragon hell/elysium/heaven. That's beyond cold. That's evil.
Really frickin' cool storyline tho.


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## Slife (Mar 24, 2009)

grimslade said:


> Ok. So for 16 pages we're still hung up on the killing the dragons part of the equation?
> V used Create Greater Undead to not only bring back the Black Dragon but separate its soul from its mate and child in the hereafter. V has to earn some demerits for this.
> V then casts an epic custom Necromancy spell Familicide to kill several dozen branches of said Dragons family tree. I don't think we are talking all of black dragon kind here, just a good small chunk.
> What is V's motive for killing the family of the Black Dragon? Revenge, pure and simple. Defense did not require the creation of a greater undead to witness. Heck, witness was the least of his/her plans. The black dragon would have seen all of its relatives appear in the hereafter after familicide was cast. No V wanted the Black dragon to witness the death of its entire family and know that it will be forever separated from them. Soul trapped in the undead head while the rest go to Dragon hell/elysium/heaven. That's beyond cold. That's evil.
> Really frickin' cool storyline tho.




I was under the impression that he needed to create greater undead so he'd have a valid target for familicide.  That's what it looks like, anyway.


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## Vegepygmy (Mar 24, 2009)

Zimri said:


> The two words and the quote are from the west wing, and I'll eat a "mea culpa" on the ACTUAL quote being Civis Romanus Sum but I only found that out after researching the west wing quote.



The thing *I* find interesting about you citing this historical example in support of your "not evil" claim is that Rome is the example I most frequently use to illustrate what a Lawful Evil society might look like.

I suppose you imagine it was Good, though.


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## Maggan (Mar 24, 2009)

Zimri said:


> V just accomplished 2 things 1) Lowered the number of beings that want to respond and take that risk and 2) Raised the ante high enough in this particular poker game that only the really powerful and brave can afford the buy in.




Interesting how much opinions differ. IMO, and if this showed up IMC, I'd rule it like this:

1. V radically raised the number of very powerful people/beings/deities who see her as a potential threat that needs to be contained or even controlled for greater good or evil.

2. Only the really powerful and brave (and maybe foolhardy) can buy in ... as long as V keeps being possessed by the three splices. When they leave, bye-bye V and family. So V has to stay possessed for the reminder of her life, and when that's done, there's nothing to stop ancient dragons to take their revenge on V's family. And if V should chose to be dispossessed, then suddenly the number of people who potentially can harm her increases dramatically.

/M


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## Zimri (Mar 24, 2009)

MarkB said:


> And I'm sure there are plenty of such individuals - but I'm also sure they don't represent anywhere near the majority opinion.




Perhaps not but they do seem to find themselves in "key positions"





MarkB said:


> Since you seem to think that turnabout is fair play, let's turn this around: What is the virtue of an escalationary response?




1) It provides the kind of protection mentioned in my west wing quote. If you knew that should you harm one hair on the head of a citizen of country X that there was a darn good chance the full unbridled might of country X would rain down upon you and yours then you are far less likely to harm that person.

It doesn't have to be a country in the example either. If I am a Jet I know full well that should I hurt a Shark in neutral territory the rest of the Sharks are coming after me, and will probably hurt my other Jet friends that are with me at the time. Likewise I walk unmolested through neutral territory because the Sharks would rather not have me gather up a bunch of my friends and jump one of them.

This reasoning is precisely why (in my opinion) there hasn't been a nuclear war. Everyone who currently (as far as we know) has access to nuclear weapons WANTS to keep living. They comprehend that as soon as one weapon is fired in hostility that the response will end up destroying them , sure their enemies die too (and probably first) but for most people that isn't enough. It's M.A.D. (mutually assured destruction as opposed to multiple attribute dependency). 

2) "proportional response" leads to exactly what Bartlett posited. They know the likely responses and a) factor them in and b) make the "assumed targets" as safe and unnecessary as possible.

I know that if I graffiti the opposing gangs freshly painted clubhouse that they will graffiti mine, but mine needs a paint job anyway then  meh  might as well tag them and then paint mine after they tag me back. If on the other hand I know they will up the price of poker and burn my building down if I tag theirs then I am far less likely to tag theirs.


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## Zimri (Mar 24, 2009)

Vegepygmy said:


> The thing *I* find interesting about you citing this historical example in support of your "not evil" claim is that Rome is the example I most frequently use to illustrate what a Lawful Evil society might look like.
> 
> I suppose you imagine it was Good, though.




I find the protection offered to their citizens to be good. I am quite likely not as well educated on the functionings of all the aspects Roman society as you are so all I will say on that matter is I find it odd that I am being chastised for predicting future action based on examples of past action but you get to freely paint an entire RL civilization as LE .


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 24, 2009)

> where races that are always evil really are raw malevolence given flesh, and always evil races kill off (or refuse to acknowledge as a member of their family) any of their nonevil halfbreed spawn, V is committing a good act, ridding the world of an irredeemable and dangerous menace.




It's odd; I agree with everything you say up until this point.

IMC, while negative energy doesn't necessarily mean "evil," EVIL energy DOES mean EVIL. Killing a being with the (evil) tag (as opposed to the Always Evil alignment) is almost always justified, because the thing is like a golem made of evil -- raw evil energy given form, incapable of choice or free will (it's part of the personality conflict inherent in tieflings, for one). That said, there are circumstances where the succubus is minding its own business and there are ways of killing her that would really be as evil as she is -- even the substance of the creature is no excuse for doing evil actions to it.

The Always Evil alignment is different, as is demonstrated over and over again in this thread, especially for unhatched eggs and related-but-not-always-evil kin. 

Also, this, this, and this helps add to the "what V did was evil even if it was OK" pile. 

IMC, there's no place for Good to have such double standards. "It's not OK for you, but it's OK for me because of what you are!" is not an acceptable Neutral outlook. That's putting your life as more important than others, which is the selfishness and egotism that is a hallmark of evil.


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## Fenes (Mar 24, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> "It's not OK for you, but it's OK for me because of what you are!" is not an acceptable Neutral outlook. That's putting your life as more important than others, which is the selfishness and egotism that is a hallmark of evil.




"I won't die for you, if it's you or me, then you die!" is the neutral stance. Even today, the old shipwrecked sailor example is still true: If a flaoting oar can only keep one of them afloat, they both have the right to save themselves by forcing the other to drown. Neither is expected to sacrifice himself.


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## Krensky (Mar 24, 2009)

Rome.

I would not say that Rome was Evil because the real world is more complex then that; but the Republic, and even more so the Empire makes a fine template for a Lawful Evil society in D&D.

Institutional chattel slavery (which could be hereditary depending on why you were a slave), enshrining an act of mass kidnapping and forced marriage as something to be celebrated, brutal conquest and repression of it's neighbors because they were there, brutal repression of 'unacceptable' cults and religions (including Christianity and Judaism, along with a laundry list of now extinct faiths), blood sports, death sports, human sacrifice (the triumphal, and arguably what occurred in the amphitheaters and circuses). Yeah, it's a good place to mine for a template and broad outlines. It can also be used for Lawful Neutral or Good as well, depending on the time period and details you focus on.

As for Civis Romanus Sum, all of the historical reading I've done (and what I was taught in my classics courses) says that the protections you're refering to had nothing to do with those outside the Empire fearing retribution, and everything to do with the protections it afforded you within Rome. Primarily that pretty much every legal protection from actions of the state applied only to citizens. A Citizen could not be scourged or forced to confess. He had the right to be tried in Rome by judges, rather then summarily executed by the local prelate or officer, etc. Things that were legal to do against non citizens, were illegal to do to citizens. Generally speaking, Rome didn't care what happened to a citizen outside of it's borders as an individual, unless it was seen as an assault on the hegemony of Rome. If a merchant was trading independently with the Gauls before Caesar conquered them and got killed, the Roman state's opinion was that it was what he deserved for dealing with the Gauls. The exception, which I admit happened a lot, was if he was trading as a representative of Rome, and even carring a letter from a governor to his wife might trigger this, the the Legions would come down like a ton of bricks because it was an assault on Roman hegemony.

If people can provide objective history texts providing the punish all affronts against every citizen every where no matter the circumstance view, I'd be more then willing to read them.


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## Jeff Wilder (Mar 24, 2009)

Krensky said:


> I would not say that Rome was Evil because the real world is more complex then that; but the Republic, and even more so the Empire makes a fine template for a Lawful Evil society in D&D.



See, e.g., Calastia in the Scarred Lands.  one of my favorite D&D nations of all time.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 24, 2009)

> "I won't die for you, if it's you or me, then you die!" is the neutral stance.




Yeah, but "I deserve to live more than you!" is an evil stance.

It's kind of the difference between killing because you have to, and killing because you want to kill things. The first is not evil. The second is.


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## Vegepygmy (Mar 25, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Yeah, but "I deserve to live more than you!" is an evil stance.



I'm afraid I don't understand the distinction you're making here.  Can you elaborate?

Personally, I think the PHB explains the (G/E) Neutral position as clearly as it explains anything to do with alignment: "People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others.  Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.  A neutral person may sacrifice himself to protect his family or even his homeland, but he would not do so for strangers who are not related to him." (page 104)

Expressed that way, I find it very easy to understand the (G/E) Neutral viewpoint, but I have seen many others who apparently don't.


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## Fenes (Mar 25, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Yeah, but "I deserve to live more than you!" is an evil stance.
> 
> It's kind of the difference between killing because you have to, and killing because you want to kill things. The first is not evil. The second is.




If I am saying "You need to die so I can live" I am saying exactly that - I deserve to live more than you do. And that's _neutral_, not evil.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 25, 2009)

> I'm afraid I don't understand the distinction you're making here. Can you elaborate?




There is a difference between protecting your own survival, and condemning the survival of another.

Sometimes (often, in D&D)  your survival will mandate that you kill another -- it's kill or be killed. Sometimes the survival of something you protect will mean the same thing: either this guy dies, or the orphanage is burned to the ground (or whatever). The first is mostly neutral, the second is mostly good.

The Evil thing to do is to kill it, not to ensure your survival, but to ensure its demise. Your survival is important, but you just liked killing it. You enjoy the act of murder. You actively want that thing to die. You feel good, not because you lived, but because that other guy DIDN'T. 

Neutral is "I protect myself." (and also: I fluctuate between the other two views). It is "I win."
Good is "I also protect those who can't protect themselves." It is "everyone wins!"
Evil is "I have the right to kill it." It is "you lose." 

It's a fine distinction, and not always obvious, but that's part of why Evil, IMC, is something the PC's always face to a certain degree in themselves. It's inevitable that normal people feel those "evil" D&D emotions -- vengeance, anger, power...but what separates the Good from the Neutral from the Evil is how you view what you kill. You kill it out of some necessity, you're probably not Evil. You kill it out of some hubris, you probably are. 

So V's action wasn't protecting himself (or his family); when the dragon momma died, that was accomplished (perhaps some extra abjurations to be safe). V's action wasn't protecting the innocent -- there were no real third parties involved here. V's action was, however, demonstrating that V has power over life and death, that V had the express right to kill hundreds of beings as a simple show of power and vengeance. 



			
				Fenes said:
			
		

> If I am saying "You need to die so I can live" I am saying exactly that - I deserve to live more than you do. And that's neutral, not evil.




No, If I am saying "You need to die so I can live," I am saying that my survival depends on your death. That doesn't imply that my life is somehow more important, that they are weaker than me, that they deserve death more, or in any other way imply my superiority. Enemies in war who respect each other, hunters that honor their prey, none of these people devalue the lives of their enemies. 

You have just as much right to live as I do. Luck and skill might determine who gets to survive, but your death isn't something you earned, it's something that the situation has forced on us. Maybe you caused the situation and refuse to stop it? Maybe I did? It regrettable that we can't both emerge from this, but it is a necessity. 

It is Evil to think that you do not have as much right to live as I do. Even if you're a baby-eating puppy-kicker, and have shown that you never want to change, the only reason you have to die is because you're trying to eat my babies (neutral) or because I need to protect the babies (good), not because your life has less value than mine, not because you deserve to live less, or I earned it more. 

It is Neutral to protect myself by killing you, because you threaten me.

It is Good to protect the helpless by killing you, because you threaten them. 

It is Evil to do anything by killing you, because you are worth less.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 25, 2009)

I think I understand the difference. It's the difference between retreating to survive even if it means someone else dies, and throwing that person into the monster's path in order to cover your escape.


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## Hussar (Mar 25, 2009)

Well, the conversation not-withstanding, at 83%, this has to be one of the largest consensuses (is that the right plural form?) of opinion on alignment I think I've ever seen on En World.  

Sweet.  We can mostly agree that V's act was evil.  Much better than the bloody Belkar discussions a while back.


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## hamishspence (Mar 25, 2009)

Actually, when its "you must die so I can live" an awful lot of the time, its Evil. If you go by BoVD: 

"Sacrificing others to save yourself is an evil act."

Example:
Ship is sinking, last lifeboat is full, if you don't get on, you will die. You shoot 1 person, spring aboard, and shove the body overboard. 

You and another person are shipwrecked on desert island. You have contacted civilization by radio- rescue will be here. Only- theres only enough water to keep 1 person alive over the time it will take (no other sources)
You bash the other person when he's not looking, kill him, and wait for rescuers to arrive.

Both are "its him or me" but also, both are textbook Evil, not Neutral.


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## Zimri (Mar 25, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> There is a difference between protecting your own survival, and condemning the survival of another.







Kamikaze Midget said:


> Neutral is "I protect myself." (and also: I fluctuate between the other two views). It is "I win."
> Good is "I also protect those who can't protect themselves." It is "everyone wins!"
> Evil is "I have the right to kill it." It is "you lose."






Kamikaze Midget said:


> It's a fine distinction, and not always obvious, but that's part of why Evil, IMC, is something the PC's always face to a certain degree in themselves. It's inevitable that normal people feel those "evil" D&D emotions -- vengeance, anger, power...but what separates the Good from the Neutral from the Evil is how you view what you kill. You kill it out of some necessity, you're probably not Evil. You kill it out of some hubris, you probably are.
> 
> So V's action wasn't protecting himself (or his family); when the dragon momma died, that was accomplished (perhaps some extra abjurations to be safe). V's action wasn't protecting the innocent -- there were no real third parties involved here. V's action was, however, demonstrating that V has power over life and death, that V had the express right to kill hundreds of beings as a simple show of power and vengeance.




Except that there was in fact necessity involved in killing the family members of the ABD. We had just had proved to us that as far as ancient black dragons go they enjoy the whole vengeance shtick  and coming at their enemies through the things they care about rather than a frontal assault.

In fact V's own words were



			
				varsuvius said:
			
		

> Had you simply attacked me I would have left you dead. But you made the mistake of involving my family in our conflict. This leaves me with the task of ensuring that today's events will never rise again to threaten them"




So is V lying there ? We know through the comic that of all the representatives of this black dragon family at LEAST 50% of them prefer vengeance and going after family members. When dealing with your spouse and children is 50% an acceptable risk? It isn't for me.

She was protecting her family as best she could at the time given her mental state.

Protecting herself  = neutral Check

Protecting the helpless ( I don't see her kids or mate fending off dragon attacks ad infinitum  or being able to be "sequestered and secluded" where they can't be found) = Good  check.

Do you call something you enjoy doing a task ? Does it really matter IF she enjoyed doing it or not ?


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## Zimri (Mar 25, 2009)

hamishspence said:


> Actually, when its "you must die so I can live" an awful lot of the time, its Evil. If you go by BoVD:
> 
> "Sacrificing others to save yourself is an evil act."
> 
> ...




There exists an island (desert or otherwise) somewhere in the world where you can get a message to a rescuer and they can't get help to you within (number of days you have water for) + 3 days ?


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## Maggan (Mar 25, 2009)

Zimri said:


> So is V lying there ?




No, she's simply explaining how she came to the conclusion that she should kill a lot of dragons.



Zimri said:


> We know through the comic that of all the representatives of this black dragon family at LEAST 50% of them prefer vengeance and going after family members.




Nope. 1 out of 60. The rest of the family that were killed by V was not going after her family members at all.

So an overwhelming majority of the black dragons depicted, most of them albeit very briefly, had chosen not to partake in the single black dragon's quest for vengeance.



Zimri said:


> She was protecting her family as best she could at the time given her mental state.




Sure, and her mental state = possessed by three supremely evil magic-users. That will factor in when V goes up for an alignment audit.

/M


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## hamishspence (Mar 25, 2009)

All right, so its a bit contrived. Still, the point is, situations where the survival of one necessitates the killing of the other are not all that implausible.

Two people (tourists?), trip into desert, car breakdown. Here, thirst can be much more pressing.

Or the classic Space dilemma- only enough air for one.


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## Zimri (Mar 25, 2009)

Maggan said:


> Nope. 1 out of 60. The rest of the family that were killed by V was not going after her family members at all.
> 
> So an overwhelming majority of the black dragons depicted, most of them albeit very briefly, had chosen not to partake in the single black dragon's quest for vengeance.




We have only seen any kind of actions , upon which to base conclusions from 2 the YABD and the ABD.

The ABD was appropriately smug through most of the encounter that I would have to think she didn't think to ask any family members aid. After all she was superior in intellect, cunning, had surprise on her side and was facing 1 wizard and 3 commoners. 

I wonder why the oracle would mislead one of his own kind like that, was he perhaps instructed to by Tiamat ?


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## Maggan (Mar 25, 2009)

Zimri said:


> We have only seen any kind of actions , upon which to base conclusions from 2 the YABD and the ABD.




If there's anything I learned from my studies of statistical analysis it is that the error margin is almost infinite if you try to extrapolate the behaviour of an entire species out of a population of two.

Or to put it another way, out of the 50% that have shown a predisposition for vengeance, 100% are dead. So there would be not threat left.

/M


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## Zimri (Mar 25, 2009)

hamishspence said:


> All right, so its a bit contrived. Still, the point is, situations where the survival of one necessitates the killing of the other are not all that implausible.
> 
> Two people (tourists?), trip into desert, car breakdown. Here, thirst can be much more pressing.
> 
> Or the classic Space dilemma- only enough air for one.




In the desert on earth assuming as the first premise did that help can be contacted then help is also much closer. any military and most hospitals/police departments should be able to get to someone well with 24 hours which according to the information I was quickly able to fish up is how long you can go under duress without water. Of course if they were in a car and even remotely prepared (and intelligent)they can make water in the desert.

In space the captain sends the two shuttlecraft with the remaining crew in opposite directions  while he hallucinates until help arrives, tries to kill him, he gets the part he needs then real help arrives.


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## billd91 (Mar 25, 2009)

Zimri said:


> So is V lying there ? We know through the comic that of all the representatives of this black dragon family at LEAST 50% of them prefer vengeance and going after family members. When dealing with your spouse and children is 50% an acceptable risk? It isn't for me.
> 
> She was protecting her family as best she could at the time given her mental state.
> 
> ...




If this becomes the standard, all we have to do is come up with a sufficiently tortured rationale for anything that a character does to classify it as not evil.

At some point, you just have to look at V's distraught emotions, faulty logic, lack of foresight, and call BS.


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## Krensky (Mar 25, 2009)

Zimri said:


> We have only seen any kind of actions , upon which to base conclusions from 2 the YABD and the ABD.
> 
> The ABD was appropriately smug through most of the encounter that I would have to think she didn't think to ask any family members aid. After all she was superior in intellect, cunning, had surprise on her side and was facing 1 wizard and 3 commoners.
> 
> I wonder why the oracle would mislead one of his own kind like that, was he perhaps instructed to by Tiamat ?




Two individuals is a meaningful sample of either an entire species or an entire family? 

And their actions justifies, no more then justifies, demands the death of their entire extended family who as far as we can tell had nothing to do with this?

V committed mass murder. That's an evil act.


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## Mort (Mar 25, 2009)

Maggan said:


> Sure, and her mental state = possessed by three supremely evil magic-users. That will factor in when V goes up for an alignment audit.
> /M




Of course so will the fact that he clearly chose to be posessed by evil magic users even when given a clearly viable and non-evil alternative (Which was the whole point V had to willingly choose the route of damnation, not be forced into it).


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## Maggan (Mar 25, 2009)

Mort said:


> Of course so will the fact that he clearly chose to be posessed by evil magic users even when given a clearly viable and non-evil alternative (Which was the whole point V had to willingly choose the route of damnation, not be forced into it).




Good point, although I could debate whether the other way was "clearly viable". 

/M


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## Zimri (Mar 25, 2009)

Krensky said:


> Two individuals is a meaningful sample of either an entire species or an entire family?
> 
> And their actions justifies, no more then justifies, demands the death of their entire extended family who as far as we can tell had nothing to do with this?
> 
> V committed mass murder. That's an evil act.




According to some people in key positions, holding degrees from very respected universities, yes a small subset is a valid sample.

We were shown through the actions of 50% of the black dragons who's actions we could measure that there would be revenge coming and it would be the escalating kind not the proportional kind. 

I put to you .. would you take that chance with YOUR family ?

The evil way of solving this .. Kill your own family so no one else can ever use them as leverage against you.


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## ProfessorCirno (Mar 26, 2009)

zimri said:


> according to some people in key positions, holding degrees from very respected universities, yes a small subset is a valid sample.



*
FFFFFFFFFFFF**

Hello there I work with the statistics in said positions with said degree holders in said universities and you are so very very very wrong it is making my blood boil.

*Edit: Tell you what, prove to me that the *entire population of black dragons* is about, let's say, _ten_, and you may have a point.


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## Zimri (Mar 26, 2009)

No politics.  ~ Piratecat


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 26, 2009)

Well it sounds like you are manipulating the forum rules about discussing politics to be able to skirt the discussion.  

You cannot in anyway connect what V did with any recent events involving the US and a middle eastern country.

If this is your stance, and you COULD give your full "real world example", it would be shot full of holes big enough to drive a tractor through.

EDIT:  Sorry to the mods and others for the hint of politics.  I am just tired of this "example" he talks about being used as rationale for some ridiculous statistical analogy.


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## Krensky (Mar 26, 2009)

Zimri said:


> According to some people in key positions, holding degrees from very respected universities, yes a small subset is a valid sample.




And they would be wrong, stupid, irrational, scared or some combination of the four. Their actions would quite likely have been immoral and potentially illegal as well, depending on the specific individual and which of their actions you wish to discuss.



Zimri said:


> We were shown through the actions of 50% of the black dragons who's actions we could measure that there would be revenge coming and it would be the escalating kind not the proportional kind.




It sounds meaningful when you use a percentage, rather then saying one of the two black dragons shown. If that was the entire population of black dragons, it might mean something. Nothing statistically meaningful, but something.




Zimri said:


> I put to you .. would you take that chance with YOUR family?




Wow.

If you want to play that game, fine.

No. I would not commit premeditated mass murder of people merely related by blood to someone who did or threatened to do bad things to my family because the might do something in retaliation. It would be illegal, unethical and more importantly, immoral. That sort of thinking has lead to massive amounts of suffering and horror throughout history, and never solved anything. Also, frankly, in my case it would take too long and my family would never speak to me again. Probably turn me in too. Respect for the rule of law and morality and all that.



Zimri said:


> The evil way of solving this .. Kill your own family so no one else can ever use them as leverage against you.




That would be evil too.


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## ProfessorCirno (Mar 26, 2009)

Zimri said:


> Professor I regret that I can not give you the real world example that I am falling back on of a few people in key positions, with doctorates deciding that 6 to 10 people of an origin reflected enough about said origin to do something orders of magnitude worse than varsuvius has done.




And I'm telling you that you're "making crap up."

Give me concrete evidence or stop pulling numbers out of thin air.  because you aren't just slightly off, you're _*completely wrong in every single way imaginable*_.  This isn't meant as an insult to you, though I'm certainly feeling it as an insult to myself and to everyone else that has ever even thought about working with statistics.  I'm simply stating that you are absolutely factually incorrect for *any* given value *of anything*.  Your words do not just lack meaning, they actually find other words that do have meaning and then murder them in a back alley with a rusty pipe over the head.  Your "example"...is the death of numbers.

See, I don't care what your real world "OH MAN I CAN'T SAY IT BUT I SURE WILL HINT AT IT WITH *EVERY SINGLE POST*" example is.  But when you claim that _two creatures_ are a good sample for an _entire species_?  I cannot - and I mean this literally, I _cannot_ - imagine how anyone could come to that logical conclusion.  My brain shuts down.  It refuses to comprehend it.

What I'm trying to say is, *stop talking about statistics if you seriously have no understanding as to what you're talking about.  You're making me and many others look bad.*


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## Mort (Mar 26, 2009)

Zimri said:


> According to some people in key positions, holding degrees from very respected universities, yes a small subset is a valid sample.




small yes; that small, not even close.



Zimri said:


> We were shown through the actions of 50% of the black dragons who's actions we could measure that there would be revenge coming and it would be the escalating kind not the proportional kind.
> 
> I put to you .. would you take that chance with YOUR family ?




Responding to evil with evil - is still evil.


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## Fenes (Mar 26, 2009)

hamishspence said:


> Actually, when its "you must die so I can live" an awful lot of the time, its Evil. If you go by BoVD:
> 
> "Sacrificing others to save yourself is an evil act."
> 
> ...




Those examples were used when I studied law. They are not textbook Evil, unless you consider our (western) set of laws to be evil.


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## Hussar (Mar 26, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> And I'm telling you that you're "making crap up."
> 
> Give me concrete evidence or stop pulling numbers out of thin air.  because you aren't just slightly off, you're _*completely wrong in every single way imaginable*_.  This isn't meant as an insult to you, though I'm certainly feeling it as an insult to myself and to everyone else that has ever even thought about working with statistics.  I'm simply stating that you are absolutely factually incorrect for *any* given value *of anything*.  Your words do not just lack meaning, they actually find other words that do have meaning and then murder them in a back alley with a rusty pipe over the head.  Your "example"...is the death of numbers.
> 
> ...




*wipes tear from eye*

Dude, that was a beautiful rant.  Nice.  I'd posrep, but I gotta spread the love around a bit more.  :thumbup:


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## resistor (Mar 26, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> And I'm telling you that you're "making crap up."
> 
> Give me concrete evidence or stop pulling numbers out of thin air.  because you aren't just slightly off, you're _*completely wrong in every single way imaginable*_.  This isn't meant as an insult to you, though I'm certainly feeling it as an insult to myself and to everyone else that has ever even thought about working with statistics.  I'm simply stating that you are absolutely factually incorrect for *any* given value *of anything*.  Your words do not just lack meaning, they actually find other words that do have meaning and then murder them in a back alley with a rusty pipe over the head.  Your "example"...is the death of numbers.
> 
> ...




*applauds*


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## Nymrohd (Mar 26, 2009)

Zimri your debating practices blow my mind away. Forcefully invoking a supposedly infallible yet unidentifiable source that perfectly supports your own position . . . maybe you should try strarting a religion next.


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## I'm A Banana (Mar 26, 2009)

> Those examples were used when I studied law. They are not textbook Evil, unless you consider our (western) set of laws to be evil.




I think for our purposes here, our western set of laws' morality is pretty irrelevant. They don't tell you what would or wouldn't be evil in D&D, just what is or is not legal in the real world (and as everyone knows, being legal and being moral are two entirely separate things). You can't use them as a way to judge whether or not D&D-verse (or the OotS-verse) would consider an act of Evil alignment or not. It's entirely possible -- and likely -- that certain evil actions are legal, and that certain good actions are illegal. The matrix doesn't mesh well enough for an accurate comparison.


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## Piratecat (Mar 26, 2009)

Haul the thread back on topic, please.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 26, 2009)

DELETED

Never mind.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 26, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> (and as everyone knows, being legal and being moral are two entirely separate things)




I teach business ethics, and you know, you'd be ASTOUNDED at the number of people who don't actually know that. But I agree with the general point.


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## hamishspence (Mar 26, 2009)

The comment about cases like these being in legal textbooks: what is the expected verdict- for killing someone in a lifeboat just before it casts off, in order to take their seat, when there are no seats left? 

Second degree murder? Manslaughter? Justifiable homicide?

I'm curious, because in Ayn Rand's _The Virtue of Selfishness_- the writer, who says there is nothing inherently good about altruism, and that self-centred behaviour is moral behaviour, also says- 

initiating an attack on someone, even in a survival situation, is morally wrong "the code of the cannibal", and that the "anything done to survive is moral"idea, is wrong.

She may have odd ideas, but here, doesn't seem quite so odd.

EDIT: On the Evilness, or lack of, for V's Act, maybe we should break down the reasons.

Evil: 
*Targeted non-combatants (dragon eggs)
*Killed beings with only regard for relationship with ABD- not for known crimes (not all evil beings have committed crimes that deserve death penalty
*Was motivated by revenge- family protection is only secondary

Non-evil:
*Targets were Always Evil creatures and Nearly Always Evil creatures
* was motivated by concern for others


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## Maggan (Mar 26, 2009)

hamishspence said:


> * was motivated by concern for others




I think this is one of the things I base my judgement on. From how I read the comic, V did not slay the dragons out of concern for others. That is mere pretext for vengeance and soothing her own injured pride. It is also in large part brought on by the hubris that V has projected since forever in OotS.

So for me this equals evil.

And this might be where the line is drawn in this debate. Those who are of the opinion that V did what she did out of concern for others, and those who are of the opinion that she didn't.

Depending on what side of the line you stand on, the verdict on her actions might look very different.

/M


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 26, 2009)

I think it could factor in, but even if I believed that V was acting totally out of concern for others, rather than revenge, I'd still argue that the act itself was inherently evil (in several respects).


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## Aran Thule (Mar 27, 2009)

Well ive finally finished reading OotS and can now give my opinion on V's actions....

Epic Evil, with a good dose of stupid.
I cant see Tiamat taking kindly to someone doing that to her children, i suspect the oracle will be passing on a few messages at the very least.

If V had done this in one of the games i am playing with then they could well have killed my character who is a paladin with a black dragon bloodline. (so i might be a little biased.

In reply to an earlier question asking 'have you had a paladin fall'...
No but my cleric twice fell from favor in Ravenloft, once for being present at an evil ceremony and doing nothing to stop it and the other for vengefully killing someone that had killed a companion.


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## jeffh (Mar 27, 2009)

Maggan said:


> And this might be where the line is drawn in this debate. Those who are of the opinion that V did what she did out of concern for others, and those who are of the opinion that she didn't.



Then the issue should be settled, considering that there was an entire strip devoted _specifically _to making it completely, unambiguously clear that s/he was _not_ motivated by concern for others. This is not a matter of opinion where both sides are equally valid. If there are people who think concern for others was on the table, they are just plain mistaken.


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## hamishspence (Mar 27, 2009)

well, latest episode does cement it: phrase V uses is "this is the price of threatening my family", not "this was the only way to ensure they will be safe"


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## merelycompetent (Mar 28, 2009)

IMC, extremely. Perhaps irredeemably.

See, when I start a campaign, I hand players a little handout that gives advice, lists house rules, and tries to set the expectations for the game.

One of those expectations is that the players are playing HEROES.

Heroes don't kill other intelligent beings because of their alignment. There are plenty of other reasons to kill them. One of the greatest victories a Hero can achieve is converting someone else's evil alignment to good.

Heroes sometimes (maybe often) take the dirty, pointy end of the stick in the face so that innocent bystanders (NPCs) don't have to.

Heroes don't kill other intelligent beings because of what they *might* do.
    Heroes can kill other intelligent beings because of that creature's stated intentions and plans.

Heroes take prisoners.

Heroes accept surrender of their opponents.

Heroes aren't required to be idiots.

Heroes aren't required to commit pointless suicide.

V didn't just kill that dragon.
S/He brought her back as an undead dragon head to torture.
S/He brought her back to wipe out her entire family.
    Only one of whom had ever expressed any hostility to him/her.
    A family that contained members that were not REQUIRED to be evil by RAW (the half-dragons).
    A family that contained members who were incapable of harming V in any way (the eggs).
    A family that contained members who had never expressed any hostility to V, ever.
S/He made a deal with ALL THREE epitomes of absolute evil - demons, daemons, and devils - to accomplish this goal.
S/He used protecting his/her family as an excuse, where only ONE dragon, defeated and slain, had ever attacked them. A quick disintegrate + gust of wind (or even a Wish, in V's current state) would have rendered that dragon as near to absolutely unable to come back, and harm him/her in any way, as it is possible to achieve within the game system.
S/He did it after the dragon was defeated, slain, brought back as an undead, and surrendered completely.

The good guys don't kill non-threatening creatures half a world away because they *might* pose a threat in the future.

The good guys don't wipe out an entire bloodline because they *might* seek vengeance.

The good guys, their families, and loved ones have to live with some risks. (Just like the bad guys, their families, and loved ones have to live with some risks.) A "might" isn't enough risk to justify mass killing, and remain morally or ethically good within the game system.

What V did is one step short of genocide. 

It should be treated as such.

IMC, the player would get several warnings - "Are you sure you want to do this? You do know that creating undead is an evil act? You do know that you have no idea if this dragon's family contains any non-evil members, like a half-dragon paladin? If your spell kills any innocent bystanders, your alignment will go evil. Innocent bystanders includes dragons still in the egg shell, because they can't threaten you or your family."

If the player's character does it, instant evil. Soul successfully tempted, doomed to the lower planes. PC is now at the #1 Most Wanted spot for many good temples... and evil temples. Heck, they'll actually work together to end the threat.

I look forward to seeing how Mr. Burlew handles this story. I'm especially looking forward to Roy's reaction, and his actions. I mean, I didn't think any of the characters could surpass Belkar for outright bloody, murderous, uncaring evil. Nothing like a little Faustian corruption to prove me wrong!


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## Vegepygmy (Mar 28, 2009)

hamishspence said:


> The comment about cases like these being in legal textbooks: what is the expected verdict- for killing someone in a lifeboat just before it casts off, in order to take their seat, when there are no seats left?



There might be a jurisdictional issue if you're in international waters, and I don't know the first thing about maritime law, but as far as western law (i.e., English common law and that derived from it), they're textbook examples of _murder_, so I don't know what point Fenes was trying to make.

Yes, I am a lawyer. A criminal prosecutor, in fact.


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## hamishspence (Mar 28, 2009)

"Is there a criminal lawyer in this town?"
"We think so, but we can't prove it." 

Sorry, the joke just sprung to mind.

That said, BoVD stresses that all killings that are murder, are evil, as does Fiendish Codex 2. However BoVD makes a rather generous definition of murder implying that "irredeemably evil" creatures are excluded, and that it tends to have "nefarious motives"

However, in this context, I'd say "I want to survive" can actually be pretty nefarious.
A signature I saw said: "Look after number one" is not evil. Evil is "look after number one while crushing number two" And here, i'd say the acts fit that definition.

And also, since the so-called "iredeemably evil" dragons have been shown in various supplements to not be such, I'd say they aren't covered by the "iredeemably evil" excuse.

(Going by Half-dragon entry in MM, "Alignment: same as the base creature" should have an "Often" in it, since the sample half-black dragon is described as Often CE in its entry)

BoVD: "Sacrificing others to save yourself is an evil act. Its a hard standard, but thats the way it is."


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## Fenes (Mar 28, 2009)

Vegepygmy said:


> There might be a jurisdictional issue if you're in international waters, and I don't know the first thing about maritime law, but as far as western law (i.e., English common law and that derived from it), they're textbook examples of _murder_, so I don't know what point Fenes was trying to make.
> 
> Yes, I am a lawyer. A criminal prosecutor, in fact.




I am a laywer too, and if the _only _way to save yourself is to kill someone else, then it isn't murder. The lifeboat situation is not as clear cut as this, but if there's just one floating device, and it can just carry one, and there are two who cannot swim on it, then both can drown the other one without committing murder.

One actual case was when a man was trying to kill his wife, she was fleeing, and ran over an old woman on the stairs in their house, which got killed by the fall - this was no murder.

The point I am making is that you're not expected to die for others, and to save yourself you have the right to kill others - if that's the _only _way to save yourself.


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## hamishspence (Mar 28, 2009)

Way I see it is- its a case of finders keepers- first to the lifebelt gets it, and killing someone else to save your own life- when the other person has not used violence toward you, is at best manslaughter and at worst murder.

Same would apply if its two divers underwater, and one has just discovered his bottle is completely bust and he cannot get to surface without the other diver's bottle (and there is not enough to divide between the two) Yes, it would be incompentence, but still applies.

Or any other "only enough resources for one" situation- if the other person is already in possession of the resources, killing them to get the life-saving resources is murder.


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## Vegepygmy (Mar 28, 2009)

Fenes said:


> I am a laywer too, and if the _only _way to save yourself is to kill someone else, then it isn't murder.



Sorry, but that's just flat-out wrong.  See here: "Duress is no defence to murder, attempted murder, or treason involving the death of the sovereign... In cases where the choice is between the threat of death or serious injury and deliberately taking an innocent life, a reasonable man might reflect that one innocent human life is at least as valuable as his own or that of his loved one. In such a case a man cannot claim that he is choosing the lesser of two evils."



			
				Fenes said:
			
		

> The lifeboat situation is not as clear cut as this, but if there's just one floating device, and it can just carry one, and there are two who cannot swim on it, then both can drown the other one without committing murder.



That's because there is no "malice aforethought," not because one person's life is more valuable than another's.  In the lifeboat situation, there is no culpable mental state--no _mens rea_--that would make the act criminal.



			
				Fenes said:
			
		

> One actual case was when a man was trying to kill his wife, she was fleeing, and ran over an old woman on the stairs in their house, which got killed by the fall - this was no murder.



Correct.  Again, because there was no "malice aforethought."

This is a very different situation than the "shoot a person to make room on a lifeboat" and "bash your fellow shipwreck survivor to avoid sharing water" examples hamishspence described.  In _those_ situations, there is very clearly sufficient opportunity for the actor to reflect upon what he is about to do, and a decision to abandon the pursuit of alternative remedies.  In _those_ situations, the act _is_ performed with "malice aforethought," and the actor would be guilty of murder.



> The point I am making is that you're not expected to die for others, and to save yourself you have the right to kill others - if that's the _only _way to save yourself.



You are not expected to die for others, but _neither are they expected to die for you,_ and you have no right _to weigh the relative value of two lives and make a decision_ as to which one shall prevail.  There is no "right to kill others" if that's the only way to save yourself, because who is to say that you have perceived the situation correctly?  Maybe there _is_ another way to save yourself, but you haven't discovered it yet (in the shipwreck situation, perhaps, unbeknownst to you, a rescue ship will arrive before your shared water supply runs out...or maybe there's a natural spring somewhere on the island, but you haven't found it yet).


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## Fenes (Mar 28, 2009)

If you have to push someone down a stairs to escape, there's no "maybe". It doesn't matter if accept or expect beforehand that the person may die as a result of your action, or don't consider that outcome - it's not murder.

I am very glad I am not living in England or anywhere else where common law applies then, since I consider a law that makes me in some situations face either a murder charge or death plain evil.


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## Vegepygmy (Mar 28, 2009)

Fenes said:


> If you have to push someone down a stairs to escape, there's no "maybe".



I didn't say there was a "maybe." I said there was definitely no "malice aforethought." That seems to be what you're not grasping.

The law recognizes that shooting someone in a lifeboat to make room for yourself is _evil,_ and it calls that evilness "malice aforethought." The law also recognizes that shoving someone aside in your panicked flight out of a burning building is _not_ evil; it's just human frailty.



			
				Fenes said:
			
		

> It doesn't matter if accept or expect beforehand that the person may die as a result of your action, or don't consider that outcome - it's not murder.



Yeah, actually, that's what separates us from beasts: our ability to consider beforehand the consequences of our actions. Well, that and _hopefully_ a sense of decency toward our fellow man.



			
				Fenes said:
			
		

> I am very glad I am not living in England or anywhere else where common law applies then, since I consider a law that makes me in some situations face either a murder charge or death plain evil.



We _all_ face death, my friend. I guess what makes the difference is _how_ we choose to face it.


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## DM-Rocco (Mar 28, 2009)

Jeff Wilder said:


> From Rich Burlew's "Order of the Stick" ongoing web-comic, strip 639:
> 
> Under _your_ D&D's alignment system, was V's act evil?  (If you don't play D&D, or use alignment, just answer using your best knowledge of "D&D morality.)



The link appears broken.  Is there another place to read it?


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 28, 2009)

Well in some states in the United States, isn't there also a consideration of "reckelss disregard for human life," which would qualify an act as murder? In such a case, i could imagine a jury determining that pushing down the woman would qualify as "reckless disregard"

Also, if you're pushing her down in order to commit murder of someone else, woudln't the felony murder rule apply?


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## Nymrohd (Mar 28, 2009)

How would it qualify as reckless? Reckless implies indifference to consequences. And I think the poor old lady got pushed down during the frantic flight of the victim of the attempt.

What is reasonable conduct, let alone moral, while under duress is an often heated and certainly involved debate and to my understanding it always boils down to whether one human life can ever be weighted against another. Trying to reform that debate and apply it in the reality defined by D&D is infinitely more complicated.


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## jeffh (Mar 28, 2009)

DM-Rocco said:


> The link appears broken.  Is there another place to read it?



It works fine for me.


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## Vegepygmy (Mar 28, 2009)

Remus Lupin said:


> Well in some states in the United States, isn't there also a consideration of "reckelss disregard for human life," which would qualify an act as murder?



Yes. Reckless disregard comes into play where there is no intent to kill, but the act is so obviously dangerous to human life that proceeding anyway is equivalent to intending to kill.

The classic example is someone who plants a bomb to destroy a building, then leaves it to explode at some later time. He doesn't know if anyone will be around when it goes off, and he _doesn't care_. Even though he has no specific intent to kill anyone, the law says that his _reckless disregard_ for possible human victims counts just the same.



			
				Remus Lupin said:
			
		

> In such a case, i could imagine a jury determining that pushing down the woman would qualify as "reckless disregard"



No, not really. One has to be in an appropriate mental condition to be _aware_ of the danger to human life, and callously disregard it. The panicked victim trying to escape her attacker isn't in such a mental state, so "reckless disregard" wouldn't apply.



			
				Remus Lupin said:
			
		

> Also, if you're pushing her down in order to commit murder of someone else, woudln't the felony murder rule apply?



You may be thinking of "transferred intent."  But that doesn't really apply, either.  What you're describing would just be murder in its own right.


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## Krensky (Mar 29, 2009)

Fenes said:


> If you have to push someone down a stairs to escape, there's no "maybe". It doesn't matter if accept or expect beforehand that the person may die as a result of your action, or don't consider that outcome - it's not murder.
> 
> I am very glad I am not living in England or anywhere else where common law applies then, since I consider a law that makes me in some situations face either a murder charge or death plain evil.




I general, in the US, you are right (actual answer depends on the details and jurisdiction. Murder, as a charge, requires intent to kill, malice aforethought or not. If malice is present, it's a worse crime. Unlawful killing without intent is manslaughter, with a number of variations depending on the details and jurisdiction.

Someone fleeing in a panic from mortal danger (assuming they're not fleeing a crime scene) knocking someone over who then dies could be charged as manslaughter, depending on the specific circumstance. Most likely, from the example given, it sounds like the death would be ruled an accident and no charges would be filed.

And frankly, I've always found the fiddly, nitpicking, bureaucratic precision of civil-law a far bigger turn off then common law's happy relation with natural law and morality and assumption that if you commit a crime you should admit it and ask for mercy.


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## orsal (Mar 29, 2009)

Zimri said:


> > Originally Posted by Krensky
> > Two individuals is a meaningful sample of either an entire species or an entire family?
> 
> 
> ...




I wouldn't be surprised if there are some who believe that. But I can assure you, they aren't the ones who have ever taken a first course in statistics.

As someone who teaches (among other things) basics stats, let me explain: the way statisticians measure the strength of an inference is to say: what range of possibilities would make it plausible that the result actually observed happened by chance?

If only 10% of of family members are [fill in the blank], the probability that the only two observed would show it, would be 1%. That's unlikely, so you can say with confidence that more than 10% of the family members are [fill in the blank].

But what if 30% of family members were [fill in the blank]? Then the probability that a sample of two were both [fill in the blank] would be up to 9%. That's usually not considered statistically significant. So statisticians would allow that the actual percentage might be as low as 30%.

Traditionally, the most commonly used significance level is 5%. That means you allow any possibility which makes the probabiity calculated above at least 5%. For a sample of 2, anything from 22% to 100% is consistent with what the sample shows.


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## insanogeddon (Mar 30, 2009)

*much adoo..*

The dnd allignment system as some mention is explicit, evil and good are forces with MORE weight than matter.  They actually can dictate matters form... entire infinite planes in fact.

V willingly turned to evil forces to get a task done.  Thats inately evil in dnd no matter what the trade off.  Lets face it sooner or later (eventually) any falsely trapped souls are released and then get to go to their heaven
V offered his soul.  So the most eternal and sacred thing possesed he offered to evil.
He had a way to suceed that involved sacrifice (good) by decapitating himself but his arrogance and ego (evil to consider self over others) made him a mewling slave to it.
He took great joy evil vs necessity :good) in the act gloating like a imature twit.
He went out of his way to extend and torture the creature(?i wonder).
Not once did he consider/protect others/his family but as a pre-emptive excuse (a prismatic sphere over his family would have been a sensible back up)
He cast an epic EVIL spell.

On so many accounts is he evil I would say its evil and chaotic to NOT think so.. but that would no doubt make many get all squooshy inside.


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