Good Aligned Characters

[*Mr_Otyugh]

If a human cuts down a forest is it good or evil?

Incase of Easter Island, I'd call it mostly "suicide", but eh!

[*rapsam2003]

It tends to be the case no amount of rules or debating fixes it if your fiction actually hurts another player.

This why a lot of good PnP DMs tend to have extra rules that boil down to "Don't be a f*cking dick!". I mean, seriously, people don't know how to do this without rules. It's sad.

Is a paladin slaughtering a village of evil or neutral humans good or evil?

It's pretty obvious that an act of murder is an evil thing and the paladin won't stay a paladin for very long doing this kind of things.

This is kind of how 2E treated Paladins. They were basically supposed to attack evil on sight. You literally couldn't have an evil party member in the same party as a paladin.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

SCoD steered clear from the "Don't be a ****" rule actually. It's generally chanted too easily, and too open to interpretation. Me, I prefer rules with actual context, but not enough specific to open up into ruleplaying.

And it's both true and wrong when you say that rules can't address everything people can take a personal offense from. In isolated cases it is generally solved between players themselves, the default assumption is that the players are mature enough to both explain their case, but not force it upon each other and learn to find some common ground. If it fails and it cannot be sorted out by mutually ignoring each other, then the matter can be put forth as griefing which is actually in the rules. Which is mostly the same as the first case solution, except a more authorative figure tells people to behave unless it's deemed that further actions are required. :P

[*Mander]

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/201 ... gygax.html

[*Hydra]

Nor you'll convince many people that this statement is evil, it's just pure stupidity.

Whereas "stupidity" is subjective term too. We call "stupid" person, who does not share our own (certainly smartest) point of view as some "last retort". If ask me - best way to loose a debate is to call opponent "stupid".

In most cases, people call "stupid" those matters, they poorly understand themselves.

I fully understand you're just trolling with your political innuendos, and nobody cares.

[*Taihou]

I fully understand you're just trolling with your political innuendos, and nobody cares.

Will leave speaking on behalf of everyone as well as ad hominem and ad personam arguments to thine own conscience, but as for thine opinion, I do not care too.

I won't repeat this twice nor will I begin to prove the opposite, but will just say, that I am not trolling and in what I say, I am absolutely sincere. I say how I really feel, that is it. Hope this is simple and comprehensible statement enough to cover this topic and not return to it anymore.

[*MimiFearthegn]

"Case number 647993872902768574, it says here in the court documents you found a loophole in your diabolic contract and masterfully outplayed your patron. The contract is therefore void. However, afterwards you called your patron a "soul sucking hellspawn". This is hate speech, so you are hereby damned to the pit of eternal fire. Have a pleasant eternity."

Oh noes ! Diabolic justice warriors !

:lol:

[*Embersworn]

Heh.

Issuing a statement that is at least partially equal to: "homosexual characters can't be of Good alignment" isn't exactly free of projecting IRL personal values as well, not any more than someone projecting modern SJW values into their RP, so...

Unless the sodomy part was about its more, ekhm, animal-related definition, then yeah I suppose it works.

But the way how D&D morality axles are working, how promiscuous or kinky the character is has absolutely zero impact on their standing on the Good<->Evil scale as long as there's a mutual consent between involved individuals.

A straight character who's (ab)using sexuality the same way Succubi or Brachinas are doing will be counted as being on the "Evil" end of the spectrum, whilst a homosexual character who's involved into romantic relationships will be either "Neutral" or "Good" depending on how deep and sefless their emotional engagement is.

That's how this system works because it's a very simple setup: selfless - "Good", selfish - "Evil".

Fiends sleep around more than Celestials do because Lower Planars take it casually and with no emotional bound, and abuse the temptation to lure mortals into their fall.

Angels usually don't sleep around because the amount of pure emotional involvement required for them is not something happening very often - they have to be in love.

Still, an Angel or an Asura who's a messenger to deities like Aphrodite, Sharess or Sune could be a quite "liberated" individual as long as the're with a conseting partner.

[*Taihou]

For example let us take objectively selfless character, devoted to ideals of Greater Good, who really does not want anything for himself, just to save the world, but for his mission, he forsakes mercy and compassion and begins to vivisection sentient beings, destroy whole settlements to root out whatever is cause of possible disaster and so on, thus committing what most would describe as "atrocities". Is he "still good"?

What I was saying, that there are two systems of "good" and "evil" when it comes to DnD - one is "mechanical", which is some kind of OOC driver. It could be represented not necessarily by selfishness, as example above shows us, that there are loads of ways to make character be nice, selfless and with wholly good intentions, but system-wise "evil", second is In-character, or actual one, which does take into account, what character would think of others and what is the basis of taking the decisions, which would in turn rely on some understanding of "sin" and "virtue" to set up some more suitable system of In-character rights and wrongs from the in-character point of view.

P. S. As for DnD evil/good and selfishness, by the way, person who defies rules of nature and remains in claws of his base desires is selfish, thus evil, whatever he will mask it as.

[*Sinlinara]

Taihou, I understand that you're being sincere and that's what really worries me.


Regardless, within the Planescape setting how lustful someone is or what sexual acts they perform (excepting violent acts like rape) has ABSOLUTELY no bearing on whether or not they are considered a member of their alignment. So if you say that someone does not belong to their chosen alignment for those reasons then you are categorically mistaken REGARDLESS of what your subjective view of morality may be.

Now, within other settings you may be correct. You are also welcome to hold those views in the real world. But Planescape does not work that way.

In Planescape, and in 3rd Edition in general, "Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others."
In contrast, "Evil implies harming, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient or if it can be set up. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some malevolent deity or master."

Please note that it says nothing about sexuality, sexual acts, or sexual desires.



Now, I'm sure you're going to make an argument about Succubi and Incubi. I want to head that off before you begin. It is not sexual desire or unconventional sexual acts that make them demonic. It is the extreme degree to which they take it, I.E. Rape and violence, and the fact that they lure people into performing true acts of evil, like murder and torture, that make them demons.

Yes, sexuality is involved but it's not because of the sexuality that they are Evil. They are Evil because they drain the life-essence of those that they lie with. They are Evil because they manipulate others into performing Evil actions -- not "sodomy", mind you -- think more along the lines of raping someone, torturing them in ways that aren't appropriate for discussion on this forum and which would make even the most extreme of fetish porn look like a light spanking, and then finishing by sacrificing them to an evil patron.


Being a little overly flirty and doing a bit of tongue-loving on the side doesn't even come close to truly being Evil. It is to what ends and purposes you use them that makes one Good or Evil. If you are flirting or performing sexual acts with someone because you both have a love for the other then that's generally within the realm of Good. If it turns into rape or leads to some other act of violence, oppression, or murder... then you're decidedly Evil. Not because you performed a sexual act, but because you did something Evil.