Gods_Trick wrote:What does this mean? Rascism and gay bashing are evil acts in our world, despite knowing both perpetrators do love somebody, just not funny coloured or gay dudes.
It is very important to understand that good and evil have specific meanings and cannot be confused with general notions of good and bad. The basic D&D definition of "evil" is where you put the needs of the self ahead of the others. It it not sufficient to hurt the innocent; you must also be doing so in order for self gain.
The earthquake kills many innoconents: The earth is not evil.
The driver goes into "road rage" and creates an accident that kills people: That driver clearly did not do that because of his own self gain, therefore he is not evil for doing so.
Remember that under this definition "not good" doesn't mean "evil." Just because something isn't evil doesn't mean it's not bad.
Racism and gay bashing are clearly "not good" clearly "bad" clearly "wrong." Are they evil? Well, no actually. Unless you are using racism and gay bashing for personal gain, it doesn't really count as "team evil."
...
Now on to greed. Greed is "vague."
Gordon Gecko is clearly evil, as he will easily put his own desire for gain above everything else. However, his attitude is more than just "greed" and includes a complete lack of any morals.
Daffy Duck, on the other hand is massively greedy (he will run towards a pile of gold and chase everyone else away from it saying that's it is his and will also brutally assault the genie of the lamp because he thinks he is trying to get his "treasure") but in no way, shape of form anything remotely evil.
(Remember the Christian notion of "evil" is that which keeps us from doing "good." Greed is the same type of "evil" as "gluttony" and "sloth.")
Could you qoute where in a D&D book they say you need personal gain to be evil. I've seen several arguments of Chaotic Evil as the bikers that destroy stuff for fun and shoot people who've 'dissed' them. No personal gain, but dude, thats either evil or you're worldview excerpts hoorific acts and excuses them as Neutral because they're not selfish.
And Daffy is evil, hes just portrayed comedically. List his actions and the Duck is not Good.
Fuchs wrote:
If you're playing the amoral mercenaries trying to survive and thrive in a civil war fought with magic then an unflexible lawful stupid paladin might be inacceptable.
Funny you mention that, since I intend to be running a 3.5/Tome-ish game at some point, and I had in mind I wouldn't mind evil PC's so much. Course, that would likely work out for the reason of it assuming have allegiance to an essentially evil faction (or chaotic themed rather).
As for evil characters being possible, well so long as I think they agree to not be disruptive to the group, causing infighting among comrades, splitting the party, otherwise harming the cooperative experience, I think it's all good. What it means to be evil, well I do agree with it being the whole selfishness bit, more adverse to the darker side of things I guess. Threads like these tend to befuddle me after awhile on the what the hell evil is.
What I find wrong w/ 4th edition: "I want to stab dragons the size of a small keep with skin like supple adamantine and command over time and space to death with my longsword in head to head combat, but I want to be totally within realistic capabilities of a real human being!" --Caedrus mocking 4rries
"the thing about being Mister Cavern [DM], you don't blame players for how they play. That's like blaming the weather. Weather just is. You adapt to it. -Ancient History
Gods_Trick wrote:Could you qoute where in a D&D book they say you need personal gain to be evil.
Unfortunately alignments are described solely in terms of actions and not in motivations. This generally continues until an article in Dragon sometime during 2E in the 1990's that described alignments in terms of priorities. Unfortunately I can't remember the exact issue. Note also that in 1E there is a problem with the general description of Chaotic Neutral that leads one to confuse the alignment with downright insane. 1E also suffers from definition deficiency in that it defines the "evil" alignments as promoters of "evil" but never describes precisely what evil is.
And if you think that is a problem, consider that True Neutral is described as being both an active attempt to bring the alignments to balance and the asbense of any alignment (or intelligence) whatsoever. Druids and animals are both "neutral" but as different as night and day.
Gods_Trick wrote:I've seen several arguments of Chaotic Evil as the bikers that destroy stuff for fun and shoot people who've 'dissed' them.
I would argue that "fun" is in fact a gain and in fact a personal one. Killing for the thrill of it, is killing because one wants to maximize ones thrill. Personal gain does not mean financial. Honor and pleasure are as much things to "gain" as wealth.
Gods_Trick wrote:I've seen several arguments of Chaotic Evil as the bikers that destroy stuff for fun and shoot people who've 'dissed' them.
I would argue that "fun" is in fact a gain and in fact a personal one. Killing for the thrill of it, is killing because one wants to maximize ones thrill. Personal gain does not mean financial. Honor and pleasure are as much things to "gain" as wealth.
So ... I'm not refuting you, but both your points and mine are articles of belief. I've have the pleasure to enjoy games where Hate & Greed are validly Evil. Also, D&D has absolute Good/Evil without examining motivation, which makes me think attributing gains to diverege from their model, as you recommend.
Gods_Trick wrote:I've seen several arguments of Chaotic Evil as the bikers that destroy stuff for fun and shoot people who've 'dissed' them.
I would argue that "fun" is in fact a gain and in fact a personal one. Killing for the thrill of it, is killing because one wants to maximize ones thrill. Personal gain does not mean financial. Honor and pleasure are as much things to "gain" as wealth.
Yeah, and then you could get into ideas like ethical or psychological egoism, and just say that people should, or will always do what's best for themselves, and then concepts like personal gain become essentially meaningless.
I'm not saying that having ideas like good and evil in D&D can't help to conveniently categorize PCs and NPCs, but I don't think personal gain has much of a factor in any of that.
