Ask Arkanis

[DM Arkanis]

Late to the show, but great thread Arkanis. I have questions for you oh great philosophizer extraordinaire

In video games, books, movies and history, the story of how good men and women become evil is told and retold. However, it is very rare that an evil person ever becomes good. Is this evidence that people are born inherently good or does society teach people to be good until something breaks? Which is more worthy of remembrance, a story of falling from grace or a tale of redemption?

First let me start by saying that the concept of good and evil is situational. History can recount stories of terrible events that today we would consider evil, but at the time they might have been thought of as completely normal. Living here in North America we tend to filter our paradgm of good and evil through our societal Judeo-Christian heritage (whether we believe their religious tenets or not) and so we have normalized, for our society and culture, the boundaries of what is good and what is evil, with some grey in the middle/up for discussion.

I believe we are born with an inherrent sense of self preservation, that is to say consciously or not we want to stay alive. Staying alive is easier when people are not trying to kill each other for food, water, or possessions so humanity has over the centuries made laws and organized civilizations around them. The definitions of good and evil don't apply where there are no standards therefore. We can impose our standards and make judgements, but knowing if someone is truly good and does evil things or is just plain evil becomes very hard to discern. I hate myself for making this reference but Anakin Skywalker, after turning to the dark side, tells Padme that from his perspective the Jedi are evil.

I also believe that even operating by accepting society's over-arching system of rules, there become sub systems in groups/gangs/communities underneath this that operate with their own set of by-laws. I am thinking here of gangsters/train robbers - they steal money and valuable items and use it to buy other items. They don't steal a car, they steal the money to buy the car. They still operate within the framework of the society, but have their own subset of rules. Society has no problem with them buying cars, but it does have a problem with them shooting people and robbing them to do it. We have adapted our cultures and societies over the years to accept a certain amount of rule/law breaking, but again there are limits to it, and definitions of whether someone is good or evil because they break the rules becomes convoluded because you have to take many things into consideration: what was their infraction? serious (ie murder) or not so much (speeding in the car by 10mph)? are they likely to do it again? are they likely to do worse things? and (now to your question) can they be redeemed/rehabilitated?

It has been my personal experience and observation that nearly everyone can change. You can take a very good person and make him evil, or a very evil person and make her good. Some situations are more difficult than others and may take longer, but it is possible to change them. The secret to changing them lies in how convincing your message of change is to them. A normally good person isnt likely to murder another person because you offer them a fresh coffee and donut, but they might murder another person if that other person raped their child, for example. How convinced are you to act the way you do? For some it is weighing the consequenses - "I dont want to go to jail so I dont steal" for example. For others it is a matter of a personal code of ethics that they adhere to either on their own or within a community of like minded people. Some people are lonely and would love to have a friend and would do just about anything to find a friend. Strength of conviction in a particular belief or action therefore will determine the success or failure of change or as you said, redemption.

We love our movie stars, atheletes, heroes, but we also love to see them fall from grace. Think of all the stories you can of popular figures who shed their goody goody personas for that of an outcast - there are many. Once they have fallen, redemption is possible, but for most they lose the glamour they had as a star and become "normal" people again. If they build themselves back up, it is considered a success story and they are usually lauded once more - it is in our nature as a society to forgive them, but they have to earn it. The tale of redemption can only take place if someone has fallen from grace OR had a realization that they have not been living up to their potential; the two suppositions are symbiotic in nature. The story of falling and rising again is indeed a popular theme, and the one our culture loves the most is the one with the happy ending - the person makes amends, moves on, lives a better life, etc.

Two winters ago I went to Punta Canna in the Domincan Republic for a holiday. I go every winter for a week or two, usually to different resorts, and this one was fairly large (4000+ people) and had lots of activities/day trips. I went on one of these day trips on a large katamaran with my GF at the time. We sailed for hours then went to a beach where they fed us and we could swim. I am not a huge fan of being in the direct sunlight for prolonged periods of time so I lay on a lounge about 30 yards or so from the water and had (several) cold drinks... A commotion started on the beach a ways down and a woman was dragged from the water, lifeless. I sat there and watched a crowd of manybe ten people stand around her lying there and they weren't doing anything. I couldn't believe that no one was helping her. After what seemed like an eternity, a speedboat came in and they took the woman away at high speed. Then it hit me. I too sat there and did absolutely nothing. I have advanced first aid and CPR training (same as paramedics have) and I sat there and did nothing. After the fact, when were were back at the resort my GF tried to console me - I had been drinking (a lot) and there were others there, and that someone must have helped her. Her rationalizations didn't help me at all, and I came home with a broken heart and a bruised spirit. Last year I returned to the Carribean, to Cuba this time, and I thought about what had happened the winter before. Four or five nights into the trip I was sitting in a large, open air restaurant listening to the waves hit the beach, the wind blowing through the curtains, the conversations of the other diners and looking at my GF. A band of five musicians was going table to table playing songs, and when they got to us I asked for some Buena Vista Social Club music and they were fantastic. One of the musicians, patted me on the shoulder (after I tipped him) and said, "Senor, it will be all right." I had no idea what he meant. They moved to the next table and played, "Time To Say Goodbye" which was popularized by Andrea Bocelli about ten years ago. The song hit me like a wall of water, and the tears rolled down my cheeks. My GF asked if I was ok, and I said, "I am now!" The combination of the location, atmosphere, and that song finally broke into my heart and I forgave myself for not trying to save that woman. It was liberating. That musician looked at me when the song was over, and gave me a wave, and a wink. I think he knew I needed to hear it.

Ark

[DM Nilbog]

The above post is a great +1

I just want to say what Ark is talking about at the end i think events like this in life prepare us for what we are meant to do in the future. It may sound like a huge bowl a cheese but reading what Ark went through I am willing to bet without a doubt in the future if something tragic like that should occur again that Ark steps up and does what he was meant to do in that situation. He had the peace of mind to let that bother him for way longer than it should have and in it's own way molded him into a slightly different version of what he is today. Reading things like this and how it turned out gives me hope that people can be truly good.

nice nilbog. elric page

ever read the crossover with conan the barbarian?

No but i did read the one in tales of the white wolf where a stoner teams up with Elric and Jimi Hendrix to fight evil sorcerers.

[Azmodeth]

nice nilbog. elric page

ever read the crossover with conan the barbarian?

Actually had some Conan comics, but I don't think any where any crossovers that I recognized..

[ohboy007]

Nice Arkanis, it's refreshing to hear some nuanced logic about social deviance that isn't centered on the archaic notions of good and evil portrayed in the US media ad nauseum. My father had a similar story in Vietnam where he convinced himself that he shot this Vietcong teenage soldier to save the kid some misery his US captors, my father’s own "teammates" and the "good guys", were causing him through torture. My father never shot that kid and it took him 20 years to come to terms with it. At the time he was scared for his own life; for if "good men" could do this to a captured POW, what would they do to him? Is my Dad evil?

This is why I particularly love R.A. Salvatore's work. Call Drizzt a snowflake all you want, he is still a deep and complex character. His other creation, Artemis, is a one of the most popular villains because through his revealed background, you later see how society and fate created the cold calculating killer that he became. Abandoned as a child and left to a pedophile, Artemis endured a harsh childhood and was seriously dismayed with a certain temple and it's priests. What Artemis hated most were hypocrites. These priests held the reverence, respect, and thus the power and influence to take advantage of the poor and powerless.

These men called themselves moral, but when no one looked, they did the most dishonorable acts. Artemis, growing up in this context, only had certain reference points of morality to emulate and as poor orphan, had to learn how to cannibalize his fellow people in order to survive and reach the top. Artemis, surrounded with all this immorality, had developed a certain moral lens with which to look at the world, but that lens blinded him and he failed to see that not all people acted like this.

Artemis struggled with who he is, had to climb his way from filth and poverty to the top, and with his horrid past, this truly makes him seem accessible, relatable, and human to readers. It's the same reason people "like" or admire the villains Scarface, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, classic mobsters, and more modern gangsters as portrayed in cultural popular music and movies. There is something to their characters that the audience can relate to and see as their own frustrations with certain authority figures for instance.

Many people hated the banks before and during the turn of the century due to their fraudulence (hm, why does this sound familiar?...) and financial raping/pillaging of the American people. So many villains like Billy, like Jesse, like the bootlegging mobsters of fame, earned some "respect" through their devious works partially because many saw them as rebels and just doing the same thing as the law or establishment and were bucking the system.

Artemis went to kill those priests because he couldn't stand their hypocrisy as some got away with the vilest acts. Many of our leaders in the 1st world could be called out for hypocritical acts of needless violence and have been, are they evil? Are the Hedge Funds and central banks that run the world and are committing financial murder everyday just so their stock prices go up a fraction of a point evil? Is Steve Jobs evil for knowing he could have very well made those apple products here in the US, but instead shipping those jobs to China? A county where many brutally work like slaves and some companies have to actually install suicide nets to catch the alienated/clinically depressed workers?

Are we all evil for allowing sweat shop little girls and boys to slave away in dangerous conditions so we can have our Nikes and electronics for slightly cheaper? It seems good and evil are very relative and are not even worth discussing but only in metaphorical terms and for storytelling purposes. For policies to remedy socially labeled acts of deviance, one must discuss a fairer distribution and access to benefits that do not cause such extreme inequality, and thus, sow the seeds of strife to produce the deviant behaviors in the first place.

The social sciences’ studies paint a pretty clear picture of what causes social deviance AKA evil acts. As for why people like or find certain villains appealing, I think it’s both a humanizing factor in their character, and perhaps the villains acting out the audiences own frustrations with certain powers, establishment figures, and organizations.

[Rasael]

Many of our leaders in the 1st world could be called out for hypocritical acts of needless violence and have been, are they evil?

My opinion: Yes

If you do not strive for the common good, by in-action or willing deviation therefrom, then you are being evil. This means that you do evil if don't serve both components of the "common good". Being that it must be common to all, and not just a few, your electorate, company, or country. And secondly that the intent must be good, to the benefit everyone in the previously mentioned group.

I specifically say intent, because intent governs the distinction between reasoning and result. The result might be bad, but can't be evil if the intent was good. Then its simply "failed good". But if the intent was evil, then the result is also inevitably evil if it succeeds. Or failed evil, if it doesn't.

So: Politicians and company executives are in a profession which pushes them to inherently evil behaviour. Most professions that deal with quantities of power are like that, because power is always focussed on a certain group. With which I mean that it is almost always at odds with the first element of the "common good". (its not for all of us: only for that group you have power over)

It is quite difficult for an executive or politician to draw a line when his self interest, or the self interest of a company or country is at odds with the common good. It is the hallmark of great leaders that they manage to do that. The power doesn't corrupt them.

Now the biggest difficulty ethically is to explain why the "common good" qualifies as something that is "good". And why "evil" is the opposite or absence of that. That's quite a philosophical exercise

You get into the issue of whether good or evil are relative or objective. The "common good" kind of straddles this distinction. Its objectified subjective, perhaps even objective. But I won't go there. Its too philosophical.

[DM Arkanis]

An interesting argument Rasael - allow me to rebutt

There is a slippery slope with the argument surrounding the common good and using it as a judge as to whether an action is good or evil – can we define what is common and what is good? To define something as evil because it does not benefit 100% of people would mean that pretty much every action or direction taken by all governments is evil. The common good must therefore refer to a specific group only – the group could be large enough to encompass a society or small enough to be a few dozen people. Acting for the common good now becomes an argument as to whether your communal actions harm others. It is not simply about them not benefiting, it is about doing harm: a company pays its shareholders a dividend. I hold no shares and receive no benefit, therefore the company is evil, doesn’t work as an argument. The common good, too broadly defined, cannot be used as a measure of good and evil, in fact it is because of the common good that defining things as good and evil are put aside by states/governments so that they can act without moral condemnation. I’ll give you an example. Killing people is wrong. Murder in societies demands a punishment. Many countries have capital punishment as the penalty for committing murder. The state here in effect uses something that everyone agrees is wrong in order to affect a punishment. The state cannot be held in the moral conundrum of good vs. evil for acting this way and therefore becomes the institution that determines what the common good is; for the sake of the common good (in this example) murderers are put to death. Democratic societies decide as a group, on an issue by issue basis as to what the common good is, where dictatorships have small groups who make the decisions, but regardless of the size of the group, the common good is agreed upon or imposed. It is fluid in that sometimes laws change or are struck down and rewritten, but what we can bear for the common good depends on how we see ourselves as members of that society – are we empowered to be part of the decision making process, or are we marginalized and unable to participate? The common good must not only be agreed upon by the whole, but it needs to be sustained by the whole, and it cannot exist to benefit on an individual level or basis.
Next, the very nature of the common good in itself talks of sacrifice or compromise. If every individual had to agree on every benefit a decision could be no decisions could be taken. “Ruling by opinion poll” has largely been discouraged by modern democracies because finding common ground on small issues is next to impossible and rather than making a decision the process gets bogged down in argument. The common good therefore does not exist on the individual level and cannot be argued in terms of being good or evil because it is not administered on an individual basis, it is decided upon, maintained, and changed by governments or societies as a whole which cannot be judged for defining what is the common good for its citizens unless the decisions it makes are in direct contravention to what their people as a society believe in (when this happens there usually is a civil war.) There are countries in this world that have, “in the common good” laws that other countries may find abhorrent. If we decree that they are evil, based on these policies and we are judging the country as a whole, and painting in very broad strokes what is good and what is evil and saying that every citizen of that country who chooses to live there is an evil person, I’m not sure I would personally be able to stand behind this as a true moral statement. While we are not all faced everyday with our governments making these kinds of drastic common good laws, we do face smaller decisions day by day. If we find that we cannot stand the decisions governments make, democracies vote them out, and dictatorships (sometimes) get overthrown. Societies evolve over time as do their definitions – there was a time, for the common good, you were not allowed to shop on Sundays. Now, you can do it almost everywhere, with some municipalities in some areas still holding it as a law. Fifty years ago people saw it as normal not to shop on Sunday, now most of us see it as inconvenient. Are we evil today because we shop on Sunday? Were we evil in the past because we did not allow shopping on Sunday? How do you decide? So, common good is not a way in which we can decide between good and evil – there is too much ambiguity.

[Rasael]

The point of contention appears to be the definition of common, in "common good".
I argue that good must be good for all. In the sense that an act should be intended to serve the greater good.

Contrary to your rebutall that does not mean that every individual has to benefit. But it also does not mean that the sacrifices willing or unwilling of those people should be casually accepted. There is an element of weighing which must be done before the majority can justly decide to impose on the minority. The reason for that is that an an impairment must be necessary for the greater good. One cannot be certain of necessity or greater good if one does not consider it. Especially if the sacrifice to be made is large.

I do not argue that the actual act must result in greater good, for anyone.

So contrary to your conclusion, far from all people would be evil. Only those people who willingly serve their own selfish interest, or the interest of a small clique would be evil.

I do not exclude that it can be perfectly good to run your country properly, and to care for the people you govern. I am not saying that is evil. I am saying it would be evil, if you do so knowing that the way in which you do it will harm others. And then it is only evil in so far as the harming of others is not necessary for the greater good. For example to stop a regime which thoroughly tramples on human rights and shows no inclination to reform.

[DM Nilbog]

What is your Favorite PNP adventure you have as a DM ran for a group and why?

[DM Arkanis]

The point of contention appears to be the definition of common, in "common good".
I argue that good must be good for all. In the sense that an act should be intended to serve the greater good.

Contrary to your rebutall that does not mean that every individual has to benefit. But it also does not mean that the sacrifices willing or unwilling of those people should be casually accepted. There is an element of weighing which must be done before the majority can justly decide to impose on the minority. The reason for that is that an an impairment must be necessary for the greater good. One cannot be certain of necessity or greater good if one does not consider it. Especially if the sacrifice to be made is large.

I do not argue that the actual act must result in greater good, for anyone.

So contrary to your conclusion, far from all people would be evil. Only those people who willingly serve their own selfish interest, or the interest of a small clique would be evil.

I do not exclude that it can be perfectly good to run your country properly, and to care for the people you govern. I am not saying that is evil. I am saying it would be evil, if you do so knowing that the way in which you do it will harm others. And then it is only evil in so far as the harming of others is not necessary for the greater good. For example to stop a regime which thoroughly tramples on human rights and shows no inclination to reform.

And so we banter on the nature of good and evil Good discussion.

[DM Arkanis]

What is your Favorite PNP adventure you have as a DM ran for a group and why?

There are several.

1. Keep on the Borderlands - Classic, very first ever module. Ran it for my buddies when I was 10, and then again 20 years later with the same group of players. It was my introduction to the game; "first love" so to speak.
2. Queen of the Demonweb Pits - nasty and hard, a great intro to the UD. I believe we did this over a long weekend when I was in high school and was my first experience where I forwent sleep and eating to play a game... notice I said, "first."
3. The Temple of Elemental Evil - if you have not played this PnP and are a PnP gamer, go and find it and play it... amazing campaign (no mere module this.) I played this all one summer of my senior year of high school with my best friends, and we had a complete blast.
4. I am currently playing the 4.0v of Tomb of Horrors (as a player) and even though I know the module pretty well, our DM is kicking our butts. Considered to be the hardest of all modules ever, Gygax wrote it to challenge (and lets be honest, kill) players.
5. The Haven Campaign - a series of modules I made myself where I ran a set of players from 1st to about 25th level over the course of two years of university. Set in the FR and run a little later DR time that BG is currently at, it was high-fantasy RP at its best (ala Time of Troubles) and godly avatars made regular appearances: one player was a barbarian from Icewind Dale, dumb as a bag of hammers who would awake each morning and forget where he was and yell until his tent was completely demolished - went through a series of squires, another was a priest of Oghma bitten by a vampire who chose a goodly path but liked his steaks on the raw side, then there was Talisen the greedy elf who always went for the cursed loot for some reason, and Lukullis, the Banite who couldnt cope with Cyric taking over and went green dragon hunting alone and died in a solo adventure that lasted 10 hours - "the fifth degree", and Glauroth the Cormyrian Purple Dragon, ever conflicted and suckered into doing an evil deed and then was smoked by Tyr. The many NPC guest appearances included: Luigi and Pasqualli, tumbler, juggler pick pockets extraordinate, Taph the ranger who could sneak up on elves at will and talked like Clint Eastwood in his westerns, Luenblue the elven fighter - one of the twenty who protected Castle Coppermine's Lord who wrote bad poetry but killed a party of 12 black orcs in 17 rounds, and Sode the Bard who provided comic relief by failing bluff and intimidate checks on a regular basis (ala Get Smart) and getting the party jailed/beaten up/on the run... ah, yes, good times all...

[Blame The Rogue]

i have one for you ark

who's on first?

[DM Arkanis]

i have one for you ark

who's on first?

You are correct

[jpetticolas]

Quick question. For Battle Rager, the bgtscc wiki says it requires 2 perform, 2 lore, and 8 intimidate. But when i look at it in game it says just 2 perform and 8 lore. Wich one is correct?

[DM Arkanis]

Quick question. For Battle Rager, the bgtscc wiki says it requires 2 perform, 2 lore, and 8 intimidate. But when i look at it in game it says just 2 perform and 8 lore. Wich one is correct?

The really nice thing about our server is that we can "tweak" thing sometimes. I expect at some point the Dev team talked about this and decided to make the changes. Whatever is IG is what goes - I'll see if there's a post about this somewhere.

Ark

[Storm Munin]

What happens to a favored soul when its liege deity is killed?

More specifically:
If a deity is smoked, would that affect its favored souls ability to cast spells in any way?