Tell me Why? Topic One: Deception and Poison?

[NegInfinity]

I think some answers can be found in what chambordini mentioned, the fact that the alignment system is flawed. It seems static rather than dynamic, since all believable characters would probably perform actions that range across at least 6 of the 9 possible alignments instead of 1 and what they do the most could decide alignment. Now personalities seem forced into a more narrow path.

This is false though. Alignment is result of character, not the other way around, because your alignment is result of decisions your character took. Your character is also a mortal, meaning he is not locked into alignment, it may change, and there are atonmenet spells. If you restrict your roleplay because of your alignment, you're losing a lot of fun with consequences. You do generally act within bounds of your alignment. When you start breaking alignment, it shifts, and you suffer consequences. Avoiding consequences because you don't like them limits your character.

The alignment system assigns good values to certain things, like honor and truth-telling, so of course the opposite will turn evil (especially for a paladin code).

That is also false. Alignment system assigns good values to life, compassion, instilling hope, altruism and helping others. Honor is not one of those. Honor is related to law, and it is not inherently good. You can be honorable and always speak the truth while remaining absolutely evil.

D&D alignment system in nutshell:
Good == altruism. Evil == egoism (and disregard of others). Law == rules, tradition and order. Chaos == freedom and feelings.
Caring about feeling of others is good.
Treating others as tools is evil.
Obeying elders and performing your duties is lawful.
Breaking rules and initiating rebellin for no good reason is chaotic.

Torturing a monster race NPC is however absolutely evil. It's one of those exceptions that makes no sense, but is there because of how the game is meant to be played.

It does make sense. You're torturing helpless opponent to create suffering. Neutral would take that option when it is absolutely necessary, though. Evil would take that option because he/she felt like it.

[XyrisMourn]

I find it's the other way around. Poison and deception seems to have an absolute morality attached to it, which is why the OP framed his question the way he did. We're not debating why it's evil to use poison for this person but not for this other person, but instead why it's evil to use poison for all individuals. Then the DMs may reinforce the action or not with alignment points, but it doesn't change the fact of what the action is considered as.

That is an interesting perpective, Karond. Do we deceive others because we are evil? Or are we evil because we deceive others?

Hmmm... I tend to think that this falls into the first of my 2 categories though, subjective judgements on a moral issue, rather than the objective framework of an alignment system.

Personally, I have no problem with lying and deceit. I am a management consultant and have made a career of it. I do not consider myself evil as a result, though

However, I would be the first to admit that we are the real life equivalents of Blackguards to many people (subjectively) and were there an alignment system in place in real life, I would likely be judged Evil as a result.

That judgment though, remains the judgement of a subjective authority (a DM in game, or society in real life) fitting my behaviour into an arbitrary framework (an alignment system).

It does not make deceit (or poison) absolutely evil though.

I really like your idea though. Cause-effect between the act and the nature... particularly when you think about how a player goes about creating a character. What might that say about the desire to create a paladin who lies and poisons?

[Archaos]

Why is the use of Poison considered an evil act? Even in situations where the use of poison results in lives saved; even when the lack of its use can cause widespread disease and destruction, poison is for some reason considered an evil thing.

I'd like to focus on this part.
The ends don't justify the means.

Summoning a demon or animating undead could save lives as well. But it's still an evil act, balanced by good intentions, to make it neutral.

That's why Pale Masters cannot be good but can be neutral. They could go balance their evil acts with good intentions for a good purpose and stay neutral at best.

And some things are absolute in DnD. Some things are considered evil and others good because the gods made them so.

Because the gods decide who is good, so they can keep their Paladin or Exalted status.
And the gods decide who goes to the Nine Hells or the Abyss.
And any of the afterlives that are modeled after the alignments.

"Good and evil are not philosophical concepts in the D&D game. They are forces that define the cosmos." - Player's Handbook, p. 103

[Hoihe]

On topic of alignments and how to play your character accordingly... I've got a fast and hard rule:

Ignore alignments. Play your character as his personality dictates and let the alignment alter to fit him, not fit the character to an alignment.

The character doesn't know there is absolute good/evil/neutral (unless speaking planar-wise or a monk or cleric or sth). What he knows it that good gods ask these, these are their dogma. He knows evil gods want these, these are their dogma. Nature gods tend to be in between. He also has his upbringing, world-views.

Once again: Ignore alignment when playing character, play him according to personality, god, beliefs and world-view. Let the alignment shift to fit him, not the character shift to fit alignment.

Overall, even if your character uses poison or does other minor evil acts, he will remain good if he is genuinely seeking to do good.

Even if your character helps people because he likes helping people, but otherwise makes
generous and sadistic use of Evil descriptor spells or worships an evil god, he will remain evil if most of his actions are genuinely evil.

If your character just seeks to live and survive, doing acts of good where his deity requires/friendship, doing evil acts where his emotion overrides him... so long he doesn't commit to either he can balance being neutral.

It must be understood that alignment system is a two axis scale, not 9 absolute values. And there is room to move around without changing alignment. note: for paladins, even small hits towards evil/chaos can lead to falling, even if they remain LG.

Some acts do massive hits, but those acts would be pretty obvious IC for the character and doing them/not doing them should fit their IC morals naturally. These are,

For evil: creation of undead (wizards/clerics/FSes should know better. A sorcerer accidentally doing it might get a smaller hit but if he keeps doing it...), massacre of helpless people, torture, worship of evil gods and heeding their dogma, consistently going out of your way to make life worse for others either for your own benefit or just for fun

For good: Sacrificing your personal well-being without obvious gains from it, worshipping good gods and heeding their dogma, consistently going out of your way to make life better for others, risking your personal safety to redeem an evil person

For neutral: apathy to others, intentionally doing something to counteract its opposite, lacking the mental functions to differentiate between good/evil (this is why animals are predominantly neutral, not evil, despite some doing predominantly evil acts)

What I just listed above are the actions/behaviors that can influence alignment the most. Notice how I often mentioned "consistently". A good person who loses his cool and ends up murdering an idiot, but later seeks atonement and doesn't repeat the deed remains good, if with a very bad conscience and more evil than he was. A lawful person who breaks the law because it conflicts with his own code of honour remains lawful because he balances the action out in the same turn, although he is more chaotic for it than before.

If our good person continues to kill people out of lack of self control, he will eventually start falling towards evil, but first neutral. However, due to his constant attempts to seek atonement, the fall will be slower. However, due to the overall chaotic nature of his actions, he becomes chaotic. ICly, the person might still view themselves as doing good even once they become chaotic evil. Heck! They might strive to do good. IIRC, this is how Xanfyrst's Alistair operates.

If our lawful person keeps breaking the law to fit his code of honour and doesn't instead seek to either change the laws or move away, he will eventually fall towards neutral then chaotic. He will still keep his code of honour without a doubt in it, but his deeds mark him as chaotic still. He might be the greatest example of Lawfulness for others who recognize his code, but due to his apathy towards making the law and his code work together he becomes chaotic.

It's possible to game the system, like monk bandits do. Do tons of lawful deeds to go around the chaotic hits breaking the law does. They don't do this intentionally, but does to the sheer discipline they show and the fanaticism in how they dedicate their lives to their monastery's code leads to them remaining Lawful.


As a P.S on why worshipping a god and heeding their dogma makes you his alignment and why the god would accept you: Gods benefit from their worshippers even pre-TOT because once the petitioner goes to their realm, the deity becomes more powerful. But even before, by being an example of the god's values and becoming famous or at least inspirational to some people, they benefit the god again. This makes the clergy and the god support the worshipper, potentially redeeming them/damning them. However, gods loathe people who are false as they scare potential worshippers away. Being false in your worship won't bring you close to your deity's alignment on either of the scales. Generally, the good/evil axis is more important in deciding falseness than law/chaos.

[chad878262]

Isn't the evil in the eye of the beholder? Even in the alignment system there are carrying degrees of lawful and chaotic, good and evil, even neutral. Belief has to count for something, right? Besides, good people do bad things for the right reason all the time.

[mrieder79]

I think you are asking too much of the forgotten realm play setting. In FR, good and evil appear to be treated as absolutes, whereas in real life, they are constructs that exist as a result of the subjective value judgments of people.

I would say that the use of poison is evil because the gods or the power that controls the gods (Ed Greenwood?) says it is evil. It is an absolute part of the pretend world of the FR. Not a satisfying answer, but I believe it is the only one that makes any sense at all.

[DM Mouse]

I would say that the use of poison is evil because the gods or the power that controls the gods (Ed Greenwood?) says it is evil. It is an absolute part of the pretend world of the FR. Not a satisfying answer, but I believe it is the only one that makes any sense at all.

Nope, not Ed Greenwood, just the core books (Greyhawk) and some setting-generic supplements call it evil as far as I know so that's nothing to do with FR directly or Ed.

[NegInfinity]

Isn't the evil in the eye of the beholder? Even in the alignment system there are carrying degrees of lawful and chaotic, good and evil, even neutral. Belief has to count for something, right? Besides, good people do bad things for the right reason all the time.

Not in D&D. Morality is absolute, and good and evil are physical cosmic forces. Although "beholder" may have personal opinion about good and evil, there is still absolute morality in effect.

[Karond]

The alignment system assigns good values to certain things, like honor and truth-telling, so of course the opposite will turn evil (especially for a paladin code).

That is also false. Alignment system assigns good values to life, compassion, instilling hope, altruism and helping others. Honor is not one of those. Honor is related to law, and it is not inherently good. You can be honorable and always speak the truth while remaining absolutely evil.

I disagree. You seem to claim that murder is not alignment-based, but torture is, based on a principle of suffering. Morality can be absolute in a multiple of ways. In RL, "as long as it doesn't harm anyone" morality is very typical of the western societies the vast majority of us come from, but other cultures operate on moralities heavily incorporating dignity and honor. There are actions that are extremely bad to do even if they don't harm anyone, simply because they're debasing what is considered divine (take for example Vilks drawing) or beneath what is considered human. Some of these cultures are naturally religious, as is the entire forgotten realms with the main difference being that the gods physically affect the world. As such, there are more things considered good and working for the forces of good than merely absence of suffering, or things evil besides what causes suffering.

Honor is definitely one of those things IMO, as it's part of self-respect and self-control, and ultimately consists of cumulative actions of personal sacrifice to maintain something considered divine. One can argue then that poisons are evil, not just those that cause suffering but all of them, since they are not tools of honor. It's a tool that avoids a fair fight, is indiscriminate and by and large requires little skill. Using them is beneath an upstanding individual, the mere use of posions taints them with traits of cowardice and dishonesty that will never truly be washed away. Once a coward, always a coward.

You seem to think of honor as duty, which is not the same thing.

[NegInfinity]

I disagree. You seem to claim that murder is not alignment-based, but torture is, based on a principle of suffering.

This is also false. You missed a word here. "life". "Alignment system assigns good values to life". Murder takes life.

Morality can be absolute in a multiple of ways. In RL, "as long as it doesn't harm anyone" morality is very typical of the western societies the vast majority of us come from, but other cultures operate on moralities heavily incorporating dignity and honor.

Real world morality does not apply to D&D universe. D&D morality is a simplified version, dumbed down for the sake of game machanics. It "kinda" resembles real world, but if you dig deeper, it has very little in common, because of fundamental differences. In real world genocide does not open portal to hell. In D&D world it does.

Honor is definitely one of those things IMO, as it's part of self-respect and self-control,
snip.

You're trying to bring real-world analogies into d&d world. It doesn't work like that.

and ultimately consists of cumulative actions of personal sacrifice to maintain something considered divine.

Err, no. Being honorable means having respectable qualities from position of whatever society you were born in. "My oath demands that I kill you and all your descendants. I will promise that their deaths will be quick". This is honorable. This is also evil. "Maintaining something considered divine" is just one of many possible sets of rules to follow.

You seem to think of honor as duty, which is not the same thing.

It is the same thing. Honor is dictacted by society's morals and traditions. Honorable behavior in one society will be dishonorable in another. Ultimately, it all leads to following traditions, which is ultimately a lawful behavior.

[Karond]

Torturing a monster race NPC is however absolutely evil. It's one of those exceptions that makes no sense, but is there because of how the game is meant to be played.

It does make sense. You're torturing helpless opponent to create suffering. Neutral would take that option when it is absolutely necessary, though. Evil would take that option because he/she felt like it.

I based it on this. The exception is not the torture, it's the murder of monster NPCs, so perhaps you've read it wrong NegInfinity but since you responded in this way it heavily implies that it "makes sense" that murdering innocent monsters NPCs is okay, but torture is not, due to suffering. That's how absurd it comes across, misintended or not.

When you bring up oaths, that's duty and not honor. You can break your oath and still be honourable, but you cannot break your oath and remain dutiful. While honourable can be relative to one's society, it's generally a code striving for the good of all, but it can also be deeply personal in the way we all have our own sense of honor relating to our self-respect. Everyone has honor in so much as that there are things we shy away from, and that's not related to our "lawfulness". If it was, then the alignment system as flawed as it is would only be 3 lawful options and chaotic evil. Your honor and conscience is almost the same thing, however.

The point I'm making is that there are several forms of morality. We tend to think about "harm" only because it's the one morality we tend to use in RL in our part of the world, but to be able to even reason about questions such as those raised by the OP one has to imagine other viewpoints. Even you Neginfinity said that morality is absolute in DnD, hence the morality at play here can't have exceptions. If we can look at morality in the way that some things are evil even if they don't hurt others, simply because the action itself is despicable in some way, it would greatly help to explain things like why poison is absolutely evil.

Your "only some poisons are evil" based on suffering is not sufficient because it would lead us towards follow-up questions that would not be evil simply because no harm is involved (too graphic to write them here, PM me). If these actions are not evil, it would seem very strange in the Dnd world and thus invalidate the harm principle. If they're evil, then the alignment system is relative and not absolute. It's thus much easier to imagine another viewpoint than our RL one to be able to reason why some things are considered evil without any harm of others attached.

[NegInfinity]

Torturing a monster race NPC is however absolutely evil. It's one of those exceptions that makes no sense, but is there because of how the game is meant to be played.

It does make sense. You're torturing helpless opponent to create suffering. Neutral would take that option when it is absolutely necessary, though. Evil would take that option because he/she felt like it.

I based it on this. The exception is not the torture, it's the murder of monster NPCs,

The statement you quoted does not say that "murder is okay". That was your assumption.
What it does say (or was meant to say) is "it is reasonable to assume that torturing evil monster is evil act".

so perhaps you've read it wrong NegInfinity but since you responded in this way it heavily implies that it "makes sense" that murdering innocent monsters NPCs is okay, but torture is not, due to suffering. That's how absurd it comes across, misintended or not.

"Innocent evil monster"?

A monster that is irredemably evil has already commited many evil acts and will commit more.
Killing it prevents future evil. However, your character may attempt to redeem the monster. Every singly one of them. It may also attempt to redeem every chromatic dragon in the realm and turn them all towards path of good. Then try same trick on asmodeus.

Irredemably evil creature has already commited evil acts. When it is absolutely obvious that it will commit more, it makes sense to kill it, although turning it towards path of good would be better option. However, torturing it is not necessary. Therefore it is evil act. Killing said creature is not a good act. Redeeming it is a good act.

When you bring up oaths, that's duty and not honor. You can break your oath and still be honourable, but you cannot break your oath and remain dutiful. While honourable can be relative to one's society, it's generally a code striving for the good of all, but it can also be deeply personal in the way we all have our own sense of honor relating to our self-respect.

Ah. Here's the thing. "Good" society is striving towards to is subjective and may differ from absolute "good" that rules the D&D universe. As it was mentioned in one of the source books "the vilest tyrant may believe himself being paragon of good, doing the right thing" and then land in the nine hells anyway.

Everyone has honor in so much as that there are things we shy away from, and that's not related to our "lawfulness".

I believe we bumped into language barrier issue here. Which definition of honor are you using? What you describe seems to be "conscience".

The point I'm making is that there are several forms of morality. We tend to think about "harm" only because it's the one morality we tend to use in RL in our part of the world, but to be able to even reason about questions such as those raised by the OP one has to imagine other viewpoints. Even you Neginfinity said that morality is absolute in DnD, hence the morality at play here can't have exceptions. If we can look at morality in the way that some things are evil even if they don't hurt others, simply because the action itself is despicable in some way, it would greatly help to explain things like why poison is absolutely evil.

It would seem that you mix subjective opinion, RL ethics, D&D morality, D&D objective evil with no clear distinction between them. Doing so would make discussion difficult.

Your "only some poisons are evil" based on suffering is not sufficient because...

The evil in D&D is described in great detail in book of vile darkness along with all its conundrums and moral difficulties. The whole description takes several pages. I've already quoted that description multiple times. Here it is again. I advise to read it.

Hidden: show

The Player’s Handbook says, “‘Evil’implies hurting,oppressing,and killing others.Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualm if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.”
....


INTENT AND CONTEXT
So, does the objective definition of evil imply that intent plays no part in determining what is good and what isn’ t? Only to a degree.

Consider the paladin Zophas.When climbing to the top of a hill of loose rocks to get away from some owlbears, he triggers a rockslide that buries the owlbears and continues down the hill,crushing a hut full of commoners.Is Zophas an evil murderer who must suddenly lose his lawful good alignment?No, although Zophas might still feel guilt and responsibility. He might attempt to right the inadvertent wrong as best he can.

But what if Zophas’ s friend Shurrin said,“Don’ t climb up there,Zophas!Y ou might start a rock slide that will crush the hut!”Zophas goes anyway.Now is it evil?Probably.Zophas was either carelessly endangering the commoners or so overconfident of his climbing prowess that he acted out of hubris.At this point,Zophas isn’ t exactly a murderer,but he should probably lose his paladin abilities until he receives an atonement spell or otherwise makes amends.

If Zophas can clearly see the danger of the rock slide but climbs up anyway because he wants to get away from the owlbears, that’ s clearly evil. In a world of black-and-white distinctions between good and evil, killing innocents to save yourself is an evil act. Sacrificing yourself for the good of others is a good act.It’ s a high standard,but that’ s
the way it is.

The foregoing text defines three levels of intent:accidental acts, reckless or negligent acts, and intentionally evil misdeeds.Sometimes,however,those categories are insufficient to determine evil intent.You are free to judge an act in the context of other actions.

A maniac puts poison in a town’ s water supply, believing (wrongly) that all of the people in the town are demons. Is that evil? Yes.A glabrezu convinces a good character that the townsfolk are all fiends that must be destroyed,so the character pours poison into the town’s water supply.Is that evil? Probably not—at least, not in the context of the rest of the character’ s actions and the circumstances involved. Still, good characters shouldn’ t commit even remotely questionable acts on a large scale unless they’re absolutely sure there’ s no other way to succeed. It’ s rarely a good idea to destroy a town of evil people,because there might be at least a few good people in the town as well.

But let’s make it even more complicated.Another character witnesses the good character about to put poison in the town’ s drinking water. Is it evil for the witness to kill the poisoning character in order to stop him?No.Again,the intent isn’t evil, and the context makes such an act preferable to the alternative. Standing by while a mass murder occurs—the
other choice the witness has—is far more evil than preventing the poisoning.

There is also similar description of good in book of exhalted deeds. Book of exhalted deeds covers torture and imprisonment of evil monsters as well.

Both those books cover evil and good in great detail with little wiggle room. Have you read those books? If you haven't, you should.

By the way, let's not forget that in d&d universe clerics and paladins have access to handy "detect evil" and "smite evil" spells? Those are there and they work. "detect" is not present on our server, of course, but it is still available in the universe.

[Archaos]

It seems some people have missed this part.

"Good and evil are not philosophical concepts in the D&D game. They are forces that define the cosmos." - Player's Handbook, p. 103

Good and evil are absolute in DnD. Because that's what it says in the rules and that's the nature of the game. Simple as that.

[Karond]

It seems some people have missed this part.

"Good and evil are not philosophical concepts in the D&D game. They are forces that define the cosmos." - Player's Handbook, p. 103

Good and evil are absolute in DnD. Because that's what it says in the rules and that's the nature of the game. Simple as that.

I beg to differ, if Neginfinity's quote is authentic.

Consider Zophas the paladin. His actions being good or evil is largely based on intent. If he has knowledge about the risk of a landslide from a friend and does it anyway, he's careless and said to be "probably evil" in these rules. But what if Zophas is intelligent enough to understand that his actions has a high risk of creating a landslide? That's the equivalent of his friend directly telling him. If he ignores that knowledge that Zophas, an experienced mountaineer as he might be, then rightly he has done something that is "probably evil" too. But if Zophas is dumb enough, as in the very first sentence, it's not evil the rules say. This is not perfect, as it implies that if you're pretty dumb you can be excused from being labelled evil, but whatever. Let's say it's how it works in dnd, intent.

Now on to the second example. The maniac is labelled as evil for trying to end an evil infestation. His intentions are good, or well, according to Neginfinity they aren't evil at least (check Neginfinity's latest murder quote). The problem here however is that his intent isn't evil, yet he is branded as evil. Zophas intent wasn't evil when he, dumb as he is, just walked atop a pile of rocks either. Both cases aren't intending to do evil, and aren't dealing with moral decisions that can invoke carelessness (one doesn't understand the risk of landslides, the other already "knows" that there are no non-evil people in the town), yet one is branded as evil and the other is not despite the consequences (innocents dying) being the same.

So already there are inconsistencies in these rules. Intent matters in one example but not in the other. Inconsistencies can't be part of an absolute morality system, and "you're free to judge an act in the context of other actions" is definitely a sentence that talks about relative morality, not absolute.

The final part merely says that the means justify the ends, which does seem to fly in the face of how many people would view non-evil actions in the Dnd universe. That seems pretty evil to me, yet it's not. Apparently an evil action can be non-evil if it prevents a greater evil. An example to the OP, poison isn't evil to use as long as it kills evil people.

Granted, we take away the message here. Good and evil are absolute and very real powers of the universe (because the rules say so), but the examples provided above offer confusion and contradiction and should at best be disregarded.


-----------------------

Neginfinity, monsters NPCs. Not evil monsters NPCs. The "intention" morality has many problems, like, how do I know those goblins aren't on the path of redemption? I mean, I barged into their cave with weapons high and they should have the right to defend themselves, especially once they see their friends murdered. This can't be transferred to the game so understandably it's heavily simplified and ignores logical rules, but there it is. I don't think we can make an argument out of that logically.

My intention wasn't to make the discussion difficult. However, I find that it becomes difficult too when one's posts is divided up into small fragments, each met with a disjointed snippet of information that overall produces no clear and concise argument .

[Karond]

Let me repeat that I can support the absolute morality in forgotten realms. I think it has many flaws, but it's what the game says applies so why not. It's just that such a system has certain factors to it, factors that seems to be ignored (not all poisons are evil! You can do evil acts as long as it prevents greater evil acts, don't mind the subjectivity! Intent matters sometimes!). In an absolute morality point of view, some things are always good or evil. In the forgotten realms, that would be because they support either the good or evil cosmic powers by purifying or tainting the world.

It's not too difficult to see that if pretty much all mortal actions are tied to a deity's domain of some sort, and certain actions are only embodied by irrevocably evil deities, then those actions must be absolutely evil in the world because to perform them taints the world with actions that embody evil deities. Such as, for instance, use of poison.