Quote from: jibbajibba;478291You see this is the position I would directly refute becuae I can't hope to know the mind set or cultural position where human sacrifice was okay.

How can you directly refute it if you admit not even being able to understand it? You are judging people whom you have never met and don't know anything about.

Quote from: Imperator;478296I guess that is the main obstacle for getting to a universal conclusion. After all, it all boils down to a very subjective and personal decision as it is how the GM wants to portray his world.




And at the end of the day, it's a cultural matter. If you grow in a culture of cannibals, cannibalism is somethign not-evil for you, and you wouldn't understand someone who got upset at that.

These are two things I completely agree with.

Quote from: S'mon;478385If the Religion says it's Good, then it's Good in that Religion.  It's not just Lawful, it's Good.

I

This is our real point of difference. I think religion has fack all to do with good and evil .

But we are now having a purely semantic discussion whivch is futilem

Quote from: jibbajibba;478298But surely you can conceed, as I would, that the orcs may be toally evil. Say they were grown from the ground by evil wizards (like Saruman in the LotR movies). In this case they won't have young at all.  That is a choice for the GM to make when he does his world building but they need to be aware of the implications those choices have

There are no actual implications other than whether the game ends up being fun for the players, the stuff is all imaginary.

Quote from: jibbajibba;478393I

This is our real point of difference. I think religion has fack all to do with good and evil .

But we are now having a purely semantic discussion whivch is futilem

and in a world where there may very well be no god, and if there is a god, he chooses not to outwardly reveal himself, this is true.  

In a world where the gods are real and outwardly manifest directly and through priests, then religion isn't just an invention of man.

Quote from: jibbajibba;478338Sorry Ben, you are wrong on this one.

I tried to explain upthread you can define the laws and cultures of your world but you can't define an objective good and evil.

Let's take a real world example. Jyhadists think its 'good' to blow up plane loads of relatively innocent people. Would we say that yes that was from their perspective a good act?
I certainly wouldn't I would say it might well be a lawful act in their cosmology but not a good one.

So I think there are broad bands of good and evil that most observers would categorise similarly. A GM that goes against that and has Paladins that kill innocents on the basis that it's for the greater good I think would have trouble selling it and that means its an issue (and no its not an issue of imagination its one of internal consistency).

As a bunch of us have been saying if you as the GM treat orcs with a racial stereotype just be aware of it and if you want a richer game try and reflect that in the game world. If you choose not to represent that in the game world becuase you want to run a hack and slash that is fine too but you probably as a GM need to be aware of what you are doing.

The problem only comes when GMs roll stuff out without thinking and ignore the implications but then claim that there are none. A world where women are emancipated and orcs are natural (as per the standard D&D rules) and therefore capable of independent thought and redemption thows up some interesting topics and ones I woudl expect someone in a realised game world to care about.

I have to disagree. In my imaginary world I can define whatever I want in any way I want, and your disagreement or disbelief can't stop me.

Quote from: CRKrueger;478398and in a world where there may very well be no god, and if there is a god, he chooses not to outwardly reveal himself, this is true.  

In a world where the gods are real and outwardly manifest directly and through priests, then religion isn't just an invention of man.

Well, gods in D&D usually aren't all powerful. For the most part, they are nothing more than high level wizards that save all their spells to cast counterspell on their brothers. They are just guys with personalities, and still Ao, the high god in FR doesn't share his opinion on it all.

I'd say the religions in D&D represent nothing more than the tastes of the gods, who are just people. Good and evil can still be separate.

Quote from: Benoist;478387So if Gruumsh says slaying and/or enslaving all other sentient beings is good, is it "Good" as per alignment?

From the imaginary orc's perspective? Probably It would be for their own good.

Quote from: Cranewings;478401Well, gods in D&D usually aren't all powerful. For the most part, they are nothing more than high level wizards that save all their spells to cast counterspell on their brothers. They are just guys with personalities, and still Ao, the high god in FR doesn't share his opinion on it all.

I'd say the religions in D&D represent nothing more than the tastes of the gods, who are just people. Good and evil can still be separate.

But good and evil are still part of the cosmology and are detectable (for instance through detect alignment spells). It isn't like the real world where you first have to define good, then apply reason to determine if something is good.

Quote from: Cranewings;478401Well, gods in D&D usually aren't all powerful. For the most part, they are nothing more than high level wizards that save all their spells to cast counterspell on their brothers. They are just guys with personalities, and still Ao, the high god in FR doesn't share his opinion on it all.

I'd say the religions in D&D represent nothing more than the tastes of the gods, who are just people. Good and evil can still be separate.

Depends on how you define good and evil in your imaginary game world. In that sense, JJ is correct and it's semantics, but since none of this shit is real redefining good and evil is ok if the players don't mind.

Quote from: jibbajibba;478393I

This is our real point of difference. I think religion has fack all to do with good and evil .

But we are now having a purely semantic discussion whivch is futilem

Actually I suspect most people here agree with you when talking about real world religion. And if they didn't agree with you, they would concede the difficulty in demonstrating how good is connected with God (because first you have to prove God's existence then prove you know his will).

But why can't there be real good and evil in a fictional setting that flows from the gods or from the universe itself? Why can't these things be objectively true if I imagine them to be in my setting? This has been the assumption behind the D&D alignment system for some time. Few would argue it has any bearing on real world morality.

Quote from: Cranewings;478401Well, gods in D&D usually aren't all powerful. For the most part, they are nothing more than high level wizards that save all their spells to cast counterspell on their brothers. They are just guys with personalities, and still Ao, the high god in FR doesn't share his opinion on it all.

I'd say the religions in D&D represent nothing more than the tastes of the gods, who are just people. Good and evil can still be separate.

One possible interpretation, sure, but not the only one.

Quote from: Sigmund;478405Depends on how you define good and evil in your imaginary game world. In that sense, JJ is correct and it's semantics, but since none of this shit is real redefining good and evil is ok if the players don't mind.

One or two of my players have really warped idea of good and evil. If I was typing them, one or two would probably be lawful evil, but they think their ideas are good. When they try to play good people in an RPG, it opens up a lot of conversation like this because their impersonation of a good person is actually an evil person by my standard.

I used to argue more, but then just tossed alignment all together. We all agreed to define evil, by the detect evil spell, as only possessed by supernatural creatures of evil (at any time) and people (who are about to commit a hostile or deceitful act for a selfish purpose while experiencing joy or entertainment at another person's misfortune). Beyond that, there isn't any alignments and I just let people play their characters.

Quote from: Benoist;478387So if Gruumsh says slaying and/or enslaving all other sentient beings is good, is it "Good" as per alignment?

Well, in D&D Gruumsh says Lawful Evil (1e-2e) or Chaotic Evil (3e-4e) is Good, so you get a weird recursive loop thingy going.  

Quote from: Cranewings;478412One or two of my players have really warped idea of good and evil. If I was typing them, one or two would probably be lawful evil, but they think their ideas are good. When they try to play good people in an RPG, it opens up a lot of conversation like this because their impersonation of a good person is actually an evil person by my standard.

I used to argue more, but then just tossed alignment all together. We all agreed to define evil, by the detect evil spell, as only possessed by supernatural creatures of evil (at any time) and people (who are about to commit a hostile or deceitful act for a selfish purpose while experiencing joy or entertainment at another person's misfortune). Beyond that, there isn't any alignments and I just let people play their characters.

That's certainly a perfectly valid approach, especially in your type of case where the GM and player(s) don't entirely agree on the definitions of "good" and "evil". Another valid approach is for the GM to clearly define "good" and "evil" before the game begins, giving examples and then making judgement calls based on that. Of course, the players have to then be willing to abide by the GM's ruling... I know I would, but I also know not all players are like that