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Is it even possible to have a good aligned necromancer?

Raising the dead to do your bidding doesn't exactly seem to be a good act - especially when some undead can steal your life-force.

How can you go about making a good necromancer?

I suppose that one could take a cue from the book Necroscope: the "good" necromancers (or 'Necroscopes') use their powers to speak with the dead to help them complete unfinished business or to seek their help in dealing with evils in the world. For example, in that book, the Necroscope had the counsel and accumulated wisdom from countless great minds and personalities from history. I mean, imagine if someone really COULD speak with the dead to settle disputes, identity murderers and finish incomplete works of art, writing and music. The dead can use the Necroscope as a vessel to allow them to do these things.

On the other hand, a Necromancer "forces" the dead to do his/her bidding, even finding ways to torture souls into submission and disturbing or even withholding their rest. They control the dead like puppets, which is kind of horrific, if you think about it.

Good necromancers could be the protectors of cemeteries, aides to law enforcement and detectives.

Of course one would have to change the fluff of what powers lurk behind Necromancy as a source of magic.

It depends what kind of system you use.

In D&D, it seems possible even if I think the kind of good-doer necromancer you talking would more likely be a priest of good aligned god of death.

In Warhammer, the last time I check (and it is WHFRP 1 I talking about), necromancers are evil.

In Palladium/Rifts, they also evil.

May I ask, OHT, what kind of adventure to you want to play with a good necromancer ?

Hey, it's just meat and bone. It's going to rot away, the soul's gone on to its reckoning on another plane — why not put it to good use? Waste not, want not.

Besides, every zombie out there toiling at the fields, building roads or guarding the lord's castle is one less living human being. Like robots, perfectly obedient and eschewing food, sleep, air, comfort, entertainment.

Yes sir, Your Majesty. Undead labor is the future! Just sign here, giving the Cabal of Bone unrestricted access to the realm's tombs, crypts, barrows, mausoleums, necropoli, cemeteries, burial grounds and funerary plots, and we'll take care of everything else. Here, dotted line. No, no blood, ink will do.

Quote from: The Butcher;791947Hey, it's just meat and bone. It's going to rot away, the soul's gone on to its reckoning on another plane — why not put it to good use? Waste not, want not.

Besides, every zombie out there toiling at the fields, building roads or guarding the lord's castle is one less living human being. Like robots, perfectly obedient and eschewing food, sleep, air, comfort, entertainment.

Yes sir, Your Majesty. Undead labor is the future! Just sign here, giving the Cabal of Bone unrestricted access to the realm's tombs, crypts, barrows, mausoleums, necropoli, cemeteries, burial grounds and funerary plots, and we'll take care of everything else. Here, dotted line. No, no blood, ink will do.

There's actually a hammer horror film where the Lord of the manor puts zombies to work in his tin mine. Plague of the Zombies.

It doesn't end well...

On a more serious note, a "good guy" necromancer could be a medium/oracle, exorcist and undead hunter.

Quote from: The Butcher;791947Hey, it's just meat and bone. It's going to rot away, the soul's gone on to its reckoning on another plane — why not put it to good use? Waste not, want not.

Besides, every zombie out there toiling at the fields, building roads or guarding the lord's castle is one less living human being. Like robots, perfectly obedient and eschewing food, sleep, air, comfort, entertainment.

Yes sir, Your Majesty. Undead labor is the future! Just sign here, giving the Cabal of Bone unrestricted access to the realm's tombs, crypts, barrows, mausoleums, necropoli, cemeteries, burial grounds and funerary plots, and we'll take care of everything else. Here, dotted line. No, no blood, ink will do.

What an hideously capitalistic approach of the mortal remains of your fellow humans ! Unionize the restless deads !

Quote from: yabaziou;791944May I ask, OHT, what kind of adventure to you want to play with a good necromancer ?

I was just looking for some ideas and thought there was a discussion to be had!

this would depend on how the afterlife (if any) works in the setting.

if, like the butcher says, "it's just meat and bone", i don't see anything evil about raising the dead. they make great workers or cheap soldiers. the necromancer who raised a horde of zombies from the local cemetery to defend a village from a tribe of orcs might not be loved by the people, but he did a good thing nonetheless.

if the soul is somehow affected, things get a bit hairy.

if certain kinds of undead are always evil and have a will of their own, summonging or creating those would be an evil act as well i guess. if only for the danger of the creature breaking free of the necromancers control.

also, i could easily imagine a frankenstein-like mago-scientist experimenting with the undead without evil intent.

Quote from: One Horse Town;791952I was just looking for some ideas and thought there was a discussion to be had!

That is a fair reason to ask what you asked !

I will repeat myself but I do think that people that are interested in keeping good relations with the restless dead in a RPG setting are more likely to become priests/servants of a good aligned dead god than to become necromancers.

They are lots of social stigmata attached to the trade of necromancer, and people who want to have a good social standingwill prefer embracing religion.

But one can imagine a world without divine power where good necromaners do what death god priests would do.

Or an amoral setting where the restless deads are a workforce like any other like The Butcger suggested.

Or an one of a kind necromancer who is enthralled with dead magic but unwilling to do immoral things and/or is too good natured to giging in the darkest pratices of necromancy. This indivivual may even become some sort of magic detective, speaking with the departed souls in order to solve the mystery of their death.

Quote from: One Horse Town;791938Is it even possible to have a good aligned necromancer?

Raising the dead to do your bidding doesn't exactly seem to be a good act - especially when some undead can steal your life-force.

How can you go about making a good necromancer?

I don't know there's anything inherently evil about it, except that human society tends to find it in bad taste.

The term actually means only divination through communication with the dead. Seances would be a form of necromancy that actually still happen IRL (or so Hollywood would have me believe). The whole "raising the dead" thing is an addition to the term by modern fantasy literature and RPGs.

Well, it depends how you set up magic and your cosmology.

In my main setting, I wanted the whole undead thing to make sense.  Not just drop a set of rules on a table and say, "of course there are wights and ghouls, they are in the Monster Book in our rules", I wanted an underpinning for necromancy (among other things).

SO in Celtricia, spirits have a lot of trouble leaving the Waking Dream.  They can hang around a long time trying to get through the void into the Well of Life.  We call this the Migration of the Spirit (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/22871895/Migration%20of%20the%20Spirit), and it is a major dynamic of the game and the psychology of the characters and NPCs.  

Shriving magics, a part of Necromancy, protect the spirit from an unscrupulous Necromancer and can also speed a spirit out of the Waking Dream, much, much faster.  So such Necromancers, who protect and act as gatekeepers could be very good aligned, in an alignment style game.  Due to the way spirits latch onto bodies and more greedy, selfish necromancers use spirits, shriving priests and others who use this side of Necromancy are held in high esteem.  
You can imagine, in areas like the Steel Isle, which is a small Island but an old one, where major battles were fought, the undead have a very high population.    

Many Guilds and Orders learn and use Necromancy because of this.  The Bone Knights of Orcus (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955368/BoneKNights%20of%20Orcus%20Steel%20Isle) are a good example of a knighthood that use Necromancy in their fight against the hordes of undead and those who pervert The Cycle.

That's my campaign-specific, but hopefully still useful view on Necromancy and how it can be used for good and for a good-aligned type.

Good necromancers could be, as others have suggested, psychopomps meant to lead restless dead to their eternal home, or bending the wicked dead in servitude to stop their depradations and use them toward a good end.  

The "sin-eaters" of Geist tend toward this kind of benevolent necromancy, when they're not being malignantly necromantic.  Arguably, DC's Kid Eternity was an example of this, as well, able to channel the dead to fight crime and evil.  Death in Darksiders II also fit this bill pretty marvelously, in a sword & sorcery kind of way.  

In the real world, Catholicism has the Intecession of the Saintly Dead, which has always struck me as necromantic, especially because lay folk also tend to ask for intecession by saintly but not yet canonized relatives and holy folks.

I would imagine it's only really intrinsically evil if you have some kind of prohibition of touching the dead, and you have to interact with bones and corpses to successfully be a necromancer -- but the Ouija board and other accoutrements of pop occultism kind of make that potentially moot.  On the other hand, '70s pop occultism (or at least as it's interpreted today) sometimes said that there are no ghosts, just demons, so if you're mucking with the dead, you're really mucking about with the Satanic.  (See The Conjuring.)

There are many cultures and religions in which the dead aren't evil, chaotic (in the sense of 'contravening proper existance'), and so on.

Ancestor worshippers, for example, venerate the dead and consider them 'buds.' Consider Day of the Dead. Let's go have a picnic with our dead ancestors!


A cleric in such a religion might very well have sanction to call on deceased members of the religion under certain circumstances.

SSS had a nonevil city of necromancy (Hollowfaust), where people essentially agreed to become undead when they passed.
At least in part, the Scarred Lands are somewhat post apocalyptic, so extreme survival issues help make 'zombies maintain our walls' a more reasonable proposition.

As other's have said, alternate cosmologies make non-evil necromancy quite possible.  In the straight up D&D, Negative Material Plane type of cosmology, there are quite a few necromantic spells that can destroy or control undead and so might be safe.  Also there are a lot of spells that aren't really necromancy it seems like to me, just have to do with the material of bone, and so get lumped into necromancy even though there is no undead or negative energy involved.  I think in the standard D&D cosmology, creating undead is an inherently evil act.

Quote from: TristramEvans;791957I don't know there's anything inherently evil about it, except that human society tends to find it in bad taste.

The term actually means only divination through communication with the dead. Seances would be a form of necromancy that actually still happen IRL (or so Hollywood would have me believe). The whole "raising the dead" thing is an addition to the term by modern fantasy literature and RPGs.

As far as I can tell the modern fantasy conception of necromancers dates back to Clark Ashton Smith, who included a rather large number of necrophiliac necromancers.

When I ran rolemaster, I had the Dwarves practice ancestor worship and the clerics would reanimate your ancestors so you could ask them for advice and guidance.

I also I had a sect of (admittedly fanatical) Druids who would reanimate dead animals to drive of the hunters who had killed them.

Quote from: Will;791975Ancestor worshippers, for example, venerate the dead and consider them 'buds.' Consider Day of the Dead. Let's go have a picnic with our dead ancestors!

I've been told, though, by Chinese friends... that a large motivator in their veneration of ancestors is outright fear of what will happen if they don't.

Are there any systems that have something like a 'Medium' class who deals with spirits of the dead, hold seances, manifest ectoplasm and portents and allow the dead into themselves for certain tasks? Versatile Necromancy that  doesn't involve actual walking corpses?

I never got around to posting my 'ancestor worshipper' background... there we go:
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=791995#post791995

Quote from: Simlasa;791991I've been told, though, by Chinese friends... that a large motivator in their veneration of ancestors is outright fear of what will happen if they don't.

Are there any systems that have something like a 'Medium' class who deals with spirits of the dead, hold seances, manifest ectoplasm and portents and allow the dead into themselves for certain tasks? Versatile Necromancy that  doesn't involve actual walking corpses?

We do have a good amount of nectromantic spells that do some of this, and always more coming.  Really, a lot of that.

Corpse Candle (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955331/Basic%20Corpse%20Candle) and it's greater variants make an area more attractive to spirits.
Spectral Vision (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956147/Spectral%20Vision) shows how a dead person looked just before they died,
Dark Stream (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955477/Dark%20Stream) actually hurts undead by affecting the ties to the House of Death,  I mentioned Shrive the Spirit (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956062/Shrive%20the%20Spirit) earlier, and Beyond the Call (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955342/Beyond%20the%20Call) makes it nearly impossible to raise something.  Summon Artisan Sou (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/52986763/Summon%20Artisan%20Soul%20spell)l allows a Necromancer to call up the spirit and knowledge of a certain type of craftsman.

There are many more in the Necromatic spells (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956149/Spell%20List).  The real nasty stuff is separate, under "death" spell.

Quote from: TristramEvans;791957I don't know there's anything inherently evil about it, except that 21st century Western society on Earth tends to find it in bad taste.

Not trying one of those obnoxious "fixed that for you" bits, but I think that's closer to the mark.  "Good" and "Evil" are very much subjective to individual cultures, and not every human culture considers dealings with the dead to be evil, by a long shot.

For my part, I'm open to the argument that "stealing your life force" is no more or less morally-neutral than killing you by any other means.  I open enough large holes in you with a sword, your life force is going to drain out pretty quickly.

In one of the cultures on my gameworld, the dominant religion has a caste of, well, necromancers (they'd bristle at being called that, though), whose job it is to steal the souls of those about to die.  The faith believes there's a finite number of souls in the world, and the way to best honor your elders is to snatch their souls just at the brink, and to hand those souls off to a separate caste, whose task it is to infuse those souls into newborns, lest the souls of the elders risk dissipating into nothingness.

I had a campaign idea I want to do some day, where there are various necropoli where the dead dwell until they fade away.

And they are guarded by the living and the dead. Occasionally folks cross the border for various reasons.

So you might have an undead ranger or paladin, sent from the land of the dead to hunt down and reclaim some border-crossing undead, or to destroy troublesome undead...

Quote from: One Horse Town;791938Is it even possible to have a good aligned necromancer?

Raising the dead to do your bidding doesn't exactly seem to be a good act - especially when some undead can steal your life-force.

How can you go about making a good necromancer?

I think you could have a necromancer who stays away from animating dead bodies but limits himself to things like communicating with the dead to get information that will help others. Using necromancy to fight undead, drain energy from powerful evil people, and to prevent the resurrection of a villain, seem like good things. I think Necromancers do get into some fuzzy territory pretty quickly though. With something like Animate Dead I suppose it is debatable whether that falls immediately into an evil act (I am inclined to determine that based on the purpose of the casting and the circumstances the bodies arose in).

Quote from: One Horse Town;791938Is it even possible to have a good aligned necromancer?

Raising the dead to do your bidding doesn't exactly seem to be a good act - especially when some undead can steal your life-force.

How can you go about making a good necromancer?

Jesus Christ!

Quote from: One Horse Town;791938Is it even possible to have a good aligned necromancer?

Raising the dead to do your bidding doesn't exactly seem to be a good act - especially when some undead can steal your life-force.

How can you go about making a good necromancer?

Diablo's necromancer is a good guy, and uses necromancy to pursue "balance"; Priests of Rathma (http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Priests_of_Rathma) have this power that only the Burning Hells generally possess, they understand the line between life and death, and are upset at the way angels and demons use humanity as pawns.

The Witch Doctors believe in self-sacrifice for the good of their community and the spirit world, up to and including damning himself through cannibalism in the case of the male WD.

Quote from: The Butcher;791947Hey, it's just meat and bone. It's going to rot away, the soul's gone on to its reckoning on another plane — why not put it to good use? Waste not, want not.

This is the distinction that is the critical question depending on setting. There's no 'alignment' in Glorantha (unless Chaos/not Chaos counts) but *usually* creating undead also means binding a soul or spirit against its will to a corpse. In this case the soul is trapped inside a body and is denied an afterlife.

The magician doing something like this is effectively denying Death - this is why Humakt worshippers, a Death cult, are fanatical undead hunters. On the other hand Zorak Zoran, also a Death cult, has a Create Zombie spell as a cult spell. The spell does not need a spirit bound to the zombie - it's mindless and is just meat and bone, most other zombies will have a spirit bound against its will to the zombie body it inhabits.

It's a question of the persistence of personality after death - if your setting has spirits flying around that were once alive then binding them to objects and bodies against the spirit's will is generally going to be seen as a Nasty Thing To Do.

Quote from: One Horse Town;791938Is it even possible to have a good aligned necromancer?

Raising the dead to do your bidding doesn't exactly seem to be a good act - especially when some undead can steal your life-force.

How can you go about making a good necromancer?

Strictly speaking? Man... that's tough. I've run campaigns where PC's have tried to do it, and I built some infrastructure around it - essentially an order of necromancers that essentially hunted evil necro's down. I think ultimately you can start "good" but will end up "neutral" at best.

Over time I think if you're using your full gamut of abilities and playing your class accordingly, it would be really hard. It's possible, but damn it would be challenging. At least in my campaigns.

Quote from: Phillip;792023Jesus Christ!

  If this were TBP, I'd flag that as resembling a group attack. OTOH, if this were TBP, I'd probably get smacked for taking offense to anti-Christian sentiments. Here, I'll just roll my eyes, mutter something about radical differences between restorations and perversions of natural order and the differences between mortal and Divine power, authority and prerogatives, and move on. :)

  The moral standing of necromancy is going to require examining your basic setting assumptions about the nature of body and soul, life and death, and how magic interacts with them. If the body's just meat once the soul has departed, and if there's no rules for how to treat it, then you have a hard time opposing the creation of willless, soulless undead on moral grounds. This seems to be a case where D&D's underlying pragmatism and Neutralist Symbiotic Henotheism run up against the older assumptions of the culture that informs the game's myths, and which generally hold that the body has a certain dignity (Christian) and that at the very least, a body is not supposed to be walking around without its soul and proper life functions (practically universal).

Can there be good necromancers?

Sure.

These would be the type who only raise things like automata level skeletons and zombies. The equivalent of robots. They might work with sentient undead but only on an agreement or partnership level. Negotiation and seeking out good aligned undead. Or they may just be the sort that attracts friendly or talkative undead.

And may be adventuring to try and curb indiscriminant or evil uses of necromancy or functioning in a ghostbusting sort of service.

In my own RPG book way back necromancers are charged by Death to go out and re-put down undead animated by various magics Death disapproves of. Namely using the spirit as the animating force instead of magical automata. Especially if it was done by force. Necromancers  there functioned simmilar to a 5e Warlock except that their pact was with various willing undead and their patron entity was Death.

Or in Dragon Storm, initially most PC mages are former Necromancers. The Remorseful Apprentice background. Using their magic now to fight their former teachers and expose the lie. Later were added Spirit Speakers who could talk to and ward against spirits.

Quote from: The Butcher;791949On a more serious note, a "good guy" necromancer could be a medium/oracle, exorcist and undead hunter.

Absolutely! If you look at Clerics of Morr in Warhammer, you can build a cleric of a Death God who uses lots of spells listed in D&D as necromantic. Instead of making undead, the death cleric puts them to rest. The undead are enslaved and the death cleric frees them to go to their afterlife, or to their judgment in the case of self-made undead like liches.

Quote from: Ladybird;792040Diablo's necromancer is a good guy, and uses necromancy to pursue "balance"; Priests of Rathma (http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Priests_of_Rathma) have this power that only the Burning Hells generally possess, they understand the line between life and death, and are upset at the way angels and demons use humanity as pawns.

Agreed. The Diablo Necromancer is a perfect example of a good and heroic necromancer.

Quote from: One Horse Town;791938Is it even possible to have a good aligned necromancer?

Yes! But depends on the setting. I doubt they can exist in a Sword & Sorcery, or Paladins & Princesses setting, but they can rock hard in a Dark Fantasy setting where the enemy of my enemy can be my friend.

Quote from: One Horse Town;791938Raising the dead to do your bidding doesn't exactly seem to be a good act - especially when some undead can steal your life-force.

In Diablo, there is a fight fire with fire aspect to the Necromancer. Even a Necromancer knows he's messing with "things man should not know", but that magic is a desperately needed weapon against the MUCH greater evil of Hell.

I've run a couple Diablo campaigns using a houseruled version of the Diablo II supplement for AD&D 2e released just before 3e came out. If you're not familiar with Diablo, its a human world invaded by demons from Hell.

My take on Necromancers was that even the dead humans wanted to help protect their kin from the scourge of demons and even in death, they lent their power to Necromancers in the fight for mankind's survival.

Quote from: One Horse Town;791938How can you go about making a good necromancer?

You could do the White/Gray/Black magic breakdown of all the spells found under Necromancy in whatever system you are using. Then you could declare that "good" necromancers can only use those listed under White and Gray magic.

Quote from: Ravenswing;792000Not trying one of those obnoxious "fixed that for you" bits, but I think that's closer to the mark.  "Good" and "Evil" are very much subjective to individual cultures, and not every human culture considers dealings with the dead to be evil, by a long shot.

I'd say closer to the mark wouuld actually be : "Western Society from Rome to medieval Europe, to the present." Dealings with the dead were frowned upon in general by any society influenced by Christianity or the heritage of Classical civilization. But certainly that doesn't speak for all of humanity.

If necromancy = raise undead, it gets tricky, but, barring a strict moral rejection from the real people involved, it can be done. How, has been well covered. Just for another example, my own setting includes an order that consideres their sworn oaths binding eternally, so they turn to nekromancy on their own fallen.

The psychopomp aspect has also been very well covered.

This leaves death spells, like finger of death or circle of death in D&D. Snuffing out lives with a snap of your finger sure sounds evil, but in the end you attempt the same end result with throwing down a fireball, plus the pain of being burned to crisp. Compared to the possible deaths offered by most magic systems, I'd say instant death spells may well be downright humane.

For example, Warhammer has Amethyst Mages, who have all the instant death power usually associated with Necromancy, but are considered no more blasphemous or evil than Jade (Life) Mages.

In my D&D/PF games raising skeletons and zombies is not an evil act. It is just animating a conveniently shaped object. It may well have negative social connotations mind you. But it is not an evil act. They are mindless creatures. They have no alignment. Not any more than an animated chair would. fewer people get upset though if you animate  a chair rather than Aunt Bessy. Yes, I know that the Animate Dead spell has an Evil descriptor. I ignore it.

Mycocinds and some other plants in D&D that use dead bodies as a framework.

Quote from: Omega;792751Mycocinds and some other plants in D&D that use dead bodies as a framework.

Forget the 'dead' part. There are fungi that take over living insects and use them to spread their spores...

Quote from: Tetsubo;792756Forget the 'dead' part. There are fungi that take over living insects and use them to spread their spores...

Yeah, there was a nifty videogame about that fungus spreading to humans a while back ..."Last of us" or something to that effect. Watched a friend of mine play it ( dont play VG myself, but sometimes they're fun to watch)

Quote from: TristramEvans;792757Yeah, there was a nifty videogame about that fungus spreading to humans a while back ..."Last of us" or something to that effect. Watched a friend of mine play it ( dont play VG myself, but sometimes they're fun to watch)

A Batman comic had a similar story-line at one point. Though it was only a single person with the infection. I also don't play vieo games but I enjoy watching them on YouTube. I recommend lumin, Gopher and sloshworks.

Sans moral relativism, necros are evil, pretty simple.

Interestingly, in 3e D&D, you could animate the dead as a not inherently evil act... with Animate Object.

Mind you, there's no particular reason to animate a dead body vs., say, a dresser, and a DM may rule that it is evil as a 'desecration of the dead.' But it's not quite as cut and dried as Animate Dead (in 3e D&D, where all undead are evil).

Quote from: dragoner;792779Sans moral relativism, necros are evil, pretty simple.

Only if you view animating mindless undead as evil. And I don't. That isn't moral relativism. Animating a thing is animating a thing.

Quote from: Will;792783Interestingly, in 3e D&D, you could animate the dead as a not inherently evil act... with Animate Object.

Mind you, there's no particular reason to animate a dead body vs., say, a dresser, and a DM may rule that it is evil as a 'desecration of the dead.' But it's not quite as cut and dried as Animate Dead (in 3e D&D, where all undead are evil).

I've done that as a GM, animate corpses with the Animate Object spell. It creates undead that can't be turned. Priests hate that.

I will dispute that animating mindless undead is evil until *my* dying day.

Well, it's built into the nature of 3e D&D. I agree, though, that it doesn't HAVE to be that way.

And it's not even completely logical -- creating undead involves drawing on the negative energy plane. But the negative energy plane shouldn't necessarily be automatically evil.
I mean, if you visit the positive energy plane it fills you with energy until you explode and die. So... hey.

Quote from: Tetsubo;792787I've done that as a GM, animate corpses with the Animate Object spell. It creates undead that can't be turned. Priests hate that.

I will dispute that animating mindless undead is evil until *my* dying day.

Well, it is all based on the cosmology of the setting, and then the different cultural 'reads' o that cosmology.  So it certainly can be evil.  Or it can be neutral, or even a tool for weal in the right setting and cultural.

Saying it is evil or good without those references is sort of baseless.

Quote from: Tetsubo;792786Only if you view animating mindless undead as evil. And I don't. That isn't moral relativism. Animating a thing is animating a thing.

It is not just a thing, it was a person. Typically, necromancy, deals with enslavement, or somehow feeding off the energy of the dead, or just as a simple vandalizing a gravesite. Generally all which would be considered evil, though historically was driven by fear of sepsis or disease; not that people understood what it was, ie cholera was originally thought to be from bad odors.

Quote from: LordVreeg;792790Well, it is all based on the cosmology of the setting, and then the different cultural 'reads' o that cosmology.  So it certainly can be evil.  Or it can be neutral, or even a tool for weal in the right setting and cultural.

Saying it is evil or good without those references is sort of baseless.

D&D has literal Evil and Good in it. It isn't about cultural opinions. The standard descriptor for an Animate Dead spell is Evil. I disagree with that. The negative Plane itself is not evil. Negative energy itself is not evil. Why is using negative energy to animate a mindless undead evil? Because the writers of the game said it was evil. That is not a good justification for me. I've had this conversation a hundred times. I am in the minority opinion on this. Most folks just say it is evil because it is listed as Evil. I don't like that. Things without minds can't make moral choices. The spell itself when used to create something that can't make a moral choice shouldn't be evil in my opinion. I am sure I will be corrected.

Quote from: dragoner;792792It is not just a thing, it was a person. Typically, necromancy, deals with enslavement, or somehow feeding off the energy of the dead, or just as a simple vandalizing a gravesite. Generally all which would be considered evil, though historically was driven by fear of sepsis or disease; not that people understood what it was, ie cholera was originally thought to be from bad odors.

OK, I'm out. I apologize for ever joining this thread.

Quote from: Tetsubo;792794OK, I'm out. I apologize for ever joining this thread.

What? Fine.

Quote from: Tetsubo;792756Forget the 'dead' part. There are fungi that take over living insects and use them to spread their spores...

Wouldnt exactly call the ant alive at that point. And it isnt alive once it reaches its destination. Creepily fascinating because the fungus has one specific command line. Go up, turn, go forward, stop, bite.

Worse is there is a parasitic fly that goes after fire ants. The larva eventually hollows out the head and it falls off. But the body continues to trundle about with the worm for a good while because bugs are scary like that. The government released them into a few states to try and curb the fire ant problem. Arizona was one I believe.

Quote from: Tetsubo;792793D&D has literal Evil and Good in it. It isn't about cultural opinions. The standard descriptor for an Animate Dead spell is Evil. I disagree with that. The negative Plane itself is not evil. Negative energy itself is not evil. Why is using negative energy to animate a mindless undead evil? Because the writers of the game said it was evil. That is not a good justification for me. I've had this conversation a hundred times. I am in the minority opinion on this. Most folks just say it is evil because it is listed as Evil. I don't like that. Things without minds can't make moral choices. The spell itself when used to create something that can't make a moral choice shouldn't be evil in my opinion. I am sure I will be corrected.

Well, the OP does not mention D&D, though it does mention alignment.  Probably why many people posted System answers.  And I understand alignment very, very well, well enough to know that it is, as mentioned, deilogically biased and cosmology biased, in that this concept of Patron Deity (one I dislike, but that is me) can be the one who judges whether a worshipper is cleaving to their alignment.

Quote from: dragoner;792779Sans moral relativism, necros are evil, pretty simple.

Depends on the game.

In D&D they tend to be evil. But at the end of the day necromancy is just another school of magic. Neither good nor evil. It just tends to get more visibly abused than about any other type of magic. Enchantmet probably gets more abused, but its more or less invisible until 5th ed where a charm now tips off the victem they were had.

In Dragon Storm they are either soul eating villains of the blackest sort. Or ex-apprentices who have seen the light. Or just people who like to chat with ghosts...

Quote from: Omega;792800Depends on the game.

Yes. The game has to have it as well. Though I think some people are unclear about what evil means. The Manichean dichotomous relationship between good and evil is more recent, even in Christianity; whereas the old pre-Christian religions, like the worship of Perchta, were ambivalent to say the least.

Since all the cool kids have already weighed in with personal setting... ah... settings, I guess I can too.

In the cosmology I set up (its over in the sticky in Design and Development), Necromancy isn't 'raising corpses'. It is the study of the metaphysical laws governing death, largely with the goal of being able to return from the Lands of the Dead.

And it is evil as all get out.

Evil, because it contravenes Divine Law (several of the major Gods, including Death, the Sun and the Sea, all have specific antagonistic relationships with the Undead).

Evil, because the Undead are universally predatory. It is an expression of ultimate selfishness, returning from death, and that selfishness manifests in their willingness to do anything to remain 'alive'.  Weaker, more foolish necromancers return as savage, nearly mindless ghouls that kill and eat the living, more powerful necromancers return as Vampires, draining blood/life to sustain themselves while manipulating the living to their own ends, while the most powerful (liches for lack of a more generic term) consume souls outright and seek to upset the cosmic order in some fashion in order to remain 'free'. Killing and enslaving all the living, severing the world from the Gods, or even killing the gods themselves... all with the simple, selfish goal of making it impossible for them to be sent back to the Lands of the Dead.


On the other hand, simply animating skeletons isn't even considered Necromancy. Animating entire corpses is a lot more distasteful (rot, you know?), but is otherwise value neutral. Of course: any number of local cultures may frown on animating the dead for other reasons, not least of which is the potential to offend the relatives of the dead.  Regardless: its basic enchantment, nothing more.

Likewise: Contacting the spirits of the dead isn't considered necromancy.  Only attempting to drag them from the Lands of the Dead into Haven itself is Necromantic.  Simply checking in on Grandpa or asking the murder victim's spirit about his killer? that's spiritualism or, I believe in the D&D school system, Divination.

Quote from: Omega;792800In D&D they tend to be evil. But at the end of the day necromancy is just another school of magic. Neither good not evil. It just tends to get more visibly abused than about any other type of magic. Enchantmet probably gets more abused, but its more or less invisible until 5th ed where a charm now tips off the victem they were had.

That... oh my god.

I now have the best idea for a Lawful Bastard enchanter who abuses the everloving fuck out of his powers and hates necromancers because they casually pervert the natural order for their own selfish benefit. It will be glorious.

Thank you for the inspiration. :D

Quote from: dragoner;792801Yes. The game has to have it as well. Though I think some people are unclear about what evil means. The Manichean dichotomous relationship between good and evil is more recent, even in Christianity; whereas the old pre-Christian religions, like the worship of Perchta, were ambivalent to say the least.

Real world views on necromancy. Which are few and far between in the fantasy sense. Have little bearing on D&D setting necromancy.

In Forgotten Realms its just another form of magic and like all else theres good and evil uses.

In Dragonlance the god of good curses a knight with horrible undeath.

In BX it was just an animating force. Any caster with the animate Dead spell could use it. Law, Neutral, or Chaos. And there wasnt any necromancy at all in the system. Sure you could call yourself a necromancer. But it was just a title.

Quote from: Omega;792894Real world views on necromancy. Which are few and far between in the fantasy sense. Have little bearing on D&D setting necromancy.

In Forgotten Realms its just another form of magic and like all else theres good and evil uses.

In Dragonlance the god of good curses a knight with horrible undeath.

In BX it was just an animating force. Any caster with the animate Dead spell could use it. Law, Neutral, or Chaos. And there wasnt any necromancy at all in the system. Sure you could call yourself a necromancer. But it was just a title.

You can chose to ignore reality, sure. I have been kicking around the idea of running a DnD campaign starting in Kohci, India at 1503. So reality does have an influence.

The canon DnD references won't have as big effect on my views because, I don't know them.

Quote from: dragoner;792910You can chose to ignore reality, sure.

Once you have chosen to include functioning necromancy you have already chosen to ignore a pretty significant chunk of reality.

Also, you are begging the question of a pan-culturally agreed definition of what necromancy is even supposed to be.

And it is not like real world cultures agree at all on how one should properly reverence the dead - burial, burning, exposure, and ritual cannabalism are just part of the human spectrum. Therefore coming up with a universal agreement on what desecration of the dead is would be impossible or so general as to be meaningless in deciding how a culture would view necromancy.

Quote from: Bren;793070Once you have chosen to include functioning necromancy you have already chosen to ignore a pretty significant chunk of reality.

No, just sectioning it off and changing certain aspects. History is just too much fun not to play with.

Quote from: Bilharzia;792052The magician doing something like this is effectively denying Death - this is why Humakt worshippers, a Death cult, are fanatical undead hunters. On the other hand Zorak Zoran, also a Death cult, has a Create Zombie spell as a cult spell. The spell does not need a spirit bound to the zombie - it's mindless and is just meat and bone, most other zombies will have a spirit bound against its will to the zombie body it inhabits.

I've always thought that element of the Zorak Zoran cult a spiffy example of something tabletop RPGs routinely screw up: that religions aren't as nearly G-vs-E pigeonholed as players want them to be.  It's so strange that Tekumel and Glorantha got that bit right, right at the beginning of the hobby, followed by decades of settings of blandly rigid objective morality.

Although 95% of settings don't think things through.  The game session that inspired this blog post of mine (Undead Estate Law) (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/12/undead-estate-law.html) wound up twisting the players' brains in directions they really didn't want to go ...

In that light, for those of you who really want to see how the other side plays out, pick up GURPS Banestorm: Abydos.  It's the only gaming product with a warning label I've never sneered at, and it comes by that warning label honestly: if you're a squeamish sort, don't read it.  If you'd like a chilling, detailed take on what a city run by necromancy might look like, do read it.

The Necromancer Chronicles by Amanda Downum have a rather "good" main character, with what the setting calls Necromantic powers, although I seem to recall a lot more talking to spirits and dealing with vampires than raising minions.

I've wanted to model a setting after the rich animism, but all the major characters are special snowflakes with way more power than a typical mid-level OSR character (for reasons that turn out well-justified in setting, but they're clearly literary heroes rather than RPG [zh]eroes). Maybe it comes closer to 5e cantrips-at-will: magelight, see invisible / spirits, magical wards on your house, detect magic.

I don't know if someone has bothered to state the obvious, but the original form of necromancy and the word itself is tied most to divination.

Necromancy is 'supposed' to be about calling spirits to find out information, not animating corpses.

By THAT metric, the vast bulk of traditional necromancy is typically non-evil.

Yeah but these are all singular examples of Necromancy (of the D&D variety) in use. The notion that one IS a practicing Necromancer in context with what that generally entails regardless of culture is where things get tricky.

That said - I don't play with Alignment, and I don't consider animating inanimate bodies/skeletons to be "evil" - as much as it's garish and bad manners under best circumstances.

This kicked off an interesting discussion with my group this past weekend. I asked them if having a "neighborhood Necromancer" who seemed "cool" was okay for them? They all replied as long as he wasn't doing human-sacrifice and other shit like that, sure.

So I said - what if he needed yardwork done and one day you see this pack of skeletons pulling weeds out of his garden and trimming his hedges? They kinda nervously considered it - then said "well they're just animated skeletons. As long as it didn't interfere with the D&D Cosmological afterlife for those skeletons former owners - it was not evil. They're just inanimate objects, a shell not the spirit of the person." So I validated - yep, it was just skeletons. And they reiterated - it's "all good".

So then I said - What if you came over and saw he had a bunch of zombies digging a well. And you realized one zombie was your wife who died of the pox last season, and the other was your dad? He animated them from the local village graveyard, and cheerfully tells you he'll put them back, but since he used them the PC will have free access to the well as payment.

Through gritted teeth the player said... "Welll.... my wife? Dude... bad form. Not evil... but I might give him a black eye."

LOL

It might be interesting to have a nation whose social contract with its citizens that if you die, your body is given to the government. Their bones are removed and put into a massive pile and mixed up. So skeletons are animated into conglomerate structures that do the work of the kingdom. So that way it makes them anonymous and for the benefit of everyone. Would be interesting to design for.

Quote from: tenbones;793167It might be interesting to have a nation whose social contract with its citizens that if you die, your body is given to the government. Their bones are removed and put into a massive pile and mixed up. So skeletons are animated into conglomerate structures that do the work of the kingdom. So that way it makes them anonymous and for the benefit of everyone. Would be interesting to design for.

Indeed, especially as I can see how such economic can go wrong, causing a raise of a Caesar - like figure, campaigning on the idea of GIVE JOBS BACK TO THE LIVING!

Yep, pretty much how necromancy functions socially in my own RPG.


Free labour? Ok long as it isnt "alive".

Animated a family member or friend? Probably not ok even if its just an automita. In general necromancers are expected to stay out of family graveyards and stick public ones where the criminals tend to get planted.

Yanked someones ghost out of the afterlife and glued it back on their corpse as a slave? Not ok. (unless its a criminal) Likely to get Deaths unwanted attention which means some adventurers are immenent on your doorstep. Possibly lead by a necromancer charged with putting you down ASAP.

Called it up with permission from the spirit? Usually ok. Especially if its temporary.

One of the side effects of necromantic powers is that some nations clean up their battlefields afterwards to prevent instant armies sprouting. Other nations bury the dead on the spot so they can do exactly this later.

Necromancy is about the only means permissible to actually communicate with the dead. Which entails an etherial trip to the far realm. And the only way to actually raise someone back to life. Which entailed explaining to Death why this person should be sent back. Sometimes the dead didnt want to. Sometimes Death would agree. But you had to go out and put down some nut gluing ghosts back onto their corpses against the spirits will. Which is enchantment magic by the way. Which was the bemusing part. Most of the Evil Necromancers were really enchanters.

Quote from: tenbones;793167It might be interesting to have a nation whose social contract with its citizens that if you die, your body is given to the government. Their bones are removed and put into a massive pile and mixed up. So skeletons are animated into conglomerate structures that do the work of the kingdom. So that way it makes them anonymous and for the benefit of everyone. Would be interesting to design for.

Besides, look -- demonstrably, our culture puts up with all manner of nasty, cruel shit For The Good Of All ... or at least, for goals a tipping point of the populace has been talked into agreeing are For The Good Of All.

So what happens when the admiral says, "Look.  We need our war galleys manned in order to preserve our national freedom.  Now we can either squeeze you for the taxes to keep 50 galleys in commission, because they all have to be packed with water and food for the rowers, and we have to use the press and kidnap your fathers, sons and brothers to man those oar decks -- because let's be realistic, no one's volunteering to be an oar slave.  Or we can use skeleton rowers, who never revolt, never get tired, never need provisions and DON'T require that we grab a thousand or so citizens, who when they die off means we need to grab a thousand more.  With saving space for provisions, the galleys will have a lot more range, and the holds can be smaller, so the ships can be smaller and less costly.  Your call."

So what happens when the chief minister says, "Look.  The Archprelate of Mitra preaches that slavery is evil, and I don't disagree -- I know most of you don't either.  But few free men will work as field hands on the Orc Marches -- where most of our prime farmland is -- and no one willingly works in the Jet Mines, where the death rate is heavy.  Zombies will, though, and we can have our wheat and marble, from tireless, willing workers.  I do not know about you, but I rather like being able to eat behind four walls.  Do you?  And look -- not a living person enslaved to do it."

Yeah ! This is turning into a goldmine of possibility.

When the DMG lands I hope there's rules for creating constructs. It might be interesting to create a "Mecropolis" a city where much of the labor is handled by undead. I think it would be fun to make it seem tasteful, even fashionable among the elite to have various styles of constructs made of animated skeletal-engineering.

Maybe different kinds of skeletons have different possible properties? Could lead to some interesting moral hazards for those trying to keep Necromancy "not evil"... especially when money is involved.

"Giant bones are very useful for X" - the local giant tribe starts getting poached. Or whatever. Elf bones! Hmmmm... Dwarves too...

There is a kind of precedent for 'good necromancy'.  Mircea Eliade argued that the principle role of the tribal shaman was as a psychopomp, a link between the living and the spirits of the dead.
Any culture that venerates ancestral spirits might theoretically have 'good' necromancers as well as bad ones, it would be a question of whether they respect the dead rather than defile them.

Quote from: RPGPundit;793221There is a kind of precedent for 'good necromancy'.  Mircea Eliade argued that the principle role of the tribal shaman was as a psychopomp, a link between the living and the spirits of the dead.
Any culture that venerates ancestral spirits might theoretically have 'good' necromancers as well as bad ones, it would be a question of whether they respect the dead rather than defile them.

Agreed.

As far as fantasy goes, I'm surprised that no one has brought up the most prominent example of "good" necromancy - Aragorn and Dunharrow. We might not call Aragorn a necromancer, but he summoned an army of undead to defeat his enemies, which I would say makes him one.

I think the example of Aragorn shows a decent model of what good necromancy could be like. It is still scary and not to be taken lightly, but is something to turn to in times of need. A regular good necromancer would treat the dead with respect, but still might goad them and/or negotiate hard with them to get what he wants.

Repeating myself, good necromancers:

http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=791995&postcount=53

Quote from: jhkim;793226Agreed.

As far as fantasy goes, I'm surprised that no one has brought up the most prominent example of "good" necromancy - Aragorn and Dunharrow. We might not call Aragorn a necromancer, but he summoned an army of undead to defeat his enemies, which I would say makes him one.

I think the example of Aragorn shows a decent model of what good necromancy could be like. It is still scary and not to be taken lightly, but is something to turn to in times of need. A regular good necromancer would treat the dead with respect, but still might goad them and/or negotiate hard with them to get what he wants.

Hmm, good call. Although that was linked to their broken oath rather than summoning them up wholesale.

There's a blurry edge in magical traditions of just what 'summoning' entails.

There's a certain degree to which most 'magic' is simply impressing the spirits enough to bother treating you seriously and listen to what you say.

Obviously, there are other styles, too, but what Aragorn does is quite a lot like 'binding spirits' in many variations.

Quote from: Will;793253There's a blurry edge in magical traditions of just what 'summoning' entails.

There's a certain degree to which most 'magic' is simply impressing the spirits enough to bother treating you seriously and listen to what you say.

Obviously, there are other styles, too, but what Aragorn does is quite a lot like 'binding spirits' in many variations.

Thought he just said "Hey. You guys screwed up long ago. Want to make up for it now?" and when asked afterwards if their debt was paid he said "sure" rather than using that debt as a chain?

Quote from: RPGPundit;793221Any culture that venerates ancestral spirits might theoretically have 'good' necromancers as well as bad ones, it would be a question of whether they respect the dead rather than defile them.

(nods)

There's a serious disconnect in the elven empire in my gameworld.  The Ilkorendi hate necromancy.  Hate hate hate it.  Serious cultural down on it, and it doesn't help that they're just a few weeks' march away from the Giant Imperialistic Eeeeevil Necromantic-Loving Human Empire.

Only the elven empire is surrounded by haunted sites and haunted lands (effectively, for those of you familiar with Glorantha, they've got Dorastor just over the border to the south and the west), and you'd think they'd have some tradition of spirit magic, if only to combat all those haunts.

Nope.  The husband of one of the PCs is the most powerful "necromancer" the elves have (i.e., not all that great a one), and he's been dragooned into heading up a schola for the study of spirit magics.  Plenty of cultural resistance.

Quote from: Omega;793271Thought he just said "Hey. You guys screwed up long ago. Want to make up for it now?" and when asked afterwards if their debt was paid he said "sure" rather than using that debt as a chain?

Well, there's at least one spin on most summoning as nothing more than that -- knowing how to get spirits' attention, and knowing what is likely to entice them to help you.

And note that Aragorn isn't just some schlub wandering around. His lineage, his special bloodline, and the sword he was carrying, all had cachet with those dead.

Again, there are parallels to be made with various forms of necromancy.

Consider the Odyssey, where Odysseus calls on the spirits of the dead using a sacrifice of a black lamb and an offering of blood.

Is this a spell? Is this simply a thing you do that draws the attention of the dead? Is there a difference?

Depends on how you design things.

Alot of games and especially books have spontaneously created undead too. Sometimes lots and lots of them. Mother Nature is obviously a necromancer!

Quote from: Omega;793271Thought he just said "Hey. You guys screwed up long ago. Want to make up for it now?" and when asked afterwards if their debt was paid he said "sure"  

Magic!

Quote from: TristramEvans;793307Magic!

Charisma?

Oh wait... Friendship IS magic. Silly me...

You guys can re-name it Nice-romancy, then have a group hug on tbp. To me, the evil aspect is more appealing.

(http://sittingwithsorrow.typepad.com/.a/6a0154363a7e57970c015392beff40970b-800wi)

Evil! EEEEVIL!

Quote from: dragoner;793337You guys can re-name it Nice-romancy, then have a group hug on tbp. To me, the evil aspect is more appealing.

Evil Necromancy is so 80s. Get with the times! Embrace your inner Casper. Or outer Casper as the case may be.

Quote from: Omega;793341Evil Necromancy is so 80s. Get with the times! Embrace your inner Casper. Or outer Casper as the case may be.

Because orcs and drow are problematic. Maybe things don't need to be sanitized for the protection of hippies. /shrug

Quote from: dragoner;793343Because orcs and drow are problematic. Maybe things don't need to be sanitized for the protection of hippies. /shrug

AD&D had bard liches you know...

Quote from: dragoner;793337You guys can re-name it Nice-romancy, then have a group hug on tbp. To me, the evil aspect is more appealing.

I like having both.
A well buttressed reason for having some less evil, more useful folk who can help free the soul, as well as dead evil ones that use their ability to enslave the souls of the dead.

Quote from: Omega;793271Thought he just said "Hey. You guys screwed up long ago. Want to make up for it now?" and when asked afterwards if their debt was paid he said "sure" rather than using that debt as a chain?

The Dunharrow spirits were resentful at best of being used, rather than being totally willing. They agreed because they were cursed, not necessarily because they were genuinely remorseful. I would say Aragorn used the debt as a chain to get them to fight in the first place, but he was respectful and broke the chain after the battle.

My point is just that many people would say that having an undead army fight for you is inherently evil - but the example of Aragorn is counter to that. I would say what matters for the morality is treating the dead respectfully, not the mechanics of how you raise them.

One thing I keep contemplating, in gaming, is the role of magic in real beliefs/traditions.

In modern fantasy, magic tends to be a discrete THING that you have points in, a powersource that operates in a weird way, etc.

But typically, the only 'unique' thing about a mage, in real beliefs, was happening to know the right recipes and techniques to get spirits to show up or convince the Powers Wot Be that they should intervene on your behalf.

I mention that because necromancy and summoning and seers is a much more fluid thing, and while someone might be a respected seer, desperate people or wise old grannies might also know a thing or two about whistling up a spirit down by the fen.


Basically, anything that allows magic like Ladyhawke is cool in my book. ;)

Quote from: Omega;793375AD&D had bard liches you know...

[obscure reference]"My name is Mokk, thanks alot..." [/obscure reference]

Quote from: dragoner;793337You guys can re-name it Nice-romancy, then have a group hug on tbp. To me, the evil aspect is more appealing.

Yeah, well, what I find appealing is folks avoiding threadcrapping by those who can't handle that not every gamer out there buys into their 1980s G-vs-E-only attitude.  Don't worry, sport, there's no shortage of "OMG but the dead are ICKY!!!!!" gamers out there for you to hug instead.

Necromancy as Lawful!

'My apologies, Mr. Franks, you expired three years before your contract was fulfilled. As noted in subclause N3, you have been animated to serve out the remainder...'

Quote from: Ravenswing;793493Yeah, well, what I find appealing is folks avoiding threadcrapping by those who can't handle that not every gamer out there buys into their 1980s G-vs-E-only attitude.  Don't worry, sport, there's no shortage of "OMG but the dead are ICKY!!!!!" gamers out there for you to hug instead.

Do you want a genderless gingerbread person to go with those double negatives? So good vs evil is 80's? Now it's the 21st century cliché of how evil is just misunderstood? How boring. No matter how much you rub your crystal, or whatever new age madness you ascribe to, evil will continue to exist. It existed long before the 1980's (not that I have anything against the 80's) and it will continue to exist. I'm sure what you find "OMG ICKY" is having to take a stand for anything; yeah, well, I don't. Which says a hell of a lot about you.

Speaking of the 1980's, I know someone who broke into a mausoleum and kicked the head off a corpse, they were latter arrested and didn't have such a good time in jail. They got what they deserved, imo, and it looks like even the scum in jail felt similar.

Quote from: LordVreeg;793377I like having both.
A well buttressed reason for having some less evil, more useful folk who can help free the soul, as well as dead evil ones that use their ability to enslave the souls of the dead.

You could make a case for evil being used for good, or whatever; however rigid absolutes, I don't know. There is absolution, as well as neutrality, it is sort of playing with a hand grenade, eventually something bad is going to happen. However, in my idea for Kochi, 1503; the Portuguese conquerors are lawful evil, and they would utterly hate necromancers. One would hope there isn't good vs good, but evil has no onus not to be against itself.

Dragoner, are you ever going to acknowledge all the examples of real world belief systems with 'good' necromancy?

Stay off the lead there, you might be proving your own theory.

Quote from: Will;793542Dragoner, are you ever going to acknowledge all the examples of real world belief systems with 'good' necromancy?

I just consulted the Magic 8-Ball and it told me:

QuoteOutlook not so good

Magic eight ball rocks.

Just got an idea for a 5e trinket.

And hey, d20!

Looking at wikipedia, amusingly, Magic 8-Ball originates from a spirit medium device... so it's on topic!

Talking D&D here...

I think there's a definite difference between "animated corpse" and "Undead".  A cleric of a good deity can't turn a sword animated with Animate Object, or a Golem, or an Elemental.  They can, however, Turn or Destroy Undead.

So when you say you animate something, what are you animating it with?  Talking to spirits of the dead isn't necessarily evil, nor is animating an object through some form of telekinesis or force that just happens to be bone.  However, creating Undead, is imparting some form of anti-life energy or evil spirit into a skeleton or body that, without direct control, will seek out and destroy life.  That's Evil.  Learning spells to undo or destroy Undead or prevent Undeath is not Evil, even if the spells are necromantic in nature.

YD&DMV

Quote from: dragoner;793541You could make a case for evil being used for good, or whatever; however rigid absolutes, I don't know. There is absolution, as well as neutrality, it is sort of playing with a hand grenade, eventually something bad is going to happen. However, in my idea for Kochi, 1503; the Portuguese conquerors are lawful evil, and they would utterly hate necromancers. One would hope there isn't good vs good, but evil has no onus not to be against itself.

Well, it is setting specific.  
One can create a setting where, as I said, only those who can affect the spirits of the dead can aid their journey.  So it is a good act in that one liberates the souls and lets them go where their god waits for them.

If Necromancy is evil, someone better inform the Pope. There are a number of passages in the Old and New Testament which speaks to God and Jesus resurrecting corpses from their tombs.

http://proecclesia.net/2013/10/30/zombies-bible/

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;793636If Necromancy is evil, someone better inform the Pope. There are a number of passages in the Old and New Testament which speaks to God and Jesus resurrecting corpses from their tombs.

   This is why defining terms and premises can be so important. From my point of view, there's a radical difference between raising the dead and animating corpses, related to the nature of the energizing power, the relationship between body and soul, and the proper treatment of the human body even after the soul has departed. But if you're a modern, 'it's all just meat' materialist, or a postmodern 'it's all what I say it is' relativist, those differences become trivial.

Armchair Gamer:
I agree, but would also add the method and position those involved have are important factors, too.

A priest enjoining the souls of village warriors to arise and defend their descendents is rather different than someone knifing an orphan and zapping it back to life so he can have cheap labor for his mine.

Quote from: LordVreeg;793625Well, it is setting specific.  
One can create a setting where, as I said, only those who can affect the spirits of the dead can aid their journey.  So it is a good act in that one liberates the souls and lets them go where their god waits for them.

You could create a setting where evil is good or whatever, ultimately that's fine, beyond all the reductio ad absurdum arguments about bringing things like the Pope into it or something. The reality check isn't a Ouija board, it is the idea of desecrating graves to perform "magic", which is an agreed upon "evil" according to society, to raising undead monsters, fantasy-wise; which would still fall under "evil".

Or you treat it like other actions, whereas 'create water' is good if you are giving an orphan drinking water and evil if you are using it to drown one.

Additional source for a good necromancer: Garth Nix's Sabriel (and several related books); the Abhorsen is a necromancer opposing various evil necromancers and undead.  (But, aside from the Abhorsen's heir/apprentice/successor, all the other necromancers are indeed evil.)

Undertakers in the real world do lots of things I would be too squeamish to watch, let alone do, but the net result is to help people deal with death, which is by itself good.  Fighters and thieves aren't always evil, despite their tendency to resort to violence and theft.

Quote from: Will;793542Dragoner, are you ever going to acknowledge all the examples of real world belief systems with 'good' necromancy?

In case you missed it by now. Dragoner is tolling. Rather pathetically too.

A discusses Necromancy in a game world.
D: Real world necromancy is EVIL! Fantasy necromancy cannot be good.
A: We arent talking about real world necromancy.
D: Real world necromancy is EVIL! Fantasy necromancy cannot be good.
A: Ok but theres examples of real world good necromancy.
D: That example doesnt count.
A: Heres another example.
D: That example doesnt count.
A resumes talking about fantasy necromancy.
D: Real world necromancy is EVIL! Fantasy necromancy cannot be good.

etc ad stupidium.

Quote from: Will;793655Or you treat it like other actions, whereas 'create water' is good if you are giving an orphan drinking water and evil if you are using it to drown one.

puts on Dragoner mask.

"Real world create water is good! Fantasy create water cannot be evil!"

See what I said about moral relativism, dumb asses. "Tolling", ha! exact change please.

Quote from: Omega;793729etc ad stupidium.

You called yourselves this not I, however; it is fitting. It is descriptive of what you are asking, eg for me to repeat myself.

Quote from: dragoner;793644You could create a setting where evil is good or whatever, ultimately that's fine, beyond all the reductio ad absurdum arguments about bringing things like the Pope into it or something. The reality check isn't a Ouija board, it is the idea of desecrating graves to perform "magic", which is an agreed upon "evil" according to society, to raising undead monsters, fantasy-wise; which would still fall under "evil".

You could create a setting where everyone, everywhere treats the dead the exact same way and in that setting everyone sees the same set of acts as desecration. That setting wouldn't be anything like any historical version of our earth nor would it be like many fantasy settings. But you could do that. (It sounds like you have, in fact created such a setting.) I could envision that it would be fun to play undead hunter PCs in that setting.

But this setting you've created clearly conflicts with the premise of this thread, which makes wonder why you keep posting.

Obviously I have touched a nerve. Doesn't bother me. However, arguing from the point of 'in reality it is evil, but in your fantasy it is good'; is perhaps the worst argument I have ever read.

If Necromancy is defined by "the communication with, the animation of, or the divination from the physical remains of the dead, or the spirits of the dead" then that's a pretty broad definition and has lots of both fantastical and historical precedents to show that such things could be considered "good", and is pretty obvious, I don't think OHT needs people to tell him shamans talk to ancestor spirits. :rolleyes:

I read the OP as pertaining specifically to the creation of animated dead, undead, or spells that relate to them, which are much more specific and harder to justify unless you assume a complete lack of Capital Good and Evil, which the OP, by its very nature, appears to assume.  I also don't think Dan needs people to tell him that everything's culturally relative. :rolleyes:

Assuming there is such a thing as Good and Evil (you know, not this world, but a fantasy world, oh the imagination hurts!) can the creation of reanimated corpses ever be Good?

Going back to an answer I gave previously, what are you animating the corpse with?  Does the creation of "Undead" assume an evil force, an "Unlife" if you will?  If the cosmology says yes, then creating Undead is an inherently evil act, and controlling or harnessing undead for any purpose would be akin to summoning and binding a demon.  The people saved by the necromancer may think him, but the Priests, Witch Hunters, and even the Gods themselves may not.

If what you are doing is creating a Golem, just using Flesh or Bone, then no, it's not an inherently evil act, but the act of investing something with a simulacrum of life may in itself be a sin, for example, the desire to control the powers of creation is one of the main sins of the Big Bads in Middle Earth.

If the cosmology allows for spirits to inhabit corpses, then I could see a Good Priest summoning the willing spirits of fallen heroes to inhabit their corpses to deal with a threat to the world.  More than likely, this would be more of a limited duration Resurrection or being present as a type of wraith then a Paladin as rotting meat, however.

Quote from: dragoner;793847Obviously I have touched a nerve. Doesn't bother me. However, arguing from the point of 'in reality it is evil, but in your fantasy it is good'; is perhaps the worst argument I have ever read.

You touched a nerve because you came in to take a big fat dump in the thread by using an argument that is logically as bad as an argument gets and despite multiple people pointing out some of your errors you just kept on shitting in the thread.

Arguing (as you are in fact doing) from reality* to what is necessary in a fantasy world makes no sense in this instance. In reality, how one treats the dead properly varies by culture and time period. What is evil in one culture may be neutral or even good in another (and vice versa). Therefore you can't conclude anything from how cultures on earth treat the dead to how fantasy cultures should treat the dead or how they should view necromancy.

Since there are multiple and conflicting ways the dead have been reverenced on earth. To mention just a few ways the dead are treated: we have burial, burning, exposure, mummification, ritual cannabalism, keeping the remains intact vs. mixing the remains of multiple people together vs. scattering the remains individually, secluding the remains away from the dwellings of the living vs. incorporating the remains in the dwellings of the living, the notion of sacred ground vs. no sacred ground, treating in group deaths differently or the same as out group deaths. To then conclude form this plethora of different views on how the dead should be treated that there is only one right way to treat the dead is silly, wrong headed, foolish, and illogical.

To do that you would first have to prove (1) that there is one right way to treat the dead and (2) what that one right way is and why. You haven't even tried doing either of these things. In fact you skipped passed even trying and have simply asserted that somehow you know the answer, whether that knowledge is received through mystical insight, an angel descending to reveal it to you in tongues of fire, mommy and daddy told you so when you were little, you read it on fortune cookie, you found the answer in a box of cracker jacks, or some other way you haven't yet specfied.


What nerve of yours does the mere existence of this thread touch?


* Setting aside that fact that in reality there is no working necromantic magic so the entire point is moot in reality.

I think Lankhmar had an interesting bit that there were many gods worshipped there, but then there were the gods of Lankhmar, mummified dead who would rise up to fight threats to the city.

Well perhaps pathetic was an understatement.

Quote from: dragoner;793805See what I said about moral relativism, dumb asses. "Tolling", ha! exact change please.

 You called yourselves this not I, however; it is fitting. It is descriptive of what you are asking, eg for me to repeat myself.

We didnt ask you to act like a pedantic twat. Im not sure what the hell is possessing you to act like a complete idiot all of a sudden.

Real World Real walking dead Necromancy A: doesnt exist. B: in whatever legends of various faiths, can mean just about anything from bad to good.

Fantasy Necromancy is whatever the designer and/or the GM and/or the players make of it. Pissing on that and singing "la la la your all wrong - its evil!" is way up there on the stupomitron gauge.

Quote from: Will;793861I think Lankhmar had an interesting bit that there were many gods worshipped there, but then there were the gods of Lankhmar, mummified dead who would rise up to fight threats to the city.

Most of the gods worshiped in Lankhmar where called the gods in Lankhmar, but in addition to them there were the gods of Lankmhar and they were feared rather than worshipped. The gods of Lankhmar were spooky sorcery wielding liche/mummy types. They definitely seemed like necromantic ancestor worship (where worship means placation of the things you are really, really afraid of).

Quote from: Bren;793859You touched a nerve because you came in to take a big fat dump in the thread by using an argument that is logically as bad as an argument gets and despite multiple people pointing out some of your errors you just kept on shitting in the thread.

Arguing (as you are in fact doing) from reality* to what is necessary in a fantasy world makes no sense in this instance. In reality, how one treats the dead properly varies by culture and time period. What is evil in one culture may be neutral or even good in another (and vice versa). Therefore you can't conclude anything from how cultures on earth treat the dead to how fantasy cultures should treat the dead or how they should view necromancy.

Since there are multiple and conflicting ways the dead have been reverenced on earth. To mention just a few ways the dead are treated: we have burial, burning, exposure, mummification, ritual cannabalism, keeping the remains intact vs. mixing the remains of multiple people together vs. scattering the remains individually, secluding the remains away from the dwellings of the living vs. incorporating the remains in the dwellings of the living, the notion of sacred ground vs. no sacred ground, treating in group deaths differently or the same as out group deaths. To then conclude form this plethora of different views on how the dead should be treated that there is only one right way to treat the dead is silly, wrong headed, foolish, and illogical.

To do that you would first have to prove (1) that there is one right way to treat the dead and (2) what that one right way is and why. You haven't even tried doing either of these things. In fact you skipped passed even trying and have simply asserted that somehow you know the answer, whether that knowledge is received through mystical insight, an angel descending to reveal it to you in tongues of fire, mommy and daddy told you so when you were little, you read it on fortune cookie, you found the answer in a box of cracker jacks, or some other way you haven't yet specfied.


What nerve of yours does the mere existence of this thread touch?


* Setting aside that fact that in reality there is no working necromantic magic so the entire point is moot in reality.

^^^ WTF are you on about? Did you even read the OP? And that is for your little buddy too. Boo hoo.

Quote from: Omega;793862Well perhaps pathetic was an understatement.



We didnt ask you to act like a pedantic twat. Im not sure what the hell is possessing you to act like a complete idiot all of a sudden.

Real World Real walking dead Necromancy A: doesnt exist. B: in whatever legends of various faiths, can mean just about anything from bad to good.

Fantasy Necromancy is whatever the designer and/or the GM and/or the players make of it. Pissing on that and singing "la la la your all wrong - its evil!" is way up there on the stupomitron gauge.

Pardon my French, but you are a fucking moron, all of you. Read the OP: Raising the dead to do your bidding doesn't exactly seem to be a good act - especially when some undead can steal your life-force.

That's evil. Period. Your motorized goalpost arguments are irrelevant.

Am I "trolling" you with the truth? Maybe you can start #realitygate

:rolleyes:

Quote from: dragoner;793866^^^ WTF are you on about? Did you even read the OP? And that is for your little buddy too. Boo hoo.

Of course I read the OP's post. Did you? Because if you did all you needed to write was: "No it is not possible to have a good aligned necromancer."

Instead of doing that, you have chosen to send multiple posts filled with illlogical gibberish and ranting. The essence of your posts can be summarized as follows "dragoner feels Necromancy is Evil because it is bad and anybody who disagrees is a big meanie, stupid head."

What are you like eight years old or something? Did some grade schooler swipe the real dragoner's password?

I said it is evil and you are having the hissy-fit, obviously. You are wrong and sitting there in your wrongness and crying about it. It's not my job to care.

If you had actually read the op, all your ancillary arguments you would know are pointless, or at least I give you too much credit for, and you aren't that bright.

Quote from: dragoner;793872I said it is evil and you are having the hissy-fit, obviously. You are wrong and sitting there in your wrongness and crying about it. It's not my job to care.

If you had actually read the op, all your ancillary arguments you would know are pointless, or at least I give you too much credit for, and you aren't that bright.

You seem to think these two sentences are equivalent. (Hint: they aren't.)

(1) Raising the dead to do your bidding doesn't exactly seem to be a good act.

(2) Raising the dead to do your bidding is always an evil act.

Anyone with even a 7th grade knowledge of the English language can see that these two sentences don't mean the same thing because some <> all. Someone with a 10th grade knowledge of ethics (or a passing familiarity with the silly world of D&D alignments) would know that some acts are neither good nor evil. Therefore doesn't seem good <> is evil.

Now you may have been confused by the inclusion of the additonal phrase "especially when some undead can steal your life-force." However an astute reader (say one who had passed a high school English class) would notice that "some undead can steal your life-force" does not mean all undead can steal your life-force. And as anyone with even a passing familiarity with D&D or Ray Harryhausen special effects would know undead - such as skeletons - cannot steal anyone's life-force. So in trying to determine if necromancy is always evil, we can ignore that additonal phrase since it doesn't apply to all necromancy but only to the creation of life-force stealing undead such as wights, wraiths, or spectres.

Which now brings us back to the questions that the OP did ask, which was could raising the dead be a good or non-evil act? To this question you have contributed nothing.

What nerve of yours does the mere existence of this thread touch?

Equivalency, relativism, wishy washy-ness; that's your stance remember? Not mine. Good job with your little "junior outrage brigade".

How about you guys explain how 'why don't you answer the real world examples of good necromancy' and 'there is no real world necromancy'?

That should be humorous at least.

Well, at least Dragoner makes me feel like I'm on TBP again. Good times.

When op stated 'is it possible to have a good necromancer? Raising the dead doesn't sound very good' opens up discussion to point out that not all necromancy is raising dead. Which is what a bunch of people did.

Plus examples where undead weren't necessarily evil.

At least this thread has got people arguing over something related to an RPG...

Quote from: dragoner;793876Equivalency, relativism, wishy washy-ness; that's your stance remember? Not mine.

Ah...well then to put it in sort of simple terms you can possibly understand.

Necromancy is good because it is not evil.

I think the consensus is also that animating the dead is very situational based on exactly how the heck the things being motivated.

magic powered robot = icky, but dependant on if anyone knows the things origins or cares. Also the function. Workers no ones likely to care about. Undead made from criminals some are likely to cheer. Using them to attack the town or raiding the cemetary and obvious relatives is likely to get the negative reaction.

soul animated thingy that was asked to = creepy, but theres good and bad undead so its case by case. Some may be heroic even.

enslaved soul that was forced to = usually seen as bad unless it is a criminal, and even with criminals likely seen as not a good idea but may be a last resort sort of maneuver.

Like the aformentioned create water spell.

Quote from: One Horse Town;793884At least this thread has got people arguing over something related to an RPG...

Dragoner was starting to make us doubt that...

Quote from: Bren;793885Ah...well then to put it in sort of simple terms you can possibly understand.

What, no more attacking my "funny" English? Your kung is no good ...

Quote from: One Horse Town;793884At least this thread has got people arguing over something related to an RPG...

I think that they have spent too much time in those threads, the abyss is staring back into them.

Quote from: dragoner;793644The reality check isn't a Ouija board, it is the idea of desecrating graves to perform "magic", which is an agreed upon "evil" according to society, to raising undead monsters, fantasy-wise; which would still fall under "evil".

So you totally missed the part where thats not what the word necromancy actually means? The ouija board IS necromancy by definition, the desecrating graves thing is not except as a specific setting redefines the word.

Quote from: LordVreeg;792790Well, it is all based on the cosmology of the setting, and then the different cultural 'reads' o that cosmology.  So it certainly can be evil.  Or it can be neutral, or even a tool for weal in the right setting and cultural.

Saying it is evil or good without those references is sort of baseless.

Quote from: LordVreeg;792799Well, the OP does not mention D&D, though it does mention alignment.  Probably why many people posted System answers.  And I understand alignment very, very well, well enough to know that it is, as mentioned, deilogically biased and cosmology biased, in that this concept of Patron Deity (one I dislike, but that is me) can be the one who judges whether a worshipper is cleaving to their alignment.

These are my favorite post here. It is correct in all the various anthropological, humanistic, religious, and RPG setting experience I have. Without a shared base perspective it all becomes petty bickering; in RPG hobby practice this foundation is tied to GM baseline setting, and the only means by which to answer OHT's question.

What happens if we take a bunch of dinosaur bones, lash them together, animate it and ride it around?


AWESOMENESS
(And hey, at that point you aren't desecrating sentient beings, so it comes down more into 'is this form of magic inherently evil? Why?')

Quote from: TristramEvans;793963... desecrating graves thing is not except as a specific setting redefines the word.

No, the desecration of graves, is from the part of raising the dead, so you actually don't know the total meaning if you think it's all about Ouija boards. It's not pertinent to the op anyways.

Except the OP didn't specify that he ONLY meant 'raising dead.'

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, he's free to weigh in.

But as written, it can be interpreted as 'raising dead is an example of what's really problematic about necromancy' or 'I only mean raise dead.'

Given 'necromancy' is very frequently used in a more general sense (in reality, fantasy novels, and games), it's fair to speculate.


So you are either being a troll or very stupid, Dragoner.

Bullshit. Fuck off you moron. Go play you hippy elf game like a wuss. Don't expect the rest of us to join you. I'm not falling all over myself to make excuses.

Quote from: dragoner;794014No, the desecration of graves, is from the part of raising the dead, so you actually don't know the total meaning if you think it's all about Ouija boards. It's not pertinent to the op anyways.

You are peddling an incredibly narrow campaign milieu.

Imagine a milieu where the souls of the dead do not go anywhere.  They flit around the natural world alongside the living.

Of course, nobody wants to be an incorporeal phantasm that cannot interact with anything; years of that will drive any soul mad. Commons practice among everyone with the means is to purchase an insurance product from the necromancer guild such that when you die, a necromancer stitches your soul back into your corpse.  Middle class folk can only afford the zombie policy; wealthier folk may be a mummy or vampire.  The poor, well, they sign on to the policy that brings them back as an indentured undead bound to the necromancer.  Even for the poor indentured undead, getting your soul stitched back in is considered a universal good in the milieu, so you can keep on keeping on.

Ah, so definitely a troll. Ok, no reason why the rest of us can't have a fun thread.

Old One Eye:
I had a setting idea I wanted to try out where the dead go to the 'land of the dead'... which, like in some ancient beliefs, was a literal place. Or perhaps multiple places.

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to make a big kingdom of the dead that undead priests came from to collect the dead and bring them back, or perhaps multiple necropoli guarded over by the undead to keep the bothersome living out of, or maybe a combination.

On another tack, I found the depiction of High Cromlech interesting, the land of the dead from China Mieville's 'The Scar.' Where undead dwell, and where vampires turn out to be the scrub underclass that the other undead consider filth.

Quote from: Will;794024Ah, so definitely a troll. Ok, no reason why the rest of us can't have a fun thread.

Old One Eye:
I had a setting idea I wanted to try out where the dead go to the 'land of the dead'... which, like in some ancient beliefs, was a literal place. Or perhaps multiple places.

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to make a big kingdom of the dead that undead priests came from to collect the dead and bring them back, or perhaps multiple necropoli guarded over by the undead to keep the bothersome living out of, or maybe a combination.

My DnD homebrew world explicitly has this.  The god who judges the dead (like most of my gods) lives on the prime material.  Souls of the dead flitter to him for judgment.  Of course he is just one dude even if a god, so there is a backlog.  Thusly, a kingdom-sized section of the world stocked to the brim with undead waiting their judgment.

Quote from: Old One Eye;794022You are peddling an incredibly narrow campaign milieu.

Imagine a milieu where the souls of the dead do not go anywhere.  They flit around the natural world alongside the living.

Imagine a milieu where there are no souls and magic is only believed in by the delusional or ignorant; that's what I play for the most time. It's no more narrow, sci-fi is way more expansive than fantasy, there are rules for building spacecraft and generating star systems, etc..

Personally, imagining where people's souls are trapped here sounds terrible, I'd rather not. Then this plane of existence becomes hell, or purgatory at least.

What I find interesting is the people seem to be object to the ideas of evil overall; imo that's the moral relativism I mention in my first post. I general don't play with alignment, and when I do, it's more of a guide as to personal motivation. Evil exists; I have seen it in the real world, there is no misunderstanding there. If this is the hill I have set my flag upon, so be it. It may sound absolutist, but at least you know where I stand.

Quote from: Old One Eye;794022You are peddling an incredibly narrow campaign milieu.

Imagine a milieu where the souls of the dead do not go anywhere.  They flit around the natural world alongside the living.

Of course, nobody wants to be an incorporeal phantasm that cannot interact with anything; years of that will drive any soul mad. Commons practice among everyone with the means is to purchase an insurance product from the necromancer guild such that when you die, a necromancer stitches your soul back into your corpse.  Middle class folk can only afford the zombie policy; wealthier folk may be a mummy or vampire.  The poor, well, they sign on to the policy that brings them back as an indentured undead bound to the necromancer.  Even for the poor indentured undead, getting your soul stitched back in is considered a universal good in the milieu, so you can keep on keeping on.

YEAH.  That's exactly what I was saying.

My game needs necromancers to allow the souls to move on.  SOme Necromancers are evil, and use these souls.  Some are Neutral, and some are good who help the souls leave.

Quote from: LordVreeg;794028YEAH.  That's exactly what I was saying.

My game needs necromancers to allow the souls to move on.  SOme Necromancers are evil, and use these souls.  Some are Neutral, and some are good who help the souls leave.

   This carries an interesting implication for religion, since maintaining the order of the universe (such as the barrier between life and death) and caring for the well-being of souls is traditionally a religious or quasi-religious role. Are the necromancers in your game religious functionaries, or rivals to the priesthood? Or have they largely supplanted the priests?

Quote from: dragoner;794020Bullshit. Fuck off you moron. Go play you hippy elf game like a wuss. Don't expect the rest of us to join you. I'm not falling all over myself to make excuses.

Um.
Dragoner, 'Don't expect the rest of us to join you', implies that you are speaking from a position that enjoys the majority of support.  
Most of the posts seem to be of the anti-Dragoner absolutism variety.

People accusing you of trolling, whether correct or not, well-describes the opinion of your posts.

Quote from: Will;794024Ah, so definitely a troll. Ok, no reason why the rest of us can't have a fun thread.

Old One Eye:
I had a setting idea I wanted to try out where the dead go to the 'land of the dead'... which, like in some ancient beliefs, was a literal place. Or perhaps multiple places.

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to make a big kingdom of the dead that undead priests came from to collect the dead and bring them back, or perhaps multiple necropoli guarded over by the undead to keep the bothersome living out of, or maybe a combination.

On another tack, I found the depiction of High Cromlech interesting, the land of the dead from China Mieville's 'The Scar.' Where undead dwell, and where vampires turn out to be the scrub underclass that the other undead consider filth.

Go ahead and block me then, or feel free to fuck off and never post to me or read my posts again. I haven't to you since your stupid lead bullshit.

Quote from: LordVreeg;794030Um.
Dragoner, 'Don't expect the rest of us to join you', implies that you are speaking from a position that enjoys the majority of support.  
Most of the posts seem to be of the anti-Dragoner absolutism variety.

People accusing you of trolling, whether correct or not, well-describes the opinion of your posts.

Feel free in never posting to me or reading my posts, then.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;794029This carries an interesting implication for religion, since maintaining the order of the universe (such as the barrier between life and death) and caring for the well-being of souls is traditionally a religious or quasi-religious role. Are the necromancers in your game religious functionaries, or rivals to the priesthood? Or have they largely supplanted the priests?

http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/22871895/Migration%20of%20the%20Spirit

Sort of in the category of a subset, in that there are different types of magic that fuel magic.  Necromancy is tied to almost all of the religions, but not all Necromancers are tied to religion.  It is a type of magic, a very important one.  

Also, it needs to be understood that caster in the setting normally learn to pull power from many different sources as they develop, though they have to specialize to some degree, as more powerful magics pull heavily from the main source of that type of magic.

"He points to the walls, "Aeromancy ... Pyromancy ... Hydromancy ... Geomancy ... these will be some of your early studies."  As he says each word, a picture or symbol on the side walls flares, rumbles, whistles or gurgles.  "This will be followed by some study of the conduit to the Wells of Life ... and Death ... then the Font of Entropy on the Eighth House ... and the Font of Logic on the First."  He draws a breath as symbols farther down the walls sizzle and flare, and notices a murmur through the flat-roofed chamber.  He pauses his obviously well-rehearsed and probably well-used speech, raking the room with a suddenly sharp gaze.  "Study begins now, boys and girls.  You are no longer waiting for classes to start, so listen well."
 
He clears his throat.  "Now then... your last areas of study will be in Animism ... Mentalism ... Necromancy ... and Artifice."  His voice regains the pedantic flow it had possessed earlier, as he warms back into the subject.  "And," he chuckles, "One never knows.  Perhaps a new conduit may be discovered!"

From the introduction to the Collegium Arcana (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/65548854/Collegium%20Arcana%2C%20Introduction) game, where the players take the role of first year students in a huge and ancient school of magic...

Why on earth are people getting so heated?

I purposely left the bloody wording loose so that people could talk about what they fucking liked - i didn't expect an argument about what the topic should be about and who is 'right' or 'wrong'. Take that shit and associated word-games back to RPGnet where it belongs.This site is about gaming.

Quote from: dragoner;794027What I find interesting is the people seem to be object to the ideas of evil overall; imo that's the moral relativism I mention in my first post. I general don't play with alignment, and when I do, it's more of a guide as to personal motivation. Evil exists; I have seen it in the real world, there is no misunderstanding there. If this is the hill I have set my flag upon, so be it. It may sound absolutist, but at least you know where I stand.

Interestingly enough, in the generic 5e milieu, it is your position which would require moral relativism.  Good and evil are objective in 5e DnD.  Animate Dead is objectively neither good nor evil.  You must apply moral relativism in generic 5e DnD to get to the position where animating the dead is considered evil.

Quote from: Old One Eye;794042Interestingly enough, in the generic 5e milieu, it is your position which would require moral relativism.  Good and evil are objective in 5e DnD.  Animate Dead is objectively neither good nor evil.  You must apply moral relativism in generic 5e DnD to get to the position where animating the dead is considered evil.

Maybe. But if expressing an opinion is just going to get me called names by the peanut gallery I'm rapidly losing interest in the topic.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;794029This carries an interesting implication for religion, since maintaining the order of the universe (such as the barrier between life and death) and caring for the well-being of souls is traditionally a religious or quasi-religious role. Are the necromancers in your game religious functionaries, or rivals to the priesthood? Or have they largely supplanted the priests?

Maybe, maybe not.  If souls are detectable and quantifiable, necromancy could very easily be a science.  See Ghostbusters.  Depends on what the DM prefers.

In D&D 3e, Animate Dead is Necromancy [Evil].
In D&D 5e, Animate Dead is 'not a good act and most often used by evil casters.' Which suggests some possible gray.

In Unknown Armies you probably animate the dead by fucking a corpse or something insane, so it's probably evil and destroys your sanity.

Quote from: dragoner;794043Maybe. But if expressing an opinion is just going to get me called names by the peanut gallery I'm rapidly losing interest in the topic.

I promise not to call you names.  I would be dissappointed in my own level of maturity were I to stoop to such.  

As for the opinion you are expressing, it is a perfectly fine and valid opinion for any given campaign.  However, as rpgs are games of the imagination, anything I can imagine is viable for whatever game I choose to run.  As such, it is extremely easy for me to imagine a milieu where necromancy is an objective good, objective evil, or objectively neither and subject to the milieu inhabitant's moral relativism.  As I am currently waiting to run the next session of generic 5e DnD Hoard of the Dragon Queen this afternon after watching my alma mater hopefully get a homecoming win, the game I am running takes the moral relativity stance on necromancy.

Quote from: One Horse Town;794041Why on earth are people getting so heated?

I purposely left the bloody wording loose so that people could talk about what they fucking liked - i didn't expect an argument about what the topic should be about and who is 'right' or 'wrong'. Take that shit and associated word-games back to RPGnet where it belongs.This site is about gaming.

We were doing fine till someone took it to trollsville. Hell we even enguaged THAT in open minded discussion till it went off the tracks.

Is there good necromancy? In 5th ed there sure is. PHB even points that out.

QuoteThe School of necromancy explores the forces of life, death and undeath. As you focus your studies in this tradition you learn to focus the energies that animate all living things.

and

QuoteNot all necromancers are evil, but the forces they manipulate are considered taboo by many societies.

Raise Dead itself is a necromantic spell. As is Resurrection and True Resurrection. So is Clone and Astral Projection. Hell. Blindness/Deafness is necromancy! Causing someone to catch a cold (Contagion) is necromancy.

Quote from: dragoner;794014No, the desecration of graves, is from the part of raising the dead, so you actually don't know the total meaning if you think it's all about Ouija boards. It's not pertinent to the op anyways.

You don't know what you're talking about. Necromancy literally means only "diviniation through communication with undead spirits". "Raising the dead" as applied to necromancy is a creation of fantasy fiction and games of the late 20th century only. Its nothing to do with the "total meaning" except inside your head and assumptions based on rpgs rather than any sort of actual research. And since this has already been discussed, your ignorance on the matter is obviously willful, so have fun with that.

Quote from: One Horse Town;794041Why on earth are people getting so heated?

Oh it started with people who don't believe what I believe or play the way I play, are wrong. Which, when faced by the failure of most people to agree with the poster, led to indirect name calling, followed by increasingly more direct name calling. Season with the typical Internet poster's inability to read normal English sentences and understand any sort of ambiguity or nuance. Which then led to upping the ante with more name calling resulting in reactive name calling. Mixed in a few playground taunts and swearing and you have the last 8 pages or so.

Pretty much the usual song and dance.

Quote from: dragoner;794027Imagine a milieu where there are no souls and magic is only believed in by the delusional or ignorant; that's what I play for the most time. It's no more narrow, sci-fi is way more expansive than fantasy, there are rules for building spacecraft and generating star systems, etc..

Twaddle. Its early in the morning here, but I'm confident that if I say that is the stupidest thing Ive heard today that time wont disprove me.

QuotePersonally, imagining where people's souls are trapped here sounds terrible, I'd rather not. Then this plane of existence becomes hell, or purgatory at least.

Or heaven. Or shamballalla. Its unfortunate your imagination is limited to semi-Catholic theology, but I guess that's your cross to bear.

Ba-dump-bump!

QuoteWhat I find interesting is the people seem to be object to the ideas of evil overall;

No, just your right or capacity to define it absolutely.

Quoteimo that's the moral relativism I mention in my first post. I general don't play with alignment, and when I do, it's more of a guide as to personal motivation. Evil exists; I have seen it in the real world, there is no misunderstanding there. If this is the hill I have set my flag upon, so be it. It may sound absolutist, but at least you know where I stand.

Moral relativism is a fact of life I'm afraid. No matter how much youu want your own views to be correct, every person has their own ideas about what constitutes as evil, or if absolute evil exists. Personally, I consider willful ignorance one form of it.

It's wild when someone's conservative theology makes them intolerant of fictional stuff. Huh.

As for moral relativism, that's blinkered horse-shit. We've extensively outlined cases where systems will flat-out make things evil (like 3e Animate Dead. It's defined pretty much as an evil thing, I'm fairly sure).

I have no problem with fantasy stuff that's Evil or Good.

I also have no problem with more nuance. It's not relativism to suggest that maybe God(s) don't want easy answers, they want you to actually have to try to resist evil and use your brain to figure out moral quandries.

Personally, I like paladins in D&D because of the moral questions they face. Do I have faith in Law and honor my pledge to my liege, even if it seems he might be up to something? What obligations do I have to serve vs. investigate what he's doing?
If slavery is legal in this kingdom, what issues do I face?
How do I handle when Law and Good compel me in different directions?

I find that conflict fascinating.

I hate paladins because figuring out the practical application of "sense evil" makes my brain hurt.

Is it a magic asshole detector or does it detect specific motivations against the paladin themselves? If a paladin walks down a crowded street in Lankhmar, does thier head explode? If someone is doing something evil buut not thinking about something evil, can the paladin detect it? Or vice-versa?

I dont think it was a very well-thouught-out power. At least not without contradicting flat-out other things written about Alignment. In other words, it only makes sense if alignment is absolute or inherent, but every edition of D&D Ive read says thats not what alignment is. Except Planescape, where alignments are places.

Well, it's not so bad if you go by 3e DMG that ~1/3 of the population is evil. Of course, it ends up useless when you want it and annoying when you don't.

Personally, one common mod I do is that Sense Evil only works with stuff with Evil tag (IE: Supernaturally evil)

Quote from: TristramEvans;794073I hate paladins because figuring out the practical application of "sense evil" makes my brain hurt.

Is it a magic asshole detector or does it detect specific motivations against the paladin themselves? If a paladin walks down a crowded street in Lankhmar, does thier head explode? If someone is doing something evil buut not thinking about something evil, can the paladin detect it? Or vice-versa?

I dont think it was a very well-thouught-out power. At least not without contradicting flat-out other things written about Alignment. In other words, it only makes sense if alignment is absolute or inherent, but every edition of D&D Ive read says thats not what alignment is. Except Planescape, where alignments are places.

Paladin's "sense evil" in 2e is far more stringent than what you are talking about. Read up on it again, you may like what you find.

Quote from: Old One Eye;794051I promise not to call you names.  I would be dissappointed in my own level of maturity were I to stoop to such.

Thanks, I'm just sick of it all at this point.

Quote from: Opaopajr;794090Paladin's "sense evil" in 2e is far more stringent than what you are talking about. Read up on it again, you may like what you find.

I juust reread what the 2e DMG had to say on the matter. Two paragraphs. The second one contradicted the first: Detect Evil only works on intentions; some people are so evil that it clings to them. Bah, suspension of disbelief out the window. Alignment was always the most disposable aspect of D&D IMO.

This will be lengthy, but it was a refreshing thing when I came back to the game after so many years. As a player I didn't like how paladin detection was being used. Now as a DM, I can see that many of my old DMs didn't read up thoroughly on how this stuff is meant to work

2e PHB
A paladin can detect the presence of evil intent up to 60' away by concentrating on locating evil in a particular direction. He can do this as often as desired, but each attempt takes one round. This ability detects evil monsters and characters.
(AD&D 2e PHB, p. 27.)

So detecting intent by concentrating on a direction. But about alignment? Detects evil monsters and evil characters... ok, so is it as the spell, or at least related to it?

2e DMG
Detecting Alignment

Sometimes characters try to use spells or magical items to learn the alignment of a player character or NPC. This is highly insulting, if not hostile, action. [...]

Asking
[...]
Even if a character answers truthfully, there is no way for him to know if he is right, short of the loss of class abilities (as in the case of paladins). [PCs] can only say what they think their alignment is. Once they have chosen their alignment, the DM is the only person in the game who knows where it currently stands. A chaotic good ranger may be on the verge of changing alignment — one more cold-blooded deed and over the edge he goes, but he doesn't know that. He still thinks he is chaotic good through and through.

So it is something in general that is just. not. done. Continuing the subsection...

Class Abilities
Some characters — the paladin, in particular — possess a limited ability to detect alignments, particularly good and evil. Even this power has more limitations that the player is likely to consider. The ability to detect evil is really only useful to spot characters or creatures with evil intentions or those who are so thoroughly corrupted that they are evil to the core, not the evil aspect of an alignment.
Just because a fighter is chaotic evil doesn't mean he can be detected as a source of evil while he is having a drink at the tavern. He may have no particularly evil intentions at that moment. At the other end of the spectrum, a powerful, evil cleric may have committed so many foul and hideous deeds that the aura of evil hangs inescapably over him.
(AD&D 2e DMG, pg. 27-28.)

So, is there any definition of such a powerfully evil character? One who must also be in the middle of evil intent as well? Remember, the paladin ability checks only intent, so to detect the "hanging aura" that intent must trigger first. Well, luckily PHB has that in its spell section.

Detect Evil
[Wizard & Cleric spell]
This spell discovers emanations of evil, or of good in the case of the reverse spell, from any creature, object, or area. Character alignment, however, is revealed only under unusual circumstances (wizard ver. [... is not revealed under most circumstances]): characters who are strongly aligned, who do not stray from their faith, and who are of at least 9th level might radiate good or evil if intent upon appropriate actions. Powerful monsters, such as rakshasas or ki-rin, send forth emanations of evil or good, even if polymorphed. Aligned undead radiate evil, for it is this power and negative force that enable them to continue existing. An evilly cursed object or unholy water radiates evil, but a hidden trap or an unintelligent viper does not. [...]
(AD&D PHB, pg. 140, or pg. 199.)

First off, aligned undead supposes the idea of unaligned undead. And it further states that it is the animating energy (power and negative force) that is detected, not necessarily what is the undead creature's actual alignment. That's some delicious contradictions to play with; a good aligned undead would be detected as evil just by sheer dint of its animus. You could end up killing a good creature fighting against its animus.

Second, there it is, the definition of such a character: strongly aligned, doesn't stray from faith, 9th level plus, and only just a maybe if it is the middle of such appropriately aligned intent. So a name-level evil cleric taking a moment to visit his flock and hand out treats to the faithful is still undetectable. He must be in the middle of an evil plot and action.

The wizard or cleric spells alignment checks from subject front (creature, object, area), to motive back (intent, and only of strongly aligned, no faith stray, 9th lvl plus characters). Paladins alignment check from motive front (intent, and only of strongly aligned, no faith stray, 9th lvl plus character), to subject back (creatures only). Paladins further can only do this for evil, so even still weaker than a 1st lv cleric spell or 2nd lvl wizard spell.

In both the subject, intent, and power level must all align to reveal character alignment. That is crazy hard to get that to trigger by happenstance, let alone rely on it; it's just easier to listen around for their reputation at that point. Either that or you "luck out" and are now in the presence of epic evil/good and should probably be cautious and call for back-up.

It is just nowhere near as strong as people have been claiming, the PHB & DMG itself says so. Now you may have been playing with DMs who read it otherwise, and that'd OK for their games. But it is not the rules 'as written' or 'as intended'. You can find a lot of sloppy readings ending up as the result of frustrating play. It was in my case, until I took the time to read those books cover to cover.

Hope that helps!

Quote from: Opaopajr;794214detect the presence of evil intent

Incidentally that's how detect evil works in BECMI/RC and how I use it in every D&D game I've ever ran. Not a fan of know alignment but the idea that the target of the spell can sense his mind being probed is a good one.

Everyone seems to hate alignment, but it's still there.  Really, I've never met anyone who thinks that alignment is a good thing.

It short-circuits actual roleplaying or mysteries; no investigating circumstances or talking to anyone, just cast a spell and decide who's bad, and we can get on with rolling initiative.

It encourages players to be evil or chaotic so that they are free to do whatever they want.

It encourages playing paladins as stupid and gullible so that their class limitations can be bypassed (lead the paladin away while the rest of the party does something evil).

All of the benefits can be realized without formal rules, and/or with alternate systems like reputation and law enforcement.

Oh, and of course you can have a good Necromancer; that's just a tenth level Magic-User (see volume 1, Men & Magic).

When I was DMing in OD&D (with supplements), the PCs were approached by villagers concerned about an evil necromancer.  I was prepared for "how do you know he's evil?" and "how do you know he's doing necromancy?" but the players were already deep in strategizing over the likely spells of a 10th level magic-user and how to deal with each before the villagers had even finished promising at least one cow to each player character if they could protect the village.

Quote from: rawma;794240It encourages playing paladins as stupid and gullible so that their class limitations can be bypassed (lead the paladin away while the rest of the party does something evil).

As I don't play Roleplaying games with people incapable of Roleplaying, surprisingly, this was never an issue for me.  Obviously, your mileage varies. :idunno:

Quote from: rawma;794240Everyone seems to hate alignment, but it's still there.  Really, I've never met anyone who thinks that alignment is a good thing.

It short-circuits actual roleplaying or mysteries; no investigating circumstances or talking to anyone, just cast a spell and decide who's bad, and we can get on with rolling initiative.

It encourages players to be evil or chaotic so that they are free to do whatever they want.

It encourages playing paladins as stupid and gullible so that their class limitations can be bypassed (lead the paladin away while the rest of the party does something evil).

All of the benefits can be realized without formal rules, and/or with alternate systems like reputation and law enforcement.

I openly love alignment. Said so repeatedly over the years here. I even love alignment languages.
:)

And again, within my post of quotations you can see that just merely asking, let alone casting a spell for it, is considered the height of insulting behavior. It shifts everyone in the immediately vicinity to hostile because it is just. not. done.

Further, if you read my post of quotes, you'll note even the spells don't work how you say it does. It is excruciatingly rare to have everything come together to reveal only half of someone's alignment. I'm guessing you didn't really read those books or my post at this point.
:(

(I will openly concede that 3e and 4e could have fucked everything up again, because, well, there's a pattern there. Don't own those books because I got frustrated with them faster than I could buy them, for many other reasons.)

I actually like alignments and 3e helped me find peace with them... though 3e's specific implementation bugged me (I like alignment harder to discern).

I have no problem imagining a world with absolute morality, even if I don't see the real world quite that way.

Alignment makes sense in certain games, and does poorly in others.
Pretty simple.  It's a great construct in games modeled after Moorcock and in games that really work with a big 'good vs evil theme'.  Also excellent when you want to have strong racial/creature level group trait (elves are chaotic good, etc), and games with patron deities vs religions.

Not so good with subtle roleplaying games with lots of shades of grey.  So it doesn't work for most of my games.  

Damn fine game construct, useful for many things.

Quote from: CRKrueger;794309As I don't play Roleplaying games with people incapable of Roleplaying, surprisingly, this was never an issue for me.  Obviously, your mileage varies. :idunno:

Did you miss the first point where I said that it's bad for roleplaying?  I think the second point is bad even for people into roleplaying.  So, to recap, it's bad for roleplaying and it's bad for not roleplaying; I don't expect that all of these points will apply to all games.  And I am in the former camp, and perhaps it's a virtue of alignment that the paladin thing reveals those who are not.  That's a weak tea to justify its existence.

Quote from: Opaopajr;794345I openly love alignment. Said so repeatedly over the years here. I even love alignment languages.

OK, I've found some people who like alignment; but generally not the alignment that I know.  Your justifications seem dedicated to removing it (it's rude to detect it, and you can't find out anything useful anyway if you do) and you only talk about 2nd edition (the one edition I never read at all).  It was a lot more in OD&D, and seems to have been removed as a real thing (only for supernatural beings, although a commune spell could presumably still tell you for ordinary people) in 5th edition.  So, you're just describing a point in the trajectory of its removal.

Quote from: Will;794349I actually like alignments and 3e helped me find peace with them... though 3e's specific implementation bugged me (I like alignment harder to discern).

I have no problem imagining a world with absolute morality, even if I don't see the real world quite that way.

OK, more books I have to dig out from the boxes in storage, because I don't remember how it was there.  4th edition apparently had "unaligned" (at least in the Essentials Rules Compendium), so they backed off a little on removing alignment for 5th edition.

Quote from: rawma;794370Did you miss the first point where I said that it's bad for roleplaying?  I think the second point is bad even for people into roleplaying.  So, to recap, it's bad for roleplaying and it's bad for not roleplaying; I don't expect that all of these points will apply to all games.  And I am in the former camp, and perhaps it's a virtue of alignment that the paladin thing reveals those who are not.  That's a weak tea to justify its existence.

I disagree here.
I once had a PC explain to the party how the laws of the new theives guild ought to work and I did so entirely from his CG perspective.
I think where Alignment falls foul is where it is set as an absolute. In reality you may be primarily lawful good but you might still speed or use the company's photocopier at weekends. Equally you might be entirely lawful good and never think of using a disabled spot whilst your daughter pops out to use the toilet, but when the nazis invade you are too shit scared to actually do anything about it.
So I think you can look at what people actually believe and fit it into a nine alignment matrix in gross terms.
I also think that having these elements helps us roleplay because they define the character more firmly. You can do the same thing with character quizes and other tools but alignment is quick and easy and yet can be nuanced.

One of the PCs in my game just started took Chaotic Neutral as their alignment. They are totally new to RPGs so for them CN doesn't mean act crazy all the time. It means they dislike rules laws and regulations and beleive everyone is free to make their own choices and they have no real opinion over good or evil so long as people are abe to decide for themselves. That is a totally acceptable CN personality without them feeling the need to charge at every enemy they see unthinking.

So think about your own opinions and ideas and write them down and then see which alignment they fit.

Alignment languages are of course ludicrous :)

OK, having alignments is fine; mechanics based off them that mess up other parts of the game annoy me.  And later D&D versions seems to have eliminated this to varying but adequate degrees.

Quote from: jibbajibba;794377Alignment languages are of course ludicrous :)

I'd like to sit back and watch you and Opaopajr sort that out.

:popcorn:

Quote from: rawma;794381OK, having alignments is fine; mechanics based off them that mess up other parts of the game annoy me.  And later D&D versions seems to have eliminated this to varying but adequate degrees.



I'd like to sit back and watch you and Opaopajr sort that out.

:popcorn:

The idea that becuase you and I both believe that strict rules are regulations are important for the smooth running of society and that the weak and helpless should be ruthlessly purged to create a stronger superior race means that we can both communicate in some ethereral lingua franca is obviously daft. :)

Quote from: jibbajibba;794383The idea that becuase you and I both believe that strict rules are regulations are important for the smooth running of society and that the weak and helpless should be ruthlessly purged to create a stronger superior race means that we can both communicate in some ethereral lingua franca is obviously daft. :)

So...German is an alignment language?

Quote from: TristramEvans;794385So...German is an alignment language?

Don't know, did the Spartans speak German?

Quote from: jibbajibba;794386Don't know, did the Spartans speak German?

Spartans and Nazis spoke the same alignment language?

Quote from: rawma;794375OK, I've found some people who like alignment; but generally not the alignment that I know.  Your justifications seem dedicated to removing it (it's rude to detect it, and you can't find out anything useful anyway if you do) and you only talk about 2nd edition (the one edition I never read at all).  It was a lot more in OD&D, and seems to have been removed as a real thing (only for supernatural beings, although a commune spell could presumably still tell you for ordinary people) in 5th edition.  So, you're just describing a point in the trajectory of its removal.

It's not about removal, it's about discretion. Has to do with keeping world view as a core internal element without it bleeding out onto the world like cheap vaudeville melodrama. There is a happy middle, it doesn't need to be extreme, and in fact was not written to be or commented on that way.

It's the difference between in-your-face grotesqueries — especially the caricature alignment has received (which is not actually in the 2e description at all, and in fact goes out of its way to describe as otherwise) — and a useful tool. A useful tool that boils down the immense body of theosophical thought into a usable guideline framework for world building and exciting encounter reactions. It's not a sledgehammer, however you are welcome to play with it as one.

Alignment, like the discussion of Background Characteristics (i.e. Flaws) I already had to have about 5e to my Adventurer's League players, is not strictly an "Always On, Etched in Stone" facet. There's degrees and tendencies and not all of that needs hard mechanical tethers to have consequences. And of those alignment mechanic consequences they don't all need to be "turned to 11."

That's a strawman of what alignment can be.

Quote from: rawma;794381[about Alignment Languages]
I'd like to sit back and watch you and Opaopajr sort that out.

:popcorn:

We already did. It's on this site. In fact, I gave an example of its usage in that topic, along with characters who did not in fact share a common tongue outside of their alignment language. It was based on the joy of Gallic & Iberian cultural and religious mix.

If you search, you can find it.

Quote from: rawma;794376OK, more books I have to dig out from the boxes in storage, because I don't remember how it was there.  4th edition apparently had "unaligned" (at least in the Essentials Rules Compendium), so they backed off a little on removing alignment for 5th edition.

Nah, for 3e you can just look here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#alignment

Combined with some demographics about alignment in the DMG, there's definitely a looser, less picky element to alignments.
I found the description of alignments very 'natural' and helpful in avoiding the stupid arguments people would have. 'I do whatever I want and I'm lawful because I believe I'm the primary authority!'

Unfortunately, the prevalence of easy alignment detection AND alignment-based spells doesn't thrill me.
Personally, I'd rather define those as 'tendencies' and making detect alignment and alignment spells apply to Alignment tagged creatures (and I'd then add more alignment tags to various supernatural things, like undead).

That is, in 3e, you have 'subtypes.' So an air elemental is Elemental (Air) (or in Pathfinder Outsider (Air, Elemental).)

Certain things have alignment types, like Devils (Outsider (Evil))
Such creatures often have damage resistance based on their alignment, so many fiends take reduced damage against weapons unless the weapon has the Good quality.


I like the idea of distinguishing ethos from raw elemental alignment. Paladins would probably also have an aura of alignment, though less sure about clerics (maybe only if they have alignment domain, not sure). mmm.

(Anyway, now I'm more focused on 5e, so this is all very academic)

We played it that magically animated skeletons for example pinged as neutral. But that self animated ones pinged as whatever alignment theyd had previously. And that ones summoned back to service had the alignment of the summoner. Possibly reluctantly so.

Normally we kinda ignored alignment language as it seemed a bit goofy and added a needless bit of complexity that seemed to never ever come up in any official module I have ever seen.

BX describes alignment language as mostly hand signals, body language and phrases. So more like a secret clubhouse handshake or something.

The Lawful good one probably goes like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJduBJiujXA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJduBJiujXA)

Quote from: jibbajibba;794386Don't know, did the Spartans speak German?

Don't believe the hype.
Of course they did.

Quote from: jibbajibba;794377I think where Alignment falls foul is where it is set as an absolute. In reality you may be primarily lawful good but you might still speed or use the company's photocopier at weekends. Equally you might be entirely lawful good and never think of using a disabled spot whilst your daughter pops out to use the toilet, but when the nazis invade you are too shit scared to actually do anything about it.

I think I'm going to make this my "official" take on the subject.

Quote from: TristramEvans;794385So...German is an alignment language?

I see what you did there. And I laughed.

Quote from: Will;794417Nah, for 3e you can just look here:

Wait, did you think I don't want to look through boxes of old rulebooks?

But thanks for the useful link.

There are also good Pathfinder online resources, too.

It's my favorite thing about OGL... People being able to provide easy online resources.

Quote from: rawma;794240All of the benefits can be realized without formal rules, and/or with alternate systems like reputation and law enforcement.

And have been doing, for decades now.  I think it took me all of a month's worth of playing OD&D before I decided that the concept of alignment was full of shit.  It was the very first OD&D rule I pitched, and that got the ball rolling quickly to my homebrew.

I still also run reputation and law enforcement (not formalized system) atop alignment. I technically need both, especially since my supernatural meddling beings are wholly not bothered by those. And alignment throws a complete monkey wrench in everyone's expectations, as failed ideal & tendency allows for entertaining complications. Like 'walking & chewing bubble gum', it is easy peasy for me (had a lot of IN SJG practice).

Back on topic. Animate Dead in OD&D and BX isnt necromancy. The spells dont have any type indicator. They just are.

And digging out my AD&D PHB. Animate Dead is necromantic. But so is all cure spells, and heal, and slow poison, regeneration, etc. Thus necromantic magic is neither good nor evil. It is the user and the use they put it to that defines it.

Like the Create Water example.

Quote from: Omega;794682Back on topic. Animate Dead in OD&D and BX isnt necromancy. The spells dont have any type indicator. They just are.

And digging out my AD&D PHB. Animate Dead is necromantic. But so is all cure spells, and heal, and slow poison, regeneration, etc. Thus necromantic magic is neither good nor evil. It is the user and the use they put it to that defines it.

Like the Create Water example.

May be pedantic, but, no.  You're comparing two different things.  Create Water is a specific spell, not a type.  

Conjuration Spells can be used for Good or Evil, just like Necromantic Spells.

Cure Light Wounds might be considered Evil if you're Asmodeus healing yourself.  That's the Create Water example.

Animate Dead, however, specifically, in many versions of D&D is an overtly Evil act.

The fact that some Necromantic spells are unaligned tools doesn't mean all Necromancy is an unaligned tool.

In AD&D, things are not all morally relative, there is inherent, cosmological Good and Evil.

And in many forms of D&D it does not, in fact, state 'Casting animate dead is always an evil act.'

Which, given it's a game with (in most versions) absolute morality, suggests that in most forms of D&D it is NOT always an evil act.

Quote from: rawma;794240Everyone seems to hate alignment, but it's still there.  Really, I've never met anyone who thinks that alignment is a good thing.

I think alignment can be extremely useful, if used the right way.  For example, the way I set up alignments in Arrows of Indra.

Quote from: RPGPundit;795271I think alignment can be extremely useful, if used the right way.  For example, the way I set up alignments in Arrows of Indra.

Looking at http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/2014/02/arrows-of-indra-alignment.html (http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/2014/02/arrows-of-indra-alignment.html), it seems better than the traditional D&D alignment system; my understanding of what I read there is:

• that characters can and perhaps will change alignment more often than in D&D.
• that classes create additional actions that will lose Holy status, rather than requiring a particular alignment.
• that most ordinary beings will not be Holy or Unholy; so the tendency to always use alignment to decide how to deal with somebody is averted.
• that Holy and Unholy are tied to really significant acts.
• that alignment has significant mechanical effects.  D&D has some tendency this way with a few aligned magical items, but relatively little in spell effects (beyond Holy/Unholy Word, most spells tied to good or evil are only significant against major supernatural manifestations).

The more tolerable manifestations of D&D alignment have at least some degree of some of these.  I don't think I've seen all of these together before.

Quote from: rawma;795435Looking at http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/2014/02/arrows-of-indra-alignment.html (http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/2014/02/arrows-of-indra-alignment.html), it seems better than the traditional D&D alignment system; my understanding of what I read there is:

• that characters can and perhaps will change alignment more often than in D&D.
• that classes create additional actions that will lose Holy status, rather than requiring a particular alignment.
• that most ordinary beings will not be Holy or Unholy; so the tendency to always use alignment to decide how to deal with somebody is averted.
• that Holy and Unholy are tied to really significant acts.
• that alignment has significant mechanical effects.  D&D has some tendency this way with a few aligned magical items, but relatively little in spell effects (beyond Holy/Unholy Word, most spells tied to good or evil are only significant against major supernatural manifestations).

The more tolerable manifestations of D&D alignment have at least some degree of some of these.  I don't think I've seen all of these together before.

Yeah, well, the approach was to make use of all the various things I always tried to use with alignment in my games; and I think it shows how you can use alignment in a way that is actually beneficial to a game system.