TheRPGSite

(I mentioned this in the neutral alignment but realized it was off topic and decided to make a new topic.)

I'm sure others have argued at length that alignment isn't realistic. In D&D, or at least some settings, the universe is a warped placed where an entire afterlife exists to reward you for being as evil as can be. If you aren't sufficiently evil then the more evil souls will torture you to advance themselves. Demons feed on suffering and their actions are rational in this context.

The problem is that while it might be rational for an individual to maximize suffering to ensure himself a high place in hell, this behavior is not conducive to maintaining a functional society because mortals are not demons. It breaks my suspension of disbelief that D&D takes evil races for granted. The 5e MM justifies it by saying that orcs and goblin are essentially meat robots incapable of moral judgment, which I find rather silly. Plenty of human societies in history believed it was morally good to victimize the less privileged and cruel not to.

The only way IMO to have literal evil societies would be if they treated evil as some kind of dirty job or duty... a necessary evil, as it were. The "god hates orcs (http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html)" article outlines such a world view: causing some suffering now prevents death or fates worse than death in the future by appeasing Yaldabaoth.

The irony is that while the orcs are intelligent beings capable of truth, justice and love, their actions condemn them to eternity in the hell which plays by the evil ranking rule I mentioned before.

I know this is way overthinking things but it was the only thing I could think of to have my cake and eat it too. Does it make logical sense or does my reasoning break down at some point?

This again?

First off D&D doesnt per-say state that if you are really evil then you become a demon. Or that you get to enjoy it. Demons and devils sure arent going to tell anyone the truth that what really happens is you spend possibly hundreds or thousands of years as a lemure suffering before they even consider upgrading you. And you are just a footsoldier in a hellish dimension. And you are likely to die over and over and over and over.

And even the higher ups arent enjoying it as inevitibly some party of heroes comes along to bring to ruin careully laid plans thousands of years in the making.

Whereas on the mortal plain you'll get people who are essentially crazy and either dont believe in any of that  torment stuff, dont know, dont care, or think they can somehow beat their doom by becoming gods or becoming immortal, etc.

There will certainly be followers of evil gods who THINK they will be going to a great afterlife. And then get the rude note when they shuffle off the mortal coil. Others are plied with lies and false promises. Remember. EVIL gods. And other trickery.

Evil races is anyones guess. Orcs go to an afterlife of eternal battle with other orks. Slaughtering eachother endlessly. Who knows about the rest.

How human do you want your non-humans?

If your non-humans have same or similar mentalities as humans, then their societies should look and act human or human-ish.

For me, it's fantasy with gods whose aligned power manifests in the world. I have no problem with non-humans, especially created by evil gods, behaving in a totally inhuman manner.

I've read some good OSR articles about eliminating bipedal non-humans like orcs and goblins and just making more human enemies and societies, AKA Sword & Sorcery instead of traditional D&D where you have Good Races vs. Evil Races which makes it easy for players to do the choppy choppy to the non-humans.

For me, the best answer is talk to your players. Some players don't enjoy killing humans in RPGs. Some players enjoy gray lines of morality where every sentient creature must be dealt with as individuals. Other players want easy lines of demarcation for their hobby time. None of these stances is right or wrong.

Playing an evil character is one thing. Most players I have encountered can't tell the difference between being evil and being a dick. But for those who realize that being evil doesn't mean being an insane psychopath, it can bring a lot of fun especially if the player is smart and devious.

Now playing in an evil society is something completely different. It's not just the party that's evil, it's society. The changes the dynamic. Sure, the player characters are evil, but they're not necessarily villains in their society.

Evil societies do exist and have precedence in Dungeons and Dragons and other RPGs. In the Known World/Mystara you have Alphatia, in Greyhawk you have possibly the Valley of the Mage and Scarlet Brotherhood and most definitely the Empire of Iuz. On Toril there's Zhentil Keep and Thay and like the entire Underdark. In Ravenloft there's... just about every Domain. Then there's Planescape, where you can go to places like Ribcage and the Iron City of Dis. Heck in the example you cited, you could let players be petitioners in Baator (or Lemures if you are feeling cruel, as you should) and let them attempt to crawl up the infernal corporate ladder.

The thing you need to keep in mind about evil societies is that they need to be able to continue to exist. That means the denizens have to have some means to continue living and reproducing in order for society to exist. Now in Lawful Evil societies, this is not a problem. Totalitarian governments can be amazingly effective, particularly as you cited, minions are rewarded for their ability to keep the masses oppressed. It gets a little trickier as you shift towards chaos on the alignment spectrum, but there becomes room for more enterprising and innovative folk who are willing to toss anyone under the bus to get ahead and sometimes for entertainment. Drow society is probably a good example of how an inherently chaotic evil society can exist. They organize into clans, and make enemies and alliances as convenient. They also distract themselves from infighting by oppressing and enslaving other races, and getting into scraps with the more powerful ones, before going back to infighting. And when they're not fighting, conversations are usually laced with very polite and very clever yet subtle threats. Someone with a high charisma who is able to move and inspire people with words would be a force to reckon with in that kind of society.

I don't really lump in humanoid races as being inherently evil. Not the usual suspects: Goblins, Orcs, Kobolds. Sure they are brutal and vicious, but so are bears and mountain lions. I often represent Goblins and Kobolds as doing what they need to survive. In the case of Tucker's Kobolds, you can't blame them for being really good at it. When they see a group of player characters, those races probably act like they do because the pretty races are the ones who cause pain so it's best to kill them first, and some of the smaller ones are pretty tasty roasted on a spit. I'm not saying they are not evil, but that they are not inherently evil. Which is why some of them say, "Screw this, I'm gonna join society, drink wine and smoke cigars by a fireplace." and become the odd non evil monster PC. Now of course there are exceptions. Hobgoblin society is very likely Lawful Evil, and very rigidly enforced. Those guys like their rules so much it's entrenched in their culture and tradition.

The thing is when representing an evil society, you do not have to remove aspects which make it functional such as an economy and social elements. Trade is still going to happen, you're still going to need tailors and armorers and farmers and carpenters etc. What's going to be difference is the remove of compassion and the dehumanization of those who are your lessers as well as the realization that your betters see you as expendible. So you go through life using the ones who are useful and discarding them when they serve no purpose while you try and be an asset to those above you, until you can work out how to remove them and take their place.

I got tired of my players being vicious amoral bastards so most of my D&D 5e campaign has been in an area labeled "Evil Kingdoms."  Here gods of profitable sex work and vigorous foreign policy is common place.  The villagers love their Warlocks, a shocked PC wizard was carried through a village by a mob, joyfully cheering,"A WITCH A  WITCH! HOORAY!, He cured my gout!"  They set out to kill the king of Throndar  and when they asked for a break in the fighting to eat lunch (thinking a short rest would be good) he agreed and by the end of the meal they were all in his service (he wasn't really worried, 20th level fighter with a 20th level Wizard and Cleric right behind him (I warned them it was a bad idea okay?), he lets people take their shots and redirects them against his enemies, he destroyed the PC's rebel army by paying off the mercenaries they hired and proceeded to thank the party for helping him root out all the rebels and malcontents.

The Wizard just recently broke into the doorless council chambers of a city where the local vampire lord, lich lord, head of the merchant's guild, The leading lawyer, master wizard, high cleric of nihilism, and various other were meeting with emissaries of the lower planes about the distribution of the souls of sacrificed slaves.  The wizard got seduced by a succubus who helped him recruit a red dragonborn sorcerer for his current service of the evil king.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;949061(I mentioned this in the neutral alignment but realized it was off topic and decided to make a new topic.)

I'm sure others have argued at length that alignment isn't realistic. In D&D, or at least some settings, the universe is a warped placed where an entire afterlife exists to reward you for being as evil as can be. If you aren't sufficiently evil then the more evil souls will torture you to advance themselves. Demons feed on suffering and their actions are rational in this context.

The problem is that while it might be rational for an individual to maximize suffering to ensure himself a high place in hell, this behavior is not conducive to maintaining a functional society because mortals are not demons. It breaks my suspension of disbelief that D&D takes evil races for granted. The 5e MM justifies it by saying that orcs and goblin are essentially meat robots incapable of moral judgment, which I find rather silly. Plenty of human societies in history believed it was morally good to victimize the less privileged and cruel not to.

The only way IMO to have literal evil societies would be if they treated evil as some kind of dirty job or duty... a necessary evil, as it were. The "god hates orcs (http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html)" article outlines such a world view: causing some suffering now prevents death or fates worse than death in the future by appeasing Yaldabaoth.

The irony is that while the orcs are intelligent beings capable of truth, justice and love, their actions condemn them to eternity in the hell which plays by the evil ranking rule I mentioned before.

I know this is way overthinking things but it was the only thing I could think of to have my cake and eat it too. Does it make logical sense or does my reasoning break down at some point?

You only have evil leadership. Societies as a whole are never evil without help from assholes with some grudge or hatred of something/somebody.

I think the problem is combining roleplaying aligment with christian views of hell.
Of course this will not work out.

Even if evil gods are lying it will not work out when people can talk back to their dead.
So I assume that in evil afterlife you get to prey on and torture the group of infidels and of the good ones if you think you can get away with it.
They have to give the evil mortals a halfway decent chance to make it pay out to keep this business running.

Lastely it is similar how it works on earth. You don´t run an evil society with all people being evil and fighting completely among yourself. You point the aggression on other people and try to siphon as much as you can into your own purse as you can get along with without loosing the support of the evil masses. Evil alone as a self styled predator doesn´t really produce, so you can´t seriously exploit them.

Quote from: David Johansen;949099I got tired of my players being vicious amoral bastards so most of my D&D 5e campaign has been in an area labeled "Evil Kingdoms."

Your campaign sounds awesome!!

"If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on Sauron's throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear. And that is another reason why the Ring should be destroyed: as long as it is in the world it will be a danger even to the Wise. For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so. I fear to take the Ring to hide it. I will not take the Ring to wield it."

Quote from: Maarzan;949117I think the problem is combining roleplaying aligment with christian views of hell.
Of course this will not work out.

Even if evil gods are lying it will not work out when people can talk back to their dead.
So I assume that in evil afterlife you get to prey on and torture the group of infidels and of the good ones if you think you can get away with it.
They have to give the evil mortals a halfway decent chance to make it pay out to keep this business running.

Lastely it is similar how it works on earth. You don´t run an evil society with all people being evil and fighting completely among yourself. You point the aggression on other people and try to siphon as much as you can into your own purse as you can get along with without loosing the support of the evil masses. Evil alone as a self styled predator doesn´t really produce, so you can´t seriously exploit them.

You almost understand and get how silly the concept is. Good job trying to explain the obvious. The thing is your intended audience is ignorant.

Would German fascism have built a sustainable society? What alignment were the Aztecs?

Quote from: Voros;949139Would German fascism have built a sustainable society? What alignment were the Aztecs?

No, the question is would there be are there more leaders after meeting another leader with just as big balls and an agenda opposite of their's.
See us European types in the 1500-1700's defined slavery much differently then 1500-1700's Africans.

Sure, evil societies can flourish, just look at the real world where there are several examples of evil societies that survive quite well.

In an fantasy evil society, Might is Right is probably the overriding principle. If you are bigger, stronger or more powerful than someone else then you can force them to do things for you. So, evil clerics force their congregations to do evil things, evil fighters round up the local populace and abuse them, evil wizards perform experiments on the local people. Another principle is that people do evil things to advance up the social ladder, so they might know it is wrong but do it anyway, thus becoming what they originally hated, evil is very seductive in many ways. If you see that evil bosses get fed the best food and don't starve, have their pick of the women and are dripping with gold and jewellry then you might try to emulate them to get the same rewards. Rebellions are put down with terror and with massive force, people are encouraged to tell tales or to hand others in as traitors, evil is considered the norm or even desirable, evil cults spread their doctrine that explains why this is a good thing.

Quote from: Voros;949139Would German fascism have built a sustainable society? What alignment were the Aztecs?

It didn´t intend to be an all evil society. That is why they declared a lot of people as subhumans to get exploited or killed and robbed and started to prey on neighbor countries. To be evil you need victims.
They also didn´t instruct the common people to be "evil" but to be quiet, obedient and diligent people, not like the picture painted from the abys with rampaging evil all around.

I generally find it's best not to have detectable alignment (eg 4e D&D, 5e D&D) or else have Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic without Good & Evil (classic D&D). Furthermore I definitely prefer to keep the afterlife unconfirmed; Speak with Dead certainly doesn't get you reports from Heaven, it just (per all RAW I've seen) gives you the critter up until moment of death.

I do allow very occasional trips to the Underworld to consult the souls of the dead, in the manner of Greek & Norse myth (depending on campaign area), but this Underworld is a bleak place that resembles the 4e D&D Shadowfell, not Heaven or Hell.

As far as Orcs go, they basically believe the exact same thing as Vikings - brave Orc warriors who die fighting get to battle forever alongside their gods, while all the rest go to the Underworld. Evil & Good doesn't enter into it. Other races like Drow believe in reincarnation - I'd think a common Drow belief would be that spiders are the souls/spirits of the dead. Nothing to do with the Abyss, though the most honoured drow dead may reincarnate as Yochlol in service to Lolth.

How is "Evil", or for that matter "Good", defined in your campaign world?  Is there an objective, universal standard of "evil"? No situational ethics, no differing codes of morality between different societies. A cosmic Evil is what seems to be presupposed by D&D type alignment. The Orcs are Evil and behave in Evil ways because that is their nature.  Which does raise the thorny question of why only Player Characters and a few importat NPCs get free will on questions of morality.

As for the Aztecs I am certain they thought their society and culture was good.  Human sacrifice was needed to keep the gods happy and ensure the continuation of the world. A different world view than the Europeans who considered human sacrifice evil.

My understanding is the Aztecs also conquered other tribes in a way we would call 'imperialistic' today. My question isn't how they viewed themselves but how one would view them in a game system. Obviously the Nazis didn't view themselves as evil either but I doubt there'd be much interest from many sane gamers is acting out the Shoah from the Nazis viewpoint.

Steve Perrin of Runequest fame designed an interesting evil society supplement for FR called Dreams of the Red Wizards.

Quote from: Spinachcat;949119Your campaign sounds awesome!!

Thanks, really it's pretty half assed and off the cuff.  At least they've stuck to it a bit.  We used to jump systems so often that I stopped trying to do any prep.

One of the cities in my home campaign is an "evil" society. Long story short: a janitor got the one ring and decided he was the new king of evil, and polymorphed the entire government, starting at the top, until he had equal parts army of monsters and loyal toadies.

So when characters are wandering around the city, they'll see things like former nobles pulling rickshaws for the newly politically-empowered ruling class of young necromancers, or gargoyles circling and dropping people from overhead, or zombies randomly crawling out of a well and eating citizens. It is, to coin a phrase, chaos.

King janitor-sauron rules because he's the most powerful (sort of), but really the city is just a free-for-all of evil creatures and humans competing against each other to form a government of madman-favored monsters.

The key here is that, what the players are experiencing is a highly unstable period of the city's history. I seriously doubt a "society" like this will remain in its current form for very long.

But its not inconceivable that something like this could exist, and work for a while.

Sounds great, not too off from Russia under the Soviets until the NEP was enacted to try and stablize things.

Quote from: Voros;949139What alignment were the Aztecs?

Lawful Evil! Even the babies!

Quote from: David Johansen;949246Thanks, really it's pretty half assed and off the cuff.

Lots of awesome happens that way!

Are you perpetually doing evil? Are you perpetually doing good? Perpetually doing law or chaos? Perpetually exercising free will (even in the middle of digestion, sleep, flatulence, or shitting,)?

No living sapient thing is perpetually doing one thing, from morality & aesthetics, to plain old sapience. You are taking an abstract tool of broad categorization and bringing it to the event horizon theoretical and trying to rationalize its red shift as something playable. This is the same nonsense used by the Gaming Den on system mechanics, but for setting parameters.

And now this gets into an older argument of realism v. nominalism, whether the abstracted concept is valid & useful unto itself within its sphere or whether anything can truly be known at all. So, instead of wasting time waiting for the post-modernism to appear, let's cut to the chase: no sapient mortal creature is acting in full cognizance of X conception every single moment of its brief existence -- sheer survival (base of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs) ensures that it cannot be so and still be a mortal creature. Ergo, your argument is moot from inception.

Any other questions?

Quote from: Opaopajr;949362Are you perpetually doing evil?

Yes!

I'm a white male gamer! It's all we do!

Quote from: Opaopajr;949362Any other questions?

When do we get pudding?

Quote from: Spinachcat;949364When do we get pudding?

After we conquer the world, of course! :mad:

Nah, fuck that, there's always room for pudding! :p

Hey, I'm like totally dating myself here, but remember when Hostess snacks would be all over comics & rpg magazines and would end up causing world peace between enemies? Like, twinkies & cupcakes would soothe the wrath of Skeletor, Cobra Commander, & Magneto!

That's where we went wrong in the world. We almost let Hostess go out of business... :o
Evil societies just want cream filled goodies!

Quote from: Opaopajr;949362Are you perpetually doing evil? Are you perpetually doing good? Perpetually doing law or chaos? Perpetually exercising free will (even in the middle of digestion, sleep, flatulence, or shitting,)?

The OP is clearly coming at this from having Alignment in the game, so it isn't worth arguing against Alignment.

Personally, I don't use Alignment, for the reasons that you and others have mentioned. However, I wouldn't crap all over a thread about the effects of Alignment, which is what this thread is.

Quote from: soltakss;949477The OP is clearly coming at this from having Alignment in the game, so it isn't worth arguing against Alignment.

Personally, I don't use Alignment, for the reasons that you and others have mentioned. However, I wouldn't crap all over a thread about the effects of Alignment, which is what this thread is.

I don't blame him. I cannot take alignment seriously. It makes sense in Moorcock as a pro-centrist political message, but breaks down when you try to remove the moral ambiguity. It is baked into the game, so trying to remove it is more difficult than keeping it, to the point where you could write books about removing alignment.

The purpose of an evil side is to have target to kill without worrying over guilt or morality. Those humanoids are meat robots made by evil gods, so it is totally okay to kill them. Never mind than an evil society could not maintain itself very long without not being evil all the time.

When I tried to add moral ambiguity to justify their existence alongside the metaphysical trinity of order-chaos-balance, I ended up with a bizarre aztec/gnostic hybrid that protects the universe from evil gods by causing pain and misery. It lets humanoids act evil without being caricatures.

In fact, you could take this to its logical extreme and posit that demons feed on suffering without necessarily being evil caricatures a la Mongoose's Infernum campaign setting. Are humans evil for raising and butchering farm animals in factories? Similar logic could be applied to demons.

Now you have a four-way moral conflict where the "evil" side's shtick is that they physically cannot coexist with the others or even necessarily with themselves. The humanoids need to maximize suffering to assuage the demons and the demons need to maximize suffering to survive.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;949551I don't blame him. I cannot take alignment seriously. It makes sense in Moorcock as a pro-centrist political message, but breaks down when you try to remove the moral ambiguity. It is baked into the game, so trying to remove it is more difficult than keeping it, to the point where you could write books about removing alignment.

A bit of history,

Alignment started in Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign because unlike most RPG campaigns today he was running groups of antagonist players. There were lawful players and there was chaotic players and probably a few neutrals trying to play one side off of the other. Gronan would know better than I how it was precisely setup. Remember the original Blackmoor campaign was a step from Braustein set in a fantasy world. Like Braustein it had players pursuing goals both in cooperation and against each other.

From what I understand Greyhawk was a much more cooperative campaign with the players having their hands full dealing with the dungeon. Although there are stories of PvP action. OD&D reflected that and where it grew beyond the core group of wargamers the original design reason behind having Law, Neutral, and Chaos got lost.

Afterwards it became natural to add a good-neutral-evil axis thus forming the nine alignments of AD&D 1st edition. But to me it was never a good fit and I quickly ditched in favor of specific religious tenets that clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers had to follow.

Quote from: estar;949557But to me it was never a good fit and I quickly ditched in favor of specific religious tenets that clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers had to follow.

As much as I've enjoyed the law-neutral-chaos axis, I think that this is a much better way of doing things. People tend to fall in love with simple, three-sided systems, but they rarely stand up to much scrutiny. A nuanced, exception-based approach to "alignment" better reflects a believable universe, and gives you more agendas to play with besides.

Looks like I'm in your debt, Estar.

Quote from: estar;949557But to me it was never a good fit and I quickly ditched in favor of specific religious tenets that clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers had to follow.

And that's why I stopped using Alignment years ago. I came to the same realization that Alignment mostly had no practical use for most D&D games outside of those things you mentioned or you were dealing with axiomatic beings from the outer-planes.

Quote from: tenbones;949567And that's why I stopped using Alignment years ago. I came to the same realization that Alignment mostly had no practical use for most D&D games outside of those things you mentioned or you were dealing with axiomatic beings from the outer-planes.

It does beg the question though: in a setting where axiomatic beings are active, would that be enough to make a functional evil civilization?

Take the drow.  They're presented as chaotic evil, but their society is lawful evil.  How?  Because Lolth will fuck up a drow, that's how!  Seriously though, she has demons, supernatural minions, magical mutations to bless/curse with, and ages of cultural shaping and manipulation to call upon.  The drow aren't evil in a vacuum; they were actively made that way, and given the tools to function despite their nature.  And if they break the party line, they get zapped into some half-spider abomination.  Meanwhile, Lolth actively encourages her drow to be this weird Lawful/Chaotic hybridization, because it helps -her-.

Or not.  I dunno'.  

I do however feel that any discussion of how an evil (or good) society could work -has- to consider the outside influence of massively powerful forces that transcend mortality.  Plus... to be blunt... if we're talking about D&D, we're talking about a setting with magic, gods, and undead.  Functioning, measurable, objective morality is just one more fantastic element you have to buy into.

Alignment is a "color coding" abstraction.  Them over there are LE, we're LG.  Let's go harvest some XP.  Orcs don't pause to debate humans morality when they're descending from the hills to rape and slaughter, conversely neither do adventurers when going for retribution.

Is there that one-in-a-million orc, goblin, gnoll, etc. who would stop and consider the implications of what they do in a broader moral framework?  Perhaps.  But they'd get their head knocked in by the tribal shaman/witch-doctor for questioning the will of Grummsh/Maglubiyet/Kurltumak/Hextor/Orcus/etc. and disposed of.  

It merits mentioning that there are just such types of outcasts in D3 Vault of the Drow who were True Neutral or Chaotic Neutral (I can't recall as there were any Chaotic Good, I'll go look later) who "[saw] no value in their society" and consequently weren't wholly evil or amoral.

I personally like what Gary said on the subject, if you get a bunch of monsters who surrender and want to convert to good, baptise 'em and then whack 'em on the head with a flail and send them to the higher planes in a state of grace so they don't have a chance to backslide in to evil!  ;)

Interesting thread.

Personally I rationalize evil societies by looking at historical equivalents. And I think that while the alignments are somewhat antiquated they still serve some purpose as a general baseline. You really don't have to look too hard to find examples of groups that "good" characters would come into conflict with in "kill or be killed" scenarios.

Some of the recent articles regarding Stone Age violence and warfare paint a grim picture of tribes attacking a village, capturing the young women and killing everyone else. According to one professor, Stone Age Southern California saw proportionally more carnage than WWII. Kill them and take their stuff, seems like staple RPG behavior. The carnage on Easter Island is another possible example of this.

The sort of apocalyptic wars practiced by the Assyrians and others in biblical times show societies that go to great lengths to completely eradicate an enemy from the face of the earth. They will show up, wipe out your population, salt your fields, take your "god", etc. Over 1000 years later the Mongols would still be using these tactics as they obliterated Baghdad so thoroughly that they filled in all their canals.

The Scythians as described by Herodotus were drinking out of skulls and crafted their gear out of human skin.

My point is that you can rationalize evil societies in many ways. Maybe the tribe/society is barely evolved and simply does not have the social constructs other societies have. Maybe their behavior is decided due to a lack of resources. Maybe their society places all merit on the amount of men their people have killed. Heading into the modern age, you are mostly left with political and religious ideologies, but many games are not set in modern times.

Seems to me if you can having living gods manipulating the world, evil races/societies isn't exactly a far leap.

Quote from: Spinachcat;949364When do we get pudding?

THIS. Is a good question.

To the OP, why rationalize them? Do you need a story thread to hash out the motivations of your evil bad guy? Does this have anything to do with the characters' backgrounds or builds? What would be fun?

I get that some of the old guard liked putting together ultra detailed settings and in fact I've been enamored with many of them. And having cultures with some details can be fun. But I've not seen a lot of justification or rationalization of evil societies in the seminal works like Forgotten Realms (also Mystara or your favorite detailed OSR setting...), or Eberron or Greyhawk or Scarred Lands. I mean, there are plenty of examples of evil societies in there. Some are described as being more "this is how we see things, we're not evil." to "our gods demand our depravity and we're glad to serve them" to "CHAOS I HAVE NO IDEA" to "Might makes right, now get on your knees!".

In the end not as much of that detail gets used in an average campaign as those authors may have hoped.

When I read things like this I wonder if maybe as a hobby we are doing this backwards? I would start with the "what does this look like in the session" or "what do I want to see as the end result" and then work backwards from there. What would be fun for the players? So, it seems weird that these evil demons are organized somehow, so what would be a cool reason for them being organized?

Rationalization sounds so boring. It's like un-fun. If you're writing a novel, sure dig in, but this is a game and games are about the players and players might ASK you what gives, but they don't have to KNOW what gives. Just ask them "what are you doing?".

Quote from: san dee jota;949581It does beg the question though: in a setting where axiomatic beings are active, would that be enough to make a functional evil civilization?

No but there will be cults. If it is control of a civilization it will be temporary situation caused by other factors. Although temporary in this case could be decades maybe even a century if we are talking human lifespans here.

This reminds of the discussions where a GM wonders how such-and-such postapocalyptic society could come about. I answer: how will the players go about finding out?

Does it need to be rationalised? Are the players sociologists? In fact it's better if it's irrational, then the players don't have to feel bad when they butcher everyone horribly.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;949617Seems to me if you can having living gods manipulating the world, evil races/societies isn't exactly a far leap.

It would be a metropole peripheries situation where the metropole are the living gods oppressing the peripheries (the lands under their control). For example Assyrians and Mitanni.  Sub a evil dragon headed god and demons oppressing Mitanni, Babylonia, Canaanites, Phoenicians, etc, etc. We seen this situation play out before countless time in history where one culture oppressing. Except in this case the culture doing the domination is a supernatural power with a few individual having the power that an ancient nation-state population possesses.

Given we are talking about supernatural forces embodying a moral position it not likely they will change over a few human generation. So likely individuals in an oppressed area will be seeking a external power to help them.

As for the Drow example let me poise this question. How are the Drow Chaotic Evil to each other? There is no doubt they are hard on each other but do they treat each other beyond what we see historical culture do. If they don't then a referee can look to history to see how other oppressing powers treated cultures and pick what he likes.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;949640This reminds of the discussions where a GM wonders how such-and-such postapocalyptic society could come about. I answer: how will the players go about finding out?

In my opinion the best way to handle this is in how the NPCs are roleplaying. What a detailed history amounts to in terms of a tabletop rpg campaign is a foundation on which to come up with way to roleplay NPCs. It how our history manifests itself. Multiple chains of events create the ideals culture, family, religion, politics, etc, etc. Ideals that serve as the foundation for why people act the way to do. There is variation on due to personality but variation within a theme based one's civilization and history.

A player that care about this stuff would pick up on elements due to the way that the NPCs act and start to piece things together.

Quote from: estar;949639No but there will be cults. If it is control of a civilization it will be temporary situation caused by other factors. Although temporary in this case could be decades maybe even a century if we are talking human lifespans here.

Can you elaborate?

There was an interesting take in the Midnight RPG: in it, there was only one god, and that was the god of evil/destruction.  All the other gods were disconnected from their followers, and couldn't give clerics spells.  Want some magical healing?  Better make sure Izrador's priests like you*.  So the evil society went around curb stomping everyone into the ground, growing in power.  Partly because people could either serve them or die, partly because Izrador was the only source of miracles around (and his forces were actively crushing other magic, having already cornered the market on divine spells).  Now, the forces of evil -were- beginning to realize "holy crap, after we wipe out the dwarves and elves, that'll just leave us for our god of total destruction to focus on.  Uh... maybe we should slow down on that genocide a tad?"

I suppose in another setting, with more balance between good and evil gods and such, an evil society might rely on its demonic and devilish and daemonic patrons to provide it with support.  The forces of evil hope to some day rise up and crush all the good guys, but in the mean time they cultivate orcs and goblins** and such, encouraging them to engage in destruction and evil as an easy means to an end.  That orc shows promise in pillaging?  Orc gods heal him and give him magical weapons, reinforcing the cultural mores of orc kind.  That orc takes a break from pillaging, to appreciate a painting?  How the ^&*% is that honoring old One Eye?!?!  No healing for that orc!  And thanks to clerics (and magic users), there's no need for -anyone- to explore medicine or sciences, beyond perhaps "how do we get a cleric here faster?"  To some extent, evil societies probably function in similar ways to good ones, with gods handing miracles to reinforce how they want people to behave, while simultaneously filling (and creating?) gaps in innovation and technology the society would otherwise need to thrive.  

(*"why would a god of destruction grant his followers magical healing?"  Because Izarador was evil and destructive, but he wasn't monomaniaclly -stupid-.  He wanted his forces healthy and hale to destroy the world for him... and only -then- would he destroy them too.)
(**honestly, "meat robots" seems somewhat fitting for goblins to me.  Then again, I've come to think of Pathfinder goblins as the only goblins that matter, so my judgement is clouded.)

Quote from: trechriron;949626THIS. Is a good question.

To the OP, why rationalize them? Do you need a story thread to hash out the motivations of your evil bad guy? Does this have anything to do with the characters' backgrounds or builds? What would be fun?

Great questions!

If I am simply trying to have fun, then things work according to Saturday morning cartoon logic and shy away from showing any real evil stuff.

If I am running a deeply serious setting and including real world atrocity, like half-orc backstories that aren't consensual, then I have to give entire societies devoted to that complex motivations for doing so because real societies do not do evil things in a vacuum. Real life is full of complex socio-political-economic factors and I expect a deeply serious setting to be no different.

I find half-measures deeply unsatisfying.

Quote from: san dee jota;949581It does beg the question though: in a setting where axiomatic beings are active, would that be enough to make a functional evil civilization?

This is *generally* not relevant for most bog-standard games. But I agree there are games where it is a very legitimate question, Planescape immediately jumps to mind. As a general consideration of social behavior it's fairly challenging for most GM's to work through the ideological nuances that would underpin an entire society that operated from such positions and pull it off *well* without it becoming tiresome for the players.

Quote from: san dee jota;949581Take the drow.  They're presented as chaotic evil, but their society is lawful evil.  How?  Because Lolth will fuck up a drow, that's how!  Seriously though, she has demons, supernatural minions, magical mutations to bless/curse with, and ages of cultural shaping and manipulation to call upon.  The drow aren't evil in a vacuum; they were actively made that way, and given the tools to function despite their nature.  And if they break the party line, they get zapped into some half-spider abomination.  Meanwhile, Lolth actively encourages her drow to be this weird Lawful/Chaotic hybridization, because it helps -her-.

Or not.  I dunno'.

Well see, this is where the details matter. I agree - the Drow could not exist as they're portrayed and be called Chaotic Evil. I actually feel they're closer to Neutral Evil (generally) because Lolth perpetuates House warfare to keep everyone on their toes. The real issue is how does this status-quo translate down to the lowest common denominator? The way I play it is, "in Drow society nothing is ever certain, I better get mine when I can." That means as a social norm people will turn on one another when the benefit vs. penalty leans in varying degrees in either direction. Within that context you can have all sorts of evil (and even pragmatic faux altruism) take place. The social structure itself dictates the tone of the populace. But each individual approaches it as the GM/Players see fit.

Alignment is good for a general signpost in this regard. But if you're talking outplanar stuff where those ideological motives are tied atomically to those beings - that's a different proposition to me.

Quote from: san dee jota;949581I do however feel that any discussion of how an evil (or good) society could work -has- to consider the outside influence of massively powerful forces that transcend mortality.  Plus... to be blunt... if we're talking about D&D, we're talking about a setting with magic, gods, and undead.  Functioning, measurable, objective morality is just one more fantastic element you have to buy into.

I agree. But the corollary of that is that in the bog-standard D&D settings, the races are the races. They have different cultural mores, but whatever alignment differences that exist are purely cultural (the vast majority of the time), not mandated by cosmic law. As a PC you get to interact with those elements that are objectively skewed towards an actual alignment by those mandates. i.e. Undead are probably evil. Devas and Planetars are good. Demons and Devils are evil. etc.

At no point do I see the need to use the "alignment system" to portray those elements when I consider them already assumed until proven otherwise. It alleviates a lot of useless arguing and bickering (usually). I actually had a player lose his shit with me when his PC didn't register on another PC's "Detect Good" ability. He insisted his character was NG. I mentioned that two session's ago he hired one of the most dangerous assassins in the world to "deal" with his political rival (subsequently that rival and his children and grandchildren all mysteriously disappeared). And he tried to rationalize that because his PC didn't know what happened specifically, he doesn't know for certain they were dead. That's when I told him "The fact you're trying to rationalize it? That's why you're not registering as Good."

Quote from: san dee jota;949774Can you elaborate?

Quote from: san dee jota;949774Can you elaborate?

What we are talking about are Malthestic societies where the people know that the powers that be (mundane or divine) are out to get them.  The basic idea is that over the long run people don't like to deal with bullshit in their lives and eventually do what it takes to get rid of it. It may not be as dramatic as revolution or war but it will change so people can get on with their lives.

This is why Maltheistic societies are few and far between in our history. There are certainly cultures that are repugnant to their neighbors and vice versa but generally most long term culture develop a morality of how people treat each other in that culture. And if a culture started that way it generally evolves over the generation in a more tolerable for its members.

In several cases (for example the Soviet Union) this will manifest as rampant corruption. Civil Wars can result for example the late Roman Empire. This malaise leave the civilization vulnerable to outside pressure and eventually collapse after several generations.

An example from today that has yet to be played out is North Korea. How long can it last before corruption and the associated cynicism causes large scale change on the country? It may last beyond the current ruler life span it could be next year. But it will come as people grow tired of the shit foisted on them.

Finally understand that what I say it a very concise summary. The real world is far more complex and there are dozens of factors operating. My goal here is present something that of use by one person managing a tabletop rpg campaign. I recommend keeping the number of relevant factors under a half dozen (6). Otherwise it get lost as background noise for you and your players.

Quote from: san dee jota;949776There was an interesting take in the Midnight RPG: in it, there was only one god, and that was the god of evil/destruction.  All the other gods were disconnected from their followers, and couldn't give clerics spells.  Want some magical healing?  Better make sure Izrador's priests like you*.

That world is fucked in my opinion unless they can get somebody/something from another reality to help or Izrador gets bored quits being an active presence. Or if they real lucky there is a macguffin that can destory Izrador or negate his power. The races in that setting are like regular ants compared to a person. The power difference is so ridiculous that there is nothing they can do but bare it.

Corruption will surge from time to time but with Izrador actively involved that will get curb stomped within enough time. Even if corruption did get out of hand Izrador will just rinse and repeat what he did the first time.

I realize that I sound negative but that the fundmental issue with supernatural entities unless you supply an explicit out their rule will last forever from a human point of view.

Quote from: Marleycat;949140No, the question is would there be are there more leaders after meeting another leader with just as big balls and an agenda opposite of their's.
See us European types in the 1500-1700's defined slavery much differently then 1500-1700's Africans.

Right, Europeans eventually decided to abolish it whereas Africa never has.

(http://static.existentialcomics.com/comics/councilOfElrond1.png)
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Quote from: tenbones;949819I told him "The fact you're trying to rationalize it? That's why you're not registering as Good."

Awesome.  I would have added. "The fact that you're trying to sell a character hiring an assassin, knowing the people the assassin was supposed to kill are dead, but doesn't know he was responsible because he didn't physically see the deaths happen proves you're a bigger piece of shit than your character. Bye."

Quote from: estar;949832This is why Maltheistic societies are few and far between in our history.

(snip)

The real world is far more complex and there are dozens of factors operating.

I think this is the great disconnect you and I are having: you're approaching this as if the societies were realistic, I'm approaching them as if they existed in a world with magic elves.  I'm -not- saying you're wrong in what you say, but that for how ever many complex factors you could consider, a standard D&D world has all of those and many, many more.  To the point that realistic societies can't exist/function in a D&D world, unless you strip it of the fantastical elements and make it essentially "Earth with a different geography".  Which could be interesting, but then it's not really D&D.  Although... it would be interesting to take the real world societies/history and then throw D&D levels of magic and monsters into the mix.  Something like Shadowrun 1468 A.D. perhaps?

Quote from: estar;949835That world is fucked in my opinion

It -was- fucked.  That was part of the appeal of the setting (for those who liked the appeal of an apocalyptic, "end of the world" style D&D game anyway).  :)

Quote from: estar;949835I realize that I sound negative but that the fundmental issue with supernatural entities unless you supply an explicit out their rule will last forever from a human point of view.

I think this brings up an interesting point: the truly axiomatic supernatural forces we can agree on (e.g. gods, angels, demons), are -finite- and in opposition to one another.  The focus of games dealing heavily with such tends to be on that one plucky band of adventurers who tip the scales, and save/damn the world, right?  Because the axiomatics are in balance and need an outsider to decide for them what they can't.  EDIT: part of the backstory to Midnight (if anyone cares) is that the heroic band of adventurers who went to fight Izrador instead decided to work with him, and that was enough to -break- these metaphorical scales in Evil's favor.

Quote from: tenbones;949819I agree - the Drow could not exist as they're portrayed and be called Chaotic Evil. I actually feel they're closer to Neutral Evil (generally) because Lolth perpetuates House warfare to keep everyone on their toes. The real issue is how does this status-quo translate down to the lowest common denominator? The way I play it is, "in Drow society nothing is ever certain, I better get mine when I can." That means as a social norm people will turn on one another when the benefit vs. penalty leans in varying degrees in either direction. Within that context you can have all sorts of evil (and even pragmatic faux altruism) take place. The social structure itself dictates the tone of the populace. But each individual approaches it as the GM/Players see fit.

Since I'm mis-remembering, and it's relevant, and people might find it interesting, here's a bit from page 10 of Drow of the Underdark.

QuoteThe drow are a highly chaotic, individualistic people, a fact addressed multiple times throughout this chapter. They worship a deity who dwells in the Abyss and is a paragon of chaotic evil.  Yet for all that, the Monster Manual gives drow alignment as
“usually neutral evil.”   The truth is, the drow are at least somewhat cooperative with one another, almost in spite of their own nature. Their ambitions and desires require that their society remain at least somewhat stable. They employ few true laws, but they are tightly bound by traditions and codes, and even if they follow them primarily out of fear, they follow them nonetheless. It is ironic that a lone drow is likely to drift toward chaos, but that despite their rivalry with one another, the presence of multiple drow in a given community literally forces them into a level of cooperation beyond what truly chaotic individuals would maintain.

tl;dr - individual alignment isn't always a society's alignment.

Which, honestly, may be a good way to rationalize an evil society?

Quote from: tenbones;949819That's when I told him "The fact you're trying to rationalize it? That's why you're not registering as Good."

My players would try something like that too.  Lucky for me, there'd be less arguing and more "c'mon...." and laughs.

Quote from: san dee jota;950011I think this is the great disconnect you and I are having: you're approaching this as if the societies were realistic, I'm approaching them as if they existed in a world with magic elves.  I'm -not- saying you're wrong in what you say, but that for how ever many complex factors you could consider, a standard D&D world has all of those and many, many more.  To the point that realistic societies can't exist/function in a D&D world, unless you strip it of the fantastical elements and make it essentially "Earth with a different geography".  Which could be interesting, but then it's not really D&D.  Although... it would be interesting to take the real world societies/history and then throw D&D levels of magic and monsters into the mix.  Something like Shadowrun 1468 A.D. perhaps?



It -was- fucked.  That was part of the appeal of the setting (for those who liked the appeal of an apocalyptic, "end of the world" style D&D game anyway).  :)



I think this brings up an interesting point: the truly axiomatic supernatural forces we can agree on (e.g. gods, angels, demons), are -finite- and in opposition to one another.  The focus of games dealing heavily with such tends to be on that one plucky band of adventurers who tip the scales, and save/damn the world, right?  Because the axiomatics are in balance and need an outsider to decide for them what they can't.  EDIT: part of the backstory to Midnight (if anyone cares) is that the heroic band of adventurers who went to fight Izrador instead decided to work with him, and that was enough to -break- these metaphorical scales in Evil's favor.

You are assuming a false dichotomy. Assuming reality-warping magic exists does not mean that the same complex systems (of psychology, sociology, economics, politics, logistics, strategy, blah blah blah) that govern our world cannot co-exist with said magic.

Part of the reason Game of Thrones is so popular is because the existence of its incredibly weak magic does not invalidate the basic human psychology of its characters. Pretty much every single "evil" character is either insane (e.g. Joffrey, Ramsey), harboring a grudge (e.g. the Freys), or a victim of abuse (e.g. every female and sympathetic male character).

Game of Thrones would be extremely boring if the Lannisters were evil gits because they were made by an evil god rather than because they're obsessed with the family name (why Tywin went psycho) or victims of sexual abuse (why his kids went psycho).

EDIT: If a Paladin landed in Westeros, everyone except maybe the Starks would ping as Evil.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950013You are assuming a false dichotomy. Assuming reality-warping magic exists does not mean that the same complex systems (of psychology, sociology, economics, politics, logistics, strategy, blah blah blah) that govern our world cannot co-exist with said magic.

I see my phrasing mistake now.  

I -should- have said something like: "a standard D&D world has all of those and many, many more.  To the point that the realistic societies you (estar) mention can't exist/function in a D&D world, since they're based on a world without magic.  If you add magic, that changes the society into something we've never seen.  If you strip out all the fantastical elements though, you make it essentially 'Earth with a different geography'."

Using real world societies as a starting point is fine, but the addition of magic and divine intervention on tap and what not allows for possibilities that the real world does not.  Take the real world, but now imagine if the Catholic Church had access to Divine spells that recharged every day and how that would impact European history.  The Pope is 20th level, and the lone village priest is 1st-3rd perhaps.  How much does history diverge?  And that's just -one- factor.

Anyway, yes, I misspoke.  Hopefully this is more clear now.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950013Part of the reason Game of Thrones is so popular is because the existence of its incredibly weak magic does not invalidate the basic human psychology of its characters.

You're assuming "orc/elf/goblin/minotaur = human in a costume".  Which may or may not be the case (seriously, it could be argued either way).

Quote from: san dee jota;950011I think this is the great disconnect you and I are having: you're approaching this as if the societies were realistic, I'm approaching them as if they existed in a world with magic elves.

As a design principle it is my opinion that fantasy works best if it adopts the principle of least change. I.e. unless stated otherwise by the author people act like people. Otherwise it get harder to relate the more out there the setting becomes.

Another thing when it comes to this type of discussion is that you need to explicit layout the premise of the setting. With a blank slate it important to understand how it works. Doesn't mean it has to be deterministic or rational if it not then we know up front what we are talking about.


My posts assume that basically talking normal humans living under a evil society in a fantasy setting where powerful supernatural entities exist.

My contention that even with magic, elves, demons, people are not willing to live in cultures where the power that be are out to "get you. Even if it takes generations it will a temporary condition and people, high and low, will work towards something everybody can live with it. Doesn't mean it will be pleasant by our standards or the setting's standards but it will be something people can live with and get on with their lives.

If that not true then the "people" are something other than human beings or there some other factor at play like mind control.

Quote from: san dee jota;950011I think this brings up an interesting point: the truly axiomatic supernatural forces we can agree on (e.g. gods, angels, demons), are -finite- and in opposition to one another.  The focus of games dealing heavily with such tends to be on that one plucky band of adventurers who tip the scales, and save/damn the world, right?  Because the axiomatics are in balance and need an outsider to decide for them what they can't.  EDIT: part of the backstory to Midnight (if anyone cares) is that the heroic band of adventurers who went to fight Izrador instead decided to work with him, and that was enough to -break- these metaphorical scales in Evil's favor.

This works, remember what matter here is not the specifics but whether they flow from the premises you set for the campaign. By that criteria what you wrote is reasonable.

In the Majestic Wilderlands my take is that God exists, the polytheistic deities are very powerful beings to teach men and elves about the world, it possibilities and their place within it. Unfortunately there was a rebellion against God's plan and while it was defeated it took a terrible toll. The rebels were labeled as demon and imprisoned in the abyss. Instead of just Men and Elves we had dozens of diverse humanlike sentient races. The gods decided it was better to operate through faith and mystery than the direct contact they had before.

Also of note for the Majestic Wilderlands, God doesn't seem to care whether anybody directly worships him or so the fact there is a omnipotent creator is obscure theological point in most cultures.

Most cultures are separated by geography and comprised of a single race (mostly Man). However there is a family of cultures centered on the immortal Elves consisting of Men and the traditional demi-humans (Dwarves, Halflings, etc). This Sylvan culture is both inclusive and highly conservative and has an outsizes impact where the Elves are present. Mostly because Elven immortality provides a continuity not present in cultures solely dominated by a mortal race.

The problem of the "modern" era of the Wilderlands is that population has grown to the point that are large scale regional and continental interactions between previously isolated cultures. This causes complications, complication that lead to adventures :-)

Anyway this works for me not because it is the "right" way to go. Because I laid out the premise and everything follows through. Now as far as my stuff goes when I write about what a race or culture "is" it is a norm. What the players see are the variation centered around that norm and it can be pretty diverse.

Quote from: san dee jota;950014Using real world societies as a starting point is fine, but the addition of magic and divine intervention on tap and what not allows for possibilities that the real world does not.  Take the real world, but now imagine if the Catholic Church had access to Divine spells that recharged every day and how that would impact European history.  The Pope is 20th level, and the lone village priest is 1st-3rd perhaps.  How much does history diverge?  And that's just -one- factor.

You are right. Magic, at least as depicted in the D&D rules, would lead to post-scarcity science fantasy. The authors of the D&D rules ignore this and portray their settings as more or less identical to the popular misconception of the middle ages except with magic and orcs poorly tacked on. The standard D&D campaign setting is not remotely realistic, much less the portrayal of whole species as caricatures.

Assuming that magic is rare enough that the technology remains at pre-industrial levels, either we portray evil races as asexual strife elementals a la Warhammer or we portray them as people with bizarre world views a la God Hates Orcs. We cannot have it both ways without things falling apart upon close inspection. Evil societies are not badwrongfun, but they need to be written with care if intended to be treated deeply serious.

Quote from: san dee jota;950014You're assuming "orc/elf/goblin/minotaur = human in a costume".  Which may or may not be the case (seriously, it could be argued either way).

They still have the same basic needs for food, shelter and reproduction. You can only stretch psychology so far before it becomes detrimental. Any species that survives for long periods is not going to engage in self-destruction behaviors all the time. Removing those basic needs actually makes them less likely to conflict with humans, unless you change their food to something like human emotional capacity. You could still portray such creatures as having depth. At this point we have long since left fantasy caricature and gone into speculative biology.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950033You are right. Magic, at least as depicted in the D&D rules, would lead to post-scarcity science fantasy.

Several things negates this and forces society to evolve over generation similar (but not the same) as our own history.

1) Arcane magic as depicted in classic D&D is a scholar profession requiring literacy. That means you have be non-productive in terms of producing food, clothing, and housing for most of your lift before you can do anything useful.

2) Divine magic is power granted by a higher power with an agenda of their own. Which likely is not concerned about uplifting the material well being of the entire population. The best cases are those powers that don' t care either way but their own agenda leave little time for their clerics to do any uplifting.

3) It not about technology but also philosophy. It not enough to be able to do thing a thing you have to imagine doing it with the means you have. And it worse in that you have to a have a process that reliably gets you from idea to execution. Western culture had to go through the Greeks, the Romans, the rise of Christainity, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, along with specific geo-political circumstances to get to the point of having a industrial revolution.

4) Even if you made a good case that X RPG system of magic would lead to a post-scarcity science-fantasy setting, there was still a time where it wasn't, and it didn't happen overnight. This seems that plausibility can be maintained by just saying the setting is set at a early point in the setting's history.

5) Even in later edition of D&D, Sorcerors who are born with innate magic are depicted as rare. Warlocks are a special case of clerics where instead of being divine agents they works for a less but still powerful magical being.

6) Given the rarity, training time factor, and agenda of ultra-powerful being I would say it is implausible for spells to be used to burn away the shit in the cesspools of Pandathaway unless the culture or civilization has some other factor in play.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950033The authors of the D&D rules ignore this and portray their settings as more or less identical to the popular misconception of the middle ages except with magic and orcs poorly tacked on. The standard D&D campaign setting is not remotely realistic, much less the portrayal of whole species as caricatures.

There already a realism thread and as pointed out there what is realistic is highly subjective. The real question it is possible to run a campaign using the D&D tropes where you feel like you are in a world that has internal consistency interacting with character that feel like they actually live in that world? Then the answer is yes it is and I been doing this for 30 years.  Is it realistic in terms whether it feels like living in southeast of 12th century England? No it not realistic in that regard.

In short if it is a problem for you, then it is the fault of the referee of the campaign you were in. Not the fault of the D&D game.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950033Assuming that magic is rare enough that the technology remains at pre-industrial levels, either we portray evil races as asexual strife elementals a la Warhammer or we portray them as people with bizarre world views a la God Hates Orcs. We cannot have it both ways without things falling apart upon close inspection. Evil societies are not badwrongfun, but they need to be written with care if intended to be treated deeply serious.

Or those races have a range of behavior different enough from baseline human that make peaceful co-existence unlikely. Given enough generation of dealing with the problem and how our history unfolded, a kill on sight attitude is very plausible.

For example in the Majestic Wilderlands Orcs differ not only physically from humans but their base aggression levels were shoved far to the aggressive side of human personalities. The average orc will come off as an hyper aggressive bully in normal human society. The only reason the orcs have anything like a culture/civilization is the fact the demons that altered baked in a dominance reflex where they will submit to the strong more readily than the average human.

The point is that it about thinking things through. There nothing that is "wrong" about the D&D tropes that makes it any less easier or harder to think things through to come up with reason for why thing are what they are compared to Jorune, Tekumel, or Glorantha. The thing that set D&D apart is the fact it is THE most popular image of fantasy. The reason it was that for so long because the base tropes are that flexible and Arneson and Gygax did a good job on drawing out the best from our myths and legends.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950009Awesome.  I would have added. "The fact that you're trying to sell a character hiring an assassin, knowing the people the assassin was supposed to kill are dead, but doesn't know he was responsible because he didn't physically see the deaths happen proves you're a bigger piece of shit than your character. Bye."

You'd boot the player?

Quote from: Ras Algethi;950062You'd boot the player?

If he persisted and didn't agree he was being ridiculous, yes, without hesitation.

- The PC hired an assassin to kill an NPC for political gain.
- That NPC disappeared.
- The player claimed the PC didn't know that his actions were the cause of their death.
- The player claimed the PC was still good.

I don't keep players that are willing to lie and be intellectually dishonest in order to gain some advantage in game.  For whatever reason, this player wanted to be N/G and was willing to dissemble in order to retain that advantage.  Do it elsewhere.

I don't have players who would do that, though.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950064If he persisted and didn't agree he was being ridiculous, yes, without hesitation.

- The PC hired an assassin to kill an NPC for political gain.
- That NPC disappeared.
- The player claimed the PC didn't know that his actions were the cause of their death.
- The player claimed the PC was still good.

I don't keep players that are willing to lie and be intellectually dishonest in order to gain some advantage in game.  For whatever reason, this player wanted to be N/G and was willing to dissemble in order to retain that advantage.  Do it elsewhere.

Seems harsh, in my opinion (such as it is) if there wasn't actual game disruption going on. In my experience way to many people think/thought that "neutral was do whatever I want". Assuming the player goes along with the GM/DM ruling, I personally don't see it as much of an issue.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;950065Seems harsh, in my opinion (such as it is) if there wasn't actual game disruption going on. In my experience way to many people think/thought that "neutral was do whatever I want". Assuming the player goes along with the GM/DM ruling, I personally don't see it as much of an issue.

"Assuming the player goes along with the GM/DM ruling" being the operative phrase.  The post in question phrased it "lose his shit with me" so it sounds like there was an argument.  

But in the end, we're playing a game, and the player evidenced cheating behavior.  There's kind of no point in playing a game with someone you don't trust to not cheat.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950069"Assuming the player goes along with the GM/DM ruling" being the operative phrase.  The post in question phrased it "lose his shit with me" so it sounds like there was an argument.  

But in the end, we're playing a game, and the player evidenced cheating behavior.  There's kind of no point in playing a game with someone you don't trust to not cheat.

Agreed if the player goes apes-shit and doesn't get it under control.

As for it being cheating... that's seems really, really murky to me. Interpreting rules/guidelines/powers/alignments/etc. in the most favorable manner is, to me, not the same thing as flipping die to a different number after rolling 'em. Especially, in this alignment case as it has been my experience that many (if not a majority) misinterpret the alignments along the neutral arc.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950009Awesome.  I would have added. "The fact that you're trying to sell a character hiring an assassin, knowing the people the assassin was supposed to kill are dead, but doesn't know he was responsible because he didn't physically see the deaths happen proves you're a bigger piece of shit than your character. Bye."

Heh after the session - we had this huge discussion about. It was fun (but probably not everyone's cup of tea). Even now years later - my group still laughs about the whole thing. I don't hold what people do in-game, usually, against them unless it becomes a true problem. I later did remove him from the group, he'd been gaming with me for over 20-years but because of his personal issues that partially created this gigantic ethical blindspot I had to give him the boot.

He was still an excellent player, he just happened to be a narcissistic asshole.

Quote from: tenbones;950078Heh after the session - we had this huge discussion about. It was fun (but probably not everyone's cup of tea). Even now years later - my group still laughs about the whole thing. I don't hold what people do in-game, usually, against them unless it becomes a true problem. I later did remove him from the group, he'd been gaming with me for over 20-years but because of his personal issues that partially created this gigantic ethical blindspot I had to give him the boot.

He was still an excellent player, he just happened to be a narcissistic asshole.

Yeah, if it was a long time ago, I'd probably have more patience, but at this point I've spent my tolerance for selfish, unethical, narcissistic assholes at the gaming table.

I think people overestimate the positive impacts of magic by ignoring the negative ones.  Sure you've got Create Food and Water but you've also got Bulletes and Anhegs tearing up the cropland and eating the peasants and livestock.  Never mind the village witch casting Blight Crops and the evil knight who's turned to black sorcery to avenge being embarrassed at the king's court last year.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950064If he persisted and didn't agree he was being ridiculous, yes, without hesitation.

- The PC hired an assassin to kill an NPC for political gain.
- That NPC disappeared.
- The player claimed the PC didn't know that his actions were the cause of their death.
- The player claimed the PC was still good.

If a Good PC hired an assassin to kill an Evil NPC and thereby saved a thousand lives, does that make the PC evil?

Quote from: soltakss;950231If a Good PC hired an assassin to kill an Evil NPC and thereby saved a thousand lives, does that make the PC evil?

Who cares?  That's not what happened nor the point of the player's problem.

Quote from: estar;950050Or those races have a range of behavior different enough from baseline human that make peaceful co-existence unlikely. Given enough generation of dealing with the problem and how our history unfolded, a kill on sight attitude is very plausible.

For example in the Majestic Wilderlands Orcs differ not only physically from humans but their base aggression levels were shoved far to the aggressive side of human personalities. The average orc will come off as an hyper aggressive bully in normal human society. The only reason the orcs have anything like a culture/civilization is the fact the demons that altered baked in a dominance reflex where they will submit to the strong more readily than the average human.

The point is that it about thinking things through. There nothing that is "wrong" about the D&D tropes that makes it any less easier or harder to think things through to come up with reason for why thing are what they are compared to Jorune, Tekumel, or Glorantha. The thing that set D&D apart is the fact it is THE most popular image of fantasy. The reason it was that for so long because the base tropes are that flexible and Arneson and Gygax did a good job on drawing out the best from our myths and legends.

This is exactly what I have been arguing. By giving the orcs biological differences which are stable in their own context, you have made them not evil but alien. Being unable to peacefully coexist does not make either side inherently evil.

First, hi. Been lurking a while.

Second, in response to the OP, it depends on what you mean by "evil." I don't think it means "you maximize the suffering of those around you." I think if you go with the AD&D definitions "Good" is pretty explicitly framed in terms of Declaration of Independence-style concepts of human rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "Evil" disregards any such concept and prizes power and strength.

I think there are plenty of societies where the formative moral and cultural norms are "Evil" by the Gygaxian (really Jeffersonian) definition. If you dig into history, the morality of the Sparta, Rome, the Seljuks, etc, is pretty alien to our own and often disturbing in its brutality. I wouldn't look so much to 20th century examples, as the Nazis and Communists both had unsustainable, cartoon-bad-guy morality because they were basically a massive LARP by idiots with armies behind them.

The axis that is much harder to reconcile is Law vs Chaos. If you don't have the order and good of society as part of your moral system somewhere, I don't think you can really have an advanced society, where "advanced" means "has developed urban lifestyles and trade goods." It requires too much social cooperation and mutual trust to do that stuff.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950267Being unable to peacefully coexist does not make either side inherently evil.

But if they're sentient beings who ostensibly have free will, in a setting with an objective morality, then being unable to peacefully coexist very likely -does- make them evil.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950267This is exactly what I have been arguing. By giving the orcs biological differences which are stable in their own context, you have made them not evil but alien. Being unable to peacefully coexist does not make either side inherently evil.

No but it does make it tragic. The difference I created doesn't allow for peaceful co-existence. There are low aggression orcs capable of living in human civilizations but they are on the low end of the orc's bell curve and are few and far between.


The main reason that the major civilization haven't exterminated them is because while magic exists in the Wilderlands it amounted to a situation that I consider to be 20% better than what happened historically. So disease, low productivity means that labor is at a premium and it takes generations for a region to be colonized and exploited. There a lot of empty space remaining to be exploited before the major civilizations get around into expanding into the regions that the orcs occupy.

Of course the Orcs have their moments as well and are able to push back when circumstances are right. There was a major elven kingdom in the main campaign area that got wiped 400 years ago and it is only now that a effort to reclaim that territory by the surrounding states is underway. And for the most part it is focused on created marches just inside the old elven realm border to stop orc raids into the surrounding lands.

Note this is an example of what I mean that even if the premise of a setting leads to a specific conclusion, the campaign can be set in a earlier point in time before that it reached. In any case the Orcs are doomed in the long run. Technology for many major civilization is on the verge of the renaissance, gunpowder (called Dragon Powder) is being used to make siege cannons and within a century the first hand weapons will be probably be developed.  The effectiveness of pike over heavy cavalry is being developed, the horse collar is in use, water mills and windmills are in use as well.

The orcs don't have the social cohesion to compete with that unless they become part of something else. For example a black dragon named Pan Caulderax is major a supernatural power in the region that interferes with politics. The dragon does incorporate orcs into his plans.

But back to the OP all of this follows fro my premises for the Majestic Wilderlands. Another set of premises would lead to a different outcome and view of orcs. For example if one view orcs as being created from a spiritual corruption of a race. In that case they are inherently evil. Although I would argue in terms of what a person would see if they were actually there between that and what I did there is no difference. The end result the same, individual and cultures that by their nature are unable to co-exist and interactions are reduced to kill on sight.

Quote from: David Johansen;950103I think people overestimate the positive impacts of magic by ignoring the negative ones.  Sure you've got Create Food and Water but you've also got Bulletes and Anhegs tearing up the cropland and eating the peasants and livestock.  Never mind the village witch casting Blight Crops and the evil knight who's turned to black sorcery to avenge being embarrassed at the king's court last year.

Which is why in my opinion that for the average inhabitant the D&D style magic i use has amounted to condition 20% better over history. That the elites (and adventurers) enjoy a standard of living similar to the early 19th century. But we are talking 1% of the population if that.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;950268I think there are plenty of societies where the formative moral and cultural norms are "Evil" by the Gygaxian (really Jeffersonian) definition. If you dig into history, the morality of the Sparta, Rome, the Seljuks, etc, is pretty alien to our own and often disturbing in its brutality. I wouldn't look so much to 20th century examples, as the Nazis and Communists both had unsustainable, cartoon-bad-guy morality because they were basically a massive LARP by idiots with armies behind them.

You make some good point however I take the OP to mean societies that consider themselves to be evil. To the individual Spartan Greek, Roman, Turk, etc their culture was great and epitomize what was good and right in the world. The fact that their neighbors disagreed "vigorously" with that assertion was not relevant.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;950268The axis that is much harder to reconcile is Law vs Chaos. If you don't have the order and good of society as part of your moral system somewhere, I don't think you can really have an advanced society, where "advanced" means "has developed urban lifestyles and trade goods." It requires too much social cooperation and mutual trust to do that stuff.

In Blackmoor and Greyhawk, law and chaos were factions. The forces of laws were your typical medievealish cities and kingdoms, chaos were the bad guys and their monstrous allies trying to conquer them. And the neutral are the folks that both sides were trying to recruit.

If you try to stretch this faction system into a philosophy of life then there will be issues. Which is why I ditched alignment in favor of tenets, codes, and philosophies described in natural language.

Quote from: soltakss;950231If a Good PC hired an assassin to kill an Evil NPC and thereby saved a thousand lives, does that make the PC evil?

That's not really the question. What it does do is make the PC Not Good. I'm not playing the moral equivalency game that PC's can predict the future etcas some justification for their current actions. That's the realm of the Gods (and monsters!). Ethically speaking you can do what you want and weigh the action(s) accordingly. Intent matters too.

In all likelihood, you're probably right - the NPC would have likely killed many other people through his machinations. But the intent of the act at the moment was a "Good" PC actively hiring a known assassin to deal with his rival, and purposely word the agreement of the deal so that he'd have plausible deniability for the sole purpose of soothing his own ego. I *could* argue that's pretty evil (because it is - it's plotting cold-blooded murder against a cold-blooded murderer which was against the law of his OWN Duchy and the King he served).

All I did was just say he's not Good. Because he isn't. (he was subsequently stripped of his title and lands later.)

But I also maintained their kingdom was NG and their king exemplified that.

Quote from: estar;950330You make some good point however I take the OP to mean societies that consider themselves to be evil. To the individual Spartan Greek, Roman, Turk, etc their culture was great and epitomize what was good and right in the world. The fact that their neighbors disagreed "vigorously" with that assertion was not relevant.

Well, that's because in reality, societies defined good and evil based on their own norms, not an official handbook. In D&D world, Evil has an immutable definition, as does Good. Based on those definitions, sure you can have societies that think that Evil the "best" way to be.

In terms of the OP, societies where maximizing the suffering of other gains you the greatest gifts in the afterlife are indeed ridiculous, but if that is really a significant part of any setting I've played, I've certainly ignored it.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;950353Well, that's because in reality, societies defined good and evil based on their own norms, not an official handbook. In D&D world, Evil has an immutable definition, as does Good. Based on those definitions, sure you can have societies that think that Evil the "best" way to be.

And my original point remains, unless imposed no human culture is going to pick Evil as D&D defines. Otherwise they not acting like human beings. While it fantasy, fantasy still operates with the premise that people act like people. Otherwise it hard to relate too.

Another counterpoint as depicted in the various modules and supplement even the "evil cultures" have a norm that their members believe is right and just. As depicted in D3, the Drow are consider an "evil" culture but when you look at how they are depicted, the majority of evil is directed at other races. The Drow themselves form an elite with a hierarchy and they have specific ways they interact with each other. To me it obvious that the Drow view their setup as the right way to go for them.

Quote from: Voros;949139Would German fascism have built a sustainable society? What alignment were the Aztecs?

Exactly.  Evil societies and people supporting them rarely consider themselves evil, but rather consider themselves in the right and serving a higher purpose.  Sociopaths don't even get the concept but they are more CE.

I think a simple test for "evil" is if you believe it is acceptable to harm the innocent to get what you want.  Most evil societies tend to justify the harm by painting the victim as "guilty" of something or "owing" something to the superior culture, sometimes the "guilt" not being strong enough to protect themselves.  Also "evil" societies have no problem punishing someone's innocent children for the their acts, punishing the easy target for the crimes of others, or harming innocent loved ones to ensure their compliance.  I'm not talking about collateral harm, but intentional targeting of the innocent.

It's hard to have the discussion of "society" without talking about the scale of that society. There are requirements that, assuming we're talking about mere-mortals, that societies demand at different scales. Generally speaking the larger you go, the more rules you need (and the more "lawful" you have to be). You can probably get away with "Neutral" - but that's debatable.

Aztecs while not strictly an absolute "empire", but had most of the functions of one was actually very lawful in the sense their code of laws covered pretty much everything you saw in European empires. They had appeal processes etc. But they were also heavily influenced by their religion. With the Imperial cult being that of their war-god, yeah they had some bloody practices. That alone doesn't necessarily mean they were Chaotic Evil (which is how most people in the west perceive them), they were a very lawful in practice. But yeah, probably evil. heh

Quote from: tenbones;950361It's hard to have the discussion of "society" without talking about the scale of that society. There are requirements that, assuming we're talking about mere-mortals, that societies demand at different scales. Generally speaking the larger you go, the more rules you need (and the more "lawful" you have to be). You can probably get away with "Neutral" - but that's debatable.

Aztecs while not strictly an absolute "empire", but had most of the functions of one was actually very lawful in the sense their code of laws covered pretty much everything you saw in European empires. They had appeal processes etc. But they were also heavily influenced by their religion. With the Imperial cult being that of their war-god, yeah they had some bloody practices. That alone doesn't necessarily mean they were Chaotic Evil (which is how most people in the west perceive them), they were a very lawful in practice. But yeah, probably evil. heh

What? The Aztecs did not sacrifice people to appease a war god. They sacrificed loads of things because they believed that their sacrifices were sustaining the world (an extreme version of the circle of life) or cleansing themselves and others of sin and evil forces (note the parallels to the crucifixion of Jesus in Christianity).

Saying the Aztecs were evil for sacrificing people is like saying Christianity is evil for exterminating indigenous cultures or that the communists were evil for exterminating Christians and Taoists. They thought they were doing good even if they were just superstitious ninnies.

Huitzilopochtli, the Aztecs' patron deity, was god of the sun and war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huitzilopochtli

Everyone's the good guy in his own life story, and every civilization regards its own activities as moral, so I don't know what you think you're accomplishing with that argument. Charles Manson thought he was doing the right thing by brutally murdering Sharon Tate; that doesn't make it stupid to call that an evil act.

Quote from: estar;950357And my original point remains, unless imposed no human culture is going to pick Evil as D&D defines. Otherwise they not acting like human beings. While it fantasy, fantasy still operates with the premise that people act like people. Otherwise it hard to relate too.

I think you're universalising the experience of the Christian West in the wake of the Enlightenment. The AD&D DMG defines good as:

QuoteBasically stated, the tenets of good are human rights, or in the case of ADBD, creature rights. Each creature is entitled to life, relative freedom,  and the  prospect of happiness. Cruelty and suffering are undesirable. Evil, on the other hand, does not concern itself with rights or happiness; purpose is the determinant.

That's straight-up cribbed from Thomas Jefferson, and it most certainly is not a universal human value. Jefferson thought it was, but he was wrong.

QuoteAnother counterpoint as depicted in the various modules and supplement even the "evil cultures" have a norm that their members believe is right and just. As depicted in D3, the Drow are consider an "evil" culture but when you look at how they are depicted, the majority of evil is directed at other races. The Drow themselves form an elite with a hierarchy and they have specific ways they interact with each other. To me it obvious that the Drow view their setup as the right way to go for them.

Whether or not a culture has a morality they think is correct is not what makes it "Good" or "Evil" in D&D. It's whether or not that norm has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all mankind...I mean, uh, demihumankind...as the foundation of its morality. Drow society doesn't, that's why it's Evil.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950463What? The Aztecs did not sacrifice people to appease a war god. They sacrificed loads of things because they believed that their sacrifices were sustaining the world (an extreme version of the circle of life) or cleansing themselves and others of sin and evil forces (note the parallels to the crucifixion of Jesus in Christianity).

If you read my post, all I said was that they had bloody practices. I made precisely *zero* claims as what/why/who these bloody practices applied to.

Having said that - I'm not a moral relativist. If you believe that "good" and "evil" are relative in the regards of what people believe vs. the acts they perpetrate in the name of those beliefs - then there is probably nothing we can discuss further.

Also, Jesus wasn't crucified to sustain the world. He was crucified (if you believe the NT) as a legal measure for varying reasons which are still debated. It's the later Christians themselves that would make the attribution of predestination and cosmic reason for his punishment. I'm not so sure that these are quite as parallel with the Aztecs beyond the surface-level.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950463Saying the Aztecs were evil for sacrificing people is like saying Christianity is evil for exterminating indigenous cultures or that the communists were evil for exterminating Christians and Taoists. They thought they were doing good even if they were just superstitious ninnies.

Although I did not expressly say that. I can say the people that did those things as a matter of state principle were probably evil. Yes I have no problem with that. You realize you're having the "Alignment Argument" with someone that doesn't even use alignment *precisely* for this reason?

So if it makes you feel better: YES I'm sure there was a Good-Aligned Aztec somewhere. Much like there are Good Nazis, and Good Devils in someone's snowflake campaigns. But what standards are you applying as a moral-relativist? They're neutral? They're good because they believed they're good? I know a lot of societies that thought they were doing "Good"... I won't name them. You already know who they are.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;950477Whether or not a culture has a morality they think is correct is not what makes it "Good" or "Evil" in D&D. It's whether or not that norm has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all mankind...I mean, uh, demihumankind...as the foundation of its morality. Drow society doesn't, that's why it's Evil.

To summarize you are claiming that in AD&D 1st edition Gary Gygax defines evil as opposite of classical liberalism as represented by the founding fathers of the United States.

Let's start at the beginning. OD&D has been released and the among the other questions that TSR was being bombarded with, there questions about the relationship about Law and Chaos in regards with good and evil. It appears that most gamers considered Law the good guys and Chaos the bad guys which is how it was in the Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaign.

In Vol 2 Issue #1 of the Strategic Review Gygax address this issue.

QuoteMany questions continue to arise regarding what constitutes a “lawful” act, what sort of behavior is “chaotic”, what constituted an “evil” deed, and how certain behavior is “good”. There is considerable confusion in that most dungeonmasters construe the terms “chaotic” and “evil” to mean the same thing, just as they define “lawful” and “good” to mean the same. This is scarcely surprising considering the wording of the three original volumes of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. When that was written they meant just about the same thing in my mind — notice I do not say they were synonymous in my thinking at, that time

The rest of the articles is about his adding a good evil axis to the alignment system and how it impacts the game. This article marks the first appearance of Good and Evil for D&D. Due to the wording it was five alignments (LG, LE, N, CG, CE) not the nine of the PHB.

In this article Gygax said this about Good vs. Evil in D&D.

QuoteAlso, law and chaos are not subject to interpretation in their ultimate meanings of order and disorder respectively, but good and evil are not absolutes but must be judged from a frame of reference, some ethos. The placement of creatures on the chart of Illustration II. reflects the ethos of this writer to some extent.

So Gygax advises that you need some frame of reference to judge what is good and evil. However for what he rights he uses what he considers good and evil. He doesn't get into that much but you do have these lists.

GOOD
Harmless
Friendly
Honest
Sincere
Helpful
Beneficial
Pure

EVIL
Unfit
Mischievous
Dishonest
Bad
Injurious
Wicked
Corrupt

Before going onto the PHB and DMG of 1st edition AD&D. I will state again that to postulate civilizations where the ordinary everyday interactions of HUMANs are characterized as unfit, mischievous, dishonest, bad, injurious, wicked, and corrupt is not only unrealistic and more important unrelatable to the ordinary game.

Now an elite group within a civilization could have a relationship with another group within the same civilization that exhibits the above. The Helots and Spartans are a good example of that kind of thing. The Aztecs and their tributary states were another. But within their own groups the Spartan and Aztects had standards that they held it other. To do otherwise means that their civilization could not function. And while we are talking about Fantasy, the idea that a civilization where it elite treat each other is way out in left field when it comes to be relatable.

Does Gygax thoughts change in AD&D ? Well he does expand his thought what each of nine alignments both in the PHB and the DMG. But in the PHB Gygax goes on to say.

QuoteNaturally, there are all variations and shades of tendencies within each alignment.

The descriptions are generalizations only. A character can be basically good in its “true” neutrality, or tend towards evil. It is probable that your campaign referee will keep a graph of the drift of your character on the alignment chart. This is affected by the actions (and desires) of your character during the course of each adventure, and will be reflected on the graph. You may find that these actions are such as to cause the declared alignment to be shifted towards, or actually to, some other.

In the DMG you have correctly quoted this section.

Good And Evil: Basically stated, the tenets of good are human rights, or in the case of AD&D, creature rights. Each creature is entitled to life, relative freedom, and the prospect of happiness. Cruelty and suffering are undesirable. Evil, on the other hand, does not concern itself with rights or happiness; purpose is the determinant.

But it also states

QuoteAlignment describes the broad ethos of thinking, reasoning creatures

And this

QuoteThis is not to say that groups of similarly aligned creatures cannot be opposed or even mortal enemies. Two nations, for example, with rulers of lawful good alignment can be at war. Bands of orcs can hate each other. But the former would possibly cease their war to oppose a massive invasion of orcs, just as the latter would make common cause against the lawful good men.

So per RAW it legitimate to say that despite being CE, the Drow follow social rules among each other that makes their society or civilization something other than the Dog eat Dog world that the Chaotic Evil description paints. And that if a referee paints the interactions between all members of a civilization as Chaotic Evil it is a legitimate comment to say that it is unrealistic even by D&D's standards.

Finally this assumes there is no supernatural or magical factor exerting some type of mind control or personality change.

... again, this is why Alignment is not very useful unless your campaign has conceits in it demanding some axiomatic mechanics.

If an RPG has to be the determining factor in defining what is "good" and "evil", it's small wonder why there so many jackasses in this hobby. I fully admit that there is a strong likelyhood that I might have been/am one of them, but not for this reason.

Well, it seems one issue here is we're both thinking of different thing. You're thinking of OD&D, which I honestly am not much familiar with, and I'm thinking of AD&D. It looks to me like the latter codifies Law and Good differently than the former. Since in AD&D, you have planes associated with the alignments, alignment languages, alignment-restricted items and the like, it's safe to say they're "objective" from the reference point of creatures within the implied setting. In other words, a Lawful Good-restricted sword is not going to be usable by a character who considers it to be a noble deed harvesting orphans from the streets in order to feed his goblin army, which he has mustered for the purpose of exterminating all halflings due to his dislike of their textile workmanship, even though he's a good rule-follower by his own standards. And, germane to the OP, there are and have been societies whose broad morality was most certainly not "Good" in AD&D terms.

Of course, now we're navigating the gray areas. The fact is that the definitions of "Lawful" and "Good" have changed from edition to edition. For example, at some point, maybe 3rd edition, "Lawful" came to mean "always tells the truth and follows the rules of the society they're in," which kind of results in absurd contradictions even within your own adventure if you take that too literally. For my part, I've been running with the AD&D version, and I use it as a rule of thumb anyway. So a CE society in my setting is one with unstable hierarchies, an economy based largely on raiding out-groups, frequently violent dispute resolution, and an overall low level of social trust. Plenty of real examples of that.  Of course, such a society in my setting isn't going to be developing advanced cities or produce complex trade goods, just as in the real world.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;950491Well, it seems one issue here is we're both thinking of different thing. You're thinking of OD&D, which I honestly am not much familiar with, and I'm thinking of AD&D. It looks to me like the latter codifies Law and Good differently than the former. Since in AD&D, you have planes associated with the alignments, alignment languages, alignment-restricted items and the like, it's safe to say they're "objective" from the reference point of creatures within the implied setting.

Aside from the Strategic Review article all my quotes are draw from AD&D. OD&D only had Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;950491And, germane to the OP, there are and have been societies whose broad morality was most certainly not "Good" in AD&D terms.

That where we disagree. Your thesis is true when it comes to one culture dealing with another culture or subgroups within the culture. But for the privileged interacting with each other that not the case in history.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;950491For my part, I've been running with the AD&D version, and I use it as a rule of thumb anyway. So a CE society in my setting is one with unstable hierarchies, an economy based largely on raiding out-groups, frequently violent dispute resolution, and an overall low level of social trust. Plenty of real examples of that.  Of course, such a society in my setting isn't going to be developing advanced cities or produce complex trade goods, just as in the real world.

That works and many people done that. In essence you are taking advantage of the advice that Gygax give about alignment being a generalization. That specifics will depend on other factors. But doing it that way is not what the OP is talking about which are civilizations whose members consider themselves to be evil.

Quote from: tenbones;950489... again, this is why Alignment is not very useful unless your campaign has conceits in it demanding some axiomatic mechanics.

And this is exactly why I don't use alignment. I use specific tenets, codes, and philosophies.
 
The closest I come is the fact that Demons are a supernatural evil and there nothing heroic (anti or otherwise) about who they are and what they do. That invariably what they do leads to corruption, sin, and despair. Outside of that it more nuanced even among the gods themselves several of which advocate "unpleasant" philosophies.

Another side effect is that none of the civilizations of the Wilderlands with a partial exception of one consider themselves evil. This includes orcs, goblins, lizard men, etc. The exception is the City State of the World Emperor which was founded by a minor race of demons, Viridians, who escaped the Abyss. Even there the centuries of contact with mortals tempered their outlook. Mainly because most of them wound up killing each over millenia so the race experienced a slow population decline to point where there only a dozen full Viridians living in the present. To keep the power they enjoyed their subjects (humans, goblins, etc) took a larger role in running the empire. That meant they couldn't be as bat shit crazy in treating other cultures as they were when they first appeared.

The first empire of Viridstan was basically organized as a series of latifundas with villas controlled by a powerful Viridian and his lackeys. They landed in the middle of Wilderness so were isolated from the civilizations that existed then. Their slaves came from the goblin and human tribes they enslaved.

But demons remained demons and feuds and vendettas were rampant. The only time they worked together is after they came into contact other civilizations. But their population was already declining by then.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;950473Huitzilopochtli, the Aztecs' patron deity, was god of the sun and war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huitzilopochtli

Everyone's the good guy in his own life story, and every civilization regards its own activities as moral, so I don't know what you think you're accomplishing with that argument. Charles Manson thought he was doing the right thing by brutally murdering Sharon Tate; that doesn't make it stupid to call that an evil act.

I think you misunderstood me. I never said nor did I mean to imply the Aztecs were not evil for doing what they did. I apologize for the misunderstanding. They didn't sacrifice to appease specifically, but to help their gods keep the world running. "Appease" implies a protection racket, which this was not.

Quote from: tenbones;950482If you read my post, all I said was that they had bloody practices. I made precisely *zero* claims as what/why/who these bloody practices applied to.

Having said that - I'm not a moral relativist. If you believe that "good" and "evil" are relative in the regards of what people believe vs. the acts they perpetrate in the name of those beliefs - then there is probably nothing we can discuss further.

Also, Jesus wasn't crucified to sustain the world. He was crucified (if you believe the NT) as a legal measure for varying reasons which are still debated. It's the later Christians themselves that would make the attribution of predestination and cosmic reason for his punishment. I'm not so sure that these are quite as parallel with the Aztecs beyond the surface-level.



Although I did not expressly say that. I can say the people that did those things as a matter of state principle were probably evil. Yes I have no problem with that. You realize you're having the "Alignment Argument" with someone that doesn't even use alignment *precisely* for this reason?

So if it makes you feel better: YES I'm sure there was a Good-Aligned Aztec somewhere. Much like there are Good Nazis, and Good Devils in someone's snowflake campaigns. But what standards are you applying as a moral-relativist? They're neutral? They're good because they believed they're good? I know a lot of societies that thought they were doing "Good"... I won't name them. You already know who they are.

I am and I am not a moral relativist. I know rationally that morality is inherently arbitrary and self-contradictory nonsense that evolved to keep communities stable, but that does not stop me from believing emotionally that my 21st century American values are the one true way.

I know that the Aztecs were superstitious ninnies because their fears of the world ending proved false; I would try to de-convert them if given the chance. If they were right about metaphysics, then they are good by virtue of keeping the world from ending; in that case, I would convert and sacrifice if given the chance.

We are getting off topic. My original argument was that the evil society I proposed is qualitatively different from "evil" societies in Earth's past because they believe that publicly causing suffering for its own sake without any desire for reward is an act of compassion that dissuades the malevolent creator gods from killing or torturing everyone forever. This is a grotesque hybrid of Aztec and Gnostic beliefs that never existed on Earth, but does exist in some fiction.

Orcs may not consider themselves Evil, but they also don't consider themselves Good, the words are meaningless to them.  There is only the Strong and the Weak.  There are no Innate Rights to any being, anyone wants something, they must take it from another.  Orcs kill all other races because that is the will of Gruumsh, and Orcs follow Gruumsh because his Witch Doctors make Orcs strong, and his curses and displeasure kill.  So it has always been, so it will always be.

Does an Orc have a soul?  Is it destined to always be Evil?  Are Orcs souls controlled by/owned by Gruumsh?  Who knows, but if an orc possesses instinctive genetic memory to make it always take through force and violence, and simply does not think like a human, then isn't the result the same?

People laugh and dismiss the idea of AD&D alignments, I call into question your imagination in being able to think of a neurology/psychology that is not 100% human.  

When your only frame of reference for analyzing an alien society is human history - you fail before you even begin.
When your only frame of reference for analyzing a fantasy cosmology/religion is human religion - you fail before you even begin.

Imagine a human mind without the capability for cognitive dissonance - now tell me how that species works.
Imagine a human mind without the right brain and left brain working together under the hood to present rationalizations for behavior - now tell me how that species works.

Very interesting points.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;950508Very interesting points.

Yes. Though a lot of relativism going on too.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950506People laugh and dismiss the idea of AD&D alignments, I call into question your imagination in being able to think of a neurology/psychology that is not 100% human.  

When your only frame of reference for analyzing an alien society is human history - you fail before you even begin.
When your only frame of reference for analyzing a fantasy cosmology/religion is human religion - you fail before you even begin.

Imagine a human mind without the capability for cognitive dissonance - now tell me how that species works.
Imagine a human mind without the right brain and left brain working together under the hood to present rationalizations for behavior - now tell me how that species works.

As you wish, here is an article doing just that (//www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2012/04/25/how-to-think-like-an-orc/).

I think the problem is that orcs/goblins/savage humanoids are not a homogenous group and we are defining them differently without recognizing our disagreements. There are basically two different kinds: ones that can get along with humans (or at least adopt humans into their culture) and ones that cannot due to basic biological differences.

The humanoids that can get along with humans are either funny looking humans or have distinct biological differences that are not extreme enough to prevent constructive fraternization with humans. Most conflict would be due to resources or ideology. For example, klingons (which are naturally more aggressive and durable than humans, but they still have equally competent scientists), warcraft orcs (who were enslaved and debased by foreign powers), or even Tolkien orcs (who Tolkien believed capable of redemption, and he did give them the ability to create art albeit ugly art).

Those that cannot get along have psychology (and usually biology) that is utterly alien. For example, warhammer orcs (talking plants engineered for perpetual warfare) or 13th age orcs (which are personifications of strife literally birthed by mountains). They don't create art or civilization. They fight and die, pointlessly and forever.

Depending on the needs of the adventure, I should like to use all of these in the same campaign. For example, a barbarian (orc) village hires the party to clear out a horde of the (orc) chimpanzees as pest control and a sacrifice to the demiurge, then a visit to the shining city of the (orc) paladins to offload loot. Have your cake and eat it too, ya know?

I always think of orcs being more like disaffected angry youth who shoplift and smoke and get into fights.  They think they're evil, they're trying to be evil, but they lack the perspective and depth to be truly and effectively evil.  In the end they are always pawns for smarter and more experienced people.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950504I think you misunderstood me. I never said nor did I mean to imply the Aztecs were not evil for doing what they did. I apologize for the misunderstanding. They didn't sacrifice to appease specifically, but to help their gods keep the world running. "Appease" implies a protection racket, which this was not.

Stipulated. But as long as we can agree it's an example of how an evil society could be done. I, again, see no value in using the label unless I'm using mechanics tied specifically to Good/Evil/Law/Chaos - see Estar's post above, I'm pretty much exactly like that for some really nifty reasons: It's EASY. And it avoids discussions like this, that ultimately do not help the game.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950504I am and I am not a moral relativist. I know rationally that morality is inherently arbitrary and self-contradictory nonsense that evolved to keep communities stable, but that does not stop me from believing emotionally that my 21st century American values are the one true way.

This is a pathological Post-modern view, you realize that? COME TO THE SIDE OF PRINCIPLES, BoxCrayonTales! COME!!!! You can do it! Drop your silly relativist ways!!!

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950504I know that the Aztecs were superstitious ninnies because their fears of the world ending proved false; I would try to de-convert them if given the chance. If they were right about metaphysics, then they are good by virtue of keeping the world from ending; in that case, I would convert and sacrifice if given the chance.

That depends. If it's voluntary, and the conceits of the world are indeed that these souls are being used to save reality from destruction, I have no problem with that. But then I'd assume we're doing a full-blown Aztec-campaign, not just a Maztica Campaign with extra tidbits tossed in there for color.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950504We are getting off topic. My original argument was that the evil society I proposed is qualitatively different from "evil" societies in Earth's past because they believe that publicly causing suffering for its own sake without any desire for reward is an act of compassion that dissuades the malevolent creator gods from killing or torturing everyone forever. This is a grotesque hybrid of Aztec and Gnostic beliefs that never existed on Earth, but does exist in some fiction.

But that's why I say it only matters if the setting demands it. Otherwise "Alignment" is of no real value that can't be handled with social codes etc that offer more nuance than simply "good"/"evil"