[DF] Dragonlance

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Honestly, that doesn't seem that far off to me. Situations like this are extremely difficult to judge the morality of, such that they can go either way. Consider similar situations. An innocent townsperson is being controlled by a cursed amulet, and the Paladin is aware of this. In the resulting fight, is it acceptable for the Paladin to just shove his sword through the innocent's chest, or should his vows require him to instead try to subdue the remove the amulet? If a reliable divination reveals a newborn will grow up to be a genocidal monster, is it acceptable for the Paladin to snatch it from its mother's arms and dash its brains out against a wall, or should he try to figure out a different way to ensure the prophecy doesn't come to pass? In the example case, the Paladin could have made arrangements to have the women and children restrained whenever there was going to be a full moon (or however involuntary shifting worked in that game).

Of course, were I GM and found myself in this situation (likely due to poor planning, as I'm not enough of a jerk to purposefully put a player in such a Catch 22 situation), if I decided executing the victims violated the Paladin's code, I wouldn't just let him/her go through with it and then say "Congratulations! You're now a Fighter with no Bonus Feats*!" Rather, I'd either just outright tell the player "That violates your vows as a Paladin, are you sure you want to go through with it?" or have the player roll against a relevant skill (probably Religion) to figure out if this was a violation... and on anything but a Critical Failure would probably say something along the lines of "You aren't sure if this behavior would be acceptable for a Paladin, perhaps you should consult an expert."

*Which is something I said to a player of a Samurai character who violated his code of Bushido, but I had given ample warning beforehand, and even let him take back the action that led to loss of his class features, now that he knew I was serious. He abandoned the character and made a different one not long later.

As King and Country pointed out the Paladin is an idealized version of what at the end of the day is a fighter who "hypocritically preaches respect for all life, while a value system he would more realistically possess, that of religious intolerance, determines his actions."

The Paladins of the Scarlet Crusade in WoW still have their Paladin powers even though they go around killing anyone (man, woman, child) that they believe is afflicted with the curse of undeath.

Samurai are much in the same boat though while they didn't live up to the ideal Bushido was not what the WWII propaganda film Know Your Enemy, Japan tried to paint it as either - "sanctioned double dealing as an art to be cultivated". Shogun (based on the story of William Adams) is closer to the reality.

GURPS Japan has Bushido outlined as
* die rather than fail in task.
* commit ritual suicide without hesitation if ordered to do so.
* answer any challenge or insult to his lord.
* always be polite to his equals and superiors
* cannot overlook disrespect from a social inferior; such disrespect is usually punished by death.

That last one is why one of the Samurai lops off the head of a peasant in Shogun. They were original Lawful but could be any alignment from 3.5 on.

Originally Posted by Varyon

All that said, I'm not a huge fan of alignment systems. I do kind of like them as cosmic forces, but where a character still has sufficient volition to go against type. Of course, that's likely to end up with the type of setting where such forces can be summarized with "Good isn't always good, and Evil isn't always evil."

In Deities and Demigods the "worthy" Orcs and Goblins fight in their own Valhalla. Each race claims they are always the winner in these battles.

Yahtzee in his review of computer games has said he has no use for moral choice systems as you ether had to be either an effective LG Mary Sue or CE Murder Hobo to get the "best" endings.

[Opellulo]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Is it a cosmic duality? Or is it really just "In this setting, worshippers of X and worshippers of Y are good because that's how we defined evil and good".

Exactly: the whole situation boils down to simply this.
While considering philosophical and ethical question of alignments is fun, it's clearly overthinking something that was never meant to be that deep.
In the end "Evil Gods" are needed because Fantasy needs violent action, and this is the simplest way to have "Evil minions" that can be mindlessly killed without a second thought.

...the fact then that those evil minions are almost always part of some "evil races" and/or "evil society" with troubling representation is a can of worms way over the intended scope of this thread.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Opellulo

...the fact then that those evil minions are almost always part of some "evil races" and/or "evil society" with troubling representation is a can of worms way over the intended scope of this thread.

Dragonlance does try to sidestep some of the uncomfortable implications of the Bad Guy Race Born To Be Killed trope by introducing one that is artificially created for that role. Are Draconians really people with a broad spectrum of feelings, the potential for redemption, etc? Maybe, but I don't recall ever seeing it in the dozens of books that I admit I haven't read in thirty years. Even if they are, living with the knowledge that your BBEG creators plan for you to meet violent death sooner rather than later as evidenced by the thoughtful inclusion of various adverse death effects like turning to stone to disarm your killer or just blowing up or something has got to mess with a guy's head.

[Crystalline_Entity]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Dragonlance does try to sidestep some of the uncomfortable implications of the Bad Guy Race Born To Be Killed trope by introducing one that is artificially created for that role. Are Draconians really people with a broad spectrum of feelings, the potential for redemption, etc? Maybe, but I don't recall ever seeing it in the dozens of books that I admit I haven't read in thirty years. Even if they are, living with the knowledge that your BBEG creators plan for you to meet violent death sooner rather than later as evidenced by the thoughtful inclusion of various adverse death effects like turning to stone to disarm your killer or just blowing up or something has got to mess with a guy's head.

It's been a while for me too, but I *think* the Lost Chronicles triology (which fills in the gaps in the original Chronicles trilogy) had some chapters from a Draconian's point of view, and from what I remember they didn't seem to be "always evil" or whatever the D&D-speak was. That trilogy was published a couple of decades after the original though, so it's entirely possible the authors realised the problems with the alignment system themselves and tried to "correct" it in the narrative.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

It's been a while for me too, but I *think* the Lost Chronicles triology (which fills in the gaps in the original Chronicles trilogy) had some chapters from a Draconian's point of view, and from what I remember they didn't seem to be "always evil" or whatever the D&D-speak was. That trilogy was published a couple of decades after the original though, so it's entirely possible the authors realised the problems with the alignment system themselves and tried to "correct" it in the narrative.

Whenever a setting tries to use 'Evil' as a separate organizing principle, on its own, various contradictions emerge almost inevitably. The Dragonlance setting has the gods of Good and Evil portrayed as 'necessary opposites' rather than the idea of evil as a parasite or corruption of Good. That produces weird situations where freaky behavior patterns emerge.

For ex, the Black Wizards have their own codes and rules that they follow...but an organization dedicated to evil for its own sake would not. The membership would be driven by self-interest unless forced to abide by a stronger power. As Tolkien observed, 'evil is non-cooperative'. Takhisis does eventually betray her fellow dark gods, but in practice you would expect that constantly from all of them.

To use another fictional illustration of why this kind of contradiction happens, consider the Sith from the Star Wars decanonized 'legends' stories. The premise is that the Sith inevitably end up betraying each other, and this lets the Jedi overcome them even when the Sith have the edge tactically. So Darth Bane sets up his 'Rule of Two' to constrain and harness that tendency.

The idea is that there can be at any time only 2 Sith, a master and an apprentice. The apprentice, when he or she thinks they are strong enough, is supposed to kill the master, assume the senior position, and train a new apprentice to keep the lineage going. If the apprentice challenges the master and fails, well, that proves the apprentice was too weak and needed to be replaced anyway. If the apprentice overcomes the master it means the apprentice was now stronger and the Sith get stronger.

Of course, this requires the Sith to display a (at least potentially) good trait: self-abnegation in the service of a higher cause. The current Sith lord must be prepared to train and instruct an apprentice, knowing that sooner or later the apprentice will try to kill him. Why do it? It makes the Sith as an order stronger and advances their revenge on the Jedi.

Of course that contradicts the stated nature of the dark side of the Force. Bane and other Sith lords acknowledged that the Dark Side was all about power for the sake of power, self-aggrandizement, holding power and coveting power.

Which means that a Sith Lord who has done away with his master ought, in the nature of the Dark Side, refuse to train an apprentice in the first place. There's nothing in it for him! What does he care if the Sith lineage continues after his death? He's dead at that point, not his problem! Why would he care about revenge on the Jedi order for stuff that happened centuries before he was born, to the point of sacrificing his life for it? That's not in his interest!

It makes no sense for a character to be intentionally devoted to 'evil for the sake of evil'. The concept is almost gibberish.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Of course that contradicts the stated nature of the dark side of the Force. Bane and other Sith lords acknowledged that the Dark Side was all about power for the sake of power, self-aggrandizement, holding power and coveting power.

Which means that a Sith Lord who has done away with his master ought, in the nature of the Dark Side, refuse to train an apprentice in the first place. There's nothing in it for him! What does he care if the Sith lineage continues after his death? He's dead at that point, not his problem! Why would he care about revenge on the Jedi order for stuff that happened centuries before he was born, to the point of sacrificing his life for it? That's not in his interest!

It makes no sense for a character to be intentionally devoted to 'evil for the sake of evil'. The concept is almost gibberish.

Apprentices are extremely useful to have around. Not even a Sith can be in two places at once, and almost by definition they're constantly at work scheming. Is there a danger? Sure. But as far as they're concerned, either they buy into the plan or they just don't believe their apprentice could ever grow strong enough to defeat them. There are two much bigger weak links in the Rule of Two in my opinion: The possibility of one of them turning to the light, and the possibility of both of them dying at the same time. Obviously, both of these were involved in the final destruction of the Sith.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

For ex, the Black Wizards have their own codes and rules that they follow...but an organization dedicated to evil for its own sake would not. The membership would be driven by self-interest unless forced to abide by a stronger power. As Tolkien observed, 'evil is non-cooperative'. Takhisis does eventually betray her fellow dark gods, but in practice you would expect that constantly from all of them.

"Good wins because Evil is stupid" isn't a trope I'm particularly fond of, honestly. Outside of cosmic forces, evil people are basically in a sort of Prisoner's Dilemma, but with a degree of iteration - while they may never find themselves in a position to cooperate with someone they've previously betrayed, their new fair-weather friends may be aware of their history. Of course, there's also the fact that, outside of cosmic forces, "evil" people generally think of themselves as good.

With cosmic forces in play, well, that right there is your "stronger power" forcing them to work together, even if some degree of betrayal is allowed (but, again, someone with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder probably isn't going to be trusted). If you've got Evil Gods of roughly comparable power, and without some Evil Ubergod over all of them, a policy akin to Mutually Assured Destruction can keep them in line (or having all the gods bound to a Vengeance Pact, so that if any one of them betrays another all those that remain will be required to gang up on and destroy the betrayer). Or just keep in mind the gods are also in the above Prisoner's Dilemma.


As for the Sith, I suspect those with Force Sensitivity have some sort of compulsion to spread their knowledge - it just feels wrong not to have someone training under you. The Jedi use this impulse to try to make the Galaxy a better place; the Sith use it to create useful pawns to further their own goals. And the more powerful the potential pupil, the stronger the compulsion, hence why Sith tend to get apprentices that end up capable of overthrowing them. Alternatively, there's a survivor bias - only powerful apprentices are able to survive the sorts of schemes their masters get them into, so masters tend to go through a lot of apprentices until they get one powerful enough to both survive the schemes and overthrow them. There's also probably the classic "that would never happen to me" trap humans are naturally inclined to fall into at play here.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Varyon

"Good wins because Evil is stupid" isn't a trope I'm particularly fond of, honestly. Outside of cosmic forces, evil people are basically in a sort of Prisoner's Dilemma, but with a degree of iteration - while they may never find themselves in a position to cooperate with someone they've previously betrayed, their new fair-weather friends may be aware of their history.

Evil is stupid is a bad trope, but the treacherous jerks are all over the place, be they in our personal lives or positions of high power. Sometimes they run out of people to burn, and sometimes they don't, but its satisfying to see that moment when they do, so we keep on returning to it in our stories. The sad thing is that "of course everyone sees that they're a treacherous jerk" doesn't happen as often as you'd think in theory.

Of course, there's also the fact that, outside of cosmic forces, "evil" people generally think of themselves as good.

I'm not actually convinced of that. I think people do think of themselves as "Justified", but that's different from thinking that everything they're doing is altruistic in some sense.

I will say that antagonists who see themselves as altruists working towards a goal that will help a group of people are more interesting than those who don't, but interesting is not the same as realistic.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Evil is stupid is a bad trope, but the treacherous jerks are all over the place, be they in our personal lives or positions of high power. Sometimes they run out of people to burn, and sometimes they don't, but its satisfying to see that moment when they do, so we keep on returning to it in our stories.

I won't deny it's satisfying to watch such people tear each other apart, but the idea they basically can't work together is laughable. Don't have the villains lose because they were too busy fighting each other - have them descend into fighting each other because they're losing (although the first still works, if they're being manipulated into infighting by some force outside of their own organization).
EDIT: I'll note this isn't so much about realism, as it is wanting the actions of the heroes to matter.

Originally Posted by ericthered

The sad thing is that "of course everyone sees that they're a treacherous jerk" doesn't happen as often as you'd think in theory.

This is true. See also the "that would never happen to me" trap I mentioned earlier.

Originally Posted by ericthered

I'm not actually convinced of that. I think people do think of themselves as "Justified", but that's different from thinking that everything they're doing is altruistic in some sense.

I think most people think of "being good" as "doing what's right," with "right" generally being a nebulous idea that is essentially "whatever I happen to agree with at the moment*." While it's certainly true most people consider altruism to be "right" (or, at least, those forms of altruism they happen to agree with), that certainly doesn't mean most people only define altruistic acts as being "good."

*Of course, the more jaded interpretation isn't "whatever I happen to agree with at the moment," but rather "whatever benefits me in some way." But I digress...

Originally Posted by ericthered

I will say that antagonists who see themselves as altruists working towards a goal that will help a group of people are more interesting than those who don't, but interesting is not the same as realistic.

Agreed. Characters with laudable goals but questionable methods tend to be much more interesting than those who are Pure Good or Pure Evil. Bonus points if the audience finds themselves agreeing in many ways with the villain.

[Opellulo]

IMHO "Evil is stupid" is simply the byproduct of a certain allegy to politics and ideology that's typical of mainstream fictional products (especially from USA).

An "Evil" character should have understable, if not empathetic, goals; should have a system of belief (even if alien and/or wicked) a strategy and a personality to face those matters.

But that's a lot of work (often not even protagonists check all those boxes) and if you do that too well you end up with a likeable antihero (especially if you put him against a poorly defined status quo) so the simple path is to have antagonists "that want to see the World burn... Just because" and call it a day.

That's not only stupid, but silly: kindergarden stories have more believable antagonists.