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Fish City

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  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    No good character endorses genocide.

    Good for the setting doesn't mean good to our modern sensibilities. Things were even less black and white in medieval times than they are now (and D&D arguably mimics that time period of human history).
    DreadKhanLudwig_IIIsewein
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    No good character endorses genocide.

    Good for the setting doesn't mean good to our modern sensibilities. Things were even less black and white in medieval times than they are now (and D&D arguably mimics that time period of human history).

    D&D doesn't use Medieval morality. Its much much closer to our modern sensibilities than anything else.
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    No good character endorses genocide.

    Good for the setting doesn't mean good to our modern sensibilities. Things were even less black and white in medieval times than they are now (and D&D arguably mimics that time period of human history).

    D&D doesn't use Medieval morality. Its much much closer to our modern sensibilities than anything else.

    It depends on how you play it I guess. Entire races are depicted as evil. Demons and devils are worshipped as gods by some of those very races, their rituals include blood sacrifices and they show no mercy. It's not even close to RL genocide to wipe out a race of evil devil-worshippers. Sure there may be a few exceptions among those races but showing mercy would not be the norm under those circumstances in my opinion, especially if they're not even the same species!
    DreadKhanIsewein
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    IIRC, in 3.x it is pretty clear that the settings are not supposed to have a very modern view of morality, which includes things like the average adventuring party attacking various 'evil' creatures in their own homes, because that would be remotely acceptable in the modern Western world! That said, I think most players will definitely tend to have a modern view (as their default, but most players are very self-serving), but much of the official stuff I've read in various editions make clear that the settings are quite medieval, and not just tech-wise.

    Regarding Drow, they do in fact kill lots and lots of eachother, and the official reason it hasn't screwed themselves over by now is that Drow, especially by the standards of Faerun Elves, are crazy fecund, and the people killed off are usually the 'soft' ones, meaning the left overs are quite a bit more evil than the actual race would be if you included all the 'failures'. If you read the Drizzt books, Drow regularly kill one another, including wiping out entire Houses. I think the whole thing goes a bit too far to be practical, as in the Drow clearly take things to 11/10 on the self-slaughter scale, and would have conquered the world probably if they'd stop murdering each other and just get along like a 'normal' race does. Even compared to other evil races the Drow are bloodthirsty for each other's blood.
  • ArviaArvia Member Posts: 2,101
    edited May 2019
    Keldorn is probably my favourite NPC in BG2. But his comment in the Sahuagin City was a moment where I really felt like punching him. Interesting that Jaheira, True Neutral, was the one to challenge his view. Applause, other favourite NPC (at least in BG2).

    Yes, it's not our modern society, yes, there are all-evil races or monsters, yes, the King is crazy and the Prince is evil, too.
    But some way you have to get out of there, and slaughtering everyone because you can't pick a side is not in my book.

    But it's a different story for me, because of my lawful good paladin complex ?.
    For me, the Sahuagin City was complicated because of no truly good choice.
    A lawful neutral character would most likely side with the king, a chaotic good character with the rebels, I guess.

    They're all evil anyway, but "kill all that ping red on Detect Evil" is *not* good, and to me, the choice to side with the king, although the lawful path, is not the good path because it basically induced genocide and equals "slaughter them all".

    The priestess and her daughter are the only reasonable Sahuagin in the city and the only ones who don't ping red, if I remember correctly (I don't run around casting Detect Evil all the time, but I use it when a decision is complicated).
    Also, the fight between drow and Sahuagin is good for the surfacers, because it keeps the drow occupied and in check.
    As someone said above, "the enemy of my enemy". And genocide, especially if nobody is even attacking you right now but giving you an option to get away, is *not* good.
    Several reasons to weigh. None of them 100% convincing.

    I side with the priestess and her daughter, i.e. with the rebels, for the same reason that I side with the Shadow Thieves. You are forced to make a choice, and it seems the lesser of two evils.

    That said, you were probably looking for a "maximum loot outcome" answer, not a roleplaying decision. But this is how I make my decisions in the game.

    Edit: That spectator beholder in the drow part of the city is absolutely cool, and I also love his short appearance in ToB.
    Post edited by Arvia on
    gorgonzolaThacoBellIsewein
  • Humanoid_TaifunHumanoid_Taifun Member Posts: 1,055
    @Balrog99 Entire races being evil is actually a modern concept.
    Yes, there were purges before, but not so much for the purpose of wiping out races but to force peoples to your will.
    Racism was born out of the Europeans' sudden realization that they had the power to dominate the world, combined with major achievements in science (leading to a demand to categorize everything) and a need to justify their rule over "lesser peoples".

    As to the drow, the average drow female gives birth to 10 children. According to a calculation by some professor, a pre-modern mother had to have an average of ~7 children just so population levels would be stable. DnD is different, obviously. Child mortality is not much of an issue if you have Cure Disease. But do Drow have the attitude to cure their weak and sickly?
    The following spoiler is somewhat morbid. Some among you may not appreciate it.
    It is common for pregnant drow to carry twins or even triplets. Even in these cases, multiple births are rare, as the strongest of the fetuses feeds on its siblings in the womb. Pregnant drow can sometimes feel these mortal combats take place in their bellies. Such prenatal battles produce in their mothers a euphoric sensation, referred to in the Undercommon tongue as chad-zak. The feeling is infinitely stronger than that produced in the bedchamber or by any intoxicant. Without it, it is doubtful that drow women, selfish to the core, would ever deign to suffer the inconveniences of reproduction.
    I honestly doubt that this is the kind of woman who would rush to the cleric just because her child is dying.
    I find the whole idea of a drow society somewhat silly.

    Finally, on the Sahuagin. Besides being evil, both the king and the prince make comments that characterize them to me as anti-human. They may not deserve to die, but if these Sahuagin attack another ship (or coastal village) in the future, that will be your responsibility, to a degree.
    Balrog99gorgonzolaIsewein
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    No good character endorses genocide.

    Good for the setting doesn't mean good to our modern sensibilities. Things were even less black and white in medieval times than they are now (and D&D arguably mimics that time period of human history).

    D&D doesn't use Medieval morality. Its much much closer to our modern sensibilities than anything else.

    It depends on how you play it I guess. Entire races are depicted as evil. Demons and devils are worshipped as gods by some of those very races, their rituals include blood sacrifices and they show no mercy. It's not even close to RL genocide to wipe out a race of evil devil-worshippers. Sure there may be a few exceptions among those races but showing mercy would not be the norm under those circumstances in my opinion, especially if they're not even the same species!

    Men and women enjoy greater equality in D&D than they do here. Social dynamics and structures are a lot closer to irl than to medieval. Slavery is illegal in most places. Peasants can own property. And no, entire races aren't evil. Even the most "evil" race, the Drow, have exceptions. In the lore outside what we see in game, there are good examples of every race. There's countless examples of modern sensibility in D&D. While the technology is pseudo renaissance, equality and social structures are clearly modern.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    edited May 2019
    Slavery wasn't common in medieval Europe, there was no big need as you had serfs that were cheap and available. Slavery isn't illegal in all fantasy settings by a long shot btw. Regarding women, I'm not really sure about that, you could be right, I think you're more likely to see a Queen with actual power in DnD-type settings than in medieval Europe. Peasants had property in Europe, I'm not sure what you're thinking here; note, the average peasant in DnD makes a few copper pieces per day, not even a full silver piece, and even a hovel costs a big pile of gold, so peasants likely don't own their home or the land they farm, but they own plenty of other things. Perhaps you're using property to mean land?

    Regarding the entire races being evil, I think you're flat out wrong on that, there are plenty of automatically evil races, famous examples include chromatic dragons, demons, devils, beholders, etc. You're wildly overstating the significance of the 'exceptional' members I think; The fact that we have mutant humans that have 6 toes doesn't mean humans don't have 5 toes. I think acting like 1 in a million odds of being good instead of evil (or even neutral for that matter) really matters is very disingenuous. I think we're going to disagree on this though.

    Edit: Incidentally, I think people might be operating on an incorrect defintion of what 'evil' means in a D&D setting... iirc, it always means you've actually done quite a bit of evil during your life, and are wildly not innocent. You aren't evil because you're a meanie, or are anti-social, you're evil because for example you've killed many innocents. 'All evil races' are considered to have a culture that requires all participants to do evil things with regularity, hence the members being evil. For the Drow this definitely includes killing innocents, and can involve plenty of other truly awful things. The evil practices btw have 2 purposes, one to make sure everyone is doing evil things (...I will agree this doesn't actually make much sense logically, but evil societies in general don't make much sense to me), and to weed out those unwilling to perform evil acts.

    I think there is actually a strong argument that killing pretty much everything that pings evil that isn't serving an important purpose is at worst neutral, and might even be good. BUT! It's sure as **** not lawful, with maybe an exception for a government that is following it's stated laws correctly. Heck, innocence vs guilt is strictly a legal term, not inherently one with moral judgement I'd argue, at least in our modern society.
    Isewein
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @DreadKhan Actually, Spectator Beholders are neutral. You're also focusing on single genera of a race. DRAGONS are a race, and all aren't evil. Metallic dragons are good.
    DreadKhan
  • Humanoid_TaifunHumanoid_Taifun Member Posts: 1,055
    edited May 2019
    @DreadKhan You can be evil without ever having killed anyone. People can be born with an evil alignment in DnD. I am not sure what sorts of villainy you think people could get up to in their mothers' wombs, but it would probably make for one hell of a comic.
    DreadKhan
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Chromatic dragons are a true breeding species, which is wildly more of a race than saying Drow is a race, as they can breed with other elves, and even humans.

    Beholders are are specific type of beholder actually, as well as the general name for all of them. I meant the basic beholder, which is LE iirc. I should have been clearer, my fault.

    I'm not sure you can actually be evil in DnD without having ever done evil. A PC that is evil (assuming a DM allows it) would have done evil in his previous years, earning an evil alignment. You can't be Good either without doing good. I've always interpreted things this way in part because this how alignment works in the actual game, and the books encourage (to an extent) DMs to 'punish' players by making their character's behavior's colour their alignment, IE if you keep doing evil regularly, you end up evil, or good, or if you're regularly doing both you're supposed to be neutral.

    Now, I know in the books its clear that evil outsiders (demons, devils, yugoloths, etc) are all created as evil, but the lore I've read from both canonical books and rule books suggests very strongly that for pretty much everything else it's actions, because the outsiders effectively lack free will the way most species have it.

    I find this all terribly ironic, because my religion essentially states we're all born evil. So yeah, I find my position ironic. ;)
  • VeristekVeristek Member Posts: 114
    A lot of interesting discussion, I haven't played a RPG that provides for great discussion like this in a long time. We need more RPG's like BG today.

    I still struggle with understanding the BG alignment system. Good, netural, and evil are easy enough to understand. Good helps people for little or no reward and they try to stop stuff like slavery, genocide, murder, etc. Neutral do both good and evil things, help people out for rewards, but have higher standards than evil like being anti-slavery but willing to steal stuff, or anti-murder but only help people if paid, etc. Evil is the opposite of Good, doing stuff like slavery, genocide, murder, selfish stuff, etc at the expense of others, and being entirely self-serving. What I have trouble with is "Lawful / Neutral / Chaotic".

    For example, assuming a city or government allows slavery as per its laws. Would Lawful Good be forced to support slavery, which goes against "Good" alignment, or would they ignore that "slavery is legal" law and still fight slavery? Would they steal / free slaves, or smuggle them away from the slavers and the city? Or would they go "Sorry, can't help you" when slaves get murdered or starved or suffer, like in slave fighting pits or get killed for disobeying their masters?

    Also, would Lawful Good be forced to follow corrupt governments and laws? Meaning if there's a mafia or bribery or extortion, etc? Would these Lawful Good be forced to ignore these just because they have to follow the law, no matter if the law is evil or runs opposite to Good alignment?

    How would "Neutral Good" or "Chaotic Good" work, exactly? Would "Neutral Good" be people with neutral alignment who do more good deeds than evil deeds, a Good bias in their neutrality? Or is it Good alignment who stays neutral or accept evil stuff? Can someone explain Lawful / Neutral / Chaotic in a bit more detail?

    A Good party would be obligated to refuse to help the fishes and let the Sagahin civilization die out from crazy king and civil war, for the simple reason that helping these fishies would mean people on ships and coast would get killed or enslaved. An Evil party would kill everything for reward or loot, self-serving at the expense of the fish civilization. A Neutral party would be the ones who would be thinking "Let the fishes live to fight the Drow even though it means sailors and coast cities will suffer from stronger fish raids later".

    Likewise, Good parties would be obligated to destroy all the Drow they come across because Drow are their ideological opposites. They know that if they let these Drow live, these Drow would go murder, enslave, genocide, rape, etc. other surface dwellers or even other underground races like dwarves and deep gnomes. Evil parties would murder the Drow anyway only for gold, loot, or the thrill of murder. They also would help the Drow if they get riches in return, or use the Drow to destroy their enemies no matter how many atrocities the Drow do. Neutral parties would be the ones more willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the "expections to the rule" Drow like Drizzt or Solaufein because Neutral can accept both Good and Evil actions and people.

    At least that's my understanding of the alignment system in AD+D. If I have the wrong impression, I'm happy to hear how / why.
    gorgonzolaIsewein
  • NeverusedNeverused Member Posts: 803
    So I guess I’ll defend Keldorn, because he might actually be right concerning this. He’s part of an adventuring party that was just attacked at sea by this culture, and only not killed because of a vague prophecy. Both the current king and the prince have stated that they intend to continue attacking ships and coastal cities, and they ask to be put on the throne.

    Keldorn is asking CHARNAME to put neither on the throne, as both want to inflict terrors on innocents on the surface. He’s making a judgment: neither are actually fit to hold the throne, and there’s not exactly a system he can appeal to to fix this. Think of his other choices: promote the current King and having minor violence on the surface, promoting the Prince and making the race dedicating themselves to attacking surface-dwellers even stronger... He doesn’t have a justice system he can appeal to, no other nations that can apply sanctions or whatnot. Killing the people that state they desire to murder innocents and have shown a history of doing so already seems likes a reasonable action to take.
    Isewein
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    edited May 2019
    @Veristek In situations where law and good are at odds, a lawful good person errs on the side of good. A lawful neutral person would follow the law. A lawful evil person would follow the law and/or interpret it in a way that would benefit them.

    @Neverused No, genocide is never "Right." Keldorn would lose his paladin status if he were to actually follow through on it.
    gorgonzola
  • VeristekVeristek Member Posts: 114
    Keldorn kind of follows through on it. The party has to kill a lot of Saghain on the way from the King to the Prince. You end up killing a similar number or even more sahaghin rebels and hostiles compared to killing Drow in Ust Natha.

    He grumbles about the Shadow Thieves, but doesn't do any justice stuff about it when I went through the Shadow Thief HQ to meet with Aran Linvail and Renal Bloodscalp. He says he'll let the thieves slide because he was helping me on my quest to find Irencius. Wouldn't a Lawful Good paladin be forced to bring justice to these thieves instead of "letting it slide" with no punishment or consequences?

    In both cases, Keldorn doesn't lose his paladin status.
  • NeverusedNeverused Member Posts: 803
    It's not genocide, really. It's being captured by a group that has expressed hostility and a history of following through on said hostility towards any group that is not themselves, then saying they'll release you if you help put them in a stronger position so they might raid better. Your choice is to either help a group that wants to kill innocents, or kill said group and anyone that sides with them. Your pick.
    jsaving
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    Veristek wrote: »
    A lot of interesting discussion, I haven't played a RPG that provides for great discussion like this in a long time. We need more RPG's like BG today.

    I still struggle with understanding the BG alignment system. Good, netural, and evil are easy enough to understand. Good helps people............. What I have trouble with is "Lawful / Neutral / Chaotic".

    For example,...............

    Probably the fact that this game has a depth in its game play that other newer games completely lack (not that i have a real xp in playing other rp games or even in playing other pc games as i did try very few of them and played only 2 of them long enough to have a clear opinion about them, but...) matters.

    this game(s) seem to me to have the same complexity of the chess game, let's say that beating the vanilla form of it is like to play against a chess simulator set on lev 1 or 2. but if you rise the difficulty with mods, giving yourself self imposed limitations, like avoiding some op spells and items or accepting the first roll of stats without rolling again or min maxing, refuse to do things that have no rp sense for powergaming issues and also add lob mode and do a no reload run it can really have a difficulty comparable to beat a chess simulator on high difficulty settings, a lot of knowledge, strategy and skill is needed.

    in comparison it seems that other more modern games lack of complexity and depth, i would compare them more to playing at the old space invaders game, much better 3d graphic and so on, but basically there sharp reflexes count more then knowledge and thinking.

    it seems natural for me that people that like more a chess like game then a space invaders type game has a very positive approach also to game based forums, in those forums i witness each day a high level of reciprocal respect where in other gaming forums "noob" "L2P" and " idiot" are common ways to interact.
    very experienced players here, some of them with an almost unbelievable level of skill and knowledge, but no one that brags about it.
    and i read also some very interesting threads that can cover matters like philosophy, religion, politics and ethics and from the posts i see how some of us are people with a sharp brain and excellent instruction and culture base.

    we really need more games like BG.

    about the struggling to understand alignment i also have similar problems, both about the good-evil axis and the lawful-chaotic one.
    those are things inherited by the PnP version of DnD, where an human DM allow to discuss with him some choices you make and if you have good points he can change his mind and allow you to act in a different way then how you were apparently supposed to do.

    imho in the computer game this 2 axis grid becomes far less interesting and from one side you can almost ignore the rp aspect of the game with no consequences, from an other in very few situations you are "forced" to precise choices by the game.
    you can play a paladin intentionally murdering people and associating yourself with evil people and causes and as long as you pay enough to the churches to keep your rep enough high, but if you do a single mistake in one of the hell trials, you still have to play that part, you loose forever your good alignment and class bonuses becoming fallen.

    the legal-chaotic axis has even less sense in the computer game.
    it can mean more or less willing to stick to the law of the place you are in, or the one of the place you are from, if you happen to be in a place with a completely different law, like when you are in disguise in the drow city.
    but it can also mean to stick in a more rigid way to your own personal values and beliefs or be more chaotic in it, sometimes taking choices that in other situations you would not have take.
    it can also mean to be more inclined towards a society where everything is well regulated and to actively work to increase that level of order or to see that level of order like a "too much thing", like a prison and take choices that bring chaos in it.

    i care about rp this game, even if my power player soul is always on, but i prefer to use my feelings and opinions in doing it, if i play a lawful good, a chaotic good or a true neutral charname i do it trying to rp my lg, cg or tn parts, not to stick to a forgotten realms lore that i mostly lack of. and i almost never play an evil charname as i lack of evilness in myself, i have a lot of defects and weaknesses, but i really can not find an evil attitude in me.

  • jsavingjsaving Member Posts: 1,083
    edited May 2019
    It seems strange to argue that even though the King and Prince both want to kill innocents, stopping both of them and then defending yourself when their minions turn on you somehow makes you a monster.

    No one is talking about the PC embarking on a crusade to end all sahuagin regardless of alignment (though if that were under discussion, of course it would be wrong to do so).
    Post edited by jsaving on
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Veristek wrote: »
    Keldorn kind of follows through on it. The party has to kill a lot of Saghain on the way from the King to the Prince. You end up killing a similar number or even more sahaghin rebels and hostiles compared to killing Drow in Ust Natha.

    He grumbles about the Shadow Thieves, but doesn't do any justice stuff about it when I went through the Shadow Thief HQ to meet with Aran Linvail and Renal Bloodscalp. He says he'll let the thieves slide because he was helping me on my quest to find Irencius. Wouldn't a Lawful Good paladin be forced to bring justice to these thieves instead of "letting it slide" with no punishment or consequences?

    In both cases, Keldorn doesn't lose his paladin status.

    There's a HUGE difference of intent here. Killing the Sahuagin in self defense is very different from just deciding they all have to die and go about slaughtering them. As for the Shadow Thieves, what would "Justice" be in this situation? Slaughtering all of them, even though the majority aren't guilty of anything worse than pickpocketing?
  • NeverusedNeverused Member Posts: 803
    Depends. The Shadow Thief situation is different in that they are keeping out the worst of criminals, the lesser of two evils so to speak. Take them out, either garner the wrath of the larger Shadow Thief organization outside of Athkatla, or possible get yet another gang war not necessarily involving vampires. Attempting to bring minor criminals to justice would be incredibly unwise and foolish, if it brings down wrath upon your head. You can see this in the actual shadow thief quest, where if the main branch is actively keeping the more problematic members down, or even trying to kill them (they sent Edwin after that rogue branch, right?)

    On the other hand, the Sahuagin aren’t noticeably doing anything a good protag would care positively about. Mayyyybe they keep the Drow contained, but that’s the best argument I can come up for actually supporting one of the two factions. So yeah, it’s probably less genocidal than, say, killing all the Kuo Tao, or all the Beholders or Mindflayers. Would we even be arguing about this if Keldorn advocated wiping out the entire Beholder hive if a non-spectator beholder asked for help consolidating its power so that it can keep killing other creatures?
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    Veristek wrote: »
    Keldorn kind of follows through on it. The party has to kill a lot of Saghain on the way from the King to the Prince. You end up killing a similar number or even more sahaghin rebels and hostiles compared to killing Drow in Ust Natha.

    He grumbles about the Shadow Thieves, but doesn't do any justice stuff about it when I went through the Shadow Thief HQ to meet with Aran Linvail and Renal Bloodscalp. He says he'll let the thieves slide because he was helping me on my quest to find Irencius. Wouldn't a Lawful Good paladin be forced to bring justice to these thieves instead of "letting it slide" with no punishment or consequences?

    In both cases, Keldorn doesn't lose his paladin status.

    There's a HUGE difference of intent here. Killing the Sahuagin in self defense is very different from just deciding they all have to die and go about slaughtering them. As for the Shadow Thieves, what would "Justice" be in this situation? Slaughtering all of them, even though the majority aren't guilty of anything worse than pickpocketing?

    The difference is that sahuagin are 'evil'; most, if not all of them. Every one of them that you let live may wind up slaughtering humans later. There is no real-life comparison in our reality. Even the Mongols, who were pretty awful human beings, were not completely evil. If however, when the Monguls lost their power, would it have been totally unjustified if they were completely wiped out? The only reason they weren't is because of the vast distance between them and the people that eventually defeated them. It wasn't worth the trouble to wipe them out once the threat disappeared. If, however, they would have persisted in their belligerence, it's very likely they would have eventually been virtually eradicated...
    Isewein
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Genocide is bad. Period. End of story. It doesn't matter what the alignment of the victims would be. Tell the Sahuagin babies that you are the good guy while slaughtering them.
  • NeverusedNeverused Member Posts: 803
    Who says we’re killing the Sahuigin babies? We kill the warriors fighting for the King and the rebels supporting the prince. We’re probably more culpable for poisoning the birthing pools of the KuoTao than anything regarding the fishies.
    gorgonzolaIsewein
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    Genocide is bad. Period. End of story. It doesn't matter what the alignment of the victims would be. Tell the Sahuagin babies that you are the good guy while slaughtering them.

    Well Charname can slay all of the parents and then adopt the babies and raise them to be good upstanding citizens of Faerún. Kind of a boring rpg but I guess it's possible.

    Seriously, it's a game dude! The black and white of a fantasy world is supposed to be an escape from our complicated reality. If only things were really so black and white. Even the friggin Nazis weren't all 'evil' in reality. Many of them led long lives after the war, had babies and quite possibly were even good parents and good citizens afterwards. Humans are so doggoned complicated it's actually comforting to be able to fight against real uncomplicated evil on my computer...
    gorgonzolaIsewein
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    edited May 2019
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    The difference is that sahuagin are 'evil'; most, if not all of them. Every one of them that you let live may wind up slaughtering humans later.
    yep, humans that both in game and in rl keep happily slaughtering other humans in wars and in other ways, to don't talk to what humans do to other species.
    following your logic to its end after sahuagin and drow a good charname should probably start to kill humans, at least every human that glows red if the alignment is check, as every evil human is as a potential assassin as an evil drow or sahuagin.
    maybe he should even help the sahaugin to kill the evil humans and then betray them and kill them (obviously here i am intentionally exaggerating :) )

    genocide is genocide, point.

    then it is a game and a player can chose what he wants, avoiding drama tones, on that i agree with your last post.
    but to kill people or entire species or populations cause are mostly evil and potentially can cause damage to humans, that are not a perfect specie and by the way charname can be of an other specie and don't care much about humans destiny, is not a good oriented choice.



  • VeristekVeristek Member Posts: 114
    To put the "choice" into perspective in RL terms, it would be like being forced to choose between supporting the Nazis and Soviets. Both are evil, engage in genocide / massacre, eliminate undesirables, etc. In that case, would it be considered evil if you could kill off Nazi or Soviet soldiers, SS and NKVD, concentration camp guards and administrators, Hitler and Stalin, etc. and prevent millions of deaths? Or would that be considered a good act, since you would be saving far more than you'd be killing?

    Let me put another question in a different way. Would it be more acceptable to "genocide" the entire military of a malevolent civilization or race (Drow, Sahagin, Orcs, Daemons / Devils, etc(, while leaving the "civilians" and non-combatants alive? So they cannot force their destructive or murderous ways onto the other races? Is that a less evil approach?

    As for the Fish City, the only civilians I ever saw were the three priestesses. The mother + daughter, and their rival. Everyone else were the military type, soldiers or commanders, and they aggro on you in the streets of the city. You don't see any Sahagin civilians, women, or children in the city except the priestesses.

    Ust Natha? Once the alarm is raised and your cover is finished, everyone in the city aggro's you. Even civilians. Instead of running away, the civilians aggro you. In places like Athkatha or surface cities, the civilians run away when you combat hostiles instead of aggroing you. The surface people only aggro you if you fail pickpockets, intentionally force-attack them, or from hostile dialogue choices.

    As for Shadow Thieves, I remember Keldorn saying something to the effect of "I need to bring in the Paladins of the Radiant Heart to clean out this place" before or after talking to Aran Linvail (don't remember which). He also comments on other things like "It's evil how they treat their trainees. Having their trainees die for simple mistakes" like with that spinning spiked logs room with the red button at the end. The Shadow Thieves do engage in murder and assassination, which is far more serious than pickpocketing. I'd agree that chasing pickpockets would be silly for Good aligned people like paladins, but at the same time, paladins can't ignore murders and assassinations. A Fallen Paladin or Blackguard probably would shrug, but that's what "evil" paladins do anyway.

    Then we have the Athkatha guards and Cowled Wizards. The guards literally try to murder you for taking 1 gold piece from a chest, while the Cowled Wizards try to kill you for casting non-hostile spells like Infravision, Identify, or Friends. Does that mean these two enforcement organizations are evil, and thus, killing the killers in there is excused and acceptable? But then again, we get the complication of reputation loss for killing those guards who want to kill you for that 1 gold piece, but no reputation loss for killing any Cowled Wizards.
  • Humanoid_TaifunHumanoid_Taifun Member Posts: 1,055
    edited May 2019
    @Veristek You are under a misconception what lawful-chaotic means.
    Lawful does not mean "law-abiding". It means being principled, somewhat conservative.
    The rules explicitly state that a lawful-good paladin will break the law if the law is evil.
    The law that paladins primarily follow is the law of their God.
    The "law" that non-paladins follow is generally their own code of justice. That may overlap somewhat with the law of the land, but generally, the main reason why paladins and other lawfuls stick to the law, is because they believe a society is better off with a good code of law and a citizenry that respects the law. They do not believe that every law is good.

    @DreadKhan I am not convinced by your assertion that you need to have done evil to be evil. But I am finding conflicting sources. The 2nd edition description says that orcs are evil. Later editions say that orcs are usually evil. I guess that means the WoTSC changed their mind about it.
    gorgonzola
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    @Veristek
    it would be like being forced to choose between supporting the Nazis and Soviets
    and it is indeed so, 2 evil powers are fighting and you happen to have to cooperate with one of them to find a way out of the fish city.
    but i would also add the british empire to the rl evil list, as it had his share of deaths, robbing wealth and goods to other peoples and was actively involved in selling opium and started the chinese opium war to do it.

    Would it be more acceptable to "genocide" the entire military of a malevolent civilization or race while leaving the "civilians" and non-combatants alive?
    probably there is not a big difference between it an genocide the entire population as the people that can fight and the one that can work and produce food and other goods somehow overlap and without military a civilization has no defense against other invaders that surely would profit of you work and kill the rest of population, enslave it or spoil them of anything that make their survival possible.

    it has also to be told that the "evil nazis" or from an other point of view the german people suffered incredibly high losses, not (only) the 600k civilians perished under the "good" bomb of mad bomber harris, but the almost 13M males that served in the military, at the end the draft was for teens and old retired men as the normal adults was all "expended".

    at the end of that war even a male without an arm or leg or with any other condition that usually make for him more difficult to find a wife could literally chose the woman he liked more, as almost all the rivals in love shared his same condition, in a nation whose whole production infrastructure was destroyed.
    in less then a generation germany did catch up and now is the leading nation of europe.
    because the germans, like the drows, are a strong people, as warriors and as workers and technicians.

    the "genocide" of the military only delay the plans of a civilization slightly, if that nation is so lucky that no other people kill or enslave them while without defense.

  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    edited May 2019
    @everybody

    i am very careful when talking of evil populations and even evil species in the fr case.
    the case of nazi is a good example of why.

    thanks to propaganda and a form of "mass way of thinking" that brought almost all the population to something near to fanaticism during the nazi era the german population supported the evil scope of hitler. but are the germans inherently evil? i would say no.

    now let's take the drow, they are under the influence of lolith, even more evil and much more lasting as she is a major goddess, but there are signs in the lore that also for the drows it is the same.

    the existence of a drizzt, the fact that viconia can shift her faith from lolith to shar (that is as evil, but the shifting is a sign that her attitude is beginning to change), but later can really change her alignment and the existence of elistraee and her drow followers are clues that for the drows it is the same.

    the influence of lolith is more lasting, but as in the nazi germany much of the people was nazi and well convinced to be in the right also in the drow society much of the people are followers and worshipers of lolith.

    maybe some other species are inherently evil, like the mind flyers, surely the demons are so, but for races like drow and sahaugin it is much more difficult to demonstrate it, as there are examples of not evil members of those races and they have to be regarded as "monsters" and "abominations" if the race is inherently supposed to be evil.

    also what is evil change depending on the different cultures, the way of sahaugin is evil from a human point of view, but from their point of view probably it is not so.
    and the humans (in rl) now are debating if to genocide the "fishes" as answer to their attacks to ships and coastal towns not only is not evil, but is a proper good way of acting. ask to a "fish" about it and he would be amazed about how the humans are evil...

    and after all father ao allows both good oriented and evil oriented goods in his pantheon.
    so probably this has also to be reflected in how the mortal races are represented in his universe.
  • VeristekVeristek Member Posts: 114
    Humanoid_Taifun, thanks for the clarification. Much appreciated! Can you shed some light on the chaotic aspect of alignment?

    Gorgonzola, good point about being vulnerable. Perhaps I should have clarified that point better earlier. Genociding the military of an *aggressive* or *warmongering* race / civilization that actively sets out to harm or destroy other races / civilizations, or terrorize its own people.

    If all Nazi soldiers were genocided, then there wouldn't be any soldiers to station concentration camps or massacre "undesirable" civilians like Jews, French, Russians, the disabled, etc. Likewise, if Soviet soldiers were all killed off, there wouldn't be a military to enforce gulags or terrorize its own people, For the Drow, kill all their military means no raiding parties to enslave or kill surface dwellers. Fish soldiers all killed off means no fishes raid ships or attack coastal settlements.

    The Drow can stay in the Underdark and the fishies stay underwater. Most surface races can't or don't want to live underground or underwater.

    Would that be a less evil / more humane option, and more acceptable? Would this fit more into the Good ethos for people like Keldorn?
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