>Its ok to kill every evil creature, simply because they are evil creatures
>they are "evil" creatures because they are evil creatures
>death is the only punishment for evil
Get out of the way lawfags, neutral is taking over the 21st century
Being evil (lawful, neutral or chaotic) is not a crime. If your Paladin kills things that are evil just for being evil, he should definitely fall from grace. Gygax did want D&D to have this kind of "hang the evil" frontier justice though.
>>47478299
>trying to apply philosophical logic and ideals to a fucking game of pretend that boils down the whole spectrum of morality into 9 convenient categories
This thread can only end well.
Objective evil sucks. DnD would be better off without the alignment system.
If you don't want to get rekt, maybe stop doing bad things? Faggot.
>>47478389
The problem isn't objective morality, but conflation of morality with biology and taxonomy of "normal" creatues
>>47478338
Basically this is answer for all the
>detect evil
>smite
mentality.
Also, good/evil aside, it is fucking CHAOTIC AS FUCK to do it. And people tend to completely disregard this part
>>47478338
After reading Borderlands, I got the impression Gygax was a millitary fan boy who was obsessed with weapons and wargames.
This said, I would really go as far to say that original TTRPGs made roleplaying seem like an afterthought, just interactive multiplayer wargames (the origin of dnd).
>>47478415
Paladins are judge, jury and executioner, the ARE the law of their gods.
Though I think "detect evil" should only always ping on things that actually ARE evil by nature, like demons. Otherwise, only pinging when the target is guilty of a terrible crime for which they have not been held responsible, or when they intend to do such a thing in the near future.
>>47478359
why not? do you think philosophy shouldn't permitted to certain things?
>>47478338
Evil is merely the absence of good
Killing the irredeemable is the righteous solution
It's evil to allow evil beings to continue existsting
>>47478504
Philosophy should be relegated to liberal arts departments where people can pretend that it's real or matters
>>47478546
A huge jump between the first and second premises. I can imagine a world where it is the case that evil is the absence of good, yet whenever given the opportunity.. all evil creatures flee from the realm of chaos into good.
>>47478480
>Paladins are judge, jury and executioner, the ARE the law of their gods
ONLY if there is no real law there or the law itself is injust (like, in LE country) I would allow it to pass as valid justificantion.
And justification not fot lolexecuting someone without a blink because detect pinged, but actually... judging him and learning what punishment is suitable?
>>47478628
>muh bandits dindu nuffin they wuz good boys they went to the temple every week they were trying to turn they life around when a JUDMENTAL paladin (whom they just attacked with lethal force) killed them in cold blood
>>47478628
Why if you're a globalist Paladin who believes the Law of Man is unlawful and only Natural Law represents true lawfulness?
Unless you're playing a Warforged Paladin of Lord of Butter Knives there is no reason to be a smite happy fuckbot
Paladins are meant to take out that one big evil and rally the people against the countless smaller ones.
>>47478628
I never said execution was the only punishment a paladin could dole out.
>>47478688
Making up your own laws, no matter how hard you're believing that they're lawful, they are actually very essence of chaotic.
Arbitrariness is chaotic.
Even if there was a deity that would embrace such view (so the paladin would not make up the laws itself but derive it from higher authority), the deity would be chaotic so no such paladins are even possible
TL;DR anyone usurping the entitlement to be one and only law is actually chaotic, because he has no respect for any actual authority and does as he pleases.
>>47478389
>friendly reminder that it started as a "order" vs "chaos" instead of the 9 alignment system we have today.
Not surprisingly, it was a little better when it was 3 alignments instead of 9.
Jesus fuck, why couldn't we have a cooler sounding adjective for Order (Orderly Good sounds lame) so we wouldn't have tards treat Law as literal law.
OP HERE - CLARIFICATION I AM TALKING ABOUT OD&D MORALS - LAW , CHAOS AND NEUTRAL ... NOT THE 9 AXIS OF CONTEMPORARY DND, THANK YOU
>>47478628
>punishment instead of rehabilitation
you'll never get anywhere with that
>>47478415
Say what you will about 4E, but they made a really good move getting rid of that "Detect Alignment" bullshit that only exists to fuck over the DM's campaigns.
>>47478787
You already have your gods law from his religious dogma.
If you're going to argue Gygax's definition of Lawful Good then use his actual definition and not that of some later edition. He stated that under the assumption of the basic D&D society (law is force, paladins are exemplars of law) it would be perfectly fine for them to execute surrendered enemies and that "Mercy is to be displayed for the lawbreaker that does so by accident. Benevolence is for the harmless. Pacifism in the fantasy milieu is for those who would be slaves."
Note that any character could execute surrendered enemies without suddenly turning Neutral/Evil under this paradigm.
As for evil societies, under Gygax's definition, Lawful Good does not countenance evil Laws, unlike Lawful Neutrals, so the notion of the Evil society as approved by Paladins falls apart right there.
He also expressively said that Paladins aren't stupid, which executing citizens within city limits for Detecting as Evil would definitely fall under or trying to take down a society by himself.
The only wortwhile discussion when it comes to the logic D&D's Paladin requires that you actually use the same working definitions as the system you're bitching about.
Your own world is of course your own, hell I personally prefer having a Tekumel-like society where jails are only ever used for political prisoners while actual issues are solved between faction parties with boons or blood money where the official courts onl bring trouble and executions. (A Lawful type here would work within his faction against them or put the guy on his shitlist should the opportunity ever arise to deal with them)
I come to the tabled petting to have fun, not a philosophical discussion when the GM throws another "Gonlin baby wat do" every ten minutes. Smite and Cleave are the only valid options if you want any semblence of fun (if you're the murserhobo type, which many players and GMs are).
>>47478925
But if there would be a deity with such a dogma, and it would be stated as LG or anywhere close, there would be something seriously wrong with this.
He would be either about arbitrariness (chaotic) or about domination (lawful, but lawful evil)
No actual LG god can just say "fuck you all, I set laws here and I don't care about anything else" in my book.
Maybe LN in best case. But a palading of LN god is still LG, so he has to work out compromise between being servant of good and of his [particular god in case the god isn't good himself.
>>47479005
OD&D and Basic make use of reaction tables meaning a great deal of monsters were non-hostile and also gave experience for capturing monsters, so the issue of "Goblin baby" is not a terribly likely issue to arrive, nevermind the fact that it's a retarded thing to throw at the players in a game anyway.
>>47479005
>"tabled petting"
>"Gonlin baby"
>"murserhobo"
>>47478810
Because Three Hearts and Three Lions uses "Law" and "Chaos".
But really it's not much of an issue if you're using an edition with a half-decent alignment explanation.
>>47478504
Philosophy has about as much to do with magical worlds as science does. Atoms don't even exist in some fictional universes, why should the ability for morals to be subjective be more important than modern physics?
>>47479028
>Update
You can if it's a creator god.
>I have created some [race] and they are expected to live by this standard
Then you could go busting heads as a Paladin when your kinsmen are practicing usury or something in a country even though god forbids it. Supposing that there is a supreme creator god, then said god is the sole arbiter of what is Good and Evil anyway.
>>47479106
Who said anything about magical worlds? The things we choose to engage in, and the way in which we engage with them allow us to reflect on our own nature. In the same way an artist is responsible for a piece of art.
>>47479226
>rpgs are art
Forgefaggotry of the absolute worst kind.
Choke on a bundle of d4s.
>>47479260
Who said anything about RPGs being art? As much as I like the idea, it stemmed from a misunderstanding of my metaphor.
Paladins no longer have to be lawful. So just put "Chaotic good" on your sheet and you're completely justified in snoring and cleaving anyone who pings as evil.
"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."
>>47478918
I give zero fucks whether it makes it harder to railroad, but what I do care about is that it removes mystery and depth from the narratives possible within the game, wherever they may come from.
It's immaterial whether those narratives emerge naturally during gameplay, or are forced by the DM, or whatever.
They're all equally fucked over by just knowing who's evil and who's not.
How do you even justify that society hasn't simply outlawed evil?
The notion that you can't illegalize traits is a historically recent development, like "human rights" and other such nonsense.
Plus, if evil truly exists then woudn't it be more like how we ended up treating horribly infectious (dangerous) diseases? Cure or quarantine, for the sake of the greater good.
If evil people are pathologically selfish, then as long as you know for certain that someone is evil, the only sane thing is to deport them, lock them up, or execute them.
>>47481872
Check up the whole Tuskegee island syphilis thing. By letting a disease run its course, you can get enough information .
As far as evil goes -
