I'm so evil that I'm good.

[Murk]

Okay, so, I'm an aspiring champion of some evil god (let's say Bane from usual d&d bullshit) and I'm running around stabbing church-boys in the taint with a pickaxe and seriously messing up their "help the elderly" charity thing they got going on.

The local populace gets pissed, grabs me and breaks all my thumbs so I can't sodomize the corpses of little children anymore (at least, as efficiently) and then they crucify me and say "go to hell* you bastard" or some shit.

So I ping up in Bane's personal domain and he says "who the fuck are you, why the fuck are you here, and what the fuck did you do for me?".

I say, "I'm 24 years old and I murdered at least ten times that many little children while they were trying to help old folks on their day off from dung-farming or whatever, I caused a ton of strife and people hated me almost as much as I hated them."

Bane says, "oh... okay, you get your own palace in my domain where you can brochill with the rest of the evil cunts, 'grats bra" then we fist-bump and shake dicks or whatever and done.

Now, all those little kids I killed are now in front of whatever god they were worshipping (since they were helping old folks lets say it was Pelor or Lathander or some other goodie-too-shoes flower. Sun-god is all "Oh no little babies you were all so good in real life and some mean bad man killed you" and waves his shiny ass fingers and gives them a great after-life.

So... did I do good or bad? I mean, take into account I murdered people but the end result was an eternity of happiness in their own personal fantasy land where after 20 years (we are talking about a setting where death by "eaten by dire badger" is a legitimate concern for people) they will be re-united with their friends and family (assuming they were sufficiently good to get in, if not then I just helped to separate the chaff from the wheat early on eh) and I saved them 20 years of tragedy and struggle.

Does Bane then show up and go "yo bitch tits you fucked up, everyone's all happier now than they used to be, no more coke off of demon bitches for you" and that's that? Or is it enough that I did enough fucked up shit de facto at the time and the ultimate end result doesn't matter?

Bros, I am at a philosophical quandary help meee.

*or whatever equivalent evil after-life

 

[Excommunicator]

I wouldn't call it a philosophical problem as much as it is a setting inconsistency. I think the problem lies in you taking the propositions as automatically true, i.e. that these gods have the ability to make a judgement on a matter of morality that is superior to a normal human being, and that those gods define the meaning of morality through their actions.

I think it is a case of rather serious narcissism for the authors of gods like those you suggested to even suggest that such beings could be deserving of the title of a god. Really, there is so much inherent humanity and flaw in their character and just as much inconsistency in judgement (considering that their thoughts and dialogue is written by flawed, mortal human beings) as any normal human, that they are nothing but a romantic bundle of contradictory traits and "magicawesum" abilities. Unless you can separate the entity from the flaws and limitations we have as humans then I believe they are merely glorified humans.

Following from this, if the entities are flawed as humans are - even if they do have the ability to provide eternal suffering or eternal happiness (one of the illogical elements I was talking about) - then you are simply reducing the situation to a matter of arbitrary punishment and reward. If that is the case, then your judgement of "good" or "bad/evil" is as good as the gods', and their ability to reward an individual through a blissful afterlife is inconsequential to the definitions of good and evil that they purport.

In my flawed, human, personal opinion I would say that you have done bad by causing any amount of discomfort intentionally, although this is separate from whether the end result is more a good thing or a bad thing. If you acted unknowingly and/or independently of the reward that was to be offered to these children in the afterlife, then your actions are malicious. Had you killed the children with the hope (or possibly realisation, but that is different again) that they would be rewarded by another god in the afterlife, this would complicate the situation by then requiring you to weigh up how much good and how much bad is being experienced, and just what the children want and believe (keeping in mind that their minds would not even be developed enough to comprehend or make a mature judgement on such a thing).

Ultimately the only meaning that can be gleaned here is from what you intended upon the children, and that is clearly pain and suffering. Thus you are a bad person, Mikayel.

 

[Murk]

Gods in the d&d setting are, historically, more similar to the gods of the Greek pantheon. Humans with superhuman powers, but by no means perfect.

Intent is often important, however is it the most important factor in this equation? After-all, what actually happens is in many ways just as important. If I intend to play a joke on a friend to cause some strife to him for my own amusement but inadvertently end up stopping a mugger and/or causing someone to trip and break their neck, does my rather amoral intent that led to that out come trump what actually happens?

Civilization as a whole tends to punish people who have done wrong out of ignorance and carelessness, regardless of their intent. And often a crime out of ignorance is many times worse than one out of maliciousness, as not only did you do some great evil but you were too stupid to even know you were doing it.

Though when comparing harm done to good, it is worthwhile to note that it is a lot easier to do evil than it is to do good on a comparable level to that evil. That is, saving a human life doesn't excuse killing a human life as a net total of 0. In fact, if you go through life not saving a single life you can still be "pretty good" but if you kill a single person holy fuck bro murderer electric hair KILLLLLLLLLLLLLL (irony lolololol).

SUCH QUESTIONS MEIN FREUND

Though in the above example I do agree that Intent plays a bigger role than usual, so much so that I actually capitalized it as Intent and repeated it again in a capitalized manner for added emphasis. I would have gone as far as italicizing, but I think that might be stretching it.

 

[Excommunicator]

A few quick points.

The reason why intent is so important here is because the actions have already been done, and are a pre-established assumption here. You have raped and killed those children already, and everyone that reads your response knows this.

That is different from your joke example because you didn't intend to trip the robber (let alone even know he was there presumably).
Are you a good (which in this context I make the assumption to mean benevolent) person? Presumably, that is irrelevant.

Your actions can have good consequences, but you had no idea that would happen and (presumably) could not reasonably foresee that happening to the robber, and so the praise or reward to be given in such a situation must be abstracted (to such things as what might have happened to the friend, among others), if given at all.

Also you assume the values of good and evil when you say "worthwhile to note that it is a lot easier to do evil than it is to do good on a comparable level to that evil" and assume that there is some equation between good and evil, but that is not relevant to the concept of malicious intent leading to suffering.

Prior actions are irrelevant as to how a particular action can be evaluated in good and evil terms unless there is a reasonable connection between the two (a whole other topic). In your mind there is (presumably) no knowledge (or reasonable ability to predict) a connection between playing the joke and accidentally tripping someone (the key word being *accidentally*) and thus whether or not you - to use your example - have saved a life previously is irrelevant to the concept of good (which I have established earlier as meaning benevolent) in those following, unrelated (presumably) actions of playing the joke.

You can probably see there are a lot of presumptions here, but without those we would still be trying to understand the other circumstances which I assume you had not even considered when suggesting the scenario.

Edit: Oh and about the gods in D&D resembling the Greek and Egyptian and Norse gods and all that... I have always maintained that these beings should not be considered gods because the traits they have could theoretically in the same setting be attributed to someone who isn't called a god (if you really pulled them apart), and so calling them a god is more of a formality based on cultural convention(as established by the earlier polytheistic religions). Ultimately it means those authors of the D&D setting have simply not put a lot of effort into the soundness of their concept of godliness/divinity.

(all of this of course is based upon my existence in this world rather than the D&D world, which while not a very good approach when trying to explain a world with fundamentally different laws of nature, is reasonable given that the world is fictional and written by normal people from the same world as me)

I have always maintained that if a god seems so uncannily defined within the limits of the human condition, then that is a good sign that the god is fictional, which is the general consensus today about the Greek gods and such.

 

[Murk]

When suggesting the scenario I was mostly curious if one is expelled from their evil after-life of rewards (given to those who are sufficiently evil) if their actions that were supposed to be evil inadvertently lead to results that were better in the long run.

In either case, the idea is that the intent was not in line with the end result -- whether that intent was to kill and rape children (key note here: it happens that the killing was first, thank you) and/or to play a prank on a friend.

Yes, intent, but is there a change in one's after-life situation in observation of the possibly ironic results of one's actions?

In many ways what I am asking is does the ends justify the means in such a case when intent was originally clearly opposite? It seems you would say that intent trumps end result as one could not have foreseen that end result. Fine enough good sir, but does evil Mik get to keep his demon whores or not?

On the topic of good =(/)= evil, I never meant the tripping/prank example to be related to the concept that it takes more good to make up for an act of evil than it does evil to shift back from good.

EDIT: seems we both edited around the same time, ho hoooo.

In regards to the gods, well... they're not real in relation to reality but they are supposedly true in the premise of the d&d pantheon, and it is in the d&d setting that I ask the question. None of the above is really meant to apply to reality, and I realize I said that human civilization has punished failed intent and what-not but I believe that is relevant in a one-sided fashion. That is, reality influences d&d but not the other way around. The authors are ultimately only people and can only write what is in them and I'm sure human history ties into it.

 

[Excommunicator]

I would actually be very curious to see either an author of the D&D alignment system/gods or an expert in D&D to answer the question as to how they think those within the universe would respond to such a situation, although I would like them to answer it without reading all of the above discussion first as that is obviously going to sway the decision if they have not fully thought it through (which I suspect would be the case)

Ultimately your only answer can be given by the gods themselves who are offering the rewards, which is something one of the authors would need to (try) explain in rational terms.

If I was to take the role of the author of those gods' personalities right now I would say the evil god would probably reward based on how he felt at the time (a cop out really). If he was in a bad mood maybe he would punish you, if he was in a good mood he might reward bad Mik.

The most interesting part of this discussion IMO, is showing the fallibility of fictional settings (especially like D&D) and how important it is for a writer to not only be wise and intelligent enough to understand these concepts, but to put in the time and effort to fabricate explanations and internal logic for these kinds of dilemmas.

It further shows just how amateur and less-than-great the authors of many of these things are, for their writing can be pulled apart in a few moments because they have not put in the time to explain the details. This distinction in my opinion is one of the most important in the distinction of a good designer and a bad designer.

(Unfortunately following from these values, I don't think I could name a single author who would come under the "good" section)

 

[Murk]

No doubt. It doesn't help at all to factor in that the books in question are often written not only by different authors but also by different authors basing their material off of past mythologies that are themselves conflicting.

I should beseech FrankTrollman to see if he has an answer.

 

[Excommunicator]

You are a worthy conversation partner Mikayel

No taking things personally or emotionally or being irrational at all, which is what most people do, most of the time. Very tiresome

 

[Murk]

 

[Excommunicator]

I am not familiar with Frank Trollman though and I guess I don't know a huge amount about D&D either.

Is he on the Codex or only elsewhere? And is he a part of the professional team that works on D&D?

 

[Murk]

He's mostly amateur, but the stuff he writes tops anything WotC has published for a decade and a half easily.

Here's a few good choice links to some of his and K's 3.5 stuff.

Dungeonomicon (my favourite)

and

Races of War (my second favourite)

There was also Tome of Fiends, Tome of Necromancy, and a lot of unsorted material from the supposedly to come Tome of Virtue and Tome of Gears that, sadly, never happened. Also, this link has all 5 perma-linked for convenience.

 

[Excommunicator]

Oh hey, I've read some of these before, like the dungeonomicon. I think they were linked to in a design discussion about setting and consistency on here (could even have been by you). Interesting stuff, although I think I was under the impression that it was one of the D&D designers that did it.

That kind of thing has got to cause open wounds on the egos of the official D&D designers (or alternatively make them even larger if they trick themselves into believing they have already considered all of it in their own minds)

If there was proper justice in the world, this guy would be made loremaster of D&D, and it would be taken out of the commercial realm which is what leads to such half-arsed design to begin with.

 

[Murk]

Haha, yes I have linked the stuff before. You're join date betrays your Altitude mein freund, ;D.

 

[Delirius]

So... did I do good or bad? I mean, take into account I murdered people but the end result was an eternity of happiness

So you're saying you basically played a Muslim?

 

[Excommunicator]

I am here to incline the Codex.

 

[LusciousPear]

One of the more interesting codex threads this month.

::

 

[Avu]

Worshipers are necessary for the continued existence and powers of a deity. The numbers and fervor of a god's worshipers determine in large part the power of the deity. Deities without worshipers or who are fading in popularity fade in power, and in extreme cases can even die from neglect.

You may have brought hundreds of goodie souls to their respective heavens but gods are fueled by the worship of the living. You by killing hundreds in the name of Bane put the fear of god (in this case Bane) into them peasants and even if they don't like Bane they still fear him and fear love respect is all the same as long as they think of him. As to how he treats you after you're dead you'll most likely end up on his own private plane which is far from a nice place.

As for them stupid goodie souls they'll count as a loss to the gods that get them (very short time to pray and by dying to a rivals gods influence you lose face with the believers) and many might even end up in the Wall depending how much time they had to pray to some god or another (kids and all).

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Actually, most of gods in FR pantheon have much more limited perspective than mortals. Gods that aren't ascended mortals are basically batshit insane.

 

[grotsnik]

Isn't this whole thread the argument of the villain in Arcanum?

"If life is a vale of tears and the afterlife is a wonderful place, then I'm doing people a favour by killing them."

 

[Aikanaro]

I don't think Bane would give a shit that the children are going to their happy-nice afterlife. They're fighting over the store of belief on the Prime Material Plane which is the source of the god's power, and you raping and murdering is going to do a lot more towards upping belief in his power, evilness and strife in general than it is for making people think that happiness and sunshine is just around the corner if these evil guys will just hurry up and kill us.

Is it just me, or are the realms for evil gods in FR/Planescape really shitty places? I'm not sure what Bane's is, but the other ones I can think of are terrible and why anyone would want to intentionally try and go there is beyond me. Sure, they're appropriately themed and good adventuring locations, but a little bit of logic from the designers wouldn't hurt. Or do they actually think that evil people will enjoy stabbing each other in the back for all eternity? Last I checked that's not why anyone ever decided to do bad things.

 

[Phelot]

Aren't the gods in D&D all linked to Planescape meaning that being a chaotic evil asshole such as in the OP would land you in the Abyss?

It seems like whoever you were in life will determine, of course were you end up as well as with like minded people. So a plane of existence with a bunch of neutral good folks isn't bad at all for them, but a plane full of sociapaths would suck for each individual since they wouldn't be killing innocent choir boys and virgins, but a bunch of other assholes that could equally kill them. Evil DOES know fear after all.

Heaven for them would likely have them in a city full of do-gooders that are naive and loving and incapable of harsh justice...

 

[Shemar]

I would actually be very curious to see either an author of the D&D alignment system/gods or an expert in D&D to answer the question as to how they think those within the universe would respond to such a situation, although I would like them to answer it without reading all of the above discussion first as that is obviously going to sway the decision if they have not fully thought it through (which I suspect would be the case)

I am nowhere near an expert on D&D, especially anything pre 4E, but in 4E there is no afterlife as defined by the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions. Except from a few hand picked by the gods an dother powers, most other mortals (whose soul is not otherwise spoken for) pass on to the unknown after they die.

The most interesting part of this discussion IMO, is showing the fallibility of fictional settings (especially like D&D) and how important it is for a writer to not only be wise and intelligent enough to understand these concepts, but to put in the time and effort to fabricate explanations and internal logic for these kinds of dilemmas.

Actually to me it shows the fallability of the concept of an afterlife in general, but that's a whole other discussion.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Forgotten Realms has afterlife for practically everyone except those whose souls get destroyed by some soul-destroying spell.

 

[Murk]

And, quite nauseatingly, in FR, some of those afterlives for people who are actually pretty good results in being furniture in Celestia or a blade of grass that is being eternally shined on by the glorious light of Pelor or some other "fuck that for a lark" shit.

Aren't the gods in D&D all linked to Planescape meaning that being a chaotic evil asshole such as in the OP would land you in the Abyss?

Depends on the god, some have their own personal planes/domains others have domain in existing planes.

Remember that the rewards you get for your own alignment are mostly dependent on how effective you were at your own alignment. That is, someone who is Good but sucks at actually doing Good gets a shit deal as does someone who is Evil but can't move past the point of just 'talking shit'. If you do enough of your chosen moral alignment, like say kill and rape children by the class-room occupancy, then you get a better deal in the after-life than if you donated every Sunday and helped old ladies take their garbage out.

The mediocre end up with shit deals, so yes incompetent psychos who only ever stabbed one person end up fucked in all aspects, but stab enough and eventually you sit at a god's side inventing new holes to fuck (or whatever).

Cue Stalin quote about killing 1 = tragedy, 1,000,000 = statistic.

 

[Phelot]

But I thought it was explained that Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, all of em' are all linked to Planescape even if the God has his/her own demiplane?

So like you said, if you're neutral good, you'd end up in Elysium along with like minded people.

I don't particularly like the idea, but as far as an afterlife goes, I think it sort of goes beyond reward or damnation. It just seems to be that while the good aligned folks generally speaking would love to be among other good aligned folks, the evil aligned ones generally have a miserable time with each other.

In Ravenloft, all the Dark Lords are still technically damned. As much fun as Strahd appears to have, he's still forever haunted and hurt by his loved one's death to the point were it becomes a punishment.