So, playing EVIL opened my eyes. Spoilers I guess

[Estevan Valladares]

A lot of people talk about the tieflings in the grove. A lot of people talk about the druids, even Halsin.
When you go through an evil playthough, have you took the time read ? If you do so, you might find that "evil" is an interesting term.
First, lets put up some parameters to that experiment:
Do the grove as you might do the good goblin camp run or the moonrise towers:
Instead of running to minthara and telling where the grove is, and raiding them, I was a "evil drow" and spoke with Khaga, and the other druids, and read a lot. Killed the Zevlor and other tiefling of importance subtly so I had less bothers when the raid time come.
I also pickpockted some druids, so they are less prone to "be a threat".
Among their notes you find out that they espouse some interesting believes, not only Khaga, but she is a piece of work. When you say thieves should be killed on sight, she agrees and wonders that could be the way of Silvanus. Halsin also spouses some really weird morals regarding the lengths he would go to "learn". Netty, you know, would kill you if you sought her for help and was none the wiser.
The tieflings plan to infiltrate other places when they leave the groove. Zevlor is a power hungry two faced coward, and if you search the place he go cower in, you will find some "interesting literature".
After you cripple the grove, Karlach wont join you, so no reason to keep Damon around, but you should search around for notes on the blacksmith if you dont already know where it is.
As Wyll wont join you too, no reason to save Florrick, and therefore you can let that building burn and find some interesting literature there too.
You can go up and enter by the upper exit without helping the front door, so they wont know you murdered Florrick. You will have limited time to search the place, so turn based on is very important. If you cant oneshot her, go there with two fast mobile characters so you can find things before they burn. Once you saved the man there, regardless if you kill him later, there will be more "literature" to find.
Once you killed her you go back to the front door and help the people there, so they find her dead and go away. Then you kill the one mourning some dead guy there, and search the bodies and scene. You will also find interesting reading material on how these people are not as "good" as they seem.
Karlach herself, might have that nice speech about being the hand of Zariel, but the is just "I was only following orders" famous argument. If you actually talk to the Paladins, true or not, they will enlighten you of some actual Karlach deeds she herself would not deny.
The gnome slaves will further on show themselves as being some kind of Mafia, and a not so scrupulous one. The ones you save will mostly show themselves as being a bunch of as short of morals as their height. And you will find out that they will even execute someone for as a simple reason as them being of another Clan. A handicapped person even.
That was a very nice eye opener after the slew of tiefling fanboi wave that washed in the forum.

[Crom]

O'rly?

[Rabbit]

Some people really can play a game at least twice and still not pay much attention

[ULTRA]

Originally posted by YEAH:

babby's first moral dilemma
I bet he doesn't even know squid dudes are the good guys

If I can kill something for exp, they're the bad guy

[Federok]

i think had a stroke....

[Lard]

Originally posted by YEAH:

babby's first moral dilemma
I bet he doesn't even know squid dudes are the good guys

wait, what? how?

[Silyon]

That's the fun thing, at the end of the day everyone's out for themselves and doing whatever they have to in order to survive. Even among the absolute's peons, just how many of them are normal folk attracted to the narrative True Souls spread promising power, enlightenment, so on? Being lied to doesn't make you "evil", just misguided.

That's one thing I actually appreciate about 5e over older D&D editions, that they did away with rigid and objective definitions of "Good" and "Evil" that were the center points of so many arguments. Allows for more organic and natural-seeming narratives to be told without causing unnecessary problems.

[DontMisunderstand]

Perhaps if you're using the argument "well, if you murder these people, then you have no reason to care about the deaths of these other people, so maybe those people aren't good people?", then maybe you're not in the best state of mind to judge morality at all? Like... that argument doesn't address the morality of anybody except yourself.

[Recjawjind]

Originally posted by DontMisunderstand:

Perhaps if you're using the argument "well, if you murder these people, then you have no reason to care about the deaths of these other people, so maybe those people aren't good people?", then maybe you're not in the best state of mind to judge morality at all? Like... that argument doesn't address the morality of anybody except yourself.

^
It's exactly this.

[Estevan Valladares]

Sophism is a nice thing, really.
But when you are seeing someone doing X and talking someone doing the same is evil, it is not "judging morality", it is simply making a logic induction. If you say people who invades other people's lands, enslave or endoctrinate other people, or dont care about the other peoples' needs just their own are evil, when you are found to be intending to invade other peoples' lands, enslave, remove or endoctrinate other people, and not care about their needs, just your own, I am not judging your morality, YOU ARE. I am just making the collation.

But I really wasnt expecting your average northfolk to understand that, as it is clear they dont.

[Empukris]

The term good guy is subjective. Which is what I like about crpg. Is the tiefling a good guy? No not all of them. Is the goblin the bad guy? No, they arent. Is the true souls, the bad guy? Yes probably they are the closest as they have a few screw loose in 1 form or another.

Zevlor will ask you to kill the druids for their own survival, let me remind you that they are pretty much the refugee, leeching compassion from the druids. Is he the good guy? Each faction had their own motives. So it is not the good guy vs the bad guy but more towards which sides are you choosing. It is the same with the Myconid.

[Quill]

Interesting, isn't it? It's good writing. I wonder how much is the story and world shaping themselves around the player's decisions, and how much is more... static, for lack of a better word.

The Elder Scrolls universe is like this too. The "bad guys" aren't very nuanced, but everybody else is shades of grey and virtuous heroes are very few and far between.

In the end though, it's not really about their morality or lack of it, but yours. The druids (for example) have a lot of awful ideas and some really crappy people amongst them, but I still don't want them to be murdered. Zevlor is shady but I don't want him or his people to die, either. That's what informs my decisions, not whether they're good or bad or neither, or have something I need, or want to be bffs.

On the flip, for an "evil" playthrough it would be all about what's most useful for me personally. So same: their good or bad guy status is interesting, but not the driver for whatever I choose to do.

I guess older forms of the D&D alignment system expected "evil" to hate "good" and want to destroy it for that reason alone. (I could be wrong about this, D&D isn't my world.) And there are always paladin types who want to smite "evil" because it's evil and they're paladins. I love that this kind simplistic worldview isn't how this story and world is written at all, although it's there too if that's how people want to roll.

[Evil Morty]

Didnt read whole posts BUT topic is true.
My jorney with Kagha:
1 st play) Ok she just trying to be protective
2 nd play hwere i find more stuff) Shes a ♥♥♥♥♥, kill her
3rd dark urge/spek with dead) Ok its more complex then that.
XD
And i see it with a lot of iddferent NPC that its not that easy to see actuall truth =)

[eRe4s3r]

Kagha is actually one of the characters in the game I'd wish we actually had gotten as companion because she simply did what she thought was the right way to protect her people. The shadow druids were a plot by the absolute and when she realizes she does the right thing and stop the ritual - but this does not change that the tieflings "have to go" because the cove can not supply them any further.

I thought Halsien punished her way too harshly. If anything the cove should have punished Halsien for putting her in that position and situation. So talking about good/evil. The game actually doesn't do it very well. But you as player can read more into it than the writers could, clearly.

[shogunsmurf]

Originally posted by Silyon:

That's the fun thing, at the end of the day everyone's out for themselves and doing whatever they have to in order to survive. Even among the absolute's peons, just how many of them are normal folk attracted to the narrative True Souls spread promising power, enlightenment, so on? Being lied to doesn't make you "evil", just misguided.

That's one thing I actually appreciate about 5e over older D&D editions, that they did away with rigid and objective definitions of "Good" and "Evil" that were the center points of so many arguments. Allows for more organic and natural-seeming narratives to be told without causing unnecessary problems.

Except that in 1945 we had things called the "nuremburg trials" that pretty much threw everything you just said out of the window.

We don't have to refer to a objective definition, we have actual legal ones.....

But please tell me how goosingstepping threw all of Europe in wars of aggression because I have been "lied too" and mass murdering civilians of ethnicities deemed lesser, doesn't make me evil.

What childish and immature notions on morality. Never read Nietzsche I take it either ? let me sum that up for you real quick "it's better to die than survive if what it takes to survive is to forfeit your humanity". His idea of a "ubermench" is one that rather accepts death than lower himself into certain behavoir.

Object morality excists, there is a reason why all civilizations on this planet have rules against stealing, murder etc etc. No matter how much you like Game of Thrones, that will not change.

Imma grab some popcorn for the inevitable mental gymnastics i'm gonna witness to try and get yourself out of this hole.

[Greenegg]

the heck did I just read?