Redcloak's failed characterization, and what it means for the comic as a whole.

[Fish]

Unless the are the enemy, right? If I make a setting that says the great Goblinoid empire of Gurmuktush has been at declared war with the human kingdom of Antalles for 20 years and all the PCs are Antilliean, I think the PCs are well within their right to wipe out the "raiders" who are attacking Antillean supply lines without seeking greater motivation, no?

There's a fine line between killing the goblins whom you know to be responsible and depopulating the countryside of goblins on the assumption that goblins probably did it, because it's something you suspect goblins might do.

Speaking as long-time DM/GM, if I presented that scenario to my players, they would immediately be suspicious of something so straightforward. As would, I suspect, any real-life army commander. Maybe it wasn't goblins, maybe it was some other enemy taking advantage of the turmoil. Maybe it was traitors or thieves. Before deploying troops to exterminate goblins on general principles, maybe we should be sure that will solve the problem. And a capable general knows that an enemy you can turn to your side is better than an enemy slain — the axiom "all goblins are always evil" deprives the DM of lovely storylines.

[Math_Mage]

There are other options. One is to open a bank. Or to open an inn. Or go into show business.

There are a ton of ways to make a living that don't require farming, and the Romani in our world employed many of them. That's also where the stereotype of the "Jewish moneylender" comes from -- Jews in Middle Ages Europe weren't allowed to own land, IIRC, so they made ends meet by trade and by loaning money.

For that matter, they could also hire out as bodyguards or as mercenaries. That's what the Gurkhas did. Or they can be explorers and traders, like the settlers of Iceland.

Actually, that brings up a point as well: Iceland has to be one of the most inhospitable countries in the world, but it's a far more pleasant place to live than many parts of Africa which have gold and diamond mines and abundant natural wealth.

There are a ton of ways to prosperity when you're dirt poor besides "kill other people and take their stuff". If the goblins haven't yet followed those paths, maybe it's because they're being led by an immortal genocidal maniac.

Respectfully,


Brian P.

I'm confused. You seem to be mixing OotS goblins--created by the three pantheons to serve as cleric XP fodder, with no immortal leader at all initially--with something else.

Your examples of alternative career paths presume that goblins and other monster races are already integrated into society. Whether such an integration could have been accomplished cleanly, or at all, in those times is open to dispute. Right-Eye managed it, of course (and heaven knows how...).

[pendell]

I can't infringe on the real world, but several of those groups were minorities barely tolerated at best and actively hunted at worst, at different times and places in history. Yet somehow they found a way to toleration and survival that didn't involve massacre and genocide.

Perhaps that is a fundamental point Rich is trying to make: We are ALL goblins in someone's eyes.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[veti]

The true nature of good is to redeem evil. To bring back an Edmund, or a Gollum, or a Darth Revan.

And it is the nature of true evil to corrupt good, to make it into something like itself.

So to sum up:

• The True Nature of Good is to make opposite beings more like itself.
• The True Nature of Evil is to make opposite beings more like itself.

Have I got that right?

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, but I think there's something important missing from this formulation.

And Xykon has a way more corrupting influence than Belkar. Belkar only ever tried to corrupt Miko (and to a much lesser extent, Vaarsuvius). Xykon's personal corruption count includes not only those two, but also Redcloak, Tsukiko, Eugene, plus (arguably) Kubota, the leader of Team Peregrine, and every human ruler who's been intimidated into "recognising" Gobbotopia - all of these became significantly more evil as a direct result of Xykon's actions.

[pendell]

And Xykon has a way more corrupting influence than Belkar. Belkar only ever tried to corrupt Miko (and to a much lesser extent, Vaarsuvius). Xykon's personal corruption count includes not only those two, but also Redcloak, Tsukiko, Eugene, plus (arguably) Kubota, the leader of Team Peregrine, and every human ruler who's been intimidated into "recognising" Gobbotopia - all of these became significantly more evil as a direct result of Xykon's actions.

I don't see this. Eugene and Kubota made their own decisions. Team Peregrine's leader hated goblins long before he ever heard of Xykon. And recognizing that the goblins have a state is an act of pragmatism, not evil.

* The True Nature of Good is to make opposite beings more like itself.
* The True Nature of Evil is to make opposite beings more like itself.


Have I got that right?

I believe you missed an important point, which is that evil desires slaves who have no free will of their own. It is an act of ego, and an act of fear and insecurity, to believe that the mastermind knows better for others than others do for themselves. Which is why soul bindings and creating soullless undead are the "evil" side of the street.

Good sees slaves and wishes them to be free. Evil sees free and desires that them to be slaves.

Of course, there's a lot more to it than that, both in-game and out-of-game. But I did mention that, and it was missing from your summation.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Xzenu]

Replying to the original post: NP (Nerd_Paladin) accuse the comic of not limiting itself to the worldview presented in certain books.

While NP is free to prefer the "genocide is cool and morally unproblematic as long as the victims belong to evil races" worldview of classic Dungeons & Dragons, his argument is utterly dishonest in it's misrepresentation of the comic. NP argue that Burlew's goal has been to conform to whatever preference NP may have had, bu has FAILED in this task.

On this matter, I can only say: Dear Nerd_Paladin.... Please try to understand that the world does not revolve around you, and neither does this comic.

As for my personal preference, I find the comic to be a wonderful deconstruction of the alignment system!

So either "The Order of the Stick" is about the black and white, binary world of tabletop gaming (and how strange and silly that is), in which case Redcloak does not make sense as a character, or else it's about a more nuanced, complex world that doesn't at all resemble tabletop gaming, in which case the comic as a whole has been undermined. In short, you can't have it both ways, but Redcloak's story tries to anyway.

False dichotomy.

First of all, one of the great things with OOTS is that it is 100% tabletop gaming and 100% NOT tabletop gaming. It's one big doublethink mind****. Get used to it. :-D

Second, D&D 3.5 core rules is NOT all of "Tabletop Gaming". Not only are there other games, but also other ways of playing D&D 3.5. I have personally been in groups deconstructing the alignment system well before OOTS got started.

[veti]

I don't see this. Eugene and Kubota made their own decisions. Team Peregrine's leader hated goblins long before he ever heard of Xykon. And recognizing that the goblins have a state is an act of pragmatism, not evil.

Yes, of course they made their own decisions. So did Anakin Skywalker, but you wouldn't deny that those decisions might well have gone in a different direction if they hadn't come into contact with certain outside influences. That's pretty much the definition of "corruption", as I see it. (Okay, Kubota is doubtful, but certainly Eugene.)

And those human rulers have been forced into accepting, as a matter of "pragmatism", a state on their doorstep that is an enormous threat to the wellbeing of their own people in the medium term. A principled stand to protect the interests of their own people would have been to side firmly with the Azurites, and the reason they didn't do that is explicitly given as "fear of the lich".

I believe you missed an important point, which is that evil desires slaves who have no free will of their own. It is an act of ego, and an act of fear and insecurity, to believe that the mastermind knows better for others than others do for themselves. Which is why soul bindings and creating soullless undead are the "evil" side of the street.

Oh, to be sure I missed a lot of important points, my post was largely tongue-in-cheek. But you did, correctly I think, identify the "essence" of evil as being not about removing or subverting free will, but "corrupting" it, and I think that's an important point. And I also think it's noteworthy that "corruption" and "redemption" are essentially mirror images of one another.

[Anarion]

And I also think it's noteworthy that "corruption" and "redemption" are essentially mirror images of one another.

There's an important distinction I think. If you're trying to corrupt someone and they're wavering, perhaps about to do something irredeemable, it's okay for the corrupter to continue pressing the person further, to force the person into acting.

On the other hand, if you're trying to redeem someone, you can show them all the advantage of good, you can give them the opportunity and lay out everything perfectly, but you CAN'T force them into taking that final step. Redemption has to be an act of choice.

[justapilgrim]

Wow. So many pages and I read most of them. I still cant believe how some are still clinging to those DnD rules that state that all goblins are evil. I played in a campaign where a paladin actually lost his paladin-hood for helping the party kill unarmed goblins who were parents of a baby goblin we later found while looting their cave home. The paladin had to atone by finding a good home for the orphan goblin, who we were told later grew up to be an advocate for goblin rights. That was like 8 years ago, and it really opened our minds to how the game is played, and how the game should be played. A random encounter where you stumble upon a cave with goblins living in it doesn't inherently make them evil goblins. Sure, many goblins are evil and do dastardly evil things. But Rich is right, its pure racism to lump all goblins into that pot. You mean that it is not plausible that there is one good goblin out there? And if he was cut down with ni remorse cause he was a goblin is any less evil than killing a good aligned person?

If you want to play black and white dungeons and dragons, go for it. But please, don't come here and rain on out parade because wendont abide by some arbitrary rules that you choose to follow.

Besides, R.A. Salvatore has been wailing against this very concept for 25+ years with the story of Drizzt Do Urden. Every game before had Drow as inherently evil, bit now they can be whatever alignment they want to be. Which is the way it should be with ANY and ALL races. If you settle for a stereotypical game, then you are really missing out on a lot. I enjoy non stereotypical DMs and I wouldn't have my OoTS any other way.

Thank you Rich, for wailing against the walls of stereotypes, even for goblinkind everywhere
PS, even Roy isn't the stereotypical fighter, having gone to Fighter school and not having Intelligence as his dump stat.

[Rizzer]

Possibly my point has already been made in this thread, but I'll try to express it in my own words:

So either "The Order of the Stick" is about the black and white, binary world of tabletop gaming ... or else it's about a more nuanced, complex world that doesn't at all resemble tabletop gaming

Seems to me this is the heart of the problem. You're mixing up table-top gaming with roleplay gaming.

At its best* D&D is a role playing game (though 4ed certainly gets in the way of that).

*in my opinion

[veti]

There's an important distinction I think. If you're trying to corrupt someone and they're wavering, perhaps about to do something irredeemable, it's okay for the corrupter to continue pressing the person further, to force the person into acting.

On the other hand, if you're trying to redeem someone, you can show them all the advantage of good, you can give them the opportunity and lay out everything perfectly, but you CAN'T force them into taking that final step. Redemption has to be an act of choice.

Hmmm - I have philosophical issues with the idea of any action being "irredeemable". But setting that aside for one moment...

If you intervene to press whatever button it is that your padawan is wavering over, then you're the one who pressed it - it's not his action, so he can't be corrupted by it, not directly at least. There would have to be some separate mental track that affects the person to make the "corruption" take hold. "Oh my gods, we did it, well he did it but I helped him, I'm EEVIL!!!"

And surely you can imagine a similar effect in reverse? Your protege has carved herway through 183 goblin warriors, only to find a small green baby blinking owlishly up at her. She hesitates, sword still raised - then you pick up the child and start to feed it. You've taken the final action, but you've still made it easier for her to think of herself as the kind of person who spared a goblin child.

Personally, I believe both corruption and redemption are special cases of the "sunk cost fallacy" - the belief that you're "committed" to a certain moral course because of what you've done in the past, whereas in fact you could decide either way at any moment. Xykon has a speech somewhere, I can't find it now, about evil being measured by "how much you're prepared to debase yourself for power", going on to mention that he ripped his own flesh off his body for it. There's no actual law that forces him to continue to be evil - but if he stopped, he'd have to admit and accept what he's become. That's what makes him effectively "irredeemable" - redemption for him would have a huge cost, far worse than merely destroying himself.

Sartre called this sort of self-deception "bad faith". Most of us practise it to some extent, but the alignment system in D&D actually institutionalises it.

[Kell]

I've read through a good portion of this thread, and the discussion is fascinating. What bothers me, though, is the idea that creating inherently evil races such as goblins is somehow akin to racism.

I've DMed for over 10 years now and played plenty of evil goblins and good goblins. (I also had a good kobold NPC I particularly liked.) On the other hand, I have had races that were completely bloodthirsty to the last.

Others have posited why they feel fantasy creations can be wholly evil, and I don't have anything to add to that argument at this point. What I'm curious about is whether other forms of racial distinction are also negative. According to traditional rules, only humans receive no modifiers to ability scores. Dwarves are traditionally less charismatic, goblins less intelligent, half-orcs suffer penalties to both. This means that the smartest half-orc would never be as smart as the smartest human. They are, strictly by the book, intellectually inferior as a race. Shouldn't that be considered repugnant, too? I mean, if we're just treating all fantasy races as different-colored humans, isn't that a very dangerous precedent to set?

[ti'esar]

Xykon has a speech somewhere, I can't find it now

SoD, I believe. I think it's his big lecture to Redcloak, but that I'm less sure of.

[JackRackham]

Sorry, I missed this in my earlier post:



I CARE. I care, and every goddamn person in the world should care, because it's objectification of a sentient being. It doesn't matter that the sentient being in question is a fictional species, it's saying that it's OK for people who look funny to be labeled as Evil by default, because hey, like 60% of them do Evil things sometimes! That is racism. It is a short hop to real-world racism once we decide it is acceptable to make blanket negative statements about entire races of people.

Our fiction reflects who we are as a civilization, and it disgusts me that so many people think it's acceptable to label creatures with only cosmetic differences from us as inherently Evil. I may like the alignment system overall, but that is its ugliest implication, and one that I think needs to be eliminated from the game. I will ALWAYS write against that idea until it has been eradicated from the lexicon of fantasy literature. If they called me up and asked me to help them work on 5th Edition, I would stamp it out from the very game itself. It is abhorrent to me in every way.

So, complaining that I am failing to uphold it is the best compliment you could give me.

In reading this, I went from loving Mr. Burlew's art to wanting to dude-marry him as a person. No sapient, free-willed being can be "always evil" or even "usually evil." They may live in societies in which some of the cultural norms or institutions are evil, or silly, or insensitive. We do; every culture does. Some more than others - if we assume an objective codification of actions into shades of good, evil, law, chaos and neutrality.

I don't care if the beings were magically created from negative energy, designed to be the evil minions of the world's first BBEG, and live in a society designed such that every single norm and rule conforms to the ideal of Evil. The individuals can and will, by definition, still run the gamut of the alignment system - albeit with the possibility for a greater proportion of ideologically evil being - as some will still choose to be good.

Killing sapient beings, in a game, fiction, art, reality or any other media or forum, should not be taken lightly, regardless of race in either fantasy terms (in which there are biological differences between the races) or real life terms (in which these differences are so minuscule as to be laughable).

[bluewind95]

Re: racism stuff.

I think that what Rich Burlew means is not that creating always evil races is racist in the same way that real-world racist actions towards, well, other races are. He's not saying that if you do this, you are suddenly a racist, awful person that ought to belong to *insert race-exterminating group*.

What I read in his posts and what I think he more means is that the action of creating always-evil races and not questioning it in any deep way is rooted in exactly the same kinds of thought processes that, in the real world, lead to racism. If we say it's OK to do this, to state that there can (or should!) be races that are intrinsically "lesser", less deserving of life, you are validating the same kinds of thoughts that lead to racism. It's not "making you racist". It's just validating the thought processes that lead cutlures to racism.

And, raelly. What *is* the point in just mindlessly accepting those "easy" things? How does exploring deeper questions cheapen a piece of work? In my opinion, it makes it even better. We only learn something when we question things, and the point of art is to evoke feelings, and thoughts in the audience, and to communicate them from the artist. I daresay OotS is a piece of art.

Regarding the "true nature" of D&D, it is my impression that the game has simple basic rules... but they are provided as a basic template. And at the same time it is made to be tailored into *any* kind of setting, albeit with modification of the basic template. This is even encouraged. So yes, the raw rules say alignment is "simple" (and even that is no consensus). However, there is nothing stopping an author from creating a setting in which the alignment system exists and it is also wrong. And this setting is still true to the nature of D&D.

And to Rich:

Whether you're reading this or not (hopefully you are!), I gotta say. That post, where you say that you care and why... my respect of you has increased a million-fold. Kudos to you, sir. You're definitely a true artist, both in talent and at heart. That is no small achievement.

[Niesra]

I've read through a good portion of this thread, and the discussion is fascinating. What bothers me, though, is the idea that creating inherently evil races such as goblins is somehow akin to racism.

I've DMed for over 10 years now and played plenty of evil goblins and good goblins. (I also had a good kobold NPC I particularly liked.) On the other hand, I have had races that were completely bloodthirsty to the last.

Others have posited why they feel fantasy creations can be wholly evil, and I don't have anything to add to that argument at this point. What I'm curious about is whether other forms of racial distinction are also negative. According to traditional rules, only humans receive no modifiers to ability scores. Dwarves are traditionally less charismatic, goblins less intelligent, half-orcs suffer penalties to both. This means that the smartest half-orc would never be as smart as the smartest human. They are, strictly by the book, intellectually inferior as a race. Shouldn't that be considered repugnant, too? I mean, if we're just treating all fantasy races as different-colored humans, isn't that a very dangerous precedent to set?

I guess the original issue of this thread was that when you apply real world logic to a fantasy world in order to create a new setting, the complexity of the situation and the potential for inconsistencies increases at an incredibly high rate, and in the end every detail sets a precedent for the rules of this new world.

Like you say, if indeed all fantasy races and species are sentient beings and are treated as merely different-looking humans then any "inherent" difference that is attributed to being a dwarf or halfling or goblin is as repugnant and treating them differently solely because they are from that race. However the issue is not the fact that either of them traditionally have higher or lower intelligence or charisma or strength, but that in a fantasy setting each character immediately has bonuses and penalties to modifiers based on race. I think that flipping the tables would be useful here. Let's say that half-orcs and halflings and goblins and humans and dwarfs from the fantasy world want to make a game akin to DnD based on the races of the real world.

In the US, for example, we see categories like "White," "Black or African American," etc. for demographics. On average, those "white" have a higher income, higher rates of employment, are more educated, etc. To say, however, that this is true for everyone categorized as such is racist (or really stupid). But in a game that is supposed to profile how those "white" and those "black/African american" typically are in relation to each other, using the average to write down their social, economic, physical, mental, emotional, etc. characteristics and create a profile does not sound particularly disgusting or racist for the purposes of a game. It turns out it is, and now those in the fantasy world who have not had a taste of our "real" world will assume that all "white" people and all "black" people exhibit the characteristics of their statistically accurate but dehumanizing profile.

To say such this race is evil and this other race is good would be, in my example, like saying a race is rich or poor, tall or short, etc. It's an aggregate reality that is true statistically but need not encompass any given portion of the race or any given individual within it. I think this is the point a lot of people have been making, and I do understand how it may be equated to racism.

The second issue is a bit more delicate, in that this world we created based on statistical realities now imposes inherent constraints on the people who live in it. Well, I think that the brilliance of OotS comes in depicting this conflict. If you're a half-orc and have intelligence penalties, it does not mean you cannot apply yourself to the point you outsmart every single other player from any other race. It does, however, mean that when you do anything you will have the intelligence penalty hanging over your head. Is that not akin to African Americans being turned down from jobs more often than their White counterparts? To put an example: Studies show that given two identical resumes that differ only by the name of the applicant, the one with the ethnically strong name will be called back less often. It does not mean you are worth less, but the world, on average, perceives you as such. That is racism, and it's as sad or disgusting as the "reality" of inherent penalties and bonuses, inherently good or evil races, and so on.

[JackRackham]

Bluewind, I think you have it right, exactly. It's not that playing "goblins are evil" d&d makes you a terrible person. It's that the thought processes behind that and actual racism are the same and playing without stopping to acknowledge or struggle with that shows the same kind of intellectual laziness and lack of empathy that allows racism to flourish in the real world.

Niesra, to my mind the ability penalties are actually less of an issue. Ability penalties represent averages, for one. So, it's possible to be a level 1 orc with 30 INT - though not as a PC. But that's not the point. The point is that races in the real world are almost identical genetically and physically. D&D races are not. D&D races are more like breeds of dog than human races. Yes, some are smarter, cuter or stronger than others, they are almost subspecies (not quite). Of course, some of it gets to the point of being, most likely, different species and then you have some faulty science or faulty logic or something as game terms get mixed up. Different 'creature types' probably couldn't breed in the real world. But, basically, d&d posits that their races ARE physically different - which is plausible and does not require any type of flawed thinking. To say another sapient race is always or usually evil, and to make that an inherent racial characteristic, in a sapient race requires either a misunderstanding. of sapience and free will and some very disturbing thought patterns.

[Emanick]

To say another sapient race is always or usually evil, and to make that an inherent racial characteristic, in a sapient race requires either a misunderstanding. of sapience and free will and some very disturbing thought patterns.

Why?

Humans can be "good" because we have a natural capacity for mercy, empathy, love, self-sacrifice, etc. We can be "evil" because we also have a natural capacity towards selfishness, callousness, anger, hatred, violence, etc. Because of how our psychology and our natural tendencies work, it is both common and (relatively) easy for us to gravitate towards either type of emotion. And while feeling either type of emotion does not MAKE one good or evil, any more than thinking about killing, say, an orc makes one good or evil, the degree to which one is affected by, and chooses to be ruled by, either type will generally determine one's actions to the point where one's alignment on the good-evil axis can be determined.

Is any of this relevant to whether or not we are sapient? No, not at all. Sapience entails the ability to think consciously, lucidly and deeply. It does not entail the tendency to have a humanlike moral and emotional spectrum. Imagine a sapient species with a brain that has no tendency towards mercy, empathy, love or self-sacrifice. Would members of this species have perfect free will? Yes, but they would have no (or very little) DESIRE to behave in a way that we could call Good. This wouldn't be because of their lack of free will, but because their brain chemistry was wired differently than our own. As such, the species would be Usually or Always Evil, and such an alignment could not be significantly changed by any sort of "rehabilitation."

[JackRackham]

Why?

Humans can be "good" because we have a natural capacity for mercy, empathy, love, self-sacrifice, etc. We can be "evil" because we also have a natural capacity towards selfishness, callousness, anger, hatred, violence, etc. Because of how our psychology and our natural tendencies work, it is both common and (relatively) easy for us to gravitate towards either type of emotion. And while feeling either type of emotion does not MAKE one good or evil, any more than thinking about killing, say, an orc makes one good or evil, the degree to which one is affected by, and chooses to be ruled by, either type will generally determine one's actions to the point where one's alignment on the good-evil axis can be determined.

Is any of this relevant to whether or not we are sapient? No, not at all. Sapience entails the ability to think consciously, lucidly and deeply. It does not entail the tendency to have a humanlike moral and emotional spectrum. Imagine a sapient species with a brain that has no tendency towards mercy, empathy, love or self-sacrifice. Would members of this species have perfect free will? Yes, but they would have no (or very little) DESIRE to behave in a way that we could call Good. This wouldn't be because of their lack of free will, but because their brain chemistry was wired differently than our own. As such, the species would be Usually or Always Evil, and such an alignment could not be significantly changed by any sort of "rehabilitation."

Why? Because as long as there is choice, there is always the potential for one to make the right choice. As long as there is thought, there is the potential for empathy. And, from an evolutionary perspective, we developed these big, sexy brains because we were social animals. Other animals with bigger brains are social animals as well. Social animals have empathy and self-sacrifice, because that's where the advantage of living in a group comes from. Predators and others that don't have empathy (an assumption we make, in any event) have much smaller brains and lower cognitive functions, because there is much less to process. Strictly speaking, big, complex brains are the direct result of empathy and self-sacrifice.

Even in a world where evolution does not predominate, moreover, the very ability to "think deeply," as you put it, equates to an ability to empathise. To think deeply, we must be able to think imaginatively (think usage of symbols, like letters and words for the most basic example). To think imaginatively implies the ability to imagine things we've not experienced directly. This requires empathy. Putting oneself in another's shoes is not only useful for holding a society together, it is one of the most important elements for learning anything, ever.

To look at it from another angle, meanwhile, if one assumes a Goblin or Orc doesn't have empathy, they can't BE evil, as they are incapable of understanding morality and incapable of understanding that others are hurt by their actions or that they have feelings and can be wronged to begin with. Such a creature cannot murder. When it kills, it's hunting.To assign a moral judgement to their actions would be no different than to judge a shark or a wolf.

To assign this level of understanding to a free-willed, free-thinking, intelligent, humanoid is to dehumanise them and to objectify them - which is exactly what we do when we want to attack some race or country or ethnicity in real life. That is why that manner of thinking is a problem. It LITERALLY causes almost all war, killing and rape in the world.

Evil is a decision (If a toddler stabs you with scissors, would you charge them with assault?). It is saying, "Sure, this being will suffer, but I will benefit," and then doing the act. It is doing the act knowing it is wrong. Alternatively, it can be inventing a justification (X is evil, it's not bad if I kill X), convincing yourself of its truth, then doing something you know is wrong with a clear conscience.

[DeadmanXI]

And this also answers my question as to why goblins are green people while wights are 'bits of bone and dark magic' who are wholly evil. Goblins are biological, and all biological sentients are entitled to benefit of the doubt regardless of their stat block. They are natural. Wights, by contrast, are overtly supernatural, literal abominations created by dark magic who have no place in the world.

In OOTSworld at any rate.

My question is answered. Thank you.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

A bit off-topic, but there's absolutely no proof that this or anything resembling it is true in the OoTS universe. We have Redcloak's word that it is...but Redcloak is a proven bigot (see: his opinions on humans), as well as one of the main villains, so his opinion on such things is demonstratably not necessarily gospel.

Hell, I'd argue he's actually incapable of being correct on free-willed undead who maintain their personalities like Liches and Vampires, as they continue to have agendas, fee will, etc.

His only argument on free-willed undead being empty machines is that he controls Xykon...in a manner he could easily control a living being, and that Xykon is an awful monster...which he was even when he was alive. So his argument is really pretty shaky.

Now feeding Tsukiko to the wights (who are intelligent)could be an argument the other way...but considering that his control over them was enough to make them kill themselves, it's not a very good one. Hell, maybe they did love her...they apologized to her after all, his control could've just been enough to make them kill her anyway.

...

Now, I'm not actually saying anything about the nature of undead in the OotS universe, for all I know Redcloak is substantially correct...but we only have his word for that, and he's the definition of a biased source.

[Username_too_lo]

You're all good comic fantasy devotees, right? I find it weird that no-one's mentioned the two Terry Pratchett books Unseen Academicals (Orc created to kill develops humanity) and Snuff (Goblins are treated as sub race, but turns out they are just different)

[Morty]

You're all good comic fantasy devotees, right? I find it weird that no-one's mentioned the two Terry Pratchett books Unseen Academicals (Orc created to kill develops humanity) and Snuff (Goblins are treated as sub race, but turns out they are just different)

I'm currently reading through Snuff and it also occured to me how relevant that book is relevant to this discussion. It really delves into all the unfortunate implications of a whole sapient race being reduced to vermin.
It also occurs to me how the common treatment of "monster races" in fantasy completely reverts the normal process of justice. The basis of law enforcement is that a person is innocent until proven guilty, but goblins, orcs or what have you in fantasy are guilty until it's somehow proven they're not vicious monsters who deserve to be stabbed and shot on sight.

[Emanick]

Why? Because as long as there is choice, there is always the potential for one to make the right choice. As long as there is thought, there is the potential for empathy. And, from an evolutionary perspective, we developed these big, sexy brains because we were social animals. Other animals with bigger brains are social animals as well. Social animals have empathy and self-sacrifice, because that's where the advantage of living in a group comes from. Predators and others that don't have empathy (an assumption we make, in any event) have much smaller brains and lower cognitive functions, because there is much less to process. Strictly speaking, big, complex brains are the direct result of empathy and self-sacrifice.

Even in a world where evolution does not predominate, moreover, the very ability to "think deeply," as you put it, equates to an ability to empathise. To think deeply, we must be able to think imaginatively (think usage of symbols, like letters and words for the most basic example). To think imaginatively implies the ability to imagine things we've not experienced directly. This requires empathy. Putting oneself in another's shoes is not only useful for holding a society together, it is one of the most important elements for learning anything, ever.

To look at it from another angle, meanwhile, if one assumes a Goblin or Orc doesn't have empathy, they can't BE evil, as they are incapable of understanding morality and incapable of understanding that others are hurt by their actions or that they have feelings and can be wronged to begin with. Such a creature cannot murder. When it kills, it's hunting.To assign a moral judgement to their actions would be no different than to judge a shark or a wolf.

To assign this level of understanding to a free-willed, free-thinking, intelligent, humanoid is to dehumanise them and to objectify them - which is exactly what we do when we want to attack some race or country or ethnicity in real life. That is why that manner of thinking is a problem. It LITERALLY causes almost all war, killing and rape in the world.

Evil is a decision (If a toddler stabs you with scissors, would you charge them with assault?). It is saying, "Sure, this being will suffer, but I will benefit," and then doing the act. It is doing the act knowing it is wrong. Alternatively, it can be inventing a justification (X is evil, it's not bad if I kill X), convincing yourself of its truth, then doing something you know is wrong with a clear conscience.

There's a difference between being able to imagine yourself in someone's shoes and caring about them. There's a difference between understanding that others suffer pain and feeling sorry that others suffer pain. The fact that you cannot conceive of how such thinking is possible does not mean that such thinking is not possible, period. It may be impossible for humanity, but the very point of creating a fictional nonhuman species is to create scenarios that wouldn't be possible with humans.

Is it useless to think about a nonhuman species that thinks in a fundamentally different way from humans, a species that sheds no light whatsoever on the human condition because there are no similarities in its behavior to real-world behavior? Perhaps. And that's why Rich, and most great authors who write about nonhumans, tend to give them human mentalities. But that does not mean that such a species is impossible or illogical.

Why couldn't a species exist that understands that what it's doing is wrong but has no biological reason to care? If I'm going to kill myself, I have to have a reason. That doesn't mean I have no free will, and that I am incapable of killing myself. It means that my psychology is such that I have to perceive a reason to value performing such an act. Why couldn't a creature exist that has the ability to imagine how others think but absolutely no compulsion to care about how, or if, others live? Yes, it's unlikely to develop through the process of evolution. But there is no evolution in OOTS, or in most other D&D worlds.

If it had no inbuilt biological reason, compulsion or compunction to care about others, then I suppose a creature might still decide, as an end result of intellectual rationalization, that the lives of others indeed had meaning. So I agree that this race would not be "Always Evil," if "always" is taken literally. Out of the tens of billions of people who have ever lived, I imagine somebody somewhere has killed him or herself without a good reason. But such a thing scarcely ever happens. And I can't imagine a species that has absolutely no tendency to empathize with others beyond simply understanding how others think and feel becoming Good very often. Only in the human mind are the ability to understand the feeling of others and the ability to care about others intrinsically linked.

[Nerd_Paladin]

In honesty, when my laptop went kaput for a week I figured this discussion would have probably died down in the meantime and I should just leave the matter lie. But of course, it didn't...which is curiously pleasing. I wish I could go back to the point I left off and take things from there, 300 posts or so ago, but for now just this stands out to me:

Why couldn't a species exist that understands that what it's doing is wrong but has no biological reason to care?

Well, realistically, it couldn't...but this is fantasy, not reality, so yes, we may imagine creatures with whatever characteristics we desire, even ones that seem to subvert our basic ideas about what makes people, people. And being a creature of fantasy, there really are no grounds to say that the depiction is "wrong"; the WORST criticism that can be leveled against such a depiction is that it's "shallow" or "doesn't make sense", but since fiction in general and fantasy in particular is about creating abstractions and simplifications (no story, no matter how complex, doesn't have to resort to being reductive about something sooner or later, if for no other reason than that a story has only a finite capacity for material), that's not a bad thing per quod.

[B. Dandelion]

Is it useless to think about a nonhuman species that thinks in a fundamentally different way from humans, a species that sheds no light whatsoever on the human condition because there are no similarities in its behavior to real-world behavior? Perhaps. And that's why Rich, and most great authors who write about nonhumans, tend to give them human mentalities. But that does not mean that such a species is impossible or illogical.

Why couldn't a creature exist that has the ability to imagine how others think but absolutely no compulsion to care about how, or if, others live? Yes, it's unlikely to develop through the process of evolution. But there is no evolution in OOTS, or in most other D&D worlds.

In order to set the stage for this not impossible or illogical creature to exist, you've had to do away with the process of evolution and posit beings that are made out of magic. How can you be logically talking about a biological creature when you aren't even talking about biology? You're talking about magic. Magic can certainly posit the existence of an "evil" race, but you can't posit a "biologically evil" race without -- I want to say "redefining" biology, but really you've just done away with it entirely.

I think there are serious flaws with the idea of defining a creature by its biological limitations and then pronouncing it "evil". Ponder an alien mind, ponder a magical mind -- sure, but I don't think you're going to get many insights into pondering a magical mind we're pretending ISN'T magical. It seems to just turn into a process of demonizing biological behaviors we don't understand and/or find creepy.

[phantomreader42]

Why couldn't a species exist that understands that what it's doing is wrong but has no biological reason to care?

...

Why couldn't a creature exist that has the ability to imagine how others think but absolutely no compulsion to care about how, or if, others live?

Such a being COULD exist, but only if it were incapable of being harmed, killed, aided, or affected in any way whatsoever by the actions of any other being. For such a being to exist, it would have to be incorporeal, immortal, sterile, emotionless, and incapable of communication with other beings. Even imagining such a being, it would be rather difficult to write a story about it that humans could understand or would have any interest in.

Even if one is a sociopath, there is reason to at least pretend to care about the lives of others because OTHERS HAVE AN AFFECT ON YOUR LIFE!

So, if you want to posit a creature that cannot be affected in any way by others, I guess you can, but then logically it probably can't affect any other creature either so it's actions are really just not even relevant to anything but itself.

[Emanick]

In order to set the stage for this not impossible or illogical creature to exist, you've had to do away with the process of evolution and posit beings that are made out of magic. How can you be logically talking about a biological creature when you aren't even talking about biology? You're talking about magic. Magic can certainly posit the existence of an "evil" race, but you can't posit a "biologically evil" race without -- I want to say "redefining" biology, but really you've just done away with it entirely.

I think there are serious flaws with the idea of defining a creature by its biological limitations and then pronouncing it "evil". Ponder an alien mind, ponder a magical mind -- sure, but I don't think you're going to get many insights into pondering a magical mind we're pretending ISN'T magical. It seems to just turn into a process of demonizing biological behaviors we don't understand and/or find creepy.

I'm not talking about magic. I'm talking about how the brain of a created alien race could hypothetically work. But I suppose that since we're talking about fictional creatures anyway, the difference between alien biology and "magical biology" amounts to nitpicking and is unimportant.

Serious flaws if you want to tell the race you've invented to enhance the story, yes. But sometimes we don't want a new race to complicate the morality of, and enhance the drama of, our fictional setting. Sometimes we simply need an "other" to serve as an enemy. I don't go to D&D for moral lessons. I go to literature or the real world or the real world for that. I go to D&D to enjoy the tactical dimension of the game, and I don't want somebody telling me that the slobbering monster in front of me should be reasoned with because it only ate the children in the next village over because the human race has mistreated its kind for untold millennia.

Sure, pondering an alien or a magical mind (I see no practical distinction between the two; I talked about biology in my last post simply because I wanted to figure out how a hypothetically nonmagical being could have inherent evil tendencies) isn't going to yield much insight. I agree with you there. I just don't agree that one HAS to play D&D as an exercise in ethics, unless the DM thrusts you into situations that demand it. If the players are fine with playing D&D as an exercise in battle tactics, what right do you have to criticize them for being "intolerant" and "demonizing" of biological behaviors that they don't understand?

[Kish]

If the players are fine with playing D&D as an exercise in battle tactics, what right do you have to criticize them for being "intolerant" and "demonizing" of biological behaviors that they don't understand?

Whether that actually qualifies as "playing D&D," rather than playing "a homebrew game made up from a fraction of D&D's rules," is at best debatable.

Is there anything wrong with playing a homebrew game made up from a fraction of D&D's rules? Of course not. Is there something wrong with arguing from the premise that a homebrew game made up from a fraction of D&D's rules, is D&D? I would say yes, yes there is.

[rbetieh]

I dont see any reason to over complicate things with biology when evolutionary psychology is all you need. Lions kill Hyenas and don't eat them, because they are competitors. Two human cultures vying for a piece of fertile land always consider each other Evil. The game assumes you are going to play a dude that looks 'like you' and that your dude is going to have to face competitors that don't look 'like you', they obviously need to have an opposite outlook to yours so you good/they evil.

But, like I said, even if they weren't evil, people would prefer to use them as PC fodder over Humans, Elves, and Dwarves because they are a MONSTEROUS Race. And if you give them some backstory to try to prevent that, people will either not read it or not care, or worse yet WILL read it and identify with the monster race, leading them to conclude that the writers of said book think of them as monsters. You dont think so? Make me a cultural backstory that is so different that I can't possibly consider them a straw race for a past or current human culture. Not. Going. To. Happen.

[B. Dandelion]

I'm not talking about magic. I'm talking about how the brain of a created alien race could hypothetically work. But I suppose that since we're talking about fictional creatures anyway, the difference between alien biology and "magical biology" amounts to nitpicking and is unimportant.

A biological race whose creation has nothing to do with biology can only be magical. "Magical biology", like "magical science", is oxymoronic. You can create a verisimilitude of science by making it operate under consistent rules (Magic A Is Magic A) with logical applications of those rules, but it is still, fundamentally, magic -- meaning, yes, impossible. Your inherently evil, or mostly evil, race isn't evil because of its biology but because of magic, which arbitrarily decided it should be evil.

Serious flaws if you want to tell the race you've invented to enhance the story, yes. But sometimes we don't want a new race to complicate the morality of, and enhance the drama of, our fictional setting. Sometimes we simply need an "other" to serve as an enemy. I don't go to D&D for moral lessons. I go to literature or the real world or the real world for that. I go to D&D to enjoy the tactical dimension of the game, and I don't want somebody telling me that the slobbering monster in front of me should be reasoned with because it only ate the children in the next village over because the human race has mistreated its kind for untold millennia.

Okay now I am confused. You think you can ponder, hypothetically, the way this magical creature thinks in a way that makes sense and is logical but you don't want to think, and resent the idea that you should, about the moral ramifications of you killing it?

I was saying your logic was flawed, not your morals. Since it seemed you wanted to think about how it could hypothetically work, I didn't think you were going to get all weirdly selective about what parts of its existence were worth consideration.

Sure, pondering an alien or a magical mind (I see no practical distinction between the two;

An alien mind isn't necessarily oxymoronic.

I talked about biology in my last post simply because I wanted to figure out how a hypothetically nonmagical being could have inherent evil tendencies) isn't going to yield much insight. I agree with you there. I just don't agree that one HAS to play D&D as an exercise in ethics, unless the DM thrusts you into situations that demand it. If the players are fine with playing D&D as an exercise in battle tactics, what right do you have to criticize them for being "intolerant" and "demonizing" of biological behaviors that they don't understand?

You are reading into that a moral condemnation that wasn't intended. There do seem to be a lot of people on this thread quick to say "how DARE you judge me for not wanting to think?" You want to play-pretend kill things that are evil for reasons that don't make biological sense, that's fine, but don't turn around and say it isn't impossible or illogical for them to be evil!