Gobbotopia: Subjective or Objective? Alignment or Morality?

[Morty]

I thought we were talking about Gobbotopia, anyway, which involves goblins and hobgoblins, not fiends or mind flayers.

[Jasdoif]

In modern science, if a result is not statistically significant, it is ignored, and we can confidently use the word "all."

Which has no bearing here. Due to the nature of stat blocks defining creatures in-universe, there's a 100% correlation between the mind flayer's stat block saying the mind flayer is Good and the mind flayer being Good. To claim that as statistical insignificance is to claim there isn't a relationship between the mind flayer being listed as Good and the mind flayer being Good.

More importantly, only knowing of one Good mind flayer doesn't mean that there's only one mind flayer that is Good. Ignoring a data point because it doesn't conform to your hypothesis isn't science.

[hamishspence]

Which has no bearing here. Due to the nature of stat blocks defining creatures in-universe, there's a 100% correlation between the mind flayer's stat block saying the mind flayer is Good and the mind flayer being Good. To claim that as statistical insignificance is to claim there isn't a relationship between the mind flayer being listed as Good and the mind flayer being Good.

More importantly, only knowing of one Good mind flayer doesn't mean that there's only one mind flayer that is Good. Ignoring a data point because it doesn't conform to your hypothesis isn't science.

I'm not sure if his alignment was ever officially given, but Estriss, the illithid spelljammer captain in the Cloakmaster novel series, was pretty likeable and helpful to the protagonist at least.

[theNater]

Since the Book of Vile Darkness/Book of Exalted Deeds are not part of the OSR, I cannot do so. But if you have access to the physical copies of the book, there is a list, with examples, of actions that are Evil, and doing those actions makes you Evil.

No one disagrees with this. It's the irredeemable part that is disputed, and such a list provides no support for that part.

[HalfTangible]

I'm not sure if his alignment was ever officially given, but Estriss, the illithid spelljammer captain in the Cloakmaster novel series, was pretty likeable and helpful to the protagonist at least.

You don't necessarily need to be unlikable or harm the protagonist in order to be evil.

I thought we were talking about Gobbotopia, anyway, which involves goblins and hobgoblins, not fiends or mind flayers.

"Usually evil" is something I always took to mean that you're more likely to find an evil one if you pick one at random. Especially for creatures like Hobgoblins and Goblins which (by oots' rules) live impoverished and with a burning hatred for all because

Spoiler: Start Of Darkness

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they were created to be cannon fodder and their god ascended after being betrayed and murdered by the 'good' kingdoms. Even if you have a nation like Gobbotopia, which seeks to make itself a recognized nation, there's still anger and resentment for good-aligned beings because of what they did to the Dark One and have continued to do for centuries, even millennia since then.

This is even more true for a universe where Good and Evil are cosmic forces you can align yourself with, rather than morality descriptors. I'm reminded of one DND campaign where Pelor and Nerull were rewritten to be elder dieties of Good and Evil, respectively; Pelor's greatest paladin (implied to be Epic/Mythic) was reverent and respectful of Nerull, because their concerns were far beyond petty mortal notions of Good and Evil.

"Inherently evil" to me sounds like the creature in question has some necessary or important biological function that runs counter to the good of sapient life (vampires need to drink the blood of the living, mind flayers eat sentient brains, etc etc)

But above all: Individuals are always the exception to the rules. (not necessarily in every way, obviously, but you get the idea)

[Shulk]

I need to find a better moral equivilent of goblintopia than "Somewhere between Nazi germany, the soviet union, and possibly a demented canada..."

[hamishspence]

You don't necessarily need to be unlikable or harm the protagonist in order to be evil.

TV Tropes at least, said he was "LN with some good tendencies"

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph.../AscendedDemon

(tabletop games section)

It also mentions another LN one "Sangalor of the Secrets".

[Fyraltari]

I need to find a better moral equivilent of goblintopia than "Somewhere between Nazi germany, the soviet union, and possibly a demented canada..."

You won't because ascribing alignment or morality to real world communities is nigh-impossible. And against forum rules.

[georgie_leech]

Except it does. In modern science, if a result is not statistically significant, it is ignored, and we can confidently use the word "all."

That's not how that works. Statistical analysis can disregard outliers as an error or aberration; Things not working how we think they should work is how progress gets made. They most definitely did not regard Mercury's orbit not behaving as Newton predicted as something to be ignored; it led to the development of Relativity.

[Lacuna Caster]

More importantly, only knowing of one Good mind flayer doesn't mean that there's only one mind flayer that is Good. Ignoring a data point because it doesn't conform to your hypothesis isn't science.

Yeah, but okay, let's imagine that 1% of Mind Flayers are noble self-sacrificing creatures that specifically restrict themselves to dining on the wicked whom they slew in just and proper combat. Let's say they save a hundred innocents every year for a hundred years before they eventually die in battle or commit ritual suicide when they can't find any more of the wicked to consume. The other 99% are regular Mind Flayers who need to eat at least one person a month, every year for 100 years. Let's say half of those are 'innocent'.

That's: 100 x 99 x 12 / 2 ~= 50,000 innocents slain, and 100 x 1 x 100 = 10,000 innocents saved, per 100 illithids per 100 years. From a brute mathematical standpoint, if you waved a magic wand and erased all illithids, you're... still saving a lot of lives.

I mean, in terms of life cycle they're pretty-much nextdoor to the Xenomorphs from the Aliens franchise. Nobody who'd seen their entire platoon, or most of their follow colonists, or their surrogate daughter, wiped out by chestbursting larvae is going to be especially sympathetic to the notion that a tiny minority of the creatures could be domesticated and harnessed for military purposes. They're going to start with the flamethrowers and work their way up to "Nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure".

[Fyraltari]

Yeah, but okay, let's imagine that 1% of Mind Flayers are noble self-sacrificing creatures that specifically restrict themselves to dining on the wicked whom they slew in just and proper combat. Let's say they save a hundred innocents every year for a hundred years before they eventually die in battle or commit ritual suicide when they can't find any more of the wicked to consume. The other 99% are regular Mind Flayers who need to eat at least one person a month, every year for 100 years. Let's say half of those are 'innocent'.

That's: 100 x 99 x 12 / 2 ~= 50,000 innocents slain, and 100 x 1 x 100 = 10,000 innocents saved, per 100 illithids per 100 years. From a brute mathematical standpoint, if you waved a magic wand and erased all illithids, you're... still saving a lot of lives.

I mean, in terms of life cycle they're pretty-much nextdoor to the Xenomorphs from the Aliens franchise. Nobody who'd seen their entire platoon, or most of their follow colonists, or their surrogate daughter, wiped out by chestbursting larvae is going to be especially sympathetic to the notion that a tiny minority of the creatures could be domesticated and harnessed for military purposes. They're going to start with the flamethrowers and work their way up to "Nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure".

That does not validate indiscriminate killing.
And revenge is not a moral right.

[Jasdoif]

Yeah, but okay, let's imagine that 1% of Mind Flayers are noble self-sacrificing creatures that specifically restrict themselves to dining on the wicked whom they slew in just and proper combat. Let's say they save a hundred innocents every year for a hundred years before they eventually die in battle or commit ritual suicide when they can't find any more of the wicked to consume. The other 99% are regular Mind Flayers who need to eat at least one person a month, every year for 100 years. Let's say half of those are 'innocent'.

That's: 100 x 99 x 12 / 2 ~= 50,000 innocents slain, and 100 x 1 x 100 = 10,000 innocents saved, per 100 illithids per 100 years. From a brute mathematical standpoint, if you waved a magic wand and erased all illithids, you're... still saving a lot of lives.

There's certainly a wide gulf between "Lots and lots and lots of illithids aren't good" and "All illithids can't be good", if that's what you're getting at.

Besides, if you instead don't murder the heroic illithids, you could save even more lives (up to 101 per illithid-year).

[Lacuna Caster]

That does not validate indiscriminate killing.
And revenge is not a moral right.

There's certainly a wide gulf between "Lots and lots and lots of illithids aren't good" and "All illithids can't be good", if that's what you're getting at.

Besides, if you instead don't murder the heroic illithids, you could save even more lives (up to 101 per illithid).

If you had some reliable method of screening the exceptions, sure. I mean sure, this is D&D, you can always employ Detect spells, but mind flayers are natural spellcasters with genius-level intellects. They can probably work around that problem.

It's not really about revenge so much as it's about risk analysis. I mean, let's say you bump into an illithid who appears to very conscientious about following the proper rules for whose brains they may consume, and is virtuous and upstanding in all his dealings, et cetera. Can you be 100% sure that's an illithid who's genuinely reformed, as opposed to an illithid who's very good at faking reform so they can infiltrate your city, enslave key officials and open the gates to their hungry cousins? Because there's bound to be at least a few of those for every reformed soul, and the cost for making a mistake in this matter is very, very high. I can see a certain level of constructive paranoia on this front being, well, Neutral at least.

[Jasdoif]

If you had some reliable method of screening the exceptions, sure. I mean sure, this is D&D, you can always employ Detect spells, but mind flayers are natural spellcasters with genius-level intellects. They can probably work around that problem.

As could spellcasters with genius-level intellects of other species; I don't really see species as a good point of distinction here. Especially as a practical matter: the low-level alter self could give an illithid (or other Small/Medium/Large aberration) the appearance of a human-looking elan, without restricting access to their psionics or mind blast; and such an approach would be sensible for any illithid worried about being targeted for their species.

[Fyraltari]

If you had some reliable method of screening the exceptions, sure. I mean sure, this is D&D, you can always employ Detect spells, but mind flayers are natural spellcasters with genius-level intellects. They can probably work around that problem.

It's not really about revenge so much as it's about risk analysis. I mean, let's say you bump into an illithid who appears to very conscientious about following the proper rules for whose brains they may consume, and is virtuous and upstanding in all his dealings, et cetera. Can you be 100% sure that's an illithid who's genuinely reformed, as opposed to an illithid who's very good at faking reform so they can infiltrate your city, enslave key officials and open the gates to their hungry cousins? Because there's bound to be at least a few of those for every reformed soul, and the cost for making a mistake in this matter is very, very high. I can see a certain level of constructive paranoia on this front being, well, Neutral at least.

There's a difference between being wary of someone and killing them.

the rationnal thing would be to judge the creature [...] on its own merits.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Besides, if you instead don't murder the heroic illithids, you could save even more lives (up to 101 per illithid-year).

The number of people advocating genocide as a solution to a problem in the forums seems to spiking lately.

GW

[Keltest]

There's a difference between being wary of someone and killing them.

the rationnal thing would be to judge the creature [...] on its own merits.

And see how well that worked out for the Order of the Stick?

I don't, as a rule of thumb, believe that evil creatures should be met with automatic violence, but there comes a point where your relative positions on the predator/prey chart necessitates that the burden of proof is on the superpredator to prove that theyre the exception, rather than on the prey proving theyre the norm.

[Fyraltari]

I mean, in terms of life cycle they're pretty-much nextdoor to the Xenomorphs from the Aliens franchise. Nobody who'd seen their entire platoon, or most of their follow colonists, or their surrogate daughter, wiped out by chestbursting larvae is going to be especially sympathetic to the notion that a tiny minority of the creatures could be domesticated and harnessed for military purposes. They're going to start with the flamethrowers and work their way up to "Nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure".

A viewpoint surely shared by an elf who's just seen his house blown to bits and his children pinned to a tree too.

And see how well that worked out for the Order of the Stick?

I don't, as a rule of thumb, believe that evil creatures should be met with automatic violence, but there comes a point where your relative positions on the predator/prey chart necessitates that the burden of proof is on the superpredator to prove that theyre the exception, rather than on the prey proving theyre the norm.

They never doubted the vampire was evil. the logic stays sounds.

[Jasdoif]

The number of people advocating genocide as a solution to a problem in the forums seems to spiking lately.

Oh, I'm fairly sure Lacuna Caster is trying to use a genocide example to highlight the logistics of the situation, not advocating genocide on its own "merits".

I don't, as a rule of thumb, believe that evil creatures should be met with automatic violence, but there comes a point where your relative positions on the predator/prey chart necessitates that the burden of proof is on the superpredator to prove that theyre the exception, rather than on the prey proving theyre the norm.

Insofar as it's a point on the line, and not the line itself, yes.

[Lacuna Caster]

There's a difference between being wary of someone and killing them.

the rationnal thing would be to judge the creature [...] on its own merits.

Yeah... that didn't actually work out so great for the team.

As could spellcasters with genius-level intellects of other species; I don't really see species as a good point of distinction here. Especially as a practical matter: the low-level alter self could give an illithid (or other Small/Medium/Large aberration) the appearance of a human-looking elan, without restricting access to their psionics or mind blast; and such an approach would be sensible for any illithid worried about being targeted for their species.

...Yeah, that's true. You can make an argument that an illithid that doesn't bother to conceal it's form is at least being straight with you.

The question of species isn't entirely irrelevant, though, at least when the species in question is biologically compelled to eat the brains of the living and reproduces parasitically at a potentially prolific rate.

[Fyraltari]

Yeah... that didn't actually work out so great for the team.

Because Roy, Haley and Elan did not heed that advice.
Nor did Belkar, but it is only "luck" that vindicated him, his position was as irrational as the others. He just happened to be right.

[Keltest]

Because Roy, Haley and Elan did not heed that advice.

Funny, I didn't see V making any move to impede the vampire in any way. Its almost like he was deliberately trying to trick them to hide his hostile intent.

[Fyraltari]

Funny, I didn't see V making any move to impede the vampire in any way. Its almost like he was deliberately trying to trick them to hide his hostile intent.

Good point.

[Kish]

Indeed, the comic's treatment of vampires is entirely thematically inconsistent with its treatment of goblins or black dragons.

[Lacuna Caster]

Because Roy, Haley and Elan did not heed that advice.

How so? I don't recall Durkula making any overtly hostile move toward the Order before the Godsmoot?

The V/familicide analogy isn't really apt, I think, because there's nothing about being a black dragon which intrinsically required pinning V's children to a tree. She was just a jerk. Same thing with goblins and beholders and so forth- a lot of them might be jerks in practice, but in theory they could go around being goblins and beholders and secure all the necessities of life and never hurt a soul.

That's not true in the same way for mind flayers. Some very nasty behaviours are baked into them biologically, such that the most you can hope for is that they do very nasty things only to people who well and truly deserve it. And they're wicked smart and can spread like wildfire and can turn your head inside out with a look, and even if they give every appearance of being harmless for extended periods you can never be entirely sure it's not part of a larger ruse.

[zimmerwald1915]

And see how well that worked out for the Order of the Stick?

I don't, as a rule of thumb, believe that evil creatures should be met with automatic violence, but there comes a point where your relative positions on the predator/prey chart necessitates that the burden of proof is on the superpredator to prove that theyre the exception, rather than on the prey proving theyre the norm.

Pretty sure the correct strategy at that point is to accept domestication. Sure, you'll end up slaughtered for food at some point, but one death's as good as another, and the species gains a powerful patron.

[theNater]

...the burden of proof is on the superpredator to prove that theyre the exception, rather than on the prey proving theyre the norm.

How exactly do you envision this working? In particular, what can a superpredator of these types do that will prove they are non-Evil?

[HalfTangible]

Indeed, the comic's treatment of vampires is entirely thematically inconsistent with its treatment of goblins or black dragons.

We've only seen two free-willed vampires, Durkula and Malack. Both of them are worshippers of gods that represent cosmic evil, and are themselves beings whose hunger for blood drives them to make use of other sentient beings.

These are the kind of people you get when you make a "personification of their worst day."

[factotum]

We've only seen two free-willed vampires, Durkula and Malack. Both of them are worshippers of gods that represent cosmic evil, and are themselves beings whose hunger for blood drives them to make use of other sentient beings.

Um, are they? We have precisely zero evidence for what Nergal is like because we've never seen him. As for Hel "hungering for blood", you'll have to point me to the strip where that happened?

[HalfTangible]

Um, are they? We have precisely zero evidence for what Nergal is like because we've never seen him.

Nergal is the god of death and destruction and Malack (cleric of Nergal) planned to perform a desert-wide holocaust in his name.

I'm pretty comfortable with my assumption that Nergal is on evil's side.

As for Hel "hungering for blood"

I was referring to the vampires.