The evil of Lawful Good

[Segev]

I am away from my books and don't know where to look in the SRD right now, but I'm pretty sure that the alignment descriptors are explicitly called out as making casting spells with them an act of the appropriate alignment, by the RAW. I, personally, disagree with some of the designations based on that, and even have trouble defining excuses for some of them that tie in to the setting-fluff, but that is what I recall the RAW being.

[Talakeal]

If you're really going to continue to argue that spells that are literally tagged as evil aren't actually evil because the book doesn't consider it necessary to spell it out then I don't see much point in continuing to belabour the point. The D&D core rules have always been full of implied setting, that people like to ignore for some reason.

Tags are there to tell you how things interact with other things, not to describe what they are.

For example, a black dragon has the tag [water] in its monster manual entry. A black dragon is not literally made of water, you can't use it to put out a fire, or drink it to stay refreshed while crossing the desert, or use it power a water-wheel, or go swimming in it to cool off on a hot day, or brew tea by boiling leaves in it, or any of the other things that would happen if tagging something as water meant it was literally water.

And even if the tag did denote that something was literally something else, there is no rule in the alignment section that using something of one alignment has any impact on your alignment; wielding an holy sword oesn't turn me good, hiring a group of LN mercenaries doesn't turn me lawful, etc...

[Segev]

Subtypes are there, yes, to describe how things interact with other things. They also sometimes have rules associated with them. [Incorporeal] is a subtype with a lot of rules associated with it.

[jjordan]

Why is everyone looking to the rulebook? The rulebook is a set of guidelines that you're explicitly told to modify as needed. Decide if necromancy is evil in your setting and go with it. Is killing everyone who pings evil a player's thing? Throw someone possessed by evil at them. Throw someone who was once possessed by evil and still bears the traces of that vile presence, the tragic scars of a traumatic event, at them. Make a decision for your setting and move forward.

[NNescio]

I am away from my books and don't know where to look in the SRD right now, but I'm pretty sure that the alignment descriptors are explicitly called out as making casting spells with them an act of the appropriate alignment, by the RAW. I, personally, disagree with some of the designations based on that, and even have trouble defining excuses for some of them that tie in to the setting-fluff, but that is what I recall the RAW being.

I remember seeing something to that in effect in a few splatbooks like Eberron Campaign Setting, Book of Vile Darkness and Complete Scoundrel (for Malconvoker, under the Unrestricted Conjuration class feature). Can't recall seeing anything explicit in Core or SRD though.

[Psyren]

It's a moot point anyway - BoVD specifies they're evil in D&D (both casting [Evil] spells and animating undead, so Animate Dead is actually a twofer).

[LibraryOgre]

It's a moot point anyway - BoVD specifies they're evil in D&D (both casting [Evil] spells and animating undead, so Animate Dead is actually a twofer).

Though, as I've pointed out, that only applies if you believe the BoVD; I'm not sure I've even seen a copy, and I don't use the edition it comes from in any substantive way.

[Talakeal]

It's a moot point anyway - BoVD specifies they're evil in D&D (both casting [Evil] spells and animating undead, so Animate Dead is actually a twofer).

Yeah, they sure do, which is why I specified core.

IMO BoED and BoVD are some of the worst books ever written and they make an absolute mess of the game, both crunch and fluff wise, and I ignore pretty much every thing they have to say in my games.

[Lord Torath]

Who still plays 2nd edition? I mothballed those books decades ago.

Me! I do! I still play (house-ruled) 2E! There's a whole group for 2E on Roll20. And Spelljammer and Dark Sun are best in 2E! You know, in my own personal opinion. Which by definition is not your opinion. But it's an opinion, and that's a fact!

Seriously though, you need to be doing some pretty impressive mental gymnastics to take the last line of the spell description as indicating it is neutral. If it's a neutral spell then why would "only evil wizards use it frequently?" Its because it's an evil act. Something that can be forgiven, or justified certainly, but still an evil act. It may be a tool to stop a greater evil. It may even be a tool used for good, but it is still an evil act to perform. That probably isn't an issue at most tables, but if a 2e paladin is hanging around then I can see some interesting roleplaying coming up.

In B/X, BECMI, 1E, and 2E, it is not an evil act. Doesn't mean it isn't usually done by evil people, or used for evil purposes, but the act of casting Animate Dead itself is not evil.

Why is everyone looking to the rulebook? The rulebook is a set of guidelines that you're explicitly told to modify as needed. Decide if necromancy is evil in your setting and go with it. Is killing everyone who pings evil a player's thing? Throw someone possessed by evil at them. Throw someone who was once possessed by evil and still bears the traces of that vile presence, the tragic scars of a traumatic event, at them. Make a decision for your setting and move forward.

Exactly! Which is What Mark Hall does for his games.

Heck, another thing I really like from 2E is that a Paladin can "Detect Evil Intent", not "Evil". So you can tell if that generally selfless and sweet innkeeper is nursing thoughts about murdering her obnoxious supplier who mixed gravel in with the flour he sold her (thoughts which she will repent for the next time she's in church), but not the serial mass-murderer who is currently contemplating whether to order the spiced potatoes or the stewed plums.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The world of D&D is a violent, brutal, bloody world. It is NOT Earth in the 21st century. As D&D is a violent, brutal, bloody world...the punishment is death.

I agree that the pseudo-medieval times D&D operates under tends to favor a more Hobbsian outlook where life is "cruel, brutish and short".

The twist here is that...well....paladins are violent, aggressive warriors that primarily KILL.

Good characters do not accept this reality. It is not Good to accept the cruelty in the world and do nothing, and it certainly isn't Good to indulge in it. At best, you're dark Neutral if you do that.
Good tries to make the world a better place. That's the basic definition, no matter what specifics you tack on. It doesn't mean trying to be average for your setting, it means trying to be better than average or even to set a new average by inspiring others to follow in your footsteps or free those who already wished they could.

Also, D&D is not a grimdark setting by default. I'd peg the default tone (as much as one exists) as being closer to Konosuba or RWBY than Re: Zero or Attack On Titan; there are nasty monsters and nasty people, but there are also good people who stop those things from actually making the world a terrible place to live.

Essentially, it's "morality as a team", rather than an actual description of behavior. If your "good" doesn't actually act "good", only oppose "evil", then you're playing Team Morality, not morality-as-written.

In isolation, this is not a terrible thing. There's lots of good storytelling potential in a character who thinks of themselves as being in the right by definition, despite their atrocities.
Problems come in when the intent is not so clear, e.g. when some authors (ie, players) think alignment is supposed to describe how just one is rather than how many justifications they find, or when a player is the one who thinks they're playing True LG instead of Designated Hero.
The solution to these problems is simple: Talk it out.

Alignment is just the colour of your team's shirts. They all employ the same actions with the same results. Alignment is nothing but a way to screw over the players.

Alignment is the worst thing to happen to role-playing in the history of RPGs.

No. Alignment, used well, is a useful way to encourage new roleplayers to think about their characters as being different people than the players. It's far from the most elegant mechanic for doing so, but it's the one D&D's been using for forty-odd years, so it's the only one we're sure 6e is going to stick with.

Having moral compunctions can interfere with cooperation & teamwork. This is why the best team members are evil - they have no moral compunctions to get in the way of working together.

On the other hand, they have no moral compunctions against betraying their comrades.
Ideally, the team all has the same (or at least similar) moral compunctions. If you've never been able to get along with a team where someone had a scrap of scruples, well, I think I've identified where the problem lies.

You're thinking in terms of conventional biology. Please let me raise a different view point by asking: how much care viruses take with their 'offspring'?

I personally would have gone with any of the countless species of animals which don't care for their young, ranging from insects to lizards to the cuckoo bird.
But regardless, sapient species are different. If you don't take care of your young, your culture dies. If we don't accept that e.g. orcs are hardwired to follow orcish norms of conquest and enslavement and puppy-kicking, any culture that doesn't nurture its children will go extinct even if its genes go on to form new cultures which do.
Unless you argue that goblins are biologically incapable of taking care of their young, some will (if only because of strange circumstances or aneurotypicality), and that will allow a culture of goblins that don't abandon children to develop and share their culture with their children. Basic Darwinian selection takes over from there, for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which being that you need at least a basic cultural heritage to get any benefit from sapience. There's no point in being able to learn from your ancestors if you never meet them.

Do you need hard-coded abilities to talk to people? See, roleplayers are fully capable of talking to their surrendered enemies and trying to use compassion and mercy on them even WITHOUT mechanics that explicitly say "Roll against DC 20 to convert evil to good".

This is one of those places where I think Inchhighguy's "D&D is a crapsack world so cruelty is okay if I'm doing it for a good cause" viewpoint has a grain of merity, but only because of broader systemic issues with D&D.
There are supposed to be three pillars of D&D, but only one of them gets its own chapters in the PHB and DMG. If a DM wants to make combat fun, they barely have to do anything not spelled out in the core rulebooks. If a DM wants to make roleplaying fun (let alone something which incorporates character strengths, weaknesses, and synergies the way combat does), they have to start from scratch.
D&D's heart and lifeblood remains largely untouched from its origin. It's a tactical wargame that people have desperately tried to bolt roleplaying and exploration elements onto, with varying degrees of success. That is the source of so, so many problems with alignment in specific and D&D in general. Violence isn't the only option...but it's the only option the rulebooks give more than a passing glance to.
Example: You're given a group of orcs that ambush a trade caravan. You are given an obvious opportunity to solve the problem violently, and the rules spell out exactly how much and how well you need to attack them to make them stop attacking (or living). But few adventure structures give you a good opportunity to negotiate with your enemies, nor any clue what it should take to make them stop attacking if you use your words.
Combat lets you draw on the work decades of game designers have put into iterating D&D's core mechanics to craft an experience that's engaging and internally-consistent. Roleplaying...you're on your own, and the experience generally involves either one player talking until the DM decides if they win or lose or one player rolling a die to see if they win or lose. Whoo.

My basic feeling is that the party member should have stopped the game, asked whether the group was going to treat looting as chaotic, evil or neutral and then once there was a consensus had their person act accordingly. The obligation is always on the player to act harmoniously with the group, here their alignment was disruptive jerk.

I'm speaking from experience when I say that stopping the game for a discussion about game tone is not exactly an easy thing to do.

Why are you confusing the lack of an intelligence score with an intelligence score of 0. Undead also have no constitution score. Does that mean they have no HP?

No, it means their HP are determined differently than they are for creatures with Constitution scores. Mindless creatures, being mindless, have certain inbuilt limitations in what they can think, feel, and want (which puts them somewhere around insects in the "active malevolence" category).

No, you're still wrong. It's not just undead - most vermin, oozes, and plants are mindless too, but they too are driven by basic programming like hunger. The difference is that undead have a metaphysical rather than a biological imperative for that hunger.

Why does that make a difference? Why should a "metaphysical" hunger be more dangerous than a "natural" hunger? Why is raising undead who might attack people if you lose control more dangerous than binding giant vermin who might attack people if you lose control, and why is either more dangerous than raising pit bulls who might attack people if you lose control?

Mark, how do you deal with the "animating dead is evil" part of the spell?

I'm not Mark, but I deal with that sort of thing by asking "But why? Is it just divine fiat, or is there actual harm being caused by casting this spell that exceeds that caused by non-"Evil" spells?" I don't like people asserting "Such-and-such is evil"; if I was cool with that, I probably wouldn't be in this thread.
So, um, don't be surprised when people who get grumpy at other people who assert moral stances without sufficient backing ignore places where the rules do exactly that.

Seriously though, you need to be doing some pretty impressive mental gymnastics to take the last line of the spell description as indicating it is neutral. If it's a neutral spell then why would "only evil wizards use it frequently?"

Only evil wizards use fireball frequently; it causes pain, death, and collateral damage. That doesn't mean that fireball is an inherently evil spell.

You'd think that the people there would eventually come to the conclusion that Good and Evil aren't necessarily the same as good and evil, if that sort of thing with multiple "auras" kept coming up.

You'd be surprised how willing people are to ignore all evidence that opposes their preferred viewpoint. Thank goodness this is an alignment thread, or I might have to point to politics to justify that statement.

Subtypes are there, yes, to describe how things interact with other things. They also sometimes have rules associated with them. [Incorporeal] is a subtype with a lot of rules associated with it.

I'm not familiar with the [Incorporeal] spell descriptor. Was it introduced in some supplement?
(They were discussing spells, not creatures.)

IMO BoED and BoVD are some of the worst books ever written and they make an absolute mess of the game, both crunch and fluff wise, and I ignore pretty much every thing they have to say in my games.

IMO, they have some cool ideas and are worth keeping around so you can try to implement them better.
Also IMO, if you look outside the specific category of D&D books you'll realize they don't even register on a list of worst books ever written. Hell, they don't register on a list of the worst TRPG books ever written. FATAL should be a pretty well-known example, I think I can get away with not googling that one infamous race war RPG.

[Psyren]

Though, as I've pointed out, that only applies if you believe the BoVD; I'm not sure I've even seen a copy, and I don't use the edition it comes from in any substantive way.

Given that other 3.5 books explicitly reference it (such as BoED, Champions of Valor/Ruin, Fiend Folio and of course the granddaddy of undeath, The Book of Bad Latin Libris Mortis), the intent seems to be that it is relevant for 3.5 games.

(Also, Fiendish Codex 2 is 3.5, and includes casting [Evil] spells on its list of Corrupt acts.)

Yeah, they sure do, which is why I specified core.

IMO BoED and BoVD are some of the worst books ever written and they make an absolute mess of the game, both crunch and fluff wise, and I ignore pretty much every thing they have to say in my games.

And that's totally fine, there's nothing at all wrong with houseruling. I ignore the CPsi nerfs in my psionics games.

[Talakeal]

And that's totally fine, there's nothing at all wrong with houseruling. I ignore the CPsi nerfs in my psionics games.

Are you sure that's how the game is set up? That the DM deciding what books to use in a game is a "house rule" rather than the default?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Are you sure that's how the game is set up? That the DM deciding what books to use in a game is a "house rule" rather than the default?

Lots of people declare anyone not following their set of splatbooks, ambiguity interpretations, and gap-filling assumptions as "houseruling". After all, they follow the rules (and there's clearly only one set of rules), so anyone not following their rules must be houseruling.

[jjordan]

You're thinking in terms of conventional biology. Please let me raise a different view point by asking: how much care viruses take with their 'offspring'?

I personally would have gone with any of the countless species of animals which don't care for their young, ranging from insects to lizards to the cuckoo bird.
But regardless, sapient species are different. If you don't take care of your young, your culture dies. If we don't accept that e.g. orcs are hardwired to follow orcish norms of conquest and enslavement and puppy-kicking, any culture that doesn't nurture its children will go extinct even if its genes go on to form new cultures which do.
Unless you argue that goblins are biologically incapable of taking care of their young, some will (if only because of strange circumstances or aneurotypicality), and that will allow a culture of goblins that don't abandon children to develop and share their culture with their children. Basic Darwinian selection takes over from there, for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which being that you need at least a basic cultural heritage to get any benefit from sapience. There's no point in being able to learn from your ancestors if you never meet them.

Well, I did use the cuckoo in one example. :) I was simply arguing that perfectly logical arguments based on good science can fall apart in the face of the fantastic. My goblins aren't prevented from creating a society where they nurture their young, but it hasn't happened yet.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Well, I did use the cuckoo in one example. :) I was simply arguing that perfectly logical arguments based on good science can fall apart in the face of the fantastic. My goblins aren't prevented from creating a society where they nurture their young, but it hasn't happened yet.

You're half-right. Perfectly logical arguments based on good science can fall apart in the face of lazy worldbuilding. You have failed to explain to me why goblins are exempt from all the science and logic I've cited, why goblins don't nurture their young and yet have a cohesive enough culture to exist in any sense of the word, and why nothing has changed this ludicrous state of affairs. Is it all held together by the same narrative force that keeps Oceania's atrocious economic policy from sinking the entire affair?

[Gallowglass]

Are you sure that's how the game is set up? That the DM deciding what books to use in a game is a "house rule" rather than the default?

Many people use "house rule" as a way to insult or be dismissive of other's points of views.

No, choosing to not use a particular splatbook is not "house rules." That's ridiculous.

[redwizard007]

*scrubbed*

If a good cleric is forbidden from casting spells with the Evil descriptor, a spell has the evil descriptor, and the same spell says that it is usually used by evil people, AND a specific 1st party source specifically states that it is an evil act then how *scrubbed* it isn't evil? *scrubbed*

[Psyren]

Many people use "house rule" as a way to insult or be dismissive of other's points of views.

No, choosing to not use a particular splatbook is not "house rules." That's ridiculous.

Are you sure that's how the game is set up? That the DM deciding what books to use in a game is a "house rule" rather than the default?

We're not talking about allowing a prestige class or a spell though. "What constitutes an evil act" is a basic assumption of game's published setting, as well as the other published settings (FR, Greyhawk etc.) Running a custom setting that the designers didn't create is indeed houseruling, or homebrewing, or whatever else you want to call that.

Saying evil acts aren't evil is tantamount to denying alignment itself - and yes, that is a houserule.

[Gallowglass]

We're not talking about allowing a prestige class or a spell though. "What constitutes an evil act" is a basic assumption of game's published setting, as well as the other published settings (FR, Greyhawk etc.) Running a custom setting that the designers didn't create is indeed houseruling, or homebrewing, or whatever else you want to call that.

Saying evil acts aren't evil is tantamount to denying alignment itself - and yes, that is a houserule.

Let's go to the wayback machine

Yeah, they sure do, which is why I specified core.

IMO BoED and BoVD are some of the worst books ever written and they make an absolute mess of the game, both crunch and fluff wise, and I ignore pretty much every thing they have to say in my games.

And that's totally fine, there's nothing at all wrong with houseruling. I ignore the CPsi nerfs in my psionics games.

Talakeal = I don't use BoED and BoVD

Psyren = there's nothing wrong with houseruling

You can argue that you were in fact replying to earlier quotes, but if so you did not make it very clear in your post. In your post you responded to "I don't like BoED and BoVD" by invoking the back-handed "house rule" invocation to dismiss and minimize his opinion.

I tend to believe that Animate Dead and other spells with the [Evil] descriptor are unavoidably evil, even if you are only animating people who've given their bodies to service willingly before they died and you are only animating them to help run a carnival for orphan children. Because, as has been run into the ground, in the D&D mythos [Evil] and [Good] as physical forces not abstract concepts.

[Talakeal]

Saying evil acts aren't evil is tantamount to denying alignment itself - and yes, that is a houserule.

That would be quite a tautology. But I am disputing that it isn't an evil act, not that evil acts are not evil.

No core D&D book in any edition has ever stating that casting animate dead is an evil act. That is an undisputable fact.



Now, many people, both authors and players, consider it evil, and there are plenty of splat books that declare creating undead (as well as plenty of other things, like stealing or using poison or showing mercy to a chromatic dragon) are evil acts.

[NNescio]

You can argue that you were in fact replying to earlier quotes, but if so you did not make it very clear in your post. In your post you responded to "I don't like BoED and BoVD" b.

There is nothing wrong with house rules, and Psyren has made it clear that there is zero malicious intent or derogatory implication on his part.

You are reading too much into it.

[Gallowglass]

That would be quite a tautology. But I am disputing that it isn't an evil act, not that evil acts are not evil.

No core D&D book in any edition has ever stating that casting animate dead is an evil act. That is an undisputable fact.



Now, many people, both authors and players, consider it evil, and there are plenty of splat books that declare creating undead (as well as plenty of other things, like stealing or using poison or showing mercy to a chromatic dragon) are evil acts.

Okay, well now I just feel dumb for standing up for you when you say something like that.

Numerous people in this thread have pointed out the [Evil] descriptor in 3.5 and what that means. Many more have quoted sourcebooks for 2ndE talking about the innate evilness of the spell.

You have a strange definition of "That is an undisputable fact."

[Talakeal]

Okay, well now I just feel dumb for standing up for you when you say something like that.

Numerous people in this thread have pointed out the [Evil] descriptor in 3.5 and what that means. Many more have quoted sourcebooks for 2ndE talking about the innate evilness of the spell.

You have a strange definition of "That is an undisputable fact."

Not only does the PHB not say that a spell's descriptor change the alignment of the act, it explicitly says that spell descriptors have no effects by themselves.

Other editions have labelled it "Not a good act" but never an "Evil act", which if that was their intent you would think they would just say that as it is both shorter and more to the point.

[jjordan]

You're half-right. Perfectly logical arguments based on good science can fall apart in the face of lazy worldbuilding. You have failed to explain to me why goblins are exempt from all the science and logic I've cited, why goblins don't nurture their young and yet have a cohesive enough culture to exist in any sense of the word, and why nothing has changed this ludicrous state of affairs. Is it all held together by the same narrative force that keeps Oceania's atrocious economic policy from sinking the entire affair?

Darwin's observations are based on some underlying facts. If those facts change (e.g. magic is real) then the observations may change. I don't think that's lazy world-building at all. Part and parcel of science-fiction (and some fantasy) is looking at the world and making changes and asking "What if?"

In the setting I'm currently working on goblins are best compared to rats. They exist in the margins of every society and ecosystem, scraping a living. Goblins are inherently selfish and look out for number one above all else. They believe in the god Krkt and believe that he created a million worlds for goblins to inhabit and these were stolen from them by the bigger species. They know that every goblin is looking out for number one and are inherently distrustful. This prevents them from gathering into stable groups. They're quick to exploit weakness. Mothers give birth in secret and largely abandon their young. Partly because they don't want to have children making them weaker and partly because what little maternal instinct they have tells them their children will be better off hidden until they're stronger. Goblins breed at a very rapid rate and are more prone to bullying weaker goblins than to killing them and they have a strong taboo against cannibalism.

Goblins have a deeply ingrained respect for a good con, and they view all success as being part of a con. They will gather around a successful goblin to benefit from the con and to try and steal the con from the originator. Goblin cons typically fall apart after a few weeks.

They have excellent oral and auditory skills and are quite skilled as linguists in addition to having a rich oral history and a positive love of good stories (usually being defined as ones in which someone small takes egregious advantage of someone big).

Several attempts have been made (by humans) to integrate goblins into a more stable position in their societies. These have all failed, mostly. Some half-goblins have been able to integrate themselves into bright halfling societies in the human realms. A few individual goblins have been able to integrate themselves into human societies. The elves view goblins as vermin, the dark halflings think goblins are annoying competitors and vandals, and dragon societies cheerfully consume all the goblins they can catch.

[Max_Killjoy]

Darwin's observations are based on some underlying facts. If those facts change (e.g. magic is real) then the observations may change. I don't think that's lazy world-building at all. Part and parcel of science-fiction (and some fantasy) is looking at the world and making changes and asking "What if?"

In the setting I'm currently working on goblins are best compared to rats. They exist in the margins of every society and ecosystem, scraping a living. Goblins are inherently selfish and look out for number one above all else. They believe in the god Krkt and believe that he created a million worlds for goblins to inhabit and these were stolen from them by the bigger species. They know that every goblin is looking out for number one and are inherently distrustful. This prevents them from gathering into stable groups. They're quick to exploit weakness. Mothers give birth in secret and largely abandon their young. Partly because they don't want to have children making them weaker and partly because what little maternal instinct they have tells them their children will be better off hidden until they're stronger. Goblins breed at a very rapid rate and are more prone to bullying weaker goblins than to killing them and they have a strong taboo against cannibalism.

Goblins have a deeply ingrained respect for a good con, and they view all success as being part of a con. They will gather around a successful goblin to benefit from the con and to try and steal the con from the originator. Goblin cons typically fall apart after a few weeks.

They have excellent oral and auditory skills and are quite skilled as linguists in addition to having a rich oral history and a positive love of good stories (usually being defined as ones in which someone small takes egregious advantage of someone big).

Several attempts have been made (by humans) to integrate goblins into a more stable position in their societies. These have all failed, mostly. Some half-goblins have been able to integrate themselves into bright halfling societies in the human realms. A few individual goblins have been able to integrate themselves into human societies. The elves view goblins as vermin, the dark halflings think goblins are annoying competitors and vandals, and dragon societies cheerfully consume all the goblins they can catch.

How are the children surviving to the point of any sort of independence, and how are these cultural beliefs and taboos and love of stories and cons passed on... if the children are being abandoned?

[jjordan]

How are the children surviving to the point of any sort of independence, and how are these cultural beliefs and taboos and love of stories and cons passed on... if the children are being abandoned?

Goblins breed at a very rapid rate and are more prone to bullying weaker goblins than to killing them and they have a strong taboo against cannibalism.

The elves view goblins as vermin, the dark halflings think goblins are annoying competitors and vandals, and dragon societies cheerfully consume all the goblins they can catch.

Which pushes goblins into their own little, strange, society despite the fact that the children, which are capable of walking and fighting when they are born, are effectively living on the fringes of goblin society until they're large enough to compete. Fantasy also allows me to have a unifying god that is active in their lives rather than being silent. And the love of stories is an innate trait related to a physical trait I don't care to reveal because it's a potential future plot device in my setting.

[Max_Killjoy]

Which pushes goblins into their own little, strange, society despite the fact that the children, which are capable of walking and fighting when they are born, are effectively living on the fringes of goblin society until they're large enough to compete. Fantasy also allows me to have a unifying god that is active in their lives rather than being silent. And the love of stories is an innate trait related to a physical trait I don't care to reveal because it's a potential future plot device in my setting.

None of that really answers my question, at least not without demanding multiple added questions, but frankly I'm not in the mood for an argument.

[jjordan]

None of that really answers my question, at least not without demanding multiple added questions, but frankly I'm not in the mood for an argument.

Wasn't arguing. They're like little sharks.

[Max_Killjoy]

Wasn't arguing. They're like little sharks.

Sorry, I'll follow up when I'm not in a really bad mood -- it would be an argument if I got into it right now, and it would be my fault.

[Psyren]

No core D&D book in any edition has ever stating that casting animate dead is an evil act. That is an undisputable fact.

And it has to be explicit in the core books because...? Are D&D rulebooks not rulebooks unless they're core? Is that logo on the front a misprint?