OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread

[nocoolnamejim]

You're using passive voice. "It's considered fine." Who considers?

No one who Rich is going to write as correct. If you think otherwise, I have a million-gold-piece bet ready.

Well, to point to an obvious example that I already listed.

The Deva handling Roy's case on whether or not he was Lawful Good or not clearly considered it fine. She brought up his possibly abandoning Elan as an evil act that might have prevented him from getting into heaven, but made no mention of him slaughtering a bunch of evil creatures who were doing no harm to get to the star metal that he wanted.

Apparently all that murder and theft didn't count.

[Kish]

What are you even arguing for now? The constant passive voice manages to occlude any connection between it and the things other people have said in this thread.

Ah, something while I was posting. Now, question:

What evil creatures would those be? You mean the bandits, right? Possibly the troll/ogres/whatever? In either case, I think the fact that they attacked first is not insignificant. But that still poses the question:

Why should we care what the deva thought? (If she actively said "yay genocide," that would refute what I said, but she didn't, she just didn't treat Roy as having responsibility for killing the young black dragon Vaarsuvius killed or what, frankly, is looking like something you're assuming happened off-panel or something. I remember three battles on the way to the cave; in each of them the enemies attacked first and in the second and by far the biggest one all the enemies were of PC races and racism wasn't a consideration. This "Roy chops merrily through lots of unoffending evil creatures" scenario you're insisting on isn't there.)

[Snails]

One thought is that Andi's upset with Bandana as captain not because Andi wanted Julio to make her captain instead, but simply because Bandana isn't Julio.

Julio's got a high charisma (he says it's higher than his Strength, and that his Strength and Dexterity are only average when he introduces Elan to the Dashing Swoardsman class in #390), which would at least keep the crew following him, even if he leads them into trouble (because that's what charismatic dashing romantic-hero skypirates do, and the crew all made the choice to sign up and follow him). Bandana's charisma's almost certainly lower, and she can't convince them to follow her orders as easily.

I am sure that all is a factor. But let's be very clear: the only person with any significant problem with Bandanna's leadership is Andi.

So, no, it is not "them", it is not "the crew" who does not willingly follow Bandanna. The entire rest of the crew was following Bandanna just fine. The only real grumbles we have seen from the rest of the crew is about pay, and they seemed very happy about how Bandanna handled that issue.

What is notable about this mutiny is it is a mutiny of exactly one. What is notable about this mutiny is Andi never really bothered to try to curry support from the crew that there was a real problem with the leadership. Why would that be? Probably because even Andi recognizes, at some sub-conscious level, that she has nothing to say to the crew, that no one else would understand because the real problem is personal -- it is an issue to do with Andi and no one else.

And now we have exactly zero evidence that a single member of now-Captain Andi's crew has any kind of positive feeling about the change of leadership.

This was all telegraphed to the readers over the course of multiple strips. Not once. Not twice. But four or five times.

[Mightymosy]

[...] It didn't come up when Roy was interviewing in heaven for entry into the afterlife.

This I found interesting as well. I always wondered if this had been left out intentionally, to show how even the Lawful Good afterlife is somewhat injust, or if the Giant didn't view the killing of the young black dragon as so evil, or if it was left out because he forgot or wanted to save space...
Is there something in the Index?

I'm not going to do the obnoxious "fixed it for you" thing. I will suggest that you might have a more accurate understanding of the story you're reading on an extremely basic level if you stopped treating (the gods? the D&D players you know? I can't actually tell from your posts) as an authority.

In other words: The comic has shown previously [redundancy deleted] that it's appalling to actively seek out creatures of listed-as-evil races and kill them preemptively, including: having Roy fiercely tell his first adventuring party off for it in On the Origins of PCs, Azure City being sacked in what Rich described as karma kicking the Twelve Gods in their divine backsides, and, oh, yes, this plotline with an ahem-neutral elven wizard who committed quasi-genocide.

This is interesting: Where did Rich Burlew describe the fall of Azure City as karma for the Twelve Gods? I don't remember that one.

[Kish]

Killing the young black dragon was done entirely by Vaarsuvius, in two actions which Roy had no chance to intervene between. The fact that he didn't seem to object to Vaarsuvius doing so...well, as I've said before, I think Rich rates "being responsible for what someone else does" far too low, but that doesn't change the fact that he's never going to have a Good character say "yay genocide" without it being part of a massive "this character's not really Good" lampshade (like the paladin leader of Roy's former adventuring party).

[Keltest]

There's an issue with that, namely that "being Evil" is not grounds for being attacked unless you're actually DOING Evil. That's what I'd call "innocent Evil".

Even in D&D, alignment doesn't really matter for certain things: if you're protecting a town from an invading army of a tyrant nation, you can be very certain you'll be killing some LNs and maybe even some LGs. They happen not to be innocent and they are aiding tyrants and thus deserve to die regardless of their alignment. If one is LG and aiding a tyrant, killing them is a Good act. If one is CE and - besides that horrid outlook in life - is not doing anything, killing them is an Evil act.

I would suggest that, if you are a dragon and you are evil, you have done evil in your life if for no other reason than as a byproduct of doing your dragon things like hoarding treasure and eating cattle. Most people do not part with their treasure voluntarily, and while good dragons may trade for it, evil dragons seem unlikely to do so. Very young dragons may be the exception to the rule, if only because they haven't been alive long enough yet to get to do such a thing.

[kaoskonfety]

snippy it would be unusual for good aligned creatures to show up and complain about the killing of a bunch of evil aligned creatures for no reason.
Snip

A bunch being a third of, and dragons being the "creatures".

"Dragons are better than humanoids and one of them killed... alot of us. We should look into this" Being the totally neutral reason for them all to act together.

If something had exterminated all of the 'evil' warring neighboring nations people in the blink of an eye, the 'good' Humanoid kingdom they were harassing would likely look into it. And if they found at the end of the investigation it was a lone boar romping about seemingly incapable of this act (certainly dangerous to several men, maybe even able to kill a sizable organized group, but all of them all at once?), they would go get the boar and try to find out what the heck just happened.

Some would want to kill it and be done with it, others study it to find out "how", others to use druid magic to talk to the beast and find out if it even knows or understands how it did it. But they would likely all agree that something has to be done to ensure its not a future threat just wandering the woods doing... whatever it just did.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The Deva handling Roy's case on whether or not he was Lawful Good or not clearly considered it fine.

Newsflash: The gods that set-up a world in which certain races exist to be slaughtered for XP also set up a reward system to ensure that was the case. News at 11.

The gods are not being painted in a pretty light in OotS. No, not even the so-called "good" ones. Now, ultimately they aren't responsible either: like everyone else, they exist in a universe in which morality is straight-jacketed into 9 alignments. But it is quite clear the author disagrees with this and is not presenting it as being ok - it is the bedrock on which RedCloak's csympathetic characterisation is based.

GW

[The_Weirdo]

I would suggest that, if you are a dragon and you are evil, you have done evil in your life if for no other reason than as a byproduct of doing your dragon things like hoarding treasure and eating cattle. Most people do not part with their treasure voluntarily, and while good dragons may trade for it, evil dragons seem unlikely to do so. Very young dragons may be the exception to the rule, if only because they haven't been alive long enough yet to get to do such a thing.

So an Evil dragon can't have inherited a hoard or even killed people that happened to deserve it for it? Likewise, they can't hunt?

Besides, even in usual D&D, it's not a Good act to kill because someone has "probably" (sans evidence) done "some" Evil.

[nocoolnamejim]

What are you even arguing for now? The constant passive voice manages to occlude any connection between it and the things other people have said in this thread.

Ah, something while I was posting. Now, question:

What evil creatures would those be? You mean the bandits, right? Possibly the troll/ogres/whatever? In either case, I think the fact that they attacked first is not insignificant. But that still poses the question:

Why should we care what the deva thought?

Why should we care what the Deva thought? Because she's in charge of judging the morals of characters entering heaven. In other words, in charge of deciding if characters have acted in a "Lawful" and "Good" manner according the rules of the universe during their mortal lives.

And she never even brought up any of the times that Roy killed evil creatures in their homes who weren't actively committing evil. Which means that to her judgment - which is a proxy for the judgment of the lawful good gods - those were not evil acts.

The entire premise we're discussing is whether or not it's okay in universe to kill evil creatures who aren't actively doing evil.

The star metal quest is a particularly pertinent example since it involves a black dragon who wasn't actively doing evil being killed so that the party could take it's treasure. The fact that the Deva did not bring up the robbery and murder of a evil creature that was not actively doing evil should indicate that it wasn't considered an evil act.

Certainly it could be argued that the dragon attacked first in this example, but only because - as was lampshaded in a later comic - the party was committing a home invasion. Granted, Giant later wrote some karmic retribution with momma dragon coming back and potentially evening the score with V's family, but the lawful good gods had no issues with killing an evil creature in it's own home that was just minding it's own business.

[Peelee]

This is interesting: Where did Rich Burlew describe the fall of Azure City as karma for the Twelve Gods? I don't remember that one.

I, too, am intrigued.

[Keltest]

So an Evil dragon can't have inherited a hoard or even killed people that happened to be Evil for it? Likewise, they can't hunt?

Besides, even in usual D&D, it's not a Good act to kill because someone has "probably" (sans evidence) done "some" Evil.

Typically no, dragons of any sort will not inherit hordes or any relevance without deliberately killing their parents. Good dragons might get some from their parents, but not a lot. OOTS is, easily, the exception, not the rule in this regard. And while dragons can hunt wild game, if theyre evil, they don't care to restrain themselves from going after, say, a village's herd of goats either, and will typically lair themselves near treasure sources (ie people) rather than out in the middle of nowhere.

[Jasdoif]

This I found interesting as well. I always wondered if this had been left out intentionally, to show how even the Lawful Good afterlife is somewhat injust, or if the Giant didn't view the killing of the young black dragon as so evil, or if it was left out because he forgot or wanted to save space...
Is there something in the Index?

My theory is that Roy was unaware that the starmetal was already claimed, the young black dragon was understandably uninterested in negotiating with armed invaders, and Roy never attacked once Vaarsuvius had neutralized the threat (before terminating him some time later); there was no basis for faulting Roy morally.

This is interesting: Where did Rich Burlew describe the fall of Azure City as karma for the Twelve Gods? I don't remember that one.

Spoiler: War and XPs commentary, opposite 474

Show

The Twelve Gods may have sanctioned the paladins' massacre, but even the gods can't stop Karma from kicking them in their divine asses once in a while.

[nocoolnamejim]

Newsflash: The gods that set-up a world in which certain races exist to be slaughtered for XP also set up a reward system to ensure that was the case. News at 11.

The gods are not being painted in a pretty light in OotS. No, not even the so-called "good" ones. Now, ultimately they aren't responsible either: like everyone else, they exist in a universe in which morality is straight-jacketed into 9 alignments. But it is quite clear the author disagrees with this and is not presenting it as being ok - it is the bedrock on which RedCloak's csympathetic characterisation is based.

GW

That's my point!

IN UNIVERSE the way the gods have set things up, killing certain races or evil creatures isn't considered an evil action even if they aren't currently doing any evil.

So having a bunch of good aligned creatures objecting to something that happens every day and is considered to be fine by the good alignment gods wouldn't be consistent with how the universe has been setup.

I am in NO WAY arguing that it makes sense or is okay...only that this is the way that the universe has been setup and runs. So there would be no reason for even lawful good creatures to object to the way their own gods have decided to run things.

It would be like some elven high council showing up to demand murderers be turned over to them for killing a bunch of goblins. Goblins are considered "fair game" in universe based on the rules.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

So having a bunch of good aligned creatures objecting to something that happens every day and is considered to be fine with the good deities gods wouldn't be consistent with how the universe has been setup..

This does not follow. Good creature are allowed to be morally superior to the gods. Bronze dragons could still be horrified by V's actions from a moral standpoint - Roy was.

GW

[Kish]

The "karma" thing is in War and XPs commentary, between strips #473 and #474.

And she never even brought up any of the times that Roy killed evil creatures in their homes who weren't actively committing evil.

Those being where, exactly? Is this defining the Dungeon of Dorukan as "the home of Xykon's followers"? Or has this entirely left the comic for pure assumptions, assumptions that contradict what Roy says in On the Origins of PCs? She explicitly said "no" to cutting the throat of a sleeping Chaotic Evil creature named Belkar Bitterleaf, so be clear--the claim you're making is either refuted out of the gate or entirely based on a claim that the deva and whoever is the actor we should all care about in your persistent passive voice is racist.

(I've addressed your giving Roy primary responsibility for Vaarsuvius' murder of the young black dragon as much as I can. If you think the deva not charging Roy with same proves that Rich doesn't mean killing creatures of evil races to be evil, well, we'll just have to totally disagree, then.)

Edited to add: Yes, it would indeed be like some elven council wanting to try murderers of goblins: A demonstration that those elves were actually Good, unlike the disgusting racist elves Rich introduced in the Azure City Resistance specifically so that he could have someone he'd be okay with blowing up to demonstrate Redcloak's new spell level. And yes, that is from the Blood Runs in the Family commentary.

[Peelee]

Thanks, I must have forgotten about that

[Unoriginal]

There's an issue with that, namely that "being Evil" is not grounds for being attacked unless you're actually DOING Evil. That's what I'd call "innocent Evil".

Even in D&D, alignment doesn't really matter for certain things: if you're protecting a town from an invading army of a tyrant nation, you can be very certain you'll be killing some LNs and maybe even some LGs. They happen not to be innocent and they are aiding tyrants and thus deserve to die regardless of their alignment. If one is LG and aiding a tyrant, killing them is a Good act. If one is CE and - besides that horrid outlook in life - is not doing anything, killing them is an Evil act.

There is no such thing as "innocent Evil".

In D&D, you can't be of an Alignment by merely *thinking* about it or having an outlook on life. You have to purposely act on it, or, like the angel said to Roy, try to. Even mindless Evil entities are still trying to act in a way that causes harm and suffering to others .

I think that a few threads ago, there was a debate as to why most humans were considered Neutral. It's the reason: most people don't do enough Good or Evil things to be considered either. You're not Lawful Good if once in your life you helped a crying child find their parents, and you're not Chaotic Evil if you stole a few coins from your boss and knocked a bystander out in a bar brawl.

Beings such as orcs or drows have both instincts (in some versions at least) and a society/culture that push them to cause harm and suffering to others for their own advantage, so they have a tendency to do so. Once they have done so, they are not innocent. But an Orc isn't Evil because he's an Orc, he's Evil if he killed, tortured or the like (as it's common to do in orcish communities).

So, if a being in D&D has the good ol' Capital "E" written on their stat sheet, it's pretty certain they did some pretty nasty s**t.

Now, of course a Good character would not kill someone on sight just because they think they're Evil, without having proof that they did indeed commit something Evil. Nor would they want genocide or mass murder for a group because some, or even the majority, are Evil. And even if it's proven the Evil person did do nasty s**t, not all Good characters would think they deserve death for it.

Now, things may be kind of different in the OotS setting, but still, it's pretty clear any of the Evil characters we've seen DID do Evil, no matter their character depths or tragic backstories. Even the young Black Dragon probably did things like attack travelers and eat innocents. Redcloack isn't Evil because he's a Goblin, he's a terrible person who would torture and kill thousands just to keep his con running and who happens to be a Goblin.

In fact, a lot of problems in the comic comes from people assuming other people's alignments because of their species or outlook in life, rather than their actions, and then taking measures to deal with what they deem "the enemy" without thinking farther than this.

One thought is that Andi's upset with Bandana as captain not because Andi wanted Julio to make her captain instead, but simply because Bandana isn't Julio.

Pretty sure it's because Bandana is Bandana.

[Mightymosy]

The issue isn't with the message you were trying to get across (that everybody has a right to complain, but that everybody should be able to laugh at jokes about themselves or groups they're part of without getting offended and making it political); ignoring that those points seem to semi-contradict each other, I think both of them are decent enough points, if a bit more nuanced. People should be allowed to voice their criticism - and indeed, nobody has stopped Necronomicon from stating their opinion, because that's how freedom of speech works...and similarly, people responded to them in kind, stating their own opinion on this comic's possible stance against engineers (I probably don't need to tell you that many of the people who responded, a number of whom were also engineers, didn't consider this to be such a negative stance), but that sharing of opinions is good, and important to have. The second point also has merit: sometimes, people get offended by something that's just poking fun, as opposed to something that's deliberate and blatant discrimination being disguised as humor, and when people get offended by something that nobody else (including others who the thing is supposedly picking on) is getting offended by, it's possible that the person getting offended is the one in the wrong. The issue isn't with the points you're making, it's with how you went about making it.

Nobody is saying you don't have the right to complain about issues you see, but you're a piece of **** for even daring to compare your plight to that of people who have actually been discriminated and oppressed. Necronomicon brought up the most egregious example I know of of anti-engineer "discrimination" by mentioning The Big Bang Theory, but BBT isn't anywhere near as offensive as the Black Face routines of the past I've seen it compared to (by others elsewhere; you and Necronomicon have, to the best of my knowledge, not been so un-self-aware as to compare what you view as anti-engineer bias to the highly offensive minstrel shows of the past).

The issue people have taken with your post telling everybody to calm down is the idea that these issues are equal: that one engineer's issue with this arc's seeming anti-engineer bias (and it's worth mentioning that many other engineers have popped up in-thread to express how they don't really view this as such bias) does not make it even remotely comparable to the discrimination and bias faced by trans people. The "Ever-Reliable Engineer" stereotype is far more prevalent than the "cripplingly socially inept engineer" stereotype, and shows that have characters emphasizing both good and bad intellectuals (most detective/true crime/court drama shows) are almost absurdly common and popular; meanwhile, you can barely swing a stick without hitting a show that's done a "that lady's actually a dude! MOCK THEM, LAUGH AT THEM FOR BEING DIFFERENT!" joke, and unlike Engineers, gay people and trans people have gotten assaulted or killed purely for being gay/trans often enough for it to be an actual legal defense. Trans people are considered acceptable targets, and have been for a long time, and the fact of the matter is that even if the supposed anti-engineer bias in this arc (and the supposed anti-intellectualism bias perpetuating throughout this comic as a whole) was actually real and totally intentional, it would still be sickening seeing it compared to real discrimination.

Here's the thing though: The Comic we are all discussing hasn't done that.
So I personally am not transgender, so maybe I don't get the insult. The only two characters in the comic who switch genders are the ogre from whom they steal the belt, and Roy who wears the belt of gender-changing.
What about these arcs is it that happens to insult RL transgender people ?(sorry for miswordings. English is not my first language, and I certainly didn't intend to insult anyone by using words that were offensive in and off itself. I just used whatever sounded logical in my language cortex).
My understanding of transgender is that people feel like they are born in the "wrong" biological sex, and desire to change that given the chance.
Which doesn't fit to Roy at all. He is using the belt as a magical disguise - it's little more than a fantastic clothing so far as the comic goes. Haley makes fun of him, because she is that: badmouth-person. Also she strikes me as the kind of girl who is more eager to make fun of other women, rather than insulting men(which her character arc shows, with her nemesis being Crystal). Belkar is evil anyway.
And Roy changed his gender simply as a strategical measure, and very likely assumed that the effect would be reverse shortly after the battle.
So I don't know how this is in any way more relatable to RL transgenderism than Andi being an engineer being related to bashing of RL engineers (as socially awkward nerds).

I feek bad for you and the other person who appearantly have to endure RL **** due to people being *******s to transgender people. And I approve of none of such insults.

I don't care about this gender stuff. Everyone should just assume the "gender role" they like and that's it. If you don't like how someone else lives their gender role, feel free not to f**k them, but leave them in peace.It's not as if it had any consequence on your life.

My point is that I don't see how this relates to the comic at hand, which I thought we were still discussing.

[nocoolnamejim]

This does not follow. Good creature are allowed to be morally superior to the gods. Bronze dragons could still be horrified by V's actions from a moral standpoint - Roy was.

GW

But was Roy horrified at the deaths of all of those black dragons...or at all the unrelated and unintended deaths of innocents caught in the crossfire? It's not made entirely clear.

But what has been made explicitly clear is that certain races of creatures are considered to be "fair game" to be killed at any time and for any reason by the gods. (See, how the rewards system is setup for killing goblins for low level PCs and Redcloak's explanation that the entire race was explicitly created to be XP farming material.)

I suppose it is possible that some Lawful Good bronze dragons would consider the killing of a bunch of black dragons to be a crime worthy of punishment. But given how most metallic dragons themselves kill evil aligned dragons when they can I find it MORE LIKELY that the pertinent objection a council of dragons would have would be the killing of all the unintended innocents.

Similar to how nobody really raises a fuss when an adventuring party goes out and intentionally kills a bunch of evil monsters in a dungeon who aren't doing anything, up to and including the boss monster of the dungeon, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to object to someone doing the exact same thing except on a grander scale UNLESS it's the means that were used.

Specifically the fact that V's spell was the equivalent of shooting a fireball into a crowded marketplace to kill a fleeing goblin. Yeah, he vaporized the goblin, but he probably killed 20 innocent villagers in the process.

I think that good aligned dragons wouldn't object so much to the killing of evil dragons as they would all the non-evil types that V killed to get to the evil ones. Specifically as V put it that he had "scourged the western continent".

[Kish]

Someone asked you not to call people transgenders (and would probably also prefer you not call people blacks, or most other adjectives-sans-noun). Instead of saying something like, "Okay," you argued with it. And now you're going "what does this have to do with the comic?" You could say "Okay," or say something like "I'll call people what I please and it's nothing to me it if offends them," but this "what does this have to do with the comic?" stuff is disingenuous.

[Mightymosy]

I apologized for using wrong language, and I was talking about the comic in the inital post.

EDIT: Are you trolling me at this point? I'm used to your antagonism at this point, but I'm used to it being generally well thought out.

The post I respond to in my above post is not talking much about language, is it? It is about how put engineer bashing and transgender bashing, which happen in media and in RL, on the same level, which the person above has problems with.
And my response is that I wouldn't put them on the same level in RL, but have a different view regarding the comic - which I commented on when this string of discussion initially popped up).

[The_Weirdo]

Snip.

So what happens when a Paladin that is defending a town against an invading army kills a bunch of LN soldiers of said tyrannical army and even a LG one or two that had other "Good" reasons to help said army? Do they lose their powers?

[Snails]

So an Evil dragon can't have inherited a hoard or even killed people that happened to deserve it for it? Likewise, they can't hunt?

Besides, even in usual D&D, it's not a Good act to kill because someone has "probably" (sans evidence) done "some" Evil.

IMHO it is absolutely not a Good act to kill someone because they "probably" have done some Evil. But is it an Evil act? Or Not Nice Neutral?

Because Good characters are only required to follow convictions that tend towards Good acts and help them avoid Evil acts. There is no proscription against doing Neutral things. Even a Paladin is allowed to occasional error in judgement that may have been Evil (provided they can keep their head straight and avoid Miko-esque extremes).

D&D is trapped into a peculiar moral landscape because of the swashbuckling-on-steroids genres it is trying to emulate. Note that Tolkien could have told an extremely similar tale to LotR with humans substituted for goblins/orcs. Why did he include orcs? IMO he did so specifically to lower the moral bar for reaching for the sword. Tolkien, too, faced the problem of how do you emulate the feel of Beowulf and The Iliad/Odyssey without getting bogged down in the demands of modern morality -- orcs was his way of fudging the topic.

Ultimately, you as a player/DM has to decide whether you want a game where the "magical" rules of the universe specifically include "demons" which you allowed to hack on sight with a clear conscience. Yes or no? Whether those demons are vicious creatures from another plane of existence, insatiable undead things that prey on the living, magnificent malicious creatures of power like dragons, or pathetic creatures like orcs, that is only getting into the details of where to draw the line -- you already answered "yes".

[Unoriginal]

I would suggest that, if you are a dragon and you are evil, you have done evil in your life if for no other reason than as a byproduct of doing your dragon things like hoarding treasure and eating cattle. Most people do not part with their treasure voluntarily, and while good dragons may trade for it, evil dragons seem unlikely to do so. Very young dragons may be the exception to the rule, if only because they haven't been alive long enough yet to get to do such a thing.

If you are Evil and a dragon, you've done things equivalent to attacking passerbies to eat them, pillaged what was left after your rampage, enslaved people, killed people for just walking somewhere you considered your territory, or the like.

If a Red Dragon didn't do anything Evil, then they wouldn't be Evil.

As for the very young chromatic dragons, I'd say their parents still get them "toys" like prisoners, slaves or places where they can do things in total impunity and they just indulge in typical chromatic dragon behavior. And even the youngest dragon with stats is still smart and wise as your average human adult (for most of the scale colors, at least), so they know right from wrong, they just don't care.

[nocoolnamejim]

The "karma" thing is in War and XPs commentary, between strips #473 and #474.

Those being where, exactly? Is this defining the Dungeon of Dorukan as "the home of Xykon's followers"? Or has this entirely left the comic for pure assumptions? She explicitly said "no" to cutting the throat of a sleeping Chaotic Evil creature named Belkar Bitterleaf, so be clear--the claim you're making is either refuted out of the gate or entirely based on a claim that the deva and whoever is the actor we should all care about in your persistent passive voice is racist.

(I've addressed your giving Roy primary responsibility for Vaarsuvius' murder of the young black dragon as much as I can. If you think the deva not charging Roy with same proves that Rich doesn't mean killing creatures of evil races to be evil, well, we'll just have to totally disagree, then.)

Edited to add: Yes, it would indeed be like some elven council wanting to try murderers of goblins: A demonstration that those elves were actually Good, unlike the disgusting racist elves Rich introduced in the Azure City Resistance specifically so that he could have someone he'd be okay with blowing up to demonstrate Redcloak's new spell level. And yes, that is from the Blood Runs in the Family commentary.

Newsflash. Most tabletop campaigns racism is totally okay because certain races are considered ALWAYS EVIL because 99% of the time they ARE EVIL.

That's why campaigns don't spend nearly 100% of the time with the PCs on trial for murder. Because nearly everything they kill is considered to be an acceptable target regardless of where the target is at the time or what they might currently be doing.

It's just assumed that they've done evil in the past and will do so again in the future if they aren't killed.

The OotS wasn't put on trial in Azure City by the paladins for all the goblins they slaughtered on the way to Soon's game. They were put on trial for destroying the gate. All those goblin deaths weren't even mentioned.

You really seem to feel that I'm trying to justify this as right and moral on a real world level rather than just pointing out that this is how things work in an in-game/in-universe level. I'm not.

I'm saying that because in universe these actions are very rarely considered to be "bad" by good aligned people like paladins having good dragons object to the murder of a bunch of evil dragons wouldn't be very consistent with how other good aligned creatures and characters have acted to date.

It would make far more sense for them to object to the collateral damage of V's spell than the evil dragon deaths.

[Jasdoif]

Newsflash. Most tabletop campaigns racism is totally okay because certain races are considered ALWAYS EVIL because 99% of the time they ARE EVIL.

The Giant said something about this in relation to OotS before....

You really seem to feel that I'm trying to justify this as right and moral on a real world level rather than just pointing out that this is how things work in an in-game/in-universe level. I'm not.

This too.

[Kish]

Ah, so all the innocent evil-race creatures Roy killed in their homes in people's tabletop games, I see.

My bet offer remains open: A million gold says Rich will never write a character who is "actually good" rather than "technically good and lampshaded horrifically evil" like the paladin leader of his first adventuring party, and approves of genocide.

I'm not saying you're saying you approve--I'm saying that what you're saying is irrelevant to the comic. That "most tabletop games do this" matters as much as "in Timbuktu there's a shoemaker who does this." That if the opinion of the person you keep speaking for mattered, you'd be able to use active voice rather than passive, and/or point to things in the comic rather than things you apparently think happened in the comic that didn't. Jasdoif's links should make the actual themes of the comic clear enough. That the existence of some "appalling but technically-good" characters does not somehow point to "Rich could not and will not have an actually good bronze dragon."

[Knaight]

This does not follow. Good creature are allowed to be morally superior to the gods. Bronze dragons could still be horrified by V's actions from a moral standpoint - Roy was.

GW

There's also numerous good creatures who are less than pleased with the gods vote coming extremely close to destroying the world.

[Unoriginal]

So what happens when a Paladin that is defending a town against an invading army kills a bunch of LN soldiers of said tyrannical army and even a LG one or two that had other "Good" reasons to help said army? Do they lose their powers?

For starter, Good people can oppose Good people as much as Evil people can oppose Evil people.

If both the Paladin and the LG people on the other side are legitimately trying to do Good and aren't committing evil acts, then there is no alignment problem, just a tragedy brought by bad circumstances. Same thing if one is tricked into working for someone Evil.


Now, the thing is, when you're supporting a tyrant, by being part of a tyrannical army, you're more than likely to do nasty **** that will make you Evil. If those LG or LN people are helping slaughter innocents and just stand by while the LE soldiers are doing horrible things to the survivors right next to them, they're committing, or at minimum condoning Evil acts, and it's going to change their alignments.

If the army is not committing Evil acts, despite the tyrant at the helm, then those LN guys wouldn't have troubles, though the LG ones would need a very Good reason to support a tyranny (otherwise, they'd start becoming more Lawful Neutral).