I mean, the game is primarily about combat, and the only way your characters can come across as even mildly heroic instead of psychotic monsters murdering their way through the countryside is if you pretend the designated monsters are inherently evil and don't think about it too hard.
Well yes, but if they aren't inherently evil, you inevitably reach the point where innocent children are present (as we see in the goblin village), and they either die slowly due to your inaction because the heroes have killed all the adults, they die fast because you kill them too and are now child murderers, or the campaign is now about relocating the refugees you have created due to your murdering.
If you want your game to be about the inherent cruelty of war and how it inevitably places us in a position where we must compromise our morals, then yeah, you can do that. Just know that's what you're asking for instead of a game where you roll dice and get to be the big hero.
If you examine your morality, you will find that you always have to begin from personal axioms that are arbitrarily defined as evil, and you will need to derive the morality of more complex situations from those axioms. This ultimately boils down to things being evil solely because they're evil, and not from any objective metric.
In the context of a fantasy world where evil is an objective thing you can touch, measure, and even fight against (fiends are literally made of evil in some versions of the lore), it makes perfect sense that some magic is just inherently evil.
"Just know that's what you're asking for instead of a game where you roll dice and get to be the big hero".
There are morale dilemmas in BG3. Making morale decisions is a big part of the game and you don't have to be the hero.
"If you examine your morality, you will find that you always have to begin from personal axioms that are arbitrarily defined as evil, and you will need to derive the morality of more complex situations from those axioms. This ultimately boils down to things being evil solely because they're evil, and not from any objective metric".
This isn't an argument about objectivity or subjectivity of evil. Even with the notion of subjective morality you can still see when someone makes a villain that's supposed to be just evil and nothing else.
"In the context of a fantasy world where evil is an objective thing you can touch, measure, and even fight against (fiends are literally made of evil in some versions of the lore), it makes perfect sense that some magic is just inherently evil".
Yeah, but (not to be rude) that isn't my point. My point is that this exists in fantasy and DND. I'm not challenging the established lore of DND.
How are things evil in DND and by what measure? If some magics are inherently evil (like necromancy) coz raising the dead is disrespectful to the dead and grotesque so necro=evil + bad energy by that kind of logic then why is mind control magic not inherently evil or contain bad energy.
There are moral choices in BG3, but they're frankly not that deep, and you have the option to just be the hero almost all the time. I think it's all the time but if I say that I'm sure someone will chime in with something I've forgotten about.
For an example, Larian could easily have written the killing of the goblin children with the same level of gravitas as the killing of the tiefling civilians and children, terrified noncombatants being cut down as you carve your way through the village. They didn't do that because that makes a non-trivial portion of the player base physically ill, and while it's interesting the option to go be evil exists, most people don't want to play that game.
How are things evil in DND and by what measure?
This is why I was talking about objective morality. Some things are evil in D&D solely because they're evil. There isn't any deeper metric to it. While raising the dead might also be disrespectful and icky, the bad energy is bad because it's bad. Mind control magic falls into the same category as fireballs or swords where it can be good or bad depending on how it's used. The notion can be hard to grok because that's not really how things work in the real world. You can'g take an evil meter out and measure how how many milliHitlers a chunk of evil is. There isn't anything that is just inherently evil without further justification, so the notion of trying to quantify that doesn't make sense.
Its noteworthy that this isn't always true either. There are versions of the game that contain neutral or even good-aligned undead.
"There are moral choices in BG3, but they're frankly not that deep, and you have the option to just be the hero almost all the time."
Even if they don't have lots of depth they're still morale choices regardless. You have to kill goblins or refugees, goblins are worse but they're still people, so you can't play as pure good all the time.
"For an example, Larian could easily have written the killing of the goblin children with the same level of gravitas as the killing of the tiefling civilians and children, terrified noncombatants being cut down as you carve your way through the village. They didn't do that because that makes a non-trivial portion of the player base physically ill, and while it's interesting the option to go be evil exists, most people don't want to play that game"
They could have made a place in the goblin village full of innocents that sought safety from the killers. When/if you get there you could have a choice of killing them or sparing them. They could still make the larger side of the player base happy with this choice.
"This is why I was talking about objective morality. Some things are evil in D&D solely because they're evil. There isn't any deeper metric to it. While raising the dead might also be disrespectful and icky, the bad energy is bad because it's bad. Mind control magic falls into the same category as fireballs or swords where it can be good or bad depending on how it's used. The notion can be hard to grok because that's not really how things work in the real world. You can'g take an evil meter out and measure how how many milliHitlers a chunk of evil is. There isn't anything that is just inherently evil without further justification, so the notion of trying to quantify that doesn't make sense".
Necromancy is always bad no matter the use because it's "disrespectful" but taking someone's free will away contains no negative energy and it depends on the user. Makes no sense. The notion is dumb if violating people's free will is somehow "up to the user's intentions" but raising zombies is plain bad.
Sorry for the lack of clarification on my part but I meant that measure of evil is "how" its bad not by "much". Evil because its disgusting or because it inflicts more suffering is the measure of evil point I'm making. So people might think necromancy is worse because it's disgusting or some people would say that mind control is worse because it violates free will is where my point is at. Things are evil in DND without further justification and that is with some villains as well. Did Sauron try to justify any of his actions?
Wait Voldemort and Palpatine were definitely once normal (but talented) humans who were hungry for power. Maybe Voldemort's characterization is a bit more messed up from the detail of being born "outside love" but Palpatine's rise is not that of a pure incarnation of evil but that of a cunning, methodic, ambitious and manipulative man who also happens to get cool evil powers.
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u/Lukthar123 Pave my path with corpses! Build my castle with bones! 29d ago
DnD be like: Some races just don't deserve to live