Evil--What's your take?

[Philosopher]

Because even if you have a good god, and an evil god, individuals views on what is right and wrong still differ. Evil is just a tag attached to one group of people prejudice, used to try to scare people away from another groups.

In english; When it comes to conflicts of good and evil, it's better to take a standpoint on right and wrong then alignments. Because evil people are obviously doing something right, or they wouldn't exist.

Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy this viewpoint, it doesn't really apply in FR. Individual views can certainly differ on what is right and wrong, but only so long as it is based in ignorance. When a God of Good gives you the power to literally detect evil in others, a clearly established line of good and evil has been made. There is no prejudice involved on the mortal level. A God of unfathomable power is literally telling you what is evil and what is good.

There is no room for debate, unfortunately. In FR, good and evil are detectable traits, and this creates universal truths, universal right and wrongs. To change that would require a serious change to the setting and its views on the Gods and good and evil. I'd endorse such a change.

[Gamling]

Well since gods are so humanized, then they are prone to mistakes like humans. They mess up all the time. Someone can be evil, yes and know they're evil, but they could be thinking that they're doing something right. Like a Banite who beleives through tyranny and fear a reign of peace could ensue.

It's about what people value rather than a conscious decision to be evil or good.

[Lothoir]

Or one could know they are evil, acknowledge what do is evil, and still struggle with themselves. Alignment is dictated by actions, not thoughts. Using the Black Death as an example: It was common practice to bar an infected family's door and set the house ablaze to keep it from spreading to your own family. People murdered their friends and the children of their friends out of fear. We can debate whether that was right or wrong but to the people of the times what they did was evil, but necessary.

The Catholic teachings made it clear that it was evil, but people did it anyways. They thought the end times was near: If the Plague had been brought by their immorality and sin then what consequences would the evil they did to protect themselves have? It was a major point of inner struggle, as people tried to figure out what was going to happen to them, their souls, and their family.

The same can be true of any character in the Forgotten Realms setting, even moreso since there are a multitude of gods to choose from. An absolute set of morality works just as well for character development and roleplay as a relative morality. How many times have you done things you knew were wrong, but did anyways? How did you deal with your guilt?

[supersuperlative]

Keep up the good work Team Evil.

this whole 'Team Good' and 'Team Evil' stuff really turns me off.

Well I'm glad they're there [re: shades of grey]. I've just heard a lot of "Team Good vs. Team Evil"

In light of the comments made following my post that appear (it may just be an unfortunate coincidence of term usage) to be referencing it in a negative connotation, I just wanted to point out that if my whole post is taken in context I was actually congratulating the players of evil characters I'd encountered for all their wonderfully different forms and motivations, not condoning Lawful Dumb and Stupid Evil.

Just sayin'.

[Satoshi]

I personally like having clearly-defined religions, morals, and an active pantheon. It's one of the reasons that I enjoy the divine/religious aspect of Forgotten Realms, and all of the conflict and strife it produces. Having 'distant, alien gods' that are closer to impotent myths and left to vague interpretation are (in my opinion) stupid because you could just avoid the religious connotations as it's completely irrelevant either way. Distant, alien gods also make divine magic improbable or impossible because it's existence alone would be 'miracles' of proof - unless, of course, you argue that the miracle-worker is just a mage attempting to swindle uneducated and hopeful people.

People also forget that there isn't really a 'Team Good' or 'Team Evil'. There's also the ideological conflict between Law and Chaos. Chaotic Good and Lawful Good can be just as opposes as Lawful Good and Lawful Evil. As much as Bane may hate Lathander, Bane hates Cyric more. A chaotic good freedom fighter is a terrorist when he attacks perceived threats outside of lawful process, such as bombing the Thayan Enclave because the Red Wizards are an icon of slavery and evil.

All of that aside, I agree with PC Evil - in any of it's forms. Chaotic Stupid, Lawful Insidious, Opportunistic Evil, and the Anti-Villian all have places anywhere, in any setting.

[Kaybrie]

Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy this viewpoint, it doesn't really apply in FR. Individual views can certainly differ on what is right and wrong, but only so long as it is based in ignorance. When a God of Good gives you the power to literally detect evil in others, a clearly established line of good and evil has been made. There is no prejudice involved on the mortal level. A God of unfathomable power is literally telling you what is evil and what is good.

There is no room for debate, unfortunately. In FR, good and evil are detectable traits, and this creates universal truths, universal right and wrongs. To change that would require a serious change to the setting and its views on the Gods and good and evil. I'd endorse such a change.

The number of paladins that have been coerced and seduced by evil begs to differ with you.

[Saulus]

The number of paladins that have been coerced and seduced by evil begs to differ with you.

That's because...

[greypawn]

And the reality of players who play evil characters.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhnIqgTEBS8

I mean.. uhh.. no. We are all normal. Your helmet is sooo big.

[Doubtful]

(it may just be an unfortunate coincidence of term usage)

It's mostly coincidence - 'Team Good v Team Evil' is a phrase that used to be bandied about a lot by people who didn't tend to think about viable conflict between differing forces of good or evil but just thought all good got on and all evil were buddies.

On Philosophers points - The very-real gods aspect: the Time of Troubles where the gods walked the world was in 1358, Sundren current year is 1372, putting it 14 years ago. Every single PC character on Sundren was alive when it happened, though largely just children.

While the gods and clear(ish) good and evil exist in the world, there are still a myriad of shades in between. Even in what most would consider the wearers of the whitest of hats there is a lot of room for dogmatic interpretation and conflict - An order of Helm's paladins might take actions that would see a paladin of Ilmater cast out of his order forever, but only earn the Helmite a few days of praying before redemption. Even within the same church you'll have differing orders and interpretations - A member of Ilmaters Order of the Golden Cup might consider a member of the Companions of the Noble Heart to be a dangerous and violent extremist.

Outside of the divine orders good and evil can become relatively moot. Large organizations will have have a spread of people in them, with a spread of alignments and gods behind that. The Triumvirate temple may deal in mostly good people, with the Black Hand having a majority stake in despicable people, but the Legion, Veritas, CdG and other groups are strung out between them dealing in more practical matters than lofty (or base) ideals.

Lastly, let's not forget D&D is a bit of a crapsack world, outside of main cities it's supposed to be monster filled horror and terror (points of light in the darkness is the phrase I think) with adventurers as rare and mysterious things. Persistent worlds distort this slightly with the high-volume of people!

[Kangleton]

Good and evil are axioms defined by contrasting each other. Good is good because it is opposite from evil, and evil is evil because it is opposite from good. A Paladin doesn't necessarily detect the ethical wrongness of a man's soul, but instead the drastic difference between the man's soul and his own soul, which he deems to be "Good". He defines evil as what's opposite to his own values, which are values his god told him were good. It's still subjective.

Yes, there's a hell, and it's called evil. But who calls it evil? The good guys. There's still no clearly defined, objective definition of evil here. It's only definition by comparison, and so that definition remains dynamic. This is especially true given that the people making the comparative definitions are FR Gods - very, very fallible and human-like gods - who themselves aren't necessarily objective.

Maybe that's poorly explained, but I have no trouble seeing good and evil as subjective in the FR setting.

[roguethree]

A Paladin doesn't necessarily detect the ethical wrongness of a man's soul, but instead the drastic difference between the man's soul and his own soul, which he deems to be "Good".

No. Paladins are of good alignment. They don't define what's "good." "Good" has already been defined, ergo presenting it as a requirement.

Detect Evil is a level 1 cleric spell that can be cast by evil people, and it will certainly detect evil where it is present, no matter how "good" the person casting the spell thinks he is or how similar the detected's alignment is to his own.

[Kitsunestume]

In Sundren, it would seem that clerics cannot actually 'detect evil', as 'detect evil' is largely restricted to paladins, and 'detect good' largely restricted to blackguards, making the whole idea of detecting ethical imbalance a much more reasonable situation in our current campaign-world.

[Kangleton]

No. Paladins are of good alignment. They don't define what's "good." "Good" has already been defined, ergo presenting it as a requirement.

Who defined good?

[roguethree]

In Sundren, it would seem that clerics cannot actually 'detect evil', as 'detect evil' is largely restricted to paladins, and 'detect good' largely restricted to blackguards, making the whole idea of detecting ethical imbalance a much more reasonable situation in our current campaign-world.

That's a missing spell, not a world-specific difference.

Who defined good?

I would guess Ao, through the creation of Selune and Shar and the conflict that resulted.

[Kangleton]

But see, that's just it. Ao didn't give any explicit definitions toward morality. Morality is man-made. Mortals looked at Selune and Shar and arrived at their own conclusions about which was right and which was wrong. Gods did the same.

Ao created opposites, and the labels that mortals imposed onto those opposites created a loosely defined spectrum of morality. Ao did not say which of the opposites was good and which was evil, and in fact, through his actions, implied that such labels were irrelevant. I think there's still tons of subjectivity.

And, being that there's no definition for alignment asserted by Ao or any non-mortal (most gods were/are mortal) entity, a Paladin's detection of evil is relative. He isn't detecting true, actual, defined evil. He's detecting evil as relative to how his pantheon feels about what that word means.