Can good characters serve evil masters and remain good?

Can good characters serve evil masters and remain good?

Can evil characters retain strong morals while remaining evil?

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>Can good characters serve evil masters and remain good?
Punchclock villain, the trope.
>Can evil characters retain strong morals while remaining evil?
Lawful Evil

I disagree with the punchclock villain example, if they were good they wouldn't be commit the evil acts while "on the clock"

at best punch clock villains would be neutral

>Can good characters serve evil masters and remain good?
it would be the "I just followed orders kind of "good"" or the i am a fully retard kind

I realized that as I hit send.
Not quite that, but the Volk was good people living under an evil regime. They were serving the Reich in their own way, but you can't say that the entire Deutsche Volk was evil.

>Can evil characters retain strong morals while remaining evil?
I would ague that most very evil characters have a strong set of beliefes and/or ideals

yes therefor i used a pic of a ss officer (a political elite korps) and not an average german

Yes and yes.

Good and evil are subjectively defined, so it depends on the perspective of the one making the moral claim.

>Can good characters serve evil masters and remain good?
the character should at least activly try to escape or breake the influence of master when he kows he is evil

Most of the SS were LN.
Hitler was CN. The NSDAP ranged from LN to CE. Common folk is all across the grid.

But I'm probably going the moral relativism route. And D&D alignments don't work well with relativism

>these folks wuz x
Yeah, you don't get to claim that without x being definite, and x is nothing if not variable.

>>What is lawful evil?

The "I just followed orders" can work assuming the person in question can work harder to be lenient

For example, a servant of an evil overlord commanded to capture a town could take the town but keep the villagers inside from undue harm, could offer enemies chances to surrender and then abide by the surrender terms and give mercy when it's possible to do so

Still a shade grey of absolute good, but certainly not as dark as a rampaging looter or a cold, ruthless killer

Lawful evil I always viewed as tyranny, not evil but with morals

Except your pic, that's famous for being a sociopath that used idealists for the only purpouse to attain and mantain power, and deported them all in Siberia when they were no longer needed

>Most of the SS were LN.
>Hitler was CN.
And not evil at all despite their evil actions?

>Can good characters serve evil masters and remain good?
Easily, and in many ways. From the noble "my country, right or wrong" stereotype to the paladin who realizes his king is evil and depraved, but can be limited. Pretty dark shit could happen, like the paladin tolerating the king picking up little girls off the street so he's too busy doing .... things... to think about burning down "dissenting" villages to make an example or what Pétain did in France, if Zemmour is to be believed.

>Can evil characters retain strong morals while remaining evil?
Having some kind of moral code? Sure.
Objectively being a moral person? No. That comes with the whole "being evil" thing.

>A literal genocidal maniac and his stormtroopers who, unlike the average Wehrmacht conscripts, supported him all the way
Nah, the're the posterchildren for evil.

Why are their actions evil? Is intent not important? What about consequences?

The fact is that these terms, good and evil, are not statements of fact in any sense, and indeed, cannot be. They are shorthand terms of preference, and occasionally for an non-internalized ethical frameworks.

What is good is only good according to a standard of good, and that standard is, ultimately, arbitrary.

You have to understand german culture to see that the SS were LN. They had that Germany above all mentality since way back when they were gothic raiders.
As for Hitler, he did a lot of good as well. Healthcare reform, smoking ban, ending the inflation, the Autobahn...

I once had a Priestess of Lolth that helped remove corruption from the order of Paladins. All you need is a loose leash. Lolth doesn't care too much as long as I'm not acting disgracefully or making friends with elves.

>Why are their actions evil? Is intent not important? What about consequences?
I'm Russian so please tell me about moral ambiguity of their actions, /pol/. You Western fucks love bashing us for being evil Mongolian horde. Now I want to see how you bash Nazi mass murderers (hint: genocide happened not only to Jews and gypsies).

>to see that the SS were LN
You shouldn't use DnD alignments outside games. It's a rigid system to begin with, prone to misuse and completely unapplicable to our real world.

(OP)

Evil isn't about selfishness, though it most commonly is. "I will burn the world for my own sake" is certainly evil, but so is "I will burn the world for the sake of my love".

You could have a man dedicated to his country and king, who volunteers his spare time to improve the kingdom, who would gladly die for its sake... but much more happily make others die for it. This man could believe in duty, loyalty, generosity to his subordinates, kindness to his people. If, however, he slaughters foreigners to take their land and resources for his own nation, if he tortures anyone who might know information that would benefit or secure his country, if he sees to the deliberate crushing of the spirit of another nation's people by making them live in terror so that they will remain subjugated to his own people's needs, then the man is evil.

Burn the world for the sake of your country, burn the world for the sake of your family, burn the world for the sake of your god? Burning the world is evil.

Good characters apply goodness unilaterally. They care for strangers as well as their friends and family. They care for their enemies, at least a little, even if it's just some little corner of their mind that wishes they could find some more merciful way to finish them. They don't need a personal motivation or excuse to help others. They do need a personal motivation to do evil acts.

Evil characters, on the other hand, ONLY do good if they have a personal motivation or reason to do so. Those personal motivations might end up being quite broad, and they don't necessarily need to fit with self-interest or pragmatism. Evil characters can be romantics or idealists or emotional as much as anyone.

tl;dr No and yes, OP.

I don't know what you're expecting. What I said makes the point clear.

Your good is /your/ good, not /the good/, and in fact there is no absolute good.

Nearly everyone believes they're doing the right thing, and their conception of good is just as valid as yours or mine.

>and their conception of good is just as valid as yours or mine
This kind of limp dicked tolerance is revolting. Despite are different moral values there are things all people consider precious: life, happiness, hope. Exceptions are far and few enough such as death cults. People who deny these to others are viewed as evil assholes. Going on killing spree and torture tour is in fact evil.

I have already written a disclaimer here and I know that the alignment grid can't be applied to real life.
The point that germans put a lot of their thought into Deutschland uber alles still stands. Shit, even Romans told about their fanaticism when it came to the tribe and the leader.
And I reread this post and found the alignment I'm looking for. Lawful Stupid

By having someone with such a strong sense of duty and loyalty, that they might hate their king, but still defend him and save him from harm against his own allies.

>all moral labels are arbitrary, but the nazis definitely werent evil

>there is no point in arguing because morals are arbitrary but you're also wrong

I didn't imply that you should tolerate other perspectives, especially ones you believe are wrong. I'm a racist, sexist, anti-Semitic nationalist who would love nothing more than to gas the Skypes and RaHoWa. You should absolutely have strong convictions. But recognize they are not objectively superior to any other set of convictions.

>muh boglobaust
>pretentious grandstanding
First off, fuck you for being a whiny little emotional bitch. Calm down and act rationally.

Second, universal values are only universal, not objective.

I believe the Nazis were quite good but that is only my belief, not some impossible fact.

See above.

>But recognize they are not objectively superior to any other set of convictions
I have no reason to do what Nazi apologist wants. Also fuck you, Nazi little bitch.

>u like nazis so that means u r evil and always wrong and i shuldnt listen to anything u say
That'll be the shrunken amygdala.

>I believe the Nazis were quite good but that is only my belief, not some impossible fact.
H E R E W E G O
E
R
E

W
E

G
O

Whatever you say, Nazi bitch

youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

>Evil characters, on the other hand, ONLY do good if they have a personal motivation or reason to do so.
Isn't it the other way around? Evil characters do good things only when pressured by others, to influence others and to uphold their reputation?

Define "good". Define "evil.

the answer is yes, people are extremely complicated things, and so nearly anything you can think of is entirely possible

how you justify it is entirely up to you

Don't know about the first one but definitely yes on the second if serving good right now is the most beneficial thing for them to do

The SS was Chaotic Evil.

Corrupt, bureaucratic and power hungry - and filled with infighting. It was notorious for corruption and nepotism - as well as backstabbing.

It was also the dumping ground of Wehrmacht rejects and produced a pretentious anti-Prussian counter culture in hopes of becoming the new German aristocracy.

I don't understand why these questions are being asked on Veeky Forums as if we're somehow going to come to a satisfying answer that everyone agrees on.
My answers are
>Perhaps, depending on their level of disconnect with and understanding of the master's atrocities
>It can happen. Committing atrocities "So someone else doesn't have to" is still committing atrocities.

>It was also the dumping ground of Wehrmacht rejects
Wait, wasn't the SS elite as fuck? Basically Hitler's "fuck shit up" squad?
I admit my history of the German Reich isn't impressive, but it sounds like your description is more fitting of the SA to me.

That. My granddad once told me: "Whenever they showed up we sent prayers of thanks to the Lord above, they cleaned the place... you wouldn't be able to fathom."
Germanfag, oviously

>let's have another 350-post thread angrily chasing our own tails trying to apply D&D's unworkable combination of virtue ethics and deontological ethics.

>people totally haven't been having this same discussion for all of human history!
>and they certainly haven't attempted to cram it through the lens of tabletop roleplaying since the beginning of the hobby!
>we'll put it to rest this time, for sure!

>unworkable combination of virtue ethics and deontological ethics.
My desire to know more has grown exponentially.

Get help.

we'll find out over the next four years

If you're seriously this upset by someone having different opinions I think /you/ need help, user.

I'm not remotely upset, I'm simply recommending a mentally ill person to find aid so theu can get better.

Not everyone who disagrees with you is mentally ill, sport.

Of course not. But advocating genocide is not sane either.

>If, however, he slaughters foreigners to take their land and resources for his own nation, if he tortures anyone who might know information that would benefit or secure his country, if he sees to the deliberate crushing of the spirit of another nation's people by making them live in terror so that they will remain subjugated to his own people's needs, then the man is evil.
But none of that is evil.

D&D's alignment system is used in part to categorize people by their innate moral virtue, kind of lazily aping virtue ethics. A character's alignment tells you "user is a good person", "user is a bad person", and so on. This is already problematic for a number of reasons, including some that are not immediately apparent. It is further complicated by the inclusion of 'lawfulness' and 'chaoticness' as dimensions of alignment, the definitions of which are about as hazy and controversial as those of 'good' and 'evil'.

And then there are parts of it that try to categorize actions as good or bad, by a very crude deontological standard. That is to say, it tries to establish a sort of 'code of goodness', a set of rules that objectively determine whether an action is morally good or bad (or "lawful" or "chaotic", or "lawful good", or "chaotic neutral", and so on). You find it in reference to "evil acts". Thankfully this aspect has been de-emphasized to a large extent in the newest editions, but the idea and accompanying arguments still linger.

As if it wasn't unclear enough, a person's actions are supposed to be capable of changing that person's alignment. That is to say, a good person who does enough bad things becomes a bad person. Controversially, D&D has not given much good guidance as to when an alignment change is meant to happen.

To the designers' credit, most of this can be safely ignored in the newest editions, but for much of the history of D&D, the game's basic mechanics have been closely tied to alignment, making it of great consequence. That has made it imperative for groups to make snap judgments regarding the alignments of both characters and actions, often with very high stakes, with characters often losing their powers through failure to adhere to certain virtue standards (alignment shift could cost a paladin all his powers, or forbid a character from taking levels in classes with alignment requirements, like bard or barbarian, and so on).

>[And then user hit the post-length limit and couldn't be assed to write more]


So yeah, I hope you learned something. I've already seen this thread a thousand times before, so enjoy the seemingly never-ending debacle that it represents.

>the stormkiddo Nazi is the only one in this thread speaking the truth
What a world we live in.

Yeah, you're just wrong about that.

If you want a different trope name, try "noble top enforcer".

>Tolerance

I do not and would not tolerate you even in the slightest if I had to, but that doesn't mean I'd pass off my eager willingness to slap the impotent little tyrant sneer off your bitch face as cosmic absolute moral rectitude you drooling simpleton.

And here we go with the insanity again.

>Can good characters serve evil masters and remain good?

>YOURE A PSYCHO YOURE A PSYCHO
>I disagree and I think differently
>PSYCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I'm not that user but you're doing a great job convincing me to listen to Nazi sympathizer arguments by writing like an absolute jackass.

>I think the mass murder thousands of innocent people is ok
>Why don't you respect my right to think differently, check you privilege

>Der Juden
>innocent
Oy vey

Go eat some cheeseburgers, America.

I just did, glory to Pax Americana, the most glorious hegemon in the world's history!

You didn't need any convincing to begin with

Then 9/11 wasn't evil at all

>objective, universal morality
It was evil from my and my nation's point of view, and that's all that matters you godless communist heathen.

>It was evil from my and my nation's point of view
It was evil from most people point of view, you fat fucktard. You killing innocents abroad is just as evil.

>You killing innocents abroad is just as evil.
From their perspective, but maybe they should try not being 3rd worlders if they don't want to get imperium'd.

Typical Anglo tier hypocricy

>Anglo tier hypocrisy
Back to /pol/, Krautposter.

Back to /pol/, walking shart

>Sausageniggers
>acting like they're people
Kek'd

Maybe at the beginning, but by 1944 the deteriorating situation in Europe forced the SS to take a more fully military role, 'promoted' from paramilitary force to fully military role than they had previously. They thus suffered an enormous drop in quality. There were elite divisions, sure, but for every one of them there two or three full of conscripts who's job it was to stop Russian bullets with their bodies.

In order:
-Weimar German plan that he appropriated
-Fair point, but considering that the Nazis literally had every one of their soldiers hyped up on meth by the end of the war...
-Also Wiemar
-Guess what? Wiemar

Source: twenty seconds on wikipedia for each

>Good and evil dichotomy
>He posts the cover of Leviathan
Top lel

>exceedingly efficient

>implying Lord Vetinari is evil

That's still more or less a personal Motivation. That fact the stimulus is outside, doesn't negate the fact the character is still working in their best interests. A lot of character's I've played are 'evil' but does good for the people around / people he cares about. As long as working together produces the best outcome in their minds they'll take it. Chaotic Evil is way more short sighted in this regard, unless they have a long term plan in motion to screw up shit on a large scale. (dethroning the king/poisoning watering holes)

Well He's definitely self interested, and does use underhanded tricks from time to time. That fact that a lot of it is for -his- city. and therefore for the betterment of most of its citizens makes it morally complex. He's got a good side to him, he just doesn't show it much. Like when he was a kid and joined vimes' fight. But if anything he is Pragmatic

Yeah, not saying he's good, but if anything I'd go with lawful neutral

I do think he genuinely cares and is good for the city, at least more than other politicians would be

Still, Carrot if he was to take up kingship would probably be a better ruler, if only because his plot armor charisma is so powerful that the guild leaders would more or less be forced to work with him

>Hitler's "fuck shit up" squad?
So long as they were fucking up the shit of unarmed civilians, sure. That's what they were most used for. Raze a village here for hiding jews, killed a few hundred there because a resistance attack was nearby, machine gun some troops surrendering to the Wehrmacht.

That's why they were feared and at the beginning of the war were very active. Once they had to fight on the front lines against equipped soldiers they got flattened.

Yes, of course, unless you use alignments.

Nazi punks fuck off

>Can good characters serve evil masters and remain good?
Changing the evil organization from the inside
>Can evil characters retain strong morals while remaining evil?
Yes. If their morals are incorrect but still strongly believed.

Alternatively, someone who knows what they are doing is wrong, but has other priorities.

Hitler was CE to the fucking bone
The SS were mostly LE, but Himmler was definitely NE
Most of the Wehrmacht could have been characterized as variations of neutral, mostly LN, while commanders might be more diverse
Rommel was CG to CN depending on the times, Ribbentrop would be somewhere around TN, etc ...

A good character could do a couple evil deeds for an evil master if it gives him a clear shot at taking down bigger and badder evil. I don't think they would emerge from it the same kind of good they were when they went in, but CG at worst by the end of it. Or maybe they were CG going in so LN at the end but the specifics are mostly irrelevant.

Undercover cops or infiltration agents are a good example, they ultimately do some bad shit to get in good with the bad guys but it's all to take that bad guy down eventually.

This should have been the first reply.

Hysterical babbies and armchair - or wheelchair rather - revolutionaries.
You lot are a fucking embarrassment.

>recognize they are not objectively superior to any other set of convictions.
>he says while daydreaming about mass murder of his ideological opponents

I have to respect your ability to trick people into taking you seriously by maintaining composure while expressing yourself though.

There's nothing incoherent there.
You don't have to believe that others' convictions are less valid than yours in order to kill them.

Fair enough.

On my part I'll stand by my conviction that people like you need to be mocked, ostracized and if they actually decide to do more than sperg out, locked up or, in emergency, shot.

>Yes. If their morals are incorrect but still strongly believed.

Then the game designers are lawful evil for indulging the idea of correct morality and making it a torturous axiom of their system, causing mental pain to thousands.

>They had that Germany above all mentality since way back when they were gothic raiders.

If that were the case then the holy roman empire wouldn't have been such a cluster fuck.

I'm not that guy, or a Nazi.
I don't know what your politics are, but I'm almost certain that mine are better. As far as I'm concerned you may have your own opinions until you hear mine, after which the only sensible course of action is to correct your thoughts along the lines I set out for you.

t. the mind controller,

Trotsky plz go.

>Your good is /your/ good, not /the good/, and in fact there is no absolute good.
Kek you said that to a russian in a conversation about nazis.

My favorite examples of these are those who are bound by 'the other alignment' axis.

For example: A Lawful Good Paladin who willingly serves the Evil Overlord because he considers Law and Order to be of more importance to society and Anarchy and Chaos. (Or perhaps he rightly believes that by serving as the Overlord's domestic police chief, less of his beloved civilians will die than if the Overlord himself were overseeing community discipline)

Similarly, the Lawful Evil Viceroy would help the Paladins take down his Highlord Master if he judged the Highlord to be acting too Chaotic Evil.

Or the Chaotic Good rogue who willingly aids the Patriarchal Templar overthrow the freely elected President because she learns the President is wholly Evil.

Oy, spoiled-sport: Don't shut down other people's discussions because they're covering ground you've covered before.

These threads happen all the time because it's one of those 'entry-level' problems with the DnD system and everyone will eventually ask this question. Sometimes the answers this thread provides aren't satisfactory and people involve themselves in more than one of these threads looking for something.

Don't make fun of people for thinking. Don't stymie a person's effort to grapple with reconciling morality and reality. Don't be that guy who mocks the skinny (or fat) new guy at the gym because he's doing exercises you've done before. Don't be that guy who mocks freshman for not understanding concepts you spent years of your life also learning to understand. Not everyone thinks it's fun to blitz the archives.

When you see threads like these, let people explore their own thoughts. You can just, like, -ignore the thread- and realize these threads are no longer for you.

You don't want to be one of the reasons that tabletop games seems insular and unwelcoming.

Alternatively, maybe the OP is running a campaign very soon and needs to remind himself of these thoughts before developing a setting.