Alignment (Again?!)

[mpgn_archive]

From: Shadewulf@aol.com
>The assumption that I am referring to is that one can
>judge any and all cultures by her/his own standards. This, to me, is
>incorrect. Diversity is present here, whether in real life or fantasy like
BR,
>and there is no universal truth, no omnipotent reality that supercedes all.
I have to disagree with this. This is POV/ diversity nonsense. Start
with the assumption that some action is evil. If a culture accepts this
action, does that make it good? No, that makes the culture incorrect, in
this regard at least, since we have already assumed that this action is
evil!

>we
>are insiders who are trying to be on the outside speaking about those who
are
>inside. People may believe otherwise, but there are others who will believe
>differently, whether it be philosophy, religion, science, or whatever else
>there may be. That is the nature of humanity, and in fantasy, I believe
that
>also applies, esp. because of the sheer number of races involved.
> This does not mean we cannot discuss these things,
>just that perspective must be maintained, for “reality” (for lack of a
better
>word) is perceived differently by each and every person. That is what makes
us
>individuals.
An individual can certainly believe anything he likes. However, he can
also be completely wrong about morality, and therefore evil.
Within the structure of the game, we do have an absolute scale of good
and evil. The alignment system is set up this way on purpose. If we let
everyone say that what they believed was correct, then there would be no
evil on that chart at all! But, it measures on an absolute scale, because
otherwise it is worse that useless (“You cast detect alignment on that
villain right there? He’s lawful good, he follows his own internal rules
and logic when killing people, and only kills people that are in the way of
his goals (and their families, to avoid retribution), he’s really not that
bad a guy.”)

> This is my input for now, and I hope no one takes
this
>wrong, as I am a novice to all this sort of thing.
Dammit! Don’t be so apologetic! I hate that! You never have to
apologize for taking part in the discussion!

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu

[mpgn_archive]

At 10:04 AM 10/8/98 -0400, Daniel McSorley wrote:
>
> Within the structure of the game, we do have an absolute scale of good
>and evil. The alignment system is set up this way on purpose. If we let
>everyone say that what they believed was correct, then there would be no
>evil on that chart at all!

I think this is why someone earlier said they have a problem with the
alignment system. The alignment system tries to describes both actions and
internal motivation. Those don’t necessarily agree. That’s why some think
a ranger can kill all members of his species enemy and retain his alignment
even though he is also killing those that aren’t a threat to him. Even
further, in Birthright, members of the same alignment may be forced into
battle with each other at the desires of their regents. The alignment
system as an absolute scale isn’t designed to handle all of this and give
an complete answer. Doesn’t mean its not useful.

This has been a Galwylin® Production

galwylin@airnet.net
http://www.airnet.net/galwylin/

[mpgn_archive]

I am not going to get involved in this debate, however, I will ask that
all participants retain their cool. Please be a little bit less
pugnacious about your posts Mr. Weiss. I have seen this kind of thing
happen on other mailing lists and it invariably results in large scale
flamewars. Which are both disruptive to the list function, and
extremely bothersome for the people who are not involved.

---

Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

[mpgn_archive]

Galwylin wrote,

>No one’s passing judgement on you. Why you wish to take on this role of a
victim, I don’t know.<

Actually, you are. And I am not taking on the role of the victim, I am
apologizing to the rest of the group for losing my patience with some of the
things you are writing.
Such as,

>You absolute view would condemn one of the poor victims of Ted Bundy had
they actually killed him trying to escape. My view of the gheallie Sidhe is
exactly the same as that of a court looking at someone on trial for killing
in self-defense.<

How on earth you equate someone killing someone who is trying to murder tham
with someone killing another person who happens to belong to the same group
as a person who at one point did you wrong, even tried to kill you is beyond
me. You denied that what you are saying equates to a person wandering into
your neighborhood and killing your children because the guy down the block
belongs a church that he doesn’t like. Well sorry to tell you, but that is
exactly what you are legitimizing with your statement equating the Gheallie
Sidhe with personal self defense.
And say it all you want, no matter how noble the cause, if you act like
scum, you are scum. You seem to want to take on the role of the victim here,
blaming everyone else for your crimes. (Or at least trying to convince
others to blame the victims for the crimes of the perpetrators.)
Further, you seem to continually confuse the difference between motivation
and method. Fighting to preserve your people is reasonable and intelligent.
Comitting genocide or “just” random murder is Evil, no matter how you slice
it.
Similarly, Shadewulf confuses the things with this,

>The assumption that I am referring to is that one can judge any and all
cultures by her/his own standards. <

Aside from the fact that you can indeed judge other cultures by your own
standards, I am not doing so. I am judging a culture by its own standards.
Any would have to agree that the Elves of Cerilia think it is wrong for
humans to destroy their living spaces and murder their people wantonly. Yet
oddly you wish to argue that is fine and dandy for the Elves to do the same
to humans because of POV or somesuch nonsense.
How utterly awful of me to hold any to their own high standards. The actions
of the Chruch during the Crusades or Inquisition come to mind. Likewise
various actions of the Allied governments during WWII. This is also the
excuse the Left used to convince others that Pol Pot was just doing his own
cultural thing and should not be judged by Western standards. Tell that to a
survivor of the Killing Fields and see if he agrees with you.
And do not start confusing concepts like I believe stopping Hitler was
wrong. Though you must, because we can not judge his culture by our moral
standards, what I find wanting are some of the methods, not the goal. Rather
as I judge the Gheallie Sidhe to be Evil.
As for Peter Hodge and this comment,

>For example, in the harshness of the Dark Sun
setting, many acts which could possibly be considered “evil” or morally
“wrong” in another setting (FR or BR, for example), could go unremarked. I
think that Lawful Good in Dark Sun is alot different than Lawful Good in
FR.<

Incorrect. What it means is that you are highly unlikely to find anyone of
Lawful Good alignment running around on Athas. Lowering your standards
because of a situation is venal. But of course, given the constant movement
of Western culture in the direction of “everyone must be equal always”, it
is becoming rather prevalent.
I personally may never live up to the highest standards I set for myself and
others, but just because I do not cut it, does not mean I will go lowering
those standards. I am not now, nor have I ever been, “equal” to a Jeffrey
Dahmer or Josef Stalin. It is unfortunate if any of you feel that you are.

Samwise
>Please be a little bit less pugnacious about your posts Mr. Weiss.<
This came in right before I sent this one off. So by request, this is my
last post on the topic as I know I will not be able to control myself given
what I keep reading. My final word will be, read what you are writing and
consider the implications. Do you really wish to justify any act just
because someone, somewhere thinks that it is OK? Consider the ramifications
when such an attitude comes home to your neighborhood.

[mpgn_archive]

Galwylin wrote:

> At 10:04 AM 10/8/98 -0400, Daniel McSorley wrote:
> >
> > Within the structure of the game, we do have an absolute scale of good
> >and evil. The alignment system is set up this way on purpose. If we let
> >everyone say that what they believed was correct, then there would be no
> >evil on that chart at all!
>
> I think this is why someone earlier said they have a problem with the
> alignment system. The alignment system tries to describes both actions and
> internal motivation. Those don’t necessarily agree. That’s why some think
> a ranger can kill all members of his species enemy and retain his alignment
> even though he is also killing those that aren’t a threat to him. Even
> further, in Birthright, members of the same alignment may be forced into
> battle with each other at the desires of their regents. The alignment
> system as an absolute scale isn’t designed to handle all of this and give
> an complete answer. Doesn’t mean its not useful.

I think that was me…

Anyway, I’m glad I made that comment since it has sparked so much lively
debate. I’m a devout Conversationalist, which means I think the greatest of
all moral laws is the First Amendment and the only true evil is censorship…

I would like to point out, however, that I think the original debate has
changed from a discussion of the alignment system into a debate regarding the
existence of absolute versus situational morality with a few hints of
sociological ethics tossed in, which seems to be the au currant thing to do
since the 1960’s.

I have to admit, I fall down on Samual’s side of this particular debate. I
think there certainly is an absolute morality, and that holding up the POV of
an individual or the mores of a culture/society are poorly contrived excuses
for immoral behavior disguised as a higher moral standard of empathy and
individual rights. This is a fundamental perversion of the moral standard of
context determining right and wrong. That is, because of the moral standard
that makes an exception to the immorality of killing when it is done in
self-defense or when defending the lives of others, many people commit the
fallacy of extending that moral exception to less clearly defined
circumstances, such as cultural conflict or long-term survival issues.

I’m a logically inclined guy, so here’s the logical argument/fallacy:

Murder is immoral. Self-defense is not murder. Therefore, self-defense is not
immoral.

Defending one’s culture by killing is self-defense. Self-defense is not
murder. Therefore, defending one’s culture by killing is not immoral.

See how the first statement of the second argument is flawed? Defending one’s
culture by killing is not self-defense. Self-defense is an immediate
action/response. Defending one’s culture is a premeditated act. Not at all
the same thing. There are parallels between the two, however, and I believe
that is the problem. An act of self-defense can be interpreted as defending
one’s culture when the source of the attack is racial or cultural, but that is
not really the same thing. Race and culture are incidental to self-defense.
In fact, they are opposing forces. You cannot apply self-defense to a culture
because the word “self” is right there in the word! “Self” opposes culture by
definition.

Now, at this point, I think I should give a nod to good ole’ Thomas Aquinas and
his definition of “just war” etc. Personally, I think Tommy equates
self-defense and defending one’s culture a bit too much, thus justifying a lot
of the wars since the 13th century, but you can’t really blame him. The wars
would have happened anyway. It’s just that their justification would not have
been quite so easy, and rulers would have had less trouble wriggling out of
their moral responsibility.

The point in all this is that the moral basis of the argument that the Ghallie
Sidhie are using to justify their actions is fundamentally flawed, as are the
moral arguments made regarding whether the GS can still be construed as “good”
when they do their thing. The actions of the elves are definitively evil.
They combine both killing people without moral justification and racism, both
of which are immoral.

There is also an argument that because these actions are responses to moral
wrongs in the past, they are justified, but that really doesn’t hold water. It
parallels the current moral argument regarding Native American rights that is
going on here in the U.S. right now.

(Out here in California we have Proposition 5 coming up that actually has
equated Indian Gaming with the slaughter of natives. One early ad quoted a
newspaper that said that Governor’s Wilson’s veto of a similar bill a year or
two ago was as bad as “anything the U.S. Cavalry did last century.” Can you
imagine? Not allowing Bingo on reservations is as morally reprehensible as the
Trail of Tears or Wounded Knee? Personally, I could care less about Indian
gaming, but I have to vote against this thing now if for no other reason than
personal aesthetics…)

The problem with this argument (the “response to previous wrongs” argument, not
the Indian gaming one) is that it equates self-defense with pre-emptive
actions, and commits the good old Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right Fallacy.
Self-defense is by definition immediate. The response to previous aggression
argument not only is not immediate, but is predicated upon a continuation of
past aggression, which is not logically supportable.

My last point about this situational vs. absolute morality is that whether you
believe in absolute morality or not, it does exist in the game. That’s what
alignment is. Unfortunately, the designers of the game presented alignment
without really defining it, leading to this kind of debate. Not only that, but
they have made alignment far too significant in the game. Absolute morality
exists, but in my view it is far less intrusive than most people seem to
think. Do you really need to believe in absolute morality to know that
slaughtering civilians is an evil act?

There is a vast and vague gray area that exists between the poles of good and
evil on the absolute morality scale in which most of us operate 99.9% of the
time. Often people who believe in absolute morality confuse their beliefs
within the gray area with their absolute ones, leading them to describe things
as evil or immoral which are not absolutely so. This also ends up in a
reversal of that situation where people see the confusion of the gray area and
equate it to the absolutes at the edge.

OK, so I’m stepping off my soapbox now.

Gary

[mpgn_archive]

Thank you, Gary, for that last post.

>>>You cannot apply self-defense to a culture
because the word “self” is right there in the word! “Self” opposes culture
by
definition.

The alignment rules in D&D simply can't apply correctly to groups of

individuals, nations, political parties, or any other entity that consists
of more than one sentient being with free will.
Maybe we can say that a person’s alignment is represented by a “point”
on the scale between good and evil, (or C&L), and a group’s alignment can be
represented by a shaded area along the bar between the opposites.
More than one EXACT alignment can fit pretty well within the group, but
some are outside the “acceptable region”.

[mpgn_archive]

The ghealliea sidhe kills humans because they are human. They might
take
>a special pleasure in killing armed humans roaming their territory, but
they
>also roam far and wide, inside their kingdoms and out, killing innocent
>people. They aren’t trying to push the humans anywhere, they just want
to
>kill them off.
>
>Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu

Your wrong there, the purpose of the Gheallie Sidhe is to take back
their lands, they dont rightly care WHERE the humans go, as long as
they’re off cerilia and off their lands. As for the absolutes of good
and evil, its a long running war and the Gheallie Sidhe is the elves
army, basically when the elves realized that they werent going to be
able to muscle the humans off they decided to fight guerilla warfare and
scare them off. I find it hard to condemn people as “evil” just because
their fighting a war the only way they can.

Would you be able to condemn say america as evil if somehow say, the
russians came back and took it over, also lets say that they began
burning churches and destroying homes. So, the americans decide to fight
back the only way they are able, sneak in and kill the russians, and
allow no russian to survive entering the few lands america has left.
Basically the humans (in the eyes of the elves) have no right whatsoever
to be there, and they came in, siezed lands belonging to others, and
began destroying things that the native peoples found sacred. (a
somewhat evil act wouldnt you say) The elves had been nothing but
friendly to the humans when they first met them.

---

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Ryan Freire wrote:

> Your wrong there, the purpose of the Gheallie Sidhe is to take back
> their lands, they dont rightly care WHERE the humans go, as long as
> they’re off cerilia and off their lands. As for the absolutes of good
> and evil, its a long running war and the Gheallie Sidhe is the elves
> army, basically when the elves realized that they werent going to be
> able to muscle the humans off they decided to fight guerilla warfare and
> scare them off. I find it hard to condemn people as “evil” just because
> their fighting a war the only way they can.
>
> Would you be able to condemn say america as evil if somehow say, the
> russians came back and took it over, also lets say that they began
> burning churches and destroying homes. So, the americans decide to fight
> back the only way they are able, sneak in and kill the russians, and
> allow no russian to survive entering the few lands america has left.
> Basically the humans (in the eyes of the elves) have no right whatsoever
> to be there, and they came in, siezed lands belonging to others, and
> began destroying things that the native peoples found sacred. (a
> somewhat evil act wouldnt you say) The elves had been nothing but
> friendly to the humans when they first met them.

Hmmm. I think there are many differences between the GS and the scenario that
you describe above. First, the GS aren’t really at war. War is a
legal/national term predicated upon lawful rulers and states. The GS are the
elven equivalent of civilians acting on their own.. They are more like
terrorists than soldiers, which makes their actions evil rather than morally
justified. They have a significant power base in their nations, but are
generally not supported by the government on an official basis. They might be
state sponsored terrorists in some cases, but that doesn’t make their actions
any less reprehensible.

Actually, a more accurate comparison of the GS might be (and I could get
slammed for this, but what the heck?) the KKK after the Civil War. There are
certainly many differences between these two, but I think the ethical authority
of either of them to kill civilians is based upon the same horrifically flawed
moral argument.

Lastly, I don’t know that you could really describe what the GS do as a
guerilla warfare. Guerilla warfare is really a tactical methodology. It’s a
means of fighting a small scale war with limited troops. The GS sometimes use
it, sometimes not. The problem isn’t their use of guerilla warfare (or any
other type) it’s their application of it. They attack civvies. That’s a no-no
in warfare even in medieval times. Oh, war has always been brutal on
civilians, but making the slaughter of civilians the object of your efforts
rather than incidental to it (what has now been euphemistically called
“collateral damage”) is immoral.

Gary

[mpgn_archive]

At 10:56 AM 10/8/98 -0700, Gary V. Foss wrote:

>>A lot of good points. More than I think I’m allowed to quote since this
is a response to all of it (except the CA proposition)

[mpgn_archive]

From: Ryan Freire
>Your wrong there, the purpose of the Gheallie Sidhe is to take back
>their lands, they dont rightly care WHERE the humans go, as long as
>they’re off cerilia and off their lands. As for the absolutes of good
>and evil, its a long running war and the Gheallie Sidhe is the elves
>army, basically when the elves realized that they werent going to be
>able to muscle the humans off they decided to fight guerilla warfare and
>scare them off. I find it hard to condemn people as “evil” just because
>their fighting a war the only way they can.
>
They’re not fighting a war. The GS isn’t practicing guerilla tactics,
they’re more like terrorists. And, there haven’t been any real invasions of
elven territory by men since well before the Empire fell, 500 years back.
Even an arrogent elf might start to notice a pattern like that after 500
years. They can’t be guerillas, because there is no invading/ occupying
army for them to guerilla (Is that a verb? Aw, heck.)! They mainly
slaughter civilians, merchants and poor farmers. The human armies don’t go
in the elven woods, they might try to intercept a war party before it hit a
village, but they wouldn’t pursue it back into the elven home territory.
People fear elves, and the GS is the reason why.

>Would you be able to condemn say america as evil if somehow say, the
>russians came back and took it over, also lets say that they began
>burning churches and destroying homes. So, the americans decide to fight
>back the only way they are able, sneak in and kill the russians, and
>allow no russian to survive entering the few lands america has left.
What you just described is guerilla warfare against an occupying army.
There is no occupying army of humans on elven land, the lands the humans
have now have been lived on by humans for over a thousand years, again, long
enough for the elves to take notice that the humans aren’t being especially
expansionistic for the past MILLENIA!

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu

[mpgn_archive]

Galwylin wrote:

> At 10:56 AM 10/8/98 -0700, Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
> >>A lot of good points. More than I think I’m allowed to quote since this
> is a response to all of it (except the CA proposition)
> I agree with much of what you wrote and only have a few points to make in
> response. To use your example format:
>
> The gheallie Sidhe is elves killing all humans encountered.
> The gheallie Sidhe is humans killing all humanoids encountered.
>
> I think most are likely to say the first sentence is evil but opinions will
> vary on the second. We don’t think of humanoids as anything but evil
> (well, at least that’s what alignment they’re given). Destroying evil is
> not evil.
>
> Another:
> Destroying forests is evil.
> Humans destroy forests.
> Humans are evil.
>
> This is exactly where I see the gheallie Sidhe coming from (not only this
> but one example will work). We’ve used lots of references to other
> cultures but I guess there just isn’t one that truly fits. Just as humans
> see humanoids as evil, elves see humans as evil. The alignment system is
> geared toward a human view so that anything that does harm to humans is
> evil on it. Elves are not humans. At the most, they are an alien species
> but the system doesn’t allow enough distinction for them to have a
> different view of what lawful good is as opposed to the human view. There
> is an absolute scale in the system but its not favorable to elves. So,
> mages may release fireballs within forests without that having an effect on
> their alignment.

Well, I don’t think that is really the Gheallie Sidhie’s argument. The
destruction of forests is bad, but not their major objection the the
encroachment of humans. If I recall correctly, elves lived on the plains of
Cerilia before humans arrived, didn’t they? There were more forests back then,
but I’m pretty sure the elven attitude towards forests is more of a reaction to
the fact that they are better able to defend themselves in them rather than
some sort of sacred belief in trees.

As for the “humans are to elves what humanoids are to humans” part of your
response, I quite agree. I see that relationship as being based more upon
long-standing antipathy than active hatred and warfare, however. I hadn’t
really noticed that humans kill all humanoids encountered. At least, that’s
not what they do in my campaigns… My players don’t kill the females and
children among humanoids unless they are attacked by them, nor do they launch
raids into humanoid held lands unless it is in response to raids. Thurazor is
sort of the goblin equivalent of a secular nation, isn’t it? They trade with
humans from time to time and everything. I would consider an unprovoked attack
upon Thurazor an evil act in a campaign I was DMing.

I would view a human character who ruthless slaughtered goblins as being at
best of neutral alignment. To put some guidelines on this, I would say that a
good character will not kill non-combatants, prisoners of war or
helpless/unarmed opponents. They will not initiate a war, and they will
respond to an act of war in a timely manner. None of this Hundred Years War
crap, thank you very much. All of this is regardless of race.

Now, there are certainly exceptions to the above guidelines. In fact, the
exceptions are far too many to list, so I won’t even bother giving examples.

One last point. Just because the original humans who violated elven lands
might have committed evil acts and may very well have been evil themselves,
that does not mean that an elven response that includes the slaughter of
civilians would not be evil. Just because the pot calls the kettle black
doesn’t mean he spends any less time over the fire. (OK, lousy analogy, but
what the heck?) An evil act with rationale is still an evil act.

Gary

[mpgn_archive]

At 01:20 PM 10/8/98 -0700, Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
>Actually, a more accurate comparison of the GS might be (and I could get
>slammed for this, but what the heck?) the KKK after the Civil War. There are
>certainly many differences between these two, but I think the ethical
authority
>of either of them to kill civilians is based upon the same horrifically
flawed
>moral argument.

Actually, while watching television, I was reminded of the KKK and there is
more in common between the KKK and the gheallie Sidhe than I like.

>They attack civvies. That’s a no-no
>in warfare even in medieval times. Oh, war has always been brutal on
>civilians, but making the slaughter of civilians the object of your efforts
>rather than incidental to it (what has now been euphemistically called
>“collateral damage”) is immoral.

That’s true up until modern warfare in which civilians did become targets
(WWI, I believe). We have no problems bombing cities now, knowing that
civilian causalties may occur (actually, there doesn’t even have to be a
war declared for that to happen). TSR settings are all a
pseudo-combination of medieval times with modern morality. Also, in
ancient times, there was never a problem with a warlord invading a nation
and destroying whole cities and towns and everyone in them. Morality
really was subjective then. The enemy always became a ‘they’ that had
nothing in common with the attackers. By today’s standards, the gheallie
Sidhe is evil. Is today’s standards what we are meant to use? Probably.

The only solution I see for the elves of Cerilia to maintain their culture
(assuming humans will eventually destroy their homes) and not be labeled
evil is to either gather themselves in a few corners (as in Greyhawk) or
leave the continent (as in Forgotten Realms). Since there are no drow
(that I know of), I wonder if the designers had envisioned the gheallie
Sidhe as a replacement.

Of all the aspects of Birthright I like, the fact that elves actually
fought and hated humans for what was done to them was my favorite.
Finally, elves that didn’t wimper off into a corner. Now, that I think
about it, it seems they have. Or must bow down before the ‘goodness’ of
humanity and embrace evil.

This has been a Galwylin® Production

galwylin@airnet.net
http://www.airnet.net/galwylin/

[mpgn_archive]

At 05:27 PM 10/8/98 -0400, Daniel McSorley wrote:
>
> What you just described is guerilla warfare against an occupying army.
>There is no occupying army of humans on elven land, the lands the humans
>have now have been lived on by humans for over a thousand years, again, long
>enough for the elves to take notice that the humans aren’t being especially
>expansionistic for the past MILLENIA!

Elves do have one real worry. If the empire unites, it will expand. 1000
years may seem long to humans, but to elves? Certainly 500 years hasn’t
been forgotten by them. I still think you have to look at humans as elves,
not humans. Time is much different for them and century year old wounds
are still fresh.

This has been a Galwylin® Production

galwylin@airnet.net
http://www.airnet.net/galwylin/

[mpgn_archive]

At 02:43 PM 10/8/98 -0700, Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
>Well, I don’t think that is really the Gheallie Sidhie’s argument. The
>destruction of forests is bad, but not their major objection the the
>encroachment of humans.

Just to point out something. You said the destruction of forests is bad.
Not evil. From what I’ve been able to read so far, it is evil according to
elves. Not just the gheallie Sihde. Just an attempt to show that maybe
the view of elves aren’t recieving the attention deserved

>If I recall correctly, elves lived on the plains of
>Cerilia before humans arrived, didn’t they? There were more forests back
then,
>but I’m pretty sure the elven attitude towards forests is more of a
reaction to
>the fact that they are better able to defend themselves in them rather than
>some sort of sacred belief in trees.

The latest thing I’ve read is the Book of Magecraft and it gives the
impression that any destruction of the forest is evil. They could have
plains then moved to the forests (I don’t remember) but home is home.

>I hadn’t
>really noticed that humans kill all humanoids encountered.

I don’t think they do (though I’ve had players believe that was acceptable.
After all, they are just monsters

>I would view a human character who ruthless slaughtered goblins as being at
>best of neutral alignment.

Okay, I was following you well till now. Goblins are sentient. I don’t
see why the ruthless slaughter of them gets a neutral alignment but elves
who slaughter humans gets an evil one. I can almost imagine goblins
saying, “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” ;D

>One last point. Just because the original humans who violated elven lands
>might have committed evil acts and may very well have been evil themselves,
>that does not mean that an elven response that includes the slaughter of
>civilians would not be evil. Just because the pot calls the kettle black
>doesn’t mean he spends any less time over the fire. (OK, lousy analogy, but
>what the heck?) An evil act with rationale is still an evil act.

Understandable. It just that there are circumstances not being considered.
Humans killing the parents of an elf will probably be hated as well as
elves killing a human’s parents. Humans killing an elf a week ago will
translate the same. Elves have a much longer perception of time. The
equalavant could be a year, ten years, or a hundred years. For all we
know, the gheallie Sidhe could be made up of the elves directly affected by
the last human excursions into their lands. Remember what the rule book
said about the elven heart? Burning rage with only the slighest cause.

This has been a Galwylin® Production

galwylin@airnet.net
http://www.airnet.net/galwylin/

[Spyderz]

>Would you be able to condemn say america as evil if somehow say, the
>russians came back and took it over, also lets say that they began
>burning churches and destroying homes. So, the americans decide to fight
>back the only way they are able, sneak in and kill the russians, and
>allow no russian to survive entering the few lands america has left.
>Basically the humans (in the eyes of the elves) have no right whatsoever
>to be there, and they came in, siezed lands belonging to others, and
>began destroying things that the native peoples found sacred. (a
>somewhat evil act wouldnt you say) The elves had been nothing but
>friendly to the humans when they first met them.
I’m going to assume from this…that you wouldn’t find anything wrong with
the indians commiting acts of terrorism against everyone…just because
hundreds of years ago…all this was their’s…I’m not condoning the method
by which the land was taken from the Indians…but I think at this point
more than a hundred years later…that I would consider the Indians
commiting terrorism to be evil…so for the Elves to do the same some
several hundred years after humans came to Cerilia seems kind of evil to me
also…

[mpgn_archive]

Galwylin wrote:

> That’s true up until modern warfare in which civilians did become targets
> (WWI, I believe). We have no problems bombing cities now, knowing that
> civilian causalties may occur (actually, there doesn’t even have to be a
> war declared for that to happen). TSR settings are all a
> pseudo-combination of medieval times with modern morality. Also, in
> ancient times, there was never a problem with a warlord invading a nation
> and destroying whole cities and towns and everyone in them. Morality
> really was subjective then. The enemy always became a ‘they’ that had
> nothing in common with the attackers. By today’s standards, the gheallie
> Sidhe is evil. Is today’s standards what we are meant to use? Probably.

You’re right. Civilian casualties are much more prevalent than I portrayed in my
post. As you say, in ancient times when the distinction between civilian and
soldier was much more ill-defined, so killing one over the other was not as
distinctly defined. In the 20th century when front lines became very broad and
deep, including everything within the range of air power.

As for which moral system to use… well, I’d say use them all. What I mean by
that is that much of the morality that we use today is based on morality developed
thousands of years ago. Honestly, I don’t see people having a higher moral
standard now than they did in the time of Socrates.

[mpgn_archive]

Spyderz wrote:

> >Would you be able to condemn say america as evil if somehow say, the
> >russians came back and took it over, also lets say that they began
> >burning churches and destroying homes. So, the americans decide to fight
> >back the only way they are able, sneak in and kill the russians, and
> >allow no russian to survive entering the few lands america has left.
> >Basically the humans (in the eyes of the elves) have no right whatsoever
> >to be there, and they came in, siezed lands belonging to others, and
> >began destroying things that the native peoples found sacred. (a
> >somewhat evil act wouldnt you say) The elves had been nothing but
> >friendly to the humans when they first met them.
> I’m going to assume from this…that you wouldn’t find anything wrong with
> the indians commiting acts of terrorism against everyone…just because
> hundreds of years ago…all this was their’s…I’m not condoning the method
> by which the land was taken from the Indians…but I think at this point
> more than a hundred years later…that I would consider the Indians
> commiting terrorism to be evil…so for the Elves to do the same some
> several hundred years after humans came to Cerilia seems kind of evil to me
> also…

Several hundred years is only a long time to you mortals. A mere three elven generations
have passed since humans first arrived in Cerillia, if I remember correctly. Would you
blame the Indians for evil terrorism if someone took all thier land within three
generations? Geez, there are still a few elves who were alive during the times before
Diesmaar.

• -Andrew

[mpgn_archive]

At 05:51 PM 10/8/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>
>>Would you be able to condemn say america as evil if somehow say, the
>>russians came back and took it over, also lets say that they began
>>burning churches and destroying homes. So, the americans decide to fight
>>back the only way they are able, sneak in and kill the russians, and
>>allow no russian to survive entering the few lands america has left.
>>Basically the humans (in the eyes of the elves) have no right whatsoever
>>to be there, and they came in, siezed lands belonging to others, and
>>began destroying things that the native peoples found sacred. (a
>>somewhat evil act wouldnt you say) The elves had been nothing but
>>friendly to the humans when they first met them.
>I’m going to assume from this…that you wouldn’t find anything wrong with
>the indians commiting acts of terrorism against everyone…just because
>hundreds of years ago…all this was their’s…I’m not condoning the method
>by which the land was taken from the Indians…but I think at this point
>more than a hundred years later…that I would consider the Indians
>commiting terrorism to be evil…so for the Elves to do the same some
>several hundred years after humans came to Cerilia seems kind of evil to me
>also…

I think this still needs to be looked at from the elves point of view. The
elves fighting may very well be members of the generation that this started
with. If they aren’t then odds are they are the sons and daughters of the
elves that fought the humans originally. So while we look at it as many
human generations only 2 or 3 elven generations have gone by since the
fighting started. For a better point of view look at Bosnia and Serbia the
people of that area have been fighting each other for several years now and
the origin of that war is several hundred years old. And from what is said
on the news the Bosnians the Serbians and Croatas as well as the half dozen
other ethnic groups in that area are fighting with the same methods the
Gheallie Sidhie are. Mind you I’m not endorsing this but this type of war
is not uncommon, and the people on each side call the others evil because of
the way they fight but it is a sound tactic remove the way a group provides
new soldiers and you limit the number of people they can attack you with.

Mike

[mpgn_archive]

From: The Olesens
>Several hundred years is only a long time to you mortals. A mere three
elven generations
>have passed since humans first arrived in Cerillia, if I remember
correctly. Would you
>blame the Indians for evil terrorism if someone took all thier land within
three
>generations? Geez, there are still a few elves who were alive during the
times before
>Diesmaar.
>
Yeah, exactly, the big one that supports the GS, and was around back
then, Rhuobhe, is EVIL!

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu

[mpgn_archive]

From: swords
>I think this still needs to be looked at from the elves point of view. The
>elves fighting may very well be members of the generation that this started
>with. If they aren’t then odds are they are the sons and daughters of the
>elves that fought the humans originally. So while we look at it as many
>human generations only 2 or 3 elven generations have gone by since the
>fighting started. For a better point of view look at Bosnia and Serbia the
>people of that area have been fighting each other for several years now and
>the origin of that war is several hundred years old. And from what is said
>on the news the Bosnians the Serbians and Croatas as well as the half dozen
>other ethnic groups in that area are fighting with the same methods the
>Gheallie Sidhie are. Mind you I’m not endorsing this but this type of war
>is not uncommon, and the people on each side call the others evil because
of
>the way they fight but it is a sound tactic remove the way a group provides
>new soldiers and you limit the number of people they can attack you with.
>
Just because it is common does not make it GOOD! So, even if this is the
elven point of view, they are still evil for doing it! As a matter of fact,
I’m not even sure if this is the argument you are trying to make (that
argument being, “If this (above) is the case, the elves are good.”). If
you aren’t making this argument to try to prove the elves good, though, I’m
not sure why you posted it…
Now I just talked myself in a circle, I’m going to bed.

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu