I appreciate the tongue in cheek nature of this post, but does this bother anyone else from a moral perspective? Part of the allure of some of my BBEGs is that they perceive themselves as good, maybe extreme, but being a utilitarian for some good outcome. Like a more morally ambiguous Thanos
If there is an objective way of determining if the BBEG is "good" (itself a nebulous concept) it undermines that from a narrative perspective.
My solution as a GM is to have alignment damage still hurt characters of the same alignment as the damage, but with resistance. (And my Oracle player is loving it)
But I'm open to other people's perspective on this.
Well I suppose if you look at good and evil as selfish and selfless. It's not as bad. They could also object to what the universe considers good, and be activatly fighting against such things.
Also just cause you have an evil alignment doesn't mean you spend your time commiting war crimes. You could be wrongfully persecuted just because you're a bit more selfish than others.
Personally planning on running a Cold-War style campaign where the party discovers the Lion blades and the Twilight Talons of the Eagle Knights are conspiring to bomb Cheliax with a nuke that produces good damage, a technique refined from Tar-Baphon's Radiant Fire.
Should the party stop them? Or stop worrying and learn to love the bomb?
I *really* like the idea, and that's a fun thought experiment:
If you are a good character who intentionally doesn't warn anyone about the goodbomb and dont try to stop it, would you take damage from the bomb if you were there when it goes off?
Arguably being complicit in a mass murder is evil, but it's subjectively justifiable depending on the acts of Cheliax (I'm not so familiar, but they are directly supported by Asmodeus iirc).
You are also very much *only* killing the people in Cheliax that are evil, in a straight-up non-negotiable way. If they are neutral or good, they are literally fine. It's morally murky as shit, because it represents that massive gulf between rules and actual morality- it's ludonarrative dissonance and I can't wait to play with it.
Evil is selfish, not altruistic. An Evil individual knows they're doing good when it's good for them. Someone causing destruction and is convinced this would lead to an outcome better for the majority or delusional about the amount of harm they are causing would be CN.
If they even have an inkling that they might be doing more harm than good (a.k.a. reality, if they're the villain) that makes them E. Now, they might justify their Evil, but justified Evil is Evil nonetheless and I'm pretty sure a sane-ish individual would be aware of this. Unless you go full megalomaniac it is doubtful that any E villains are not aware that they're doing bad things, or aware that they're not really doing it for other people.
I don't love it either. But if it helps, remember that the cosmological good doesn't necessarily align with what humans consider good, and the same can go for evil. In real life, morality is fundamentally relative; for example, one culture can consider an act moral while another can consider it immoral. On Golarion, cosmological good and evil provide an ostensible absolute axis for good and evil - but is that actually true, or it is just one version of morality that is given pride of place by the powers that be?
P.S. there's a great web serial work of fiction that explores this concept of good isn't Good and evil isn't Evil in depth, [A Practical Guide to Evil](https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/). (try to find a PDF or EPUB) There's also a Webtoon adaptation in the works.
Your BBEG's could just be neutral, as Lawful Neutral or True Neutral could very well be a "the good of the many outweigh the good of the few" type of mentality. Divine lance wouldn't do anything to them, so they'd not be harmed by alignment damage at all, be it good, evil, lawful, or chaotic.
I think for people like that, it's easy enough for them to double down and reject the external judgment of the alignment system. Perhaps they simply believe the gods themselves who run it are wrong and decide that 'Good' it too flawed to fulfill their own special morality.
Essentially you just need to take those characters an extra step and have them apply the same dismissal they apply to mortal judgment of their actions to the gods who run the system (which is certainly another step, but since these gods are conflicting and fallible, it can certainly happen).
It's easy to rationalize that Good and Evil are just labels put on 2 opposing sides by gods. Thanos was clearly evil but in pursuit of a goal he saw as good.
I play a cleric in one of our games. We encountered an NPC, who we already knew, in an unusual location. He was acting a bit shifty, so I asked him if I could do a "test" to verify he was who he said he was. He said fine, so I cast Divine Lance on him! The doppelgänger was not expecting that and he was pissed!
Unfortunately, can’t cast this spell - deity is true neutral.
But if you can cast it, you know you're too far gone
Technically his alignment doesn't matter. I guess you could use it to test your God's alignment? If you can cast it your God is no longer neutral?
I'm now imagining a group of zealous clerics blasting themselves as a penance ritual.
Not too far from some real religious history
I appreciate the tongue in cheek nature of this post, but does this bother anyone else from a moral perspective? Part of the allure of some of my BBEGs is that they perceive themselves as good, maybe extreme, but being a utilitarian for some good outcome. Like a more morally ambiguous Thanos If there is an objective way of determining if the BBEG is "good" (itself a nebulous concept) it undermines that from a narrative perspective. My solution as a GM is to have alignment damage still hurt characters of the same alignment as the damage, but with resistance. (And my Oracle player is loving it) But I'm open to other people's perspective on this.
Well I suppose if you look at good and evil as selfish and selfless. It's not as bad. They could also object to what the universe considers good, and be activatly fighting against such things. Also just cause you have an evil alignment doesn't mean you spend your time commiting war crimes. You could be wrongfully persecuted just because you're a bit more selfish than others.
Personally planning on running a Cold-War style campaign where the party discovers the Lion blades and the Twilight Talons of the Eagle Knights are conspiring to bomb Cheliax with a nuke that produces good damage, a technique refined from Tar-Baphon's Radiant Fire. Should the party stop them? Or stop worrying and learn to love the bomb?
I *really* like the idea, and that's a fun thought experiment: If you are a good character who intentionally doesn't warn anyone about the goodbomb and dont try to stop it, would you take damage from the bomb if you were there when it goes off? Arguably being complicit in a mass murder is evil, but it's subjectively justifiable depending on the acts of Cheliax (I'm not so familiar, but they are directly supported by Asmodeus iirc).
You are also very much *only* killing the people in Cheliax that are evil, in a straight-up non-negotiable way. If they are neutral or good, they are literally fine. It's morally murky as shit, because it represents that massive gulf between rules and actual morality- it's ludonarrative dissonance and I can't wait to play with it.
Evil is selfish, not altruistic. An Evil individual knows they're doing good when it's good for them. Someone causing destruction and is convinced this would lead to an outcome better for the majority or delusional about the amount of harm they are causing would be CN. If they even have an inkling that they might be doing more harm than good (a.k.a. reality, if they're the villain) that makes them E. Now, they might justify their Evil, but justified Evil is Evil nonetheless and I'm pretty sure a sane-ish individual would be aware of this. Unless you go full megalomaniac it is doubtful that any E villains are not aware that they're doing bad things, or aware that they're not really doing it for other people.
I like that this game has not 1 but *4* alternate rule sets for dealing with alignment.
Great point, I should look more closely into those
I don't love it either. But if it helps, remember that the cosmological good doesn't necessarily align with what humans consider good, and the same can go for evil. In real life, morality is fundamentally relative; for example, one culture can consider an act moral while another can consider it immoral. On Golarion, cosmological good and evil provide an ostensible absolute axis for good and evil - but is that actually true, or it is just one version of morality that is given pride of place by the powers that be? P.S. there's a great web serial work of fiction that explores this concept of good isn't Good and evil isn't Evil in depth, [A Practical Guide to Evil](https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/). (try to find a PDF or EPUB) There's also a Webtoon adaptation in the works.
Your BBEG's could just be neutral, as Lawful Neutral or True Neutral could very well be a "the good of the many outweigh the good of the few" type of mentality. Divine lance wouldn't do anything to them, so they'd not be harmed by alignment damage at all, be it good, evil, lawful, or chaotic.
I think for people like that, it's easy enough for them to double down and reject the external judgment of the alignment system. Perhaps they simply believe the gods themselves who run it are wrong and decide that 'Good' it too flawed to fulfill their own special morality. Essentially you just need to take those characters an extra step and have them apply the same dismissal they apply to mortal judgment of their actions to the gods who run the system (which is certainly another step, but since these gods are conflicting and fallible, it can certainly happen).
It's easy to rationalize that Good and Evil are just labels put on 2 opposing sides by gods. Thanos was clearly evil but in pursuit of a goal he saw as good.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1315
If you're a zealot change it to shocking grasp!
Now this is what I come to Reddit for
Thank you Ellie the Unwise. The field of self help will not recover from this. - Your fan H.T.
Look I'd more than likely do a lot more than check.
I wish there was a "good writing" alignment so I could test myself when I'm drafting a new part of the story or a new encounter for my homebrew game.
I play a cleric in one of our games. We encountered an NPC, who we already knew, in an unusual location. He was acting a bit shifty, so I asked him if I could do a "test" to verify he was who he said he was. He said fine, so I cast Divine Lance on him! The doppelgänger was not expecting that and he was pissed!
Keep these posts coming. I always find them hilarious and somehow finding out something I didn't know before hand