If your PCs keep trying to act reasonable and enlightened towards an ontologically Evil race, the DM's code demands that you make them suffer for it.Seriously, they've effectively said "Please, stab me here until I die."You just have to do it.
99% of settings don't have ontologically evil races, herr fakegrogWhat they do have are ontologically evil people
>>94674541Ok but they are the ontologically evil species (its man).
>>94674556Time to summon Luigi's Mansion.
>>94674541>If your PCs keep trying to act reasonable and enlightened towards an ontologically Evil raceCan't relate. Your PCs sound like faggots.
>>94674541Please post said DM's code or link the PDF.
>>94675003What would be the point? It's in code.
>>94675105It's OK, I have the decoder wheel.
>>94674541>the DM's codelollmao
>>94674541>reasonable and enlightened towards an ontologically Evil raceDefine these two. Because what is reasonable and enlightened is different based on who you're acting with. Dealing with the devil is very different from a parley with orcs.Remember: reasonable means in the context of the situation, and there's no reason that ontologically evil beings would be incapable of reasoning.
>>94674541The "DM's code" is just to do whatever you want, because players are a dime a dozen, and they can just find a new group.
>>94674541I think, instead of worrying about DMs and alignments, I'll just play the game I want to play.
>>94674541>trying to act reasonable and enlightenedExpand on this, what do you mean by "resonable and enlightened"?Are we talking Dumbledorian "Always give the dark lords a second chance and always take them at their word" or "War until their unconditional surrender then trials and hangings for those of them that we can prove did shit like kill prisoners, enslave prisoners, torture prisoners, kill civilians, fake surrenders etc"?
>>94675356>scorpion claws typed this post
Ontological evil doesn’t exist it’s just subjective morality given words that mean something in reality but have been redefined for ttrpg settings as a bait and switchRape, murder, theft, torture, etc. aren’t ontologically evil they’re just different preferences.
>>94676025Questionable moral philosophy aside, plenty of RPG settings have objective morality. Greyhawk is a prime example, since it's the setting tied to AD&D, where morality was an objective thing.The bigger problem with "ontological" evil when you deal with objective morality is the fact that it negates free will for all beings without perfect will. Therefore, only angels, demons, and the like can be ontologically evil.
It's dumb. The villains and races are so obviously evil, that they're not believable: Thanos, Voldemort, Red Skull, The Emperor, etc. etc. - they're all 1-dimentionally evil. IRL they'd have no following, no movement behind them. So as a parable they fail. Evil IRL does not carry a big glowing sign saying "I'm the bad guy", it cloaks itself in a guise of weakness/innocence/etc.
>>94674541>ontologicallyYou keep using that word. It does not mean what you think it means.
>>94676693>The villains and races are so obviously evil, that they're not believable: Thanos, Voldemort, Red Skull, The Emperor, etc. etc. - they're all 1-dimentionally evilThe emperor is fairly believable, though. His public persona is that of an idealistic senator having to make tough choices during wartime, becoming more and more pragmatic. He only became the emperor because that was what was needed to restore peace and order to the galaxy after the Jedi went rogue.The main plot about the Jedi and the Sith is obvious to us the audience, but an ordinary citizen could easily be swayed to Palatine's side.>Evil IRL does not carry a big glowing sign saying "I'm the bad guy", it cloaks itself in a guise of weakness/innocence/etc.Or of strength. But fantasy stories are always more mythological than realistic. Think more of Faust dealing with the Devil or Fenrir killing the gods than Marvel villains.
>>94676693>parableYou retards just use words completely at random, don't you? It's not a parable, and even it it were realism isn't how parables convey their message.
>>94677028That's not the unbelievable part of Palpatine. The unbelievable part is that someone could be so completely dedicated to evil. His goals aren't pragmatic, even where his methods are. He wants full and ultimate control over the entirety of a galactic civilisation, and all he then wants to do with that control is cause misery for others. That's it. That's his deal.
>>94678373He does that because it makes him more powerful and that the dark side of the force is corrupting. It becomes a feedback loop. It's like complaining about characters who've succumbed to the One Ring.
>>94674541Nah. It's good to treat things as humanely as possible, even if the end result is still violent. In that case, it would mean keeping unnecessary suffering and cruelty to a minimum. If your first instinct is to just kill everything that's evil, to the point where you're eschewing reason, then you're just a zealot.
>>94674541
>>94674541An always 100% evil race is inherently boring and limited. It's like using zombies. They quickly lose interest and fade to the background while the real conflict becomes about an opposing human faction because humans with nuance are more interesting.
>>94674541This sort of problem is born from decades of untrustworthy GMs and DMs conditioning players to mistrust and question everything. >You thought you were being good guys fighting in the name of the Lawful Good God?! WRONG! THE CHURCH IS EVIL AND YOU WERE BAD THE WHOLE TIME HAHA I TRICKED YOU!!>You thought the game was going to have a simplistic morality? GUESS WHAT!? It turns out that goblin had a family and children and all they wanted to do was farm turnips and raise pigs in peace!! You're EVIL!>You know that King you've been taking orders from? HE'S CORRUPT AND UNJUST!! >You thought you could just go into some ruins and take whatever you want? SIKE!! The guards arrest you for vandalizing and grave robbing an ancient burial site!It rarely ever happens as a genuine expression of the setting. It's a faux-wiutty subversion meant to trick people. The players never truly knowing what assumptions they should bring with them about the setting and its morality are usually just opens games up for these obnoxious "gotcha" moments.
>>94678975I mean, the response to that is:>"I don't care, I'm siding with them anyway."Who cares if the Church is evil? It's still the Church, and you don't actually have to be religious to support the church.You don't need a reason other than the obvious to kill goblins i.e. They're in the fucking way.All Kings are corrupt and unjust anyway, so who cares?The guards are annoying, so we kill them or pay a bribe.
>>94674541Can you define "ontology" or "ontological" in your own terms? Because I'm betting you have no idea.
>>94674541>>94678567I hate this garbage because whoever wrote it knew nothing about scorpions notably that they can survive for days underwater which the frog would have known.In areas infested with them live scorpions in pools are a constant issue.
ontowhat
>>94678431>Killing evil indiscriminately is zealotryNice try, Satan but your fancy words aren't going to stop us from ending you. If you didn't want to die then don't be evil.
>>94676132>negates free willjust like real life then cause free will doesn't real
>>94674541You haven't presented me any ontologically evil races. You just present demons, who obviously have vaguely twisted human motives, and in many canons are just angry angels.An ontologically evil creature would be extremely confusing to deal with. Doubly so, it's a philosophical problem- HOW can you act in an objectively evil way without perfect information? Do they just try to act perfectly evil, and only occasionally save an orphanage? Or are they able to enforce an evil outcome to every situation using some kind of foreknowledge?In short, the only thing you D&Dfags ever treat with anything close to this gravity is modrons, what with their pure law bullshit.
>>94679721>HOW can you act in an objectively evil way without perfect information?This is only a question if one restricts their definition of "objectively evil" to purely consequentialist terms, which can lead to some absolutely ridiculous conclusions (e.g. "attempted murder is only evil if it succeeds in harming the target").In consequentialist ethics, generally knowing the outcomes is a prerequisite for making a moral choice in the first place, but this requires access to perfect knowledge; it's one of the things that makes it untenable in practice, and potentially very easy to abuse. The tyrannical LOVE utilitarian consequentialism, as it can be used to justify effectively anything, and as there exists no omniscient oracle to provide perfect knowledge of outcomes beforehand, their decisions can still be called "moral" until the negative consequences are already upon their victims.In a very real way, the scope of abuse it allows means the mere existence of a utilitarian consequentialist model of ethics is potentially a net harm to the "value" utilitarian consequentialist ethics attempts to maximize - which would be hilarious if it didn't kill so many people.Contrast deontological ethics, where certain rules or frameworks determine the morality of actions, and violating those is what makes an act evil, not requiring any knowledge of the outcome.Of course, in a setting where you can just define motive and consequence alike... just use motive. An ontologically evil being would simply be one incapable of good motives. There's no need to faff about with simulating the consequences.
>>94674541I mean unless you expect the players to act on their meta knowledge, they're character don't know they're ontologically evil.
>>94680503if it just has evil motivations, then it becomes exploitable and harvestable.
>>94679721>Do they just try to act perfectly evil, and only occasionally save an orphanage?Yes. They don't have perfect information, and more to the point means matters more than outcome for D&D alignment, read the books.Fiends aren't metaphysical evil anyway. They're only "always" evil, so a member of a given race of fiends has like a 1/2000 chance of not being the usual alignment, iirc. This is also how e.g. obyriths can be more chaotic than tanari, or demodands can be more evil than they are chaotic.
>>94676132It also begs the question whether or not those races are "evil" if they can't choose to be good to begin with. Like is a mosquito "evil" because it's nature is to be a blood sucking parasite no matter what?
>>94679721>>94680503The alignments are the thing that have perfect information. When your alignment shifts from neutral to chaotic or lawful or good or evil, the force which makes that decision is based on perfect information. "Ontological evil" basically just means "evil by definition" which doesn't mean anything. The existence of a consequentialist model of ethics (with or without perfect information) doesn't make it any easier for badguys to claim to have a consequentialist model of ethics, badguys are going to do that anyway.
>>94674541I swear to god you people have never talked to another player in your life.
>>94676132>it negates free willNo it doesn't. This has been explained time and again. They choose to do what they do, same as anyone else. It's like saying that people with depression doesn't have free will, because they should just choose to be happy. Or that people with ADHD should just choose to focus.By your own logic, you don't have free will either, anon. Or else why not choose not to be retarded?
>>94680627It's retards who think that Gygax was anything other than a soft Nazi. His idea of 'ultimate good' i.e Lawful Good included genocide, infant killing and maybe if you were really nice slavery of entire races. Note that he himself said that not all members of 'evil races' were 'evil' but it was ok because most of them were.
>>94680755>s retards who think that Gygax was anything other than a soft Nazi.No one thinks that. We think that you don't play games, we think that your supposed interest in D&D is tangential to your interest in genocide.
>>94678975>vandalizing and grave robbing an ancient burial site!At least you could always double-subvert that one.>The guards arrested you for desecrating an ancient grave before you could steal the long-buried king's crown, and now with you in jail there's no one to stop the ancient king and his army from rising up and conquering the living when he is awakened by the stellar alignment, as was his plan all along. If you want to keep the living from being slaves of the dead, you'll have to break out of prison and forge your fellow inmates into an army that can besiege the Kingsgrave and take from the ancient king the source of his power. Already, his advance scouts have begun to awaken. Time is running out.
>>94680546Yes. A lack of free will doesnt negate the fact that you and your actions are evil.
>>94680755No, I'm saying you should open your mouth talk to your players instead passively aggressively trying to teach them your setting though unfun and timewasting punishments.
>>94674541>the ontological evil faggot's ban expired A sad state of affairs.
>>94678975The problem isn't that these GMs and DMs do that, the problem is that (You) care.Every revelation you listed should be something that impacts the PC not the player, and if it irks you any more than being a shitty, over-abused trope, then you should learn how not to project yourself onto the PC so much.
>>94676025Every time someone gets on this moral nihilism bullshit I say "nigger" or deny the Holocaust or something and they meltdown in moral outrage lmfao
>>94679468It's an aesop, anon, it doesn't have to be biologically accurate.
>>94679468>I hate this parable about talking animals because the animals involved aren't biologically accuratelmao
>>94674541Are they evil because we kill them, or do we kill them because they're evil? If it's the latter, then it is a good deed to break the cycle of violence.
>>94682139You can acknowledge that morality is subjective and be morally opposed to something at the same time. Claiming that morality is subjective doesn't mean that one is an "enlightened" individual who is "above" morality.
>>94682180Well, I morally oppose your brazen homosexuality. What now?
The fact that posts like >>94676710 and >>94679098 get ignored prove that this isn't a thread worth responding to.
>>94680828now that's interesting
>>94682187You're welcome to your own opinion, but so am I, and I proudly endorse my brazen homosexuality. Deal with it, nerd.
>>94674541So you want them to automatically murder things without a second though? Every single time? That sounds pretty ontologically evil from the perspective of someone just getting there.>>94678975I feel those are more common is fiction than games, and that's why we recognize it without sharing the same DMS. Comedy and meta-comedy were almost the only representations of fantasy in mid-budget US fiction for like 20 years. People still have trouble believing you can enjoy a traditional arthurian tale of heroism partly because of that poisoning.
>>94679468do you also hate how hares can actually cover more ground that turtles in practice? Or is your issue that neither has the comunicational skills to organize a race?
>>94680971so a rock falling on people is evil?>>94681381why? It's not an issue for the PCs, it's a problem on the table that the GM has no creativity or tries to get you with dumb shit. Obviously that will bother the player and not the character.
>>94682193Ontology is metaphysical shit dealing with the concept of being. Used in this case it's referring a species whose very core concept is what most would consider evil.A recent example in modern media that had certain people sperging out were the demons in the anime Frieren. Demons in the show were outright predators of humans. Everything they did was to maximize the death and consumption of humans. They can talk, be civil, and come across as amiable, however, the reason for such behavior was to lure humans into a more vulnerable state for killing and consuming them. The very few demons who tried to grasp why humans behaved the way they did were absolutely horrible at it and it often resulted in grotesque experiments with high body counts.As an example, in an effort to understand how "friendship" works a demon might say and do things that they believe a human would enjoy, then to test if this "bond" was achieved they would see if they could do something that humans don't enjoy while still having the human like them, like ripping the humans children in half in front of them. If the "friendship" didn't stick upon the human seeing that happen they would kill the test subject and try again.
>>94674541Yes. It's no different than them trying to pet a rabid grizzly. Sure, they can try, but when it is very clear why that is a bad idea the GM not having them get mauled is just being a bad GM.
>>94681381Springing a twist on players as a pitiful way to be "clever" and "subversive" impacts the way the game is played. If the characters are punished for make decisions in an expected way, they will become distrustful and have less fun. If a GM has given no sign that certain monsters are so "ontologically evil", let alone given any hint that they know what "ontological" means, and the players go>we're not psychopaths. This monster begged for mercy in a language one of us can understand, so we'll let him goAnd the GM decides to teach them a lesson by having that monster show up again to kill some babies and kick some puppies, that is a direct punishment to the players and their characters with the only possible way to avoid that being to interrogate and question every little detail. Now every chest might be a mimic, every hallway needs the 10ft pole sweep, every NPC needs a barrage of Sense motive rolls and Zone of Truth spells. The players wanted to play characters, and instead, they need to be a band of paranoid schizophrenics who are unsure of the nature of reality, because their GM is a cunt.
>>94674541Ontonological evil without a singular law or lawgiver cannot work or exist if there's no judge to declare right or wrong and act out on it.Objective good vs evil is inherently Christian exactly like karma/kamma is Hinduist-Buddhist.
>>94682139This. Without a fundamental understanding of a reference point you cannot oppose anything in a way other than "I don't like it", where the group can form the opinion.Without an objective reference point, opposition becomes fashion.
>>94680738> It's like saying that people with depression doesn't have free will, because they should just choose to be happy. The problem is you're misunderstanding what "ontological evil" means. Depressed people have a predisposition to "being sad" but can overcome it and be happy. They may relapse and ultimately succumb but it's not a guarantee that everyone with depression will always be depressed.Something that is ontolgically depressed can ONLY be depressed, they can not overcome it. It is a central to their being and to not be depressed would make it something else entirely.
>>94680755You seem to be equating gygax's cosmic morality with actual mortality despite them being two very different things.
>>94682193>can you define the use of the word "evil" for me?>wow no one spoon fed me information, worthless thread
>>94676025i agree, there are no true evil, only lesser or greater onesthat's why i always make sure the child consents, much less evil
>>94680616>The alignments are the thing that have perfect information.The thing with perfect knowledge here isn't the alignment, it's the GM.That's what I meant by "in a setting where you can just define motive and consequence alike... just use motive." As in, just define motive.>doesn't make it any easier for badguys to claim to have a consequentialist model of ethicsSorry, I didn't explain this well enough - this claim, in and of itself, would create the model regardless of some external moral philosopher source. You can't have people with such a model and still have the model not exist.The ironic moral failure here is only on the part of said moral philosophers, in part for implicitly recommending that people trust abusive authority using that model by default (as the authority almost invariably has better information to decide with). The model, as a part of the reality one seeks to make moral itself, becomes a net negative compared to deontological ethics. A deontological system starts much more simply and accrues exceptions as new rules, whereas the consequentialist one is composed entirely of bespoke exceptional rules (one per possible decision), so it's mathematically impossible for the consequentialist model to converge on a cohesive moral reality faster than the deontological one. This means that in consequentialist terms... deontology is the superior ethical model to maximize "moral value" anyway, once one accounts for the reduction of "moral value" caused by the delay, paralysis, and abusability of moral decisionmaking in the consequentialist model.Even if we assume everything consequentialist ethics assumes about moral value... consequentialism is effectively "ethics by depth-first search in all possible outcomes." Deontology preempts that intractable problem by discerning common rules between groups of decisions that consequentialism would simplify down to anyway.
well?
>>94682404No, that's wrong. Ontology is simply how things are related to each other based on some set of categories. Saying something is "ontologically X" makes no sense.
>>94683618No they aren't lol, ontology is about the nature of "being" ontological evil is stating that evil is part of somethings being.
>>94683618>>94683648You're thinking about how it's used in computer science, not philosophy/metaphysics
>>94682372Yes. If every time anyone walked though canyon a rock fell on them, I'd call the canyon evil. This is true even if the rocks were triggered by purely mechanical means.
>>94680738>It's like saying that people with depression doesn't have free will, because they should just choose to be happy. Or that people with ADHD should just choose to focus.People can absolutely manage and overcome those disorders, even without medication. In that case, an "ontologically evil" being that strives to overcome its nature is as good as, if not mostly superior to, beings that are not "ontologically evil."
>>94674541Humanity itself is an ontologically Evil race according to Christian beliefs, ergo I would have to slay my fellow man indiscriminately if I followed your logic.
>>94676693Theres a lot of people who think Thanos was in the right, they are not being ironic
>>94682729the objective reference point is survival.Congratulations, you've now explained the origins of 90% of religious practices.
>>94674541That won't work today because an increasing number of gamers can't separate real life from their games. I'll also thank you to stop using the R-word. Try Ancestry, Culture or Species instead.
>>94676693>Thanos, Voldemort, Red Skull, The Emperornone of which ARE evil, they simply have performed certain acts SOME label as evil. You really have to dig into fantasy literature to find something that is ontologocal evil, and the only thing I can think of is out of a D&D setting that is a chunk of a substance that is pure evil that the NE outsiders summoned into the multiverse. But its not sentient.
>>94684158Humanity is sinful, not evil. If you don't understand the difference, don't invoke it.
>>94686405Correct. That's why the Lord God has made the love hormone the intolerant hatred hormone and nuked Sodom for literally sodomy.
>>94676025Anon the French exist
>>94680755Nits make lice anon
Ontological evil, or evil by definition, or just because, can exists and should be treated as such, but not everything can be evil just because. What I mean is if the creation or mere existence of something requires an evil act, then by definition that something is evil. Pic related: zombies. If the rules in the universe demand the soul of someone to move into another place, but still keeping some sense of belonging to its remains, then desecrating such remains or tampering with the definition of life is an evil act, thus zombies are evil by definition. There can't be a "good" zombie, even if the necromancer is using it to, dunno, plow the fields or something. Something similar could be said about other type of undead: people are send to this plane for a while, when they die their souls must return for reasons, refusing to do so, or blocking others from doing so is a sin, thus undead by definition is evil and there can't be "good" vampires. Similar arguments can also extend to other supernatural entities like demons or certain magical artefacts. If creating a magic sword of edginess requires killing a puppy, a kitty and your waifu, how could magic sword of edginess be treated as anything but ontological evil? However, we have talked about non-free or conscious stuff. Creatures with some sense of freedom shouldn't be treated as inherently evil. I mean, should bastards be treated as evil because people aren't supposed to be fuck out of the marriage? The difference is the capability to redeem or overcome the original sin. A bastard may never stop being a bastard, but at least he can smite the infidels, so it balances. The difference with a zombie plowing the field is the motivation and self-conscience about their creation.
>>94674541In order to write evil characters such that they are actually evil, so that 'evil' is a helpful concept rather than a thinly veiled excuse for the player's violent desires, you need to not confuse yourself about which things they're doing are actually evil, which is challenging.Do you want your players choosing violence when it's not even the least-worst option, and still thinking themselves Good? Even when the cost of this righteous fury addiction is pain felt in other living things? That's exactly how a giant wasp might make its choices, dude. Each campaign should have at least one visit to a magical lab where wizards attempt to make monsters more reasonable, and use every means available to them to find the slightest sliver of hope for reason, as if they were near-omnipotent in their ability to find new means of potential persuasion, only for those hopes to be dashed every single time without fail, except for with unsustainably high costs, so that the player party can feel wisely comfortable laughing in the face of pointy-headed attempts to do anything more complicated and expensive than smash. The psychology of the folks running the lab is simple. "Someone has to check and we're happy to be the ones." They are like atheists living in a godful world, surrounded by evidence that violence is the only solution and believing it's wrong to not experiment for hope a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more.Maybe give players a single, hassle-free means of checking for reasonability which ever works, which they can always use, and maybe turns up a reasonable monster once for every 15 of them, so that they can shrug and say they've done the best anyone could ask for when this means fails. Perhaps a spell which is defined so that if there was any hope for reason then that hope is automatically realized and that monster is set free, and it just never works on 14/15 of them.(longpost part 1/2)
>>94674541>>94690617Perhaps the spell is older than the lab, and the lab exists for helping the other 14/15 of monsters; trying to create hope where there is none; trying to find evidence that the spell is failing to account for some exploitable feature of the world which could make monsters reasonable, and never finding that evidence. Maybe on many nights the saved portion of the saveable 15th of monsters pray in gratitude that the spell mysteriously exists at all.Still, I'd wonder why evil monsters hadn't taken over all civilizations given how thoroughly outnumbered the good population is, unless goodness and coordination were inextricably linked in some way.(longpost part 2/2)
>>94675418Giving food and shelter to drow in the overside is a crime, anon.
Why do you need to punish your players at all?
>>94697841For playing
>>94674541I like to to handle old school fantasy style ontological evil not as a thing that can truly exist within most types of creatures within a setting But as a slow invisible corrupting presence slowly worming it’s way into everything It might even have subjective elements but it’s pressance must still be fought tooth and nail otherwise torment and ruin will eventually triumph It doesn’t always fit most settings Sometimes for sci fi its better to have creatures with a truly alien or uncaring mentality Their lack of true understanding or true sympathy for humans combined with their self motivation makes them unwise to deal with in the long run
>ontologically Evil raceYou can just say evil, you know.
>>94701310No, that's not good enough. They need to sound smart, and authoritative when describing a race that is not just evil, but super evil, irredeemable, and bad to the point that doing extremely cruel or evil things to them and their children actually is good cosmologically according to the laws of reality.
>>94682166kek
>>94701344You mock it, but it's a fair distinction.>bad to the point that doing extremely cruel or evil things to them and their children actually is good cosmologically according to the laws of reality.This is the key. It's just the orc baby debate all over again. If you say orcs are an evil race, they could be evil for cultural reasons, they could be evil because of a curse or a God's influence. It therefore follows that removed of those evil influences the orc babies could be raised to be good members of society.If however they are ontologically evil, then there is no saving them. In fact it becomes an evil act to let them live. You're practically required to kill the orc babies in order to prevent the harm that will come from their maturation, a harm that is a certainty - not a potentiality. Where you take it too far is to do "extremely cruel or evil things" to them. Torturing orc babies to death in front of their mother, or really just taking pleasure in the death of orc babies at all would still be evil. It must be done dispassionately, with the conviction that you are simply destroying the evil, not trying to cause undue suffering even to the evil you destroy.
>>94682350The hare vs tortoise thing has been tried and it turned out just like the story, I's seent it.
>>94674651Based and Bible pilled.
>>94687458Explain the difference, then. If you are capable.
>>94682735>The problem is you're misunderstanding what "ontological evil" means.No.>Depressed people have a predisposition to "being sad" but can overcome it and be happy.Completely irrelevant, and it is amazing that the point still flew over your head, despite written out plainly. The point is that they cannot just choose to be happy rather than depressed.>Something that is ontolgically depressed can ONLY be depressed, they can not overcome it.And something that is ontologically Evil can ONLY be evil, they can not overcome it.You clearly don't have any free will, you cannot choose not to be retarded.>>94684142>an "ontologically evil" being that strives to overcome its nature is as good as, if not mostly superior to, beings that are not "ontologically evil."No, because if they are ontologically Evil, they would not choose to "overcome its nature". It is absolutely no different from you having free will, yet being unable to not be retarded, and actively choosing to do retarded things; not because you don't have free will, but simply because you are too retarded to even know that it is retarded.
>>94679468Scorpions and frogs are also incapable of speech.
>>94701310No, you can't, because then you get dribbling retards jumping through every hoop they can find to try and justify why the evil race aren't evil.You can say to them 'This entire sub-species of demons feeds on the pain caused by a toddler dying of internal bleeding caused by vaginal trauma' and they'll go 'Yeah but what is evil really? Surely there's at least one out there that's kind to his hell-mother and that justifies the existence of the Pedovores!'Even if you say 'Ontologically evil' they'll keep trying to make excuses.And I'm not even going to go as far as people usually do in this discussion and explain the motive for why they do it, just know that they do and these assholes are why you have to go 'No, they are objectively, cosmically evil, it exists in my setting and if you attempt to treat them as you would creatures of free will then you're falling for their tricks, retard and you deserve everything you get.'These are the same people who would smuggle someone who has obviously been bitten into the shelter in a zombie apocalypse so they can jerk themselves off about 'feeling they did the right thing' (Not, I might note, doing the actually right thing, just feeling it)
>>94706092There are two kinds of games-with-inherent-alignments-players. Those who like to think about speculative morality and those who would rather just roll dice. You are neither of those things, you are the guy who just goes on the internet and gets up on a soapbox about your right to not think about speculative morality.
>>94706497>If you deny my right to wangle my way in by insisting that we discuss these things purely on my terms then you're being a bad personThen I'm a bad person. Fortunately for me you're a fuckhead who believes all morality is subjective and everything is purely will to power.You calling me a 'bad person' doesn't mean any more to me than you calling me nogames, because both are just feeble attempts to leverage me into doing what you want.So how about tucking your cock between your legs so you can go fuck yourself?
>>94706557>If you deny my right to wangle my way in by insisting that we discuss these things purely on my terms then you're being a bad personWhat?Christ, son, you got problems.
>>94702110>And something that is ontologically Evil can ONLY be evil, they can not overcome it.anon you're literally agreeing with me here
>>94706557NTA, but all morality is subjective.
>>94707654Moral relativism equals moral nihilism.
>>94707700You're an idiot.
>>94706557>If you deny my right to wangle my way in by insisting that we discuss these things purely on my terms then you're being a bad personBut you're the one insisting to discuss morality purely on your terms.
>>94676025>Rape, murder, theft and torture aren't inherently evilCan you please elaborate why you used those examples in specific when discussing onthological evil, then? lmaoKeep trying to be a contrarian edge lord, Anon. See how far that gets you.
>>94707654No, Anon.The claim that "morality is relative" falls apart under scrutiny. Consider entropy: minimizing and mitigating entropy—whether locally or on a cosmic scale—are inherently moral actions. Why? Because entropy represents decay and disorder, while morality, at its core, seeks to preserve order, stability, and flourishing. This principle is objective, providing a foundation from which all moral systems derive.Your relativism isn’t profound; it’s intellectual laziness. It's an excuse to dodge accountability, allowing you to label selfish, destructive behavior as "good."What you truly mean is: “I don’t want to feel bad for doing whatever I want.” You reduce morality to a tool for self-justification, defining "good" as whatever preserves your comfort and ego. That’s not relativism—it’s moral infantilism.Worse, it’s not even original. It’s a tired, derivative excuse for avoiding self-reflection. Morality requires grappling with responsibility, consequences, and the hard work of improvement.Your relativism doesn’t elevate the debate—it handwaves it away, enabling harm while pretending it’s neutral.If morality were truly relative, exploitation, cruelty, and deceit would be justifiable. Yet even you wouldn’t accept that because deep down, you know better. Your stance isn’t a philosophy; it’s a tantrum disguised as an argument.Grow the fuck up. Better luck next life—assuming you don’t squander that one too.
>>94710748>Consider entropy: minimizing and mitigating entropy—whether locally or on a cosmic scale—are inherently moral actions. >t.That aside, the argument itself is pretty fucking retarded because it implies thatA) Any entity(or organized set of entities) is inherently equal in value to any other entity of roughly equal complexity (I hope I don't have to explain why it's such a retarded idea)B) Any existence is inherently better than nonexistence (every single buddhist would like to have a word with you)C) Natural self-ordering systems are inherently worse than artificial ones (every single neolib would like to have a word with you)>If morality were truly relative, exploitation, cruelty, and deceit would be justifiable. Every single morality system ever produced (or at least every single morality system ever to become popular) justifies exploitation, cruelty and deceit in certain contexts. Hell, your own morality system does exactly that: you use entropy as an objective metric for "goodness", so if exploitation or deception could reduce entropy, not exploiting or deceiving would in fact be amoral.Also you fail to explain why you consider this to be a bad thing. Why do you think it's a bug and not a feature? Because I could argue that providing a context in which destructive and violent actions are justifiable is one of the main purposes of a morality system.
>>94710748>we have to minimize entropy, it's objectively goodno it's fucking not, it's just a thing we desire in general.If you tried to minimize the entropy in your body for instance, you no longer would be alive as all of your chemical reactions require it to function.Time also requires it to function.You have literally just proved moral relativity.
>>94712204>>94710748also, deceit isn't even banned in the majority of objective moral systems. It's only once you start thinking morality is relative that you come to the idea that lying might be bad.
>>94710748You are actually incapable of moral reasoning on any level. "Because I said so" is a stopping point, it doesn't lead anywhere, it's just an easy answer to placate retards.
>>94674541Yeah
>>94674541It is a fair point that if a supposedly evil race is totally capable of working together with others with no harm coming to any of them, then the DM is not really portraying them as evil. You're just claiming they're evil at that point with no evidence other than a line in a book stating they're evil.
>>94674541Suck my ontological dick, faggot. I don't even dislike all-evil races, but I fucking hate spamming faggots like you.
>>94682345>So you want them to automatically murder things without a second though?Evil things, yes. Evil should be destroyed on sight, or avoided if destruction isn't an option.>That sounds pretty ontologically evil from the perspective of someone just getting there.That perspective is objectively wrong so it doesn't matter.
>>94717158Evil doesn't mean they'll fuck with you ALL the time 24/7, it just means1) they will eventually fuck with you and2) it is inevitable that it happens and3) none of your good behavior towards them will ever ensure their future good behavior towards you because they'll turn on you the moment it's even slightly convenient for them regardless.
>>94710748>If morality were truly relative, exploitation, cruelty, and deceit would be justifiable.You mean the things that people use objective morality as an excuse for?
>>94718181Right, but this is more about the situation OP is describing, where it feels like the PCs are interacting with a group that is supposed to be evil but for some reason all their evil happens offscreen, even if it's not targeted against the PCs. That's just not how an evil character would act. Given enough time they will always act clearly evil. If the PCs are endlessly optimistic that this evil will never befall them or something they care about, they only have that expectation because the GM has proven it true.
>>94718181Yeah, and that's why they don't work as an actual race. Nobody is going to tolerate their existence because their doing terrible shit to you is not a mere possibility but eventuality, and the longer they exist the more powerful and numerous they become. They are a completely flat existence.
>>94718181If they're ontologically evil, this kind of precludes the ability to not be evil for even a little while.Any devil or demon could not be ontologically evil like this, as it would require them to hold off on evil for a bit sometimes.Ontologically evil beings are fucking alien, and pretending they're not is lazy.
>>94717158>>94718181You guys are gigaplebs. Evil people are still people, they don't act like goombas, they just act selfishly. They still have the same reasoning skills and they can still make friends or allies. I wouldn't WANT them as allies, because they'd be more LIKELY to stab me in the back when compared to nonevil allies, but they won't stab you in the back just because they're evil. That's retarded. You haven't really thought about it yet, you're just speaking from your emotions without thinking about it.
>>94719404Evil outsiders in D&D are made of pure evil soulstuff, so they're inherently evil, like the evil aspects of mortals were concentrated and given form (because that's exactly what they are). But even they can rise and become angels. And angels can fall and become demons. Any human has the potential to become an angel or a fiend because angels and fiends are made of the same stuff. "Ontological" doesn't mean anything in this context, it is being used speciously to dress up a stupid statement, much like how people use "objectively" or "literally".
>>94720402No, they're made of negative energy, which is described as evil but can easily be used for good ends.And as you say, demons can become angels and such, which means they aren't like, pure fucking evil. Something that is would be alien.
>>94712204>Time also requires it to function.Only true in an expanding universe with finite energy. You fuck with that setup, and you can have time acting mostly like time without arriving at entropy law.
>>94720343they're not speaking from emotions, they're speaking from superficiality
>>94676693>Evil IRL does not carry a big glowing sign saying "I'm the bad guy"I dunno bro, they're pretty obvious about it if you ever bother to actually look.
>>94676025What about the xenomorphs from alien or mindflayers? They're parasites that need others for reproduction.
>>94674541>DM's code demandsShut the fuck up
>>94674541>PCs keep trying to act reasonable and enlightened towards an ontologically Evil raceHad this happen in my Star Trek Adventures game.I made up an OC Alien Empire based on WW2 Germany and the PCs kept trying to negotiate and play nice with the Alien Nazi Captain despite keeping slaves in full view of the party. So to really make the PCs hate them I had the Alien Nazi Captain rape the female party members after drugging them.The players were of course all assholes who immediately left the discord call.
>>94684158You’re dead wrong.>>94702094Sin is the transgression of divine law, and as such it can only come about from human actions. Evil can result from sin, but it also exists entirely independently of it in the natural world.
>>94674541>ontologically EvilNo such thing. Evil is merely the absence of Good.
>>94674541>Ontological EvilNice buzzword.
>>94678975I'm American, so:- The Church bad- Murdering people is bad- Kings bad- Stealing is badBut I guess you believe in topsy-turvy upside down morality, where monarchies, organized religion, murder, and theft are all good.The problem isn't "untrustworthy GMs," the problem is that you're asking people to play evil characters.
>>94743536Okay, so "ontological evil" basically just means "evil by definition", which doesn't mean anything by itself. But if you say "there's no such thing as ontological evil and then go on to define evil in the same sentence, you're a dumbfuck. Your statement is wrong in the context of itself.
>>94743667The problem is that they want to play out childish revenge-fantasies which affirm all of their existing preconceptions ("they" being pro-war drones whose brains were fried by pro-war media). That's actually not a problem by itself, ideally all of these creatures would play together with a GM of a similar mind, the only problems is that they keep encountering better games/media/people and then complaining about it on 4chan.
>>94743683But he sounded so, like, wise.
>>94674541>PCs keep trying to act reasonable and enlightened towards an ontologically Evil raceThis is how you get the best redemption arcs (working to overcome one's inherent evil, including the desire for revenge) or end up with entertaining NPC hirelings. Or at least fuel for drama/conflict. >>94718181Not that anon, but this is like, the "lowest" least imaginative level of "evil" - mostly describing a short-term tribal mentality that perpetuates the tribe living in shit conditions forever (aka "fuck all outsiders, only care for your own, steal from your neighbors and "friends" when it's convenient if you can avoid getting caught) so it's perfect for something unintelligent like goblins. But when I imagine evil, I mean something more active and malevolent, doing cruelty for it's own sake or sadistically. This kind of evil creature is what scares the goblins off, or that they try to appease with worship to keep it from eating goblins. >>94719404>Ontologically evil beings are fucking alien, and pretending they're not is lazy.Not that anon, but this makes me think you're describing things more like aboleths, mindflayers, and other DnD style aberations. They have motivations we don't fathom and a sane human wouldn't WANT to empathize or experience whatever modes of thought/being it would take to understand them. Even a perfect killing machine like the tarrasque just kills and destroys in an almost animal way, essentially following its appetites then going to sleep when the excitement is over. You can understand that, like the most dangerous bear ever. But what I think you're describing is the kind of thing whose motivations you can't imagine, so you can't predict its behavior.
The retarded idea that you have to punish your players for engaging with the game in ways you don't like needs to end. If orcs are completely evil to the core and the players want to test why is that so, then let them. If you don't want to get into that kind of campaign, talk to them like an adult and say "dudes, I didn't plan that much about this, i just made sone evil dudes" and, again, talk to them like an adult until you reach a mutual agreement.
This is just railroading on a race/enemy level, but then at the same time the sort of people that push this sort of design turns around and complains when people find the enemies boring and limited.
>>94722201They Have To Tell You What They're Doing
>>94749618Sure, players can test it. They learn that Orcs are all evil because they were made by the Orc God, a force for Evil. He imbues every one of them with the urge to rape and murder non-orcs.Now what?
>>94750666Very appropriate trips.
>>94750666Congratulations, they are now well and truly video-gamified by having no alternative options to use with them other than killing them. Your players then proceed to wonder what the point of playing this over a videogame is, since it provides the same narrow experience but with visuals and sound effects.
>>94750703If you believe the only freedom to be expressed in a tabletop roleplaying is who you choose to kill, and not any of the other many choices you make, this is a massive concession that you don't understand the appeal of these games. And that's okay, maybe they're not for you.
>>94743536An absence of something still exists idiot, a vacuum is an absence of matter but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist
>>94749618The credible argument can be made that unless the players actively try to engage peaceably with a group that has heretofore been entirely hostile at best, unless they are already an understood group, why wouldn't the assumption be that they are bloodthirsty monsters?What we know of the Mongols came years after their most active war period had passed. Before that, they were just frighteningly effective, viciously savage raiders and conquerors. You are going to demand people attempt to understand cultural nuance in the middle of fighting for their life? If you think this is true, than what you are expecting is the 'video-gamifying' you spoke of, rather than playing out a character that may very well not give a damn about a different group that is at arms.This may not always be the case, but to assume otherwise is as silly to us as >>94750666 is silly to you.
>>94720343>Evil people are still people, they don't act like goombas, they just act selfishly.Evil people irl aren't ontologically evil though
>>94750666I mean you just stated a bunch of meta knowledge that the character's can't actually "know". An npc can tell the characters this but that doesn't mean they're going to take it as a law of the universe anymore than you irl are going to just assume everything anyone tells you is a law of the universe.
>>94674541Good. I want my players to develop class consciousness. They should catch on that the only ontologically evil are the wealthy ruling class and the stories about the inherently evil aligned races are meant to keep us obedient and fearful of foreign ideas. My players should realize that the king's court lives a lavish life while his people go hungry during a record harvest, because he's exporting the grain to fund foreign wars, and hoarding his profits like a dragon. They should realize the bandits they were sent to take care of were seizing grain shipments meant for export, and were redistributing it to the people at not cost. They should catch on to the red sashes many people in town wear, a secret mark of a member of the revolutionary army. All of them eyeing the adventurers suspiciously as thugs hired to do the king's will.They should realize that the goblins didn't live in the forest, but are refugees chased from their riverside fishing villages so the king could have full access to trade routes. They should realize that pillaging orcs are a mercenary warband hired by a rival kingdom to reclaim what the previous king stole, not mindless invaders who eat babies. My players would have to be really fucking blind to not catch on to what real evil looks like.
Oh great, an alignment thread. *taps sign*The only people who seem to have a problem with D&D Alignment are Literal Retards, Philosophy 101 Autists or people who are blatantly evil under the system disliking being called out as vile fuckwits.Every thread on Alignment reveals these three every single time.Literal Retards have issues with the rules and their reading comprehension tends to be shit. They misinterpret simple language and are often pigheadedly obstinate when it comes to correcting their moronic ideas.Phil 101 Autists are worse than Literal Retards. Unable to ignore their newfound knowledge, they argue incessantly about how the system must work within all these ideas they just learned (or have only ever learned) and blatantly ignore the conditions for D&D's Objective Alignment. They only seem capable of arguing about the system as it relates to modern day, real world, Earth and not the Fantasy universe it comes from, a common aliment for certain types of shit speckled, muppet farts.Evil motherfuckers are the worst. Quite simply they will argue at length and with every bad faith argument they have to not be labeled the monstrous things they are. From socialists trying to not have their genocidal movements called out as the evil they are, from people who like to cause others suffering not being properly labeled, to other types who all want to be Good but are so far from it with their beliefs and actions and are unable to reconcile it with the way the system labels them.>>94751882Lowkey based though. This guy gets it.
>>94751882>Le Rich are Ontologically evil>He said while posting His Grace, The Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel "Sam" Vimes, heir of Stoneface Vimes, who had an entire book where he was involved in exactly the sort of revolution you fill your pants over and the logical conclusion of such thingsYou're not even 10% as clever as you think you are, and your trolling is weak.
>>94751882The rich aren't ontologically evil. They are evil because it furthers their interests; they are evil because committing evil gets them ahead and benefits them both as a group and as indvidiuals by virtue of the role they occupy.>>94752361I don't take Discworld as an authority on political analysis and neither should you. It's a fucking fantasy book.
>>94752504Wrong. The rich are ontologically evil because you cannot be rich without being evil to the core. There are no good people among the rich.
>>94752134Alignment systems are stupid because they're simultaneously too complex but also too reductive. Old RPGs had the right idea - there was Law, when people would actively campaign to bring civilization to the Neutrals, the Neutrals who didn't feel strongly one way or the other, and Chaos who sought to destroy civilization as we know it. That's it, that's all you need to know where someone stands from an RPG standpoint. If you go anymore complex than that, then it's reductive because it doesn't capture or accurately reflect the entirety of the gamut of human experience. Just the fact that you can have a LOLRANDUMXD character as CN as well as someone who is absolutely obsessed with an idea to the exclusion of everything else is the same is a flaw in the system.
>>94752504>I don't take Discworld as an authority on political analysis and neither should you. It's a fucking fantasy book.>I'll just post it to try and make my post more noticeable while pretending to be smartPick something relevant to your post then, microbrainlet-kun.
>>94679468I can assure you a real frog doesn't know fucking shit about scorpions nor that it is able to conceptualize what a scorpion is.
>>94752504>>94752361Vimes had class consciousness. He married into it and then made himself the problem of the ruling classes. He paid his taxes and saw to the welfare of the people over the whims of the aristocrats. You dumbasses didn't get Night Watch and get your political analysis from streamers.
>>94752504>the rich aren't ontologically evil>it's just that you have to do fucked up evil shit to get richYou can't go swimming without getting wet. You don't get filthy stinking rich without others suffering.
>>94753457Something participating in evil doesn't make it ontologically evil anon, even if the only to become rich you have to do evil things, unless you continue to ONLY do evil things from than on would it be so. If you're arguing that someone doing good as result of them doing evil is evil, than that's an entirely different argument
>>94752570My view is that alignments were a crutch to assist the extremely autistic young playerbase at the time. Dumb kids with zero social skills and zero imagination can't imagine people thinking differently than themselves. So they can't make a character act independent of themselves. They need a simplistic ruleset for how their character should act and how others should act towards them.
>>94753478Fine I'll stop using meme word everyone else here is misusing and just say the more accurate "inherently evil" and "complicit". If you're going to be pedantic.
>>94753478The trick to being a millionaire is it comes at the exploitation of others. Inherently. The trick to maintaining that wealth is continued exploitation and willful disregard to the wellbeing of others. The trick to inheriting millions and remaining a millionaire is the willful disregard for the wellbeing of others as learning to maintain and manage such wealth means you cannot be ignorance to the harm you cause through your excess and hoarding. That's the catch-22 of being a rich fuck that even Jesus called out 2000 years ago. The only way for a rich fuck to get into heaven is to sell all his excess and give to the poor, redistributing your wealth, until you are no longer a rich fuck. Because rich fucks go to hell. So stop being one if you don't want the bad ending. That's pretty ontological if you ask me.
>>94753552Wealth is not a zero sum game. Nothing about one person being wealthy inherently precludes others from creating value.I also do not think that you are correct on your read of the Bible. You seem to be referencing Matthew 19:16-24, but nothing in those lines states categorically that it is impossible for a rich person to go to heaven. The lines are about a rich guy who asks Jesus what he needs to do to go to heaven. Jesus says to follow the commandments. It is only when the rich guy asks for extra stuff he can do to increase his chances that Jesus suggests donating his wealth, and then comments that going to heaven as a rich man is difficult. So, following the commandments is necessary in order to go to heaven; donating wealth might help, but is not absolutely required.
>>94753677>Wealth is not a zero sum game. Nothing about one person being wealthy inherently precludes others from creating value.I agree, but I say that there is a point of wealth that no honest labor can reach. I wouldn't say millionaires, but definitely billionaires nevermind the soon-to-be trillionaires at the top of the world ladder. I could say you can be rich and have obtained your money in a good way (though I would doubt MOST rich people fall into this, having mostly inherited their wealth) but after a certain point you NEED to have fucked people over.
>>94753677>Wealth is not a zero sum game. Nothing about one person being wealthy inherently precludes others from creating value.wealth is by definition abundance relative to others. If there is value it's because the resource is quantifiable, and if you have the most it means there is less to be shared among others. It's literally a zero sum game. Don't just talk out your ass to defend an idea you only halfway hold just for the sake of arguing.And Jesus literally gave an extreme metaphor about an impossible thing to express how absolutely impossible it is to be rich and get into heaven. And don't give me a sob "but in sunday school they told us the needle was a gateway" because that was old school bunk made up to please the ruling class throughout the history of the religion. He meant a literal camel passing through the tiny eye of a sewing needle being a more likely thing than a rich man getting into heaven. People pick apart that passage to excuse not doing the blatant obvious thing he's telling them to do. All his other actions speak to "money is fucking evil" and people try so hard to go "well technically he said..." to get around actually giving their shit away to the poor. 2000 years and people still try to get around it.
>>94753769If it's possible to be rich and not have gained it through exploitations then it's one in a thousand, making them an outlier and not relevant when saying you can only become rich at the expense of others. Then you get into the weeds of whether those with wealth an power then have a responsibility, because simply in using that wealth you are expressing power and what you do and don't use your money on makes an impact. So keeping it all, excess beyond your own needs, never giving to those in need, that's a moral choice. But the objectively good choices leave you far less wealthy. So you're striaght back to "being rich is evil" where the only way to be rich and not evil results in no longer being rich.
>making sound investments is ontological evilReally jumping through hoops to try to justify receiving handouts here
>>94721024No, they are made out of Evil. Hell, the Abyss, and other such planes of existence are literally composed of fundamental Evil. Everything that exists on these planes is made up on an atomic level of the "element" of evil. The plants, the sky, the animals, and of course the fiends. A fiend is a soul made flesh, given form by evil energy and evil matter on a plane of evil. The same is true of the good planes, being composed of fundamental Good.Negative energy powers undead, not fiends. And undead are not composed of negative like a fiend is composed of evil.This has been the standard cosmological makeup of how Evil and Negative Energy have worked across 4 editions, but I do not know if 5e has stupidly changed this.>>94753677>nothing in those lines states categorically that it is impossible for a rich person to go to heavenJesus literally says it is easier for an impossible thing to happen--camel through needle eye--than for a rich person to get to heaven. That pretty definitive for if can rich people can get to heaven.
>>94753821Literally no one said this.
>>94752570…but that’s still DnD alignment. 1e was the first game to have it, and that copied Moorecock. I still consider that just as valid a framework for alignment as the two axis system.
ITT: people who do not understand what ontological means
>>94754174got people saying money isn't a zero sum game too. People just say things to argue on impulse without thinking.
>>94728568Parasites are a delicate part of ecosystems just like any other type of creature.There is literally nothing evil about them unless you are some retard that thinks animals are otherwise honest and valiant or some shit.Now Mindflayers are on a completely different page but their parasitic reproduction needs are the least of their sins.
>>94753457Explain in specific detail the evils that Notch did to become wealthy.
>>94752134Fuck off with your stale copy pasta.
>>94754900Is that really the example you want to go with?
>>94754900He sold off to Microsoft, a company that has undoubtedly went on to do great evils with the money Minecraft has earned for them.
>>94753775You do know that typically when someone gets wealth, they get it by providing some kind of product or service in return, right?
>>94753775Wealth is a measure of value, and Value generation is not zero sum. Surplus Value on a Supply and Demand graph represent the Value generated by a group of actors in a market that didn't previously exist. Trades don't even happen unless both parties believe they are at least breaking even. If somebody believes they are getting a better deal than that, they've just increased their own value without even producing a new product.Imagine a product that you want to buy. Let's say the most you would pay for it is $50. If somebody can sell it to you for $30, you just got to keep $20 of surplus value. Once this is scaled up, we see that producers competing to sell you goods at lower prices causes most consumers to just have more money, since they don't need to spend as much to get the things they demand. A similar concept operates on the supply end, where Suppliers might be happy to sell at a lower price, but demand is high enough that they can sell at a higher price.>>94753769In detailed studies of wealth, 90% or more of millionaires earned it themselves over the course of a lifetime. Most People who inherit millionaire level wealth lose it within a lifetime. Seriously, look up some facts before spouting nonsense.
>>94754364Wealth isn't a zero sum game. You don't know what Zero Sum means. When two people trade, they only do so when there is at least break even value (which doesn't need to be measured in only money). If either side of the trade believes they have received more than break even value, then the total value of the system has increased. If the total value of the system can increase, it isn't Zero-Sum.
>>94757024>earned it themselvesYeah, with a small little business loan of two millions from their parents, and by screwing over everyone they could get their hands on on the way there.
>>94753677Wealth is a zero sum game because resources and labor is limited and by moving resources/labor around you're depleting it in one place and strengthening it in the other. This works both horizontally (location A/B) but also vertically (the global economy draining the labor pool from region A).
>>94753821The money for those sound investments comes from exploitation and is thus evil. >handoutsNobody said that, faggot.
>>94754152Yes and I'm saying they're stupid regardless of anything.
>>94757045No it fucking isn't. By that logic, if a retard trades away his gold brick for a bunch of pieces of color string, there is an inherent increase of the value of the system? Holy shit. Wealth is objective you fucking retard.
>>94754900He created a Demiurge simulator. Instead of striving to achieve Gnosis, he, as a servant of the actual Demiurge created a game where the user can craft a fictional world and keep the people there imprisoned, which in turn keeps them imprisoned in the trap of the Demiurge. Next, he has taken money from people that would've used it for something more worthwhile.Next, he has then hoarded this money and not used it to create great works, escape the prison of the Demiurge, or help others in escaping this prison. He sold his product to an even more evil company which now harvests the data of the users playing it. Now he seeks to create another prison game.
I genuinely can't tell if some of the people ITT aren't trolling
>>94753821The sound investments being Blackrock, Raytheon and Monsanto
>>94757319>because resources and labor is limited Resources are technically finite but only in a way that will never actually matter, the only obstacle with it really is their location and form not the fact that it's limited. Labor I would love to hear how you KNOW it's limited considering the total theoretical labour output is constantly changing and we objective produce more things with labour then we did 1000 years ago.
>>94757345Are you arguing that all forms of compensation are inherently evil?
>>94757238Are you seriously trying to claim that literally no business ever has ever been built without a million dollar loan to start it off?
>>94757355Wealth isn't objective you fucking idiot. Objectively prove the dollar value of anything right now, literally any object.
Reading this thread and baka-ing my head at it was somehow the thing that finally pushed me towards the realization that I might want to pursue a philosophy degree
>>94756850No that's a basic transaction. Excessive wealth is generated through the exploitation of a workforce who receive far less of the profits than you, despite doing the majority of the work. That's the actual reality of the world not fantasy of "if they're paid more it's because they worked harder and deserve it!" you seem to still believe.
>>94757024>In detailed studies of wealth, 90% or more of millionaires earned it themselves over the course of a lifetime. this is the dumbest bit of fiction I've ever read. 90% of billionaires were born rich and invested in the right shit to get more rich and bought businesses and buildings and politicians to further grow that wealth.You still believe the fake stories about the richest people living in simple little suburban houses, like they're normal and relatable and obtainable. Don't worry the next lottery scratcher will sure to make you one of them dumbass.Just keep believing or else communism might spontaneously appear and make you wait in line for the doctor.
>>94757707goalposts.>90% of millionaires actually were born rich and got by through inherited wealth that they grewbecomes>literally any teeny tiny small business couldn't have started without a loan from mom and popyou fucking clown. Suck elon's dick somewhere else. It's literally just propaganda that most rich people got their wealth through hard work. 99% of them were born halfway there at least and got by playing golf, shaking a few hands, and underpaying the working class. Even the stories you've heard about specific people were fake PR by those people.
>>94757727Wealth is objective because wealth describes a relative relation. One person is wealthy because of what they have of something of perceived or intrinsic value relative to the other. The object being valued could be subjective and part of a social contract, but the disparity between the two people is objective fact.
>>94679468They also don't sting the surface they crawl on.Same with spiders and their bites.
>>94757697Just because we haven't hit the limit doesn't mean it's not limited. Also, I question the validity of measuring labor in productivity in fiat currency - I would use a more objective system of measurement. >>94757700I'm not going to debate someone with a room temperature IQ. Re-read what I wrote. >>94757707NTA, and no. Not every business. I'm a business owner and make decent sub-millionaire money. Enough to live in NYC at any rate. But every globalist multi-million business was done with a very large seed capital, yes. Growth rates don't allow for anything else. Like I get maybe 15% growth rate per year on a year that I bust my ass off. ASSUMING I can maintain this insane grow rate, it will take me 19 years to become a multi-millionaire. Since I know my growth is going to taper off to like the average of 7.5%, it will take me 60 years. I also have a 65% chance of failing in my first 10 years, so realistically more like 99 years. Literally impossible in one generation unless I start exploiting people and chasing investor money, which obviously would increase both my starter capital and growth rate. >>94757727...are you a retard? First off, the dollar is shit because it's a fiat currency, so that's the first and most important issue. The second issue is that literally I can look up how much it costs to produce a specific item and tell you how much it costs. For instance, Sony is reporting that it costs $450 to manufacture a single PS5. I don't believe them, but for the sake of argument, let's assume this is true and that all components/resources/labor reports are also true down the line. This would mean that the objective price of the PS5 is $450 and then Sony gets to decide how much to sell it to you for.
>>94757024Why are you randomly Capitalizing certain Words like you're reading the bible or Listening to some online retard? >if people believe they're getting more valueUgh you an actual sped. So let's say a retard has a gold brick he inherited. Someone comes along and gives him some shiny beads for him to play with in exchange for his gold brick. A transaction was made and the retard is on fucking cloud 9, he thinks he made the best deal in the world. Was the value of the system increased, you absolute fucking rube?>in studies of wealthAHAHAHAAHAHA you fucking retarded faggot. A) substantiate your claims, B) do you believe that kind of propaganda you fucking mongrel?
>>94674541I don't think you know what Ontology is.
>>94759992NTA, but in academia, actual terms that are used in their professional, rather than layman's, usage are capitalized to distinguish them, because people do not know how to english.>do you believe that kind of propagandaI think asking businessmen how they got their start isn't 'propaganda', unless you believe 60% of them are lying.You are trolling the guy, and that is acceptable, but hopefully other people do not take you at face value.Faget.
>>94760000Yeah right? Shouldn't this thread be about birds?
>>94760130that's oncology, retard
>The only true evil is heckin' CapitalismReddit.Please go and stay go.
>>94759967>Just because we haven't hit the limit doesn't mean it's not limitedThan what is the limit anon and what "objective measuring system " do you use to evaluate it?>Like I get maybe 15% growth rate per year on a year that I bust my ass off. Lol so even if I take you at your word, your argument is entirely predicated on the assumption that you have THE optimal growth rate based on nothing but your personal experience?Actually I'm a business owner that makes more money and you're wrong>The second issue is that literally I can look up how much it costs to produce a specific item and tell you how much it costsSo I ask you to give me the objective value of something and you give me the sum total of a bunch of arbitrary values determined by a bunch of parties making subjective value assessments during negotiations? I laugh at the idea you're a business owner if you think labour or material costs are "objective".
>>94760179the only true evil is allowing one thing to run rampant and roughshod over everything elseunfortunately, right now that's capitalism
>>94701591it's been tried a lot more than the cherry picked YT video you watched, moron. I don't even care if you're "pretending to be retarded" either, I hate you.
>>94760179>money at all is capitalism>the wealthy being in power is capitalismmoney being the root of all evil is literally biblical. Go look for communists under the crawlspace, you never know where they'll be hiding.
>>94760179Didn't know that Luke 18:25 was written by Marx.
>>94761201Even Marx wasn't anti capitalist, he just had some notes for its flaws and suggestions for improvements or alternatives when needed. It's telling how people can't take criticism to capitalism at all and have to turn him into a boogeyman of socialism.
>>94751787God tells you they're always evil. Like, an actual deity. Bam.
>>94751882God, I hope we really do go fascist and usher in the thousand-year eternal White Boy Summer.Communists should be shot on sight.
>>94761201Tbqh all real christian should campaign for communism
>>94762532>Even Marx wasn't anti capitalistMarx was absolutely 100% anticapitalist. He considered it better then fucking feudalism but he way a card carrying commie and believed it was terrible to humanity.
>>94762685>criticizing rich people is communism and that's why we need fascism do you even hear how retarded you sound.
>>94762883>card carrying commie >the guy who invented the thing that was turned into a thing called communism>carried a card for it
>>94760130That's oncology. I mean that "Ontological Evil" doesn't just mean objective evil, it means evil innate to the thing by virtue of its immutable characteristics. It demands an objective soteriology but it doesn't actually say anything about what evil means except that the subject is that, and if it weren't that, it wouldn't be evil anymore.I.E., Orcs in LOTR are ontologically evil because if they weren't evil they'd just be Elves again. Orcs in D&D aren't ontologically evil because it is possible, however unlikely, that a good orc exists.
>>94762938To be honest, I just want to make things worse for you and your ilk.
>>94701574Gary Gygax answered this question decades ago. It is moral to kill the orc baby and stupid to feel guilt for it. Gnits make lice. He further went on to say that he wouldn't be putting orc children in his game if he were DM though.
>>94763288There's no way to explain this to people before because the process of postmodern social demoralization has been going for too long. These days, the REASON people intake media is to see the baby orcs and to see whether they get slaughtered or not, not to see heroes defeat evil monsters. All entertainment has taken on the gross characteristics of pornography, in the sense that pornography is the demeaning of the human body and spirit for titillation. Game of Thrones is basically one long exercise in this, but any sort of suffering porn, "I'm Sad" Goblins shit, genocide fantasies like Goblinslayer etc. all serve to further this media trend.If you think about it, it's really incredible that for decades, gamers could play games like this without ever asking these questions or being forced to answer them, because the reason they were playing was to enjoy the fun and heroic parts of adventure without delving too far into the implications, hence it being a fantasy. But nowadays, since about the turn of the century but really gearing up since 2012, a dark side of the whole enterprise has emerged where people suddenly ENJOY being asked uncomfortable questions. They DEMAND ugly truths and underbellies in their work, and rather than edify or educate anyone, these seem to have dragged the spirit of the average gamer downwards, to the point that even pristine heroes cannot exist anymore, everyone is some combination of war criminal, psychopath or religious fanatic. It's like Garth Ennis rented a timeshare in everyone's head.
>>94763323I remember feeling kinda uncomfortable with an LG player torturing a drow child for info than killing it. This was back before 2012 too. But Drow were originally ontologically evil outside of mutants like Drizzt (they literally torture and kill each other in the womb which is orgasmic for the mother, and they're born with instinctual murderous hate towards family members). Oldschool DnD was weird about this stuff in general, like orc mothers needing to be separated from their newborns because they'd kill and eat them out of instinctual disgusts for weakness.
>>94754932Mad because it’s true.
>>94763246>everything looks like communism if it questions capital>anyone who questions the status quo is communist>I hate communists because I was told they're bad and cringe and SJW feminist reddit blue hair!NPC behavior.
>>94763323I mean, this is probably true, but I enjoy it as a "fuck you" to the libs. I didn't care about rape, race war and genocide before, but now I'm horny for it. I demand it.
>>94760153>>94763209Oncology is the study of cancer. The study of birds is ornithology."Oncology" is probably more apt for this thread, though
>>94763323For a lot of settings, it breaks suspension of disbelief for such near-humans who are stupidly antisocial to be able to band together to pose much of a risk to more normal civilizations without all sorts of magical fuckery to justify it. Like take the drow back in 2E D&D, who were so evil only 1/5 of their children made it to their teenage years and who are incapable of forming pair bonds. The average drow murders another drow once a month, with particularly successful ones murdering weekly or daily. All of this despite having the same fertility issues of other elves. Somehow, this race became topdog in the underdark, has sprawling cities with up to a million drow citizens, and is one of the greatest threats to the surface civilizations, rather than suffering a population collapse within one generation that leaves them at the mercy of the other Underdark civilizations.
>>94710748>all these nihilists screaming “no u”You’re fucking based, anon. Keep it up
>>94759851>Excessive wealthHow do I determine what constitutes excessive wealth, objectively?>"if they're paid more it's because they worked harder and deserve it!" you seem to still believe.I don't believe anyone deserves anything. I'm not sure why you think I do.
>>94763323Yeah? Because otherwise it's just mindless entertainment and rolling dice. I want the moral ambiguity. I want to actually consider what I would do and what the discrepancy between me the player and the character I'm piloting would be doing. And I don't see why you're framing it as something bad. Playing with action figures and ignoring the logistics of the world is boring and lame. If the goblins breed faster and are more industrious than humans WHY haven't they taken over? If the elves are genuinely ageless, what does it mean in their context? If the human kingdom has guilds, how much is collected via taxes and what kind of army size can the kingdom field? >>94763367You're misusing the word ontological, you fucking retard. If there's outliers, it's not ontological. You can't have "cold fire," or a "round square." If the drow were ontologically evil it would be impossible and inconceivable (literally) for them to be good. >>94710748>minimizing entropy is moralNo it isn't.>morality preserves orderMorality doesn't preserve shit because it doesn't exist.
I don't mind either option.The idea that no race is inherently evil creates some interesting story possibilities, but so do entirely evil races.It's particularly interesting to think about how an evil race can create a functioning society while still being evil.
>>94751882>thugs hired to do the king's willNot even that far removed. Many of the PC classes in D&D (which I assume you're talking about) would necessarily be part of the elite themselves, one way or another. Clerics and Paladins are generally associated with religious authority, Wizards had to have someone sponsor their specific and extensive education, Fighters are likely knights or guardsmen, Artificers had to be sponsored in their engineering education, and Bards are most likely patronized by the elite, who have more time and money to throw at people and have them recite orations or play instuments or sing historical epics.Even the other classes aren't super likely to have much cause for class consciousness. Druids and Rangers aren't necessarily drawn from the elite, but they mostly answer to Nature itself, which doesn't really care about any of this except where it pertains to the ecosystem going out of whack. Barbarians probably aren't from the same kingdom as the revolution in question and might even be from a raiding culture that's been making the famine worse because the king's armies are away conquering, Warlocks have sold their souls to powers unrelated to any of this (but happy to exploit any chaos that may ensue), Monks tend to keep to themselves or stick with their temples when not adventuring, the Blood Hunters (if you count them) are more concerned with the profane creatures of the night than they are with socioeconomics, and while Sorcerers can come from anywhere, the idea that someone gets to have special magical power because Grandma got it on with a dragon is more than a bit antithetical to the whole idea of "your blood doesn't make you special".The Rogues are the most likely to get behind all this, though whether they want to help you redistribute the wealth or to simply "redistribute" the wealth to themselves is a coin toss.
>>94674541Ontological is trannyspeak for literally
>>94762704If only communists actually practiced what they preached, then I would. I’d also be much more eager to do so if communism didn’t have a very well documented history of starving people and specifically persecuting Christians.
>>94762704>Christians should campaign for the atheist genocide cult that destroyed any Christians it had power overIf Communists truly loved their fellow man, they'd become Christians.
>>94767322>>94762704Whether Jesus' specific teachings were even partially compatible with Communism, Anarchism, or any permutations thereof is irrelevant. Christianity has thoroughly and irreversibly hitched itself to the wagon of state authority; to the wagon of Rome, and the wagons of Rome's successors, real or imagined. This is a legacy both the Communist and the Anarchist reject, for different reasons. All profess to love their fellows, but their notions of the origin of this love result in incompatible paradigms. The Great Chain of Being and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat are incompatible. One cannot both love God and say with an honest heart "no Gods, no Masters."
>>94767322Yes.
>>94674541Well yeah, duh?
