>Killing innocents for the greater good. What alignment

Lawful Evil.

>>53597535
>alignments
Ugh

>>53597535
Was there another way?

>>53597535
Lawful Evil sounds like a close match.

>>53597535
There a situations where even a lawful good person could consider killing innocents to be justified. Imagine a plane filled with passengers is headed towards a nuclear power plant, and is under the control of terrorists. If the plane is shot down, all 100 person on board, even though they are innocent. If the plane crashes into the power plant, 10.000 people will die from radiation poisoning.

>>53597622
Multi-track drifting.

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Doing evil for the sake of good outcome later is described in Book of Exalted Deeds as still being evil.

Man, D&D alignments make me tired. Tell me about morality and honor systems in other RPGs.

>>53597622
>radiation is real

>>53597642
>people are innocent

>>53597622
Infiltrate plane.
Rouse uprising of hostages.
If all fails, atone after doing the doubtful deed.

Are people who don't understand how alignments work the same morons who don't get how Kig Crimson works?

>>53597636
>Book of Exalted Deeds
You mean the one that teaches DMs to immediately have Paladins fall at the slightest hint of a moral dilemma?

Everyone who owns it should set it on fire to atone for their shit taste.

>>53597636
>Doing evil for the sake of good outcome later is described in Book of Exalted Deeds as still being evil.

Sounds retarded

>>53599381
How the fuck do you even 'infiltrate a plane'?

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>>53600930

>>53597636

Killing is not inherently an evil Act so I don't really see how that applies to the Dilemma

>>53599486
>Everyone who owns it should set it on fire to atone for their shit taste.
D&D paladinfag detected.

>>53597535
Evil.

>>53597636
IIRC The same book shows a picture of a paladin walking in on two succubi having sex and says "Does the paladin choose to smite evil, or respect love?".

Not a good book for answers to philosophical questions concerning good and evil.

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>>53597535
>innocents
There's no such thing.

>>53597535
That's literally evil at it's greatest. Those who do evil just because are closer to be neutral, since they're retards closer to unaligned animals than to people.

>>53601307
>Does the paladin choose to smite evil, or respect love?
Smite evil, of course. How is that even a question?

Just because two demons are in love with each other doesn't suddenly excuse the fact that they're still evil to the core. Especially in a setting like D&D where Good and Evil are objective and measurable qualities.

>>53601007
You're going to have to get one of those pretty fast.

>>53601428
Exactly.

Not to mention, they're probably fucking out of lust instead of love. If anything a paladin should kill evil things that are fucking even faster, so they don't make more evil things.

>>53601007
>catching up to a superprop with a shitty cargo plane
That shit was an inside job man. CIA did a staged interrogation to make the plane slow down.

The thing that alignment threads never consider is moments where people act outside of their alignment without shifting from it. No one is going to act the same way every single day in every single situation. Somedays that Lawful Good paladin is going to want to punch some guy in the face and apologize for it later. That neutral evil guy is going to hold the door open for that little old lady because she reminds him of his grandma.

>evil
really? killing one guy to save 5 is just pragmatic.

>>53597535
killing innocents; is bad, -1
the greater good; is good, +1
I'm going to go out an a limb as say:
>neutral

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>>53597535
Some kind of Lawful

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>>53597535
Neutral Regret.

>>53597535
Here is the way I break it down in my games.
There is individual good, societal good, and cosmic good.
Individual good this is what players should be thinking about most. For them killing innocents will always be evil. As it is a individuals decision to preform the act of taking a bi standards life.

Societal good is less for players and more the views of good on a national level. A good example of this is if a Good society goes to war, there will undoubtedly be innocents caught in the cross fire, but what is considered good here is how you treat those innocents after the fact. Where a societal evil would kill the lot, societal good would show any and all compasion.

Cosmic Good this is the type of good that players shouldn't be involved in. I generally reserve this for Gods and Angels. These are beings of such power and wisdom that they don't care about the lives of a individual or even a society. They are so beyond the understanding of most mortals that some acts they commit can easily be construed as evil. If I am a god and I see a city full of normal joes and I know that celestially nuking them will stop a demon 500 years from now I am gonna nuke them. Besides any innocents who die there that are good are gonna end up in heaven so it all works out for the better.

>>53597622
No.

You are not responsible for actions that are not your own. Only the actions you carry out

Killing 100 people is evil, even if it saved 10,000

>>53601040
>lol orc babies

>>53597622
You do know that reactors have giant fucking walls built specifically for that scenario? The largest plane you can think of would be like a fly splatting on a windshield. No reactor damage whatsoever

>>53602836
You are responsible for your own choices. You chose not to save 10,000 people when you could. That is the same as killing them yourself. That is evil.

>>53605061
I didn't hire the hijackers nor build the power plant outside of SAM cover. I gain 0 culpability for the situation just for being aware of it.

>>53605061
I also chose not to send all my money to Africa today to feed starving children. Are they also dead because of me?

>>53602836
The choice whether to protect those 10,000 is also yours. And to shirk it is evil

>>53605153
If your money would have made the difference between them living and dying, then yes.

>>53605114
But you chose to let it happen when you had the power to stop them. You let them die and that is the same as killing them.

>>53605268
No. There's a word for the alignment in which you don't go out of your way to spend all your money to save the life of someone you don't know.

It's Neutral.

Someone who actively goes out of their way to their own detriment to save the lives of others is Good.

Someone who brings harm to others with their actions in order to benefit themselves is Evil.

Someone who remains inactive and neither saves nor harms others is neutral, because not everyone has the responsibility to put themselves at risk to help someone else.

>>53605190
>>53605273
I didn't choose to fly the plane into the reactor. If I shoot down the plane, a hundred people die, for sure, by my hand. If I don't shoot down the plane, nobody dies, for sure, by my hand. Some people may or may not die by circumstance, but I'm not the one who created those circumstances and it is not my responsibility as a bystander to ameliorate them.

>>53597535
Lawful good of course
alignments are fucking retarded and so are you for sstarting this thread.

>>53597636
>Tell me about morality and honor systems in other RPGs.
Other RPGs tend to have you play a character instead of an alignment with a 2d cutout behind it.

>>53605404
Then you are not good.

>>53597535
Chaotic Evil.

Or, at best, Neutral evil.

>>53605868
Nor am I evil.

>>53597535
Neutral Evil.
Good is something you *choose* to do. Forcing someone else into the cause of Good is unambiguously Evil.

>>53597535
Lawful Neutral

It's evil, of course.

But what is evil, anyway? Is there reason to the rhyme? Without evil there can be no good, so it must be good to be evil sometimes.

>>53597535
Evil. But that doesn't mean that the person who makes it is necessarily Evil, depending on the circumstances.

>>53597535
Gutless Evil - wants the power of the dark side but doesn't dare to admit it, thus keeps making excuses for its inexcusable actions.
The most common evil alignment IRL.

>>53602515
This is why alignments suck in general.

>>53602515
Even Judge Dredd once punched his fellow Judge in the face. SO THAT'S WHY HE'S ACTUALLY CHAOTIC NEUTRAL WAKE UP SHEEPLE

It's evil. It says so in the fucking books.

People love to bring up these arguments like these and go on about the greater good and some shit, but really it's not open for debate - it's stated quite clearly in there if you were to bother reading about that shit.

You'll do better to argue moralities in a game without alignments.

>>53602611
>really? killing one guy to save 5 is just pragmatic.
Nope, its evil

>>53605888
Yes you are.

Letting 100,000 people die due to inaction is evil. If you were in the army, and you didn't shoot down a plane heading for a nuclear powerplant, you bet your ass you're going to military prison.

>You're in a plane, either you kill 5 guys or you kill 100,000 guys
>Okay, how about I-
>THERE ARE NO CLEVER PLAYS THAT CAN GET YOU OUT OF THIS SITUATION, FUCKO, IT'S ONE OR THE OTHER

Alignment arguments are one thing, but if you're also removing player agency and not allowing them to come up with some clever plan to not have to kill anyone, you're a shit DM.

Why do people argue against smiting every evil-aligned creature in existence, sentient or no. You can say that they haven't been caught doing wrong or can change, but they probably did some evil in private and forcing an alignment change for all of them would take a shitload of time and resources. Killing them is the most efficient thing to do

>>53597535
>innocents
No such thing.

>>53609407
only degrees of guilt

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>>53597535

>>53609553
I mean, it was a mercy kill. Would you rather have their undead corpses roam the streets?

>>53609392
Because it causes vigilantism and gives zero incentive for those who want to change to do any change because they'll get RKed by a griefer.

>>53597535
>>53609553
It can be any alignment. It's not really an alignment act but more of a character progressing thing. Like a good character's march towards evil, or a neutral character's break from neutrality. It's the consequences that make the alignment not the act itself.

>>53597535
Lawful Good

>>53604568
Everyone knows you adopt them, raise them, and then kill them when they achieve sufficient age.
The evil is, in the end, smote.

>>53597535
Lawful neutral, Lawful evil, neutral, Chaotic neutral, and maybe Chaotic evil if the world was under some sort of unstoppable despotic force could qualify. These vary on how sadistic the character makes it and how they feel about it afterwords.

"Good" in the DnD sense is all about purity righteousness and using faith and holy light to do away the no win scenario through sheer willpower or conviction or at the very least sticking with your convictions to the bitter end after giving it your all.

"Good" in the DnD sense is inherently idealistic and while killing does not automatically make a act not good the "innocents" killing does. Knowingly killing innocents even for the greater good is incredibly cynical and does not fit into the Exalted angels designs, nor the gentle mercies of Yolanda and Pelior.

Killing innocents doesn't have to be evil but it cannot be good. At least in DnD. People pulling IRL morality judgements and court rulings bullshit into this can fuck right off cause relativism has raped any possibly of a genuine ethics discussion.

>>53609772
You're fucking retarded.

It's literally evil to let a plane with a few hundred innocents bore itself into a nuclear powerplant causing thousands of innocent people to die or get sick.

You're being fucking retarded mate.

>>53609772
>>53609795
Or, because D&D cunts are always so retarded - translated in fantasy terms.

It's literally evil to let innocents with undispellable enchantments on their soul that bores a hole in the metaphysical prison of some horrible demon lord live.

>>53597535
It's between Lawfull Evil and Lawfull Neutral.

>>53597535
Lawful Neutral.
See Dredd nuking SovMeg1 in Apocalypse War.

>>53601008
>innocents

>>53609834
Judge Dredd is Lawful Good though.

>>53609795
>>53609807

Hi there utilitarianism. Your ethical theory does not apply to DnD as Good and Evil are universal forces and not relative concepts we judge societies on as evil actions in DnD regardless of reason literally create demons and empower evil gods in celestial wars.

DnD was not made to be a critique on human ethics cause real life is never idealistic and can never afford to be. Celestial good in DnD and therefor palidans good clerics, etc don't believe in the "no win scenario" and the way the morality system is laid out cannot exist if said scenario exist.

It should also be mentioned that unless we're talking about outsiders alignment in DnD refers to the trend of peoples actions. If you generally kill innocents for the "greater good" you're probably not good. If it was a one off fluke in a incredibility specific scenario you still could be.

I'm sorry the writers of Forgotten Realms did not consult a expert in ethics before basing a plane and magic system off of objective good and evil for play pretend games. But you need to chill the fuck out.

>>53609772
Sadly you are wrong.

"Good" in the dnd sense is about following the objective rules of morality laid down by the gods.
Killing people? Bad
Killing orks? Good

Its not exactly a nuanced system.

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Alow me to fix the alignment once and for all. Not by changeing it, but by putting it into terms that you mongoloids might understand.

Lawful Neutral, declining into Lawful Evil with the delusion of being Lawful Good.

>>53609998
>>53609998
>"Good" in the dnd sense is about following the objective rules of morality laid down by the gods.
Isn't that what I said? With the whole plane and magic system off objective good and evil?
Or where you talking about the people's alignment is their "trend" thing. Cause that part isn't RAW true. Technically your alignment should be going all over the place as you make wildly different decisions on the act (and in 2e taking the level loss with it) its just I've never seen it played that way.

Although if you have please do tell I'm interested in how such a game would look.

>>53610002
"Ruthless" and "selfish" need more elaboration on and the line between them is blurred.

>>53602836
t. Jeremy Corbyn
https://youtu.be/XMC8yBq8usg

>>53597535
Lawful Evil.

>>53597622
Morality in D&D, and we are in D&D since we're using the alignment system, is purely black and white.

While a character could justify doing this to themselves, it's still by the rules of the universe an evil act and the universe would react accordingly.

>>53601428
Wouldn't the fact they're capable of love indicate that perhaps they are not actually evil to the core?

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>>53597535
> >Killing innocents for the greater good.
>What alignment would that be?
Depends on the specific philosophical paradigm you subscribe to (deontological, consequentialist or virtue ethics).
So morality of committing a lesser evil in the name of greater good is subjective.
And don't even get me started on not doing potential good, and thus, being passively evil.

>>53609267
Only if you were ordered to shoot the plane down. The commander has the decision, the soldier does not.

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>>53610199

>>53610172
Love and hate, both are passionate feelings and so therefore both are capable of crimes of passion.
Technically, emotion is evil for it implants a biased mindset against "Morally Gray" people.
A true pally must smite ALL the evil, no matter what form, no matter what cost.

So technically, all emotional paladins MUST smite themselves...

>>53609278
Sometimes it's necessary in speculative debates, though. There's a tendency for wannabe paladins on /tg/ to say "well I stop the plane by infiltrating it" and refuse to accept that they don't have the means or the time to make choices outside of the two put before them.

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>>53597535
Lawful good.
>>53605888
Your inaction allows evil to spread and succeed.You are evil.

>>53610488
>There's a tendency for wannabe paladins on /tg/ to say
Yeah but if those wanna be paladins are playing characters who are actually paladins you're a dick for including a scenario that has no right to exist in such universe.

>>53610488
There's always limits to every scenario, and things you can't do, but if you want to come up with some clever and actually plausible plans to deal with the whole thing without anyone dying, I say go for it.

>>53610542
>Muh rule utilitarianism
>Muh act utilitarianism
>Muh preference utilitarianism
>In Moral Thinking (1981), Hare illustrated the two extremes. The "archangel" is the hypothetical person who has perfect knowledge of the situation and no personal biases or weaknesses and always uses critical moral thinking to decide the right thing to do; the "prole" is the hypothetical person who is completely incapable of critical thinking and uses nothing but intuitive moral thinking and, of necessity, has to follow the general moral rules they have been taught or learned through imitation.[51] It is not that some people are archangels and others proles, but rather that "we all share the characteristics of both to limited and varying degrees and at different times."[51]. Hare does not specify when we should think more like an "archangel" and more like a "prole" as this will, in any case, vary from person to person. However, the critical moral thinking underpins and informs the more intuitive moral thinking. It is responsible for formulating and, if necessary, reformulating the general moral rules. We also switch to critical thinking when trying to deal with unusual situations or in cases where the intuitive moral rules give conflicting advice.

Its not as cut and dry as you think it is fag

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Innocense, good and alignments are all spooks. I would kill innocents for my greater well-being.

>>53597622
Of course I wouldn't shoot the fucking plane. are you a fucking idiot?

Nuclear powerplants are designed these things in mind. Some fucking plane crashing into powerplant won't do anything.

If I shoot down the plane, I doom the innocent to certain death, without giving them the time to act and maybe save themselves.

You, and the guys who keep repeating those fucking idiotic tram problems should be dragged behind a shed and shot, because you keep parroting a black and white worldview where extreme actions resulting to the death of many are seen as the only possible way to solve problems.

Fuck you, and the school of thought that birthed your twisted mind.

>>53610723
The only philosophy worth a damn. It takes a true genius to continually trigger a man so hard he continually writes rebuttals to your work 30 years after you've already died.

>>53605404
>if I don't ensure people can feed themselves they'll all die but by my hand so I'm good

Hello Stalin

>>53610734
>anon misses the point of a moral dilemma experiment

>>53611208
Moral dilemma experiments miss the point of making a cool roleplay character.

>>53611386
Literally how

>>53611398
>Asks question about alignment system where good and evil are magically objective along with other magical objective forces called chaos and law
>Lets ask a question presupposed on real life ethics philosophy where such things as objective evil are fucking insane propositions
>Doesn't understand how this can no longer even remotely apply to OP's question anymore

>>53605273
>You let them die and that is the same as killing them.
It's not even remotely the same thing.

Right now you're sitting in your fancy house, spending money on leisure items like computers and the internet, while children in third-world countries starve to death. You probably also have a car, nice clothes, and other first-world luxuries. You could sell all your shit, fly over there, and feed those dying children, preventing them from dying, but instead you choose to live in comfort. By your inaction, are you killing those children? Of course not. But by your own logic, their blood is on your hands.

>>53597655
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt. The passengers who let The plane get taken over and crashed into the reactor are guilty because their inaction allowed it to happen.

>>53611100
damn, abrahamic religions were the greatest shitposts of all time. I hope one day I become such a grandmaster of b8.

honorable mention goes to L. Ron Hubbard, he had the handicap of creating a religion post-industrialization and still managed to b8 millions into believing it or raging against him.

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>>53611521
>Unironicly comparing the Trolly Problem to kids starving in Africa.

>>53597535
Lawful I-better-be-getting-paid-extra-for-this

>>53597569
>>53597582
>killing people
>lawful
Killing for the greater good is chaotic neutral.

>>53611688
Its a easy work around if the "greater good" you're following has a strict code but some very subtle loop holes that you found allowing you to do your killing thing.

>>53611609
>uh oh he got me there better post muh meme image with greentext

>>53611842
A retarded point doesn't deserve anything better then a shitpost in response.

>>53611762
>unironically thinking "Lawful" has anything to do with personal codes

>>53614219
>Thinking lawful has to be the law of the land you're currently in
Otherwise evil empires would just make a "no paladins allowed law" at their boarders and they'd be immune to smiting.

>>53615178
This kills the paladin

>>53610002
What is an "honorable kind" Cosmic Power, or a "dishonorable ruthless" one?

>>53597535
Gygaxian lawful good if their laws or good aligned religion demand it

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>>53602611
>sum morality

>>53610542
>Your inaction allows evil to spread and succeed. You are evil.
What a fucking moronic argument. I also don't firebomb charities and homeless shelters, so my inaction allows good to spread and succeed. I am good.

>>53609407
They're innocent *in the context of the situation* you twat
That's why it's usually combined with "bystander" for these things

>>53610734
>Fuck you, and the school of thought that birthed your twisted mind.
In SF parlance it's called "hard men making hard decisions" and there's a reason it's near-universally considered trite nowadays.

>>53611180
Except the Holodomor was an engineered famine, so, yes, it was by his hand.

>>53602611
BZZT! Wrong. Your motivation doesn't matter, doing evil things is still evil.

>>53609392
Well, for starters you can't actually be sure they're all evil. Detect Evil is a first level spell, it is not hard to fool.

>>53615178
>evil empires
Aren't paladins only required to bow to legitimate authority? If the empire is evil, wouldn't that mean its illegitimate in the paladin's eyes?

>>53611609
It's the exact same thing, though. In both cases you are either actively avoiding a decision, or actively deciding to not help people.

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>>53597535
Lawful good

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>>53597535
BIG Hint in the paragraph.
>greater good.
CG. CN at worst

Good and Evil are objective in D&D, and are actual forces.

>>53615178
It's neither, you asshole.

Lawful means neither the law of the land, nor any personal code. It means you yourself think order is better than chaos, and has people being happier and more content. It means you ally with Law over Chaos in the great cosmic war.

I have no idea how people still don't get this.

>>53617347
But you can still, and indeed commonly do, end up as Evil even when you think you serve Good.

>>53617347
Protip: If either your action OR your motivations behind it are evil, that action is evil. It doesn't matter if you're doing it with the INTENTION of saving thousands, you're still killing innocent people so what you're doing is evil.

It's NEUTRAL you stupid fucks how can you people not realize that NEUTRAL is an alignment and when you combine EVIL and GOOD together you get NEUTRAL.
You know how you can't have GOOD necromancers? You can have NEUTRAL necromancers because using EVIL for GOOD purposes is NEUTRAL.

THERE ARE THREE WHOLE ALIGNMENTS BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL AND THEY'RE CALLED NEUTRAL

>>53617552
Because that's not how it works. See >>53617478

>>53610542
>Your inaction
Alignments do not compel action, inaction is Unaligned.

>>53617478
>>53617578
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Intention matters in D&D. To do an evil act with good intentions causes them to be weighed against each other accordingly. Perform great evil for insufficient good, and it is an evil act. Perform minor evil for great good, and it is a good act. Perform evil for a proportional good, and it is a neutral act.

Both the action and the intention are important and relevant for alignment allocation.

>>53617625
>Perform minor evil for great good, and it is a good act.
Nope. It's in fact still an evil act.

But sometimes good characters can still do these without having their alignment endangered, and in fact most non-paladin good guys can well do minor pettinesses without even thinking about it.

>>53617625
>Both the action and the intention are important and relevant for alignment allocation.
Not when it comes to evil acts they aren't. If your action is evil, it's evil, full stop. Your intentions are irrelevant.

Now for good acts they DO matter, since both your action and the motivation behind it have to be good(or at least neutral) for it to be good. But being evil is much easier.

>>53611208
Moral dilemma experiments are useless in real world.

You cannot, in any real world decision, just come to the two conclusions of "Either kill a lot of innocents or a fuckton of innocents!". If it ever comes to such decision, it just means the men making the decision are idiots, and probably influenced by these black and white, do or die bullshit thought experiments. There's always a better way.

>>53617655
>>53617679
Obviously the act is evil because it was an evil act to begin with, but it will affect the user's alignment in a good direction if they receive sufficiently good ends. You're allowed to take out-of-alignment actions as alignments are not straitjackets.

>>53617716
>Obviously the act is evil because it was an evil act to begin with, but it will affect the user's alignment in a good direction if they receive sufficiently good ends
If that was the case, then the action wouldn't be evil. You're right in that it by itself won't have any effect on your own alignment.

>>53617797
Well, it wouldn't even be an evil act, really. It'd be a sum neutral act. Apparent evil when viewed in isolation (killing innocents, that is), but not truly evil at all (to kill innocents for a greater good end).

>>53617826
Killing innocents for the greater good doesn't really count as one of those "minor evil acts" under any circumstances. It's always a big deal, no matter how many other innocents you could save with it.

Think of something even pettier, like lying or stealing.

>>53617826
>Well, it wouldn't even be an evil act, really.
Yes it would. Killing innocents is killing innocents and it's evil no matter how you try to justify it. Not good, not neutral, EVIL.

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>>53597535
Lawful Oberstein.

>>53617853
>>53617876
The end result must be tallied as part of the act. The action cannot be standalone, or else you could not presume "killing the evil tyrant" is a good act because the action was violent murder. An "act" is the sum of the action and its results.
Results matter in D&D, else you could not have neutral necromancers. Which you can.

>>53617911
Killing an evil tyrant is a good act because you're not murdering a man on the street, but killing an evil tyrant. Destroying or defeating evil is Good.

You can have neutral necromancers, because even though they perform some evil acts(like raising undead), they also perform good acts(saving innocents, stopping evil tyrants, etc). Not because creation of undead stops being evil if you're doing it for the greater good, but because they'd be Good if they weren't doing it.

>>53611521
Good. The brats probably deserved it

>>53617973
That is ultimately the same. Evil actions, certainly, but for their greater good results their alignment is thusly neutral. It is the same as OP's circumstance. The act was evil, the results are neutral.

Sorry that OP's syntax ("What alignment would that be?" without being quite clear what "that" is, the action or the results) was a tad opaque.

>>53597535
Chaotic lawful good evil

>>53618019
No, it's totally different. Neutral necromancers aren't neutral because creating undead stops being evil if you just do it with good enough intentions: They're neutral because your alignment is defined by more than just one aspect of your life: Yes, they're doing some evil actions, but they're also doing good actions, and acting mostly with pure intentions. It all adds up to being neutral-ish.

None of this changes the fact that Evil actions such as killing innocents or creating undead are still Evil, no matter why you're doing them.

>>53618113
Then you also have to allocate that there is a greater good that is being achieved and thus it's actually two acts, an evil and a good one. That they are causally related is irrelevant.

>>53597628
underrated post

>>53618136
Except that's not how it works. If you kill one innocent to save hundred, in the end you've still performed an evil act, no ifs, ors or buts.

What part of ABSOLUTE MORALITY is not getting through your thick skull?

>>53618192
You've performed an evil act in killing an innocent, but also performed a good act in saving a hundred. By your logic they are two acts, not intrinsically related, despite the causal link.
Of course that's not how it works, because they are one act, and in actuality, the sum evil of killing the innocent merges with the sum good of saving the hundred, creating a neutral act.
Good and Evil are absolute, but you seem to think they cannot merge or flex. Neutrality is where they merge and flex, and it is as much an alignment as Good and Evil.

>>53597535
LN does this sort of Judge Dredd type shit all the time.

That said, there's other ways to have it play out. Like killing people so their souls at least get to go to an afterlife, as opposed to devoured by some eldritch stargod or ravenous hellbeast

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>>53597535
Lawful neutral.

Like Stalin

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>divine classes lose their powers if they change their alignment
>meanwhile arcane classes don't give a fuck
The trolley problem is easily solvable. Just use teleportation circles instead of primitive trolley lines. There, done.

>>53597535
Depends on the exact situation.

>No alternatives other that do not result in the death of a greater number of innocents AND the ones being killed would die soon anyway
Any alignment, including LG can do this. Arthas purging Stratheholm is a perfect example of this, and if he hadn't obtained Frostmourne he would not have fallen.

>No alternatives other that do not result in the death of a greater number of innocents
Trolley dilemma. A neutral or evil character is 100% clear to act here, but a good aligned character arguably has a duty to attempt every possible alternative, which in the field would include letting the innocents die because you jumped in front of the trolley like an idiot instead of hitting the switch

>Alternatives exist but are costly, difficult, or risky
Letting innocent people die for personal gain is an evil action.

>>53602836
Not shooting down the plane only briefly defers the deaths of the 100 while causing the death of the 10,000 and minimizes personal risk/responsibility so it is evil. Inactions are just as culpable as actions.

>>53610734
>Nuclear powerplants are designed these things in mind. Some fucking plane crashing into powerplant won't do anything.
This is a spot on answer for the specific scenario, but cops out of addressing the larger point. Magically teleporting all the passengers off the plane or making the terrorists fuck into idiots is like Kirk cheating on the Kobayashi Maru; you fail automatically because you just avoid the difficult decision that was the entire point of the exercise. Replace the power plant with an unknown target in downtown Manhattan because we know what happens if a plane crashes into one of them.

>>53619583
Best answer i think.

All these wannabe paladins in this thread. Blast the fucking plane. It's terrible but if it results in less suffering overall it must be done.

>>53619583
>cheating on the Kobayashi Maru
Is one of primary principles of being a objective "good" aligned person or objective "good" plane being in DnD setting. Whether you're the prole or archangel observer. The whole "not believing in the no win scenario" to the point where you actively dismantle it in a hypothetical simulation fits with objective good pretty nicely.

>>53623166
The whole point of this discussion is what to do when that fails. A few DnD characters can literally hack reality and divine intervention is an actual possibility, but what do you do when you know all the outcomes are bad. Continue to pray while the trolley runs over the people or let the peasants turn into scourge zombies before smiting them are valid answers, but "I become the DM and turn the trolley into puppies" is not.

Lawful Good or Chaotic Good, depending on how you do it.

Unaligned in 4e.

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>>53610199
>Dentological

So it's okay to kill people but only if they have bad teeth.

>>53624445
Anon, that post said deontological, as in deontic operators.

>>53624445
They said "Deontological" as in the "Deontic theory of ethics", that is, what is ethical is what your duty is. It is characterized by absolutist rules; "Do not cheat", "Do not murder", shit like that.
It is the CORRECT theory of ethics because Kant is the best.

>>53611688
No, you're thinking of Good

Lawful says when you should and should not kill people, Good says how many people you should kill

>>53597622
Uther...

>>53597535
Lawful evil if done because it's the most efficient way to do it.
Lawful neutral if it's done as a last resort.

>>53597535
This thread makes me sad.
This is the very definition of True Good.
Lawful good would know killing 10 to save 100 is against the law and their morals, True Good would know killing 10 to save 100 is the most good they can possibly do.
That's literally what the difference between Lawful Good and True Good is.

>>53602836
It never mattered whether who was responsible or not, the results are all the same.

You not doing shit when you could've allowed for the event to occur, you are responsible.

>>53597535

"Too morally complex for D&D."

>>53597535
Lawful Arthas

>>53597535
Neutral Kiritsugu

>>53610542
>Your argument allows retardation to spread and multiply. You are autistic.

>>53624936
mengele was true hero.

>>53597535
"The greater good" can mean many things. Let's say one random man gets the power of a god for a day. A vegetarian might think that making people unable to digest meat is a great thing, but vegetarians are mentally unstable. A cannibal might think that making people able to get all of their nutrients and amino acids from eating other people is a great thing, but cannibals are almost as bad as vegetarians. A nigger might think that getting all of your nutrients from fried chicken and watermelon is a great thing, and he'd be right until he starves because he doesn't know how to farm watermelon or raise chicken. An indian man might think that getting all of your nutrients from a gas station is a great thing, but that's only because he owns the gas station. An obese man might think getting all of your nutrients from milk and cookies is a great thing, but that's because he can't control what he eats. The point is, none of these people can concretely claim or prove that their dietary habits, wants, and outlook on food is objectively the "greater good," because what's good for me may be horrible for you and vice versa.

>>53597535
True Griffith

>>53597570
How, great chief!

>>53626088
Having God be a nigger wouldn't be so bad if he made it rain fried chicken.

>>53597535
Killing innocents is evil.
Claiming it to be 'for the greater good' is deceitful. There is always another option.

Neutral evil.

>>53597535
lawful neutral.

>>53597535
that's why i apply kantian ethic to determine alignments.
the good will makes the good action, that determines morality.
depending on the violation of the other principles of the deontological ethic, degree lawfulness is determined

>>53597535
Alignments are stupid, and Machiavelli wrote in detail on how any good leader cannot in fact be a good man.

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>>53624538
> It is the CORRECT theory of ethics because Kant is the best.
You want to get shot AGAIN?

>>53597636
L5R bases its morality system off its own version of Bushido which can be interesting. Especially if the right thing to do and the honorable thing to do aren't the same.

>>53597535
Still evil.
If they're willing to sacrifice the lives of the innocent for the greater good then they'll also accept their own execution for the greater good.

Communist.