No debate. Torture is evil in D&D, though Maer never actually tortured anyone - he was just willing to do so. It'd certainly be the last tool in his belt he'd use, but he'd gladly of used it if he'd had to. As would many good-aligned PCs in the right circumstances I'd think, and likely have to atone for it. I'm unsure if he'd of bothered to atone (probably would have), but it never came up because he never had to torture anyone. He didn't have to because he lived in D&D land where magic exists. If he existed in the real world his methods would be less magical and more "messy" (e.g., waterboarding).Zelknolf wrote:Agreeing with Duncan there, and am a little surprised that it's up for debate. Torture is explicitly defined as evil in D&Dland.
The psychopath thing I'm less sure about. I don't believe a lack of empathy is enough to determine alignment in D&D, and the intent of his actions were almost always to do good. I think Rumple gave him evil points for accidentally killing a suicidal, crazed and murderous CE prisoner. I can't recall any other clearly-evil acts by D&D standards (though certainly many sketchy "not good" acts when he was first created). By the end he was donating most of his income to others and was expecting to die expelling the Zhentarim from the Marches. I certainly never asked for the NG alignment (I think somewhere between CG and N would have been more accurate anyway).
The accuracy of Maer's NG alignment doesn't really matter. My point was that he would have been significantly more evil had he of existed in the real world, and would have committed significantly more "evil" acts. In D&D-land he was recruited by a deity he knew was good to fight an enemy he knew was evil. In RL he might have been recruited by a government to fight another government; clearly this can be a Bad Thing. In RL it is not obvious who wears the white hats and who wears the black hats (generally they're all grey), and the inconsistent deontological ethics of D&D cannot be applied. For these reasons I don't believe projecting real-world ethics onto D&D's alignment system is very useful. They're separate things. D&D-good is not RL-good.
Unless you're religious, good and evil in the real world are make-believe; they only exists in our minds. In D&D they are objective forces in the universe. If D&D wanted to treat alignment more rationally, I think it'd have a whole lot more Neutrals.
Most would say: "No, "I" can do what i want, it's my PC." ....Or, is every PC just NOT supposed to be hardwired into an alignment and can move up and down the scale on a whim, since some believe alignment is not the "rule" but a background stat that needs not be adhered to "not seriously"....? Know what I mean? All depends who you are. We are, apparently, allowed to roll a PC and plan the future (sort of). Example: "I want to make a Paladin that does fall from grace and eventualyl ask for approval for a Blackguard." Well that poor Paladin, from the start is a 'doomed-Paladin'... the player knows and may or may not tell anyone. So, how does that affect the other players and PCs around? What a shame! Everyone that Paladin interacts with, "expects" that PC to act a certain way... so puts 'faith' in a 'certain' strain of behaviors, possibly placing their lives in that PC's hands more than once, and poof, one day, that players decideds 'now's a good time', and holding the last rope of the suspension bridge as the rest of the party dashes across, he makes one final anti-prayer to Tyr telling him to get bent, and drops the rope killing 4 other PCs and a rare purple turtle at the bottom of the chasm - PC turns evil - more RP happens over a long while - PC becomes a Blackguard. Sweet. Great PC development! Your are not required (at all apparently) to adhere to your strict PC alignment restriction, because we have freedom to play any class or race or alignment and you 'just wanted' to decide when you go from the expected LG to CE in one drop of the rope. (poor turtle).
