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From: jrrt@hogpd.UUCP (R.MITCHELL)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: KILLING Orcus
Message-ID: <177@hogpd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Oct-83 16:59:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: hogpd.177
Posted: Tue Oct 11 16:59:09 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Oct-83 02:32:23 EDT
Lines: 29

To rabbit!jj:
I respectfully suggest you are wrong when you say that killing is wrong for
good characters.  Good-aligned characters, especially paladins and lawful-good
clerics, are honor-bound to destroy evil wherever it exists.  Only in the most
tenuous definition of self-defense could the following be considered as an act
of self-preservation:
  
   A red dragon is terrorizing a village, devouring children, slaying
   the townsfolk, and in general being a horrible nuisance.  Sir Pureatheart
   rides into town, hears of the situation, and promptly rides off to fight
   for justice.

By my understanding of your comments, this noble knight is risking his
alignment because he intends to slay the beast.  Sure, it would be nice if
Sir Pureatheart could convert the dragon to Lawful Goodness (through magic or
eloquence), but that doesn't seem likely, and even if Our Hero was successful,
any dragon that susceptible to an alignment change would be susceptible to one
more.  In this situation, I say, "Slay the critter."  Equivalently for the
Orcus puzzle: if you can make him Lawful Good, someone else can undo your work.
Bringing a Demon Prince back into existence after it was destroyed on its own
plane, is a bit harder.
   Two final notes:
   Good is *my* preferred alignment, so the light tone in my example is not
meant to be sarcasm.
   Whether or not you view this kind of killing as wrong, should be consistent
with your opinions on capital punishment.  That's really what we're discussing,
true? (Please, though, let's not argue *that* issue in this newsgroup).

Rob Mitchell  hogpd!jrrt