I had a player ask why necromancy and demonology were evil and taboo. He was worried his PC would get killed if the townsfolk found out the type of magic he practiced.
I told him it was a cultural thing that studying evil, extra planar creatures had historically led to evil and negative outcomes. And fucking around with the dead, while possibly humanitarian in practice during wartime (the undead are already dead) is disrespectful to those who are grieving and who had died.
In a world of gods having tangible effects on the world, good and evil also isn’t up to mortals to decide.
B/X has Law v Chaos. AD&D added Good v Evil. In my opinion only the gods of the world can truly be good or evil, mortals fluctuate too much and have justifications gods could never have.
Can a god justify stealing out of starvation as good? No. Can a god justify murder in self defense? No, they are a god. How can you kill a god? What a grand and intoxicating innocence.
Gods are also 2D representations of human issues and characteristics. People, like you have pointed out, are far more complicated.
I had a player ask why necromancy and demonology were evil and taboo. He was worried his PC would get killed if the townsfolk found out the type of magic he practiced.
I told him it was a cultural thing that studying evil, extra planar creatures had historically led to evil and negative outcomes. And fucking around with the dead, while possibly humanitarian in practice during wartime (the undead are already dead) is disrespectful to those who are grieving and who had died.
In a world of gods having tangible effects on the world, good and evil also isn’t up to mortals to decide.
B/X has Law v Chaos. AD&D added Good v Evil. In my opinion only the gods of the world can truly be good or evil, mortals fluctuate too much and have justifications gods could never have.
Can a god justify stealing out of starvation as good? No. Can a god justify murder in self defense? No, they are a god. How can you kill a god? What a grand and intoxicating innocence.
Gods are also 2D representations of human issues and characteristics. People, like you have pointed out, are far more complicated.