Osoerde Plot

[geeman]

Pieter Sleijpen wrote:

> I don't see the reason why evil characters would be easily regocnisable
> as being evil? Stupid evil persons will not live long (in fact stupid
> people don't live long when they are regents, unless they are so stupid
> that everybody can use them for their own ends).

In AD&D evil is not just a morality judgement, it is a palpable force. If it
wasn't then how could it be detected, protected against or dispelled? Granted,
relatively few people have the ability to detect evil, but for those who do it is
a pretty definable concept. Paladins and spellcasters who can use Detect Evil can
simply sense it about a person or an object. This ability isn't foolproof, of
course, but it still makes discovering who is naughty and who is nice quite a bit
easier than in our world (or the Star Wars univers, for that matter.)

Gary
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[Pieter Sleijpen]

GeeMan wrote:

> In AD&D evil is not just a morality judgement, it is a palpable force. If it
> wasn't then how could it be detected, protected against or dispelled? Granted,
> relatively few people have the ability to detect evil, but for those who do it is
> a pretty definable concept. Paladins and spellcasters who can use Detect Evil can
> simply sense it about a person or an object. This ability isn't foolproof, of
> course, but it still makes discovering who is naughty and who is nice quite a bit
> easier than in our world (or the Star Wars univers, for that matter.)
>

Detect evil is not very full proof, now is it? You can only detect those
of purest evil (in my campaign only those who have sold their "souls" to
some outer plannar being or those plannar beings) or those with a direct
evil intent towards the creature casting the spell "detect evil". If an
evil regent is using the PC's to reach some goal and does not plan to do
kill or otherwise directly harm the PC's, then that would hardly
register. Not to mention that there are quite a few low level spells
that can fool those spells. My players have learned the hard way not to
trust on such spells, but to mainly use their own eyes and brains. Even
though they still concider it a usefull guide (I am not the type of DM
that let it be wrong most of the time or unusable).

The protection from evil spell is somewhat more difficult, but it's
effects or not readilly apparent except in the case of magical
creatures. Dispel evil works against clearly supernatural beings, and
not specificly against the common evil thug or villain.

Since I prefer normal humans as villains, who most of the time or not
deeply evil, most of the time only selfish and powerhungry, these spells
do not affect my campaign that much. They are useful against undead and
the horrors from the Shadow World, but as of yet no major villain has
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