D&D 5E Why is animate dead considered inherently evil?

So here's the thing. D&D tells us that there are entire planes of existence that are literally made from Good, Evil, Law, and/or Chaos. That there exists places so tainted by evil that anything there is corrupted.

The original Gygaxian model of the planes really supports this- you don't question if a demon is Chaotic Evil, because of course they are, they are literally MADE from Chaos and Evil.

But...being creative types, the people who write for the game over the decades couldn't help themselves. They had to play around with these concepts, subvert expectations.

Thus the game's canon and lore are littered with undead, orog, and even succubus (!) Paladins, Lawful Good Archliches, Chaotic Good Baelnorn, evil metallic dragons, and the like. A Red Dragon might be redeemed to serve the cause of good, a Treant might become warped, twisted, and evil. Jander Sunstar was able to wield the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind and find redemption from Lathander (despite the "no God interference" clause of Ravenloft).

You have Neutral death gods like Wee Jas who are ok with undead creation, as long as a few caveats are met.

Maxperson would say "well, there are always exceptions", but how many exceptions to a rule are required before the rule itself becomes suspect? How many loopholes establish precedent?

The books sometimes talk out of both sides of their mouth "this thing, of course is totally, completely, irredeemably EVIL....well except in this one circumstance of course".

It's no wonder this leads to endless debate, with nerds flying over tables dual-wielding sourcebooks!

James Gasik said:

It's no wonder this leads to endless debate, with nerds flying over tables dual-wielding sourcebooks!

Click to expand...

Thats a good one!

attempts to pin alignment down have been a humrous swamp since the game began. people want to insert intention, behavior, cause and effect and a whole bunch of other ideas that touch alignment but don't really change it. But since Alignment is subjective and affected by culture, all the dev's can do it give a general defiinition and let each table do thier own thing.

Voadam said:

5e does not have fully mindless creatures, most automaton-like things have at least a 1 int and charisma.

Skeletons are explicitly not mindless. "Although they lack the intellect they possessed in life, skeletons aren't mindless."

"When skeletons encounter living creatures, the necromantic energy that drives them compels them to kill unless they are commanded by their masters to refrain from doing so. They attack without mercy and fight until destroyed, for skeletons possess little sense of self and even less sense of self-preservation."

Click to expand...

Ah. So we replaced bad design for just plain bad writing. A step up, I guess.

nevin said:

I

I disagree. paladins knew in 1e what was going to happen. Most DM's I played with were pretty clear. Most would even do warnings. (there are always bad DM's so don't throw them at me. I'll ignore that argument because they affect everything). Paladins and clerics losing thier abilities was a baked into the thing game that most accepted and the ones that didn't generally only played one or two characters of those classes then moved on. If you didn't like the morality argument, you had Wizards, assassins, rogues and fighters. you can't have a game where a human being runs the game and not have conflicts on what morality or anything else means. Look at this thread. We've beaten the horse down to a plowed field ready to plant.

Click to expand...

So about the "a character knows when they are at risk" for losing their powers- apparently not everyone agreed this was so. My evidence?

If characters know what actions will lead them to damnation, what the heck purpose does this thing serve, exactly?

nevin said:

actually it worked pretty well up through the book of Vile Darkness and the Book of Exhalted deeds. People knew what was bad and what was good for thier clerics and paladin's and anyone else that needed that guideline in the game. The mistake was allowing every person with a difference of opinion to chime in and insert thier own view of morals and then it turned into a muddy mess.

Click to expand...

Having been there before the two worst books ever published for D&D, alignment was a problem from the start at least in 3e.

How can it not? It's a game rule the encourages DMs to make moral and ethical judgements on the players that effects them mechanically. It's a terrible social experiment in service of a trope it's not actually servicing anymore.

James Gasik said:

So about the "a character knows when they are at risk" for losing their powers- apparently not everyone agreed this was so. My evidence?
View attachment 340949
If characters know what actions will lead them to damnation, what the heck purpose does this thing serve, exactly?

Click to expand...

What I meant was the general course of what would and wouldn't affect your alignement was pretty clear. Obviously there were and will always be those grey areas where the player and the DM disagree. I am currently in a long term disagreement with a friend and fellow DM over Chaotic Good, which can include everything from Vikings razing the coast to Hippies. I do disagree that removing alignment makes the game better. I disagree that things weren't pretty nailed down (lets say 80%ish) from 1e forward. But doing away with alignment definitely hurts the idea of having divinely powered mortals who follow gods and patrons. It doesn't affect other classes at all.

Vaalingrade said:

Having been there before the two worst books ever published for D&D, alignment was a problem from the start at least in 3e.

How can it not? It's a game rule the encourages DMs to make moral and ethical judgements on the players that effects them mechanically. It's a terrible social experiment in service of a trope it's not actually servicing anymore.

Click to expand...

unless you have that player that wants to do the fallen paladin thing. Or the player that wants to argue with thier god and try to fix them. I think what you meant was it's not servicing your games any more.

nevin said:

But doing away with alignment definitely hurts the idea of having divinely powered mortals who follow gods and patrons. It doesn't affect other classes at all.

Click to expand...

Does it though?

I feel like a lot of media about divinely empowered mortals are often about how they differ and disagree with their patron rather than being in lockstep with them.

The old alignment where it was just the side you picked in the cosmic game served this purpose much better, I think.

nevin said:

What I meant was the general course of what would and wouldn't affect your alignement was pretty clear. Obviously there were and will always be those grey areas where the player and the DM disagree. I am currently in a long term disagreement with a friend and fellow DM over Chaotic Good, which can include everything from Vikings razing the coast to Hippies. I do disagree that removing alignment makes the game better. I disagree that things weren't pretty nailed down (lets say 80%ish) from 1e forward. But doing away with alignment definitely hurts the idea of having divinely powered mortals who follow gods and patrons. It doesn't affect other classes at all.

Click to expand...

I think the precepts and commandments of a deity =/= alignment. It's perfectly fine to have a God who demands that you do good things that support one's community. But there are always exceptions to commandments, and I'd rather have a tailored set of guidelines for a deity rather than a nebulous "you must be within one step of the deity's alignment" or "you must be neutral" or what have you.

I'd mention some real world examples, but that'd probably end up pouring gasoline on this thread.