I'm going to try combining some posts...

At 07:29 PM 10/8/98 -0700, Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
>Replace human with elf and goblin with human in the above examples and use
the
>same moral standard. I don't think a human who ruthlessly slaughters
>non-combatants is a good human. One who attacks goblin raiders could
still be
>considered good. One who attacks goblins who unlawfully cross the border
and set
>up shop is in danger of immoral acts that could be evil.

I'm starting to wonder if elves would return to their treehouse with heavy
hearts. Their description is such that it not out of the realm of
possibility for the attack on helpless humans to cause an attack by the one
that protests it or on the one protesting.

My original observation of your statement though was that slaughtering
goblins would be neutral when the slaughtering of humans would be evil.
Even though you didn't say all elves were evil involved in a gheallie
Sidhe, you did make a judgement different had goblins been the target.
Which is where much of the debate is coming from, I think. Had the target
of the gheallie Sidhe been another race other than human, I don't think it
would be condemned quite so fast if ever. Questioned but condemned? All
demihumans have had a hatred of humanoid races. I'm sure no one questioned
their morality if goblins had entered their forests and built villages
causing the elves to attack, killing non-combantants, until the goblins
were either destroyed or left. I'm not so sure that the situation with
humans is much different. But because it is humans that are the target, we
get a much stronger feeling that this is an evil act. Possibily because
humans and elves are potential player characters while goblins are usually
regulated to monsters. Am I making sense here?

>OK, I'm going a bit too far with this example so I'll reign it back in
now....

Umm, yea. I think so ;D

>The point in all this that I think I'm holding the elves to the same moral
>standard as humans. I think there is a bit more sympathy for elves, however,
>that is misconstruing the argument. Elves are cute, so we justify their
actions
>a bit more. The "elves are just protecting the forests when they chop up
human
>families" argument doesn't work for me any more than a human going into a
goblin
>cave without provocation and slaughtering all the little gobboes would.

I agree there is much more sympathy for elves. Not the cuteness but they
are representative of human desires to live as one with nature that I think
many people find appealing (if impractical). The difference is though that
humans came to the elves' home. Its not the distant past to them yet.
Now, if elves were invading Aduria before humans came to Cerilia, that
would be a whole different story.

At 04:17 PM 10/9/98 +1000, Complete Systems wrote:
>
>> For a historical (pre about 1700, maybe later) or history based fantasy
campaign, I'd have to agree with the idea that the intention is acceptable
for 'good' alignment, but given the preferred interpretation follows modern
(post 1950's) thinking - the answer is instead 'this is an evil act'
despite whatever excuse you use to cover it.