Topic: "Good" vs. "Evil" Armies

[Eisenherz]

Greetings all!

Here comes a question that has come up to me contemplating the various armies available for WHFB. Armies such as Chaos or High Elves are often refered to as being "Evil" or "Good". But:
Does this classification really work for all races and cultures in the Old World?
How do you look upon Orcs/Goblins and Lizardmen, who, imho hover somewhere inbetween the "good" and the "evil" pole. Dark Elves are certainly "evil", but Chaos is somewhat even more "evil". Note also, that alliances between different armies of the same "ethic camp" are very rare, and conflict much more common.
Therefore, do the terms "good" and "evil" have any significance at all?

What are your views?[/b]

[Imrael]

IMHO the actual army types/races are somewhat influenced by the AD&D 4-quadrant system.  In that, there were 2 spectrums

Good - Neutral - Evil
and
Chaotic - Neutral - Lawful

We could place most races on this

Orcs - Chaotic Neutral
Empire -  Lawful Neutral
Brets - Lawful Good
Elves - Lawful Neutral
Dark Elves - Lawful Evil
Chaos - Chaotic Evil

etc etc etc

This helps to explain why DE and chaos are both evil but not particularly allied, and other similar stuff.

[Nightshadow]

I think you have a point there, because there is no race thats completely good or evil. And enough races that do not lean towards one of the extremes (for example Tomb Kings).

[Lucent]

you could play the idea a variety of ways since most races act like one another just are considered evil by one side. For instance Lizarmen and Wood Elves pretty much attack anyone on sight. Chaos cause they are evil and destructive and Empire cause they are greedy/corrupt in thier eyes. I would kind of see Empire seeing Lizardmen as evil cause they have gold and Empire Counts want gold. I play Empire, Lizards, and Vampire Counts so i get all 3 different alignments depending on how im feeling. I am going to get Wood Elves too when they come out in August! cant wait

[Visu]

Inherent in the "dark fantasy" of the WHFB world is a sort of implicit surrender of the delineation between "good" and "evil".  By this I mean that you don't have anyone be "good".  Everyone is at least a little bit evil.  This is my least favorite part about Warhammer, btw.  I *like* having good and evil.  If everyone's somewhat evil (and everyone is in Warhammer, make no mistake about it), then what's the point?  That's how I see it, at least.  So I just suck it up, and paint my minis, and play the dang game, without getting into all that.
   Part of this is that you need to be able to have what GW calls "Blue on Blue" battles.  Blue on Blue battles are battles between two "good" armies.  Why would the Empire fight the Dwarves?  Well, maybe somebody got greedy, and now wants some item of treasure, or somebody accidentally offended somebody's honor, so now we have to go to war.  If any army was good, you would start losing possible matches, because these motivations would be eliminated.  And the game needs to have n^2 possible fights (where n is the number of races in the game), or as close to it as possible, or you start losing possible customers.
-Visu

[Count Alexander]

Yes, I can see that some armies are inherintly evil.  The dark elves are evil.  Very evil, in fact.

Every race, except for orcs and skaven, still seem to be alloted a sense of free will.  I tend to look at the armies through the eyes of the people I am playing.  The lizardmen player and I rolled to see where we would play as far as terrain goes.  We ended up in Lustria.  The lizardmen player then played as if he was defending his home and I was the aggressor.  While playing this scenario I could not help but to feel that I was the "evil" nemesis invading someone's homeland in hopes of bringing back that artifact to the college in Altdorf.

Next game you play, try and roll 1-3 your home land and 4-6 your opponents while picking out terrain in the BRB.  See how the attitudes change as someone defends their "homeland" and the other invades (and make sure you come up with a reason for the invasion as this will play out in both party's minds).

[Sir_Charles_du_Rois]

Just one little thing:

Chaos is not all Chaotic Evil

Khorne-Chaotic Evil
Slaanesh-Chaotic Evil
Nurgle-Neutral Evil
Tzeentch-Lawful Evil

[imperialforge]

...make sure you come up with a reason for the invasion...

#1) Why, a punitive expedition, of course!  

#2) I think the Empire is still an "inherently good" choice.  The Empire armies do not deliberately massacre thousands of innocents (unless, they are peasant rabble, trying to "assert" their rights   ), nor do they enjoy warfare.  In that, they have no choice - fight, and use whatever methods you have when faced with monstrous foes, or be annihilated.  The Empire has wars of expansion, greed, if you will, justice even, in some cases, but not wars for wars' sake.  However unfair at times, the reasoning behind Empire's wars can be perfectly understandable and is a far cry from the DE's insatiable blood lust, O&G's mania for fighting and destruction, or Skaven's diabolical plans.  That's how I see it, anyway.  Whoever disagrees, faces #1  

[Freen]

Just one little thing:

Chaos is not all Chaotic Evil

Khorne-Chaotic Evil
Slaanesh-Chaotic Evil
Nurgle-Neutral Evil
Tzeentch-Lawful Evil

Tzeentch is the God of Change, paradoxical and contradictory, completely incomprehensable and unpredictable. How is he 'lawful evil?'

[Arntiboi]

I have discused this issue with my friends alot and we have come to the conclusion that Chaos armies are not evil at all. It is simply in their nature to do things that are considered evil. If a race is to be evil than it must have a good side to, or there is nothing to compare it with!

I find that the Empire is the most evil of all races. We have free will and a lot of knowledge, yet we wage wars for money and land. We dont have to kill others to survive, like vampires, chaos (at least beastmen) and orcs.

Dark elves are pure evil, no doubt about it.

High elves dont kill for fun. They try to stay out of other races buisiness. Thus I consider them fairly good

Dwarfs are a warmongering, greedy, and revengefull army. Edited by imperialforge:  Don't bring politics into this. Read the posting rules if unclear.

Brets dont try to expand their empire, yet they have a strong war culture. They are brought up to hate all the other races! I cant see how thats good!

Woodies kill who ever disturbs them.

Orcs disturbs everyone and kills them. But hey, its in their nature, ever heard of a kind orc? Didnt think so...

Lizards are just trying to live their lives in the deep jungle. Then everyone wants to bug them and steal their gold! of course they get upset.

Basicly I think that the amries without a free will to do what they want cant be evil. Only the races that conquer new lands for rich and fame are truly evil. And of course the dark elves are to.

[Clarkarias]

Just one little thing:

Chaos is not all Chaotic Evil

Khorne-Chaotic Evil
Slaanesh-Chaotic Evil
Nurgle-Neutral Evil
Tzeentch-Lawful Evil

Tzeentch is the God of Change, paradoxical and contradictory, completely incomprehensable and unpredictable. How is he 'lawful evil?'

I have to agree with the use of the D&D system...but I think that Tzeentch would be Neutral Neutral...definitly not Lawful...

[Gorbad Ironclaw]

Come on, chaos doest even begin to leave the Evil category. When you get right down to it, it's men(and other things), who have decided that they really should be more powerful than they are, and so have sought help from the chaos gods, and who have no problem killing and maiming to get there.

The fact that they does so in different ways doesn't really change anything.

[wissenlander]

I never really saw much of a point of the Empire fighting with Dwarfs.  Considering the long standing ties, it would be sort of self defeating for both.  I understand the occasional skirmish or something, as noted before, due to greed or honor, but I'd think those would be rare.  With the Dwarven mentality, there would be ceaseless warfare against the Empire to avenge oaths broken and such.  But are the grievances ever repaid?  It surely seems that they never are, at least to me.

[RGB]

I wouldn't say there's an absolute division into balck hats and white hats. Which is why SoC was uneven in armies playing for either side.

I think ultimately all armies are motivated by self-interest. A lot of the self-interest is cultural (glory in war and all that) but a lot of it is universal (gain and survival)

Still, if you must divide them, HE are the ultimate good guys, and anyone they are willing to help are probably good guys as well. So Empire and Kislev, dwarfs, Brets, WE. Possibly and probably southern humans (DOW)

Lizardmen are lawful good, if you must use that system, because they're trying to keep things static and aren't much more than caretakers of the world, if a bit mindless and uncompromising.

[BK]

Please, please dont use silly (stupid) D&D system...
Originaly, Warhammer FRP (it was IIRC based on 3rd edition) had folowing tabel:
Law-Good-Neutral-Evil-Chaos

Note that Law is not same as good (Law god Solkan cames as a prime example), Good is often oposed with Law, most of people are neutral (unlike silly D&D where most of people are some kind of good   ), Evil is not a same as Chaos (Example of Khaine, god of murder that hates Chaos) and Chaos is not always evil in clasical way (Something Rotten In Kislev scenario for TEW)...
And new edition actualy did great thing - it tossed all aligement sistem out of window...  8)

Anyway here is my split for WFB:
Bretonians, Dwarves, Empire, Lizardmen - Neutral;
High Elves - Good;
Wood Elves - Mostly neutral with some good tendencies;
Chaos - Well this is actualy tricky one - most barbarian tribes would actualy be neutral (they don't understand true nature of the chaos gods, and actualy want to survive in same way they survived so far) while Chaos Warriors and such would be chaotic; There would also be other neutral parts such as Chaos Spawns - if it has no inteligence it can not be realy clasified as Good/Evil...
Dark Elves - Evil. While they have chaos cults present they would not be any more chaos orientated then eg. Empire - those are non-official cults after all, things that are present in Empire also.
Orks - Evil. There are some neutral parts such as a Snotlings - they are too stupid to be realy evil after all...
Ogres - Neutral. Bloodthirsty and savage - sure, but no more evil thatn any 18/19th Century African Tribe

[towishimp]

I generally agree with the D&Dish breakdown.  What I don't buy is that Chaos or Orcs aren't evil because it's "in their nature" to be mean.  Just because it's "in their nature" to kill, plunder, and burn other peoples' stuff, does that make it okay?  Not in my book.  That, my friend, is evil.

I'm not saying every Empire human is a saint...far from it.  But at least the guiding priciple of the Empire isn't "kill thy neighbor and take his stuff."  Its citizens do have a good deal of free will and that means some use that free will for good, some for evil.  But on the whole, the Empire ain't so bad a place to live, compared to some of the Warhammer world's alternatives.

[RGB]

This is OT, but towishimp, is your sig a quote from somebody?

Because if you're not quoting someone in particular, the sig is wrong. It's spartan mothers, not Roman matrons. And it's an anecdote by Plutarch and so is probably untrue to start with.

[Kyle]

Good and Evil is IMO decided by why the army/race fights:

Empire: Good=Defend their lands
High Elves: Good=Ditto and defend their honour
Dwarfs: Good=Ditto
Lizardmen: Good=Fight to for fill their beliefs
Wood Elves: Good=Fight to defend their forest homes
Brettonnians: Good=Defend their lands/people

Tomb Kings: Neutral= Defend their lands, but in a very brutal way, (i.e. with the dead)
Orcs and Goblins: Neutral= Live only to fight
Ogre Kingdoms: Neutral= Live only to eat and get rich
Dogs of War: Neutral= Fight for anyone

Chaos: Bad= Because they are Chaos, you need a better answer than that?
Beastmen: Bad= Ditto
Dark Elves: Bad= Live only to kill
Skaven: Bad= Live only for destruction
Vampire Counts: Bad= They are Vampires! Vampires! What you think they will invite you round their castle for a tea party? No to suck your blood!

[towishimp]

@RGB: I found it attributed to Robert Heimlen.  I didn't investigate its source any further than that.

[Senor D]

Based upon the D&D alignment table, it seems illogical to me that the chaos gods could be anything other than just that: chaotic. However, I don't believe that they care what their minions are fighting for, as long as it ends up increasing the entropy of the universe.

For that reason, I don't think that the D&D system adequately describes them. For example, Tzeench is constantly scheming and conniving, which, according to D&D, would make him (it?) lawful. But, the ultimate goal of this scheming is to cause disorder, making him chaotic. Although, to further obfuscate the problem, Tzeench doesn't care about the motives of his followers, as long as they provide him power and cause chaos, making him neutral.

Oh well.

/rant

[Bladesinger]

I tend to look at this as I do everything else. It's very simple, but can apply deeper if you so choose.

Good is what you like, evil is what you don't like.


Too bad I had to steal that from someone else.