Being Good in D&D: this one's for you, K and Frank

[Bigode]

1188524469[/unixtime]]Do you ever get the feeling that FR deities were made up by, say, three geeks with some drinks nearby scrambling for creative campaign material before their game later that day?
I've read female complaints about Drow and Lolth especially, and wholeheartedly agree; FR deities are fucking biased cartoons, and we need new gods.

I don't, simply because a lot of them are badly pirated from Earth.

[Koumei]

I don't know, there are few deities I enjoy playing clerics of, and Loviatar is right at the top. Granted, her name was stolen from a Finnish goddess of... plague, I believe. But still, FR at least has my favourite deity. The only other three I'd give time of day are Ilsensine, Kord and the red-haired FR deity that's a CG version of Loviatar. What's her name.

Anyway, let's focus less on Diplomancing everyone. It seems there'll be little-no agreement on that one, and making Diplomancy actually work will be a book unto itself. How about another way: The Healerific path. Characters who are useful in combat with many options (various types of healing and status-restoration, along with the ability to shift defensive buffs around the place and force enemies to make non-lethal attacks so as to not get bored), and can also go around removing disease and actually giving people immunities and stuff?

Surely such a character would be improving the lives of people as well as assisting in the face-stabbing of evil. Like what WotC seem to think a Cleric actually is.

[Fuzzy_logic]

I think the only way to make a pure defensive character fun is proactive defenses. If you're going to have a White Mage, make him a warmage-style caster with walls, fog spells, enchantments, and the like in addition to heals and buffs...

[Koumei]

Yeah, that's a better way to do it. "Sure, you can hit me, I won't even increase my AC. But you do have to trudge through acidic glue-like fog and set yourself on fire, stepping on razor sharp stones all the while."

[tzor]

1188524469[/unixtime]]FR deities are fucking biased cartoons, and we need new gods.

I agree, even Leiber's gods are better than FR, although Leiber only highlights the hasbeens of Nehwon's Godsland.

[RandomCasualty]

1188524469[/unixtime]]Do you ever get the feeling that FR deities were made up by, say, three geeks with some drinks nearby scrambling for creative campaign material before their game later that day?
I've read female complaints about Drow and Lolth especially, and wholeheartedly agree; FR deities are fucking biased cartoons, and we need new gods.

Yeah, the FR deities suck. I hate them more than I do Elminster and the other god wizards.

[Voss]

1188508508[/unixtime]]OK, the second quote may deserve the "void rhetoric" qualifier; but, about the second, I don't know how it could be empty - what I meant is that you've been basing most of your arguments on how things are and seemingly ignoring that people might want things to cease being like that. Then, the only question left is whether changing stuff'd be possible, and I'm saying it is (exactly by the demiplane method).

OK, I'm cutting this somewhat short, but the meat of it seems to be here anyway. Partly, 'progress' is a bloody loaded word, one that by training and education makes me twitch. A nuke is progress, so is killing everyone so the earth isn't harmed by human action.

But yes, changing stuff probably is possible, particularly if you go to extremes like the demi-plane example. Its got a lot of stupid assumptions associated with it (like food, and a stable breeding population, etc), but I suppose someone could play that game.

My biggest problem with what Lago was talking about specifically though, is it requires changing the game and the ruleset so much that you might as well play a different game (or setting). It really does become Missionaries and Martyrs rather than D&D (or fantasy game of choice).

Not only are you not stabbing things in the face, but you aren't taking their loot, somehow you're convincing the populace to accept them (and fat chance of that, in a world thats anything close to realistic), etc and so on.

But the bottom line probably does come down to
1- the logic of it makes no sense to me
2- it'd be bloody boring.

[Koumei]

1188620275[/unixtime]]
so is killing everyone so the earth isn't harmed by human action.

Finally, someone who agrees with me! I always said the most Good thing a person could do is wipe out every existing lifeform. Those Beholders are really onto something

[Bigode]

Voss: OK, I don't like the word "progress" either; let's just feign I used "change toward something different" instead. What education do you have, if I may ask? Aside, from that, the demiplane assumption doesn't look so stupid once one has morphic weather at disposal. To finish, I had said I don't agree entirely with Lago; in what I view as being a good (as in "good for play") version of it, you damn well stab fiends/aberrations/magical beasts/unintelligent undead/probably other things I don't recall now in the face (because they don't negotiate) - is that not variety enough?

[Voss]

Variety enough? Maybe, though I'd question magical beasts and possibly even unintelligent undead. Are they evil, or are they merely useful? Assuming of course that culturally you won't freak out if we turn grandpa's corpse into field hand for eternity.

It probably is doable they way your suggesting, though, particularly if you can raise some interesting questions with it: Is a permanent dominate ethical in these circumstances? Is forcing a beholder to be Good a Good act? You aren't killing it, but you are enslaving it, which is questionable. And the moral question I always find particularly fun- is holding to your morals when society as a whole may suffer for it, really a Good act?

My education- a bit of computer science, quite a bit of history (with some touches of anthropology, politics and international relations) and some British education in archaeological theory (a long story, lets just say it still makes my head hurt).

[Bigode]

1188666994[/unixtime]]Variety enough? Maybe, though I'd question magical beasts and possibly even unintelligent undead. Are they evil, or are they merely useful? Assuming of course that culturally you won't freak out if we turn grandpa's corpse into field hand for eternity.

It probably is doable they way your suggesting, though, particularly if you can raise some interesting questions with it: Is a permanent dominate ethical in these circumstances? Is forcing a beholder to be Good a Good act? You aren't killing it, but you are enslaving it, which is questionable. And the moral question I always find particularly fun- is holding to your morals when society as a whole may suffer for it, really a Good act?

My education- a bit of computer science, quite a bit of history (with some touches of anthropology, politics and international relations) and some British education in archaeological theory (a long story, lets just say it still makes my head hurt).

I mean killing the tarrasque when it shows up, or something similarly impractical to domesticate, though, in retrospect, I see I'm wrong; nothing is impractical to domesticate for high-level wizards. And yep, I'd be all for the moral questions involved in all of this - I don't really care for the campaign where all ends well and it's done. My favorite question's whether changing someone's nature by "benign" means (which's what those people would be supposedly doing) is any different from slavery. Heh, I expected this formation - I happen to have pretty much the same ...

[Crissa]

Holding to your morals when society will suffer is either Chaotic, Evil, or Lawful act, depending upon the base for those morals.

If the morals are your own, and have no outside force aside from Chaos, that's Chaotic;
If the morals come from an outside force like Law, Good, or Evil, it's Lawful.

If the damage done matches an outside source of Evil, the act is also Evil.

The gods themselves choose where some act sits on the spectrum, moral agents are just representatives thereof.

-Crissa

[Voss]

What?
Thats a steaming load. Its the same kind of circular reasoning that defines a window as a window because its a window.

Plus, for some bizarre reason, you are suggesting that Good and Evil are inherently Lawful.

And this

If the damage done matches an outside source of Evil, the act is also Evil.

Is pure garbage in its purest form. Are we playing poker, and you're matching a bet? Or in a room, and trying to figure out if the couch is in the room, outside the room or down the hall?


And considering the gods are split into 9 different camps, you're probably going to get 9 different calls as to where it sits on what is actually a non-spectrum. There are 9 discreet, supposedly quantifiable alignments in D&D- nothing resembling a spectrum (any more, anyway).

In any case, I wasn't positing morality from a 'Good and Evil for Retards' D&D alignment system. More of a situation where a nonviolent person could stop an army of evil murdering bastards from invading a city by blowing up a bridge and killing most of the army. Thousands of lives will be lost either way, but he could hold to his morality and let thousands of 'innocents' die, or kill thousands of 'guilty' people. It comes down to a fun sort of arrogance when you seriously consider the idea that a personal moral code is worth the lives of thousands of people.

[Manxome]

If I've understood Frank's comments thus far on alignment loyalty in the D&D cosmos (and it's entirely possible I haven't), then one person's loyalty to their alignment (which isn't necessarily the same as their moral code, I realize) actually is worth more than the lives of thousands of people: every single one of those people is going to die in a finite amount of time, no matter what you do, but you get eternal pleasure or torment from your god(s) depending on whether you betray them or not. If we're going to try to take a "sum" of the good stuff that happens (which admittedly is shaky ground in the first place, but was implied by the question), any unbiased accounting system has to value continuous good over an infinite period of time as higher than any finite sum.

Which is just one of the many bizarre things implied by utilitarianism in a setting where something you care about is literally infinite.

[Voss]

I think its more implied by the stupidity of the system, but fair enough.

[Captain_Bleach]

1188700726[/unixtime]]I think its more implied by the stupidity of the system, but fair enough.

The next person in my games who tries to bring up a moral debate about Good and Evil while looting the homes, corpses, and vaults of poorly organized hordes of easily killed goblins is going to be slapped with the "Adventurers are just synonyms for raiders and pillagers, for Pete's sake, why do you care about morality?!" Sticker.

[Voss]

Thats not really fair though. In the system presented, killing goblins and taking their stuff is a supremely moral act, particularly if you are of the opposite alignment.

Dead goblins can't commit Evil acts, so thats a win for Good.
Taking their stuff means they (or future generations of goblins) don't have swords, armor and whatnot to commit Evil acts with, so thats also a win for Good.

Work in some church or government sanction, and it can even be a win for Law.

[cthulhu]

And the goblin gets to go to heaven for reals, so thats a win for them too

[Lago_AM3P]

Okay, I think a lot of you REALLY misunderstand me on the diplomacy thing.

That's the big problem with diplomancy, Lago. It, at the very least, shouldn't be able to reliably convert over-CRed enemies. Also, a big pitfall is making the diplomancer not be a team player (not leaving much for others to do because the enemies were converted). That's why I'd make some creature types be basically immune to diplomacy.

The point I was trying to bring up about being a diplomancer wasn't that I was trying to push an alternate combat-resolution system, no.

The point I was trying to make was that you can't even DO cultural/social change for the better without changing people's thought processes. Seriously, you kill Gruumsh and Corellan L. and the orcs and elves are still going to fight to the death with the orcs as the loser.

The examples I gave are relatively modest ones. There are way more subcultures and entrenched minorities in D&D than anything we could imagine and the player isn't going to be able.

The character I mentioned could spend his whole life travelling forests and trying to get people to see the error of his ways. If he busts his balls like that, a 5th level character might reach the hearts and minds of about 2,000-15,000 people. That's heroic, but it's definitely not game-changing.

Furthermore, you have people ALL OF THE TIME trying to undo your good work. You might start a meme in the city of Vaxx that maybe we should negotiate with and understand the goblins but the church of Hextor and Moradin are going to have nothing to do with this, so they either out and out send hit squads to kill you or they have their own disinformation campaign or they pay goblins to attack to destroy your good work.

The examples of monsters I gave are NOT some sort of alternate combat-resolution system, okay? I'm just pointing out that a character by that point should be badass/kind/convincing enough to convince Dracula to only feed on animals or have Frankenstein's 'monster' call off its murderous cry for help. They might not be able to defeat these monsters for another 10 levels but when they're NOT IN FRICKIN' BATTLE.

By level 15, in the span of a week you should be able to get an entire city of 50,000 people behind your back and listening to your new wacky ideas of peace and sharing and feeding peasants not because it's convenient or you get a benefit out of it but because it's the RIGHT THING TO DO. I mean, Jesus, by this level you can lay waste to the entire city in less time.





Now, all this doesn't mean that you should try to avoid facestabbing or saving monsters to the detriment of your goals.

When you have such an extremely radical and world-destroying goal like suing for real and lasting peace, you start a countdown. You only have a limited amount of time before someone undoes all of your work. Maybe it's because the cannibal halflings regroup and get new weapons, maybe it's because some acolyte of Hextor wants glory from destroying the heathens, or maybe it's because you will eventually die of old fucking age and people will forget what you preached. Whatever. Remember, when you're taking up the mission of REAL good you are fighting against gods. You're fighting the very reason that all of the evil gods, most of the neutral ones, and a good deal of good ones exist.

This means that you can't win every battle. You could sit down with that nightshade in the dungeon and teach it your ideals and everything. Even if you're the king-pimp badass of diplomancing, it's going to cost you at the very least time. On the higher end, it might cost you finite resources, the trust of the people you work with, or even risk the lives of other people. The necromancer might have ties to the Order of the Necrotic Hand--if you keep him alive for conversion his buddies might decide to show up to save him and in the process nuke your entire HQ. Sometimes you'll just have to kill him in some remote desert.

And THAT'S OKAY. There's a reason why we didn't start de-nazification until the end of World War II when the war machine was dismantled. Does that make our efforts useless or wrong because there were people brutally killed for being Nazis while we were waging war? Not in itself. Killing every soldier who was ever in the Nazi army isn't GOOD; we had the resources to integrate them back into a (less murderous) society. It might not have even been the most efficient way.

Anyway, let's focus less on Diplomancing everyone. It seems there'll be little-no agreement on that one, and making Diplomancy actually work will be a book unto itself. How about another way: The Healerific path. Characters who are useful in combat with many options (various types of healing and status-restoration, along with the ability to shift defensive buffs around the place and force enemies to make non-lethal attacks so as to not get bored), and can also go around removing disease and actually giving people immunities and stuff?

And I think you guys missed another point. YOUR team doesn't necessarily have to be the diplomancers. Seriously, you might be running a group of five dwarven orphans at a military academy who are so traumatized that they want to end the stupid goblin wars for good. The best way YOU might be able to help is just become badass enough so that you can uproot and kill the local chromatic dragon population.

You can be the healer or you can be the Robin Hood character or whatever. Your campaign doesn't even have to touch that. The goal of cleaning up and getting people to see a different way of doing things doesn't have to fall on YOUR shoulders to have a satisfying heroic experience. It's just that it has to actually be POSSIBLE to do these things.

My point is that doing all of these things are ultimately useless there's some way to enact real and lasting change in the hearts and minds of people. Right now, there's no mechanic for doing it efficiently and worse there's no direction or support for doing it.

My biggest problem with what Lago was talking about specifically though, is it requires changing the game and the ruleset so much that you might as well play a different game (or setting). It really does become Missionaries and Martyrs rather than D&D (or fantasy game of choice).

Not only are you not stabbing things in the face, but you aren't taking their loot, somehow you're convincing the populace to accept them (and fat chance of that, in a world thats anything close to realistic), etc and so on.

But the bottom line probably does come down to
1- the logic of it makes no sense to me
2- it'd be bloody boring.

Then don't play good characters.

If you're just interesting in accumulating personal power and stabbing people you really don't like in the face then that's okay. The game supports that and will not fall apart at the seams.That's why we have the evil alignment. If you just want to help out your pet communities or just want to make sure that you don't cause significantly more problems in the world by doing your thing... then there's the neutral alignment.

It probably is doable they way your suggesting, though, particularly if you can raise some interesting questions with it: Is a permanent dominate ethical in these circumstances? Is forcing a beholder to be Good a Good act? You aren't killing it, but you are enslaving it, which is questionable. And the moral question I always find particularly fun- is holding to your morals when society as a whole may suffer for it, really a Good act?

Permanent dominate MIGHT be ethical if there's no other way that the person might live peacefully in your society. Seriously, the alternative to forcing a beholder to be good is KILLING IT, putting it in a coma, or putting it in a place where it can't do any harm. Dominate monster might not be the best moral choice in this instance. It's an extremely high level spell and there's the slight chance it could go off. It might be better for everyone and itself if you just killed it.

Holding to your morals as a whole when society might suffer isn't a good act; but the point of being a Good character is that your highest moral is making society safer and more enjoyable for as many people as you can.

Can you explain to me how it's possible to cause harm to society by putting the ideal that as many people as possible should have the best possible life to the best of society's ability will HURT people? I can understand your argument in the case of, say, angels. But that's because in the extreme exacts they possess a mindset that doesn't really put this ideal to the forefront. The people who claim that upholding Good above all else can cause harm are usually pulling a bait and switch. Either they define 'good' in some stupid strawman term or they throw out examples of the classical Lawful Stupid paladin.

Thats not really fair though. In the system presented, killing goblins and taking their stuff is a supremely moral act, particularly if you are of the opposite alignment.

Dead goblins can't commit Evil acts, so thats a win for Good.
Taking their stuff means they (or future generations of goblins) don't have swords, armor and whatnot to commit Evil acts with, so thats also a win for Good.

Voss, seriously, what the fuck are you talking about?

You're killing goblins and taking their stuff... because goblins are trying to kill you and take your stuff. When they beat you to the punch, that's an act of evil, but when YOU do it it's an act for good.

Before we get any further I need you to answer: why is that?

[Lago_AM3P]

I notice that some people are against the idea of changing the campaign setting through good. Let me ask you this.

You play a Robin Hood-type. You steal from the rich and give to the poor. The rich get mad at you but people who would otherwise starve to death get food. Eventually you kill the evil sheriff and someone more reasonable gets installed. Then the campaign ends.

You are doing more good in the world. You can feel good about what you did.

But, say, the campaign doesn't end there. Or you're playing characters who were a part of the original Merry Men. Whatever. Some good was done in the past and here you are.

The D&D world isn't set up so that this is a permanent change. You still live in a feudal society. Eventually there's going to be a war or there's going to be a new cruel king or any of a thousand fates that will make people's lives miserable. You're good people so you go out to help the population out more.

You're locked into a cycle here. You're not changing any underlying conditions of the world so you're constantly having to put on your Robin Hood booties. Seriously, the reason why there's even a problem in Nottingham lies with the guards. If they were brought up from birth believing that stabbing and raping peasants for fun and profit then you're going to have to repeat this every generation. Furthermore, there's nothing stopping a wizard who's been raised on a diet of sadism and selfishness from just firing the entire guard squad and using the village as a personal toy.

You know what would be more effective than putting on your Batman costume every time some dumb cock gets the idea in their head to hurt people for fun and profit? Make it so that the societies these people come from don't breed these kinds of people. I mean, it's been demonstrated that the vast majority of conquerers and engineers of genocide aren't psychopaths or mentally abnormal. Cortes and Lord Napier (person who instigated the Opium War in China) are products of their environment.

That's why I advocate mass diplomacy. It's the only real way to affect permanent change in D&D.

[CalibronXXX]

It seems more efficient and effective to become high level and raise your own society where people are taught these values and giventhe training and education to be total badass adventurers, and then go conquer the prime material. Conquering mostly consisting of walking a squad of mid to high levels into a kingdom and telling people how it's gonna be, and occasionally initiating little recreational face stabbing against a particularly powerful or uncooperative society; just enough so that they get the point. Then of course once you have a particular society under your power you start improving conditions for everyone, except maybe the former top of the heap, they may need to be knocked down a peg depending on available resources, and indoctrinating people on how to really be good.

Of course the vast majority of the gods are going to go apeshit all over you and your new movement, so it is essential that you have wizard assassination squads powerful enough to take them out. On the upside, you already have casters powerful enough to cast wish, miracle, or shapechange and don't need to Call Efreeti to do it for you any more.

[Lago_AM3P]

More on diplomacy...

There's essentially two big problems people have with diplomacy.

People have problems with diplomacy that stem from the same root cause.

So you have a 20th level character. An ancient great wyrm dragon appears. You can be an idiot and try to fight it or you can diplomatize it. Here are people's problems with that scenario:

A) A person's diplomacy check is completely divorced from their combat prowess. A 40th level bard will not be able to take one on. A 20th level bard can probably roll a DC high enough to overcome the challenge. The 20th level bard gets awesomeness while the 40th experiences a game over. How is that fair?

B) You have a typical four person party (rogue, cleric, fighter, wizard). They're at a level where they can beat it down safely. The cleric decides to roll the diplomacy check and ends the encounter. The players of the other characters get pissed because they cut them out of one of the most fun parts of D&D (killing stuff) and one person hogged the entire spotlight. How is that fair?

C) The DM sets up a long and grand campaign where the great wyrm dragon has been proven to have eaten everyone's parents, destroy their HQ, blah blah blah. Everyone is gearing up to fight this menace for the climax of the campaign and deliver vengeance to this evil creature. Then the cleric rolls a diplomacy check to convince it that maybe hugging puppies would be better. So the head villain, rather than being vanquished, just sort of... does nothing now. People who were looking forward to punishing the dragon get pissed because they can't do it now.

Problem A) can be solved by completely redoing the skill system, which needs to be done anyway. Problems B and C are more insidious and what I really suspect what makes people hate diplomancers so much.

I can't offer concrete advice to it. I mean, regarding B and C, you can have the most perfectly balanced system and most awesome setting ever... and still end up with pissed-off players because the rogue brained everyone in their sleep. I guess the best piece of advice is to agree on your approach to begin with and for the DM to offer as many challenges as they can that CAN'T be solved with simple talking. What if the foes were mind controlled? What if they were fighting golems?

Running a 'Good' campaign, IMO, requires some degree of cooperation between all participants.

Big frickin' deal. So what else is new? People have been writing threads since the dawn of paladinhood about rule system screwing them over. We've been trying to mitigate this problem by fixing or clarifying some of the stupider or more unclear elements. But ultimately we realize that if someone wants to play a paladin then we (both the DM and players) have to offer some concessions to them to prevent the game from exploding.

If you want to play a 'good' character then you still have to keep in mind that other players don't necessarily want to hear you harp about the plight of forest gnomes all day long and they still want to kill more interesting/satisfying villains than tigers and skeletons. They still want to roll dice. Deal with it, D&D is a cooperative game.

By the same token I believe that doing 'good' should be streamlined into the game so to make it as smooth and painless as possible for the players who don't want to spend a lot of time negotiating peace treaties with orcs and elves. Ironically, I suspect this is why the diplomacy skill is made the way it is.

[Lago_AM3P]

It seems more efficient and effective to become high level and raise your own society where people are taught these values and giventhe training and education to be total badass adventurers, and then go conquer the prime material. Conquering mostly consisting of walking a squad of mid to high levels into a kingdom and telling people how it's gonna be, and occasionally initiating little recreational face stabbing against a particularly powerful or uncooperative society; just enough so that they get the point. Then of course once you have a particular society under your power you start improving conditions for everyone, except maybe the former top of the heap, they may need to be knocked down a peg depending on available resources, and indoctrinating people on how to really be good.

Right, that's the most efficient way to do things and will get things done in the fastest amount of time.

Imagine that, characters that have more power get to affect the campaign world more significantly.

But I still think that there needs to be concessions for people who don't want to have to get to 15+ level to see some real progress. I think that's perfectly reasonable. A 6th level character can definitely bring a permanent peace to warring tribes in the region. And neither the players nor the characters have to feel bad about the fact that there's probably genocide going on this very second 50 miles away. Shit, man, they saved the lives of hundreds of people and thousands in the new generation. I think they made a game about this called Quest for Glory 3...

[Lago_AM3P]

Of course the vast majority of the gods are going to go apeshit all over you and your new movement, so it is essential that you have wizard assassination squads powerful enough to take them out. On the upside, you already have casters powerful enough to cast wish, miracle, or shapechange and don't need to Call Efreeti to do it for you any more.

I don't think it's an inevitable consequence. I think that Pelor and Yondalla really do have the interests of their worshippers at heart. They might even feel some genuine affection towards them. I think that once you get the wheels of progress turning you can not only get people but the gods themselves on your side. Look at that, now the halflings and their way of life are no longer endangered! Rather than doing something ultimately suicidal like getting into a total war of attrition with goblins, they get to live happy and productive lives. This peace movement thing rocks!

Also for example, war is extremely destructive to the landscape. You're advocating a position where people don't have to strip mine or fell entire forests to survive. I think you can get the druids and the gods of nature on your side for that one.

I think the biggest obstacle to your goal are demons. There are so many demons and they are so entrenched into the fabric of D&D society that they get their own book. There's not really an ideological equivalent to them. Do angels get their own book? Are there as many writeups of celestial monsters as fiendish ones? Hell, no. Even if you got people to treat angels as the obstacles to progress that they really are I don't think anyone is going to particularly care to write hundreds or even dozens of pages on the structure of their society and what a threat they are.

But you're right, I think there does need to be a way so that you can kill/defeat gods or at least challenge them effectively. If people object to the idea of me personally showing up in Vecna's laboratory and prison-shanking him, that's one thing. But if they hold this position AND won't give me an option to prevent him from unleashing new kinds of viruses that turn entire cities to necropolises then I'm going to be pissed.

[CalibronXXX]

I suppose if you enacted enough change to actually get the attention of the gods you could go to the more tractable ones and sue for aid, convince them to hold the other gods in a stalemate so that they don't smite you and all your good works into ruin.