OSSR: Ravenloft Boxed Set (reviewed by Frank and K)

[Username17]

wait, wait, wait .... hows 'bout we actually nail down some specific definitions for our terminology before we continue to argue past each other. 'cause just swapping out synonyms is counter-productive.

The term in question is "torture"; which was defined above as "causing suffering" (or some such). For this to mean anything, there must be a distinction between "suffering" and synonyms like "pain" (for instance); because these ideas deep getting conflated (and apparently for no good ends).

I really have no idea what you think you're accomplishing or what you think you are arguing. The Ravenloft Morality section doesn't let you be D&D character, it doesn't let you be a hero, it doesn't even let you be a police officer or a doctor. It is extremely restrictive, and it won't let you do anything violent, mean, or even "gross". It dings you for picking up items from battlefields (which it explicitly defines as "grave robbing"), it dings you for setting ambushes (luring someone into a trap that leads to "personal harm" is "betrayal, major"), it dings you for planning an attack (which is "murder, premeditated").

The argument that such a reading of the rules would make basic soldiering impossible and the game as envisioned basically unplayable is not an argument. Because the Ravenloft Morality rules do make basic soldiering impossible and they are basically unplayable. We don't have to pretend that there's some form of crazy semantic difference between "hurting people" and "causing physical suffering", because it doesn't even fucking matter. A normal D&D encounter will ding you with powers checks a half dozen times or more. When you decide to go hunt a monster (premeditated murder), when you select a route of attack (major betrayal), when you offer surrender terms (Extortion), with each and every attack (Assault, Grievous), with every use of an attack that is painful or does ongoing damage (torture, routine), with every use of a spell in combat (spell used for Evil, since assault has been defined as evil), and of course when you take their stuff after you win (Theft, Graverobbing).

this is the kind of shit I'm talking about, Frank, when I accuse you of greedy reductionism -- it's your go-to M.O. ... you do it so much, that I'm starting to think you can't even tell when you're doing it.

Listen, asshole: your whole argument is that "obviously" there's supposed to be some sort of loophole to let people be murder hobos in Ravenloft. And you're wrong. You are fucking completely wrong. Because the moral system of Ravenloft isn't about supporting D&D adventuring, it's about punishing people for being D&D adventurers. It's the complete opposite of what you seem to think it is. And it is not reductionist to say so. Actually, it's the opposite of reductionism. Reductionism would be the bullshit you're doing where you're trying to split terminology hairs to find a way to be a murder hobo within a framework that is deliberately attempting to ban murder hobo behavior.

-Username17

[norms29]

A good DM would do Dark Powers checks just often enough to keep everyone's mind on the morality of their actions, but secretly never let PCs actually fail one unless they seemed like they were asking for it. Unfortunately, that advice is not in the boxed set.

IDK, that does sound like what they were getting at when they said to only make checks for "a deliberate and calculated act of evil" and not for things which otherwise fit the categories. Which I admit is profoundly stupid in it's own way, and excludes almost all of the typically ways a hero might be courupted.

[K]

A good DM would do Dark Powers checks just often enough to keep everyone's mind on the morality of their actions, but secretly never let PCs actually fail one unless they seemed like they were asking for it. Unfortunately, that advice is not in the boxed set.

IDK, that does sound like what they were getting at when they said to only make checks for "a deliberate and calculated act of evil" and not for things which otherwise fit the categories. Which I admit is profoundly stupid in it's own way, and excludes almost all of the typically ways a hero might be courupted.

I'd say that this was true, but the Shades of Grey section right after that part ruins it immediately.

This is the part where you face powers checks for looting abandoned temples because of no reason and mummy crypts because the locals think it's evil, but don't suffer checks to grave-robbing if your personal morals are OK with it.

That cements that the whole system for Powers checks is to fuck with the PCs when the DM is bored. They use the worse aspects of both objective and subjective morality and don't even see when those two contradict each other in the same section about the exact same class of act.

[John Magnum]

Wotmaniac is seriously trying to reverse-engineer a distinction between "suffering" and "pain" from the premise that these Ravenloft rules make sense? What the fuck is wrong with you, wotmaniac?

[infected slut princess]

Is there a statblock for the Dark Powers? How high level do you have to be to defeat them.

[K]

The Dark Powers don't have stats, and don't actually exist in any sense other than as a storytelling device.

They also serve as an excuse for DM dickery, why the gods have abandoned Raveloft but clerics still get spells, and the source of power for the Stages of Evil.

[infected slut princess]

Has any source ever intimated an "outside-the-box" way to defeat the Dark Tpowers?

[wotmaniac]

Has any source ever intimated an "outside-the-box" way to defeat the Dark Tpowers?

Well, here's the deal with the Dark Powers: they're worse than the Lady of Pain.
At least the LoP has a face, and only is supposed to show up if you start trying to wreck the setting (sorta).
The Dark Powers are even more omnipotent (no stats, do whatever they want, etc.), are completely faceless, and are GIANT dicks. "Defeating" the Dark Powers just isn't a thing.

That being said (to actually answer your question), Soth was able to use apathy to get out. Since a Darklord's domain is meant to be an irony-torture-prison, Soth finally just stopped giving a fuck. Completely. The Dark Powers finally realized that absolutely nothing they could possibly do to this guy would ever phase him, so they were just like "you're not doing this right -- GTFO" .... so he did.

[Maxus]

Soth is about the only Dragonlance character I like. I went on a wiki binge and found pretty much his entire story.

If I ever touch a Dragonlance book again, it'll be about him.

[wotmaniac]

@Frank
Yes, Ravenloft is intentionally a major "fuck you, because fuck you" setting; which is why it is so asinine to torture the English language in such a way as to make it seem even more "fuck you".
If pointing that out makes me an asshole, then so be it -- I'm an asshole.

[Username17]

@Frank
Yes, Ravenloft is intentionally a major "fuck you, because fuck you" setting; which is why it is so asinine to torture the English language in such a way as to make it seem even more "fuck you".
If pointing that out makes me an asshole, then so be it -- I'm an asshole.

Yes it makes you an asshole. But more importantly, it makes you wrong. Just like you were wrong when you "corrected me" about odds and numbers in the Scion review. You are simply wrong here.

If K and I wanted to play the hyperbole card on the Dark Powers checks, we would have scrolled down tot he section on "Unholy Acts" where it specifies that you get Dark Powers checks for violating the tenets of faiths that aren't yours. Combined of course with AD&D's "great wheel" and infinite worlds and gods model, it is literally impossible for you to do (or not do) anything that doesn't violate one or more tenets of one or more faiths. So you get nailed with dark powers checks when you get up and eat breakfast because it's the fasting day of St. Cuthbert and also because it's time of the fish feast of Posseidon and you are having baked beans and toast.

That is of course ridiculous. It's technically what it says, but we didn't go there because the authors obviously hadn't thought through the ramifications of D&D's multiple pantheons in the context of writing up penalties for blasphemy.

But the thing where normal D&D adventuring is a violation of the listed moral codes seven ways from Sunday, that's fucking intentional. That's really what it says. That's really what it means. Their example for "Betrayal, Major" is luring a guy to his death in order to save your own life and the life of your family. You got that? Extenuating circumstances of "saving your life and the lives of several other people who are important to you" are considered and rejected in the text itself!

The thing where the DM is allowed to give you a corrosive hentai tentacle penis if you hit a monster with an acid arrow isn't a bizarre twisting of the words, that's the whole fucking point!

-Username17

[Ted the Flayer]

I want a corrosive hentai tentacle penis...

[wotmaniac]

when you select a route of attack (major betrayal), when you offer surrender terms (Extortion), with each and every attack (Assault, Grievous), with every use of an attack that is painful or does ongoing damage (torture, routine), with every use of a spell in combat (spell used for Evil, since assault has been defined as evil),

Pretty please, give me a page # where these are defined.

Just like you were wrong when you "corrected me" about odds and numbers in the Scion review.

I made an honest mathematical error, and duly apologized -- get over it already.
(fuck, I even went so far as to create another thread for no other reason than to try figure out the root of where I went wrong; not just in the math, but in the methodology as well)

[Username17]

Pretty please, give me a page # where these are defined.

Page 45.

Extortion: This covers areas such as black-mail, where the threat of physical violence or loss is used to force someone else to perform an undesirable task, violate a law, or refrain from reporting a criminal or violent act.

See, your problem is that you keep thinking about this from the standpoint of heroic morality. Where the default assumption is that you're going to throw down and have a fight to the death. Where offering the other side a chance to surrender is something good people do, because it creates the possibility of less harm in the future.

But that is not what's being discussed here. This is not Heroic Morality, it's Civilian Morality. Where threatening to kill someone if they don't surrender is still just threatening to kill someone and a crime in and of itself. The default assumption is not that you are about to slay the monsters for great justice, it's that everyone is a fucking civilian and anything you to harm anyone else is a crime.

-Username17

[PoliteNewb]

The level of sophistry being used by Frank (and K, I suppose) here is truly epic. I have ruled out the option of his being retarded; the other options are that he never bothered to actually read the fucking book, or that he is just lighting his pants on fire while growing a pinocchio nose. Or, final option, that he is just a stubborn SOB who picks one interpretation of a certain set of words and ignores any other possible interpretation, regardless of whether it is more logical or sensible. We've seen this in his defense of movable blade barriers (which are defined in the text as being immobile) and dual-classing (where he claims that you can go back to a class you've already had when the text says you can't). And now we see it again.

I'm going to post some quotes from the ravenloft book; people can use their own judgment and common sense as to whether Frank is correct, or just twisting some sentences beyond all recognition and ignoring others.

I am amazed and astonished that there are people who think you can define ethical behavior in terms of whether or not it "causes suffering" and not exclude "setting dudes on fire" from the list of possible ethical activities. This isn't an obscure edge case or something. If you say that causing people to suffer is a priori a bad thing to do, regardless of who is being made to suffer or why, then setting people on fire is very obviously going to be on the list of things that are bad things to do.

Then why does the book explicitly tell you to exclude some things, with regards to powers checks?

For the purposes of powers checks, not all acts that might strictly be defined as evil need be considered. For example, the act of killing is rightly classed as evil by most cultures, but the circumstances of the act must be pondered in the RAVENLOFT setting. Was it murder in the heat of passion? Was the death accidental or caused by negligence? Was the act committed in self-defense or in the pursuit of a greater good? In all these cases, no powers check would be called for.

A powers check is made only when a deliberate, calculated act of evil is committed.

(Italics present in original, bolding added by me)

The book flat-out says that you can commit 2nd degree murder (killing someone in the heat of passion) WITHOUT provoking a powers check. Casting fireball on a squad of evil minions is without a doubt less evil than that, so it also does not call for a powers check, by any reasonable measure.

That chart has victimless crimes on it. The "suffering" in this case is the Dark Power Attention. It has to be, because there is no one else to cross reference for their looting an abandoned temple example.

This is 100% wrong. The "act" that persons are referred to as "suffering from" is the act which prompts the Dark Powers check, NOT the powers check itself. Consult the later example, of the paladin fleeing from combat leaving his friends to die:

If we assume that the act counts as a major betrayal of another player character, then a 9% powers check is required.

If Frank's reasoning was correct, the words I bolded would be superfluous; it would be a 9% check because it was a PC who did it, regardless of who he did it to. It is perfectly clear that the person you are betraying dictates whether or not a powers check is called for, and if so, how big it should be.

With regard to your victimless crimes example, you are consulting the wrong chart; not the top chart (which is acts against persons) but the bottom, "Unholy Acts" chart, which replaces alignment/nature of the person with the alignment/nature of the location or faith. The abandoned temple example would reference the third column ("Good Faith"), regardless of who was defiling it.

Note that the first column on that chart ("Evil Faith") never prompts a dark powers check...you can loot temples of Set all day long and piss on the altars, and never have a powers check.

I really have no idea what you think you're accomplishing or what you think you are arguing. The Ravenloft Morality section doesn't let you be D&D character, it doesn't let you be a hero, it doesn't even let you be a police officer or a doctor. It is extremely restrictive, and it won't let you do anything violent, mean, or even "gross". It dings you for picking up items from battlefields (which it explicitly defines as "grave robbing"), it dings you for setting ambushes (luring someone into a trap that leads to "personal harm" is "betrayal, major"), it dings you for planning an attack (which is "murder, premeditated").

Let's walk through this, shall we?

--Picking up items from battlefields...if you are grave-robbing evil NPCs and monsters, it's 1st column...explicitly, NO powers check.
--Setting ambushes...if done to evil, 1% chance of a powers check, by a strict reading of the chart. However, since the quote I provided earlier states that acts done in self-defense or for the greater good should not lead to a powers check (even in the example of 'murder'), I would say there is a strong argument for none.
--Planning an attack...while Frank would love to call this premeditated murder, very few moral systems classify killing in war or self-defense "murder". And again, since up above it clearly says that mitigating circumstances can completely remove the need for a powers check, it's beside the point.

So: if one is reasonable in following what the book says, that should require no powers checks at all...possibly one for 1%.

Listen, asshole: your whole argument is that "obviously" there's supposed to be some sort of loophole to let people be murder hobos in Ravenloft. And you're wrong. You are fucking completely wrong. Because the moral system of Ravenloft isn't about supporting D&D adventuring, it's about punishing people for being D&D adventurers. It's the complete opposite of what you seem to think it is.

So your actual claim is that they purposely invented a game supplement that was absolutely and intentionally useless for playing the game it was designed for?
And rejecting the much simpler explanation that you are incorrectly using it to be a twat?

Here, for anyone who cares what the writers actually thought about the use of these mechanics:

It is important that the DM not create situations where player characters have no choice but to do evil. No one enjoys being put in a no-win situation, especially in something as personal as a roleplaying game. If the players are put in a position that forces them to take some action which would normally be considered evil, no powers check is made.

It is impossible to be forced or tricked into an evil act that merits a powers check. The primary purpose of this game mechanic is to dissuade player characters from committing acts of evil. Therefore, an act that prompts a powers check must be premeditated and undertaken with a clear understanding of its nature.

The designers of ravenloft wanted you to be a D&D hero...to rescue damsels, stake vampires, fight evil, and all that jazz. Hideously torturing the rules and claiming the intent was to fuck your PCs over for trying to be good guys is retarded.

If K and I wanted to play the hyperbole card on the Dark Powers checks, we would have scrolled down tot he section on "Unholy Acts" where it specifies that you get Dark Powers checks for violating the tenets of faiths that aren't yours. Combined of course with AD&D's "great wheel" and infinite worlds and gods model, it is literally impossible for you to do (or not do) anything that doesn't violate one or more tenets of one or more faiths. So you get nailed with dark powers checks when you get up and eat breakfast because it's the fasting day of St. Cuthbert and also because it's time of the fish feast of Posseidon and you are having baked beans and toast.

Can you read? You can read, right?

These powers checks are generally reserved for violations of which a character is aware. For example, a paladin in the service of Thor, who does not bow when entering a temple of Ra, has committed no crime.

Pretty please, give me a page # where these are defined.

Page 45.

Extortion: This covers areas such as black-mail, where the threat of physical violence or loss is used to force someone else to perform an undesirable task, violate a law, or refrain from reporting a criminal or violent act.

-Username17

Now note on page 46 where it tells you that Exortion on evil NPCs and monsters never ever calls for a powers check. So what's your point again?

[Kaelik]

So your actual claim is that they purposely invented a game supplement that was absolutely and intentionally useless for playing the game it was designed for?

So is your actual claim that the people who wrote the Ravenloft campaign setting are completely incapable of making mistakes?

Because you know, if you admit that it is possible they wrote rules which did something they didn't intended, you know, like every single D&D author ever, this would be a false dilemma.

[squirrelloid]

I'm not even convinced Ravenloft rules aren't designed to screw over normal D+D play, because it forces them to play more like characters in a horror story and less like D+D characters. PoliteNewb and company's position is less than convincing because it feels like Frank's interpretation is *actually what was intended*.

[K]

I'm not even convinced Ravenloft rules aren't designed to screw over normal D+D play, because it forces them to play more like characters in a horror story and less like D+D characters. PoliteNewb and company's position is less than convincing because it feels like Frank's interpretation is *actually what was intended*.

Intent is clearly shown in the examples where a powers check definitely happens:

1. You make a powers check if you kill a necromancer's charmed guards even though there was a more difficult option that might have spared them (pg. 44).

2. You make a powers check for looting a mummy's tomb because the locals consider it immoral (pg. 43).

3. You make a powers checks for looting an abandoned temple to a god that seems to be good, but you don't actually know (pg. 43).

4. Looting in war (page 47).

5. Fleeing a battle where death is "certain" (pg. 49)

Now, none of the listed examples describe a functioning system for a heroic fantasy game, but they do work for a horror game where bad things happen to good people for no reason.

[PoliteNewb]

1. You make a powers check if you kill a necromancer's charmed guards even though there was a more difficult option that might have spared them (pg. 44).

Or don't make one.

Iif there was no time for such considerations, however, or if the heroes were unaware that the guards had not willingly chosen to follow the necromancer's evil ways, then no check would be required.

2. You make a powers check for looting a mummy's tomb because the locals consider it immoral (pg. 43).

Or don't make one.

...but to those of another culture there might be no great sin in this.

A little further down it points out the conflicts between whether you should go by the individual's moral beliefs, or those of the area...but ultimately it says "The decision as to which guideline to follow is left to the DM".

3. You make a powers checks for looting an abandoned temple to a god that seems to be good, but you don't actually know (pg. 43).

Or don't make one.

These powers checks are generally reserved for violations of which a character is aware.

On the other hand, say you suspect the place of being a good god...are you really going to complain that you got hit with a powers check because you decided not to play it safe and leave the place unlooted?

4. Looting in war (page 47).

Or don't make one...per the chart, if you're looting evil NPCs or monsters, no check required.

5. Fleeing a battle where death is "certain" (pg. 49)

You're being misleading; he is only penalized for fleeing a battle and leaving his friends to die. There is no guarantee that if he stayed that death would be certain (if he stayed, perhaps they could win). Perhaps his friends were held or unconscious, and thus their deaths were certain without his aid, but he had a fighting chance.
Further, if EVERYBODY fled, there would be no powers check; it's for cowardice, not good sense.

Now, none of the listed examples describe a functioning system for a heroic fantasy game, but they do work for a horror game where bad things happen to good people for no reason.

Few if any of the above examples even require a powers check in the course of a normal game. So I really don't know what you're bitching about.

[PoliteNewb]

So your actual claim is that they purposely invented a game supplement that was absolutely and intentionally useless for playing the game it was designed for?

So is your actual claim that the people who wrote the Ravenloft campaign setting are completely incapable of making mistakes?

Because you know, if you admit that it is possible they wrote rules which did something they didn't intended, you know, like every single D&D author ever, this would be a false dilemma.

No, that is not at all what I'm claiming.

If Frank and K are claiming that they tried to make a workable system and made an unworkable one, that is an honest argument. I think one could take a contrary view, but at least it's honest.

They are saying that using the powers check rules in this insanely contorted way is author intent. That they intentionally made non-functional rules...because giant frog, I guess.

Now, my question: is it possible that they intended these rules to be used in a fashion that does allow D&D-esque heroism, but that can be interpreted in a different fashion? I submit that it is.

[Username17]

The rules actually tell you what they are "for". They are for fucking over the players whenever you damn well feel like it. The Powers Checks trigger for literally everything, but even the parts where the Powers Checks are intentionally supposed to go off is at every single point during a standard D&D adventure. You cannot have a D&D adventure without being entitled to numerous Dark Powers checks at virtually every stage of the operation from planning to divvying up the treasure at the end.

The rules also say that you shouldn't actually be rolling these things fairly and frequently shouldn't be rolling them at all. That the vast list of things to bone players with is just an excuse to "roll them" or even just skip to applying the stages of evil thing whenever the fuck you want. It straight up tells you that rolling is a waste of time and you should probably just use it as a threat and then have the Dark Powers stick their dick in whenever you damn well want to.

The Dark Powers check mechanics are unplayable, and the authors don't even think you should try to play with them for the most part. It's just there so that whenever you feel like fucking with the players you have an excuse. And because the excuse to fuck with the player comes in whenever the player violates objective or subjective morality as defined for civilians rather than heroes or even soldiers, it really does give you an excuse all the time. If you actually rolled those fucking things, you wouldn't last a week - the only way the game actually struggles on is with the MC-guidance that you should probably just ignore this shit most of the time and bring it in as a bludgeon to intimidate your players from time to time.

-Username17

[K]

1. You make a powers check if you kill a necromancer's charmed guards even though there was a more difficult option that might have spared them (pg. 44).

Or don't make one.

Iif there was no time for such considerations, however, or if the heroes were unaware that the guards had not willingly chosen to follow the necromancer's evil ways, then no check would be required.

I'm not going to go point-by-point on this because you can't have this low of a reading comprehension and must be trolling, so I'll just leave this bit of text for people who don't have a copy of Ravenloft:

If, on the other hand, a more difficult means of reaching the wizard was discarded because it was easier to slaughter his underlings, then a check is certainly called for.

So yes, Ravenloft bones you for normal adventuring. Choosing acts that have a better chance of banishing evil and saving lives can force Powers checks.

--------------------------

But it gets worse.

As a rule, it includes looting fallen bodies in war or removing any treasure from a place of burial. It also includes acts such as slipping the ring from the finger of a dead woman just before she is placed in her coffin. In Har'Akir, for example, grave robbing might fallen under the caregory of desecrating a holy place.

Take your dead wife's wedding ring as a keepsake before she is buried? POWERS CHECK! Kill a mummy in Har'Akir and take its magic mace? POWERS CHECK! Take a copper coin from a fallen soldier who tried to murder you? POWERS CHECK!

This is Ravenloft and bad things happen to good people because its a horror setting.

[Grek]

I'm not going to get into this except to say that PoliteNewb is correct and Frank and K are being dumb. As much as the rules-as-written are badly written and make out Powers Checks to be some sort of Law of Physics that if you do anything on the Powers Check Chart you have to roll for it to see if you get boned, it's pretty clear from a even cursory reading of the rules that the authors intended for you to use them for Mass Effect style Moral Choices with Capital Letters where being taking the "evil" option pays off now but bites you in the ass later. It even out and out tells you that you should warn your players, "If you do that, it will mean a Powers Check." before letting them do whatever villainy they were contemplating, and that you have to give them at least one adventure-friendly option that doesn't force one.

[K]

I'm not going to get into this except to say that PoliteNewb is correct and Frank and K are being dumb. As much as the rules-as-written are badly written and make out Powers Checks to be some sort of Law of Physics that if you do anything on the Powers Check Chart you have to roll for it to see if you get boned, it's pretty clear from a even cursory reading of the rules that the authors intended for you to use them for Mass Effect style Moral Choices with Capital Letters where being taking the "evil" option pays off now but bites you in the ass later. It even out and out tells you that you should warn your players, "If you do that, it will mean a Powers Check." before letting them do whatever villainy they were contemplating, and that you have to give them at least one adventure-friendly option that doesn't force one.

Page 49-50 says that you should have them make a percentile check and tell that it was a Powers check only afterwards, and that you should not be trying to moderate player behavior.

I would not trust cursory reading any more.

[Grek]

And yet 5 pages before that, it tells you not to do that.

Fuck it, I give up. Clearly, this book needs better editing.