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

[K]

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

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

It's full of contradictions. I don't blame anyone for holding any one view, but I do think that the proper response to fully analyzing the whole chapter is to show it to your players, have a laugh at Ravenloft's expense, and promise them that you won't be using any of it.

[Username17]

There is absolutely nothing you can do or not do to avoid Dark Powers checks. They happen whenever the DM remembers to make them or feels like doing them. You can get Dark Powers Checks for fighting, and you can get Dark Powers Checks for running away. You can be judged by personal code, community standards, divine writs (that don't even have to be for faiths you follow or are even familiar with), or "objective" standards that the DM makes up themselves. And if those conflict, which they always do, then you can be judged and found wanting no matter what you do.

There is no logic you can follow that will get you out of a Dark Powers Check. The book says that the DM should always set it up so that there is at least one choice the PCs could make that doesn't get them a Dark Powers Check. But there is no underlying or overlaying logic to why one choice would get you the Powers check and the other would not. You might as well be playing a Fighting Fantasy Book by UK Steve Jackson - only by remembering that Steve really hates White Wine would you know which cup to drink out of to not get shat upon for making the wrong "moral" choice.

-Username17

[wotmaniac]

Okay, I've now gotten a chance to peruse the text; and I must say, Frank, that you're a fucking idiot. (I would lump K in to that as well; however, at least he has the intellectual integrity and good grace to admit the validity of alternate interpretations)

First is the fact that for every set of acts that would trigger a particular Powers Check, the authors also set forth a pretty clear set of exceptions. Unfortunately, those exceptions get in the way of your narrative, which is causing you to do some crazy mental gymnastics to keep your narrative on track.

Second is your mutilation of the English language.
Because a creature happens to feel pain that results from you trying to defend yourself is not torture -- not even anywhere in this book.
Negotiating parley is not extortion -- not by this, or any, standard.
Etc., etc.


Look Frank, you're a smart guy, and as a result, you produce a lot of good stuff. However, just a a function of the sheer volume of your output, you also produce a noticeable amount of complete shit; which is only compounded (or perhaps driven) by your pathological impulse to insert greedy reductionism in to every-goddamned-thing. And while there may be much to criticize in this particular publication, much of your assessment of certain things (e.g., Powers Checks triggers) falls in to the category of complete shit.

[Username17]

First of all wotmanic, there's something badly wrong with you. You aren't just an idiot and an asshole, although you are both of those thing, your moral compass is broken and you have no right to lecture anyone about anything behavioral, spiritual, or even linguistical. Let's start with the easy parts:

Second is your mutilation of the English language.
Because a creature happens to feel pain that results from you trying to defend yourself is not torture -- not even anywhere in this book.
Negotiating parley is not extortion -- not by this, or any, standard.
Etc., etc.

Actually, yes they are. Hurting people to get what you want is torture. Making demands with the threat of force is extortion. That is what those words fucking mean. Whether they are crimes, whether they are immoral in any particular instance is deeply debatable. But for the question "is this extortion?", then if you are offering someone two options and one of those options involves you stabbing them with a sword, then yes it is fucking extortion you fucking imbecile! It can still be the right thing to do, it can still be a heroic thing to do, but it's still extortion. Extortion is a fucking verb, and it has a fucking meaning, and "negotiating" with threat of force is exactly what that fucking word fucking means. Fuck!

Now as it happens, there are many ways to determine whether a course of action is right and proper or not. There's actually a whole field of philosophy dedicated to just that seemingly simple question. And if you use different tests, you get different answers. Extremely different answers. This is why Kantians get to have arguments about whether it is a good thing to hide Jews from Nazis (spoiler: it is) and Utilitarians get to have serious discussions about whether it is a good thing to carve up random homeless people for their organs (spoiler: it is not). Because when you approach ethical questions from different perspectives you not only get different answers, but the questions themselves are different.

So let's go through this fucking piece of shit, shall we?

There are two guidelines for the resolution of such cultureal or moral conflicts. The first assumes that an act is not evil unless the individual sees it as such.

This is a very extreme form of ethical relativism, which is further focused inwards to the point of solipsism. Ethical Egoism run amok. But wait! What about the second and completely contradictory point!?

The second consideration dictates that the cultural norms of a given domain define good and evil, and that all acts and the creatures who perform them can or must be judged according to those standards.

That's not an opposite, but it's obviously incompatible. I mean sure, you wotmanic are an ethical idiot who doesn't know what words mean and has such a blunted sense of right and wrong as to be basically a sociopath, so you probably thought they actually were complete opposites. But you see, that's still a radical relativist stance. In either case it is still holding that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on the views of people. Just you know, different people. While the first suggestion was a relativism of extreme egoism, the second is a relativism of zeitgeist.

But wait! There's more!

Because not wanting to merely weigh in on the side of relativism and then chump out spectacularly when confronted with the question "Relative to who?", they also want to hedge on the question of what "an action" even is:

Another common exception to a required powers checks [sic] is a case where the end is believed to justify the means.

Well that's interesting, because that's a Utilitarian concept of Consequentialism. So we'd be judging an act holistically based on the overall effect. I wonder if we'll be able to go an entire page without contradicting that?

Major betrayal includes such vile deeds as luring someone to a vampire's lair in exchange for the fiend's promise not to harm you or your family. In general, if it leads to personal harm or death, it's a major betrayal.

But wait a minute! You + Family is at least two people, and the listed "someone" is by definition just one. The most basic calculus of "more versus less" would give you a pass on that by virtue of ends v means, right? Wrong! Because while we were just told to categorize "acts" by their effects, on Page 45 it goes the full deontology and starts categorizing evil deeds by the verbs that describe the process of doing them instead. Which of course gives you exactly the opposite answer to such questions as whether it is good or evil to kill one person to save two. Which is why page 44 says that killing one person to save two is praiseworthy, while page 45 lists killing one person to save two as a "vile deed".

But the real joy here is that this isn't even a relativist framework. Regardless of whether we're judging acts by their causes (page 45) or their effects (page 45), we're still using an absolute standard in either case.

First is the fact that for every set of acts that would trigger a particular Powers Check, the authors also set forth a pretty clear set of exceptions.

You're a moron. The fact that it gives a contradictory sampler platter of every ethical standpoint it is possible to have and then empowers the DM to fuck players in the ass for not living up to whichever moral code sounds good at the moment is not a clear set of exceptions. It's not a clear set of anything. It's a rambling contradictory diatribe that commands you to follow irreconcilable dictums and punishes you with the loss of your character when you inevitably fail to do that.

Look Frank, you're a smart guy, and as a result, you produce a lot of good stuff. However, just a a function of the sheer volume of your output, you also produce a noticeable amount of complete shit; which is only compounded (or perhaps driven) by your pathological impulse to insert greedy reductionism in to every-goddamned-thing.

I have no idea what you think "greedy reductionism" means. It actually refers to attempting to fit everything into a single unified theory without checking the individual pieces for soundness. So that thing you are doing right now, where you are claiming that the entire chapter has a "clear set" of instructions? That's actual greedy reductionism. It's a term coined by Dennet, you can look this shit up.

The thing I'm doing, where I point out that there is no consistent moral framework between entries on the same page, let alone for the entire chapter, that's not greedy reductionism. I'm analyzing this chapter without sky hooks, you persist in attempting to analyze this chapter without cranes. Fucking stop it.

-Username17

[SlyJohnny]

What's all this worry about a rule that "empowers" DM's to fuck with you? They can do that anyway.

It makes sense to be annoyed when a set of rules are written so obtusely that it becomes difficult to apply it in a way that makes the world seem internally consistent or enjoyable to play. It makes sense to care when a rule is written vaguely, so that two or more distinct and valid interpretations are possible and could cause a disagreement that slows down the game and leaves people feeling cheated. It makes sense to care when a rule simply doesn't fucking work in doing what it's supposed to do, when it creates ridiculous scenarios and you'd be better off just eyeballing it on the fly.

But when there are a couple possible interpretations, and one of them is so pants-on-head retarded that noone would roll with it, who cares? Who gives a shit whether or not the d20 rules allow you to drown a stabbing victim up to 0hp? Noone actually thinks that's how it's supposed to work. The way it is supposed to work is blindingly obvious. Who cares?

They clarified in later editions, the Unholy acts thing was specified to "require a powers check only if the offender is aware of his transgression", but really, there was never any real risk of your DM leaping up from his chair and going "Aha! You've had bacon and eggs for breakfast, and it's a Friday! There's an obscure lesser deity who wouldn't like that! Roll to see if you turn into a slavering vampire", and even if there WAS, a more carefully worded table wasn't going to save your shitty gaming session.

[squirrelloid]

But when there are a couple possible interpretations, and one of them is so pants-on-head retarded that noone would roll with it, who cares? Who gives a shit whether or not the d20 rules allow you to drown a stabbing victim up to 0hp? Noone actually thinks that's how it's supposed to work. The way it is supposed to work is blindingly obvious. Who cares?

Lies. I've saved a character's life by causing them to drown in 3.x.

"Aha! You've had bacon and eggs for bacon, and it's a Friday!

Bacon and eggs for bacon? Fuck, we just violated the law of identity, that has to be a major moral sin. Incoming dark powers check.

[K]

What's all this worry about a rule that "empowers" DM's to fuck with you? They can do that anyway.

It makes sense to be annoyed when a set of rules are written so obtusely that it becomes difficult to apply it in a way that makes the world seem internally consistent or enjoyable to play. It makes sense to care when a rule is written vaguely, so that two or more distinct and valid interpretations are possible and could cause a disagreement that slows down the game and leaves people feeling cheated. It makes sense to care when a rule simply doesn't fucking work in doing what it's supposed to do, when it creates ridiculous scenarios and you'd be better off just eyeballing it on the fly.

But when there are a couple possible interpretations, and one of them is so pants-on-head retarded that noone would roll with it, who cares? Who gives a shit whether or not the d20 rules allow you to drown a stabbing victim up to 0hp? Noone actually thinks that's how it's supposed to work. The way it is supposed to work is blindingly obvious. Who cares?

They clarified in later editions, the Unholy acts thing was specified to "require a powers check only if the offender is aware of his transgression", but really, there was never any real risk of your DM leaping up from his chair and going "Aha! You've had bacon and eggs for breakfast, and it's a Friday! There's an obscure lesser deity who wouldn't like that! Roll to see if you turn into a slavering vampire", and even if there WAS, a more carefully worded table wasn't going to save your shitty gaming session.

Wow. I haven't seen the Oberoni Fallacy in a long time.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

What's all this worry about a rule that "empowers" DM's to fuck with you? They can do that anyway.

Because a GM who wants to screw the party will screw the party no matter what. At the same time there are other GMs who are otherwise reasonable, who will screw over the party after reading this because "That's how the game is supposed to be played".

[rasmuswagner]

Wow. I haven't seen the Oberoni Fallacy in a long time.

Fuck you. You and Frank are engaging in "That depends on what your definition of "is" is", and it looks unbelievably retarded from outside your own ass.

You're like a fucking Paizil arguing fine semantic points in a bit of rules text, as if they contained meaning, instead of just being proof of how sloppy the writing is over there.

[SlyJohnny]

Wow. I haven't seen the Oberoni Fallacy in a long time.

...Yeahhh, I literally just said that it does matter if the rules don't work as written, or if the rules are dumb, or hamstring the game. Fucking hell, it was literally the second paragraph I wrote. However, I also don't think that deliberately misinterpreting things and then following that interpretation to the most bizarrely retarded extreme possible is big or clever. It certainly doesn't constitute an interesting or amusing critique of the rules.

To continue the example of the d20 rules for drowning, you could criticize them because they don't reflect the reality of drowning, or because they make drowning too lethal (or insufficiently lethal), or because they make the game not fun to have them there, or because they're unnecessarily convoluted compared to the small benefit they add to the game. I might disagree with that interpretation, but I wouldn't say "oh, any half-decent GM would just ignore those rules or invent homebrew, it's fine". However, if you started off with crowing about how drowning heals people and that's all you had, I'd just tell you that you were a bitch and call it a night.

[Username17]

Wow. I haven't seen the Oberoni Fallacy in a long time.

Fuck you. You and Frank are engaging in "That depends on what your definition of "is" is", and it looks unbelievably retarded from outside your own ass.

You're like a fucking Paizil arguing fine semantic points in a bit of rules text, as if they contained meaning, instead of just being proof of how sloppy the writing is over there.

What?

Seriously, what is your position? Earlier you were all ranting about how there was an "obvious" difference between "torture" and "hurting people", and accusing us of "clownboating", "misrepresenting the text", and various other content-free invectives. But seriously: what the fuck are you even trying to argue?

How can I be "misrepresenting the text" if your current claim is that the rules don't contain meaning? That doesn't even make sense. You don't even make sense.

If you haphazardly use a bunch of different moral frameworks, then you're going to have at least some moral frameworks that condemn almost everything you could do (including "nothing" once you get into consequential or existential frameworks). And get this: most moral frameworks are going to condemn standard D&D activities, because there are damn few moral philosophers who support "breaking into peoples' homes, stabbing them in the face, and taking their stuff". I didn't think that point would be controversial, because it's fucking obvious.

So, Rasmuswagner, other than being an asshat, what are you even attempting to convey? Because right now you just seem to be spewing content-free internet rage because you are offended at the very idea that D&D heroic activities would qualify as crimes, and thus if you make a "list of crimes" to punish players for, that their D&D activities will be listed with punishments. Last I checked, that was obviously true, which is why city guards have combat stats and characters in Shadowrun try to avoid getting caught by the police. The point where Ravenloft goes over the line is the part where the Dark Powers get to catch you for law breaking regardless of what you do or where you go. These are "police" from whom you cannot run or hide, so obviously when we get to the "arbitrary list of crimes and punishments" on pages 45-46, they are going to bone players for acting normally in the system. Just as Shadowrunners in Shadowrun would get royally fucked if the police could automatically find and catch them.

-Username17

[K]

Wow. I haven't seen the Oberoni Fallacy in a long time.

Fuck you. You and Frank are engaging in "That depends on what your definition of "is" is", and it looks unbelievably retarded from outside your own ass.

You're like a fucking Paizil arguing fine semantic points in a bit of rules text, as if they contained meaning, instead of just being proof of how sloppy the writing is over there.

Seriously? Frank and I stated that the rules are terrible and contradictory and you guys are the one's defending them like they aren't terrible and contradictory.

What's your damage? Why are people passionately defending bad writing and bad text that they admit are bad writing and bad text, and why are they so butthurt at us?

Sure, it's obvious that the writers of Ravenloft intended to write a coherent moral system so that DMs and players could play fantasy horror DnD and thus the boxed set was worth the money you spent on it, but if you have even a community-college-level introduction to moral philosophy it's also obvious that they failed at that goal. Hard.

Why is that fact such a point of contention?

[SlyJohnny]

I mean, I was only spitting bile when you said I was committing the oberoni fallacy when I went out of my way to make it clear that I wasn't, and I think most everyone else is being vitriolic regardless of how much they actually care, just because that's how discourse works around here.

It just seems to work fine for what it is. You don't have to roll for anything you were forced to do by the situation, so there's none of that stupid "roll a power check because you're torturing those poor demon wolves by shooting fireballs at them" crap. And yeah, it's explicitly up to GM fiat whether it does or does not apply, which is hardly idea when you're writing rules to cover what happens in a situation, but how else would you do it?

And yeah, the core book does seem to be explicitly pushing the "act pure until you can get out of this wretched place, or you will become it" thing, but if you wanted to play a more evil-friendly game, there's no reason a corrupted PC couldn't continue playing. It'd probably be fun to play a troubled assassin who slowly becomes more wretched and desperate the more he struggles to extricate himself, eventually becoming a darklord.

[K]

It just seems to work fine for what it is. You don't have to roll for anything you were forced to do by the situation, so there's none of that stupid "roll a power check because you're torturing those poor demon wolves by shooting fireballs at them" crap. And yeah, it's explicitly up to GM fiat whether it does or does not apply, which is hardly idea when you're writing rules to cover what happens in a situation, but how else would you do it?

I wouldn't do the rolls at all. I'd have one section tell the DM to punish patterns of evil acts with a Stage of Evil and I'd have a section that outlines normal adventuring and spells that are excluded from that. Looting mummies for magic maces is supposed to be something that DnD guys do... it's the heart of the damned game even when you mess with the genre.

I'd also prune the "evil acts" section and give people actual options for morality. Grave-robbing and theft are illegal, but turning into a leech because you took some money to eat is just Les Miserable levels of dumb.

Utilitarianism works. Divine mandate works. A lot of moral frameworks work, but you have to actually pick one. You cannot even MTP Ravenloft without picking some kind of coherent idea of evil.

[Korgan0]

Honestly, the authors probably should have just said "dick over your players when it fits the themes of ravenloft-style horror, here are some ways you can do it, go hog-wild."

[K]

Honestly, the authors probably should have just said "dick over your players when it fits the themes of ravenloft-style horror, here are some ways you can do it, go hog-wild."

Heck, you could have just cut-and-pasted the Stages of Evil section into the Curse section and then removed the rest of the Dark Power chapter.

Dark Powers then become a function of doing MTP cursing and everyone is happy because you don't even need a moral framework because you can be cursed for any reason at all. Then people turn into werewolves because the local priest hates you or some vengeful dick called down a curse and not because of some moral failing.

[rasmuswagner]

What?

Seriously, what is your position? Earlier you were all ranting about how there was an "obvious" difference between "torture" and "hurting people", and accusing us of "clownboating", "misrepresenting the text", and various other content-free invectives. But seriously: what the fuck are you even trying to argue?
-Username17

Exactly the same point as previously. That "Torture", especially in the context of "we're all listening to Nirvana and The Cure, and the WWW hasn't been invented yet", is an easy-to-grasp concept, and combat is totally not torture. Then you zoom in on a throw-away remark and decide that the text is saying "harsh words and red hot nails in the dick are exactly the same thing", hurr durr this book be dumb!

[Username17]

It just seems to work fine for what it is.

No. It never did. Stories of "I was made to roll a Dark Powers Check and I don't think that was fair" were ubiquitous. I've never seen or heard of a Ravenloft game where the Dark Powers checks were made at all where people didn't at least occasionally feel that the Powers Checks were applied unfairly. And it's no wonder, because the rambling and contradictory description about what moral structure to judge them by made applying them fairly literally impossible.

Between pages 43 and 49, they manage to advocate:

• Ethical Relativism
• Ethical Solipsism
• Ethical Absolutism
• Divine Command Ethics (bonus points: multiple conflicting divinities!)
• Secularism
• Consequential Ethics
• Deontological Ethics
• Justice
• Mercy

The "system" is that you make a "moral choice". Then the MC spins the wheel of morality to determine whether your choice is judged by Kant or Mills, Jesus or Hammurabi. Then if your choice is judged wanting by whichever judge you get, you get WMD-grade foot odor and a warning slip that if you "screw up" a few more times, you have your character taken away permanently.

But while it's easy enough to perform actions that will get you shat upon no matter who your judge is for the day, there's basically nothing you could do or abstain from doing that would necessarily keep you from being shat upon. Even extremely basic questions like "Is it OK to sacrifice one life to save two?" are answered in both the negative and affirmative, which means that you are at least potentially fucked whichever choice you make.

So no. It didn't work fine. It was the most fucked up system possible. You make blind choices like you were in a Fighting Fantasy book and then get punished for making the "wrong choice" whenever your blind choice doesn't match up with the "right choice" for the day.

-Username17

[K]

What?

Seriously, what is your position? Earlier you were all ranting about how there was an "obvious" difference between "torture" and "hurting people", and accusing us of "clownboating", "misrepresenting the text", and various other content-free invectives. But seriously: what the fuck are you even trying to argue?
-Username17

Exactly the same point as previously. That "Torture", especially in the context of "we're all listening to Nirvana and The Cure, and the WWW hasn't been invented yet", is an easy-to-grasp concept, and combat is totally not torture. Then you zoom in on a throw-away remark and decide that the text is saying "harsh words and red hot nails in the dick are exactly the same thing", hurr durr this book be dumb!

So you are mad at actual moral philosophy and think that we should have applied dumbed-down ideas to the text.

Check.

[rasmuswagner]

Seriously? Frank and I stated that the rules are terrible and contradictory and you guys are the one's defending them like they aren't terrible and contradictory.

What's your damage? Why are people passionately defending bad writing and bad text that they admit are bad writing and bad text, and why are they so butthurt at us?

Why is that fact such a point of contention?

Because I enjoy the usually excellent things you both write. But in this case, it's like you're picking on a Creationist Nazi Anti-Vac Birther Goldbug 9/11-Truther by point out that gingers like him don't have souls.

[Username17]

I didn't really want to have to go here, but you really leave me no choice. Actually setting people on fire in combat looks like this:



The vast majority of the population does in fact consider setting people on fire to be "torture" and also to be morally reprehensible. If you're going to insist on using appeals to the popular moral zeitgeist and "general understanding" of right and wrong (which I remind you, is just like one of six possible moral frameworks offered in an unexamined avalanche of conflicting ideas in this fucking chapter), then the public is not in fact on your side.

Your idea of attempting to replace the last five thousand years of moral philosophy with highschool level gut reactions would still make you wrong.

-Username17

[Aryxbez]

Unrelated to the current discussion at hand, but still relevant to this thread, I'd say I liked Koumei's earlier idea. Regardless it was abandoned, kinda reminded me of "Item Worlds" meets type of stacking corruption.

I've kinda liked the idea of Ravenloft, ever since High Level in it sounded kinda cool, just unfortunate to what it "really" was. If I were to give my impressions of how to run it, imagine I'd go in a more "Pulp-horror" kind of set-up. Going from Domain to Domain lands, taking out their respective Lord, streaking a path across the mists to Dracula's Castle Strahd von Zarovich himself (or other Dark Power if anyone cared enough). My source of inspiration here, is basically the Castlevania Series, being brought up on something like that, Domains sound like a "Level" or several level area with a boss at the end. Plus the original art for Simon Belmont is rather fitting adventurer attire...

http://www.poeghostal.com/wp-content/up ... a-wall.jpg

[ishy]

I mean, I was only spitting bile when you said I was committing the oberoni fallacy when I went out of my way to make it clear that I wasn't [ . . . ]

Who gives a shit whether or not the d20 rules allow you to drown a stabbing victim up to 0hp? Noone actually thinks that's how it's supposed to work. The way it is supposed to work is blindingly obvious. Who cares?

I might be lacking reading comprehension, but I read that as "who cares whether rules work? It is fine if it is obvious that the rules don't work at all. You can totally fix it"

[John Magnum]

Yeah, as far as I can tell, Sly is committing this weird version of the Oberoni fallacy where once a rule is sufficiently stupid, then it becomes gauche and pointless to actually say how stupid it is because anyone would change it. But it IS worthwhile to point out the stupidity of less obviously stupid rules.

[Kaelik]

I thought he was just setting up an elaborate parody of Ravenloft Dark Powers because he was saying that the rules were totally fine, and also that they were shit.

Thus completely contradicting himself just like Ravenloft Dark Powers rules.

But meh, I guess he is just an idiot, and I was feeling charitable.