The Gaming Den

Count Arioch the 28th wrote: I really have problems with a nazi-like regime the result of "too much good" on a moral level. I am aware how the setting justifies it, I still have problems with it.

From a philosophical standpoint, you can argue that a culture corrupts itself and becomes capable of amazing travesties historically when it decides it knows the only "Truth", and that nobody else *can* know this Truth unless the culture is in charge. My philosophy teacher actually brought this up when discussing Nazi philosophy and morality.

A good-centric culture that has been too successful for too long may grow narrow-minded and inflexible enough to miss the changing of times, cultures, and other mitigating circumstances, and then lash out when they experience the shock of not being the center of everything. You're so used to being "the good guys" that you stop asking yourself if you really are on the side of good, and assume that whatever it is you do is firmly on the Good Guys side automatically.

Of course, that means that morality is a malleable, constantly shifting thing, and not the alignment axis of D&D.

hogarth wrote:

Korwin wrote:And its not Good against Evil, but Change (Chaos) against Non-Change (Order).

And the Chaos-worshipping people did a bunch of evil stuff and the Law-worshipping people never did. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Well, I certainly don't remember any real Law-worshipers to even make a comparison. In Elric's world, Chaos was in charge and Law could barely struggle.

All Law did in his world was fight Chaos. They never espoused a code of conduct except for a vague "follow the rules" without saying what the rules were. Fighting evil guys doesn't mean you're good.

TheFlatline wrote:

Count Arioch the 28th wrote: I really have problems with a nazi-like regime the result of "too much good" on a moral level. I am aware how the setting justifies it, I still have problems with it.

From a philosophical standpoint, you can argue that a culture corrupts itself and becomes capable of amazing travesties historically when it decides it knows the only "Truth", and that nobody else *can* know this Truth unless the culture is in charge. My philosophy teacher actually brought this up when discussing Nazi philosophy and morality.

A good-centric culture that has been too successful for too long may grow narrow-minded and inflexible enough to miss the changing of times, cultures, and other mitigating circumstances, and then lash out when they experience the shock of not being the center of everything. You're so used to being "the good guys" that you stop asking yourself if you really are on the side of good, and assume that whatever it is you do is firmly on the Good Guys side automatically.

Of course, that means that morality is a malleable, constantly shifting thing, and not the alignment axis of D&D.

Arguably, that makes you no longer good aligned. (Might even shift you to Lawful Neutral depending on what your group has decided that actually means.)

virgileso wrote:Well, I certainly don't remember any real Law-worshipers to even make a comparison. In Elric's world, Chaos was in charge and Law could barely struggle.

In the Corum Swords trilogy there were some. The residents of the City in the Pyramid, for instance.

I still like Dragonlance, and will forever solely based on the awesome minotaur PC stat bonuses from 2nd edition.

But yes. Their Good gods are fucking idiots. Kill the Kingpriest and not the world, okay? Said act created the minotaur nation and so the minotaurs viewed it as a liberating act by decent and good gods, but no one else really thought that. Then they go and lose the world. Oops! Looks like that wily Takhisis managed to pull the wool over Good eyes again!

Terrible, shitty writing. Terrible. Minotaurs forevs.

mean_liar wrote:I still like Dragonlance, and will forever solely based on the awesome minotaur PC stat bonuses from 2nd edition.

Did they have some special setting-specific stats, or are these the same ones from the Humanoid Handbook? The HH minotaur was insane. +2 to Str (and Con?) would let you completely bypass the whole percentile exceptional Str crap. This was nice because the step from a straight 18 to 19 was pretty huge.

RobbyPants wrote:

mean_liar wrote:I still like Dragonlance, and will forever solely based on the awesome minotaur PC stat bonuses from 2nd edition.

Did they have some special setting-specific stats, or are these the same ones from the Humanoid Handbook? The HH minotaur was insane. +2 to Str (and Con?) would let you completely bypass the whole percentile exceptional Str crap. This was nice because the step from a straight 18 to 19 was pretty huge.

Well, I can't say about the stat bonuses, but I can say I like how the minotaur got to be more than 'HURR HURR HURR BIG DUMB COW-MAN SMASH PUNY WEAKLINGS". As a race, and as individuals.

RobbyPants wrote:Did they have some special setting-specific stats, or are these the same ones from the Humanoid Handbook? The HH minotaur was insane. +2 to Str (and Con?) would let you completely bypass the whole percentile exceptional Str crap. This was nice because the step from a straight 18 to 19 was pretty huge.

Yeah, percentile strength was by far one of the worst ideas I've ever seen in an RPG.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:

RobbyPants wrote:Did they have some special setting-specific stats, or are these the same ones from the Humanoid Handbook? The HH minotaur was insane. +2 to Str (and Con?) would let you completely bypass the whole percentile exceptional Str crap. This was nice because the step from a straight 18 to 19 was pretty huge.

Yeah, percentile strength was by far one of the worst ideas I've ever seen in an RPG.

It was a hack.

Yes, it's the bypassing of percentile bullshit (though I'm pretty certain the DL minotaur stat block was much better than the Humanoids Handbook minotaur). Plus with Tales of the Lance there's a section where any minotaur using a minotaur racial weapon (CLABBARD!) gets +2 attacks per round... rather than, say, the traditional level/class-dependent +X per round.

That means that a minotaur cleric of Kiri-Jolith can specialize, pick up two clabbards, use all armors, and is for all intents and purposes a fighter that casts cleric spells.

It goes on from there into even deeper 2e minmax wank territory which I won't bother with here.

DL Minotaurs are an awesome race, and I tend to try and incorporate them in whatever fantasy setting I'm playing in, just because.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:

RobbyPants wrote:Did they have some special setting-specific stats, or are these the same ones from the Humanoid Handbook? The HH minotaur was insane. +2 to Str (and Con?) would let you completely bypass the whole percentile exceptional Str crap. This was nice because the step from a straight 18 to 19 was pretty huge.

Yeah, percentile strength was by far one of the worst ideas I've ever seen in an RPG.

Well, it wasn't so bad when Gygax first created it in the 1970s. Back then, there were no playable races that had a Strength above 18. The problems started when TSR started adding such races to the game without addressing the issue of percentile Strength in any way.