Making D&D morality less repulsive.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 7:29 pm

I'm on the boat of "realism" being a bunch of bullshit, because games REQUIERE abstraction to be playable.

That out, why people want to introduce comic book morality on a medieval fantasy game? Adventurers? They have the moral of a gutter rat. Paladins? LOLOLOLOLOL, they get their power from the Gods and D&D Gods are massive dicks. The peasants? Fuck, they are just happy that the Adventurers decide to kill the bad stuff that wants to kill/raid them first, as long as said Adventurers don't act like dicks against them.

I mean, D&D settings tend to be medieval worlds kept PG-13. Aka crapsack worlds toned down. So, to survive against the nasty stuff on the world, you have to kill them first.

And none of the above even matters. You know why? Because here's the real reason why defaulting to non-lethal damage is a bad idea: Is a [EDITED], cowardly solution based purely on hack mechanics writing and nobody, except the most asspained, politically correct nerds, would want to play that. Bread and circuses and all of that.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 10:16 pm

Gx1080 wrote:That out, why people want to introduce comic book morality on a medieval fantasy game? Adventurers? They have the moral of a gutter rat. Paladins? LOLOLOLOLOL, they get their power from the Gods and D&D Gods are massive dicks. The peasants? Fuck, they are just happy that the Adventurers decide to kill the bad stuff that wants to kill/raid them first, as long as said Adventurers don't act like dicks against them.

I mean, D&D settings tend to be medieval worlds kept PG-13. Aka crapsack worlds toned down. So, to survive against the nasty stuff on the world, you have to kill them first.

Because we want our characters to be better than that.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 11:07 pm

Oh, sure, you and me want our characters to be better than that. Most of the players in the game I'm running right now don't want their characters to be any better than that.

Wrathzog · Post by **Wrathzog** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 11:30 pm

RadiantPhoenix wrote:Because we want our characters to be better than that.

No. You, and people like you, want your characters to be "better" than that. I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of us are going to play our character in a logical manner as dictated by a world that routinely rewards murder.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 12:20 am

I don't see what the huge deal is. In D&D rules (at least 3.x), it's difficult to die. You have to get fairly deep into negative hitpoints before you die.

So when you crop an NPC, unless he's at 1 hitpoint (at which point he should either surrender or run the fuck away), he probably is not going to get 1-shotted from live to dead. He stands a good statistical chance of stabilizing. Unless you state "I kill any survivors", you leave the dude to stabilize or not and move on. Whether he recovers is dependent on a lot of things, but we don't deal with infection in D&D so assuming the dude stabilizes and he has access to food/water he will eventually heal.

If we want more non-lethal combat, especially in a game where drinking an el-cheapo potion can knit sword wounds back together, it wouldn't be difficult to throw in 5 pages on yielding, surrender, and other shit like that. Just because you're cutting at someone doesn't mean, especially in the D&D ruleset, that they're mortally wounded. In D&D combat is non-lethal right up until the moment you die. Then it's lethal combat.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 12:55 am

If you're not doing an amount of damage that is not significantly more than 11 per hit, you're probably low level.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 1:13 am

RadiantPhoenix wrote: Because we want our characters to be better than that.

We? Define "we", kimosabi.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 1:45 am

I gotta ask, do we CARE that much about killing in D&D land? It's painful, but we know:

1)Death doesn't have to be permanent if you can afford it

2)There is, without question, an afterlife.

Don't these kinda take the edge off the moral stigma of killing? At least a little?

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 1:49 am

no because nerds feel the need to argue for 19 pages about whether or not killing orcs is good. protip: it's good because the game says it's good. we're playing D&D, not having a philosophical discourse over the ethics of murder hobo

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 2:02 am

Please note that the Willing Suspension of Disbelief is diffrent for every person, some people's can't stand up to sharp pointy sticks through the gullet causing nonlethal damage.