The Gaming Den

Essentially a way to recreate the Blood War in the Upper Planes, for those who recognize Planescape references. Specifically, I'm trying to think of a situation for two obviously good forces to be in conflict with each other without there being someone evil causing the situation to arise.

Well, I'm pretty sure that one of the Upper Planes is Asgard (Ysgard, excluse me), where hunky Norse warriors fight all day and get drunk all night. Someone could write a romance novel about that, possibly with time-travel and Navy SEALS.


Then there's Olympus, which directly neighbors it.

Now, the Olympians could be some real motherfuckers (literally, on occasion). So could the Asgardians. An Odin vs Zeus throwdown isn't out of the question.

If Ysgard is too close to neutral for your tastes, you could easily have a war between Olympus and Celestia. Just have Zeus knock up some angel's daughter or something. That's easy enough. Zeus doesn't know how to keep it in his pants.

What is Good?

We've had the discussion of specific moralities for specific planes before. If two planes have different definitions of the good, they could easily have violent disagreements. The society of Huxley's Brave New World is based on the minimization of suffering (Epicurian good), but it is deeply offensive to many other philosophies. Taking egalitarianism or some other principle to a planar extreme could be equally offensive.

God A had relations with Fertility Goddess, who is the wife of God B.

War ensues.

I want to approach this in a different direction. What is your goal. What message, scenes, or imagery are you trying to create that you believe this theme will help you accomplish. This knowledge will help us figure out what would best fit your goals.

I agree, what are you shooting for?

The problem with most good aligned celestials is that they're predisposed to diplomacy and negotiation, and you have to burn past that to get to never-ending blood war.

I'm tempted to say it should be something incredibly specific and innate to each side, as well as being unbelievably inane. Archons believe that you can only do good through the teachings and guidance of a patron while solars believe good is something that can transcend laws.

Or how about they just can't figure out the fucking D&D definition of "good" like we can't, and over the last 20,000 millennia they've gotten pissed to the point where they're willing to throw blows over it.

Celestial vs Celestial fight scenes for reasons where there is no obvious wrong side; this makes the infidelity suggestion undesirable. Varying it to be star-crossed lovers is trite and also not an option.

I'm trying to think of an actual situation where different moral philosophies clash. I have two variations I'm willing to accept. A morality gone extreme (the cited Brave New World) is one. The other is where the situation's unfortunate, but both sides are approachable and would be called Good by normal people (not including the Good = Beauty metric).

They have some great, millennia-spanning plot going on on the PMP, which could theoretically end all suffering or some other Good end, but the sacrifices it has taken to keep it going against increasing Diabolic opposition, some feel, are no longer worth it. The die-hards insist that one more 800-year campaign would do it, but many still refuse to participate. They agree to disagree, and those who no longer support it leave the die-hards alone, but as the die-hards' new campaign gets underway, those who left are shocked at the levels it stoops to and demands the die-hards cease. The die-hards accuse the quitters of being traitors, weak in their commitment, and the quitters accuse the die-hards of being blinded by selfish ambition and pride, and the shouting escalates until finally a punch is thrown and the party begins.

The die-hards found themselves on absolute moral rectitude, they're bold, willing to make sacrifices for the betterment of all.

The quitters found themselves on exemplifying selfless love and peaceful means of resolution. They're compassionate, forgiving, but passionate about protecting the innocent from the guilty.

Something like that?

A fight over territory/resource seems to be an appropriate way to go in a situation you have moral philosophies clash. The idea is that each side has their own idea as to how to control said territory/resource.

Examples: Palestine V Israel - mostly the political gambit but you can always include the idea of Jerusalem as holy land.

The Philosopher's stone trope is another one.

In Hindu mythos, the Samudra mantha is a particular period in which the Devas and the Asuras come together as a group to churn the Ocean for Amritha (The mead of Immortality and ultimate POWA!) Sure in this situation, there is a good and evil. But, the idea of fighting for control over an immortality serum could cause a rift.

The biggest points of contention between various celestials and their lines of divide in my setting are:

(a)Proactive intervention in the affairs of mortals vs. protecting their freedom to do as they will.

(b)Accepting deities as transcedent arbiters of truth or not.

That said, being good, they hardly ever drive things to the point where a battle to death is the only way to resolve their differences.

virgil wrote:Celestial vs Celestial fight scenes for reasons where there is no obvious wrong side; this makes the infidelity suggestion undesirable. Varying it to be star-crossed lovers is trite and also not an option.

Aww, I liked that one.

I'm trying to think of an actual situation where different moral philosophies clash. I have two variations I'm willing to accept. A morality gone extreme (the cited Brave New World) is one. The other is where the situation's unfortunate, but both sides are approachable and would be called Good by normal people (not including the Good = Beauty metric).

The Norns have revealed to God A (we'll call her Alice) that she is fated to make the multiverse a better place by doing [some grand multi-century-spanning]. According to the Norns it's going to work, it's going to be awesome, and basically every sentient being who is not an actual demon would have their life improved by it. God B (Bob, God of Hurricane Naming Conventions) has divinatory powers equivalent to the Norns and has used them to learn that Alice is destined to fail and make the multiverse a shittier place in the process. Both of them have reliable information from objectively equally reliable sources, but each of them believes that their information is correct. War ensues.

It's not really about opposing moral philosophies, although each of them is likely to have followers who construct a philosophy around discrediting the other. The Church of Alice holds that Bob is a false god and the holy scrolls of the Cult of Bob state that the Norns are full of shit. One of them is objectively wrong but there's know way of knowing until the events completely unfold several centuries later. To an outside observer without above-Norn-level divinatory powers, the whole situation sucks and they can't pick either side without being a huge fucking choad, which sounds like kind of what you want.

(Obvious twist: Alice is in fact fated to fail, but only fails because of Bob's interference.)

This is borrowed from something Frank said somewhere, so full credit to him.

Have one group believe in total integration and equality. Any exclusion of anyone from anything is completely unacceptable, and any elevation of anyone over anyone else is anathema.

The other group believes in total segregation and hierarchy. Groups are most free when they have no interference from outsiders, and everyone accepts their rank in the celestial order.

Infinite conflict forever.

Cynic wrote:A fight over territory/resource seems to be an appropriate way to go in a situation you have moral philosophies clash.

That's what I was going to suggest. Have a valuable resource where both sides have a legitimate claim and where the two sides have enough ideological difference that they refuse to compromise.

Whatever wrote:This is borrowed from something Frank said somewhere, so full credit to him.

Have one group believe in total integration and equality. Any exclusion of anyone from anything is completely unacceptable, and any elevation of anyone over anyone else is anathema.

The other group believes in total segregation and hierarchy. Groups are most free when they have no interference from outsiders, and everyone accepts their rank in the celestial order.

Infinite conflict forever.

+1

Philosophical conflict is probably the best way to go. Theological conflict falls under this as well. A crusades war with both sides having inherently good traits but any wandering away from dogma can only mean that you are the enemy and thus death.

Of course, the level of conflict can be toned down.

Another level of conflict can just be about the role of punishment and redemption when dealing with death and mortals. Do "sins" and wrongs require hell and damnation or do they require some sort of penitentiary Yogic-art-therapy GED program (you stand on your head while painting with one hand and figuring out the area of an arc segment with the other)?

virgil wrote: I'm trying to think of an actual situation where different moral philosophies clash. I have two variations I'm willing to accept. A morality gone extreme (the cited Brave New World) is one. The other is where the situation's unfortunate, but both sides are approachable and would be called Good by normal people (not including the Good = Beauty metric).

I think this would be the best approach. You could frame it sort of like how various sects of popular modern religions each think they're Doing it Right. Or it could be something like one side is more moderate/mainstream and the other more orthodox. It could even come down to one side taking an "ends justify the means" approach, doing "evil" to create "good".

angelfromanotherpin wrote:What is Good

A miserable little pile of secrets.

Sorry.

Okay...I'm getting a whole heck of a lot of ideas about "Crusades" style conflicts in this forum.

Sigh...so the very agents of good themselves are judgmental tyrants/suicidal fanatics that fight holy wars at the drop of a hat, with no regard for who gets involved whatsoever.

Then again, according to Tome Logic, good outsiders use the Souls of failures as street lamps, so I don't know why I'm surprised.

But let's assume that Good outsiders, who are supposedly "Dripping with Goodness", are actually, you know, good. With a lowercased g, not a We-are-nazis-about-what-we-do-but-we-fight-with-fucking-solar-radiation-and-deadly-rainbows-so-that-means-we-cannot-be-wrong, capitalized G "Good."

Then, well, I might have a cause for war between them that might actually explain a whole lot more than just why they are fighting.

You know how the status quo of the D&D universe SUCKS? The world stuck in a constant state of war, poverty and inequality as well as constant monster attacks?

The Celestials KNOW. There is zero disagreement about this. Its just that a lot of resources are spent simply keeping the infinite hoards of the goddamn Abyss under control.

But there's some big thing that can change the multiverse one a fundamental level. It will require all the might of the upper planes to pull off, but it could solve any number of problems.

...However, every single way they could do this comes with some sort of moral price tag. Or certain risks.

So naturally, you think the conflict is that one side wants change, but the other side prefers the safety of the Status Quo, right?

Maybe. Maybe.

But I think you might create a slightly more compelling narrative if the fight is over HOW to use this power. Not whether or not TO use it.

See, the trouble with being a society of super intelligent, immortal, purely good creatures that HAVE to care about the squishy things that live on the material plane AND what happens to their souls in an environment full of Soul-eating horrors. They might not even really hate fiends because evil outsiders cannot help it. Its just that their stupid, stupid, universe decided that Good and Evil had to be COSMIC FORCES instead of just CONCEPTS. And they have to do something. The urgency cannot be overstated.

But...there is no way to slowly implement any use of the power. There is no way to safely experiment with it to see what the outcomes might be. Once you use the power, there is no going back, and whatever is lost is lost.

So, you know, its kind of a big deal.

So, what ARE the objections to these hypothetical utopian solutions? Why...they could be anything. The crux of any of the factions is what needs ends up being sacrificed.

Should fiends be forcibly changed instead of outright exterminated? At the cost of the erasing the emotion of boredom? If outsiders are immortal but can't be revived, should we turn everyone into outsiders?

It doesn't even really need to be arbitrary. It requires a little bit of futurist thinking, and trying to reverse engineer the fantasy equivalent of such things, but well, life needs tweaks. Its not just making everyone safe, but keeping everyone happy and happy for reasons they would approve of.

For instance, here's a story about an AI that decided Men and Women were poor mates for each other and humanity would be happier seperated from each other:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/xu/failed_utopia_42/

which is itself part of this sequence on Fun Theory:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/

Do Lumi's count? I know they're on the Positive Energy Plane, but they do have their giant floating Lightbulb city (incandescent buildings that are very bright), and whole crusading to rid the world of all lying. Although that's mostly an implied story to attack the Material Plane, all the same wasn't sure if mentioning them might be helpful at all.

Lumi may sure look dumb, but they've kinda grown on me as a race (probably helps I think they'd sound like Bing Crosby...).

The same Chaos/Law divide that causes the Blood War also exists on the upper planes so there would still be lots of differences on the "how to" of doing good.

Celestials are usually represented as noble beings. One of the requirements for that noble bearing is Pride, which means that when celestials disagree about anything, they can have a serious difficulty with backing down and accepting they are wrong.

Celestials help a lot of people, it's on their nature. It's also on their nature to feel gratitude and want to repay the help. So when Celestial A and Celestial B disagree about how many angels they can make dance on the head of a pin, both can find very hard to concede defeat and when the disagreement escalate to blows, their friends will jump on their defense.

Really, what's actually difficult to imagine happening up there is eternal, grinding war. Because besides all the armed to the teeth heavenly knights and champions, the upper planes also host things like gods of mercy and love, who will at some point arrive in a celestial battle and tell everybody to stop, hug each other and then clean up that mess. So, no endless wars, but no problems with the occasional violent battle.

Xaos wrote: Then again, according to Tome Logic, good outsiders use the Souls of failures as street lamps, so I don't know why I'm surprised.

That's not tome logic. That's Planescape canon. It's been with D&D since at least 2nd edition.


It's also canon that a victory by Good would be just as bad for the multiverse as a victory by Evil, so it's important to keep the Balance. It's perfectly plausible to have agent provocateurs loyal to Neutrality stiring shit up between various Celestials so that they can't rally their forces and smash the fiends.

How about Justice vs Mercy.

The Arch-criminal Hitler asks the Eladrin for sancuary. The Archons have tried him and his sentence is death. The Eladrin can't release him to be killed.

That's a good idea, but Stanley Tweedle is both more sympathetic than Hitler and has a vastly higher murder count.

hyzmarca wrote:It's also canon that a victory by Good would be just as bad for the multiverse as a victory by Evil,

How, exactly? You can sort of see how Evil would wreck up the place, but what would be so awful about Good? What makes the much-vaunted Balance so crucial to uphold--better even than Good?

The usual definition of good is that people like living under it, and if people don't like living under you then you are either incompetent or not good. So yeah, the whole Balance angle only works if D&D Good means something very different from what the word "good" is typically taken to actually mean. And that's just a pointlessly confusing mutilation of eastern philosophy.

I think the argument is something like, if Good wins, then you lose out on free choice (since not only can you no longer choose evil, you can't choose some lesser good). At that point, existence is without struggle or meaning. Which is total bullshit, but so is everything that's related to D&D alignments in any way, so whatever.

John Magnum wrote:

hyzmarca wrote:It's also canon that a victory by Good would be just as bad for the multiverse as a victory by Evil,

How, exactly? You can sort of see how Evil would wreck up the place, but what would be so awful about Good? What makes the much-vaunted Balance so crucial to uphold--better even than Good?

Imagine an entire universe that is, essentially, Disneyland.

That's horrible enough to me.

Mostly it relates to the loss of free will, but you could make the argument that Good = Not Evil. If you do away with evil, good becomes meaningless. In that scenario, the spectrum of good fans out, takes up the space and morality spectrum that evil took, and everything starts over again.