[OSSR]Factol's Manifesto

[Lago PARANOIA]

But beyond that, it's just realpolitik. They might be evil, but they're not going anywhere. Negotiating with them just makes sense.

Again, if it was played for grimdark, that would be one thing. But it's not. As the previous poster just showed, there's this need to try to whitewash the 'philosophical factions' in such a way so that negotiations aren't supposed to be this futile-but-noble act of defiance like they would be in the real world... but something that's actually supposed to have some kind of intellectual ramifications or consequences beyond 'if I distract the archdevil with negotiations, the tortured orphans will get a few hours of relief'.

[virgil]

You may not enjoy the image of celestial and fiend having a beer, and that's fine. Declaring it badwrongfun is another. Taking the stance of them being interchangeable from the PoV of mortals holds a lot of appeal (just look at Hellblazer). It's certainly a bit of schizo, as this is a product of multiple writers, but the goal of making the struggle of good vs evil more of a punch-clock life was very much present.

Planescape also tried to fill the void of giving D&D the option for more than pure murder-hobo. With such power floating about, it's difficult to have any kind of diplomacy without the real chance of the venue turning into a war zone, which Sigil partially provided.

All that could only be enforceable with something that can counter/threaten the Powers. Since Planescape doesn't allow for PCs to slay gods at any point in their carreer, the Lady was a cooler arbitrary force to use in Sigil than "just 'cause" or "whomever wears the Helm of Blades shall maintain the boundary".

[rasmuswagner]

You Taking the stance of them being interchangeable from the PoV of mortals holds a lot of appeal (just look at Hellblazer).

"Look at Hellblazer" is good advice for almost anything, especially things to do with angels & devils. The 300-issue run, with writers like Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, and, IIRC, Warren Ellis. The new "Constantine" line looks like the rest of the dickless "52" reboot.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You may not enjoy the image of celestial and fiend having a beer, and that's fine. Declaring it badwrongfun is another.

It's not an issue of badwrongfun. It's an issue of blinkered metagame morality. If the setting was played for grimdark or black comedy like in WH40K or Paranoia that would be one thing.

It's certainly a bit of schizo, as this is a product of multiple writers, but the goal of making the struggle of good vs evil more of a punch-clock life was very much present.

And it's also stupid and offensive. Good versus evil in the D&Dverse isn't just a matter of wearing red and blue shirts. Evil in the D&D verse burns villages and eats brains. That's understandable why D&D would set the game up like that since the game is extremely violent and most people don't want to play Alex Delarge all the time.

But you can't just pretend that that shit didn't happen if it'd be inconvenient for your story.

Since Planescape doesn't allow for PCs to slay gods at any point in their carreer, the Lady was a cooler arbitrary force to use in Sigil than "just 'cause" or "whomever wears the Helm of Blades shall maintain the boundary".

Holy shit, we have an actual Lady of Pain fan here. I thought TGD was just playing Devil's Advocate, but nope.

[name_here]

I'm really not in favor of the "interchangable as far as mortals can tell" thing on account of it being kind of dumb for avatars of pure good/evil. But I'm totally up for the two sides having serious negotiations. Both sides can offer things the other wants, so negotiation is a valid tactic. Like, the angels actually can convince the archdevils to not destroy the orphanage in exchange for something. There are only two things needed for this: a location both sides are willing to go to for negotiations without it devolving into an all-out brawl, and some reason for both sides to expect the other to hold up their end of the bargain.

[virgil]

Holy shit, we have an actual Lady of Pain fan here. I thought TGD was just playing Devil's Advocate, but nope.

Your reading comprehension needs work to only just now notice this. Also, fvck you.

[hyzmarca]

And it's also stupid and offensive. Good versus evil in the D&Dverse isn't just a matter of wearing red and blue shirts. Evil in the D&D verse burns villages and eats brains. That's understandable why D&D would set the game up like that since the game is extremely violent and most people don't want to play Alex Delarge all the time.

No. you're totally wrong about that. In D&D, some Evil people eat brains and some burn villiages, but there is no causal relationship between the two. Mind Flayers aren't evil because they eat brains and they don't eat brains because they're evil. They're evil because they're mind flayers and they eat brains because they're mind flayers. If they didn't eat brains then they'd still be evil and if they weren't evil they'd still eat brains.

In D&D Paladins can't join parties with Evil people, and this is supposed to be a crippling restriction. It is a crippling restriction because mixed parties are the default. The iconic D&D team is a Good Cleric, a Neutral Fighter, and an Evil Thief. Sometimes the Fighter is the Evil one. Sometimes the Cleric is. The point is that D&D supports mixed parties as the default. The paragon of Good, the Neutral Druid, and the Evil Assassin is a party that D&D supports.

Fuck, Robilar, one of the most iconic D&D protagonists, is Evil.

Indeed, the distinction between Lawful and Chaotic Evil is mostly so that you'd have the enlightened self-interest version of Evil separate from the Killfuck Soulshitter version.

Evil isn't stupid. It doesn't mean burning down orphanages for no reason. It just means getting an advantage out of it. An Evil character might well support an orphanage for the PR it gives him.


Your problem is that you fail to see the nuance.

There are plenty of different types of Evil, and D&D supports many of them.

Classically, it supports -
Pragmatic Evil
Stupid Evil
Impulsive Evil
Petty Evil
Covetous Evil
Lazy Evil
Big Picture Evil

With certain supplements like Ravenloft it also supports
Delusional Evil
Tragic Evil
Hubristic Evil
Industrial Evil


The number of these who are going to torture gratuitously torture orphans is fairly low. Really, only Stupid Evil or possibly Industrial Evil will.

No. What you seem to be forgetting is that Evil isn't just torturing orphans, it's also hiring mercenaries to walk in front of you and set off all the deathtraps. That sort of Evil has its place in any adventuring party.

[Username17]

As long as we are condoning genociding Orc villages on the grounds that "Orcs are Evil" it is immoral to simultaneously contend that evil is "No Big Deal". You can have one or the other, but you seriously cannot have both.

Either it's morally acceptable to stab huge numbers of Orcs on the grounds that they have black hats, or it's not. There really isn't a middle ground there. If it is morally acceptable to do that, then Evil has to be bad enough to justify that. And if it's that bad, then sharing a beer with an "Avatar of Evil" is simply Not OK.

-Username17

[hyzmarca]

As long as we are condoning genociding Orc villages on the grounds that "Orcs are Evil" it is immoral to simultaneously contend that evil is "No Big Deal". You can have one or the other, but you seriously cannot have both.

Can't we just condone genocide on the grounds that genocide is good clean fun for everyone and not bring moral questions into it?

[Mask_De_H]

Yeh, if we're going to have the Orcslaughter morality debate again, it'd be better to accept the immorality of it or toss the entire concept of D&D morality again. Planar beings are forehead aliens for the most part anyway.

[Username17]

As long as we are condoning genociding Orc villages on the grounds that "Orcs are Evil" it is immoral to simultaneously contend that evil is "No Big Deal". You can have one or the other, but you seriously cannot have both.

Can't we just condone genocide on the grounds that genocide is good clean fun for everyone and not bring moral questions into it?

The Orc Genocide operates on the Inglorious Basterds principle: you can shoot as many Nazis as you want, in the face, and no one will mind. Because they are "really bad". And as long as D&D stays on that side of the line, that's OK. But if it ventures into "Evil is just a hat color, and everyone's gotta punch the clock" territory, they've blown up their own cover. If you shot Inglorious Basterds, but the people being shot were guys from Carson City or something equally innocuous, the movie would be incredibly repellent.

D&D is committed, even in Planescape, to the wholesale slaughter of nominally sentient creatures. If they aren't portrayed as "really bad", then that's "really fucked up".

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Your reading comprehension needs work to only just now notice this. Also, fvck you.

Sorry, bro, but however you slice it LoP is an awful, awful plot device. You can like her all you want, it's a free country, just be aware that it puts you in the same category of fans who think that Chrono Cross or Patch Adams were good works.

But I'm totally up for te two sides having serious negotiations. Both sides can offer things the other wants, so negotiation is a valid tactic. Like, the angels actually can convince the archdevils to not destroy the orphanage in exchange for something. There are only two things needed for this: a location both sides are willing to go to for negotiations without it devolving into an all-out brawl, and some reason for both sides to expect the other to hold up their end of the bargain.

That's fine. But that is still not 'sit down and have a beer with your enemy and discuss philosophy'. When we're talking about creatures like devils and vampires, that's literally attempting to talk someone down from killing twenty hostages to seventeen because saving three people is the best you can hope for. That's really grimdark.

Now, there's nothing wrong with grimdark. But the game should set itself up and present itself that way.

Can't we just condone genocide on the grounds that genocide is good clean fun for everyone and not bring moral questions into it?

Not until and unless the Internet is willing to write a massive apology to the creators of FATAL for giving them a hard time for the offensive content.

Yeh, if we're going to have the Orcslaughter morality debate again, it'd be better to accept the immorality of it or toss the entire concept of D&D morality again. Planar beings are forehead aliens for the most part anyway.

I'm skeptical of people being able to do that for D&D, because D&D also posits a huge amount of lethal violence going on as a matter of course by the unironic good guys. That's the whole REASON why so many monsters are presented as implacable and irredeemible forces of evil. Because A.) most people don't want to unironically play Caim or Kratos, B.) most players are unable to convincingly and consistently special plead the massive amounts of violence necssary for the game, and C.) most D&D players don't want to give up violence.

So suspending that caveat for D&D preserves the morality of having a beer with Archdevil Tom, but creates a whole new pack of problems. Frankly, I don't find that an acceptable tradeoff.

[hyzmarca]

There's also the Prototype principle, where you run around New York eating random innocent civilians for health refills and XP yet the soldiers who are trying to stop you from eating innocent people are somehow the bad guys and you're the good guy.

Basic game morality is that mooks and extras don't count. If your NPC doesn't have a name, then he isn't really a person. People play that way all the time. People have Kratos basically murder random innocent people in order to solve puzzles. They don't feel bad about it.

Alex Mercer is a good guy, except in Prototype II, where he's only a bad guy because he's the antagonist and the new hero does the exact same shit that he did.

Fuck, all the way back in Hulk: Ultimate Destruction you could punch random civilians hard enough to send them flying off screen and that was certainly fatal, but the Hulk was still the good guy.

Of an NPC doesn't have a name, then he's not really a person and murdering him in cruel and horrible ways is perfectly alright. Very few players actually care about mooks and extras, so it's easy to do the Orc Genocide just by glossing that shit over.


You can, of course, take it in the dark comedy direction, too.

[John Magnum]

I'm not sure what, exactly, the Incarnations of Ultimate Good are supposed to be willing to offer to the Incarnations of Ultimate Evil that the latter would want and the former would be willing to provide. Like, in these hypothetical angel/archdevil negotiations, what are the angels conceding?

[RadiantPhoenix]

I'm not sure what, exactly, the Incarnations of Ultimate Good are supposed to be willing to offer to the Incarnations of Ultimate Evil that the latter would want and the former would be willing to provide. Like, in these hypothetical angel/archdevil negotiations, what are the angels conceding?

I dunno.

Maybe "not immediately stabbing you in the face"

[hyzmarca]

What could the USA offer the USSR that the latter would want and the former would be willing to provide?

Your high level angel-archdevil negotiations are very much like high-level American-Soviet negotiations during the Cold War.

Sometimes it's just an arms reduction treaty. For example, you could have the Umbral Blot Control Treaty, which limits the ability of both the Angels and the Devils to create, stockpile, and unleash sapient mobile autonomous spheres of annihilation. Since mobile autonomous spheres of annihilation are a pain in the ass for everyone, but absurdly useful as terror weapons, such a treaty makes sense. It would be the celestial/infernal equivalent of a landmine control treaty.

[Username17]

What could the USA offer the USSR that the latter would want and the former would be willing to provide?

Actually, lots. For all the eliminationist rhetoric on both sides, there was always trade across the Iron Curtain of everything from cars and copper to books and medical supplies.

The USA and Soviet Union were an example of punch card alignments. Neither the USSR nor the USA were actually evil incarnate, and the people running each side didn't actually want to murder every single person wearing the other hat. Running around in a Kiev suburb stabbing people and taking their stuff would not have been a praiseworthy act.

-Username17

[Prak]

I actually didn't know circadian rhythms were psuedoscience. Given who I picked up the term from, I really should have checked into that a bit more...

Circadian rhythms are a real thing, the pseudoscience is in tying them to teleportation timing.

...because teleportation time limits totally aren't psuedoscience

The fact that this detente is enforced by an uberdeity who doesn't care what people does in their offtime as long as they follow some vague rules just makes it worse. Apparently some people have tried to circumvent this by going 'but then you can dicker around in the shadows and get your convoluted revenge as long as you follow some specific rules', apparently not grasping what the original problem was.

While the solar and the pit fiend sitting down for a beer and a pizza may be a bit much, the idea of a setting that is neutral ground in the various extra planar struggles all enforced by a mysterious, powerful entity who doesn't give a shit what goes on outside it has traction. See Crosstime Bar, see Papa Midnight's in Constantine (I have yet to read Hellblazer), see Casablanca, Vampire Elysiums, Lorn's bar in Angel, etc.

[Ice9]

Neutral ground is fine. And it's not like angels and devils can't have negotiations. It's just the idea of them sitting down for a beer after work that's fucked up, as explained above.

I mean, you can have Disgaea-style devils that are aren't so bad and you have a tea party with - but then they aren't actually the incarnation of pure evil, or even close to it, because they're less bad than the worse end of actual humans.

If your evil outsiders are actually supposed to be some kind of avatar of evil, then you have to start with the worst actual people, and go even lower. I would not want to hang out with those guys.

[ishy]

Basic game morality is that mooks and extras don't count. If your NPC doesn't have a name, then he isn't really a person. People play that way all the time. People have Kratos basically murder random innocent people in order to solve puzzles. They don't feel bad about it.

That is more true in videogames than TTRPG though. Seeing as npcs in videogames usually don't act like real people.
Lets say I save someone in farcry3. I can never interact with the NPC in the first place. If I save and then load the save, it is like it never happened.

While in TTRPGs your DM(or other players) can make NPCs feel actually relevant, real and interesting.

[hyzmarca]

Truman liked Stalin. He referred to the guy as Uncle Joe.

I like Stalin. He is straightforward. Knows what he wants and will compromise when he can't get it. Uncle Joe gave his dinner last night. There were at least twenty-five toasts -- so much getting up and down that there was practically no time to eat or drink either -- a very good thing. Since I'd had America's No. 1 pianist to play for Uncle Joe at my dinner he had to go me one better. I had one and one violinist -- and he had two of each. The old man loves music. Stalin felt so friendly that he toasted the pianist when he played a Tskowsky (you spell it) piece especially for him.

We can pretty much all agree that Stalin was pretty evil. But he wasn't all evil all the time. He was a pretty cool guy if you could sit down and talk to him as an equal and there was no chance that could have you arrested and sent to a gulag after a short show trial.

The thing is, even the avatars of evil, at the end of the day, have to just be dudes with their own dreams and aspirations. Because anything else is incoherent. Evil for evil's sake works in comedy and no where else, because its innately self-destructive. The Dark Kantian sabotages himself because his actions have no utility. A pure avatar of evil isn't something you should fight, it's something you should pity, because it's totally non-functional in the same way the fishmalk version of Chaos is. It's so non-functional it can't even do that much actual evil.

While in TTRPGs your DM(or other players) can make NPCs feel actually relevant, real and interesting.

Can and does are two different things. Fleshing out that tribe of orcs takes work, and isn't something most DMs will do if the orcs are just another encounter.

But, in the end, I think we just have to accept that the orcs are assholes for raiding the village and the villagers are assholes for not giving the orcs the time of day. It's perfectly acceptable for both sides in the race-war to be wrong. It's also somewhat acceptable for things to have gotten so out of hand that there's no viable choice left but to pick a side and stick with it or get out of the way and let them murder each other.

[CatharzGodfoot]

As long as we are condoning genociding Orc villages on the grounds that "Orcs are Evil" it is immoral to simultaneously contend that evil is "No Big Deal". You can have one or the other, but you seriously cannot have both.

Can't we just condone genocide on the grounds that genocide is good clean fun for everyone and not bring moral questions into it?

The Orc Genocide operates on the Inglorious Basterds principle: you can shoot as many Nazis as you want, in the face, and no one will mind. Because they are "really bad". And as long as D&D stays on that side of the line, that's OK. But if it ventures into "Evil is just a hat color, and everyone's gotta punch the clock" territory, they've blown up their own cover. If you shot Inglorious Basterds, but the people being shot were guys from Carson City or something equally innocuous, the movie would be incredibly repellent.

I think the Inglorious Basterds principle is more like 'Harming individual Nazis is a net good--even when the individual Nazi doesn't deserve that harm--because it harms Nazis as a whole'. It's the same argument used in pretty much every war ever, but it's easier to swallow because history has borne out that they really were high up on the evil scale.

Even ignoring all that, you could still share a beer with a Nazi--just like the Inglorious Basterds did--and so long as you were pursing good ends, it would be justifiable.

This does not justify methodical genocide of orcs, but it might justify hitting an orc city with a storm of vengeance even though you know that innocent deaths are certain--which is effectively genocide as far as the orc population is concerned.

[Ice9]

Truman liked Stalin. He referred to the guy as Uncle Joe.

Truman's not an angel though, and Stalin, while pretty damn bad, was still by definition not as bad as an avatar of pure evil. And for that matter, is having a beer with Stalin really something you'd want to do, or want something that's supposed to embody good to do? Not "historically interesting ghost Stalin", mind you, but "still actively having people killed" Stalin.

I mean, you can have it one of several ways:
1) Demons are really that bad. Why the hell would you want to hang out with one?
2) Demons aren't so horrible. They're generally less bad than the stuff you end up fighting. In what way are they the embodiment of evil then?
3) Demons aren't so horrible, and neither is anything else. Mindflayers, trolls, beholders, liches, night hags, and so forth - they're all mostly ok people, with the few psychopaths being exceptions. In which case you are a huge asshole for killing them and taking their stuff.

Of course, if the PCs are sufficiently horrible people, then either #1 or #3 would work just fine. But that's not what I would call a general solution.

[Prak]

I'd go with #2 with a follow up of "because cosmological physics says they are made of 'evil'." That's it. Demons are made from a plane that is roughly equal parts chaos and evil, and not just big evil or chaos, all evil and chaos. So any given demon is probably just as likely to pay for his beer with glamoured wood nickles as he is to burn an orphanage, or not.

[Mistborn]

The thing is, even the avatars of evil, at the end of the day, have to just be dudes with their own dreams and aspirations.

That doesn't mean that they aren't evil dreams and evil aspirations.

Evil outsiders are bad news. In fact, they are the worst possible news. Run of the mill Orcs are not even comparable to how terrible devils and demons are are. Orcs may worship bad gods and live in a brutal society but they basically want the same things any humanoid wants, and nothing prevents them from getting it in a non-evil manor. The average Orc is probably not Killfuck Soulshitter.

Devils wring divine energy from mortal souls via the most horrible torture imaginable, after they are done all that is left is a mewling husk. This unimaginable evil act is the foundation for devil society and devil existence. The primary goal of devils is for a harvest of as many souls as possible to be tortured into mindlessness. There is barbarically no way to deal with devils without advancing this horrid agenda.

Demons are basically Killfuck Soulshitter unlike most evils aligned mortals the will do evil shit even if it doesn't benefit them directly. Their end goal collectively is to watch reality burn for the lulz.