Quote from: tenbones;949819I told him "The fact you're trying to rationalize it? That's why you're not registering as Good."

Awesome.  I would have added. "The fact that you're trying to sell a character hiring an assassin, knowing the people the assassin was supposed to kill are dead, but doesn't know he was responsible because he didn't physically see the deaths happen proves you're a bigger piece of shit than your character. Bye."

Quote from: estar;949832This is why Maltheistic societies are few and far between in our history.

(snip)

The real world is far more complex and there are dozens of factors operating.

I think this is the great disconnect you and I are having: you're approaching this as if the societies were realistic, I'm approaching them as if they existed in a world with magic elves.  I'm -not- saying you're wrong in what you say, but that for how ever many complex factors you could consider, a standard D&D world has all of those and many, many more.  To the point that realistic societies can't exist/function in a D&D world, unless you strip it of the fantastical elements and make it essentially "Earth with a different geography".  Which could be interesting, but then it's not really D&D.  Although... it would be interesting to take the real world societies/history and then throw D&D levels of magic and monsters into the mix.  Something like Shadowrun 1468 A.D. perhaps?

Quote from: estar;949835That world is fucked in my opinion

It -was- fucked.  That was part of the appeal of the setting (for those who liked the appeal of an apocalyptic, "end of the world" style D&D game anyway).  

Quote from: estar;949835I realize that I sound negative but that the fundmental issue with supernatural entities unless you supply an explicit out their rule will last forever from a human point of view.

I think this brings up an interesting point: the truly axiomatic supernatural forces we can agree on (e.g. gods, angels, demons), are -finite- and in opposition to one another.  The focus of games dealing heavily with such tends to be on that one plucky band of adventurers who tip the scales, and save/damn the world, right?  Because the axiomatics are in balance and need an outsider to decide for them what they can't.  EDIT: part of the backstory to Midnight (if anyone cares) is that the heroic band of adventurers who went to fight Izrador instead decided to work with him, and that was enough to -break- these metaphorical scales in Evil's favor.

Quote from: tenbones;949819I agree - the Drow could not exist as they're portrayed and be called Chaotic Evil. I actually feel they're closer to Neutral Evil (generally) because Lolth perpetuates House warfare to keep everyone on their toes. The real issue is how does this status-quo translate down to the lowest common denominator? The way I play it is, "in Drow society nothing is ever certain, I better get mine when I can." That means as a social norm people will turn on one another when the benefit vs. penalty leans in varying degrees in either direction. Within that context you can have all sorts of evil (and even pragmatic faux altruism) take place. The social structure itself dictates the tone of the populace. But each individual approaches it as the GM/Players see fit.

Since I'm mis-remembering, and it's relevant, and people might find it interesting, here's a bit from page 10 of Drow of the Underdark.

QuoteThe drow are a highly chaotic, individualistic people, a fact addressed multiple times throughout this chapter. They worship a deity who dwells in the Abyss and is a paragon of chaotic evil.  Yet for all that, the Monster Manual gives drow alignment as
“usually neutral evil.”   The truth is, the drow are at least somewhat cooperative with one another, almost in spite of their own nature. Their ambitions and desires require that their society remain at least somewhat stable. They employ few true laws, but they are tightly bound by traditions and codes, and even if they follow them primarily out of fear, they follow them nonetheless. It is ironic that a lone drow is likely to drift toward chaos, but that despite their rivalry with one another, the presence of multiple drow in a given community literally forces them into a level of cooperation beyond what truly chaotic individuals would maintain.

tl;dr - individual alignment isn't always a society's alignment.

Which, honestly, may be a good way to rationalize an evil society?

Quote from: tenbones;949819That's when I told him "The fact you're trying to rationalize it? That's why you're not registering as Good."

My players would try something like that too.  Lucky for me, there'd be less arguing and more "c'mon...." and laughs.

Quote from: san dee jota;950011I think this is the great disconnect you and I are having: you're approaching this as if the societies were realistic, I'm approaching them as if they existed in a world with magic elves.  I'm -not- saying you're wrong in what you say, but that for how ever many complex factors you could consider, a standard D&D world has all of those and many, many more.  To the point that realistic societies can't exist/function in a D&D world, unless you strip it of the fantastical elements and make it essentially "Earth with a different geography".  Which could be interesting, but then it's not really D&D.  Although... it would be interesting to take the real world societies/history and then throw D&D levels of magic and monsters into the mix.  Something like Shadowrun 1468 A.D. perhaps?



It -was- fucked.  That was part of the appeal of the setting (for those who liked the appeal of an apocalyptic, "end of the world" style D&D game anyway).  



I think this brings up an interesting point: the truly axiomatic supernatural forces we can agree on (e.g. gods, angels, demons), are -finite- and in opposition to one another.  The focus of games dealing heavily with such tends to be on that one plucky band of adventurers who tip the scales, and save/damn the world, right?  Because the axiomatics are in balance and need an outsider to decide for them what they can't.  EDIT: part of the backstory to Midnight (if anyone cares) is that the heroic band of adventurers who went to fight Izrador instead decided to work with him, and that was enough to -break- these metaphorical scales in Evil's favor.

You are assuming a false dichotomy. Assuming reality-warping magic exists does not mean that the same complex systems (of psychology, sociology, economics, politics, logistics, strategy, blah blah blah) that govern our world cannot co-exist with said magic.

Part of the reason Game of Thrones is so popular is because the existence of its incredibly weak magic does not invalidate the basic human psychology of its characters. Pretty much every single "evil" character is either insane (e.g. Joffrey, Ramsey), harboring a grudge (e.g. the Freys), or a victim of abuse (e.g. every female and sympathetic male character).

Game of Thrones would be extremely boring if the Lannisters were evil gits because they were made by an evil god rather than because they're obsessed with the family name (why Tywin went psycho) or victims of sexual abuse (why his kids went psycho).

EDIT: If a Paladin landed in Westeros, everyone except maybe the Starks would ping as Evil.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950013You are assuming a false dichotomy. Assuming reality-warping magic exists does not mean that the same complex systems (of psychology, sociology, economics, politics, logistics, strategy, blah blah blah) that govern our world cannot co-exist with said magic.

I see my phrasing mistake now.  

I -should- have said something like: "a standard D&D world has all of those and many, many more.  To the point that the realistic societies you (estar) mention can't exist/function in a D&D world, since they're based on a world without magic.  If you add magic, that changes the society into something we've never seen.  If you strip out all the fantastical elements though, you make it essentially 'Earth with a different geography'."

Using real world societies as a starting point is fine, but the addition of magic and divine intervention on tap and what not allows for possibilities that the real world does not.  Take the real world, but now imagine if the Catholic Church had access to Divine spells that recharged every day and how that would impact European history.  The Pope is 20th level, and the lone village priest is 1st-3rd perhaps.  How much does history diverge?  And that's just -one- factor.

Anyway, yes, I misspoke.  Hopefully this is more clear now.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950013Part of the reason Game of Thrones is so popular is because the existence of its incredibly weak magic does not invalidate the basic human psychology of its characters.

You're assuming "orc/elf/goblin/minotaur = human in a costume".  Which may or may not be the case (seriously, it could be argued either way).

Quote from: san dee jota;950011I think this is the great disconnect you and I are having: you're approaching this as if the societies were realistic, I'm approaching them as if they existed in a world with magic elves.

As a design principle it is my opinion that fantasy works best if it adopts the principle of least change. I.e. unless stated otherwise by the author people act like people. Otherwise it get harder to relate the more out there the setting becomes.

Another thing when it comes to this type of discussion is that you need to explicit layout the premise of the setting. With a blank slate it important to understand how it works. Doesn't mean it has to be deterministic or rational if it not then we know up front what we are talking about.


My posts assume that basically talking normal humans living under a evil society in a fantasy setting where powerful supernatural entities exist.

My contention that even with magic, elves, demons, people are not willing to live in cultures where the power that be are out to "get you. Even if it takes generations it will a temporary condition and people, high and low, will work towards something everybody can live with it. Doesn't mean it will be pleasant by our standards or the setting's standards but it will be something people can live with and get on with their lives.

If that not true then the "people" are something other than human beings or there some other factor at play like mind control.

Quote from: san dee jota;950011I think this brings up an interesting point: the truly axiomatic supernatural forces we can agree on (e.g. gods, angels, demons), are -finite- and in opposition to one another.  The focus of games dealing heavily with such tends to be on that one plucky band of adventurers who tip the scales, and save/damn the world, right?  Because the axiomatics are in balance and need an outsider to decide for them what they can't.  EDIT: part of the backstory to Midnight (if anyone cares) is that the heroic band of adventurers who went to fight Izrador instead decided to work with him, and that was enough to -break- these metaphorical scales in Evil's favor.

This works, remember what matter here is not the specifics but whether they flow from the premises you set for the campaign. By that criteria what you wrote is reasonable.

In the Majestic Wilderlands my take is that God exists, the polytheistic deities are very powerful beings to teach men and elves about the world, it possibilities and their place within it. Unfortunately there was a rebellion against God's plan and while it was defeated it took a terrible toll. The rebels were labeled as demon and imprisoned in the abyss. Instead of just Men and Elves we had dozens of diverse humanlike sentient races. The gods decided it was better to operate through faith and mystery than the direct contact they had before.

Also of note for the Majestic Wilderlands, God doesn't seem to care whether anybody directly worships him or so the fact there is a omnipotent creator is obscure theological point in most cultures.

Most cultures are separated by geography and comprised of a single race (mostly Man). However there is a family of cultures centered on the immortal Elves consisting of Men and the traditional demi-humans (Dwarves, Halflings, etc). This Sylvan culture is both inclusive and highly conservative and has an outsizes impact where the Elves are present. Mostly because Elven immortality provides a continuity not present in cultures solely dominated by a mortal race.

The problem of the "modern" era of the Wilderlands is that population has grown to the point that are large scale regional and continental interactions between previously isolated cultures. This causes complications, complication that lead to adventures :-)

Anyway this works for me not because it is the "right" way to go. Because I laid out the premise and everything follows through. Now as far as my stuff goes when I write about what a race or culture "is" it is a norm. What the players see are the variation centered around that norm and it can be pretty diverse.

Quote from: san dee jota;950014Using real world societies as a starting point is fine, but the addition of magic and divine intervention on tap and what not allows for possibilities that the real world does not.  Take the real world, but now imagine if the Catholic Church had access to Divine spells that recharged every day and how that would impact European history.  The Pope is 20th level, and the lone village priest is 1st-3rd perhaps.  How much does history diverge?  And that's just -one- factor.

You are right. Magic, at least as depicted in the D&D rules, would lead to post-scarcity science fantasy. The authors of the D&D rules ignore this and portray their settings as more or less identical to the popular misconception of the middle ages except with magic and orcs poorly tacked on. The standard D&D campaign setting is not remotely realistic, much less the portrayal of whole species as caricatures.

Assuming that magic is rare enough that the technology remains at pre-industrial levels, either we portray evil races as asexual strife elementals a la Warhammer or we portray them as people with bizarre world views a la God Hates Orcs. We cannot have it both ways without things falling apart upon close inspection. Evil societies are not badwrongfun, but they need to be written with care if intended to be treated deeply serious.

Quote from: san dee jota;950014You're assuming "orc/elf/goblin/minotaur = human in a costume".  Which may or may not be the case (seriously, it could be argued either way).

They still have the same basic needs for food, shelter and reproduction. You can only stretch psychology so far before it becomes detrimental. Any species that survives for long periods is not going to engage in self-destruction behaviors all the time. Removing those basic needs actually makes them less likely to conflict with humans, unless you change their food to something like human emotional capacity. You could still portray such creatures as having depth. At this point we have long since left fantasy caricature and gone into speculative biology.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950033You are right. Magic, at least as depicted in the D&D rules, would lead to post-scarcity science fantasy.

Several things negates this and forces society to evolve over generation similar (but not the same) as our own history.

1) Arcane magic as depicted in classic D&D is a scholar profession requiring literacy. That means you have be non-productive in terms of producing food, clothing, and housing for most of your lift before you can do anything useful.

2) Divine magic is power granted by a higher power with an agenda of their own. Which likely is not concerned about uplifting the material well being of the entire population. The best cases are those powers that don' t care either way but their own agenda leave little time for their clerics to do any uplifting.

3) It not about technology but also philosophy. It not enough to be able to do thing a thing you have to imagine doing it with the means you have. And it worse in that you have to a have a process that reliably gets you from idea to execution. Western culture had to go through the Greeks, the Romans, the rise of Christainity, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, along with specific geo-political circumstances to get to the point of having a industrial revolution.

4) Even if you made a good case that X RPG system of magic would lead to a post-scarcity science-fantasy setting, there was still a time where it wasn't, and it didn't happen overnight. This seems that plausibility can be maintained by just saying the setting is set at a early point in the setting's history.

5) Even in later edition of D&D, Sorcerors who are born with innate magic are depicted as rare. Warlocks are a special case of clerics where instead of being divine agents they works for a less but still powerful magical being.

6) Given the rarity, training time factor, and agenda of ultra-powerful being I would say it is implausible for spells to be used to burn away the shit in the cesspools of Pandathaway unless the culture or civilization has some other factor in play.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950033The authors of the D&D rules ignore this and portray their settings as more or less identical to the popular misconception of the middle ages except with magic and orcs poorly tacked on. The standard D&D campaign setting is not remotely realistic, much less the portrayal of whole species as caricatures.

There already a realism thread and as pointed out there what is realistic is highly subjective. The real question it is possible to run a campaign using the D&D tropes where you feel like you are in a world that has internal consistency interacting with character that feel like they actually live in that world? Then the answer is yes it is and I been doing this for 30 years.  Is it realistic in terms whether it feels like living in southeast of 12th century England? No it not realistic in that regard.

In short if it is a problem for you, then it is the fault of the referee of the campaign you were in. Not the fault of the D&D game.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;950033Assuming that magic is rare enough that the technology remains at pre-industrial levels, either we portray evil races as asexual strife elementals a la Warhammer or we portray them as people with bizarre world views a la God Hates Orcs. We cannot have it both ways without things falling apart upon close inspection. Evil societies are not badwrongfun, but they need to be written with care if intended to be treated deeply serious.

Or those races have a range of behavior different enough from baseline human that make peaceful co-existence unlikely. Given enough generation of dealing with the problem and how our history unfolded, a kill on sight attitude is very plausible.

For example in the Majestic Wilderlands Orcs differ not only physically from humans but their base aggression levels were shoved far to the aggressive side of human personalities. The average orc will come off as an hyper aggressive bully in normal human society. The only reason the orcs have anything like a culture/civilization is the fact the demons that altered baked in a dominance reflex where they will submit to the strong more readily than the average human.

The point is that it about thinking things through. There nothing that is "wrong" about the D&D tropes that makes it any less easier or harder to think things through to come up with reason for why thing are what they are compared to Jorune, Tekumel, or Glorantha. The thing that set D&D apart is the fact it is THE most popular image of fantasy. The reason it was that for so long because the base tropes are that flexible and Arneson and Gygax did a good job on drawing out the best from our myths and legends.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950009Awesome.  I would have added. "The fact that you're trying to sell a character hiring an assassin, knowing the people the assassin was supposed to kill are dead, but doesn't know he was responsible because he didn't physically see the deaths happen proves you're a bigger piece of shit than your character. Bye."

You'd boot the player?

Quote from: Ras Algethi;950062You'd boot the player?

If he persisted and didn't agree he was being ridiculous, yes, without hesitation.

- The PC hired an assassin to kill an NPC for political gain.
- That NPC disappeared.
- The player claimed the PC didn't know that his actions were the cause of their death.
- The player claimed the PC was still good.

I don't keep players that are willing to lie and be intellectually dishonest in order to gain some advantage in game.  For whatever reason, this player wanted to be N/G and was willing to dissemble in order to retain that advantage.  Do it elsewhere.

I don't have players who would do that, though.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950064If he persisted and didn't agree he was being ridiculous, yes, without hesitation.

- The PC hired an assassin to kill an NPC for political gain.
- That NPC disappeared.
- The player claimed the PC didn't know that his actions were the cause of their death.
- The player claimed the PC was still good.

I don't keep players that are willing to lie and be intellectually dishonest in order to gain some advantage in game.  For whatever reason, this player wanted to be N/G and was willing to dissemble in order to retain that advantage.  Do it elsewhere.

Seems harsh, in my opinion (such as it is) if there wasn't actual game disruption going on. In my experience way to many people think/thought that "neutral was do whatever I want". Assuming the player goes along with the GM/DM ruling, I personally don't see it as much of an issue.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;950065Seems harsh, in my opinion (such as it is) if there wasn't actual game disruption going on. In my experience way to many people think/thought that "neutral was do whatever I want". Assuming the player goes along with the GM/DM ruling, I personally don't see it as much of an issue.

"Assuming the player goes along with the GM/DM ruling" being the operative phrase.  The post in question phrased it "lose his shit with me" so it sounds like there was an argument.  

But in the end, we're playing a game, and the player evidenced cheating behavior.  There's kind of no point in playing a game with someone you don't trust to not cheat.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950069"Assuming the player goes along with the GM/DM ruling" being the operative phrase.  The post in question phrased it "lose his shit with me" so it sounds like there was an argument.  

But in the end, we're playing a game, and the player evidenced cheating behavior.  There's kind of no point in playing a game with someone you don't trust to not cheat.

Agreed if the player goes apes-shit and doesn't get it under control.

As for it being cheating... that's seems really, really murky to me. Interpreting rules/guidelines/powers/alignments/etc. in the most favorable manner is, to me, not the same thing as flipping die to a different number after rolling 'em. Especially, in this alignment case as it has been my experience that many (if not a majority) misinterpret the alignments along the neutral arc.

Quote from: CRKrueger;950009Awesome.  I would have added. "The fact that you're trying to sell a character hiring an assassin, knowing the people the assassin was supposed to kill are dead, but doesn't know he was responsible because he didn't physically see the deaths happen proves you're a bigger piece of shit than your character. Bye."

Heh after the session - we had this huge discussion about. It was fun (but probably not everyone's cup of tea). Even now years later - my group still laughs about the whole thing. I don't hold what people do in-game, usually, against them unless it becomes a true problem. I later did remove him from the group, he'd been gaming with me for over 20-years but because of his personal issues that partially created this gigantic ethical blindspot I had to give him the boot.

He was still an excellent player, he just happened to be a narcissistic asshole.