OOTS #993 - The Discussion Thread

[Keltest]

Kinda like how, logically, there would be less warfare in the world if people didn't know for a fact that an afterlife exists?

Well, where there are all these other gods granting miracles and setting fires and whatever other fun stuff Loki and Thor get up to in their spare time, worshiping someone who seems to just ignore you seems rather unappealing, wouldn't you say?

[Windscion]

Well, where there are all these other gods granting miracles and setting fires and whatever other fun stuff Loki and Thor get up to in their spare time, worshiping someone who seems to just ignore you seems rather unappealing, wouldn't you say?

Actually, the Great God Om catapulted to one of the top gods of Discworld by the simple expedient of not answering prayers. In a world where you might find gods reveling drunkenly in your jacuzzi, a god who maintains some dignity and aloofness looks attractive. You don't have to worry about your neighbors taunting you because your god threw up in some goddess's décolletage last week.

The gods of Stickworld seem to maintain some minimum standards of dignity, fortunately. But if Banjo had been allowed to join the northern pantheon, that might have changed...

[Gift Jeraff]

Kinda like how, logically, there would be less warfare in the world if people didn't know for a fact that an afterlife exists?

*tips fedora*

[littlebum2002]

worshiping someone who seems to just ignore you seems rather unappealing, wouldn't you say?

I, personally, 100% agree with this, but I have a sneaking suspicion not everyone does.

[Snails]

If anything he throws in too few creatures with unusual alignments for their race and too many "evil for the sake of evil" types.

Indeed.

Proverbially speaking, that villains, who twirl mustaches and practically strut around with signs pinned on their back "Good guys may murder me", would show up with such regularity is a peculiarity of the D&D genre as it is usually played at the gaming table. The OotSverse mostly emulates the feel of such games, thus we see so many. But there is nothing in the rules themselves that demand as much.

[Killer Angel]

I, personally, 100% agree with this, but I have a sneaking suspicion not everyone does.

I sense that this kind of reasoning can lead us down a dangerous path... better to leave it unexplored.

[Reddish Mage]

Proverbially speaking, that villains, who twirl mustaches and practically strut around with signs pinned on their back "Good guys may murder me", would show up with such regularity is a peculiarity of the D&D genre as it is usually played at the gaming table. The OotSverse mostly emulates the feel of such games, thus we see so many. But there is nothing in the rules themselves that demand as much.

Hardly a peculiarity unique to D&D. While its not absolutely required, the assumptions behind D&D, the settings presented, the monster manual, the samples adventures, and even the rules themselves, absolutely suggest evil-for-evil entities.

Not even getting into the existence of literal evil-incarnate and a core manual full of bloodthirsty, greedy, selfish creatures that only respect power and see PC races as food, slaves, or both...the mere fact that alignment label of "Evil" exist actually exists and tar beings that have it with a black brush encourage DMs to apply that label liberally and to have villains conform to that label rather than have act as grey villains whose alignment would be inevitably the subject of an acrimonious table debate that will inevitable lead half the group to leave to play video games

I would not quite put it that way. The Giant is very overtly challenging simplistic assumptions about Good/Evil.

Evil people are allowed to have positive/attractive personalities. (Tarquin)
Evil people are allowed to be nice (at least some of the time). (Tarquin, Malack, Thog)
Evil people are allowed to feel real friendship/love. (Malack, Belkar)
Evil people are allowed to include genuinely noble ideas as an aspect of their motivation to act in an evil fashion. (Redcloak)

IMNSHO the Giant has never backed off from recognizing evil as evil, using very standard interpretations of the RAW, with respect to moral interpretation of actions within OotS.

The overly simplistic assumption the Giant is attacking, while recognizing "evil as evil" within RAW, shows just how simplistic many people play evil within D&D. It shouldn't come to a surprise to adults that bad people can be attractive, seem nice, be capable of feelings, or have noble motives... the fact that OOTS is so groundbreaking is partly due to the unique cleverness the Giant makes his point with, but its also because it so clearly shows us just how immature the characters we play D&D with are.

[Bulldog Psion]

that bad people can be attractive, seem nice, be capable of feelings, or have noble motives...

Have we ever seen "bad people" in OotS have "noble motives?"

• Linear Guild: disproportionate revenge for quasi-imaginary slights.
• Vector Legion: hideous tyrants causing endless war and bloody coups to keep power over most of a continent, with side orders of mass murder, torture, rape, and slavery thrown in.
• Black Dragon: torturing kids to death for a deed they had absolutely nothing to do with.
• Daimyo Kubota: betraying his people over and over again, and trying to kill their leader in the middle of a crisis, for his own personal gain.
• Fiends: planning on the mass extermination of the forces of good, and anyone who opposes them.
• Xykon: nuff said.
• Redcloak: a racist slave-driver willing to kill the world and dissolve everyone's souls to avoid admitting
  Spoiler

  Show

  he was wrong to betray and murder his brother and turn him and his family into zombies serving Xykon.

I'll confess, I'm pretty hard put to it to see anything remotely noble about any of them.

the fact that OOTS is so groundbreaking is partly due to the unique cleverness the Giant makes his point with, but its also because it so clearly shows us just how immature the characters we play D&D with are.

Why does it necessarily need to be turned into a didactic tut-tut of disapproval at everyone's "badwrongfun" playing D&D? Can't it just be a great story? People play games to relax. It's not an "issue" that needs to be pointed out and condemned that the characters in them aren't as rounded out as those in a single-author work of fiction. It's comparing apples and nickel-iron asteroids.

[Gift Jeraff]

Kubota's motives were noble.

[Ornithologist]

Kubota's motives were noble.

In that he was in the noble class of azure city.

More to the point, I see Redcloak the only villan here as having noble motives. the motive being the end goal of the plan is to get a better life for goblinoidss everywhere, as they have had an unfair start by the rest of the world. (being brought into existance just to serve as XP fodder).

What makes him evil, is his methods and being:

a racist slave-driver willing to kill the world and dissolve everyone's souls to avoid admitting

Spoiler

Show

he was wrong to betray and murder his brother and turn him and his family into zombies serving Xykon.

Redcloak is the poseter goblin for "the ends don't justify the means." He knows it too, thats why he avoids admitting anything spoilered above.

[davidbofinger]

Redcloak has evil methods but his evil isn't exclusively a matter of method. The obvious example is his treatment of Tsukiko when they first met - he doesn't get anything out of siccing an elemental on her, it's not a means to anything, he just does it because he enjoys it. "Enjoys the suffering of others" is close to the definition of evil in D&D.

[ti'esar]

Redcloak has evil methods but his evil isn't exclusively a matter of method. The obvious example is his treatment of Tsukiko when they first met - he doesn't get anything out of siccing an elemental on her, it's not a means to anything, he just does it because he enjoys it. "Enjoys the suffering of others" is close to the definition of evil in D&D.

Strictly speaking, Redcloak didn't sic an elemental on Tsukiko because he generically enjoys the suffering of others, he did it because he's a racist speciesist who hates humans, especially Azurites.

Not that that meaningfully affects the overall point.

[rodneyAnonymous]

Combat would involve the risk of the vampire being destroyed, even if he is much stronger than they are. Given how much Hel apparently values (finally) having a high-level follower, I doubt that's the plan.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Oh, man, I just realized something. This Godsmoot thing is about to start...Just as GenCon starts.

Rich, if you did this deliberately, you are not just a Giant but a God.

[Jadzia Dax]

Ha! That's a clever way of saying, "Sorry folks, you won't see what happens during the meeting!"

Someone wants to see a bunch of pompous windbaggery and bureaucratic nonsense! Lawful Bland, Lawful Bland everywhere.

[Ornithologist]

Really, seeing the collective "oh s$%÷" faces of the high priests when HPOH shows up is what I am most excited for right now. I would be sad if the moot was skipped.

[Snails]

Combat would involve the risk of the vampire being destroyed, even if he is much stronger than they are. Given how much Hel apparently values (finally) having a high-level follower, I doubt that's the plan.

Agreed. Unless they are fighting in anti-magic, the HPoH would be instantly dusted. Worse still, even within anti-magic, vampires lose out on Fast Healing, and do not change to gaseous form when reduced to 0 HP (not that such necessarily helps a vamp w/o a coffin safely tucked away).

[Snails]

The overly simplistic assumption the Giant is attacking, while recognizing "evil as evil" within RAW, shows just how simplistic many people play evil within D&D. It shouldn't come to a surprise to adults that bad people can be attractive, seem nice, be capable of feelings, or have noble motives... the fact that OOTS is so groundbreaking is partly due to the unique cleverness the Giant makes his point with, but its also because it so clearly shows us just how immature the characters we play D&D with are.

To be fair, D&D is potentially many things, but in play it tends to be inspired by specific fantasy movies/novels. Tolkien himself chose to stuff the LotR with evil that is on the cartoonish side of things -- orcs/goblins are basically weakling demons that are easy to justify killing on sight. There is some degree of subtlety in the deep back story of the orcs and the Southrons, etc., but that has no practical bearing on anyone's actions when the opportunity for throat slitting arises.

So, I think that "immature" is an unfair label to apply here. The genre is the genre.

[Keltest]

To be fair, D&D is potentially many things, but in play it tends to be inspired by specific fantasy movies/novels. Tolkien himself chose to stuff the LotR with evil that is on the cartoonish side of things -- orcs/goblins are basically weakling demons that are easy to justify killing on sight. There is some degree of subtlety in the deep back story of the orcs and the Southrons, etc., but that has no practical bearing on anyone's actions when the opportunity for throat slitting arises.

So, I think that "immature" is an unfair label to apply here. The genre is the genre.

My understanding is that Tolkien regretted making orcs "always evil", and decided in his notes that there were plenty of orcs that weren't evil and didn't join Sauron, but you aren't going to run into them on the surface because they don't like it up there.

In the Hobbit for example, Thorin treats the goblins with a degree of respect that one would use between two moderately reasonable races. Things turned violent because of a combination of possessing Orcrist and Dwarves and Goblins having existing violent history that colored the dealings.

[Snails]

Indeed. There are subtleties and complexities in the deep back stories of the orcs and the Southrons, etc., but none of that really affects the behavior of the protagonists in any way that is important.

From a story perspective, there are two main reasons to include an "alien" or "monster" race:
(1) So that the protagonists can learn to overcome differences that were initially daunting
(2) So that the protagonists can slit throats without thinking too hard

There is a lesser reason: (3) To add mystery, so that the audience takes fewer things for granted, and the author has greater leeway.

Clearly, Tolkien is using #2.

D&D players like #2.

The Giant very correctly has challenged certain moral assumptions about orc/goblins and dragons. As moral arguments go, his reasoning is unassailable, IMO.

But, in terms of genre, we do not have to have orcs or dragons. The inclusion is a choice. I would boldly argue that the primary reason D&D has orcs at all is reason #2. So, in this particular context, I do not really care that PCs chop apart non-shiny dragons on sight; there is a place in stories for "demons" who are there to be defeated by any means available. IMNSHO the bigger "problem" is that we do not challenge ourselves to tell swashbuckling tales with different tribes of humans and humans and humans, and thereby relieve the players/PCs of careful thinking about whose throat they are slitting. We make it so easy to forget that that warrior is a flesh and blood wo/man who might have a spouse and children back home.

tl;dr -- Yes, there is an arguable "flaw" in how D&D is often played, but it is a flaw that Tolkien himself created, on purpose. We should give DMs/players the benefit of the doubt for the same reason we do so for Tolkien himself. If that is uncomfortable, why are we playing D&D?

[BannedInSchool]

Oh, I might say that D&D's origin evolving from tabletop wargaming also plays a part in the "Shirts vs. Skins" world. Orcs are usually opposition forces, a.k.a. "The Bad Guys".

[Snails]

Oh, I might say that D&D's origin evolving from tabletop wargaming also plays a part in the "Shirts vs. Skins" world. Orcs are usually opposition forces, a.k.a. "The Bad Guys".

Yes, D&D is built on a war game chassis, and its history played in that mold does have an influence.

I am attempting to answer the larger question why D&D as an RPG does not usually evolve very far away from that style. My answer: because we the players/DM do not want it to.

By the nature of RPGs, there is the freedom to go very far from its roots. Yet is so often does not happen. I am saying that is not an accident of history, but the result of choices that make sense based how we usually define the genre itself.