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Thread: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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2019-05-12, 09:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
“They killed a woman there last month in her sleep. The innkeeper gave some guy a key and they just walked in and slit her throat. What kind of people do that?”
“Ah, but they said she was a Charmer, a mind-meddler! She bewitched a clerk into letting her see the mayor, so they said. Who knows what she could have done!”
“Yeah, so they said. But who’s to know what really happened? They killed her without a word of warning, never let her say anything in her own defense. Would you stay at that inn, knowing the innkeeper could give the key to a cutthroat? I know they said that they gave all her property to her companions, but do you really believe that they didn’t pocket something at least? Would you trade in that town, if they’re willing to murder visitors in cold blood? Your word would never be enough to prove your innocence.”
I am honestly quite taken aback by your position here. We clearly have wildly different ideas on capital punishment, vigilante justice, and extrajudicial killings, as well as mob justice.
Suffice it to say that when I refer to the murder being ‘justified’, I do not mean ‘justifiable homicide’, which is generally an act taken when imminent harm threatens one’s self or others, and instead mean ‘had it coming to ‘em’, which far more accurately describes a revenge killing/assassination. There are astonishingly few communities where the latter is not a heinous crime even if the victim really did have it coming.
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2019-05-12, 10:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
We have very different concepts of justice, not mob justice. Your approach of telling the little people to lie back and enjoy while the powerful people run roughshod over them leaves no chance for justice at all. If the authorities won't protect them, what choice do they have other than to protect themselves?
Suffice it to say that when I refer to the murder being ‘justified’, I do not mean ‘justifiable homicide’, which is generally an act taken when imminent harm threatens one’s self or others, and instead mean ‘had it coming to ‘em’, which far more accurately describes a revenge killing/assassination. There are astonishingly few communities where the latter is not a heinous crime even if the victim really did have it coming.
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2019-05-12, 10:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Small communities, where they’ve known the accuser since they were born vs stranger from out of town, with different customs, maybe even a non-human, I suspect they would tend to side with the accuser, and that is without considering possible evidence implicating the caster.
Witch hunts were a thing in history, and it was generally outsiders that suffered the most.
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2019-05-12, 11:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
To answer both you and PotatoPriest, when I think adventurer, I tend to think more level 1 to 3, i.e. a person who would be highly at risk from a bunch of farmers with pickaxes.
Given attrition, adventurers that don’t advance and low barriers to entry, I figure most adventurers in the world are extremely low level.
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2019-05-12, 11:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Does that include calm emotions?
edit:I realize that I am curious about disguise self as well. and the entire schools of illusion and enchantment. throw in conjuration as well.
edit2: sorry, I've got one more.
So it sounds like the thread is in two camps, one that charm person is analogous to social presence and that it is about as justifiable as skilled public speaking and the other camp which is of the opinion that it is mind altering magic and analogous to forcing another to your viewpoint. Both sides appear to be that using it to avoid combat is justifiable.
A thought problem for your approval, Say we have Bart the Bard. He has expertise in perform and likes to sing at taverns for his own amusement, also he likes to cast charm person at the highest level he can cast to enhance his audiences' enjoyment of his performance. After an hour the charm person ends, and the audience becomes aware that they have witnessed a magical performance. Is this Bard evil?Last edited by Witty Username; 2019-05-13 at 01:44 AM.
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2019-05-13, 04:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Another perspective: Charm Person might not be Good or Evil, but it is indeed Chaotic.
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2019-05-13, 04:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2019
Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Do you one better. The Glamour Bard can do this once every short rest without expending a spell slot. And unlike Charm Person, there's nothing that says that the Charmed individuals realize it affer the hour is up, nor do people who make the save realize what you tried to do. Is ability to turn up to 5 people into BTS ARMY three times a day evil? Are the Fey who taught them this magic evil?
Last edited by Constructman; 2019-05-13 at 04:21 AM.
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2019-05-13, 09:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Yes, in addition to being a pompous and thin-skinned, Bart the Bard is evil. He puts his own wants and desires over the autonomy of other people. He cast a spell intended to be used in combat on multiple unwilling people. He has no right to do that. He altered the minds of multiple people, forcing them to think in particular ways that benefit him. He has no right to do that. It's not his place to decide how much people should enjoy his performance. It's his place to perform and the people to enjoy it as they see fit.
Plus, they haven't witnessed a magical performance. Instead, their minds were magically altered while watching a mundane performance. He didn't cast anything on himself that made his performance any better. Whatever effect Charm Person actually has on their enjoyment, which I wouldn't expect to be all that much (if anything at all), it doesn't come from the performance being any better but from their mind being altered. More than likely it just keeps people from booing his terrible performance, because any bard who could actually play and sing wouldn't need to resort to such gimmicks to impress the crowd (and unlike with actually enjoying the performance, most people are much more likely to refrain from booing a friendly acquaintance than a total stranger). It's Bart the Bard's insecurities that cause him to cast the spell on the crowd, not any actual desire for them to enjoy themselves more. That's just the lie he tells himself to justify it. Many evil people come up with stories to tell themselves that make what they're doing seem alright.
And why would any tavern owner let someone like Bart the Bard in their establishment, much less up on the stage? He's the bard who is so bad at performing that he has to cast a spell on the audience to make them listen.
Originally Posted by Constructman
[Edit: I'm still looking for a decent response to these questions from anyone who thinks that Charm Person is an acceptable spell. They apply just as much to Bart the Bard and Gary the Glamour Bard as they do to anyone else.
1. What gives the caster the right to cast any spell on an unwilling target?
2. What gives the caster the right to determine that the target should view the caster as a friendly acquaintance for an hour?]Last edited by jh12; 2019-05-13 at 09:40 AM.
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2019-05-13, 09:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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2019-05-13, 10:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
This heavily depends on the expectations of the society in question regarding the use of magic in performance. It's quite possible that, in a magic sufficed world, elements like this become an expected part of the production of elite musical performances.
There are two keys to such a presentation:- Narratively, situations like that need to be proactively presented to be established. This allows characters who would object to that kind of performance to decline to participate, much as someone might choose not to take a mind-altering drug even if society permitted it.
- Ethically, consent is still paramount for situations like this.
But unless you're willing to grapple with the relevant exposition and deal with the implications of consent - it should be presumed evil. Without consent, it's the equivalent of dosing the entire unwitting audience of a concert because you feel your music is best understood while on psychedelics.
The fact that magic is less likely to have side effects is an amelioration of secondary harm, not a negation of the primary transgression.
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2019-05-13, 10:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-13, 10:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
If it's common enough that it's a societal baseline for the situation, it might not need to be actively billed to remain appropriate. If the society you are in regularly servers high-proof rum cakes as desert, not telling someone that the cake served as desert is highly alcoholic has a significantly different context then does covertly dosing a date's drink with flavorless alcohol to take advantage of them.
But because we have no real world charm person, the situation in question is far enough divorced from the context of the players that you need to actively establish that kind of world building.
Part of the power of a fantasy setting (and other forms of speculative fiction) is to allow us to explore that kind of world building: to explore concepts of free will and personal autonomy in contexts that can be coherent but still divorced from the real world. To view a concept from an angle that we cannot possible consider in real life.
But you have to establish what that angle is to use it.
- If every busker can be presumed to be a low-level bard casting charm person or enthrall, then attacking every spellcaster can make a good way to consider the boundary for personal autonomy & public rule of law.
- If a politician can be presumed to use enthrall at a rally - regardless of whether or not they have the intent of rising prejudice - you can use that as an avenue for examining the difference between demagoguery and populism.
- Differing situations in different cities of a particular setting for where the police can use charm person can allow the examination of the ethics of proper deescalation, but also what kind of methods are ethical in interrogations.
I would not equate any of these to rape or imminent threat. But nor would I delve into them without preparation.
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2019-05-13, 10:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
I agree. I just think that if my childhood friend Daniel came up to me and said ‘that man over there put a spell on me, he made me think he was my friend and he asked me to lend him some money’ - a use of the spell that I think we can all agree is an abuse of power - my immediate response would not be ‘oh, right Daniel, let’s go get some friends and beat him to death with some shovels’. I would probably believe Daniel, but witch hunts are not a default response to this behaviour unless the community is already rife with paranoia, distrust, and strong cultural or religious proscriptions against magic of any kind.
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2019-05-13, 11:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
What would your response be if the bad man tied up Daniel and physically assaulted him for an hour while asking for money instead of just assaulting his mind? If the authorities say no big deal, is that what you say as well? Does Daniel just needs to man up and take his beating, or is he allowed to fight back?
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2019-05-13, 11:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
If witch burnings are a recurring theme in your setting, how do you handle false accusations, then?
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2019-05-13, 11:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Except you live in a society of laws, which plays into this situation in 2 ways: first, your friend Daniel has societal recourses, he can call the police or bring a small claims action against the grifter. Second, if you and Daniel were to resort to violence, you would get in trouble with the authorities.
As many people have written, if the situation occurs in Waterdeep, there are laws and guards and courts (though Waterdeep is still portrayed as more rough and tumble than 21st century developed countries). It still isn’t OK, but the result is that the person might be hauled before a magistrate rather than be beaten up.
In places where the authorities can’t enforce their mandate or don’t care, which would be many if not most locations in a fantasy realm, people would have to rely on themselves and their friends a lot more to seek justice.
In addition to everything else, there is both a sense of “if we don’t stick together I might be a victim next” and a sense of “if I don’t help Daniel when he needs it, he may not help me when I need it”. And in a place where your may rely on your neighbours to help you get through the winter, these are powerful incentives.
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2019-05-13, 12:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
For the record, I believe that Charm Person messes with people’s minds and that reason, in and of itself, means that a person realizing their mind was messed with would have a very hostile reaction to it being cast on them unwillingly.
But even in cases where the violation of the victim’s mind was not the principal concern, I think that the general rule would be a hostile reaction. In societies where people could not rely on authorities to protect their interests, charismatic individuals who (non-magically) took advantage of the townsfolk were “run out of town on a rail” or “tarred and feathered”. As a reaction, that seems pretty hostile.
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2019-05-13, 12:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Why would witch burnings be common? Expecting people who use magic to show a bare modicum of respect for the autonomy of other people is hardly unreasonable, nor is treating people who abuse others using magic as bad people. It seems like many Dungeons and Dragons settings might need a Stan Lee to drop by. Where there's an adequate legal system in place, you report the abuser to the authorities. Only where there isn't that you are forced to defend yourself.
And in a world with Zones of Truth (surely there's a cleric not too far away), false accusations aren't really that much of a concern.
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2019-05-13, 12:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
My response would be “that man is dangerous, violent and aggressive - I should stay away from him, Daniel should stay away from him, and I should tell everyone I know to stay away from him.” Far better to avoid confrontation with the dangerous outsider, and mitigate the danger he poses to my loved ones, than to meet his strength with my own and those around me and hope that I prevail. For perhaps the first three Charmers are weak in the Art, or not disposed to traditionally violent behaviour, or simply offer no resistance to your mob of townsfolk. What then when the fourth Charmer incinerates all of your loved ones with a casual fireball, as you try to lynch him for his transgression?
There is a lot of risk in the path of mob justice. You could be wrong, and you have murdered an innocent traveller on flimsy evidence. You could be right, and have murdered a traveller whose cultural norms are different from your own, who would perhaps stop if asked politely. You could be right, and have murdered a traveller, and your town is stained with a reputation for the ruthless and brutal enforcement of your community’s laws upon outsiders. You could be right, and the outsider is strong enough to lay waste to your community as you attempt to meet them with force of arms. These are not risks I would be inclined to take.
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2019-05-13, 12:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Is this thread suggesting that Hypnotists are evil witches that must be murdered in their sleep?
That seriously seems like the logic path we're venturing down.
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2019-05-13, 12:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Many people would rather die on their feet than live on their knees.
There is a lot of risk in the path of mob justice. You could be wrong, and you have murdered an innocent traveller on flimsy evidence. You could be right, and have murdered a traveller whose cultural norms are different from your own, who would perhaps stop if asked politely. You could be right, and have murdered a traveller, and your town is stained with a reputation for the ruthless and brutal enforcement of your community’s laws upon outsiders. You could be right, and the outsider is strong enough to lay waste to your community as you attempt to meet them with force of arms. These are not risks I would be inclined to take.
Originally Posted by Kyutaru
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2019-05-13, 12:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-13, 01:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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2019-05-13, 01:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Let's try this. Let's say that I create a Socialite class or sub-class, and that as one of its powers, I give it the ability to study somebody and use their extensive mental library of personality types, cultural norms, sociological biases, and the like to figure out the best way to present themselves to this person. I model the success of this study by having them say a few words of introduction and make the target make a Charisma save. If they fail the Charisma save, they regard the Socialite as a friendly acquaintance because they've made such a good impression, and the Socialite's understanding of what motivates the target is so good that the Socialite gets Advantage on all Charisma checks against the target.
Is the Socialite somebody who deserves to be hated and despised for this horrific violation of the target's free will?
If the Socialite Order is a known thing, such that people are well aware of their ability to read others and tailor themselves to be ingratiating and well-liked, would this mean that learning your new friend is a Socialite should automatically make you treat him as if he'd drugged your drink or theatened you with a sword?
This is actually tricky because it almost seems a contradiction. To whom must the suggestion "sound reasonable?" It's clear from context and example that suggestion is meant to be able to get characters to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. In earlier editions, "That pool is refreshing, cool water, and a dip woud be nice," is given as an example of how to get around the "not obviously suicidal" clause, when the pool is actually acid.
As noted, the spell gives an example of a knight giving away his horse to the first beggar he meets as a valid possibility; under most circumstances not involving having magic used on you, that wouldn't sound at all reasonable to a knight. The spell is poorly constructed and worded, because it doesn't give a good standard of to whom it should sound reasonable.
What I think it is meant to mean is that it makes just about anything sound reasonable except for the listed exceptions, or things on their order. THe more reasonable it would sound without the spell, the more powerful it probably is to get compliance, as the less resistance there is to the suggestion, but there are no listed mechanics for that, so that may not be intended.
ARe both of these "reasonable" for this purpose, if directed to a criminal who is gloating at the PCs that he's getting away with it because it's their word against his?
- "You should go confess your crimes to the magistrate."
- "Why don't you go gloat about this to everyone? I believe the Magistrate would find your clever ploy particularly interesting."
To some DMs, the latter feeds into the target's ego and sounds reasonable as long as they suppress the reasons why it's a terrible idea, while the former just sounds like a terrible idea. To others, both are perfectly reasonable-sounding when we use "give your horse to the next beggar you meet" as a measuring stick. Where the line of "unreasonable" is drawn, at least before the expressly-listed things it cannot do, is hard to gauge.
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2019-05-13, 01:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-13, 01:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
I believe it has to be agreeable sounding such that the target sees no objections. Giving your horse to a beggar makes sense, the beggar does not have a horse and is very poor. It's an act of charity and as a knight one is not only bound by honor but one also can spare a single horse to help the less fortunate. Telling a man to go confess his crimes seems woefully unreasonable unless he has been convinced to be repentant of them and must be do what is right to clear his conscience. This can easily happen when Good or Neutral characters feel the weight of their sins and do them under duress or under impulse. The more reasonably sounding "Go and gloat to everyone, especially the magistrate" may be the most effective wording given that it's a harmless act generally to be a pompous braggart. It may even strike a funny bone in the magistrate that such a thing was done without him even knowing, oh the look on his face when it's said and all, such laughter would be had at the prank pulled. It all depends on the personality of the target being suggested and what they might find agreeable. Similar people in real life exist that can convince a man to bend his morals or do something he doesn't fully comprehend the implications of merely through charismatic tact. Why are we not throwing into the fire all persons with a Persuasion modifier higher than 30? Ultimately it's up to the target whether he wishes to act upon the suggestion or not. It may be a simple manner to suggest for a Knight to have sex with you, a basic desire the knight has for such a beauty even should his duties discourage it, but it's another matter to suggest he have sex with a bear with wildly differing results.
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2019-05-13, 01:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
In this case, I would disagree (the phrasing of the question is a bit of a trap). The theoretical Socialite class might as well be called the Ad Agent, but it is not the same as a spell that magically makes a choice on the target's behalf. The other trick is the word 'power', as in "one of its powers," that is followed by "the ability to study..." In this case, as in some previous examples, the class is an effect that improves the character in their ability to persuade, seduce, intimidate, etc., which is different than an inserted judgement that the target did not make of their own will.
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2019-05-13, 01:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Well, that would mean the spell can totally be used for rape.
If you can use it to get someone to jump it into a pool of acid by making them believe it is water, you can also make them have sex with someone by making them believe he's handsome, female, infertile and/or free of diseases when he is none of those things.
I get the impression the "sound reasonable" requirement is only there so that people actually make decent attempts at roleplaying, not to prevent the spell from bending someone's free will. After all, it is only "sound reasonable" not "be reasonable".
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2019-05-13, 02:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
I don't know why you linked that, it's a serious question. Your previous examples were based on profound misunderstandings of what doctors and lawyers are allowed to do. Without knowing what you think hypnotists do, how can anyone respond to how they should be treated? Are you talking about hypnosis treatment centers, where people voluntarily show up to receive treatment? Are you talking about entertainers, who ask for volunteers from the audience and don't hide what they are doing? Or are you aware of a scourge of hypnotists attempting to hypnotize unwilling people out in everyday life?
Originally Posted by Segev
Originally Posted by Kyutaru
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2019-05-13, 02:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
My sig is something witty.
78% of DM's started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, copy and paste this into your signature.