Real life and D&D intersections

[bryce0lynch]

How much is too much?

The main villain is the main villain because they are in the middle of a mental health crisis. How many of your level one's do you let him kill, or threaten to kill, before you take them out?

Does it matter that he's in the middle of a mental health crisis, or only that he's killing people? Intent, or impact?

Modern neuroscience seems to be telling us that we have no free will, our actions the inevitable results of all stimuli that has happened to us.


You have not written a good D&D adventure when these are the questions I raise in a review

 

[squeen]

Kurt Vonnegut came to my university campus and spoke to wanna-be writers. He told them to take that first chapter of their story in which they explain the traumatic backstory of their villain and throw it in the trash.

He said, "Know one wants to know why your antagonist is so evil---they're just thrilled that he is!"

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I think the idea of an obviously mentally-ill villain is nifty, in that we really don't see it often enough. But it really only works if the mental illness is a cause of evil actions (which must be stopped), and not the evil itself.

It's one thing to cut down a King who is suddenly slaughtering his own people, only to find a massive tumor in his brain and go "aha, so that's why Nice King Bill was being evil! Oh dear, we totally obliterated the poor sick guy..."; it's another thing to be like "we can't hurt the lich because all this lichdom stuff is clearly just a cry for help, so let's help him by finding his childhood dog" or whatever.

The difference, I think, is in the glove-handling nature of the issue. When there's an attempt to be deliberately sensitive about a subject, it usually comes through in an obvious, lame-duck way. At best it reeks of virtue signaling; at worst, the adventure is basically unusable.

 

[Beoric]

Meh. It's the easiest trolley problem in the world. If dude is hypothetically innocent because he is not fully in control of his actions (assuming that's isn't debatable, which it probably is), you are still weighing the life of that one innocent dude against the lives if the innocents he will kill.

Even if he is only going to kill one person, you are weighing the life of one person who might be innocent if you buy his shit, against another person who is way more likely to be innocent, since they aren't currently going around trying to actively kill people. In that moment, the person who is trying to kill people is more likely to not be innocent than the person who isn't trying to kill people.

I had a DM who was always trying to pull this shit about making supposedly impossible decisions. He was always surprised when the whole group immediately agreed on the correct response. He was utterly unable to comprehend why the choices were never morally equivalent.

In hindsight I'm pretty sure he's a sociopath.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I had a DM who was always trying to pull this shit about making supposedly impossible decisions. He was always surprised when the whole group immediately agreed on the correct response. He was utterly unable to comprehend why the choices were never morally equivalent.

In hindsight I'm pretty sure he's a sociopath.

It's possible he could have just been a bit too overly adoptive of a "player vs DM" mentality. Or maybe he just didn't have a good handle on how to shock his players, and leaned too heavily on cheap, after-the-fact "gotcha" revelations.

Or he could be a sociopath - I bet there's a lot of overlap there.

 

[Beoric]

It's possible he could have just been a bit too overly adoptive of a "player vs DM" mentality. Or maybe he just didn't have a good handle on how to shock his players, and leaned too heavily on cheap, after-the-fact "gotcha" revelations.

Or he could be a sociopath - I bet there's a lot of overlap there.

A lot of his sessions kind of turned into torture porn, where the PCs were captured and tortured, which he described in graphic detail, while he found ways to quash any attempts to escape and/or commit suicide. After two long sessions like that in a row - that is we were captured at the beginning of one session, and did not escape until the end of the next session - I never played with him again.

 

[The1True]

This question feels like it's edging towards "Orcs are people too!" territory.

I play tabletop and video games to relax and kill a bunch of clearly evil, clearly depersoned, green dudes. The world is awful and full of impossible complexity. Give me a break. You want to introduce depth and a million shades of gray at your table; you do you.

Probably why I have a lot of trouble playing with people who don't believe in alignment.

But yes, orcs absolutely are people, it's true. But also; fuck you politely.

 

[squeen]

Early on as a DM, I started trying to get in the mind of Lareth in T1 in order to figure out how he would react. I quickly reached a decision to not go there. Villains must remain cartoon cut-outs otherwise it gets sick and twisted real fast. In fantasy games, one is fighting "evil" in its most conceptual form. Trying to dissect it (or worse yet, embrace it) is fundamentally counter-productive---unless your real motive is revolutionary (i.e. to destroy the game).

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I play tabletop and video games to relax and kill a bunch of clearly evil, clearly depersoned, green dudes. The world is awful and full of impossible complexity. Give me a break. You want to introduce depth and a million shades of gray at your table; you do you.

The efficacy of the approach is sus anyway, since virtually every group has that one "balancing-on-the-edge-of-murdohoboism" player who just kills anything they can get away with, or attacks first and asks questions later. Or in the case of Old School players, the "overly-cautious-one" who closes the door, spikes it shut, and ignores the encounter entirely.

Trying to get a player to care about the mental health (or even just general motivations) of an enemy strikes me as fruitless. When have you ever heard someone say "uh oh, how are the 10 orcs we just locked into that room supposed to find food now?" or "wait, hold your fire, I bet they're just having a really bad day"... doesn't happen.

 

[The1True]

Yeah, the closest we ever get to this, is the old what to do with the evil tribe's women and children quandary that inevitibly pops up at some point in every single campaign. The answer is never satisfactory.

There are redemption rules in, I think, the 3e "Book of Exalted Deeds". We've given them a go once or twice. It's a little tedious. Most've us have come here to spam the fast-attack button and collect mad lootz. Take a break from our jobs and families and a rapidly spiralling world.

 

[Beoric]

You want to introduce depth and a million shades of gray at your table; you do you.

I do, actually, when my players let me.

I use bandits a lot. Regular bandits are lazy MFs who have never trained a day in their lives. I roll goblins? Slightly tougher bandits that maybe got a week into basic training before they dropped out. They may be cowardly if I feel like following certain tropes. Orcs? Mercenaries-turned-bandit who saw some action, but not a ton, and are kind of undisciplined when left to their own devices. Hobgoblins? Disciplined vets-turned-bandit from the same unit, still serving under their unit commander. If you need it to make sense that they all seem to be in one place, then they are all from the same large bandit gang, which is a former military company, and which has allowed the less experienced types to fill out the ranks after experiencing losses, and maybe some of the units hate and resent each other.

This works in part because a continent-wide war just ended, and there are a lot of unemployed mercs and vets right now.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I use bandits a lot.

I see this advice a lot (mostly from Bryce), to just use humans instead of humanoids. I understand where it's coming from, and I do adopt it myself occasionally, but I don't think it applies in most situations outside of DMs who run "mudcore" games.

IMHO humanoids make the fantasy world into a fantasy world. We can fight hobos and muggers in real life; most folks are here for the elves and the orcs and whatnot. Stripping the world of "sorta-similar-but-also-alien" humanoid creatures strikes me as a step towards one end of a spectrum which is hard to revert.

Not saying it's bad practice or anything, but I am saying it's not a piece of blanket advice that will be universally applicable, and shouldn't be touted as such.

 

[Beoric]

Not saying it's bad practice or anything, but I am saying it's not a piece of blanket advice that will be universally applicable, and shouldn't be touted as such.

To be clear, I do this because I'm running a game in Eberron, where orcs and goblinoids aren't necessarily the baddies. There are areas where I can use orcs, and areas where I can use hobgoblins, and areas where I can use gnolls, but most of those aren't the same area.

For example, the humanoid baddies in N1 are troglodytes. The area where I am putting my N1 campaign doesn't have troglodytes, but does have hostile orcs, so I am building orcs that are as tough as troglodytes. I can also use orcs as orcs in that area, and gnolls as gnolls, but I can't use hobgoblins, so I use bandits that are as tough as hobgoblins (and the bandit gang may included some hobgoblins).

 

[DangerousPuhson]

That explains it. Pre-built settings are tough to tweak, which is why I never use them. Too many existing, sacrosanct linkages. In my games, if I need orcs somewhere, then there's gonna be orcs there. Stuff like that is just the world being built on the fly.

 

[Beoric]

That explains it. Pre-built settings are tough to tweak, which is why I never use them. Too many existing, sacrosanct linkages. In my games, if I need orcs somewhere, then there's gonna be orcs there. Stuff like that is just the world being built on the fly.

I really like that different regions have different mixes of races/species/heritages and cultures. I like that different areas have different challenges. When PCs travel to a region they have never been before, I want it to feel different.

So if you live near the Graywall Mountains, you might encounter orc or (more rarely) gnoll raiders. If you live near the Byeshk Mountains, the raiders are more likely to be harpies. Near the Seawall Mountains, the raiders will be goblinoids, probably hobgoblins and/or bugbears, but there are also kobolds who interfere with mining operations. The Blackcap Mountains house fiends, aberrations and really evil brigands. Raiders from the Icehorn Mountains are demon worshipping barbarian tribes, collectively referred to as the Carrion Tribes, and containing various races; plus this is the route fiends must generally follow if they want to enter the "cilvilzed" lands. The Mountainroot and Hoarfrost Mountains are home to dwarf clans and the Jhorashtar orcs; there is a web of clan alliances, with most clans having a few allies and a few enemies among the dwarf clans, while also being at war with the orcs; except that there are a couple of dwarf clans that have allied with the orcs, and are trying to have the orc clans accepted as dwarf clans.

BTW, Eberron is designed not to have a lot of "sacrosanct linkages." Many aspects of the setting have no canonical explanation, often there are many suggestions about what might be true, there are lots of blank spaces to fill in, and the setting books always stress that you should feel free to change anything you feel like. And it's designed in a way that making changes to one aspect are unlikely to force a rewrite of other aspects of the setting. The setting has an organic feel, it's messy like real life, so there can also be exceptions to every rule.

For example, by canon King Kaius I of Karrnath was turned by the lich Erandis Vol into a vampire under her control. As a punishment she triggered his bloodlust resulting in him killing most of his family, which caused him to cease to be king. Probably. He was succeeded by his son Kaius II, who was later succeeded by his son, Kiaus III.

Kaius III looks a lot like his grandfather. And there is also a prisoner in an iron mask in the prison of Dreadhold, who is implied to be the real Kaius III, imprisoned by Kaius I so Kaius I could rule in his stead. Assuming that Kaius I has managed to find a way to prevent Vol from controlling him. Another possiblility is that the prisoner is Kaius I, imprisoned willingly or not by Kaius III, and the reason that Vol can't control "Kiaus III" is that he is actually Kiaus III, not Kaius I in disguise. The current king drops a lot of hints to those who think he might be a vampire to suggest he may, in fact, be a vampire, while also making various appearances that suggest he is not a vampire. For eample, he has a habit of conducting business during the night, but occasinally does so in full daylight. He has a harem of fanatically loyal concubines either because he is really horney or because it lets him feed without killing people and leaving evidence (or both). He has sent Kaius III's brother and sister to the court of Breland either as a gesture of good faith and promise to keep the peace, or so they don't recognize him as an imposter.

So, the king may be Kaius I impersonating III, with III locked up in Dreadhold. Or the king might be Kiaus III pretending that he has been replaced by I. Or Kaius I and III may be working together, with III doing day shifts and I doing night shifts, and the person in Dreadhold is someone else entirely. If the king is Kaius III, he may or may not be a vampire.

Also Kaius III (or I) has married an elf from Aerenal, a culture that is dead set against undead and has active kill squads doing their best to purge the world of them. Is she an agent of Aerenal ensuring that an imprisoned Kiaus I stays imprisoned? Is she there to ensure that the vampire king (I or III) has his bloodlust under control, it being too difficult/politically sensitive to assasinate a sitting king? Perhaps the king has an arrangement with the Aereni that they will let him live so long as he acts in their interests, and she is there as insurance (he is actively pursuing agents of Vol, for instance). Or is she trying to find out whether it is true that the king is a vampire? Or has she just fallen in love, and is supporting him despite her people's beliefs?

All of that may have relevance if you are running a campaign that involves name-level PCs getting caught up in affairs of state in Karrnath, but it won't change a thing regarding a campaign to try to stop the lizardfolk raids in Q'barra, or to fight criminal gangs in Sharn. Or if they are rivals of the Emerald Claw terrorist organization, which is a proxy of Vol's. Or even if Vol is directly an antagonist, but the campaign never goes near Karrnath. Until it becomes relevant, King Kaius the (?) is Schroedinger's Vampire King.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

the setting books always stress that you should feel free to change anything you feel like. And it's designed in a way that making changes to one aspect are unlikely to force a rewrite of other aspects of the setting. The setting has an organic feel, it's messy like real life, so there can also be exceptions to every rule.

That's fair. The biggest reason I don't fuck with existing settings is that everything feels so pre-written; that there's so much existing material on the world out there, so that everything already feels connected and set in stone. This is admittedly from my omniscient DM perspective - I'm sure the players probably don't even notice or care 99% of the time. But there's a ton to get through, and I always fear missing something important. Hell, half of the settings out there have full-blown wikis, where players can look up the world out of game at their leisure. Like, I don't expect somebody to say "why are there orcs up North? Everyone knows the goddess Flanagasasasa made them unable to tolerate any cold during the Great Reckoning in 177BYCBC!", but I also kind of fear that it might happen (however unlikely).

 

[Beoric]

That's fair. The biggest reason I don't fuck with existing settings is that everything feels so pre-written; that there's so much existing material on the world out there, so that everything already feels connected and set in stone. This is admittedly from my omniscient DM perspective - I'm sure the players probably don't even notice or care 99% of the time. But there's a ton to get through, and I always fear missing something important.

The setting has a messiness to it that makes it feel real, and it very forgiving of accidental or intentional deviations from canon, because the setting elements aren't expected to be always true in all circumstances. Also, as a DM, the material has what Bryce calls "stickiness," in that you don't just remember it, you remember it well enough to apply it.

I've been surprised at how much the players pick up on and remember.

Hell, half of the settings out there have full-blown wikis, where players can look up the world out of game at their leisure. Like, I don't expect somebody to say "why are there orcs up North? Everyone knows the goddess Flanagasasasa made them unable to tolerate any cold during the Great Reckoning in 177BYCBC!", but I also kind of fear that it might happen (however unlikely).

There are at least three Eberron wikis, but the sourcebooks, and the wikis that are based on them, should be viewed as unreliable narrators. It is expressly called out that what the players think they know about the setting may not be true, or may not always be true, or may not be true in the way they expect, in their DM's game.

 

[Agonarchartist]

How much is too much?

The main villain is the main villain because they are in the middle of a mental health crisis. How many of your level one's do you let him kill, or threaten to kill, before you take them out?

Does it matter that he's in the middle of a mental health crisis, or only that he's killing people? Intent, or impact?

Modern neuroscience seems to be telling us that we have no free will, our actions the inevitable results of all stimuli that has happened to us.


You have not written a good D&D adventure when these are the questions I raise in a review

I played in the game where the main bad guy was a werebear with manic-depressive disorder.
A Bi-Polar Werebear.