baron arem heshvaun |
It's a person. (Or it looks like one, anyway.)
An old woman, dressed in simple clothes, like a servant. She's cowering behind the overturned desk, apparently trying to hide. She looks injured: there's blood on her face, and one leg is sticking out at an awkward angle.
As you approach, she scrabbles backwards, grimacing in a mixture of terror and pain.
Wait what?
Old woman in a haunted broken down building?
Umm what CR is a Banshee again??
Oh wait we are in a DM game.
What CR is a Banshee with 4 Levels in Spiritualist again?
Yordan Patar |
I suspect that not everything is a cunning trap designed to kill us.
Just most things. Yordan is still seeing dopplegangers everywhere... or other things. How do we know the ones we've killed won't rise against us?
(Ustalav native, remember...)
baron arem heshvaun |
Yordan Patar |
I think that if this survivor is real, she's going to be insane after dealing with us in short order. Yordan is relatively suspicious and not really inclined to be secretive at this point, with a possible spy or doppleganger. If he were thinking straight he'd probably be more subtle.
baron arem heshvaun |
Taking Erik Mona the publisher of Paizo out to dinner Monday, any questions you want me to ask?
I did tell him we are gaming with one of the finest DMs on the Paizo board.
Who is hell bent on soiling our pants and killing us.
DM_DM |
Taking Erik Mona the publisher of Paizo out to dinner Monday, any questions you want me to ask?
No questions. I'm sure he gets questions all day long, along with a large side dish of "Why don't you do [thing], that seems like a really good idea (to me)?" Let the man enjoy his dinner.
...I guess you can say that I respect the hell out of his business sense. Badly run businesses have been a curse on RPGs since day one -- Gygax and Arneson were geniuses but neither were competent businessmen. I have my quibbles and disagreements with Paizo, but they know what the hell they're doing; they have a business model, and they consistently deliver quality product in a timely manner. Respect.
Ghelik the Sly |
Taking Erik Mona the publisher of Paizo out to dinner Monday, any questions you want me to ask?
I did tell him we are gaming with one of the finest DMs on the Paizo board.
Who is hell bent on soiling our pants and killing us.
That's what DM_DM do! Which is why I jumped at the chance to play this PBP.
Enjoy your dinner with Erik, I am sure he has plenty o good office stories about late night gaming testing some stuff.
baron arem heshvaun |
very cool stuff
I'll let him know, we have been friends long enough that we have covered many a discussion on how he has helped steer his own company through both hard times and industry successes. I was actually thinking questions would be more inline with exactly what you mentioned. He loves feedback.
And thanks Mrakala, whenever he visits my red meat intake inadvertently spikes.
Mrakala |
As a random aside, Mrakala has Identify prepared. I have never prepared that spell in any game ever and have rarely, if ever, felt the the lack. The one time that case is different was when DM presented the weird puzzle box to us. The ONE TIME identify would have been useful and used...and Mrakala didn't have his bonded item.
Sigh.
I prepped it expecting odd spells to actually see use in DM's games though. So we will still see...
baron arem heshvaun |
Nameless is currently chaotic good, fighting the urge to become more selfish (shift from good to neutral) as her sanity is depleted. It seems to me that CG fits in with the support and Guidance offered to her comrades.
I always found Chaotic Neutral to be a very slippery slope for players.
Although I do remember 2 intelligent players from 1st Ed, a Drow Fighter and a Deep Gnome Thief, who played the Alignment perfectly in the Ravenloft setting.
Mith'aj the Tactful |
I always found Chaotic Neutral to be a very slippery slope for players.
Although I do remember 2 intelligent players from 1st Ed, a Drow Fighter and a Deep Gnome Thief, who played the Alignment perfectly in the Ravenloft setting.
Agreed, it's often viewed as a license to 'do what I want and damn the consequences/other players' which harms campaigns. Not my plan to play it that way; my thoughts are that as her sanity gets low (if it gets low) she'll retreat into herself and become much more insular and will give more credence to the will of her spirits (and they run the gamut in alignments) than exerting her own will and doing 'good'. That being said, maybe she would shift into TN instead of CN since the spirits' tugs would be equivalent in all directions. But, there are 6(!) other players, so everyone's interactions will feed into this planned development.
This also assumes that she survives ...
Mrakala |
TBH I always kind of ignore alignment and try to stick to a specific set of themes/attitudes instead with a character. I'm not a big fan of the alignment mechanic compared to more modern alternatives.
Mith'aj the Tactful |
TBH I always kind of ignore alignment and try to stick to a specific set of themes/attitudes instead with a character. I'm not a big fan of the alignment mechanic compared to more modern alternatives.
Yes, that's what I'm doing, basically. It can mostly be framed within the PF alignment system rules, and so I'll couch the development in that language as closely as I can. It's more about the concept behind the character for me. I'm not going to instigate unwanted PvP or disharmony in any party - unless that's an Officially Sanctioned and Discussed Thing (TM) that supports the narrative.
baron arem heshvaun |
Mith'aj the comment was about Chaotic Neutral players in general, and not aimed at you in any way. You are playing the Oracle exceptionally.
And Mrakala is shaping up to be one of my personal favorites right now.
Lawful Good can easily be abused too. Although I can also think of 2 players from my table top games from years ago who played Paladins well.
Is the player who was Edmin in Way of the Wicked with us?
He, with DM's backstory, played one of the best Anti Paladins I have ever seen, and probably the most noble of the villainous cadre.
Kyleen |
Two things:
(1) I will be generally offline as I am attending TotalCon near Boston this weekend. If anyone is going, I will be running Reaping What You Sow Saturday morning.
(2) Regarding alignment, I like the simple 9 blocks they have. While you can tweak things, there needs to be a fixed system due to how many magic spells and items function.
In my view:
Good means you try to help others and avoid harming others when it can be avoided.
Evil means you don't really care if others are harmed, physically or psychologically by your actions.
Lawful means you try to follow the laws, or your code which may not necessarily be the law of the land, but can be a religious code or something else. (Iomedean law vs. Infernal law).
Chaotic means you place individuality first. Sure, rules and laws are important, but they are more guidelines, which can be broken or ignored if some other impetus so calls.
Yordan Patar |
Some thoughts...
I'm with Kyleen on where the measuring lines are, though I'd also add that "good" is as much about the choice of means as of goals; a good person won't do certain things even if they would be (relatively) effective, because those things are wrong in themselves. Good tries to use good means to good ends; evil uses any means it finds effective, not seeing (or maybe not caring) that those very methods will result in self-destruction and the unmaking of the desired end.
Game alignment is wildly oversimplified, but it at least gives us a starting point to work with, and to describe various things (like smites from God not affecting good people). It gets problematic when people start treating it as a totally pigeonholed, "everything MUST be in these nine boxes, and everything in each box MUST be totally alike."
Alignment is a descriptor generated from actions, not a principle generating them.
baron arem heshvaun |
Despite its drawbacks, the Alignment system evokes so much information and character in just two letters (in the case of True Neutral, one letter).
We know devils are LE, Druids and your dog are N, and Han Solo is a lovable CG smuggler with a heart of gold.
We can describe epic heroes, one scene merchants, magical artifacts, whole nations, and the infinite planes themselves in two simple letters.
With two simple letters, we can paint a whole canvas of emotions and backstory that could fill pages in a novel or rulebook.
So 3 cheers for the Aligment system that has been part of the game in some form since it's inception.
Mith'aj the Tactful |
So, here's a fun one that I've seen bandied about on the boards, and I am curious about what you folks have to say about it.
Does casting spells with an (Evil) modifier alter your alignment? I cast Infernal Healing to save someone's life (oh, let's say an innocent young child). Do I slide down the scale towards depravity because I happened to have/purchase/looted from a devil I slew/stolen an obscure component - vial of evil blood - on me? Does using that blood to invoke an 'evil' spell make me less 'good'?
It's not so simple to me. I say no, the act does not affect character alignment -- only if the spell is cast with evil intent. However, I could cede a 'yes' answer as the Pathfinder reality -- being one in which metaphysical concepts absolutely infuse and directly alter/influence the physical world -- is not our known reality. Just harboring a vial of devil blood in one's pack could, I suppose, have unintended effects on personality/sanity and action.
Thoughts? Too trite a topic?
Kyleen |
I think that you are looking at it backwards. Using a spell with an evil descriptor is not, in my view, inherently evil. On the other hand, because of the means, or general use, for certain spells, deities of certain faiths simply will not grant those spells to their devoted. Infernal Healing is a great example. While good gods would praise healing, the use of the bodily fluid of a sentient creature to heal another is inherently evil in their view (although we seem to use donated blood in out society all the time, which might make you wonder whether modern society is in and of itself having an evil tilt). Thus, good gods grant normal healing spells, while evil gods (the ends justifies the means type) would not care and, thus, are willing to allow the use of the blood from dead devils to power their slightly more powerful, and reliable, healing.
Now, if you are going out and killing devils just so that you can harvest blood, then you are clearly committing an evil act.
Think of it this way. In the real world, using the heart of a person who died in an auto accident is not really evil, and is considered acceptable if the decedent signed an organ donation card. On the other hand, if you are kidnapping people and taking their kidneys to sell on the black market, obviously the act should be viewed entirely differently.
Mith'aj the Tactful |
So, if I understand your position: in the case of infernal healing you believe that the (evil) modifier indicates more about the mechanics behind the spell (material components) and context related to those mechanics, instead of any intangible evil ties to actually invoking the spell itself? Does that apply to all (evil) spells? What about Protection From Good?
The way I see it, Pathfinder isn't the real world. In our reality, the kidneys of my (alleged) murder victims cannot - solely due to their presence in my handy dandy transport cooler - influence my thoughts and actions. Yes, the act of harvesting them against the will of their previous grower/owner is certainly evil in either reality, regardless of the intent to use them for healing or in a tasty pie recipe.
That being said, intent matters for a lot in Pathfinder. That supports the view that we've both suggested, that the act itself of casting a spell doesn't make someone 'evil'. However, in a reality where metaphysical-physical feedback occurs via magical means, carrying demon kidneys might corrupt you simply due to their extraplanar, primordial evil 'radiation', if you will. If that's given, is every (evil)-labeled spell solely due to the context related to the casting (like the blood example in your post) or due to metaphysical/magical links between the spells and nefarious, universal forces? Couldn't saying the words in the (V) component, and the gestures in the (S) component, of Protection From Good could simply unleash/infect with evil inherent to that reality that has been written into the Laws of Creation?
Yes, this is abstract and not RAW stuff, I'm just curious on points of view.
Yordan Patar |
I'd say a single casting of infernal healing wouldn't turn you evil, but if you do it a lot of the time you're in danger of going down the slippery slope. Remember, good is about the means as well as the ends.
Also: is there perhaps a long-term effect from all that infernal blood ending up in people? Maybe that's Asmodeus' long-term plan. Or maybe it's about the scrying possibilities. Blood is a link, after all...
Meanwhile, regarding Not-Girl-One in the thread next door: next time I play in a horror campaign I am definitely taking Iron Will as an early, early feat choice.
Ghelik the Sly |
I think I lean slightly more in the line that the spell is in some way insidious. A evil spell should be used by a good character as a last resort. In itself it won't turn you to the dark side or make you evil but it does somehow taint you.
Just like negative energy, if you choose that path, you can't go back. Pathfinder doesn't have any general after effects from using evil spells, except for certain good deities, so this is really just flavor by the player and GM.
Agree with you on the Iron will, as a Rogue it is likely going to be my 3rd level feat as much as I want to take other feats...
Kyleen |
I think that you misunderstood me. I think that for most of the spell, (and a large number of the spells are divine), it is the beliefs of the deity that really govern whether you can use a spell. If the spells have the "evil" descriptor (which was added a sort of an afterthought a few years ago), then deities with opposed faiths are simply not going to allow them.
The material components are simply that, material components. However, for many evil spells, the method of obtaining them require an evil, or at least less then ethical methodology.
Mith'aj the Tactful |
I think that you misunderstood me. I think that for most of the spell, (and a large number of the spells are divine), it is the beliefs of the deity that really govern whether you can use a spell. If the spells have the "evil" descriptor (which was added a sort of an afterthought a few years ago), then deities with opposed faiths are simply not going to allow them.
The material components are simply that, material components. However, for many evil spells, the method of obtaining them require an evil, or at least less then ethical methodology.
I didn't know the descriptor was added more recently - good to know!
Also, I wondered about why you brought up divine influence, I suppose I was not clear that I am focusing from the point of view of arcane casting (nothing to do with Oracle), therefore removing all external influence on morality. Assume there's no divine influence, purely a discussion about the magic itself, cast by an arcane caster. If one involves the divine, then absolutely there are consequences if the caster can even get access somehow (item, scroll, etc.).
baron arem heshvaun |