The fact that the action in question is inaction does not change the fact that said Druid did take part in killing the man.
So if the druid had never been present to begin with, would the druid still be taking part in the man's death (assuming does in fact die, which you admit he might not)? For his interaction would be the same in either case, whether he was present or not.
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No, because he is not choosing to ignor the man. Nothing is changing him. I can't think of a way to explain how the healing part would not be a good act if the Druid had never known of the man, either, but it is obvious.
Think about it this way. If the druid were a Demon, an typical evil to the core demon. Would walking past the injured man ever make the demon's alignment shift from evil to morally neutral? Even if he did so 1,000 times? No, because it is not a Good or Neutral act. It is an Evil act, (though not a hugely evil one).
However, can you see a Druid that passed by 1,000 dying, innocent people and doesn't lift a finger becomming evil? This last part is a matter of opinion, but just saying.
No, because he is not choosing to ignor the man.
Think about it this way. If the druid were a Demon, an typical evil to the core demon. Would walking past the injured man ever make the demon's alignment shift from evil to morally neutral? Even if he did so 1,000 times? No, because it is not a Good or Neutral act. It is an Evil act, (though not a hugely evil one).
However, can you see a Druid that passed by 1,000 dying, innocent people and doesn't lift a finger becomming evil? This last part is a matter of opinion, but just saying.
A demon can brush his teeth a 1,000 times, that doesn't make him neutral either. I find the logic presented flawed.
This thread is way off topic now, let's add to it a bit more..
The argument with the druid.. is there anything he can do that is NEITHER a good action NOR an evil action? It seems if he does anything it's going to be construed as one or the other.
And smurf.. you know, because it's tradition
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A demon can brush his teeth a 1,000 times, that doesn't make him neutral either. I find the logic presented flawed.No, because he is not choosing to ignor the man.
Think about it this way. If the druid were a Demon, an typical evil to the core demon. Would walking past the injured man ever make the demon's alignment shift from evil to morally neutral? Even if he did so 1,000 times? No, because it is not a Good or Neutral act. It is an Evil act, (though not a hugely evil one).
However, can you see a Druid that passed by 1,000 dying, innocent people and doesn't lift a finger becomming evil? This last part is a matter of opinion, but just saying.
Than change your premise? :)
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This thread is way off topic now, let's add to it a bit more..
The argument with the druid.. is there anything he can do that is NOT a good action NOR an evil action? It seems if he does anything it's going to be construed as one or the other.
Not true. He can heal the guy minimally, possibly even charge him for it, and point him in the right direction. Even pointing him to the nearest road.
I was about to respond to this, then I realized this is another pointless alignment debate that has hijacked a topic that is only tangentially related to an alignment debate, and decided to not be an alignment debate enabler.
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Again, if a powerful druid called down an Avalanch and destroyed a random town, because he believed that nature is about balance, (things die so that others can live), that is still an evil act. The fact he believes in nature's way doesn't change the fact that he just murdered a whole freaking town, that is innocent because he had no reason to think they were not.
Then everyone in the whole world is evil. Because they aren´t stopping everything they are doing to march against Death in her realm (she have been killing billions since the start of time and no one is doing anything against it).
Not true. He can heal the guy minimally, possibly even charge him for it, and point him in the right direction. Even pointing him to the nearest road.This thread is way off topic now, let's add to it a bit more..
The argument with the druid.. is there anything he can do that is NOT a good action NOR an evil action? It seems if he does anything it's going to be construed as one or the other.
But what if the druid points the guy to the nearest road, and then the guy gets jumped by bandits again, but this time gets killed. Wouldn't the druid then be responsible in your logic for killing the man? If you argue that the druid does not know that will happen, and so can not be held responsible, then how is that different than the situation proposed. He does not know that the man will die, as you have repeatedly said, the man might not die anyway.
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But what if the druid points the guy to the nearest road, and then the guy gets jumped by bandits again, but this time gets killed. Wouldn't the druid then be responsible in your logic for killing the man? If you argue that the druid does not know that will happen, and so can not be held responsible, then how is that different than the situation proposed. He does not know that the man will die, as you have repeatedly said, the man might not die anyway.Not true. He can heal the guy minimally, possibly even charge him for it, and point him in the right direction. Even pointing him to the nearest road.This thread is way off topic now, let's add to it a bit more..
The argument with the druid.. is there anything he can do that is NOT a good action NOR an evil action? It seems if he does anything it's going to be construed as one or the other.
Because he at least did something to help. Not doing everything he could, or requesting some sort of compensation makes it not good, but not evil.
*snip*
Anyways, that's my piece. Thanks for listening to my rant. Am I right? What's the story? What do you think?
Though an AP may be written in a way that would make it seem to the PCs that they'd need to side with evil, that's not their only option. There could be other things they could think of that the writers never took into account. Also, just because it's written in the book one way, doesn't mean you have to DM it that way. I like the APs as they are, though I disagree with JJ that bad guys are more interesting than good guys. I do think that the opposite can be true as well. And I'd hope they're not writing the APs 'darker and grittier' simply because it's easier for them.
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Though an AP may be written in a way that would make it seem to the PCs that they'd need to side with evil, that's not their only option. There could be other things they could think of that the writers never took into account. Also, just because it's written in the book one way, doesn't mean you have to DM it that way. I like the APs as they are, though I disagree with JJ that bad guys are more interesting than good guys. I do think that the opposite can be true as well. And I'd hope they're not writing the APs 'darker and grittier' simply because it's easier for them.
*snip*
Anyways, that's my piece. Thanks for listening to my rant. Am I right? What's the story? What do you think?
The impression I had was that such actions were manditory, at least to a point, unless the party completely subverted the AP, (in which case, tehre is no point in playing an AP). I'm glad to hear that is not the case.
A also agree that good charcters can (and often do) have more interesting characters and purposses in a game than Evil.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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And you don't have anything that goes to prove that. There is nothing in writing that the far realms follow any sort of rules. WOTC avoided it, so did Piazo.
But the mythos, as it exists in the context of a D&D game, is from within the fabric of existence, even if it's from beyond the fabric of existence familiar to the "normal" universe.
Sure I do. The Far Realms are printed in a D&D book (several really, from Gates of Firestorm Peak on down the line), with D&D descriptions and D&D rules for how to use them in the D&D game. Ipso facto, they exist in the universe that is the D&D game world.
That universe is bigger than the people on the "Prime Material Plane" believe, and their motives may be inscrutable to the mortal minds that live within that slice of reality, but they are not unknowable to us, the players and DMs of the D&D game which contains ALL elements of the fantasy-verse.
Creative Director
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I like the APs as they are, though I disagree with JJ that bad guys are more interesting than good guys. I do think that the opposite can be true as well. And I'd hope they're not writing the APs 'darker and grittier' simply because it's easier for them.
The APs (and Golarion in general) is "darker and grittier" than baseline D&D because we at Paizo enjoy that type of game AND because, overall, we've gotten quite a lot of feedback from customers who like it as well. Even back when we were doing Dungeon, the darker and grittier adventures tended to be the most popular ones.
As for villains being more popular... that's not just me. That's actually a VERY widely held belief. Take superhero movies as an example, and you'll see that barring some exceptions, it's the villains who tend to get the limelight and the attention from fans and the press.
And it's worth pointing out; APs and modules are NOT novels. They're missing the main component of a novel; the protagonists. That's because those are the PCs. Without the central hero of the storylines, of COURSE modules are going to focus more on villains. Especially since it's not our style to put in piles of good guys to steal the thunder and overshadow the actions of the PCs. Instead, we tend to skew our good guys as less powerful NPCs and groups, setting them up as the ones needing protection and rescue, since in theory that's the PC's job.
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Well, all other things equal.....
a really interesting good guy and a boring bad guy is pretty much useless compared to a really interesting bad guy and a boring good guy.
What's really fun or sublime is an ambiguous type like Long John Silver. But I think that type really would rely on the actual dungeonmaster to pull off; you can't script that.
{edit} made doubly difficult, of course, by all these detection spells and paladins with holy geiger/mueller counters and whatnot...
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From where i understand, the Great One can kill humans the same way humans kill virus and bacteria inside them. So i believe the hope of humans to understand the great ones is the same of virus and bacteria to understand humans.
Of course someone who believe that there isn´t any power of the universe besides good and evil will think them as exclusively evil (well, given that Tharizdun was classified as evil in the rules before, maybe they are). But i guess in a game where the DM like a bit more of philosophic relativism, this can be different.
I don´t know Savage Tide or Age of Worms very well, but maybe (by what people are talking in this discussion) things can go pretty hard for deeply committed religious character with stricter views. But i don´t see that trait continuing in the Pathfinder APs (maybe a bit in second darkness, but i believe you can get things done differently). But we are talking about end of the world scenarios around here, and no directly evil acts are done. Is that really worth of this long discussion ?
Well, all other things equal.....
a really interesting good guy and a boring bad guy is pretty much useless compared to a really interesting bad guy and a boring good guy.What's really fun or sublime is an ambiguous type like Long John Silver. But I think that type really would rely on the actual dungeonmaster to pull off; you can't script that.
{edit} made doubly difficult, of course, by all these detection spells and paladins with holy geiger/mueller counters and whatnot...
Lex Luthor became infinitely more interesting when he went from being a mad scientist to being an ultra rich guy that never did the dirty work himself and could never be pinned down as having been directly involved in any plots.
To me, this didn't make Superman less interesting, because Superman, as the hero is suppose to be the straight man, the guy that is the constant. The villains are suppose to be the variable.
In fact, the best Batman writers understand this as well, which is why Paul Dini's Batman stories tend to have a resonance that others don't. The point isn't really to see how ansgsty and conflicted Bruce can be, its to see how twisted and bizarre his bad guys are.
That's not to say you can't have interesting good guys as well as interesting bad guys, just that sometimes its more important to have the interesting bad guy first, as the interesting good guy is actually less important that the interesting good guy.
However, we probably shouldn't confuse interesting for sympathetic. If Bruce comes across as too nutzoid (hello All Star Batman and Robin) or Clark becomes too much of a detached savior figure, they aren't just uninteresting, they are unsympathetic, and then you go from being interested in the bad guys to actively rooting for them.
From where i understand, the Great One can kill humans the same way humans kill virus and bacteria inside them. So i believe the hope of humans to understand the great ones is the same of virus and bacteria to understand humans.
Of course someone who believe that there isn´t any power of the universe besides good and evil will think them as exclusively evil (well, given that Tharizdun was classified as evil in the rules before, maybe they are). But i guess in a game where the DM like a bit more of philosophic relativism, this can be different.
I don´t know Savage Tide or Age of Worms very well, but maybe (by what people are talking in this discussion) things can go pretty hard for deeply committed religious character with stricter views. But i don´t see that trait continuing in the Pathfinder APs (maybe a bit in second darkness, but i believe you can get things done differently). But we are talking about end of the world scenarios around here, and no directly evil acts are done. Is that really worth of this long discussion ?
I think the problem comes from the fact that if you port Mythos characters to an alignment based fantasy campaign, you have to do some "conversion" or else you open up a can of worms.
If Mythos creatures are "beyond alignment," then that opens up a lot of questions about what else might be "beyond alignment," to the point that people start questioning using the system at all.
I can understand from a more modern standpoint what is being said about Mythos beings being "beyond alignment," but a lot of the transcending morality point of the Mythos has to do with modern religion and philosophy, and not with a very black and white, defined system like alignment.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is, if you are using Mythos elements in a near modern horror game, they are nearly impossible to kill and beyond morality. If you port them to a fantasy roleplaying game, they have stats, are more survivable, and probably should be slotted into the alignment system that is already in place.
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And you don't have anything that goes to prove that.
But the mythos, as it exists in the context of a D&D game, is from within the fabric of existence, even if it's from beyond the fabric of existence familiar to the "normal" universe.
It is pretty simple. If it is outside of existence, it does not exist. Period. :) (not intending it to come out as rude as it might seem)
If it is outside a view of reality, it does exist, just not to your understanding.
And that is the paradox of the mythos...Try reading it.
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And you don't have anything that goes to prove that. There is nothing in writing that the far realms follow any sort of rules. WOTC avoided it, so did Piazo.
But the mythos, as it exists in the context of a D&D game, is from within the fabric of existence, even if it's from beyond the fabric of existence familiar to the "normal" universe.Sure I do. The Far Realms are printed in a D&D book (several really, from Gates of Firestorm Peak on down the line), with D&D descriptions and D&D rules for how to use them in the D&D game. Ipso facto, they exist in the universe that is the D&D game world.
That universe is bigger than the people on the "Prime Material Plane" believe, and their motives may be inscrutable to the mortal minds that live within that slice of reality, but they are not unknowable to us, the players and DMs of the D&D game which contains ALL elements of the fantasy-verse.
Your going to have to provide more citations to make a convincing argument here. So no, you haven't made your case just by providing a simple D&D module from second edition.
Please provide 3.0 or 3.5 citations.
And please provide evidence that the work provided is contextually acurate with the original body of work done for the mythos.
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From where i understand, the Great One can kill humans the same way humans kill virus and bacteria inside them. So i believe the hope of humans to understand the great ones is the same of virus and bacteria to understand humans.
Of course someone who believe that there isn´t any power of the universe besides good and evil will think them as exclusively evil (well, given that Tharizdun was classified as evil in the rules before, maybe they are). But i guess in a game where the DM like a bit more of philosophic relativism, this can be different.
I don´t know Savage Tide or Age of Worms very well, but maybe (by what people are talking in this discussion) things can go pretty hard for deeply committed religious character with stricter views. But i don´t see that trait continuing in the Pathfinder APs (maybe a bit in second darkness, but i believe you can get things done differently). But we are talking about end of the world scenarios around here, and no directly evil acts are done. Is that really worth of this long discussion ?
I think the problem comes from the fact that if you port Mythos characters to an alignment based fantasy campaign, you have to do some "conversion" or else you open up a can of worms.
If Mythos creatures are "beyond alignment," then that opens up a lot of questions about what else might be "beyond alignment," to the point that people start questioning using the system at all.
I can understand from a more modern standpoint what is being said about Mythos beings being "beyond alignment," but a lot of the transcending morality point of the Mythos has to do with modern religion and philosophy, and not with a very black and white, defined system like alignment.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is, if you are using Mythos elements in a near modern horror game, they are nearly impossible to kill and beyond morality. If you port them to a fantasy roleplaying game, they have stats, are more survivable, and probably should be slotted into the...
0r you can make the arguement that once something that come from beyond or reality, has it structures forced upon it. There for the great struggle with the mythos is more or less a titanic strugle that mortals can bearly comprehend.
The part of the multiverse that the players reside is mearly a subset of metaphysical laws that have been constructed by thier gods and the like in order to impose thier wills and constuct reality to thier liking.
The old one represent what came before. The were driven out, and a new reality imposed upon thier reality. When the mythos attacks, they are striking from outside of the subset of the PCs reality. That makes them alien, and aberations. They have never had anything like morality imposed upon them, they have never had anything like humanity in them.
They are differant from devils, demons, and deamons in that they want to destroy it all mearly because it is not like them and they have all of eternity to do so. They don't struggle with the lower planes because they don't want souls from what I can tell from WOTC and Paizo's materials.
I like the APs as they are, though I disagree with JJ that bad guys are more interesting than good guys. I do think that the opposite can be true as well. And I'd hope they're not writing the APs 'darker and grittier' simply because it's easier for them.The APs (and Golarion in general) is "darker and grittier" than baseline D&D because we at Paizo enjoy that type of game AND because, overall, we've gotten quite a lot of feedback from customers who like it as well. Even back when we were doing Dungeon, the darker and grittier adventures tended to be the most popular ones.
As for villains being more popular... that's not just me. That's actually a VERY widely held belief. Take superhero movies as an example, and you'll see that barring some exceptions, it's the villains who tend to get the limelight and the attention from fans and the press.
And it's worth pointing out; APs and modules are NOT novels. They're missing the main component of a novel; the protagonists. That's because those are the PCs. Without the central hero of the storylines, of COURSE modules are going to focus more on villains. Especially since it's not our style to put in piles of good guys to steal the thunder and overshadow the actions of the PCs. Instead, we tend to skew our good guys as less powerful NPCs and groups, setting them up as the ones needing protection and rescue, since in theory that's the PC's job.
I understand what you're saying, and I love your work, by the way.
Instead of making good guys to 'steal the thunder' of the PCs, is there a way to encourage the PCs to be truly heroic, or even exalted? Sure the option is already there for the PC that wants to play that type of character, but could you at least try at least hinting toward that, instead of nudging PCs to 'make a deal with the devil'? It may even mean getting darker and grittier as the PCs progress if they choose that path, but there should also be some sort of reward, even if it's a perceived reward.Is there a future (or existing) AP that encourages what I'm trying to describe?
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Creative Director
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I understand what you're saying, and I love your work, by the way.
Instead of making good guys to 'steal the thunder' of the PCs, is there a way to encourage the PCs to be truly heroic, or even exalted? Sure the option is already there for the PC that wants to play that type of character, but could you at least try at least hinting toward that, instead of nudging PCs to 'make a deal with the devil'? It may even mean getting darker and grittier as the PCs progress if they choose that path, but there should also be some sort of reward, even if it's a perceived reward.
Is there a future (or existing) AP that encourages what I'm trying to describe?
Well... I kinda feel like we've been doing that already.
Curse of the Crimson Throne expects the PCs to want to help defeat the evil confronting the city, and as they gain levels, they increasingly DON'T have NPCs telling them what to do or go on quests; the adventure expects the PCs to be self-motivated and want to oppose the evil.
Same goes for Second Darkness. And Legacy of Fire. And Council of Thieves. And more than ever for Kingmaker.
We ALSO put in elements that tempt the PCs as well, but those might just seem more obvious because they're not the expected norm. But there's ALREADY plenty of opportunities for the PCs to be truly heroic in all of our Adventure Paths. And it's kind of frustrating that folks seem to be glossing over things like:
Having a chance to redeem Sabina at the end of Curse of The Crimson Throne and return her to the path of good, or:
Make Westcrown a better place to live by defeating the shadow curse and becoming famous heroes in Council of Thieves, or:
Help to redeem the Winter Council by talking with them by not just killing them all off in "A Memory of Darkness," or for that matter deciding to help the elves even though they've not treated the PCs that well in the first place, or:
Restoring a lost trading post to vibrant life at the start of Legacy of Fire, and perhaps befriending a harpy and helping her not be evil by befriending her, or:
Show mercy to various members of the Council of Thieves and in so doing gain their aid in opposing a cruel and evil organization, or:
Helping to retake a remote castle that's been overrun by ogres and thus help to restore a shattered society of wardens to functionality in "Hook Mountain Massacre"...
And so on.
There's PLENTY of opportunities built into the Adventure Paths for good guys to do what they do AND to gain benefits by doing so. If a group's PCs aren't taking this bait and are instead going for the evil option... well, that's something that you might want to talk about with your group if it's bothering you as a GM. Because there are PLENTY of good guy options in the APs.
Finally, we VERY OFTEN add ad-hoc XP awards or Story Awards to encounters if the PCs opt for diplomatic or other non-obvious good-guy solutions to problems. I'm not sure how clearer we can get than "If the PCs convince the bad guy to abandon his life of crime without resorting to combat, award them 2,400 XP" for supporting non-evil options.
I'm just wanting for a virtue benefit for using a dildo to enhance the magic of a weapon, instead of just a vice. Or would that have to be a magic chastity belt that gives an AC bonus or something.
I'm just wanting for a virtue benefit for using a dildo to enhance the magic of a weapon, instead of just a vice. Or would that have to be a magic chastity belt that gives an AC bonus or something.A Dildo weapon? O_o
And it's kind of frustrating that folks seem to be glossing over things like:
** spoiler omitted **...
Ah, true sir, very true! My mistake.. I am guilty as charged for doing exactly that. I'll be over in the corner re-reading my APs. :)
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Creative Director
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Ah, true sir, very true! My mistake.. I am guilty as charged for doing exactly that. I'll be over in the corner re-reading my APs. :)And it's kind of frustrating that folks seem to be glossing over things like:
** spoiler omitted **...
HA! No worries!
Just wanted to remind folks that there's a lot of unfounded overreaction going on in this thread. ;-)
The mythos is undefinable in a modern setting, where humans are nothing more then a slave race that thinks it is free. The scales of power are ants to lions.
In D&D, humans can become gods. Far Realm creatures KNOW that humans are sentient. However, they are completely sociopathic in deed and thought, and simply do not care how evil and cruel their actions are. Their motivations may be alien, but the cosmic scale of alignment shows exactly where they fit...they are Evil, and usually Chaotic and Evil, seeking to unmake and rewrite according to their own whims and existence.
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The Druid is an observor to the wounded man. intervening to save his life is a good action. Intervening to end his life is an evil action. Just watching and letting him pass is Natural Neutral...Nature doesn't care, and can be cruel and heartless, but is not MALICIOUS. Intervening for money would be false neutral, being done for temporary benefit and no real reason other then there's some easy profit involved. Intervening and tasking him with a quest or deed or even recruiting him is True Neutral, wielding the philosophy as a weapon and force of its own.
true Neutrals, almost by definition, are the master manipulators of the alignments, having to constantly play all the other alignments off against one another in order to ensure their own survival, else they become the 'low-hanging' fruit for other alignments to pick on. thus, either remaining apart from battles, getting others to fight their battles via manipulation, and switchign alliance and allegiance as need be to protect their way of life.
Druids can be all of these, although False Neutral is more the realm of the uncaring civilized man who is just living for today. Any Neutral character who puts any thought into his philosophy for the long term will move towards True Neutral.
If you liken alignments to colors, I see Natural Neutral as brown, the alignment of all natural animals, plants, creatures, and elementals, feral and wild, yet not malicious. False Neutral I see as clear and empty, an almost willfillness not to take a stand. true neutral I see as green, bright and vibrant in its own way, but clearly apart from the other profound forces.
I use LG as silver or white; NG as Gold or Yellow; CG as rainbow; CN as Grey; CE as black; NE as purple; LE as Red or flaming; and LN as Azure, blue, sapphire. TN clearly stands apart...NN kind of blends into all the other alignments, and FN is colored by whoever it associates with at the moment.
==Aelryinth
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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And you don't have anything that goes to prove that. There is nothing in writing that the far realms follow any sort of rules. WOTC avoided it, so did Piazo.
But the mythos, as it exists in the context of a D&D game, is from within the fabric of existence, even if it's from beyond the fabric of existence familiar to the "normal" universe.Sure I do. The Far Realms are printed in a D&D book (several really, from Gates of Firestorm Peak on down the line), with D&D descriptions and D&D rules for how to use them in the D&D game. Ipso facto, they exist in the universe that is the D&D game world.
That universe is bigger than the people on the "Prime Material Plane" believe, and their motives may be inscrutable to the mortal minds that live within that slice of reality, but they are not unknowable to us, the players and DMs of the D&D game which contains ALL elements of the fantasy-verse.
Your going to have to provide more citations to make a convincing argument here. So no, you haven't made your case just by providing a simple D&D module from second edition.
Please provide 3.0 or 3.5 citations.
The module in question is not a "simple D&D module from second edition"; it is the first time the "Far Realms" existed as a concept in the history of D&D. Bruce Cordell invented the Far Realms in that module and gave rules for what the Far Realms meant in the D&D universe, and expanded on them for 3rd Ed in Dragon #330.
But, if you like, the Far Realms have also been defined and described in game mechanical terms in Tome and Blood, Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook, Epic Level Handbook, Monster Manual 2, Fiend Folio, Complete Arcane and probably other 3rd Ed books that I didn't think of in the first 30 seconds.
The Far Realms have been described in game terms in the D&D universe repeatedly. They are thus, by definition, not impossible to define in the game terms of the D&D universe.
And please provide evidence that the work provided is contextually acurate with the original body of work done for the mythos.
If you're referring to the literal Cthulhu mythos rather than the Far Realms, its serial-numbers-filed-off analog, the only official D&D writeup of it was done in the 1st Ed Deities and Demigods, first printing, before Chaosium sued (since it held the game rule rights to Lovecraft and Moorcock's creations). Not holding the legal rights to the IP, D&D didn't do anything more with them.
In any event, in the DDG the actual Lovecraftian entities per se were described in D&D game terms. Whether you think they were a good description or a poor description is, of course, up to you, but to suggest that they were or are undefinable in D&D game terms is patently untrue. Open the book, and lo and behold, there they are, stats and everything.
The contextual accuracy of Yog-Sothoth as a Lovecraftian ineffable horror in a novel vs. Yog-Sothoth as a D&D entity is only relevant to those who want the one to precisely map the other. Games and books are different media, just as are movies and books or TV and movies.
D&D isn't played with literary figures, it's played with game figures inspired by or modeled on literary figures. The game requires us to define things that books don't. In The Hobbit, Smaug the dragon says the shock of his tail is like a thunderbolt. To use Smaug (or an analogous badass fire-breathing dragon modeled on him) in a game we need to decide what a thunderbolt is and whether Smaug's tail really IS like it, because in D&D we don't roll to hit and then say "you take thunderbolt points of damage."
To reiterate:
To the poor hapless mortals within the Prime, or even within the "normal" planar-verse of Abyss, Hells, Limbo, Olympus, etc., the mythos entities can be utterly inscrutable and with motives undefinable.
Thankfully, we, the players of the game, do not operate inside of the omniverse. We operate from an omniscient remove above and outside of every possible D&D universe, as do the rules of the game. If Hastur shows up in our D&D game, he doesn't get to decide which rules of the game he will follow or which are relevant to him or which can describe him. We do. He doesn't get to decide that Armor Class is irrelvant to him, or hit points, or saving throws, or any other game mechanic... including alignment. He gets the AC, hp, saves, and alignment that we give him.
Put simply:
D&D players, GMs, and writers > inscrutability of Mythos entities > the understanding of hapless mortals and the puny gods they serve
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Is there a future (or existing) AP that encourages what I'm trying to describe?Well... I kinda feel like we've been doing that already.
We ALSO put in elements that tempt the PCs as well, but those might just seem more obvious because they're not the expected norm. But there's ALREADY plenty of opportunities for the PCs to be truly heroic in all of our Adventure Paths. And it's kind of frustrating that folks seem to be glossing over things like:
** spoiler omitted **...
Aw cmon James, it's the First Law of the Internet. Nobody is happy unless everyone is miserable!
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Creative Director
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If you're referring to the literal Cthulhu mythos rather than the Far Realms, its serial-numbers-filed-off analog, the only official D&D writeup of it was done in the 1st Ed Deities and Demigods, first printing, before Chaosium sued (since it held the game rule rights to Lovecraft and Moorcock's creations). Not holding the legal rights to the IP, D&D didn't do anything more with them.
Actually... Chaosium suing TSR over this is an urban legend. The situation was more complex than that. Chaosium never sued TSR. They gave TSR permission to put the Cthulhu (and Elric) mythos into the book after they found out that those elements were going into the book, as evidenced by the "special thanks to Chaosium" on that book's title page. The content was removed from later printings because TSR's management felt that having Cthulhu/Elric content was free advertising for the competition and (likely to a lesser degree) because removing those pages would reduce the cost of the reprint (note that they didn't reduce the PRICE of the subsequent printings of the book).
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Creative Director
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Aw cmon James, it's the First Law of the Internet. Nobody is happy unless everyone is miserable!
Wha? This is the first I've heard of that law! I always thought the internet was a happy place for happy people! :)
(Just checking to see if the Internet is still blind to sarcasm. Looks like it might be.)
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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If you're referring to the literal Cthulhu mythos rather than the Far Realms, its serial-numbers-filed-off analog, the only official D&D writeup of it was done in the 1st Ed Deities and Demigods, first printing, before Chaosium sued (since it held the game rule rights to Lovecraft and Moorcock's creations). Not holding the legal rights to the IP, D&D didn't do anything more with them.Actually... Chaosium suing TSR over this is an urban legend. The situation was more complex than that. Chaosium never sued TSR. They gave TSR permission to put the Cthulhu (and Elric) mythos into the book after they found out that those elements were going into the book, as evidenced by the "special thanks to Chaosium" on that book's title page. The content was removed from later printings because TSR's management felt that having Cthulhu/Elric content was free advertising for the competition and (likely to a lesser degree) because removing those pages would reduce the cost of the reprint (note that they didn't reduce the PRICE of the subsequent printings of the book).
See, ya learn something new every day.
And THAT'S one to grow on!
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If you're referring to the literal Cthulhu mythos rather than the Far Realms, its serial-numbers-filed-off analog, the only official D&D writeup of it was done in the 1st Ed Deities and Demigods, first printing, before Chaosium sued (since it held the game rule rights to Lovecraft and Moorcock's creations). Not holding the legal rights to the IP, D&D didn't do anything more with them.Actually... Chaosium suing TSR over this is an urban legend. The situation was more complex than that. Chaosium never sued TSR. They gave TSR permission to put the Cthulhu (and Elric) mythos into the book after they found out that those elements were going into the book, as evidenced by the "special thanks to Chaosium" on that book's title page. The content was removed from later printings because TSR's management felt that having Cthulhu/Elric content was free advertising for the competition and (likely to a lesser degree) because removing those pages would reduce the cost of the reprint (note that they didn't reduce the PRICE of the subsequent printings of the book).See, ya learn something new every day.
And THAT'S one to grow on!
No no it's and now you know and
Knowing is half the battle, YO JOE!
Actually, the Mythos "all stars" are also given D&D stats in the d20 Call of Cthulhu game that came out at the beginning of 3.0. Not just d20 stats, but there is actually an appendix that deals directly with using Mythos creatures (including the Great Old Ones) in D&D.
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[snipped]
But, if you like, the Far Realms have also been defined and described in game mechanical terms in Tome and Blood, Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook, Epic Level Handbook, Monster Manual 2, Fiend Folio, Complete Arcane and probably other 3rd Ed books that I didn't think of in the first 30 seconds.
The Far Realms have been described in game terms in the D&D universe repeatedly. They are thus, by definition, not impossible to define in the game terms...
And that is where if find your arguement so misdirected.
Described doesn't cut it. Detailed it what I am looking for. I will give you the artical from Dragon Magazine. but by an large your POV IMHO is very short sighted and frankly beyond the scope of this discussion.
While I will go back an look at Dragon 330 again, I doubt that the writeup is extensive.
All of the other sources you provide talk about things from the Far realms, not the far realms themselves or provide so little information as to be vauge.
Be that as it may, I can't see how your information provides anything that mythos values are somehow trumped by any part of the multiverse.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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[snipped]
But, if you like, the Far Realms have also been defined and described in game mechanical terms in Tome and Blood, Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook, Epic Level Handbook, Monster Manual 2, Fiend Folio, Complete Arcane and probably other 3rd Ed books that I didn't think of in the first 30 seconds.
The Far Realms have been described in game terms in the D&D universe repeatedly. They are thus, by definition, not impossible to define in the game terms...
And that is where if find your arguement so misdirected.
Described doesn't cut it. Detailed it what I am looking for. I will give you the artical from Dragon Magazine. but by an large your POV IMHO is very short sighted and frankly beyond the scope of this discussion.
While I will go back an look at Dragon 330 again, I doubt that the writeup is extensive.
All of the other sources you provide talk about things from the Far realms, not the far realms themselves or provide so little information as to be vauge.
Your judgment of what is beyond the scope of the argument is... amusing.
Also, your "argument" is now a moving target. You previously were insisting on the inscrutable motivations of mythos (and mythos-inspired Far Realmsian) creatures and their definitional immunity to the alignment rules.
You now appear to be asking for definition NOT of mythos creatures, but of the Far Realms dimension itself. And even in that case your argument is an abject failure, because the Manual of the Planes contains precise game rules for what planar effects the Far Realms have, using the same write-up and planar trait identifiers they use for the the other planes in the book. Like it or not, the Far Realms have game rules in D&D.
If you are asking whether the Far Realms as a dimension (as opposed to its inhabitants as creatures) has an alignment, the answer is no. To quote the MoP: "The Far Realm has nothing to do with morals or ethics."
Pseudonatural creatures, "the simplest natives of the Far Realm," have an alignment line in their template stat block: "Alignment: same as base creature." Not "Alignment: ineffable and impossible to quantify because they are beyond anything mortal minds can comprehend." Kaorti have an alignment. So do the other Far Realms creatures described in the various books.
Also, planar alignment is not the same thing as creature alignment. The Elemental Plane of Fire has no alignment trait either, and yet its natives include both fire elementals (N), azers (LN), efreet (LE), and salamanders (CE). One particular LOCATION on the EPoF is the City of Brass, which is described as having the "mildly evil-aligned" planar alignment trait. Overall, though, the plane has no alignment. It's just a place. Places don't typically have alignments except when they do.
The things that live there, though, do.
Be that as it may, I can't see how your information provides anything that mythos values are somehow trumped by any part of the multiverse.
Mythos values, if they exist within the game, are trumped by the game rules. Creatures (from mice to cosmic horrors) in the game (A) follow game rules (B). Game rules (B) include alignment (C). C is an included subset of B. Therefore, creatures in the game (A) follow alignment rules (C), because C is part of B.
This is about as elementary as syllogisms get.
The entire game-verse in D&D exists within the rules. Perhaps in your home game this is not so, and you say "sorry guys, put the character sheets aside, where we're going there are no rules!" If that's your bliss, then bless you for it, but once you've stepped beyond the rules of D&D it becomes impossible to have a meaningful conversation about D&D, because you're not playing D&D any more; you're playing "let's pretend," and the only thing that separates D&D from "let's pretend" is rules and dice.
I will 100% grant you that mythos creatures in "let's pretend" have neither alignment nor any other game stats, because stats are in fact irrelevant to "let's pretend."
If we're still talking about D&D, though...
For the umpteenth time, this does not mean that the other creatures in the game world understand them. They can be as inscrutable and ineffable as they like to PCs and NPCs and gods and demons and angels alike. But they are not unknowable to us writing, playing, and running the game. We - me, Jason, you, Herald - establish the game rules for the mythos creatures or use the ones provided, be they in in the DDG, MoP, d20 Call of Cthulhu or any other resource. They have a stat block to fill out, and under alignment you slap on the label that best describes their BEHAVIOR and its correlates on the alignment chart, regardless of how incomprehensible or alien their motives might be.
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[snipped]
But, if you like, the Far Realms have also been defined and described in game mechanical terms in Tome and Blood, Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook, Epic Level Handbook, Monster Manual 2, Fiend Folio, Complete Arcane and probably other 3rd Ed books that I didn't think of in the first 30 seconds.
The Far Realms have been described in game terms in the D&D universe repeatedly. They are thus, by definition, not impossible to define in the game terms...
And that is where if find your arguement so misdirected.
Described doesn't cut it. Detailed it what I am looking for. I will give you the artical from Dragon Magazine. but by an large your POV IMHO is very short sighted and frankly beyond the scope of this discussion.
While I will go back an look at Dragon 330 again, I doubt that the writeup is extensive.
All of the other sources you provide talk about things from the Far realms, not the far realms themselves or provide so little information as to be vauge.
Your judgment of what is beyond the scope of the argument is... amusing.
Also, your "argument" is now a moving target. You previously were insisting on the inscrutable motivations of mythos (and mythos-inspired Far Realmsian) creatures and their definitional immunity to the alignment rules.
You now appear to be asking for definition NOT of mythos creatures, but of the Far Realms dimension itself. And even in that case your argument is an abject failure, because the Manual of the Planes contains precise game rules for what planar effects the Far Realms have, using the same write-up and planar trait identifiers they use for the the other planes in the book. Like it or not, the Far Realms have game rules in D&D.
If you are asking whether the Far Realms as a dimension (as opposed to its inhabitants as creatures) has an alignment, the answer is no. To quote the MoP: "The Far Realm has nothing to do with morals or ethics."
Pseudonatural...
Well your arguement is shifting too.
My points were based in how PCs interact with with they mythos, not players.
As far as where your going with this Game rules discussion, I have no idea. This issue where you tie a universe and rules is something that you are coming up with, and frankly it's puzzling.
There is a game, it has rules. Gotcha. Everything in the universe has rules stuff, yea, I'm pretty sure that doesn't exist, or your rule books are much bigger than mine.
I think your taking this way to seriously, but ok I'll try and sus out what your going on here with.
To quote the MoP: "The Far Realm has nothing to do with morals or ethics."
This in my opinion is where I keep coming back to. Its a place that is that is beyond Good, Evil, Law and Chaos. In D&D, it's home to the mythos. It's described as being beyond the great wheel.
So there are no Gods, powers whatever that impose any morality (that you or I could describe) upon creatures that exist there. I could go on about the Gods in the Mythos, but that is not really here nor there.
What I am saying is from that rule book I interprite that alignment is only a consideration outside of that plane or what ever you would like to call it.
Where as creatures from the far realms move from the Far Realms to any other plane, they gain alignment. Creatures from the known multiverse who move to the Far Realm however do not loose thier alignment. This is they way see way "The Far Realm has nothing to do with morals or ethics." as being interpreted.
As far as Paizo's universe I'm still digesting it, I presume it will be the same.
Be that as it may. I think your game-verse theory is a little but not completely flawed. Not everything is spelled out, other wise Paizo wouldn't have anymore books to publish.
And let me clear on something else. When I say the mythos creatures are soemething that cannot be fully understood, it doesn't mean that the game writers and GMs don't understand them. Creature that are beyond understanding is a discriptor. It is meant to be part of the way that the mythos is discribed. That is part of the fluff of mythos not the crunch.
If you want to make crunch work with Call of Cthulhu/D&D you need to keep the fluff too.
Nice points, Beckett.
I was about to respond to this, then I realized this is another pointless alignment debate that has hijacked a topic that is only tangentially related to an alignment debate, and decided to not be an alignment debate enabler.
You prefer to support the tradition of complaining about content without contributing to the OP or the current discussion? Thanks for sharing.
Then everyone in the whole world is evil. Because they aren´t stopping everything they are doing to march against Death in her realm (she have been killing billions since the start of time and no one is doing anything against it).
I actually agree with that first sentence in both RL and game. I know it's not a popular point of view, but we all know there are people we could help and don't because it would be inconvenient or negatively impact our own lives. That's evil in my book.
In game there are plenty of moral quandaries that should have mortals completely refusing to interact with any deity or declaring outright war on all celestial servants. (Since you can't kill gods in Golarion.)
This isn't true. Gods dont' have stat blocks, so you can't kill them in combat. But gods can most certainly die.
Hum. Seems that's what I get for trusting what someone else posted. =/
Gods can die, but not at PCs' hands. Unless we get Epic rules and statblocks for the gods.
Unless he's right.
I don't really care, the only god-things I've ever killed were at the end of Paizo APs, and I assumed they were demigods or in "special" story conditions.
I've only played through the majority of Second Darkness, but I've read the first CotCT module and played through a most of the first module of LoF.
Honestly, looking at Endless Night and the others...
The module even instructs DMs to "ease up on the alignment watch; keep in mind that what faces the world is a pretty catastrophic event... A paladin might not approve of working for someone who performs living sacrifices and worships demons, but in order to stop an even greater evil, a paladin sometimes has to bide his time... don't forget that atonement is a pretty handy spell for cleansing the soul. The elves sent the PCs into the Darklands; the least they'll be able to do in the next adventure is provide a few free castings if necessary." Of course, the same section also mentions "Offer the PCs any reward - you probably won't have to actually pay it since the PCs are unlikely to revisit the Mierani Forest..."
So, they have to participate in live sacrifices and justify it for the "greater good" (something that Paladins should never justify their actions for) and then hope that they can convince some elves who didn't even task them with the quest and don't even believe them to cast Atonement on them, unless they want to sit through two complete modules as warriors with good will saves?
Quite frankly, this is a problem with this adventure path. The beginning of CotCT has a really weird hook - Everyone gets together and decides to go kill someone who's done them wrong. Paladins, honestly, need not apply there, either. At least not from my reading of it. Which is funny, since a Paladin's the iconic on the cover of the module.
LoF's "deal with the gnoll tribe" at the end of the first module was fun. My paladin agreed to accept their help, but only for the fight, after which they were to leave and never come back. I was perfectly prepared to deal with the consequences, but the dwarven ranger started killing them all while I was occupied with the big bad, and we had a bit of a fun RP with Dashky where I attempted to convince him not to come back for vengeance with his adopted tribe. Sadly, the campaign died there, so I never got to find out how well my diplomacy worked.
All in all, assuming that the OP's understanding of the other APs out there is accurate, I can definitely see the problem. In my experience, the "moral dilemmas" in the APs I've noticed are never provided with an alternative choice. There's no way to gather info about Allevrah without resorting to evil means, and you have to ignore an entire module in an AP. There need to be choices provided for PCs - ways for PCs to make good choices actually spelled out in the AP. Relying on the DM running it to create entire adventures beyond the published module just because false-choices are presented where there's only one actual option is bad - Some people, like my DM, only bought the AP because she doesn't have the actual time to create entire campaigns. Telling her that she needs to spend the time to do so after paying for someone to do it is poor marketing/customer service, and it's one of the things that's frustrated us enough during 2nd Darkness that we haven't really kept buying APs. There's been enough areas that seem to necessitate DM development above and beyond that we've had a hard time justifying paying for the opportunity to do the work anyway. Might mean that we're not the target customer - when I DM, I tend to work a lot on my own game, but I would expect an AP to lessen my work load, rather than force me to write up large portions of extra stuff just to make it work (and that's beyond the stat-block errors we seem to find throughout 2nd Darkness).
But, honestly, I do want to see APs that encourage heroics. Not just encourage it, but reward it. The occasional "Deal with the Devil" plot device is okay, but doing it each and every time? Dark and Gritty all the time? Doesn't need to always happen. Try mixing it up and encouraging a great deal of heroics, rather than a muddy, morally flawed hero every so often. I'm intrigued by Kingmaker, but based on the track record of Paizo, I do expect there to be lots of grit in my sandbox, and a devil or demon you have to ally with. That's a problem. When you expect that out of the publisher, it can be a bit of a turn-off.
And, for the record, sometimes heroes are better than villains. Spider-Man is extremely cool and popular, but his rogue's gallery is largely comprised of sub-par villains like the Vulture, the Rhino, and Dr. Octopus, many of whom just aren't very compelling.