There's been a lot of discussion here and there about the correlation, or lack thereof, between the Virtues of Rule, the Mortal Sins, the modern virtues, the schools of magic associated with whichever, and the runeforged weapon qualities.
Most of it seems to center around people not understanding how it could work the way it's set out in the Path, why these two sins should oppose this one, why Enchantment for Fertility/Lust, and so forth. People want to change it so it makes sense.
Here's the thing: it doesn't have to. And I don't even mean "because it's magic."
We shouldn't be taking the structure of Sin Magic as the laws of magical physics for Golarion. They aren't. They represent a philosophy of magic, one philosophy, that was adopted by some phenomenally evil wizards ten thousand years ago. It is, perhaps, not the best mental framework one could devise for comprehending and advancing the arcane arts.
The Runelords would probably be deeply disturbed by modern specialty wizards, who can pick and choose their opposition schools. They wouldn't have any idea what to make of diviner specialists. :) (Eight schools? Eight?! What are you babbling about, man?)
Very insightful.
It really is something that seems to have slipped so many (I'm guilty of it myself, to some extent).
It is a philosophy, maybe even a religion. And an old one at that.
Today's spellcasters have problems with parts of it because they don't know anything much about the ancient society where this philosophy was created and later corrupted.
Parts seem weird because the philosophy had undergone a great shift, was corrupted, which can always twist things.
And some parts seem weird because they were probably not that well thought out to begin with. Enchantment and fertility? Rest and necromancy? Well, they had seven schools and seven virtues, and had to fit them somehow, so some things didn't fit seemlessly, but they were the best they could come up with and the alternative was thinking of a new philosophy, which was just out of the question.
I agree with KaeYoss, this was a good insight Lurker.
I had thought about it a little, and your comments sort of helped gel what I couldn't quite put my finger on...
The actual Sin really only plays a 'mechanical' role in the magic, in the functioning of the Runewell power collection system. Otherwise, the rest is just part of a philosphical outlook, just as you say.
The way I look at it, the original Emperor Xin, didn't have a "wrong" idea that fell to corruption... He encouraged and promoted positive social values, and then directed those energies to the common good.
But like any positive endeavor, that takes a lot of work and time. Its just easier to burn the crops in the field, than till the soil, plant the seeds, water, and tend to your harvest.
The corruption of the Runelords stems from the fact that it's just easier to be destructive than constructive. It's the path of least resistance.
I just realized though, that in all that we've learned about the Magic of the Runelords, we've never gotten a glimpse of the one aspect of their magic that is mechanically tied to philsophy.. the Runewells.
I don't have a realism problem with the idea that the Thassilonian schools are essentially arbitrary and the correspondences are more technical than intuitive. But in play...if I say "Your PC feels uncomfortable in these two parts of Runeforge, here are a bunch of mechanical minuses, but don't expect it to make any sense" my player will say "Yeah, whatever." It's not artistically satisfying. This is not a showstopper by any means, but for me the sin elements would be more satisfying if they were a bit more intuitive.
Maybe I read too much into the sidebar in #2 that said I should track sin points for each PC. We really paid attention to that, spent quite a bit of time discussing the PCs' besetting sins and how those related to the Thassilonian system. But the modules never did anything with that idea, other than the abstract bonuses in SotS--and those fit the PCs so poorly that we had to drop them, because keeping track of counterintuitive bonuses was too much work for too little payoff. (My player's running 5 PCs. I don't make work for him unless the results are really going to be interesting.)
Mary
This is, frankly, a problem I've noticed with the other APs as well. In a lot of places, plot elements are set up by one author and then largely ignored by the others...
This is, frankly, a problem I've noticed with the other APs as well. In a lot of places, plot elements are set up by one author and then largely ignored by the others...
RotRL is actually better than most in this regard. The Sihedron-related aspects (both the Sihedron ritual and the amulets) are carried through particularly well. There's also nice use of recurring characters, locations, and creatures (though my player wanted more Sinspawn early on).
Certainly no let-downs on the order of (severe spoilers for SCAP)
So I'm greedy, and wanted *everything* in RotRL to be as good as the best parts; and the sin-related aspects were a bit of a letdown.
I think if I run RotRL again (and it's a credit to the craftsmanship that I would definitely consider it) I'll drop the opposition-sins element and put a lot more weight on the concordant-sin element in Runeforge, so that when a PC is in a section devoted to his besetting sin it is really striking and noticeable. And look for a way to get a sin-related element into FotSG.
Mary
(Eight schools? Eight?! What are you babbling about, man?)
Inconceivable!
I also found that sidebar on "keeping track of sin points" in Skinsaw Murders a little distracting... I started keeping a little tally of vices, and was a little disappointed to find no correlation in "Sins of the Saviours" (whine if you want, but we Australians spell things in English, like armour, honour, and saviours!).
No discredit on Stephen S. Greer, I like the module, and I understand that, at the time of writing, he probably would have have got a post-it saying something like "PCs who are sinful should get bonuses/penalties in the appropriate dungeon sections", and worked it out himself from here... but I found it a little jarring from what I had imagined it would be... I was expecting some kind of mechanic that added points to the DC of traps, spells etc in the appropriate section based on how many "sin points" the PC had in that "sin area", and if a PC was exceptionally pure, and had 0 (or maybe negative, I wasn't sure) points in a particular sin, they might be able to ignore the trap or spell entirely, meaning that particularly Zen monks might be able to ignore effects of traps in areas like Wrath, for example.
I might still run it "my way" just so as to keep things going the way I'm expecting, but I do agree with many of the above posts.
Maybe I read too much into the sidebar in #2 that said I should track sin points for each PC. We really paid attention to that, spent quite a bit of time discussing the PCs' besetting sins and how those related to the Thassilonian system.
You did? My players just know that I'm keeping some kind of score. It just drives them mad thinking about what kind of score I keep. Aaahahaha!
There's been a lot of discussion here and there about the correlation, or lack thereof, between the Virtues of Rule, the Mortal Sins, the modern virtues, the schools of magic associated with whichever, and the runeforged weapon qualities.
Most of it seems to center around people not understanding how it could work the way it's set out in the Path, why these two sins should oppose this one, why Enchantment for Fertility/Lust, and so forth. People want to change it so it makes sense.
Here's the thing: it doesn't have to. And I don't even mean "because it's magic."
As a counterpoint: the runewells are powered by vices, which suggests, on a fundamental level, that vices--and therefore virtues--actually generate a form of quantifiable energy that can be captured and stored. Therefore, the philosophy of the Runelords does have a basis in the natural environment--otherwise those who do not subscribe to their philosophy would not fuel them.
The issue here becomes one of epistemology, not ontology, which suggests that there may be variances, but the Thassilonian (sp?) system should be coherent. But this, after all, D&D...coherence is not its specialty--adventure is!
at the time of writing, he probably would have have got a post-it saying something like "PCs who are sinful should get bonuses/penalties in the appropriate dungeon sections", and worked it out himself from here... but I found it a little jarring from what I had imagined it would be... I was expecting some kind of mechanic that added points to the DC of traps, spells etc in the appropriate section based on how many "sin points" the PC had in that "sin area", and if a PC was exceptionally pure, and had 0 (or maybe negative, I wasn't sure) points in a particular sin, they might be able to ignore the trap or spell entirely, meaning that particularly Zen monks might be able to ignore effects of traps in areas like Wrath, for example.
Hmm, I thought it would have worked like the Haunts (which were brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! So much better than typical traps).