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The war on drugs / industrial prison complex and that stuff is probably the best real world example of Lawful Evil I can think of.
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Apr 6, 2011 19:41
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Colonial Air Force posted:Just like the War on Drugs! Yeah, look up asset forfeiture sometime. The cops can take your poo poo- land, vehicles, money, property of all kinds- and force you to prove that you legally own it and didn't buy it with the proceeds from crime. You have no rights because, guess what, the confiscated property is the defendant, not you, so the Constitution doesn't protect you. There's small-town PDs in rural areas of the Midwest and South that have absolutely lavish headquarters and all the gear they'd ever want because they make a habit of "confiscating" random cars driving through and- and here's the best part- the confiscating police department keeps the confiscated funds and the proceeds from selling confiscated property. Lawful Evil at its finest.
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Apr 6, 2011 20:31
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sfwarlock posted:Accused not convicted? Wow. Talk about Lawful Evil. Eh, pretty much every civilization ever has been lawful evil. It's actually really hard for me to not create LE societies because I always start with historical analogs. I find good/neutral parties trying to better a largely evil (in the realistic sense, not the baby eating sense) world is more compelling than the Forgotten Realms standard. Individuals and organizations can be good or neutral, governments are almost always lowercase evil. It's funny though because the players who haven't played one of my adventures before immediately start railing against the first society they're introduced to. The ones who've played a few are all "Abolitionist? This is merit based slavery, what's the problem?"
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Apr 6, 2011 20:48
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BrainWeasel posted:No, he's saying he would have been more angry if the tournament had turned out unmemorable. It's a little clunky, but it's correct. Append a phantom "made me" to his sentence and it's much easier to diagram. 
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Apr 6, 2011 21:45
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Toussaint Louverture posted:Eh, pretty much every civilization ever has been lawful evil. It's actually really hard for me to not create LE societies because I always start with historical analogs. I find good/neutral parties trying to better a largely evil (in the realistic sense, not the baby eating sense) world is more compelling than the Forgotten Realms standard. Individuals and organizations can be good or neutral, governments are almost always lowercase evil. And here is exposed the old flaw of the alignment system in that it is completely subjective. I mean would you describe Plato's Republic as evil? I don't think most nations throughout history would describe themselves as such, even at a safe distance. God that always bugged me. I got into D&D through Baldur's Gate and when I decided to do a bit of background reading I was amazed to find out that there were literally orc and elf cultures literally teaching each other to betray, torture and enslave each other at every oppurtunity "to be evil" which essentially meant they never had any kind of civilization at all. Apart from the Drow because the fans love the Drow. If I remember right the orcs didn't have any kind of sensible kingdom until a bad guy in a Drizzt novel just-about created one. Is that right?
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Apr 7, 2011 04:50
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SithDrummer posted:I suppose that is supposed to read: "no one even would have remembered." I love that every strip further cements him as the best villain.
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Apr 7, 2011 05:03
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Tarquin is a good example of why authors should replace their earlier characters with later ones. I find his dialogue really refreshing. I feel like there's a point where any really conniving character ends up looking like (for lack of a better term) some sort of mary sue thing. Tarquin doesn't. He's every evil mastermind with none of the blunder or eye rolling stupidity. Even well written stories too often just go 'oh well uh here's something dumb' out of the antagonist's mouth, just to hold to the trope. Tarquins cares not for the tropes.Nilbop posted:And here is exposed the old flaw of the alignment system in that it is completely subjective. I don't remember what we're supposed to call D&D outsiders. Most cultures are very strongly neutral. People, in large groups, generally are. Most people aren't actively malicious, in fact they're arguably not actively anything beyond people. The worst part of alignment systems is people don't realize they're not a prison, mind you. Also Forgotten Realms, as it was in the BG era, will drive you nuts if you think about it in any manner approaching logically. It's not a functional setting, it exists purely to have Party, Will Travel, Get XP. I hope I'm not stepping on any toes here since I don't really care, but I can strongly recall a huge D&D nerd friend of mine screaming nonstop about how FR was just piles of wizards all hiding in towers and spewing out magic items that no one in the populace ever used. Just nestled away in their treasure troves for an apparently infinite parade of adventurers.
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Apr 7, 2011 05:32
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Most societies in human history seem neutral by D&D standards until you remember trivial details such as institutionalized racism, slavery, rampant sexism, sweat shops, corrupt governments, corrupt police etc. D&D has a pretty high standard for what constitutes Evil as opposed to good or neutral, that's the problem.
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Apr 7, 2011 07:25
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Toussaint Louverture posted:“Don’t gently caress around in my city unless you want to risk losing your vorpal nunchucks.” I really want to play a character with vorpal nunchucks.
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Apr 7, 2011 07:37
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Vorpal nunchucks are a much better topic for discussion than the alignment system, really.
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Apr 7, 2011 10:10
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rotinaj posted:I really want to play a character with vorpal nunchucks. Vorpal weapons have to be edged. That that concludes my nerdiest post of the day. I hope.
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Apr 7, 2011 15:24
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Vorpal sword-chucks?
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Apr 7, 2011 15:33
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Ashcans posted:Vorpal sword-chucks? Vorpal slingshot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSU1jQoGIqo
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Apr 7, 2011 15:38
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crime fighting hog posted:Vorpal weapons have to be edged. Bitch, I know that. That's what makes me want to play a character with vorpal nunchucks even more.
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Apr 7, 2011 15:59
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crime fighting hog posted:Vorpal weapons have to be edged. That just means they have to be vorpal sword-chucks.
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Apr 7, 2011 16:05
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Piell posted:That just means they have to be vorpal sword-chucks. Lightsaber-chucks. 
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Apr 7, 2011 17:05
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Vicissitude posted:Lightsaber-chucks. Those would be Brilliant Energy. oh god why
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Apr 7, 2011 17:06
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Nah, they're just regular old wooden magic nunchucks. Imagine securing a puppy to a worktable via vice and then having Josh Hamilton swing for the fences with an aluminum bat. It works on the same principle.
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Apr 7, 2011 17:43
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Vicissitude posted:Lightsaber-chucks.  Glowchuks, yo.
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Apr 7, 2011 18:54
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Spiderdrake posted:
A lot of that was actually covered in the books. The goddess of magic would have her people randomly place spells and other magical items where people might find them so they would be inspired to start practicing magic. Granted, most of it was poo poo like a light spell scroll, or a wand of magic missile with half it's charges gone but they honestly did just drop that poo poo around towns and old farmsteads.
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Apr 8, 2011 19:21
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Toussaint Louverture posted:Vorpal nunchucks are a much better topic for discussion than the alignment system, really. seaborgium posted:A lot of that was actually covered in the books. I think his point was that the economy and nature of the setting just didn't make any sense, but really I'm not sure it was supposed to. It's almost exclusively for the purposes of providing a setting for people RPing silly adventures, isn't it?
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Apr 8, 2011 19:52
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Spiderdrake posted:I'm not sure that really makes the setting make any more sense. Like instead of a wizard did it, now it's the goddess of wizards did it so more wizards would do it? You're right, but finding some random low level magical item did have some sort of explanation. It is really just a backdrop that doesn't have to make the most sense.
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Apr 9, 2011 00:13
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Faerun just loving bothers me. There's no city with a population over a quarter million because it's a medieval fantasy setting, but there's hundreds of the loving things. The geography of the place makes absolutely no sense, there are deserts side by side with polar icefloes, rolling plains where there should be immense swamps and wetlands, squiggly-line rivers everywhere they can fit, the topography looks like the entire continent was originally completely densely wooded rainforests steeped among cloud-piercing mountains with the occasional rain-basin which have now become inland seas with the only direction being "mountains everywhere, rivers where there are no mountains." Blargh it's just ... blargh!
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Apr 9, 2011 01:06
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Apr 10, 2011 09:25
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Nilbop posted:Faerun just loving bothers me. There's no city with a population over a quarter million because it's a medieval fantasy setting, but there's hundreds of the loving things. The geography of the place makes absolutely no sense, there are deserts side by side with polar icefloes, rolling plains where there should be immense swamps and wetlands, squiggly-line rivers everywhere they can fit, the topography looks like the entire continent was originally completely densely wooded rainforests steeped among cloud-piercing mountains with the occasional rain-basin which have now become inland seas with the only direction being "mountains everywhere, rivers where there are no mountains." I personally loved that about the place. It was a freaking fantasy wonderland of plot convenience. And I adored the high-level NPC's. It was a stupid-fun setting. Hence when they announced it as the main setting for fourth edition, I knew bad things were coming. Realms is NOT a good mainstream setting, and they'd have to go about "fixing" it to make it "work." *sigh* On topic, Elan's Dad gets more awesome every comic.
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Apr 10, 2011 20:53
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Entertainer13 posted:I personally loved that about the place. It was a freaking fantasy wonderland of plot convenience. And I adored the high-level NPC's. It was a stupid-fun setting. Faerun is not the setting of fourth edition, it's some entirely new world.
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Apr 11, 2011 00:35
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Entertainer13 posted:I personally loved that about the place. It was a freaking fantasy wonderland of plot convenience. And I adored the high-level NPC's. It was a stupid-fun setting. Yeah, beaten, but the "default" setting isn't FR. It's what they call the "Points of Light" setting. There were once great, continent-spanning empires, but they have fallen into dust and now civilization is in isolated pockets constantly threatened by the encroaching forces of chaos. Points of light in the darkness yadda yadda. Elminster and company got a campaign guide and players guide, much like Dark Sun and Eberron.
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Apr 11, 2011 01:38
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Pope Guilty posted:Faerun is not the setting of fourth edition, it's some entirely new world. Its the land of apathy, unless you want some juicy XP. The LFR campaign is leaving me more and more in the dust. I hope the writing improves with the year 3 changes. I have been playing Pathfinder lately as well, Golorion is a pretty good place.
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Apr 11, 2011 02:31
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Nilbop posted:And here is exposed the old flaw of the alignment system in that it is completely subjective. I mean would you describe Plato's Republic as evil? I don't think most nations throughout history would describe themselves as such, even at a safe distance. Actually there was a book that did a pretty good job of explaining how the drow could have a "functional" culture based on evil and betrayal. It's basically Anarchist-Libertopia, only every time one person or group started to amass enough power to make the entire system completely broken instead of just broken enough to barely work, Lolth just pops in and kills them. It's the kind of unstable, paranoid imbalanced-balance implied by the phrase "an armed society is a polite society".
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Apr 11, 2011 02:59
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It's not so much Lolth stepping in and killing the person upsetting the balance, but rather the rest of Drow culture stepping up to rebalance the equation. It's true that they're all chaotic evil and looking out for number 1, but when someone or some house acquires the power to cause damage to their way of life, they tend to band together for mutual benefit against the common enemy. It's a very fluid balance of power most of the time, but it is usually balanced.
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Apr 11, 2011 03:08
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Huitzil posted:Actually there was a book that did a pretty good job of explaining how the drow could have a "functional" culture based on evil and betrayal. It's basically Anarchist-Libertopia, only every time one person or group started to amass enough power to make the entire system completely broken instead of just broken enough to barely work, Lolth just pops in and kills them. It's the kind of unstable, paranoid imbalanced-balance implied by the phrase "an armed society is a polite society". But that doesn't make sense to me. You have to make a huge leap somewhere if you buy into the idea that an entire race, nevermind an entire civilization, follow a god that they know will willingly strike them down if they do well for themselves. It's just no feasible. Instead of being master assassins and viper-minded tacticians every drow should be a paranoid wreck terrified of achieving anything, as literally everything around them will kill them. The same is true to a lesser extent for the orcs, because if I remember rightly Gruumsh literally didn't give a poo poo about them so much as having a fight and trying to kill Corellon.
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Apr 11, 2011 03:10
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Basically all the Evil races don't make sense to me as how they are capable of maintaining any big civilization. Orcs, okay, they always seem to be barbarians with whoever's strongest having say. No giant cities and fancy architecture. I guess it's just what happens when you create a race solely to be antagonists.
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Apr 11, 2011 03:13
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Nilbop posted:But that doesn't make sense to me. You have to make a huge leap somewhere if you buy into the idea that an entire race, nevermind an entire civilization, follow a god that they know will willingly strike them down if they do well for themselves. It's just no feasible. Instead of being master assassins and viper-minded tacticians every drow should be a paranoid wreck terrified of achieving anything, as literally everything around them will kill them. The same is true to a lesser extent for the orcs, because if I remember rightly Gruumsh literally didn't give a poo poo about them so much as having a fight and trying to kill Corellon. They don't KNOW she comes in and does it. It's very hush-hush. And it only happens when someone would become powerful enough to break the entire system (as a totally unrestricted libertopia would eventually have happen), not just "doing well". She'd have the leader of your noble house whacked if she was about to turn it into Microsoft, but not, say, Apple. Drow are paranoid and terrified pretty much 24/7, though.
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Apr 11, 2011 03:20
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Hmmmm, so would drow carry loot such as +2 tin foil hats?
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Apr 11, 2011 09:23
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Nilbop posted:every drow should be a paranoid wreck terrified of achieving anything, as literally everything around them will kill them. All Drow ARE paranoid wrecks, but they have an ingrained sense of greed and a drive for power, partly inherent but also largely part of the Cult of Lolth. They just have to achieve it according to "The Rules". If you piss off one matron mother by horning in on her power base, her house will strike back at you. But naturally, it won't be directly. After all, two houses at war will swiftly deplete their resources and be easy pickings for all the other houses. So instead, she'll negotiate this and that among other houses, pledging support in a small raid in exchange for a bit of an embargo here, a slit throat there. Things like that. Meanwhile, that raid that she's supporting will be used in a power struggle against another house completely unrelated to you and her in the first place. Drow politics is a tangled web of intrigue, betrayal and a carefully interwoven system of checks and balances.
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Apr 11, 2011 09:53
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 Doesn't look like Thog at least.
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Apr 11, 2011 16:32
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My Lovely Horse posted:Doesn't look like Thog at least. Yeah, Thog probably isn't capable of RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
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Apr 11, 2011 17:05
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Isn't that Thog's axe though?
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Apr 11, 2011 17:09
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Affi posted:Isn't that Thog's axe though? Thog's axe was two-headed and symmetrical last time we saw him in Greyport or whatever, but let's face it, that helmet's there to conceal a big reveal and it'd be a perfect segue in to introduce Nale to spice up something that has gone pretty much "to plan" for all parties. Don't get me wrong though, I'd love to see how everyone going to plan works out, but it just feels like there's gonna be a big tweest.
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Apr 11, 2011 17:21
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I'm guessing it'll be Roy's here-to-for unseen evil twin.
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Apr 11, 2011 17:26
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