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I would agree that Nature is just the starting point for any of us, and also for any halfway-decently-written mortal race in any fantasy realm. But I draw the line at supernatural creatures. I usually argue the idea that supernatural creatures in any type of fiction should only have their Nature, and no Nurture available to them at all. Demons, angels, vampires, fairies, werewolves, etc... all of these supernatural creatures are literary, mythological, and/or thought tools to illustrate different aspects of human nature. They should be living personifications of abstract ideals, and nothing more, or the whole idea of fantasy fiction starts to break down. That's why I (and many others) hate Twilight. Edward the sparkly vampire is not a vampire at all. He is playing the role of conflicted human protagonist, and it rubs me wrong. Also a neutral good demon would also be playing the part of conflicted human protagonist, and would also rub me wrong, because demons are supposed to be stand-in shortcuts for the desires we deem evil within our own selves. Angels are supposed to be the best of us. Fairies are supposed to be our mysterious and tricky sides. Werewolves, the beastial; vampires, the selfish and greedy. If you try to introduce protagonist angst into any of these supernatural creatures then they aren't what they are no more, is what I'm saying.
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Mar 15, 2012 09:28
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The Dresden Files RPG does something neat along the lines of what Vorgen's talking about. It has a willpower/humanity number for each character called refresh level that's basically your control over your own character's actions. Buying new awesome character skills (or taking inhuman skills if your character is some sort of half-vampire or something) is deducted from this number, and it also can be temporarily spent to improve dice rolls and resist in-character temptations. The main thing is that if you end up as something non-mortal (represented by that number hitting 0), you automatically become an NPC, because your character is no longer capable of making choices. They basically have to follow their non-mortal nature, so the GM is going to run them as they were a monster. (I'm simplifying this, but I mainly bring it up because I figure RPG talk isn't unwelcome in the OotS thread) That said, the Goblins in OotS can make choices, so they're capable of changing their nature. Bobulus fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Mar 15, 2012 |
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Mar 15, 2012 10:43
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 New Comic: The Last Laugh Looks like the statue wasn't really Girard after all. Hopefully this puts off the derail for a while. Also, Rich Burlew now has a twitter account.
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Mar 15, 2012 13:07
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Turns out I have the maturity of a five year old, because the hardest OotS has made me laugh in a while was over a butt joke.
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Mar 15, 2012 13:21
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Bobulus posted:The Dresden Files RPG does something neat along the lines of what Vorgen's talking about.
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Mar 15, 2012 13:54
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What if it really is in the statue's...
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Mar 15, 2012 13:55
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Cliff Racer posted:What if it really is in the statue's... Put the gate right up the statues rear end and have any speak with dead or interrogations with lie detection be or mind control or really anything be "THE GATE IS BETWEEN GIRARDS BUTTCHEEKS!"
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Mar 15, 2012 14:02
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That's an interesting scam. We know that the Gates can be tiny. It could even still work as part of the Flesh to Stone scam we were talking about. Some kind of Epic Contingency that if anyone tries to access the Gate protected by Girard's butt, it de-stones him to kick rear end. That DOES seem like something a CN Illusionist would come up with...
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Mar 15, 2012 16:42
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jng2058 posted:That's an interesting scam. We know that the Gates can be tiny. It could even still work as part of the Flesh to Stone scam we were talking about. Some kind of Epic Contingency that if anyone tries to access the Gate protected by Girard's butt, it de-stones him to kick rear end. Really? I thought it was pretty obviously just a joke. His butthole is a rift. Not THE rift. It's just butt-humor.
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Mar 15, 2012 17:37
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Werner-Boogle posted:Really? I thought it was pretty obviously just a joke. His butthole is a rift. Not THE rift. It's just butt-humor. They're saying it'd be even funnier if it wasn't just butt humor.
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Mar 15, 2012 17:39
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Hinjo said that Dorukan's gate was the largest and Soon's gate (the gem) was the smallest. I guess it could be a little bigger and still fit, but man, that would feel more Dr. McNinja than OotS to me.
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Mar 15, 2012 17:43
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Roy's face in the last panel 
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Mar 15, 2012 17:44
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Idran posted:They're saying it'd be even funnier if it wasn't just butt humor. Yeah, it could be both butt humour AND a way to hide the location of the gate for just this kind of situation. Wouldn't that be fitting for an illusionist?
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Mar 15, 2012 18:28
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Vorgen posted:If you try to introduce protagonist angst into any of these supernatural creatures then they aren't what they are no more, is what I'm saying.
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Mar 15, 2012 20:49
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greatn posted:Some creatures radiate an evil aura regardless of their alignment. Don't worry, Detect Evil not only tells you if a subject is evil, but how strong the evil aura is. If it is a faint aura and the target not obviously undead, an evil outsider, or the cleric of an evil deity, then it's probably just a regular creature with an evil alignment, and has ten hit dice or less. This is weak evil, where your evil beggars and farmers show up and it's usually not worth instantly smiting. If it has a stronger aura, smite away. Regular humanoids don't get to more than 10 HD/levels without doing lots of things, and if you're a regular humanoid with lots of hit dice and an evil aura, it's safe to assume you've done at least something a paladin can feel justified in murdering you without trial. If it's a strong or overwhelming aura, then feel free to get back-up first. Basically, a paladin can freely murder anyone with an aura of evil of moderate or stronger, because it's either an undead, an evil outsider, an evil cleric, evil magic, or someone with lots of power and an evil inclination. Sure, this occasionally backfires when you kill someone who had an evil aura but wasn't actually evil (such as having a deceptive spell applied to that individual), and you'll fall, but the nice thing is that Atonement costs nothing more than time if you unwittingly committed the evil act (in this case, you were deceived by the spell or whatever). So keep your local cleric on speed-dial and have a back-up scroll for emergencies and you will have no real problems from your paladin features working like a yo-yo as you murder your way around the world. The "unwittingly" phrase for atonement is key, since it means that one of the best ways to avoid falling into the usual paladin traps is to have absolutely no clue as to what's going on anywhere. That way, any evil acts you commit are entirely accidental and unwitting, and thus you avoid any major problems or meaningful introspection. Character alignment in mechanical form is absolutely terrible. It's vague and confusing to begin with, but once you actually throw game mechanics into it you're creating fixed definitions for fluid concepts.
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Mar 15, 2012 21:16
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LightWarden posted:The "unwittingly" phrase for atonement is key, since it means that one of the best ways to avoid falling into the usual paladin traps is to have absolutely no clue as to what's going on anywhere. That way, any evil acts you commit are entirely accidental and unwitting, and thus you avoid any major problems or meaningful introspection. Uh, if you smash your mace into poor Peasant Bobs face because your loving spell told you he was evil you did not do it unwittingly. You'd be a goddamn psycopath and you'd fall so hard without any chance at atonement faster then you can say Asmodeus says hello.
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Mar 15, 2012 21:48
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Affi posted:Uh, if you smash your mace into poor Peasant Bobs face because your loving spell told you he was evil you did not do it unwittingly. You'd be a goddamn psycopath and you'd fall so hard without any chance at atonement faster then you can say Asmodeus says hello.
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Mar 15, 2012 21:54
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Reckon that would fall within the purview of people not quite as focussed on hitting evil things with big swords, to be honest
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Mar 15, 2012 23:43
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Affi posted:Uh, if you smash your mace into poor Peasant Bobs face because your loving spell told you he was evil you did not do it unwittingly. You'd be a goddamn psycopath and you'd fall so hard without any chance at atonement faster then you can say Asmodeus says hello. That's not at all what LightWarden said. First of all, the entire post was in the context of "this is why alignment mechanics are dumb". Second, he was suggesting indiscriminately killing people with a moderate to strong evil aura (i.e. not peasants). The case where you'd be wrong is when someone has got a fake aura on them (you've been set up, so it's not your fault). Or when an evil person is having a good effect (maybe the cruel baron is holding a critical pass keeping the monsters out of the kingdom?), but as long as you're stupid enough, you can argue that it's not your fault that your good act came to an evil end. Also, why should paladins be expected to redeem everyone? They're holy warriors. Why have the Smite Evil power if you're not going to smite some evil? That's like suggesting that thieves should buy equipment!
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Mar 15, 2012 23:45
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Mniot posted:Also, why should paladins be expected to redeem everyone? They're holy warriors. Why have the Smite Evil power if you're not going to smite some evil? That's like suggesting that thieves should buy equipment!
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Mar 15, 2012 23:52
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NihilCredo posted:Hinjo said that Dorukan's gate was the largest and Soon's gate (the gem) was the smallest. I guess it could be a little bigger and still fit, but man, that would feel more Dr. McNinja than OotS to me. "Girard's Buttcheeks" could be the name of some geological formation. Resembling a butt.
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Mar 15, 2012 23:56
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It's located directly across "Girard's Taint" from "Girard's Stones".
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Mar 16, 2012 00:38
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Nipponophile posted:It's located directly across "Girard's Taint" from "Girard's Stones".
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Mar 16, 2012 01:05
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Nipponophile posted:It's located directly across "Girard's Taint" from "Girard's Stones". "What do you call those two low-lying hillocks over there?" "Girard's Moobs." "Ah."
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Mar 16, 2012 01:59
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Affi posted:Uh, if you smash your mace into poor Peasant Bobs face because your loving spell told you he was evil you did not do it unwittingly. You'd be a goddamn psycopath and you'd fall so hard without any chance at atonement faster then you can say Asmodeus says hello. Nah, you smash his head in because your spell said that he was a significant threat and your spell is usually right. Poor Peasant Bob does not get a moderate evil aura just by being an unpleasant person. The problem with alignment is that it's an arbitrary mechanic for personalities that also is somehow an underlying absolute of the cosmic structure. Because it's a component of personality and morality, it's subject to all the vagueries and nuances of moral decisions, but because it's part of the cosmic structure, every moral question has a definitive answer. It's good, evil, lawful, chaotic, or neutral in some combination. And to make matters worse, not only does everything have a definitive answer, but there are plenty of ways to check the cosmic mojo-meter and solve all moral dilemmas forever. The exact link between action, thought, and alignment can be DM or group-dependent, but alignment has long been used as a short-hand for an NPC's status. Way back in the earliest editions, the game just used a Law/Neutral/Chaos alignment inspired by Moorcock's swords and sorcery works. It specifically wasn't a good/evil split- while Law was often portrayed as stable and just, it could also be tyrannical, and Chaos could be freedom and change instead of destruction or Law's stagnation. The two-axis/nine-point alignment was introduced in AD&D in 1978, and it was a bad idea even then. In AD&D, the alignments were heavily tied into the cosmic structure, to the point where the descriptions themselves explained what team you batted for (For example: Chaotic Neutral was not about being free-wheeling and self-centered, but valuing "randomness and disorder", and avoiding good/evil extremes or else "ultimate chaos would then suffer"). And AD&D considered choosing an alignment to be as important as choosing your race or class. In AD&D 2e, alignment was wound back a bit to being a tool for resolving moral dilemmas instead of a straightjacket or a jersey in support for your favorite superpower. The descriptors were more of how the character viewed themselves and their role in society- and it maybe could have been that looser guideline had it not carried forward a rather odious artifact of the previous edition: alignment mechanics. Back then, alignment determined what class you played, or perhaps your class determined your alignment- thieves couldn't be lawful, assassins (they were a class back in AD&D) were evil, paladins were lawful good and druids were neutral (neutral/neutral, true neutral). And even if you weren't getting into situations where you had to get alignment's permission to play your character, it was important to know what your character's alignment was, since there were alignment-dependent items and spells, such as swords that did more damage to chaotic characters, or spells like Holy Word that flat-out killed every non-good character in the room if those characters were weak enough. Also, alignments had their own languages in AD&D- "Chaotic Neutral" was a language you could speak, and you physically couldn't speak it if you weren't Chaotic Neutral. I can only assume they also had their own clubhouses on the planes, complete with signs saying "NO LG ALLOWED". Oh, did I mention the planes? See, each of the nine alignments matches up with one of the outer planes which is home to deities and various creatures of that alignment (angels, devils, etc), but there are more than nine planes. There's the plane of neutral chaos (Limbo), the plane of absolute chaotic evil (the Abyss), the plane of absolute (neutral) evil (Hades), then the plane of evil chaotic neutrals (Tarterus) and the plane of chaotic evil neutrals (Pandemonium). And it goes all the way around the stadium with the Astral Plane in the middle (I'm pretty sure the list is improperly done in the AD&D PHB, since it lists both Gehenna and Acheron as the plane of lawful evil neutrals, when Gehenna is clearly the plane of lawful neutral evils). For some reason there aren't further subdivisions between the neutral evil chaotic neutrals and the lawful evil chaotic neutrals and further subdivisions of those planes... Alignment mechanics could almost be justified if left in the framework where everyone was a piece in a cosmic game that only vaguely resembled any sort of ethical framework, but 2e attempted to dial things back so everyone wasn't implied to be a cosmic warrior (admittedly, not something you find everyone doing in most D&D parties). So alignment became sort of a personal thing that was could change when you did. Except you were still vulnerable to being instantly killed by the right spell based on your mental beliefs, and Planescape further muddied the waters by turning the outer planes into various afterlives for people based on their alignment, no matter how much the D&D cosmology interfered with Planescape's ideas (if belief shapes the planes, what do neutral good lawfuls believe in comparison to lawful good or neutral good, and why does that belief manifest itself as a mountain facing a meadow). So alignment was not just a rigidly organized structure you could use or not use as a character guide, it was a cosmic truth and a concrete part of the fabric of the universe as intrinsic and detectable as an object's mass. Your alignment was a part of you, a reflection of who you actually were- even if you thought you were doing the right thing, your alignment would be different if the cosmos judged you and sorted you differently. And it is a sorting, into one of nine boxes, because no matter how much of a gray area a scenario or an individual may be, at the end of the day it's getting put into one of those boxes, because there is no room for finer examinations or arguments. If you're good, you're good, and if you're evil, you're evil. Maybe things can change through action and thought (over a long period of time, according to the 2e PHB), but what alignment is an absolute statement of what you are and what you think and do, Alignment as concrete mechanics means that the universe has rules about morality that are as fundamental as gravity- not only can you use spells like Detect Evil to figure out who's been naughty, or items like holy blades to do more damage to evildoers (Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? This sword knows!), but you can even measure morality with the help of the scientific method, by having groups perform acts to see which of them result in alignment changes. If that's too ethically dubious, you can always just consult the magic eightball that is the Phylactery of Faithfullness, which will tell you if an action will affect your alignment if you simply contemplate it- you don't even have to go through with it! All trolley problems are solved forever, and researchers release monthly journals explaining the mysteries behind good and evil. And then you get to the paladin. Iin 2e, characters only radiated good/evil auras if they were: 1) Strongly aligned 2) Do not stray from their faith 3) 9th level or higher 4) Intent on appropriate actions While it affected evil outsiders and undead and the like just fine, most regular people wouldn't show up. In 3e, everyone with an evil alignment has an evil aura, and that aura is detectable with Detect Evil unless it's specifically blocked. So your paladin who detects evil will notice the aura strength, and a moderate or stronger aura strength means that this isn't your garden variety evil, this is someone with some serious power behind them, and an evil alignment isn't something you get just by existing, if doing different acts can change your alignment. Killing things just because they look funny is a time-honored tradition in D&D, which would resemble a home invasion complete with murder and robbery were it not for the alignment of the target creatures to indicate that they probably deserved it even if you don't know why because you just stumbled into their cave in the middle of the woods. Paladins have Smite Evil (a new 3e invention), designed to kill evil things even faster than normal attacks. The fact that you have to take a feat in order to use it nonlethally indicates that it's designed to help you put enemies into pinewood boxes. Evil is a concrete detectable thing that is difficult to falsify, and destruction for the sake of its destruction is considered justified, as it preempts the possibility that the evil will harm someone who isn't evil. You are not required to comprehend or redeem it in any way, even if it's one of the guards who die in droves for the crime of defending a reprehensible individual. There's nothing that forbids a paladin from going terminator on everything that reads as a threat save for the whimsical interpretations of the player or DM. They may be expected by those people to be paragons of good, but there is nothing in their code or class description that requires it. PHB posted:A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act. It may not match your ideal, but murdering anything with a decent reading on the evilmeter is certainly punishing those who threaten innocents. This is what alignment mechanics do. They give form to the undefinable and boil complex problems down into simple solutions. They are crude mechanics that are unfit to bear any sort of moral weight because they were originally designed to justify who you could and couldn't attack without consequence like a game of shirts vs skins. They rob the story of tension or opportunities for introspection or nuance because you can always look up the answer in the big book of numbers. Alignment gives us alignment debates, and also gives us the Orc Baby Problem, where players can argue whether or not infanticide or genocide is justifiable given that a race is chaotic evil by nature. If you see the problem with this then you do not need an alignment system to make up your mind on issues- if you don't see the problem with this, you should not use an alignment system to make up your mind on issues. Alignment is kludgy to begin with and alignment mechanics are disasters to the last.
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Mar 16, 2012 03:17
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LightWarden posted:
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Mar 16, 2012 03:19
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Anyone else ever play Werewolf: the Apocalypse? In it, the protagonist werewolves are fighting to protect the earth and life itself from a cosmic force of corruption and degeneration known as The Wyrm. One of the easier abilities to get is called Scent Wyrm, and it lets you detect the corruption of the Wyrm. Now, the World of Darkness is a lovely place, and a lot of completely innocent people stink of the Wyrm because they eat fast food that's made from contaminated materials, or they live in places where the Wyrm's corruption is strong, or whatever. You can be totally blameless and still set off Scent Wyrm, which is a problem in part because a lot of Werewolf players think "He smells of the Wyrm? He's obviously evil!" and then comes the shapeshifting and the murdering of people whose only crime was eating at O'Tolley's. Unsurprisingly, people who play that way tend to play completely awful paladins...
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Mar 16, 2012 03:24
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LightWarden posted:Alignment is kludgy to begin with and alignment mechanics are disasters to the last. Jesus.
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Mar 16, 2012 03:46
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Colon V posted:Just... just shorten your post to just that. Having read the 1st and 2nd edition PHBs cover to cover I really enjoyed that trip down memory lane. My groups always said gently caress Alignment and was done with it.
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Mar 16, 2012 04:56
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Pope Guilty posted:Anyone else ever play Werewolf: the Apocalypse? In it, the protagonist werewolves are fighting to protect the earth and life itself from a cosmic force of corruption and degeneration known as The Wyrm. One of the easier abilities to get is called Scent Wyrm, and it lets you detect the corruption of the Wyrm. So, would a werewolf paladin be justified in smiting someone playing a tainted version of dnd?
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Mar 16, 2012 05:42
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LightWarden posted:As if this post wasn't proof enough please stick to talking about the actual comic and not going off on derails about alignment and rules.
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Mar 16, 2012 12:32
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Holy poo poo I tried googling phrases out of that wall of text to see if he just googled it and pasted it since it was relevant as a joke and no results. He seriously typed an essay on the loving alignment rules. 
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Mar 17, 2012 08:46
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Eh, if you're gonna sperg on something, sperging on the foibles of alignment at least fits the theme of the thread better than the robot sex derail over in the Battletech Let's Play right now. And he pretty much hit all the high points of the debate. I say sperg on, you crazy bastard, you!
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Mar 17, 2012 09:44
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jng2058 posted:robot sex derail  Back on topic, I do have to wonder if this is just the body being a very literal smartass somehow, if they really don't know, or if it's all for a joke.
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Mar 17, 2012 10:02
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Well, Durkon did say that he cannot lie.
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Mar 17, 2012 10:08
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Colon V posted:Do we want to ride derail? It depends on the purpose of the strip. Sometimes Burlew puts in throwaway strips just cover potential plotholes caused by the game rules. Since Speak with Dead is an obvious solution to the Dead Draketooth Problem, this strip could just be his way of saying "Yeah, Speak with Dead's a bust." In which case the dead guy is just being clever in evading the spell by speaking literal truths that are of no help to the party. On the other hand, it could also be a legitimate clue. If, for instance, the Rift really is hidden between the butt cheeks of Girard under the effect of a Flesh to Stone spell, then it's an even more clever dodge. You act as if you're evading, then tell them the truth in a way that makes them unlikely to believe you. Of course, since Durkon's at least 14th level, he does get seven questions per casting of Speak with Dead so maybe next strip we'll learn more.
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Mar 17, 2012 17:29
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Well, I was wrong "Soon an' 'is paladins" was not the first back-to-back use of apostrophes in the comic. Rich achieved this pinnacle of improbable accents a while ago. I'll leave the exact page number containing the single other instance of back-to-back apostrophes as an exercise for the rest of you. Show your work. And, no, the apsotrophe-period-apostrophe sequence in Start of Darkness or maybe On the Origins of PCs (I forget which) doesn't count.
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Mar 19, 2012 08:07
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pseudorandom name posted:Well, I was wrong "Soon an' 'is paladins" was not the first back-to-back use of apostrophes in the comic. Rich achieved this pinnacle of improbable accents a while ago. This is improbable? Is there some kind of thing with English that means you'd always pronounce the "d" in "and" if you dropped the "h" in his?
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Mar 19, 2012 09:28
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What's with the red title?
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Mar 19, 2012 09:29
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Mystic Mongol posted:What's with the red title? Nenonen posted:If only I had 
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Mar 19, 2012 09:33
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on myself, I would immediately spend it to buy a red custom title for that insolent pseudorandom name. That would teach him! 