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dash931 said:
In the absence of anything else polite to say, I will suggest you stop comparing buddhism to your fantasyland death cult. For the good of your own reputation, if not respect for real life religious belief.
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His description of buddhism is more accurate than 99% of the internet.

Buddhism is not a death-cult, but it's forms can often come across as very Nihilistic. Working as intended. The basic tenent of buddhism is that "attachments and desires cause suffering... so don't have any."
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
His description of buddhism is more accurate than 99% of the internet.

Buddhism is not a death-cult, but it's forms can often come across as very Nihilistic. Working as intended. The basic tenent of buddhism is that "attachments and desires cause suffering... so don't have any."
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Fair enough.
AuraTwilight said:
Sorry. I didn't mean anything untoward; I was just making the point that in a fantasy world, the right scenario could make something we consider abominable entirely ethically valid given how fucked up D&D's cosmology can be. The real-world religions all have the potential for this if transposed directly into such a setting, as almost all of them have doctrines that have the potential for abuse or contrariness to secular society.
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Objective morality gets really ugly when taken to its logical conclusion: News at 11.

In any case, apology accepted, but I still think it best this topic die here.
 
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I should add that I've been raised with a Buddhist backround. Buddhism isn't a death-cult but it pushes you to the borders of Nihilism. It has literally been said by a few Buddhist leaders I've spoken to that Enlightenment is being pushed to Nihilism by the Eight Truths, and then crossing over the gulf of it into the meaning on the other side.

Objective morality gets really ugly when taken to its logical conclusion: News at 11.

In any case, I think it best this topic die here.
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Hey, someone brought up the subject of LG Paladins as wonderful antagonists. I took it to it's logical conclusion for the sake of an interesting example people could pick at. Not my fault people got upset and put words in my mouth.

Man, I just like challenging, non-standard Fantasy. A horror campaign where your entire way of life is morally inferior and the players need to fight for it anyway because they still value their lifestyles and earthly attachments? Heavenly zygote swarm random encounters? Cultists that run food drives and charity funds and can all cast Cure Light Wounds at-will and only inflict non-lethal damage but are legitimately attempting the world's largest holocaust?

That's like if Call of Cthulhu and Ravenloft had a baby with Neon Genesis Evangelion. Sign me the fuck up. If it's not your cup of tea, you can just say so and move on without coming into the thread and low-key insulting my personal character, thanks.
 
dash931 said:
Many religions separate killing in war and murder. And certainly, any religion that's amendable to paladins is going to have that.
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Killing is fine, I'm not going to toss it at them that they are not trying every bit of diplomacy on everything ever, despite the paladin trying his best at that. With mixed results.
+ Avoiding a 'boss fight', having him commit honoraburu seppuku and them getting his stuff. The guy was undead and delirious though sapient, when confronted with what happened and how long it has been, he opted 'out'.
+ Sending a pair of orc 'toll collectors' into an internal squabble/rage/fight over some of the harder words the party used.
- Wolves.
- Actual undead.
- Can't stop the rock.

So, hyeah, there's a bit of difference between just laying the smackdown on some idiots willing to put up a fight (The paladin has armor and martial weapons proficiency for a reason) and deciding that because earlier incidents left the enemy army on high alert they decided that sneaking in and torching the supplies to force a retreat was too risky*, the alternative was to chug a fire elemental down a sleepy volcano. That or rounding up allies for an honest to god battle.

To be fair if there is one thing the party is hilariously inept at it's anything approaching stealth. The rogue is blind as a bat (consistent sub-5's on her perception check), the Magus has a tendency to scream murderous rage and kill all those goddamn fuckers with FIRE for daring to threaten her home, and then there's the Paladin, who has vowed not to lie. Ever. And the priest, who is walking around with a horrible german accent and is generally playing up the likeable beer chugging priest thing far too much.

If I have to sum up their exploits in one sentence it would be "If it's stupid but it works, usually, then it's not stupid, usually."

Anyway, they tossed the elemental into sleepy mt. Doom and completely rekt the surrounding countryside including the valley the opposing army was in. As in, most of them, noncombatants included.
 
AuraTwilight said:
What if Positive and Negative energy don't have moral significance?

What if this church has the ability to keep undead from rising because they're holy out the ass to the point that swarms of zygotes wander their churches and their faithful don't even have rectums?

What if it's a setting like Eberron where there are no active, perceivable deities, so the church being run by a NO-SHIT ANGEL is a huge deal, and she's giving the go-ahead?
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Then that isn't the "Good" and "Evil" of D&D, it's just houserules.

Then they still get ganked by Atropus when It shows up.

Then dozens of factions go to war with them and probably end up unleashing at least one Rakshasa Rajah, if not a Daelkyr.
Because Eberron gives no shits about Alignment and Evil Angels are a real thing there.
 
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Then that isn't the "Good" and "Evil" of D&D, it's just houserules.
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Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.
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The cult is altruistic, respects the dignity of sentient beings (painful deaths aren't allowed), and are making immense personal sacrifice in order to transition all souls from this half-dead world to a world where death and decay and suffering are ontologically impossible.

It's not the alignment spectrum that's being house-ruled, it's the setting, which is perfectly valid. It's 100% more valid a use of the alignment system than the Paladin who has to kill Always Chaotic Evil orc babies or "All undead, even mindless ones, are evil but golems made out of imprisoning elemental spirits and enslaving them is totally morally acceptable."

And Atropus doesn't exist. He's bound to a single sourcebook that not all official settings can even use, in a single edition of the game. He's not a counter to anything.
 
Could we stop talking about "niche setting not everyone would find enjoyable" and get back to something that won't lead to more debates on Non-D&D subjects?
 
Can't be too hard to come up with Dire Wombats and Dire Kangaroos.
Dire Cane Toads would be harder.

Bulettes fit right in with the outback.
I remember frogmen from something?

For an australian I know very little about aboriginal mythology (rainbow snakes?)
 
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Havock said:
Killing is fine, I'm not going to toss it at them that they are not trying every bit of diplomacy on everything ever, despite the paladin trying his best at that. With mixed results.
+ Avoiding a 'boss fight', having him commit honoraburu seppuku and them getting his stuff. The guy was undead and delirious though sapient, when confronted with what happened and how long it has been, he opted 'out'.
+ Sending a pair of orc 'toll collectors' into an internal squabble/rage/fight over some of the harder words the party used.
- Wolves.
- Actual undead.
- Can't stop the rock.

So, hyeah, there's a bit of difference between just laying the smackdown on some idiots willing to put up a fight (The paladin has armor and martial weapons proficiency for a reason) and deciding that because earlier incidents left the enemy army on high alert they decided that sneaking in and torching the supplies to force a retreat was too risky*, the alternative was to chug a fire elemental down a sleepy volcano. That or rounding up allies for an honest to god battle.

To be fair if there is one thing the party is hilariously inept at it's anything approaching stealth. The rogue is blind as a bat (consistent sub-5's on her perception check), the Magus has a tendency to scream murderous rage and kill all those goddamn fuckers with FIRE for daring to threaten her home, and then there's the Paladin, who has vowed not to lie. Ever. And the priest, who is walking around with a horrible german accent and is generally playing up the likeable beer chugging priest thing far too much.

If I have to sum up their exploits in one sentence it would be "If it's stupid but it works, usually, then it's not stupid, usually."

Anyway, they tossed the elemental into sleepy mt. Doom and completely rekt the surrounding countryside including the valley the opposing army was in. As in, most of them, noncombatants included.
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Look, if an army's going to march on your country, most people wouldn't call you obligated to protect them against, you know, being killed for it.

And the rules of war are generally permissive of shooting up supply convoys ferrying war materiel to the frontlines.

So really, I'm not going to keep an expectation of 'They should risk their lives to get the enemy army to leave without killing them' for paladins. That's great, and is an awesome bonus if they can pull it off, but it's too much to demand of them.
 
Here's an old question that I've never found a satisfactory answer for. How do you roleplay someone smarter than yourself? My Elf has a 16 intelligence. I'm probably closer to 13-14. He has a twelve wisdom, which I think I can handle.
 
DanielJH2112 said:
Here's an old question that I've never found a satisfactory answer for. How do you roleplay someone smarter than yourself? My Elf has a 16 intelligence. I'm probably closer to 13-14. He has a twelve wisdom, which I think I can handle.
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Short answer: You probably already are without even realizing it just by roleplaying in the manner most people already do.

Long answer: You know how in rpgs combat often takes hours to resolve a fight which is finished in less than a minute? You know how in most games people are throwing around ideas and commentary via out-of-character discussion all the time? You know how in most games you can take a long time to make decisions that in real life, you'd have less than a fraction of a second to make? You know how when you play you may have a perfect overview of the entire combat area including everyone's relative positions, exact distances and so on and so forth? You know how you can often guess what the GM is doing for a plot based on your personal knowledge of the GM and the way they run games?

Welcome to being higher intelligence than you actually are. You, actual you, if you ran into a monster would be freaking out and panicking and making tactical mistakes due to the fog of war and all that jazz. You the character, however, is making intuitively excellent choices based on limited information because you the player has access to a whole host of out-of-character knowledge the character doesn't have access to. Imagine what that must look like to people in universe, you and your companions are these combat savants making snap decisions with the panache of tactical prodigies, intuiting your way through mysteries and puzzles and intrigues with frightening acumen and, of yeah, learning new skills and abilities in handful of days that takes normal people years or decades of training.
 
DanielJH2112 said:
Here's an old question that I've never found a satisfactory answer for. How do you roleplay someone smarter than yourself? My Elf has a 16 intelligence. I'm probably closer to 13-14. He has a twelve wisdom, which I think I can handle.
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How do you RP a demihuman older than yourself? -sticks out tongue- RP to your limit and solicit GM / player suggestion. This generally only affects the three mental stats so also look at them to see the types of mental ability displayed. It is easier to play flashes of brilliance than overall greatness. High INT can also be thoroughness of understanding instead of quicknes of thought, letting you plan more OOC and cooperatively to balance out the deficit.
 
Eh, for PC's it's somewhat eh. You can play the 'seen it all', or my personal favourite, somewhat bored yet quippy 'see if this is any fun'-kind of character. There's a ton of options, don't take it too seriously.

If a Dragon or whatever lives for 900 years or so he either grows up to be a monumental dick or something less unpleasant :p
 
Intelligence, also, seems to be a lot of "good at tasks," type intelligence. You're better at remembering things, you're better at complex tasks like spells, you can solve puzzles- stuff that makes people go 'wow.' And just like someone can be a brilliant computer programmer and still kinda dumb in choices, so can a high Int person.

Also, it does stuff through Int checks to make you better informed than people around you, and so on.
 
Holy shit the Windmill in Curse of Strahd is insane.

Three fucking Night Hags with high level spells! I was level three and the rest of the party was L5, we only survived by the skin of our teeth.

On the plus side, GEOFFREY DE CHARNY, FUTURE GREATEST KNIGHT IN THE WORLD is now GEOFFREY DE CHARNY, SLAYER OF HAGS, FUTURE GREATEST KNIGHT IN THE WORLD. Got the finishing blow on one.[/quote]
 
Havocfett said:
Holy shit the Windmill in Curse of Strahd is insane.

Three fucking Night Hags with high level spells! I was level three and the rest of the party was L5, we only survived by the skin of our teeth.

On the plus side, GEOFFREY DE CHARNY, FUTURE GREATEST KNIGHT IN THE WORLD is now GEOFFREY DE CHARNY, SLAYER OF HAGS, FUTURE GREATEST KNIGHT IN THE WORLD. Got the finishing blow on one.
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[/QUOTE]

HAIL SIR DE CHARNY! HAIL GEOFFREY HAGSLAYER!
 
Far Realms spider invasion campaign finally over. It took the PC's from first to twelfth level, and ended with a satisfying bang. Everyone still wants me to DM, so I'm coming up with a new campaign now. Have some ideas, but still hammering it out. Could use input.

Here are the parameters I'm working with:

1. Over a year ago, I tried to start a seafaring campaign. That gaming group fell through, but my current group really likes the idea, and in particular are interested in pirate-y sort of adventures.

2. I'm thinking a high-magic animistic world, full of nature spirits and small gods. Kind of the opposite of our last campaign, which was low magic and borderline science fantasy. This is both because I like animistic fantasy, and because the players want more magic (and particularly, magic items) this time around.

3. The players want to have their own ship, and for crewing and upgrading it to be a major part of the campaign.

Anyway, what I've got so far is as follows.

  • The setting is a sprawling island chain(s) on a great and perilous sea.
  • Throughout the world, there are natural shrines to small nature gods. Leaving offerings at these shrines will give your character a mechanical benefit of some kind.
  • The areas around these shrines are sacred and high in ambient magic. Few know the truth of this, but each shrine is actually a portal to a demiplane ruled by one of the small gods. These demiplanes resemble a pristine version of the lands around the shrine, sort of like 4E's feywild, but instead of an entire plane its a bunch of little ones.
  • The entire physical world is actually made of dormant elementals. Arcane magic works by momentarily awakening and commanding the elementals. I *think* that the influence of the demigods in their hidden planes is what's keeping the elementals dormant and the physical world with its laws of nature intact.
  • Give the two bullet points above: maybe divine magic gets a bonus if you're near one of the shrines, and arcane magic gets a bonus if you're far from them?
  • In the first or second session, the PC's will be stranded on an island full of ancient ruins. Exploring the ruins, they find a mysteriously intact sailing ship that they can escape with. They don't know it at first, but this ship is a powerful magical artifact, and the campaign will revolve around it. It appears as a tiny sloop at first, but as they level up and find ways to empower it, it actually grows larger and gets more obviously magical properties.
  • Bad guys of one stripe or another want to get their hands on the magic ship. Not sure who or why.
  • There's another faction of possibly allies, possibly enemies, who are trying to stop the ship from falling into the wrong hands. For some reason I imagine an ancient mummy who awakens when the ship gets found and activated (problem: if she's supposed to guard the ship, why isn't she there to stop the PC's from taking it?).
  • There should be a fair amount of dungeon crawling as well as intrigue between different factions competing for control of the islands. Maybe some kind of artifact hunt connected to the ship?
  • Possible idea: when its fully powered, the ship is capable of forcing entry into the demiplanes. Maybe it was created by demons as a weapon against the gods or something?
The party includes:

A drow warlock who was exiled from her city and made a pact with a mysterious water spirit to survive. As part of the bargain, she has come to the surface to find the spirit's original home in the ocean.

A custom lionine humanoid furry thing. A fey warrior from the court of one of the small gods, sent out into the physical world to search for something stolen from his master.

A monk from an order that uses dark magic to physically enhance its initiates. He was exiled during a coup within the order, and seeks to become powerful enough to take revenge.

A merfolk priestess whose motivations and goals are still up in the air.

Would like the plot to connect to everyone's backstory in some way, even just tangentially.

Trying to tie everything together into a coherent plot and setting. As I said, input is welcome, but please spoiler.
 
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Blake Hannon said:
Far Realms spider invasion campaign finally over. It took the PC's from first to twelfth level, and ended with a satisfying bang. Everyone still wants me to DM, so I'm coming up with a new campaign now. Have some ideas, but still hammering it out. Could use input.

Here are the parameters I'm working with:

1. Over a year ago, I tried to start a seafaring campaign. That gaming group fell through, but my current group really likes the idea, and in particular are interested in pirate-y sort of adventures.

2. I'm thinking a high-magic animistic world, full of nature spirits and small gods. Kind of the opposite of our last campaign, which was low magic and borderline science fantasy. This is both because I like animistic fantasy, and because the players want more magic (and particularly, magic items) this time around.

3. The players want to have their own ship, and for crewing and upgrading it to be a major part of the campaign.

Anyway, what I've got so far is as follows.
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Swim speed races and druidic rituals will be something that you must clear up beforehand via social contract considering the importance of moiblity there that could lead to decker syndrom.
And uh, look at how easy it is to sink some ships via D&D mechanics also as that leads to a bigger amount of glass canon ninja-pirates.
 
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