Susaga @ Susaga @ttrpg.network

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2 yr. ago

I get your point, but I will say the Captain America scene isn't completely out of the realm of possibility. Cap weighs the helicopter down for a few seconds, and grabs a support beam for the helipad as soon as he can. If Cap can keep a grip on both the beam and the helicopter, then the propellers will only lift him if either Cap or the support beams break.

Of course, whether he should have had that much effect on the helicopter for those first few seconds is another matter entirely and I'm not enough of a physicist to make that call.

The only good example I can think of where people actually explain themselves is Agents of SHIELD, which isn't even a movie. It's amazing. She doesn't doubt his loyalty for a second and understands, given their situation, why he had to keep it a secret from her. You still get drama, but it's drama from everyone being on the same dramatic page.

...This is fiction. These are fictional innocent people. The fictional paladin played by a real person is doing fictional evil. The real person at the table is just a person playing a game. Nobody is in harms way.

...I very much do not understand your point.

You get that, no matter who provided the gun, the mass shooter shouldn't have done that, right? Even if they thought the gun was only going to fire blanks, they shouldn't point it at people and repeatedly fire. It's only manslaughter if they stop at one death, and manslaughter still carries a sentence.

You get that the DM is supposed to cause evil, right? They create monsters and villains and the players have to overcome the evil in the world. The DM isn't evil because they sent an army of orcs to attack a village, no matter how many villagers die in the assault.

You get that the people in the game aren't real, right? The DM made them up. Nobody is actually dying, no matter what happens in the game. The morality of the people at the table is not rigidly tied to the morality of the characters they play as.

Just so I know where I'm standing here.

First off, a sword that only destroys evil doesn't mean insta-kill. It just means you only deal a fatal blow if they're evil. You can just rule that it still damages good characters, so you lose basically all of your allies due to constant wounding.

Second, this is consequentialism vs deontologism. Is the morality of an act decided by the outcome or the act itself? You have the consequentialism view that the action is okay because you know it can only kill an evil person. I argue that the sword's properties can change without you knowing, so this knowledge is just belief. As the consequences cannot be truly known before the action takes place, the morality is decided by the action itself (deontology). Stabbing people at the start of every conversation is evil.

I did consider that. I like it not affecting evil creatures cause it might make the Paladin question things if it fails to harm one of the BBEG's minions. Whether they question which side their on or the sword itself is up to them.

Does the Paladin trust their blind faith in the weapon, or do they consider the morality of their actions by themselves? Consequentialism vs Deontologism, essentially. The lie reinforces the blind faith to make the situation work.

I put an ethical dilemma in front of a Paladin. I do not consider this evil.

The playstyle is stabbing random townsfolk on the off chance you kill a bad guy. Fuck that playstyle.

And for a lore reason, just have the sword be influenced by the morality of the wielder's actions. Stabbing random townsfolk is evil. The sword turns evil.

I think you missed the point of the exercise.

The Paladin is using the sword in place of a moral compass. They stab people upon first meeting and trust that anyone who dies deserved it. If the sword weren't good aligned, this would be heinous behaviour.

So make the sword evil. How long does it take for the Paladin to stop doing evil deeds in the blind belief that they're doing good? Does the Paladin take responsibility for stabbing random townsfolk, or do they try to blame something else for their actions? Does the Paladin just straight up fall to evil, supporting wicked people in the blind belief that they must be the real good guys?

The sword's power changes with time, and as it racks up more kills. Soon, it gains a +1 to attack and damage. Then, it can become wreathed in flame as a bonus action. Then, it grants advantage to checks made to locate creatures. Then, its base power inverts and it can only kill non-evil creatures.

Do not tell the player about that last one. Insist to the player that it works exactly as you first described. The Paladin can kill innocent shopkeepers and little old ladies, but cannot kill this assassin working for the BBEG.

Will he question his own stab-first ask-later methods? Or will he turn evil without even noticing?

I find it interesting that you have to specify it's not real in a biological sense, which is true, but use this to imply it's not real in any sense. It's a sociological concept, constructed rather than inherent but still very much a thing.

Also, race as a concept was first conceived of by European explorers before America was even a thing, and the concept is pretty widespread.

There's an episode of the Good Place where they discuss this exact thing (well, replace "immoral" with "romantic", but still), and I'm pretty sure the motivations are the same. They don't actually believe in determinism as much as they claim, but they don't want to be responsible for their actions and determinism is a good excuse they can use. You can't use logic to get them out of this belief, because it wasn't logic that made them believe it to begin with.

There's two parts to it.

First of all, a lot of technology is doing straight up wizard shit. Fire in the palm of your hand? Carriages that travel without horse or driver? A house that obeys your commands by itself? A mirror you can speak into and another being can hear your words? This shit WAS magic.

Secondly, what counts as indistinguishable is based on our ability to distinguish things. To an omniscient 3rd party, they can see everything and notice what obeys physics and what does not. But for a long time, we couldn't tell between bacteria and curses, or between head pressure and demons.

So a 15th century bumpkin could not hope to distinguish between our technology and straight up magic. And there will be future tech to which we are not unlike that bumpkin ourselves.

Anyone who feels the need to say this is usually really, really bad at their worst, and just okay-ish at their best. They just need a reason why it's everyone else's fault nobody can put up with them.

Oh, yeah, that's totally a good thing to do with living parents too. Someone has to inform them what happened to their child, after all.

After one of my PCs died, my planned backup was going to be of the same class and race, but a few years younger and motivated by a desire to travel with her brother. The brother who had just died, and she didn't know. I am so sad schedule issues got in the way of that...

That's novice stuff. It's a cheap emotional gut-punch that weakens that character's ties to the world and story. You can do so much more if you keep them alive:

• They can hand out quests, as they think their child could handle it.
• They can help out with certain tasks, like watching a tavern or storing stolen goods.
• They can be a good twist villain later in the game, because they're tied to the heroes.
• They can be a good fake-out villain, because it's suspicious you haven't killed them yet.
• Another PC can literally bang this PC's mum.

In the tomb of horrors, there is a door that summons a monster to attack the players if the players stab the door. This is apparently something that not only happens in Gary Gygax's campaigns, but happens often enough that he encoded it into one of the most famous dungeons of all time.

I tried being romantic when I first put it in, and I accidentally quoted The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride. Turns out it was the right move anyway, because it totally broke the tension.

National Novel Writing Month. It's an event where people try to write a novel in a month.

Noble honour just means they take responsibility if they knock anyone up, and they never lie about what they intend for a relationship to be. I could probably go through every set of tenets and give an idea of how every paladin is in bed.