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<blockquote data-quote="Random Bystander" data-source="post: 6409846" data-attributes="member: 6702095"><p>Creatures like Illithids and other such madness-themed aberrations may be evil, but it is, and should be portrayed as, an alien sort of evil. An orc who wants to kill you has wholly understandable motives: He or she hates you, and all that you stand for, and believes you to be a thief and a weakling. However, a creature of "madness" can have motives which are explicitly incomprehensible to mortal minds, and thus the GM. So a solution is not to decide motives, but to decide patterns of behaviour. One way to do this could be to make two lists of arbitrary behaviours, and link action-response randomly; Stealing may mean you're burned alive; killing one may mean they shave your hair off. This leaves motives as mysterious to the GM as the players.</p><p></p><p>Another method is to determine what their non-mortal biology and culture is, and work from there. For example, stealing an item from these theoretical creatures may mean the victim suffers pain until they punish the offender, and a painful death allows them to absorb knowledge from an offender. On the other hand, a successful murder may be a cause for celebration, and you're really not properly dressed while you still have all those vestigial tentacles.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Random Bystander, post: 6409846, member: 6702095"] Creatures like Illithids and other such madness-themed aberrations may be evil, but it is, and should be portrayed as, an alien sort of evil. An orc who wants to kill you has wholly understandable motives: He or she hates you, and all that you stand for, and believes you to be a thief and a weakling. However, a creature of "madness" can have motives which are explicitly incomprehensible to mortal minds, and thus the GM. So a solution is not to decide motives, but to decide patterns of behaviour. One way to do this could be to make two lists of arbitrary behaviours, and link action-response randomly; Stealing may mean you're burned alive; killing one may mean they shave your hair off. This leaves motives as mysterious to the GM as the players. Another method is to determine what their non-mortal biology and culture is, and work from there. For example, stealing an item from these theoretical creatures may mean the victim suffers pain until they punish the offender, and a painful death allows them to absorb knowledge from an offender. On the other hand, a successful murder may be a cause for celebration, and you're really not properly dressed while you still have all those vestigial tentacles. [/QUOTE]
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