Encounter with a good aligned vampire, what do you do?
- Thread starter FiddleSticks96
- Start date
Starman
Adventurer
Sepulchrave's Tales of Wyre Story Hour, especially the beginning in which a succubus expresses a desire to repent, might be helpful and it's a damn fine read to boot.
airwalkrr
Adventurer
From the Monster Manual:
[MENTION=6673096]FiddleSticks96[/MENTION], it would seem you find the D&D alignment system too rigid for your liking and wish to house rule it to be more flexible. That's fine, but you should make sure your players are informed of this in no uncertain terms. You are introducing a "dark hero" figure into the campaign and if you are ambiguous about how closely you are following the D&D alignment system then your players will get the wrong idea and probably make the "wrong" decision because they can't see inside your head. Think of it this way, if you were to sit down to play Monopoly with a group of people, then were designated the banker, everyone would expect you to give them $200 when they passed Go. If you personally decided that $200 was too much and that for this game you would only hand out $100, then as soon as someone passed Go, an issue would arise. House rules that apply to everyone need to be stated clearly ahead of time, especially where they pertain to important player decisions. You have a paladin on a quest to prove himself worthy after losing his abilities and then you introduce a very morally ambiguous character into the equation but you are not following the RAW for alignment. Your paladin player is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. For the sake of your players, please take a moment to explain how you run alignment in your campaign, because if you haven't your players are probably going to be distressed at some point. At the very least they don't have all the proper tools to make the proper decision.
And then under vampire that line says:
Now you'll find three different qualifiers: Often, Usually, and Always. These first two qualifiers can be interpreted different ways as the terms are somewhat indicative without being precise. But the final term is an absolute and is not negotiable. This means that unless there is some overarching power dictating otherwise, a creature with the Always evil alignment left to its own devices will never deviate from being evil. The very act of becoming a vampire changes a creature's nature such that it cannot refrain from being evil in the manner you have described.
[MENTION=6673096]FiddleSticks96[/MENTION], it would seem you find the D&D alignment system too rigid for your liking and wish to house rule it to be more flexible. That's fine, but you should make sure your players are informed of this in no uncertain terms. You are introducing a "dark hero" figure into the campaign and if you are ambiguous about how closely you are following the D&D alignment system then your players will get the wrong idea and probably make the "wrong" decision because they can't see inside your head. Think of it this way, if you were to sit down to play Monopoly with a group of people, then were designated the banker, everyone would expect you to give them $200 when they passed Go. If you personally decided that $200 was too much and that for this game you would only hand out $100, then as soon as someone passed Go, an issue would arise. House rules that apply to everyone need to be stated clearly ahead of time, especially where they pertain to important player decisions. You have a paladin on a quest to prove himself worthy after losing his abilities and then you introduce a very morally ambiguous character into the equation but you are not following the RAW for alignment. Your paladin player is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. For the sake of your players, please take a moment to explain how you run alignment in your campaign, because if you haven't your players are probably going to be distressed at some point. At the very least they don't have all the proper tools to make the proper decision.
Man in the Funny Hat
Hero
The issues that I suspect people have with Twilight vampires are that vampires are supposed to be creatures of gothic horror - malevolent and EVIL. They drink the blood of the living (traditionally of the innocent and brave rather than the despicable for the greater sense of violation and degradation.) As you say there is praise to be expended for originality but at this point the idea of a "good" vampire is hardly original - even if making them sparkle is. The Twilight series is also wildly popular. THAT brings the ire of a large section of gamer culture simply for being popular. They are popular in particular with young girls. That is, if you'll forgive the expression, the kiss of death. No dedicated guy gamer wants portions of his pasttime associated with popularity among tween girls.
Speaking for myself, my gut reaction to encountering a "good" vampire as descirbed is highly unfavorable towards the DM that introduces it for several reasons. One is that I don't want my character or his party to require assistance or saving via the intervention of NPC's. No deus ex machina for me. There are better ways to introduce an NPC than by the NPC (and/or DM) feeling the need to "save" the PC's, whether they really need the assistance or not.
Next, in MY book, undeath is a vile, unspeakable, generally incurable curse (at least not without the actual death of the thing first - it's lack of proper death being the whole point). It is ANATHEMA to the concepts and precepts of a good alignment. The two DO NOT and CANNOT be combined for the same reason that matter and anti-matter do not mix well. Life and UNDEATH are and MUST be at odds with each other by definiton.
Okay, so it's a fantasy setting and of course there can always be exceptions for any number of reasons which EMBRACE such contradictions just to see what happens. The only saving grace here is that D&D vampires DO NOT DRINK BLOOD. That means either your vampire is NOT a normal vampire or all vampires in your campaign are blood drinkers - which is a significant change as it alters their required behavior. A vampire that cannot control whose blood it drinks simply because it's hungry may WANT to be good, but it's actions DICTATE that it cannot be because it kills the innocent. A vampire that LIKES its undead status or willingly accepts it is likewise NOT good in alignment if it must drink blood to live. If it is otherwise a normal D&D vampire that does not drink blood then MAYBE it can maintain a good alignment - but it should be a constant struggle and acceptance of the condition should only be because a cure cannot be found.
But the cure is simple - raise dead. At worst PC's would have to kill it and then raise it, but that should be a sacrifice any GOOD aligned individual would make.
I would most definitely react strongly to the introduction of such a character and if the DM did not make it fairly clear fairly quickly just what purpose the NPC was serving we would be having a signficant conversation about just what kind of campaign the DM is running.
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Here is my take:
The angle was not given the full details of the quest. He was only give a task for the fallen paladin to get him to the correct time and place to meet and deal with the good vampire.
How the ex-paladin deal with the situation is what the god is judging him on.
If the ex-paladin sacrifices himself to feed the vampire, he shows mercy thus his goodness. Even if he cuts himself and bleeds into a bowl for the vampire to drink, the DM should make him suffer the Blood Drain special attack of vampire.
If the ex-Paladin talks the vampire in to destruction followed by a resurrect. By keeping his word he is showing his Lawfulness.
If the ex-paladin gets her to give him information on her former master to give to the hunters or use himself to destroy her former master. He is showing his willingness to service the cause of good.
If the ex-paladin talks the hunters out of a fight and point or join them to kill the former master. He showing his lawfulness and his goodness at good people should try to work together to defeat evil.
Most of your posts are an interesting debate but don't answer Fiddlesticks96 basic question. Hopefully, he thinks that I have tried to help him with this.
The angle was not given the full details of the quest. He was only give a task for the fallen paladin to get him to the correct time and place to meet and deal with the good vampire.
How the ex-paladin deal with the situation is what the god is judging him on.
If the ex-paladin sacrifices himself to feed the vampire, he shows mercy thus his goodness. Even if he cuts himself and bleeds into a bowl for the vampire to drink, the DM should make him suffer the Blood Drain special attack of vampire.
If the ex-Paladin talks the vampire in to destruction followed by a resurrect. By keeping his word he is showing his Lawfulness.
If the ex-paladin gets her to give him information on her former master to give to the hunters or use himself to destroy her former master. He is showing his willingness to service the cause of good.
If the ex-paladin talks the hunters out of a fight and point or join them to kill the former master. He showing his lawfulness and his goodness at good people should try to work together to defeat evil.
Most of your posts are an interesting debate but don't answer Fiddlesticks96 basic question. Hopefully, he thinks that I have tried to help him with this.
Destroy the physical body so her soul can be released from its torture.
It doesn't really matter if a vampire is good or not, at least in D&D. They must all feed and unless they can find other sustenance, they always run the risk of losing control and taking a life. Even if that feeding is completely voluntary. Assuming that a vampire can only get susteneance from non animal blood.
If there was an actual way to return the vampire to human form, then I'd want to imprison it until we can find that option.
Of course, another option would be to create a spell that would be like Create Food And Water and have it create blood that gives the vampire sustenance so it wouldn't have to feed on sentient beings.
Otherwise, if the vampire was able to feed off of animal blood and actively did so I just might help it find that way to become human again.
If this were an RPG like Angel or Buffy, then it'd be a different story. In one episode Angel was able to regain human form.
Edit:
Hmmmm.... now i have this image of this group who actively seeks to imprison vampires and uses this spell to feed them until the time they can actually find a way to return a vampire to its human form. At least for those who want it. For those that don't they simply destroy them.
It doesn't really matter if a vampire is good or not, at least in D&D. They must all feed and unless they can find other sustenance, they always run the risk of losing control and taking a life. Even if that feeding is completely voluntary. Assuming that a vampire can only get susteneance from non animal blood.
If there was an actual way to return the vampire to human form, then I'd want to imprison it until we can find that option.
Of course, another option would be to create a spell that would be like Create Food And Water and have it create blood that gives the vampire sustenance so it wouldn't have to feed on sentient beings.
Otherwise, if the vampire was able to feed off of animal blood and actively did so I just might help it find that way to become human again.
If this were an RPG like Angel or Buffy, then it'd be a different story. In one episode Angel was able to regain human form.
Edit:
Hmmmm.... now i have this image of this group who actively seeks to imprison vampires and uses this spell to feed them until the time they can actually find a way to return a vampire to its human form. At least for those who want it. For those that don't they simply destroy them.
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KahnyaGnorc
First Post
So, character's in-game should react a certain way because the Monstrous Manual says Always Evil, as opposed to Usually Evil? If that is not an example of the evils of meta-gaming, I don't know what is. If they killed the vampire because of that bit of meta-gaming, the PCs deserve to be punished imo.
Why? Why should his players have the meta-information that vampires could be good? If this DM want to have a good aligned vampire, he should. He doesn't have to, and shouldn't tell his players that vampires could be good, and instead have the actions of the vampire NPC show that she is good. Characters don't (well, shouldn't) know the MM, but might have some basic knowledge of monsters in their world. If there is only one, or only a handful of these good vampires in the world, why should, and how could, the characters (and thus the players) know that those exceptions exist?
As if characters would stand around arguing:
Character 1: "Well, she seems nice"
Character 2: "And she helped us, I like her"
Character 3: "No, the MM says vampires are always evil, so we should kill her. Good vampires cannot exist"
Character 1,2: "Let me see that (players look-up vampire in MM), yeah, you're right, lets kill her"
Above is meta-gaming (or as I like to call it, cheating). And although this isn't a huge issue in most tabletop RPG's (it is in LARP), it should be discouraged.
If the characters would stand around arguing like this, it would be better:
Character 1: "Well, she seems nice"
Character 2: "And she helped us, I like her"
Character 3: "No, don't you know vampires are always evil, so we should kill her. Good vampires don't exist"
Character 1: "Yeah, good point, let's kill her"
Character 2: "But ... I like her. I don't wanna kill her"
Nowhere in the DMG of Monopoly does it say that all rules in this game can be changed at will by the DM (or banker). That's the difference.
Important player decisions. This game isn't about players decisions, it's about character decisions. Player make certain decisions, because it's what their character would do. Alignment isn't an in-game mechanic, just like all other stats. Did you ever have your character say:
"Well, this boulder looks heavy, I don't think I can push it, my Strength modifier is -1. Well, trying once can't hurt, let's roll. *rolls* Booyah, natural 20, eat that, stupid boulder."
I sure hope not, because if you did, you must have missed the letter R of RPG.
Back to character decisions. Their characters should decide, based on their (the characters that is, not the players) previous experiences and on the current situations, being, a nice vampire lady protected them. I'm not saying it would be wrong if they still killed her for being 'evil', but this choice should not be based on player knowledge, or system mechanics.
TL-DR: Whatever the MM says, DM has the final say, players shouldn't cheat with MM information.
I would kill her. It may be meta, but I'm just plain sick of dealing with this "good vampire" crap. I see any, I kill them just to get them out of the campaign.
TheAuldGrump
First Post
Except that it is already posited that the vampire is good aligned. Railing about the rules does not change the fact that part of the operational parameters of the question is that the vampire is good aligned. And that a past edition of D&D has already had a good aligned vampire, though that was caused by a helm of opposite alignment.
This is a matter that is setting based, and, in the case of Eberron, 'Always' becomes 'Usually', Usually' becomes 'Often', etc.. The setting has a Lawful Good red dragon for the love of mud! (Also 'Always Chaotic Evil'.) And let us be honest, for a Lawful Good religion the Silver Flame takes some awfully draconian measures.
The 'overarching power' is the DM. If the DM wants there to be Lawful Good Sparkly Vampires then there are Lawful Good Sparkly Vampires.
Me, I would rather play up the tragedy, have the critter fighting its nature, but doomed to fall. If a paladin is using Detect Evil have it pulse in time with the paladin's own heartbeat....
The Auld Grump
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