D&D General Modrons should be terrifying

[Steampunkette]

That is also cool, yeah.

'Cause in a situation of Universal Law and Structure, free thought is not important or relevant at all.

Only the Purpose matters. Fulfilling the Purpose.

 

[Flamestrike]

One evil act doesn't make you Evil. Nor does one good act make you Good.

We're not talking 'one act of evil'. We're talking about beings forcibly assimilating people into servitude and depriving them of free will as part of a galactic pogrom.

That's not 'neutral'.

Just means those Modrons should also do Good stuff, too. Essentially interchangeably with their Evil actions.

'Neutral' does not mean 'cares for sick puppies, and does the odd murder here or there'.

It means you're ambivalent, and lack the level of altruism required to go out of your way to help others, and equally have sufficient morality to avoid harming other people.

Most people are neutral. Living a life, having a family, seeking to better themselves, etc without harming others, or going out of their way to help others either.

 

[tommybahama]

I think modrons should be roleplayed like V.I.N.C.E.N.T. from the movie The Black Hole. Sure, they looks ridiculous, but they can be cunning and ruthless as well. And they have one liners that will give a bard a run for his money.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I've got a couple of modron-adjacent* antagonists in an an upcoming adventure.

*as in, powerful enough to hopefully challenge a 12th level party.

 

[Bitbrain]

Reply to OP.

My interpretation of modrons certainly have a borg visual to them, but they are more akin to bounty hunters than conquerors.

 

[Yora]

In The Expanse (minor spoiler), there's an artificial intelligence that follows the standard procedure of disassemble, examine, repurpose. A bit like the Borg, but it doesn't have any use for humanoid drones. It still might have use for your atoms and molecules as a construction material, though.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think it works nicely? Just 'cause it means the DM can have them literally do anything, no matter -how- nonsensical or evil or good it might seem on the outset, and have it be part of "The Plan" that we just don't get.

Wanna know something that occurred to me while writing this?

The most ordered possible condition of the Prime Material Plane is Heat Death of the Universe. All matter and energy spread out evenly and eventually falling still once all systems have completely broken down.

you see it as well?

A group of Modrons enters a small village. Once there, they sing a song, or activate an object that plays music. The people of the village are compelled by -absolute order- to begin the construction of a machine alongside the Modrons, including using several modrons (broken down into component parts) to incorporate into the machine. This machine requires metal. And once it's reached a certain size, just pressing metal against it is enough for it to incorporate metal into itself.

The majority of the Modrons leave. A handful remain as overseers of the Machine. The villagers sacrifice all their metal to the machine. ALL OF IT. And begin hunting passers by for more metal. Eventually they start sacrificing each other to the machine. Tearing out gold teeth to feed it, making offerings of blood, which contains iron and seems to "Appease" the Divine Machine.

And that's when things start going off the rails.

The Modrons oversee the Machine's continued construction. Uncaring at the cost of lives that are being cast into the machine. It is -required- for the Great Ordering. It must be protected and continue to construct itself. If asked why they're doing this, the answer is simple:

"This is Required. The Great Ordering must continue. The Machine is a part of that Order. Give us your metal. Add it to the Machine."

And then have a fight sequence where the villagers -help- the Modrons and do their best to drag the player characters over to the Machine. Have an NPC hireling or something wearing metal armor get pressed against the Machine... and pressed out of their collapsing armor like a handful of ground beef squeezed in a fist.

"It is Required."

you could have them mechaniform the whole world, convert people in order facsimiles.
I would as a crystalline quality to them with being perfectly ordered.

 

[Blue Orange]

You get into the definitions of good and evil (as defined in D&D good is more or less utilitarianism, evil more or less Social Darwinism from what I can see), which is of course going to be controversial.

As far as modrons as big bads, the Borg is one good idea. If you wanted to be really nasty they could start developing immunities to every type of attack the party throws at them enough times--that was one of the big problems with fighting the Borg if you remember. If they're new arrivals to the plane, they start out with no immunities. The party throws fireballs at them, they start developing advantage against saves to that, then resistance, then immunity. Of course you're going to have to find some way to limit it or they'll be immune to everything.

A more simple tack is the invading 'civilizing' empire, which of course wants to subjugate all other populations as part of increasing the amount of order. Real-life colonialism, the Soviet empire, etc.

There's the whole Hellraiser 'pain is orderly' argument, which I always found more Lawful Evil.

Organization makes you more effective (it's why they had to postulate a larger demon vs devil population in the Blood War), so they can be pretty effective opponents.

 

[Steampunkette]

We're not talking 'one act of evil'. We're talking about beings forcibly assimilating people into servitude and depriving them of free will as part of a galactic pogrom.

That's not 'neutral'.

To be fair, we're trying to apply human morality to what I'm describing as an unknowable motivation and intent. It might be better to describe them as "Lawful Unaligned".

That said, I respect your position.

'Neutral' does not mean 'cares for sick puppies, and does the odd murder here or there'.

It means you're ambivalent, and lack the level of altruism required to go out of your way to help others, and equally have sufficient morality to avoid harming other people.

Most people are neutral. Living a life, having a family, seeking to better themselves, etc without harming others, or going out of their way to help others either.

Ambivalence means "Both ends of the spectrum at the same time". Love/Hate is a form of ambivalence and neither of those emotions is near the middle of the spectrum, even if it all "Evens Out" in the end.

How would you describe the Good/Evil axis of a creature that actively does great good and great evil in roughly equal amounts because they're completely uninterested in whether their actions are good or evil? A creature or entity that will literally save the world because it is supposed to continue existing but also turn around and kill any number of innocents (And guilty people as well) because they're -not- supposed to continue existing?

Are they good, evil, or neutral?

You get into the definitions of good and evil (as defined in D&D good is more or less utilitarianism, evil more or less Social Darwinism from what I can see), which is of course going to be controversial.

As far as modrons as big bads, the Borg is one good idea. If you wanted to be really nasty they could start developing immunities to every type of attack the party throws at them enough times--that was one of the big problems with fighting the Borg if you remember. If they're new arrivals to the plane, they start out with no immunities. The party throws fireballs at them, they start developing advantage against saves to that, then resistance, then immunity. Of course you're going to have to find some way to limit it or they'll be immune to everything.

A more simple tack is the invading 'civilizing' empire, which of course wants to subjugate all other populations as part of increasing the amount of order. Real-life colonialism, the Soviet empire, etc.

There's the whole Hellraiser 'pain is orderly' argument, which I always found more Lawful Evil.

Organization makes you more effective (it's why they had to postulate a larger demon vs devil population in the Blood War), so they can be pretty effective opponents.

whistles Mmmm... Nope!

Good as described in any discussion on alignment can be fulfilled by Utilitarianism, Hedonism, Consequentialism, and Deontology. The Value System is all that Alignment describes (Which things make you good or evil) not the structure to determine how.

I actually wrote a pretty thorough expression of how each philosophy can motivate characters with a loose guide to understanding and recognizing the moral philosophies of characters to better motivate them and enhance party unity across philosophical viewpoints in a thread last month.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

4E reintroduced modrons late in the edition and described them as creatures whose mindset was as alien as anything from the Far Realm.

For one thing, modrons work on the principle of least privilege, which IRL is a term meaning a member of an organization is only taught things and has access to whatever they need to complete their tasks and doesn't enjoy clearance to everything in an organization. The modrons take this to an extreme by being incapable of understanding anything beyond what they need to know for the tasks they need to accomplish. Most modrons don't even know about Primus!

The 4E article also established that modrons oppose most interplanar travel and portals between planes, believing that they undermine planar stability. Orders are distributed from Primus across Mechanus by something called the Infinity Web.