D&D 5E Charm, the evil spells

[Raduin711]

Disguise self to make yourself look like a romantic partner of another and engage in paramour isn't much different than charm person used for similar purpose. I fail to see where disguise self is any more ethical than charm person.

I think that it's pretty much the difference between lying and coercion. It's my feeling that most people are more OK with lying than coercion, since coercion typically comes with the threat of violence. (Though in this case, the end result is rape either way.)

 

[ad_hoc]

I think that

It's pretty much the difference between lying and coercion. It's my feeling that most people are more OK with lying than coercion, since coercion typically comes with the threat of violence. (Though in this case, the end result is rape either way.)

Yeah but views are changing thankfully.

For example, the end of Revenge of the Nerds is rape.

People didn't see it that way at the time but they do now.

(If you haven't seen it the protagonist puts on a disguise and pretends to be the antagonist and proceeds to have sex with the antagonist's girlfriend who thinks he is the antagonist.)

 

[Remathilis]

I think that

It's pretty much the difference between lying and coercion. It's my feeling that most people are more OK with lying than coercion, since coercion typically comes with the threat of violence. (Though in this case, the end result is rape either way.)

I don't see a difference unless you're trying to argue for a difference in sentencing. You're using magic to get someone to do something they otherwise wouldn't do willingly. They change the victims perceptions, either by fooling the senses into seeing someone that is not there or by changing the emotional attachment to someone who is. Likewise, I see little difference in magic that makes someone tell you thier secrets and magic that let's you read their mind without permission. I guess the difference might be overt vs covert manipulation.

Anyway, I think it's fair to say that if D&D magic existed in a 21st century legal system, the vast majority of 1st level wizard spells would be illegal or I'm immoral to own or cast.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sorry man, my understanding was that you didn't want to discuss mind control with me because of the degree to which our opinions diverge. Not that you didn't want to discuss any topics. Also, you responded to me a few times after, even when I wasn't responding to you, so that was a bit confusing. If it's really an issue, you can feel free to block me. I won't take it personally.

My intention was to no longer engage with you on the mind control topic. When you come sideways off a tangential topic that feeds into the main topic, it’s easy to reply on the tangential without thinking about whether it will feed back into the main topic.

If I do decide to put you on ignore, it will be temporary. On most topics, I enjoy discussion with you.

 

[Raduin711]

I don't see a difference unless you're trying to argue for a difference in sentencing.

I guess you could say that. We have differences in sentencing for a reason. At least in the case of deception, the victim still has their faculties to see through the ruse. In the case of the charm, it's no better than a knife to the throat. In fact, it's arguably worse given that you are robbing them of their natural responses and giving them memories of foreign emotions during the time of the assault. I would much rather have memories of being fooled than memories of actual feelings for my assailant.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't see a difference unless you're trying to argue for a difference in sentencing. You're using magic to get someone to do something they otherwise wouldn't do willingly. They change the victims perceptions, either by fooling the senses into seeing someone that is not there or by changing the emotional attachment to someone who is. Likewise, I see little difference in magic that makes someone tell you thier secrets and magic that let's you read their mind without permission. I guess the difference might be overt vs covert manipulation.

Anyway, I think it's fair to say that if D&D magic existed in a 21st century legal system, the vast majority of 1st level wizard spells would be illegal or I'm immoral to own or cast.

I do think that using mind control is a little worse than using magical trickery, but both cases are definitely rape.

And yeah Zone of Truth only gets a pass because someone can just refuse to answer. It’s at best a spell that is very easy to abuse.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

And yeah Zone of Truth only gets a pass because someone can just refuse to answer. It’s at best a spell that is very easy to abuse.

It's actually worse than that. If it magically corrected the answer to be the truth, it would be mind reading. Here, it's "either you tell the truth or stay silent". So, the spell defeats the only reason using torture isn't effective: that the victim of torture will say anything he thinks will make torture stop, irrespective of whether it's true or not. ZoT validates the right information from the false and healing spells helps applying torture more profusely without risk of losing the information source. I read this Zone of Truth spell as an awful tool for interrogators, while earlier version were mild and equally useful for all and that actually removed the need to torture captured NPCs to get informations.

 

[Maxperson]

It's actually worse than that. If it magically corrected the answer to be the truth, it would be mind reading. Here, it's "either you tell the truth or stay silent". So, the spell defeats the only reason using torture isn't effective: that the victim of torture will say anything he thinks will make torture stop, irrespective of whether it's true or not. ZoT validates the right information from the false and healing spells helps applying torture more profusely without risk of losing the information source. I read this Zone of Truth spell as an awful tool for evil interrogators, while earlier version were mild and equally useful for all.

It's a tool. Nothing more. It can be used for evil.......your torture example. Or it can be used for good. A king has 8 advisors and one is a traitor who is going to kill thousands. The king doesn't know which one, so he has a zone cast and each has to swear under the effects of the zone that he's not the traitor. Like virtually all spells. How it is used determines whether it's good or evil.

 

[Raduin711]

Yeah but views are changing thankfully.

For example, the end of Revenge of the Nerds is rape.

People didn't see it that way at the time but they do now.

(If you haven't seen it the protagonist puts on a disguise and pretends to be the antagonist and proceeds to have sex with the antagonist's girlfriend who thinks he is the antagonist.)

This scene springs to mind as well. I think that movie is an object lesson in the need to critically examine media. Get a bunch of lovable, nerdy, quirky protagonists together, convince your audience to laugh and root for them, slip in some misogyny and you have The Big Bang Theory The Revenge of the Nerds.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

House rule idea: Whatever mage created the Charm and Dominate spells designed them in a way where they can't be used to get someone to sleep with anyone because that was not what they wanted the spell to do.