D&D General D&D Assumptions Ain't What They Used To Be

[Hussar]

I hope you don't have any copies of Game of Thrones lying around.

I read the first couple of books and stopped after that. Too mind bogglingly boring. Managed to get through the first episode of season 1 and that was it. Not a fan. Not because of the ickiness - I like Steven Erikson after all - but, because it was just mind numbingly boring.

 

[Chaosmancer]

To me, banal evil is any bad stuff perpetrated by people that doesn't smack of super villainy.

Okay, thanks for the non-answer. You are essentially saying you are happy as long as someone, somewhere, is a jerk to someone else. That's.... every setting will have that. Heck, My Little Pony literally has that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay, thanks for the non-answer. You are essentially saying you are happy as long as someone, somewhere, is a jerk to someone else. That's.... every setting will have that. Heck, My Little Pony literally has that.

I provided examples in a later post.

 

[Chaosmancer]

When I say "banal evil" I just mean the same kind of evil humanity has had to contend with for all of our history: slavery and racism, of course, but also destructive greed and non-consensual prostitution, organized crime and official corruption. Those things usually exist in the world, but I don't dwell on them or they serve as an in-road to more operatic evil. For example, if raiders are taking slaves and the PCs go to stop them, the trail never just ends with slavers: the victims are to be turned into monsters under the control of some would be demon lord, or whatever.

I am ambivalent about including stuff like brothels or dog fighting or abused labor or other "minor evils." They can be background flavor, I guess, but if they get more than a passing mention when I am trying to paint a picture of how nasty the big vile city is it would be a surprise to even me. Unless I just finished a Black Company book or something and am in the mood to get vile. that happens sometimes.

I honestly don't know where to start with this post. We are putting continuous rape of men and women for profit on the same level as overlogging a forest because the lumber baron gave the mayor a sack of gold.

Maybe I'm the weird one, but I don't tend to make vile big cities where slavery and rape are common, where diseased beggars die in the streets and gangs shank people for fun. I can't imagine wanting to make a city like that. Sure, I might have a gang or two run by a mob boss, but he's more into smuggling, illegal pit fights, and blackmail. Things that are crime, but aren't going to involve dog fighting or prostitution. Heck, I stitch together a few different eras of humanity including the modern day and if I have Pleasure Houses, they are places that are legal, well-run, with medical care, that are full of willing people who like their jobs. I'm sure that has never all happened in one place in human society, but we've had parts of it, and we also don't have a lot of other things in a fantasy setting. Why can't I make part of that setting be that things are... not naughty word?

Like, people keep saying that we have all these historical periods, and we should make sure to take slavery from Rome and serfdom from Europe and this from there and that from over here... why can't I decide to take acceptance of Transgendered people from Native American traditions, a culture of bathing and cleanliness from the Saxons I believe it was, maybe some gender equality norms from African Tribes. I'm not saying have no conflict, no simple evils like conmen or criminals, but... I don't know.

Not directed at anyone in particular, but it feels like the more I read this thread, the more people seem to be of the opinion that if you aren't including some of the most vile acts of human depravity in your setting, you aren't really making a good DnD setting. And that just feels so viscerally wrong to me.

 

[Hussar]

Not directed at anyone in particular, but it feels like the more I read this thread, the more people seem to be of the opinion that if you aren't including some of the most vile acts of human depravity in your setting, you aren't really making a good DnD setting. And that just feels so viscerally wrong to me.

I wonder if the problem is that people are insisting that we have institutional evils. Individual evil we all can add into a setting with no problems - you have a serial killer on the loose in the town and the party needs to stop him before he horrifically murders puppies again. No problems.

But some people seem to think that unless we have these intitutionalized evils - slavery, serfdom, racism, etc - there cannot be evil in the setting.

The thing is, D&D is largely leaning on the idea of individual evil - no more evil races for example - as opposed to half assed bringing in institutionalized evil.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Which is fine. But, in the same model, we gloss over LOTS of historical ickiness. After all neither show was considered mature content in the slightest. It's been a long time since I watched either, but, I don't recall slavery or various other historical evil playing much of a part in the shows. Granted, it's probably there, but, it certainly wasn't a major thing.

If memory serves, there was an episode of Hercules where he ended up as a forced gladiator and forced to fight others for an evil king and queen. Of course, the forced gladiator fights were ended by the time the episode was over.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

Everybody, take a deep breath and count to 10 before posting in this thread again.

I came here to look at one reported post, only to find several people using confrontational language, escalating the thread’s overall temperature, and so forth.

Some of this seems to involve posters who have butted heads before. In those cases, I strongly suggest those people disengage from each other in this thread, and maybe even use their respective accounts’ ignore lists for a while.

 

[Lanefan]

I wonder if the problem is that people are insisting that we have institutional evils. Individual evil we all can add into a setting with no problems - you have a serial killer on the loose in the town and the party needs to stop him before he horrifically murders puppies again. No problems.

But some people seem to think that unless we have these intitutionalized evils - slavery, serfdom, racism, etc - there cannot be evil in the setting.

The thing is, D&D is largely leaning on the idea of individual evil - no more evil races for example - as opposed to half assed bringing in institutionalized evil.

Problem is, while evil individuals make fine foes for lower-level groups, it usually takes evil on an institutional (and, later, otherworldly) scale to challenge PCs of even mid-level, never mind high level.

In other words, the PCs progress from taking out the evil wizard in her tower (an individual) to taking out the worldwide evil-wizard network (an institution).

 

[Aldarc]

you don't think anakin's intense desire for the power to have control over things in his life, up to and including the survival of his loved ones, may not be somewhat a consequence of his lack of power in his childhood as a slave being unable to also save his mother from slavehood?

It gets even worse. Anakin sought freedom from his own slavery, but his life path led him to become the Emperor's slave.

 

[Desdichado]

I read the first couple of books and stopped after that. Too mind bogglingly boring. Managed to get through the first episode of season 1 and that was it. Not a fan. Not because of the ickiness - I like Steven Erikson after all - but, because it was just mind numbingly boring.

But some people seem to think that unless we have these intitutionalized evils - slavery, serfdom, racism, etc - there cannot be evil in the setting.

So... Repeated underage rape is boring, but slavery, serfdom and racism are a bridge too far and you'd be embarrassed in twenty years for accepting that in your books?!?!

This is why alignment discussions never work.