Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
The step after recognizing that something is dumb and bad in a D&D book is to change it in the book.
Dragonlance Dragonlance Philosophy thread
overgeeked
B/X Known World
It’s so weird how people get locked in on what’s official. The entire history of the hobby is a DIY dreamscape of people just doing their own thing. It’s still a dominant piece of the hobby with all the 3PP. Can people just not DIY for some reason?
overgeeked
B/X Known World
The people who wrote the book do not think it’s dumb and bad otherwise they wouldn’t have written it in the book.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
And I'm sure that the people that designed some of the early flaws of the game thought that their creations weren't "dumb and bad", but the intention of the designer doesn't change the quality of their creations.
overgeeked
B/X Known World
Of course. Nor does your negative opinion of some fictional thing make it in-fact bad. You think it’s bad. I think it’s bad. Cool. But be self-aware enough to not mistake your entirely subjective opinion for an observable or objective fact.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
I tend to agree with that. I think the Great Wheel is bad, but I'm not asking for it to be removed from the game or Planescape, because I recognize that it's my own subjective opinion.
However, I do think that the Cataclysm is just objectively bad in its use of morality, and that the books would be better off changing it. "The good gods took part in genocide" seems problematic enough to me to warrant an errata.
overgeeked
B/X Known World
Okay. Prove it. Prove that the Cataclysm is objectively, verifiably bad.
Faolyn
(she/her)
If you really felt that was the solution, you wouldn't complain so much about the changes made in official books, because you can make the version you want for your own game.
Faolyn
(she/her)
I shouldn't think "mass murder is objectively bad" is something that you need proof for. It's kind of a thing most people agree with. I mean, what would you consider proof to even be?
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
Because it killed a lot of innocent people, and the "good" gods took part in it. Therefore, the good gods committed an evil act, yet the setting still pretends that they are deserving of worship (it's a major plot point in the War of the Lance novels that the clerics of the good gods need to return).
And there's that fact that Dragonlance focuses on the "balance of good and evil", which is a bad trope. As you noted, Chaos and Law works for two cosmic extremes that need balance in a setting. Good and Evil don't need balance. Evil doesn't need to and should not exist. Evil is bad. Good is good. Yet, Paladine, the Top God of the Good Pantheon says that too much good is unhealthy and that good having too much power is bad.
In other words, "Good" in Dragonlance doesn't actually mean "Good". Because the people that the setting says are good people (the Good Gods, the Kingpriest, the White Robed Mages), aren't actually good people, because they tolerate the existence of evil and allow for terrible things to happen because they believe in the Stupid Neutral stance that Evil should/needs to exist.
"Good and Evil are both valid and need to exist" works as a meta-justification to create never-ending story hooks in the setting. Not as an in-world justification used by a Good God for why good is actually bad.
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