Dragonlance Dragonlance Philosophy thread

[GMforPowergamers]

Yes, it's not a theology or seminary class.

that is why I don't want to keep being dragged into this...

However, I see too many parallels to ignore.

every story ever told has parallels with each other, weather they be religious or secular. Regardless of WHAT religion it is. That is why there is no reason to bring real world religion in we can keep to talking about games of make believe.

We don't have to agree.

I doubt we ever will on this

 

[GMforPowergamers]

All Christians believe different things.

depending on how you count it the top 3 or the top 23 religions (some are really off shoots of each other so they are 1 base but the farther back you go the harder it is to see that because they have been 'there own' thing so long) are really similar and based together... but then that discounts massive numbers of non religious beliefs. (is science a religion, what about Taoism? if you trust that something can find the answer even if right now you personally don't have it, is that a religion or is that science?)

Does my fiancé believing in psychics make her more or less of her religion that doesn't? does both of us being variants of the same religion but both trusting science make us more or less religious?
me and my dad are the same religion, live in the US, but one of us thinks that laws should enforce our shared beliefs and the other says sine there are religions that believe different we MUST not make laws favoring 1. Does THAT make us different enough that we have different religions?

 

[billd91]

no it isn't... good can make mistakes, good can have to compromise, never did I say good CAN'T make any mistakes... genocide is a pretty big oppsie though... throwing the world into post apocalyptic points of light that are weaker against evil and almost leads to evil taking over is maybe the biggest mistake ever.

this isn't "Hey the goblin killed my best friend then surrendered but I killed him in anger then felt real bad about it and want to atone"
this is "The mayor is secretly an evil necromancer and has the town fooled, so I killed 90% of the town broke the kingdom up and then left... when I came back I wasn't remorseful but assured everyone that necromancer was a good guy but I had to kill him so I had to kill all those people too"

"We sure liberated the hell out of this place" was a comment made by a GI after obliterating St. Lô in 1944. I'm sure the same could virtually be said of Caen. A lot of French civilians suffered but we were fighting Nazis - so that's good, right? This kind of thing comes up from time to time and people ostensibly on the side of right, depending on the tools they have and the enemy they face, sometimes have to inflict injury on people who aren't their primary targets to get a job done with finality.

so no Good gods don't have to be perfect, but they also can't commit war crimes and not care.

Do we know they don't care? Maybe it does bother them but they felt they had to do something that drastic anyway because of the nature of the situation. Plus, it makes for better epic underpinnings of the setting in the same sort of dramatic idioms of mythology. Would it be as interesting if the gods somehow made the Kingpriest and all of his followers die of brain aneurysms? Definitely not.

 

[Xamnam]

so then just don't lable them good... heck just say "They are called the good gods on krynn even though there alignments are all 'unaligned' and the concept of good and evil is more complex then an average game world" there you go adds 30 words before the god entries, but then changes 12 gods from having 2 word alignments to 1 word so saves you 12 words... net cost 18 words

I can see your point. That said, if it doesn't work for you, that's totally fair, but like I said upthread, telling me a setting has black and white morality already does that.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

"We sure liberated the hell out of this place" was a comment made by a GI after obliterating St. Lô in 1944.

well it isn't 1944 i don't know that battle but from how you framed it (again without details) it sound like it might have been a bad battle or a war crime depending on those details... tell me do those GIs get labled cosmic forces for good or neutral people stuck in a war?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I can see your point. That said, if it doesn't work for you, that's totally fair, but like I said upthread, telling me a setting has black and white morality already does that.

how is this black and white... if anything normal D&D is four color/black and white morality and what YOU and others here describe krysnn as is all shades of grey no black and white...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

this isn't "Hey the goblin killed my best friend then surrendered but I killed him in anger then felt real bad about it and want to atone"
this is "The mayor is secretly an evil necromancer and has the town fooled, so I killed 90% of the town broke the kingdom up and then left... when I came back I wasn't remorseful but assured everyone that necromancer was a good guy but I had to kill him so I had to kill all those people too"

I can not stress enough the evil necromancer was trying to mind enslave the town...

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm not happy for you to be intolerant of people whose religion teaches them otherwise.

I have not said a single thing about real religion. That's something you're bringing to the discussion.

I'm talking about a fictional character's actions and depictions in a fictional world. As they say, any resemblance to a person or persons living or dead are purely coincidental.

 

[Azzy]

My values.

Intolerance of other people's beliefs is bad.

If other people believe that genocide is good? Then, yeah I'll be intolerant of that.

 

[Azzy]

I wonder if DL, the novels, were written when alignment was still just a team jersey and not the behavioral governor they became later.

Heck, even the 1e description of Lawful Good doesn't support mass murder.

 

[Scribe]

And he called Elves the embodiment of good. He's saying that what he considers good inevitably leads to evil.

This is more of the color coded morality. Elves are the 'Good' race, but as we saw when things went sour.. Good organizations failed, and fell to evil.

Istar.
Knights.
Elves.

Before the Cataclysm, none of them would have passes a review.

Istar lost its power, because they were no longer good.

Knights, corrupt, haughty, Lord Soth.

Elves. Had resorted to enslaving their own.

These were all BEFORE bastions of good, but had fallen from grace. It's a story, biblical, in its age.

I hope that explains my position, I'm not saying it's the only view, but clearly there is room for interpretation here.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Elves. Had resorted to enslaving their own.

It looks like WotC removed this according to reviews

 

[Scribe]

It looks like WotC removed this according to reviews

Yeah, no way they were going to keep slavery in. Same as Gully Dwarves, better to just ignore it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It looks like WotC removed this according to reviews

The time frame of the adventure pre-dates the enslavement of the Kagonesti. They didn't remove it.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The time frame of the adventure pre-dates the enslavement of the Kagonesti. They didn't remove it.

I don't have the adventure yet, so I can only go by reviews, and here on enworld multi posters said they did


here are the changes I have seen listed (and I like them)

​

There is one important change from prior editions: steel pieces are no longer the economic standard! Or rather, there are still bronze and steel pieces in circulation but they have the same value respectively as silver and gold pieces. The book explains this as post-Cataclysm times forced people back to the bare necessities by skyrocketing steel’s value, but over time it went back to pre-Cataclysm standards.

Details on individual deities are sparse, amounting to a sentence or two per god. Branchala is no longer chaotic good, instead neutral good, which means that there are no more chaotic good gods in the setting, whereas Mishakal changed from neutral good to lawful good. Each of the Gods of Neutrality are True Neutral in alignment: Shinare and Sirrion were formerly lawful and chaotic neutral respectively. As for the gods of evil only Chemosh has changed, from neutral to lawful evil.

But the other big change, and one that rubbed quite a few fans the wrong way, is that Goldmoon’s discovery of the Disks of Mishakal isn’t the first instance of non-evil clerics coming back into Ansalon. The Gods of Good and Neutrality are playing a bit of a slow head start: while divine magic* is still largely unknown on Krynn (the Dragon Armies excepting), there are a few mortals who witnessed and received miraculous visions.

Another portion of the text acknowledges the gods’ atrocities, but doesn’t have an answer and falls back into the “well it’s really our fault this happened” line that has been traditional for the setting.

​

This is another change from canon; in the original Dragonlance Chronicles, both the Qualinesti and Silvanesti enslaved the Kagonesti to use as an exploitable labor force. And they were still good-aligned while doing so! WotC rightfully retconned this.

But what of other races not listed here, like a half-orc or warforged? Well the default assumption is that such people are extraplanar travelers or existed as pre-Cataclysm civilizations that are now isolated enclaves. In other words, it leaves that to the Dungeon Master’s discretion.

Initiate of High Sorcery grants a bonus wizard cantrip and two 1st level spells based on an affiliated moon. Unlike Divinely Favored the bonus spells are not gate kept behind alignment, nor are the Adept Robe feats, so technically within the rules you can be an good-aligned Adept of the Red Robes or an evil-aligned Initiate choosing bonus spells from Solinari.

 

[Faolyn]

My values.

Intolerance of other people's beliefs is bad.

So, if person A think that mass murder is Good, and person B think that mass murder is Evil, person B the bad one here?!

Good grief.

Yeah, no. Somehow, I have a sneaking suspicion that if your PCs discovered that the gods were planning on killing you because of someone else's actions, you wouldn't just shrug and roll up a new character. You'd be thinking of those gods as your next BBEG.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So, if person A think that mass murder is Good, and person B think that mass murder is Evil, person B the bad one here?!

Good grief.

Yeah, no. Somehow, I have a sneaking suspicion that if your PCs discovered that the gods were planning on killing you because of someone else's actions, you wouldn't just shrug and roll up a new character. You'd be thinking of those gods as your next BBEG.

that might be better then "if the PC had there LG wizard meteor swarm the town to kill the evil mayor"

If the PCs found out that they had hours before the cataclysm, and teh reason was the evil leader of the evil mind control cult the gods wanted to stop, would the Players be like "Oh, okay that's a good choice"

 

[Faolyn]

It's the goodness of anyone who sincerely believes they are a good person.

Nothing more misguided and dangerous than that.

That's not actually good, though.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It's the goodness of anyone who sincerely believes they are a good person.

Nothing more misguided and dangerous than that.

wait everyone who thinks they are good automatically are evil? because they are trying to be good?!? what? please explain

Edit: so SUperman, Ted Lasso, Michael from the Dresden files are all asevil as magneto and punisher....?

 

[Faolyn]

wait everyone who thinks they are good automatically are evil? because they are trying to be good?!? what? please explain

Clearly, people who think they are good are also incapable of any sort of reflection, humility, decency, or actual ability to care about other people.