Forgotten Realms: Tyr and the head-on-a-spike

[Tewligan]

First, I have to say that I think that "moral dilemma" isn't something D&D is made to handle. I could talk lengthy about why, but that's not the point I want to make here.

So let's say you want to handle it anyway :

1) Both the DM and the players should have a good understanding of Tyr's dogma.
2) Both players should have already stated how their personal worship differs from the dogma.
3) The players should agree on a metagame level, that the discussion will be short and that one of them will let the other win "this battle, not the war" before the other players are all sleeping on the table.

Not following those steps could lead to wasted hours of boring "in-game" arguing mixed with some metagame confusion about the "right" dogma of the faith.

An alternative is an RPG with rules to handle this kind of fight, such as The Burning Wheel "Duel of wits".

Well, from what Sabathius said, it sounded like everyone had fun, so I guess the system handled the moral dilemma okay without anyone losing an eye. I'm not familiar with Burning Wheel's rules, but I think I'd much rather roleplay out any character differences rather than let a rule decide it. And I CERTAINLY wouldn't want to plan out the moral victory before it gets played out: "Oookay, we'll play out our characters' conversation, but no more than 5 minutes! Oh, and let's flip a coin to decide in advance who's going to win." Nuts to that, I say!

How is the campaign going, Dan? Is anyone I know DM'ing it?

 

[marune]

Well, from what Sabathius said, it sounded like everyone had fun, so I guess the system handled the moral dilemma okay without anyone losing an eye. I'm not familiar with Burning Wheel's rules, but I think I'd much rather roleplay out any character differences rather than let a rule decide it. And I CERTAINLY wouldn't want to plan out the moral victory before it gets played out: "Oookay, we'll play out our characters' conversation, but no more than 5 minutes! Oh, and let's flip a coin to decide in advance who's going to win." Nuts to that, I say!

How is the campaign going, Dan? Is anyone I know DM'ing it?

Of course, if 1) and 2) are already done, you can be lucky one time or two.

"Duel of wits" is a rule system based on social skills like in D&D (Bluff, Diplomacy, etc.) but it can be influenced by good acting (a.k.a roleplay) like some DM would do in D&D too (giving a +2 bonus to a Bluff check if the player comes with a good idea).

Without a framework, you rely entirely on the abilities* of the players to be both interesting for the rest of the group and to come to a interesting resolution. I can believe it can happen, but... not that often.

*In this specific case, they are trying to act like true believer of a faith described in a few pages, not an easy task !

 

[KingCrab]

Religions often splinter in real life over much lesser issues. We have a game reflects reality issue.

Personally, my view of Tyr would allow such a thing. The goblins were trying to commit murder, and perhaps this display will prevent future crimes here.

 

[Treebore]

Yeah, I color Tyr seriously Norse, even in FR, so doing that to non-worshippers who attempted to kill worshippers of Tyr, definitely put their heads on a stake. The fact that they are sub human goblins makes it even less of an issue. Really no different than stuffing and mounting a prize deer kill on your trophy wall.

 

[isoChron]

It's a bit similar to the execution of Stoertebeker, a pirate in the hanse region around 1400.
He was caught and executed in Hamburg and his head was nailed on a beam for all to see what happens to pirates.
There is a picture in the german wikipedia version: Wiki Störtebeker

I think it was a common practice to show the dead bodies of executed murderers and the like. In my home town some rebels where even caged in and hung up at the tower of the highest church for all to see. Picture of cages

So it seems quite all right for a cleric of tyr to behead some dead goblin bodies and pin them up along the location of their evil deeds.

But I think the Tyr clerics should also close the pit so that no innocent people could accidently fall in at night or during heavy fog. It is still a spiked pit on a road. Covered or not it's dangerous.

Bye

 

[JiffyPopTart]

How is the campaign going, Dan? Is anyone I know DM'ing it?

We are just now starting a new campaign after getting TPKed at the next-to-last adventure in the Age of Worms. Everyone agreed that high level play wasn't worth the effort and decided to start over at 2nd with a new game rather than see the AoW through to the end.

The new game is just starting out but as evidenced by about 10 pages of written story I have collected people are putting effort into characters rather than just stats on paper. So far we have...

Keith - GM, awesome guy we met through the ENworld personals some years ago. Don't think you ever met him though. Has a cavernous basement that hosts the game.
Smartin - Wood Elf Non-Spellcasting Ranger
Me - Wood Elf Feral Druid
Muench - Cleric of Tyr A
Justin - Cleric of Tyr B
Reis - High Elf Samurai

So far the politics of the group has been a strong elf vs. everyone theme (The rangers 2nd favored enemy is going to be humans). The plot hasn't really started yet since we are only rolling into our 3rd adventure. The basic idea will be a "What happens if the PCs failed the Age of Worms" thing. I suspect massive amounts of undead creeping across the land.

And yes, the discussion about the ethos of Tyr ended up being way more memorable and though provoking than the actual goblin battle was. I can see how, in a not-so-good gaming group you would want to avoid things like this to keep everyone involved but in this case all the players are friends outside of the DnD table so the point of the game is to hang out and enjoy each others company, not necessarily to get XP and loot. We actually WANT these kinds of things to happen to have something to remember.

DS

 

[Sejs]

My question to you is....what do you think Tyr would think of using goblin-heads-on-a-pike as a warning to future goblins?

Tyr, as the god of justice, wouldn't care either way. He'd be fine with both answers.

Justice was dealt with when the goblin raiders were killed for their transgressions. All that's being argued over here is how to deal with the corpses afterwards.

The god wouldn't take sides.

Both clerics are equally right within the precepts of their own versions of the faith.

 

[Milagroso]

I agree with the majority of the posters here in that Tyr would recognize that justice, in all of its cold irony, would have been met. Both clerics make a valid point, but I don't think Tyr would have cared one way or the other.

If the other players were enjoying the argument, I don't see a problem with letting the discussion go on for as long as necessary for both parties to reach an amicable solution. However, if the other players didn't feel like sitting through it, I would have asked the players to take a vote. If none of them wanted to take sides we could have asked for one of the clerics to cast Augury.

If none of the players could cast Augury, one solution would be to have each cleric take a few minutes (a predetermined amount, like say 3-5 minutes for each) to state their case without interruption and then assign a point based system to each based off of how well they made their case, and how well they did it in character. For each valid point and in character comment made, a point is assigned. At the end of the debate the cleric who scored the most points would have won the arguments - it would have been assumed that their was a vote and all party members agreed to side with the winner.

Meh, I don't know. That idea just came to me, but I myself would ahve just asked for the group to take a vote.

Anyway, I wish I could have been there for that. Sounded like a good RP moment.

Also, by chopping off the goblins heads, you do make it harder (if not impossible) for a random Necromancer to reanimate the goblin corpses since the body has to be whole and intact for that to work.

 

[Thurbane]

According to Wiki, "To keep Tyr's favor, one must respect fallen enemies, never make sacrifice of a corpse, and keep one's alignment lawful good."

...make of that what you will...

 

[marune]

According to Wiki, "To keep Tyr's favor, one must respect fallen enemies, never make sacrifice of a corpse, and keep one's alignment lawful good."

Don't trust FR lore that you found on the wiki.