D&D General Keys from the Golden Vault look through.

[MonsterEnvy]

I'm not trying to have an argument. I just said this wasn't what I thought of as a heist and got jumped on by people using new-to-me definitions of what a heist is. Rock on, guys. I hope it's a good adventure for you; it's just clearly not for me.

Why is it not a heist I want to know, because someone else is paying the party to steal?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Why is it not a heist I want to know, because someone else is paying the party to steal?

I've already explained this several times. I don't know why people want to fight about this. Enjoy your book.

 

[pukunui]

Why is it not a heist I want to know, because someone else is paying the party to steal?

I guess it's not a heist if it's for altruistic reasons. It can only be a heist if it's for personal gain.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I guess it's not a heist if it's for altruistic reasons. It can only be a heist if it's for personal gain.

Ahh that is nonsense.

 

[pukunui]

Man, I'm pretty keen to get this book now, but I'm not going to give into temptation and get the bundle for the early access on DDB. I'm simply not going to do it. And that's not just because I got burned with DL but also because I want the special cover version. I'll be patient and get this from my FLGS. I do have a birthday coming up next month, after all.

 

[Maxperson]

If it is metallic dragons behind the Golden Vault, it couldn't be Gold or Silver or Bronze, not by their RAW alignment (=lawful good)

That only leaves Brass and Copper.

Lawful does not have to equate to laws. You can be all about order, which might involve breaking some mortal laws to bring about. Gold dragons can be behind it.

 

[Emoshin]

Lawful does not have to equate to laws. You can be all about order, which might involve breaking some mortal laws to bring about. Gold dragons can be behind it.

I think gold dragons would at least have respect the laws of mortals. Even if they don't necessarily agree with them. That respect and consideration to others is a sign of goodness, at least for me.

Like if you are belonging to one religion, and you respect another person for their religious traditions, even if you don't agree with all the details -- that to me is some mix of goodness and lawfulness.

As I said elsewhere, for me, D&D is an escape from reality. Goodness actually means something in fantasy heroic genre. For me, it degrades the whole point of alignment if lawful goodness is diminished in the way you suggest.

(Not that I am a huge fan of alignment, but I'm just working with what's in the game)

 

[Maxperson]

To be fair, the Yawning Portal is a really, really dumb idea.

Yes, let's put a giant pit in the middle of a room full of drunks. Sure, the pit goes down to where a bunch of dangerous monsters are, but don't worry: The drunks are all armed.

That's not what happened. There was a well that went down into Undermountain and the inn was built around it. Halaster also wouldn't allow denizens to attack up the well, because he doesn't want the big guns coming down after him.

 

[Maxperson]

I think gold dragons would at least have respect the laws of mortals. Even if they don't necessarily agree with them. That respect and consideration to others is a sign of goodness, at least for me.

Like if you are belonging to one religion, and you respect another person for their religious traditions, even if you don't agree with all the details -- that to me is some mix of goodness and lawfulness.

As I said elsewhere, for me, D&D is an escape from reality. Goodness actually means something in fantasy heroic genre. For me, it degrades the whole point of alignment if lawful goodness is diminished in the way you suggest.

(Not that I am a huge fan of alignment, but I'm just working with what's in the game)

Do you think that the gold dragons should have respect for evil laws? Legal slavery?

 

[Emoshin]

Do you think that the gold dragons should have respect for evil laws? Legal slavery?

Nope, because the goodness part overrides the lawful part in that respect. And that's not at all what I meant in the quote that you quoted me from.

 

[Maxperson]

Nope, because the goodness part overrides the lawful part in that respect. And that's not at all what I meant in the quote that you quoted me from.

That's the thing. Once you are okay with not respecting or following one law, lawful cannot equate to laws. It can part of the alignment for some, but a dedication to a higher order is also lawful and does not dilute the alignment at all.

 

[Emoshin]

That's the thing. Once you are okay with not respecting or following one law, lawful cannot equate to laws. It can part of the alignment for some, but a dedication to a higher order is also lawful and does not dilute the alignment at all.

Ya alignment is just not binary like what I think you might be suggesting. Real moral and ethics require more nuanced thinking than that, often juggling very complex dilemmas. Handwaving away those considerations to suit an adventure idea ("wouldn't it be cool for a gold dragon to be behind an unlawful heist") is not a good primary reason in and of itself. I just don't agree with you that it is self-evident that gold dragons would easily ignore non-evil mortal laws. I think there needs to be more robust rationale for me to like it/find it plausible.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I think you've beat this horse to dust, and, clearly not everyone agrees.

What I really like about the book is the variety of locales. What I'm not sure about is how easy it is to run a planning session and how LONG it would take my players to manage all this.....

I like that too - it seems to cover all the common heist trope locations, which will make it easy to plug and play if a campaign includes such a scenario...

 

[Demetrios1453]

Stealing the crap and keeping it was the name of the game, not giving the treasure to a dragon at the end.

Then... don't? It's not mandatory to play the chapters exactly as written, after all. The gaming police aren't going to drag the DM away if they replace the Golden Vault with another organization - or have no organization at all, and it's just the adventuring group planning the heist...

 

[Demetrios1453]

Something I should add is that the Prisoner 13 player map is the most advanced and accurate one. Like here are two other player maps

Map 1
Map 2

Yeah... I'm sure there's no way that Allosaurus will come to life and attack the party, right?

 

[Demetrios1453]

Man, I'm pretty keen to get this book now, but I'm not going to give into temptation and get the bundle for the early access on DDB. I'm simply not going to do it. And that's not just because I got burned with DL but also because I want the special cover version. I'll be patient and get this from my FLGS. I do have a birthday coming up next month, after all.

I'm doing the same thing because of the Special Edition cover too. I ended up with two DL books (I'm not saying the bundle cover wasn't nice, but the SE was really nice), as I was planning on getting my group to create characters before the general release (which they did using the early online release). But I have no reason to get two books here. I'll do the early ordering if it's something I really want, which right now would likely next be Planescape.

 

[Maxperson]

Ya alignment is just not binary like what I think you might be suggesting.

I'm actually suggesting the opposite. If it was binary, LG would mean one thing like you suggest. You would either be that specific LG or not LG at all. Alignment is more open than that. A lawful person might follow the laws religiously, or maybe just be a really structured and orderly person, or have a very strong personal code that he follows.

Handwaving away those considerations to suit an adventure idea ("wouldn't it be cool for a gold dragon to be behind an unlawful heist") is not a good primary reason in and of itself. I just don't agree with you that it is self-evident that gold dragons would easily ignore non-evil mortal laws. I think there needs to be more robust rationale for me to like it/find it plausible.

Nothing is being handwaved by me. Breaking a mortal law that doesn't apply to the dragon anyway is not unlawful if in pursuit of the higher order and good.

 

[Zaukrie]

That's the thing. Once you are okay with not respecting or following one law, lawful cannot equate to laws. It can part of the alignment for some, but a dedication to a higher order is also lawful and does not dilute the alignment at all.

It's a scale.... Not a switch. I can be mostly lawful. That doesn't make me completely lawful. I'm not sure why this is controversial.

 

[Emoshin]

I'm actually suggesting the opposite. If it was binary, LG would mean one thing like you suggest. You would be that specific LG or not. Alignment is more open than that. A lawful person might follow the laws religiously, or maybe just be a really structured and orderly person, or have a very strong personal code that he follows.

Nothing is being handwaved by me. Breaking a mortal law that doesn't apply to the dragon anyway is not unlawful if in pursuit of the higher order and good.

Hmm not sure what you mean. I think the gold dragon would strongly prefer to approach a problem by respecting non-evil mortal laws as much as possible, out of both respect and long-term/holistic goals. If that is improbable, however, I can see how the dragon would evaluate the pros and cons of breaking laws.

However, a gold dragon that chronically defaults to heisting (which is what the Golden Vault sounds like to me) sounds like a dragon that doesn't even have that baseline of lawfulness.

This, for example, I would not be OK with this:

Gold dragon: We need to recover that stolen treasure
Captain: Ya, the Lord's Alliance refuses to talk to us, we don't know why actually
Gold dragon: OK
Captain: So we have to break into a maximum security prison
Gold dragon: OK
Captain: Also the agents we are sending, they have no specific training in this. We have not given them any protocol
Gold dragon: OK
Captain: They might commit murder or compromise the security of the facility
Gold dragon: Jolly good, please proceed with this plan

In short, my position is: whatever we decide to do in the worldbuilding, provide the rationale and do it right.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I have updated the starting post with the remaining adventures.