D&D General Old School DND talks if DND is racist.

[Scribe]

I did something like this on a vastly smaller scale. Basically the pCs couldn't be in two places at once pick your poison.

Wasn't fun though so not going to do it again anytime soon.

Such an important point. We can discuss stuff like this until we all pass out, but most of us game for fun.

Being put in impossible scenarios of suffering isn't much fun.

 

[HJFudge]

Such an important point. We can discuss stuff like this until we all pass out, but most of us game for fun.

Being put in impossible scenarios of suffering isn't much fun.

If its an every week thing no. But on occasion, for me, it is.

Because it really helps me explore a story or a concept or a character. If there are no hard questions, imho, the story isn't worth the paper its printed on and it's no fun (for me).

I can see how some might not enjoy it ever though. Which is fine.

 

[Maxperson]

Can you provide the quote where I say 'killing a child is okay/justified'?

Or are you, once again, making stuff up?

This IS amazing but not at all for the reasons you think it is

If you're arguing moral relativism, you are arguing that killing a child is okay if your moral view is that it's okay. The Philistines sacrificed babies to their gods. To them that was a good act. If moral relativism is true, then it WAS a good act. Some things(not everything) or just so heinous that they are evil no matter what.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think war is ever "good" in reality. It may be deemed necessary, but "good"? No. War is messy and cruel. Innocent people die and often for just being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

If the historians are to be believed (and history is written by the victors) Japan was ready to fight a very long, very bloody war with women pushing baby carriages full of explosives to the beach and so on.

Which ... the reason I'm writing this is because real world war is horrible. I don't want the reality of war in my D&D game. I want truly evil enemies not child soldiers that were conscripted, "good" wars, the fantasy of being heroes without the reality. It's a game.

That is a total "history is written by the victors" example though, and thank you for mentioning that. It's also no longer really considered plausible. Japanese soldiers were certainly happier to carry out suicide attacks and the like than American ones (though had the US homeland been under threat, I wonder if much daylight would have fit between them), but there's little real, genuine, compelling historical evidence to suggest that Japan's overwrought and ridiculous defense plans were anything less ridiculous than their other overwrought and ridiculous plans. Other nations had had some fairly exotic plans for what happened if they were invaded, pretty much none of which ever actually happened. Certainly Japanese civilians didn't seem to be any more suicidal than anyone else.

What is perhaps fairer to say is that the US genuinely believed that dropping the bomb would save at least some lives in total. But the most compelling reason I've heard is that the US public would have found it completely unacceptable if it came out, after the war, that the US had this bomb, and didn't use it on Japan. I mean, let's imagine a scenario where the US reaches Japan and starts fighting, the emperor has a heart attack (we can hope!) and his son immediately signs a surrender, and the bomb was never dropped, but maybe 50k US troops are killed closing in on and attacking Japan. That's far fewer people than were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but no-one would know that. What they'd know was, the US had a superweapon and it didn't use it, and 50k soldiers died perhaps because they didn't use it. Any politicians involved in THAT little decision would be done, generals would likely have to resign, and so on. So the best option for them was to use it and see what happened.

(I'm not actually here to condemn them for it - obviously it was nowhere near as bad as some of the firebomb raids the Allies did in terms of casualties or really even horror. You want to look for real moral wrongs look there. The whole idea of aerial bombardment of civilian populations actually achieving anything was largely debunked by WW2 and also by the Vietnam war, particularly the incursion into Cambodia, where more bombs were dropped by the US than in WW2*)

* = Cite: Plain of Jars - Wikipedia - look under "Present day" - also an amazing location to think about for D&D.

Strongly agree with you re: war in-game. It's best if it's something that already happened, or is to be averted.

 

[Zardnaar]

Such an important point. We can discuss stuff like this until we all pass out, but most of us game for fun.

Being put in impossible scenarios of suffering isn't much fun.

Yeah I like gritty sometimes but you still have to make it fun.

If it was an older edition they could have maybe pulled it off via henchmen. They go to ABC, henchmen go to XYZ.

Actually it more or less turned out alright but I presented it as a dilemma. One player made it a lot harder than it needed to be as one place was safe enough due to NPCs.

One player wanted to strip the defenses for a big win elsewhere while leave the other place undefended. Hence why it didn't work.

Whatever the party wanted he wanted the opposite all the time. I'm sure he'll have fun once he finds a new group.

 

[Scribe]

The theoretical can be interesting, the discussion engaging, but a good grimdark novel for example should leave you feeling like you've been punched in the gut and need to walk it off.

Not many are down for that experience to cap off a night or campaign.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

RAW the PC described would be, most likely, Chaotic Good. A PC who acts as his conscience directs, with little regard for what people who dont know what they are talking about and just making stuff up on the internet expect.

In this case, the PCs conscience directs them to kill the prince in order to stop 10,000 deaths. They don't care that you haven't actually read the rules but are pretending to have done so. Their action they are taking is straight up murder so perhaps you may argue they are not lawful, and I will give you that. But there is NO support for your argument here in the actual text. In their hearts and their minds, this PC has decided to take an action that they believe is right. This is chaotic good. Through RAW.

You asked, and yeah this looks like justifying child murder to me, pretty clearly.

You're saying it's okay for him to do that. He's just a naughty CG boi. It's moral relativism of a hilarious kind.

 

[Oofta]

No the deaths are on the Japanese.

Truman made his decision with the information they had. They had no spies in the internal workings of the Japanese high command. He had three options.

1. Do nothing hope for the best. Japan surrenders in a week or two best case scenario. Japan probably doesn't surrender in that time frame.

2. Use the bombs.

3. Invade Japan in a few months ( by then the death toll already exceeded the bombs deathtoll).

An average of 100k died per week in Asia and that was accelerating.

Estimates for death toll were extrapolated from Saipan/Iwo Jima/Okinawa.

Also the allied PoWs.

So he had 3 bad choices on limited information. What's the technical term for that?

FUBAR

 

[Zardnaar]

That is a total "history is written by the victors" example though, and thank you for mentioning that. It's also no longer really considered plausible. Japanese soldiers were certainly happier to carry out suicide attacks and the like than American ones (though had the US homeland been under threat, I wonder if much daylight would have fit between them), but there's little real, genuine, compelling historical evidence to suggest that Japan's overwrought and ridiculous defense plans were anything less ridiculous than their other overwrought and ridiculous plans. Other nations had had some fairly exotic plans for what happened if they were invaded, pretty much none of which ever actually happened. Certainly Japanese civilians didn't seem to be any more suicidal than anyone else.

What is perhaps fairer to say is that the US genuinely believed that dropping the bomb would save at least some lives in total. But the most compelling reason I've heard is that the US public would have found it completely unacceptable if it came out, after the war, that the US had this bomb, and didn't use it on Japan. I mean, let's imagine a scenario where the US reaches Japan and starts fighting, the emperor has a heart attack (we can hope!) and his son immediately signs a surrender, and the bomb was never dropped, but maybe 50k US troops are killed closing in on and attacking Japan. That's far fewer people than were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but no-one would know that. What they'd know was, the US had a superweapon and it didn't use it, and 50k soldiers died perhaps because they didn't use it. Any politicians involved in THAT little decision would be done, generals would likely have to resign, and so on. So the best option for them was to use it and see what happened.

(I'm not actually here to condemn them for it - obviously it was nowhere near as bad as some of the firebomb raids the Allies did in terms of casualties or really even horror. You want to look for real moral wrongs look there. The whole idea of aerial bombardment of civilian populations actually achieving anything was largely debunked by WW2 and also by the Vietnam war, particularly the incursion into Cambodia, where more bombs were dropped by the US than in WW2*)

* = Cite: Plain of Jars - Wikipedia - look under "Present day" - also an amazing location to think about for D&D.

Strongly agree with you re: war in-game. It's best if it's something that already happened, or is to be averted.

They firebombed Japanese oil product ion but by then they had already run out of oil.

In Europe it cut Nazi production by a third so saved Soviet lives but the killer was German oil facilities.

In every case if it's your people dying vs them every nation went with them.

Stay at home drink beer, smoke a erm nvrmind. War bad.

 

[Zardnaar]

FUBAR

Yeah from a strict moral view point there is no good choice. Every one has dead children.