Power and Responsibility

[Spatula]

There's a saving throw involved in Misdirection, so eventually you'd get it right. And most bad guys don't rely on even that in published adventures. Just saying that good dudes aren't limited to reactive actions.

Just detect evil around a town, select the most high-ranking / suspicious / high level / socially important / whatever evil guy you find. Then get proactive on him. If you're quite certain he's bad enough to be killed, just do it and take his stuff, if not, gather some info on him and then kill him.

Proof of evil actions on the targets part is not required, if he really did something evil enough to warrant killing.

Undetectable Alignment is 1st level (bard, 2nd level cleric), lasts 24 hours, and has no drawbacks. A ring of mind shielding is 8,000 gp and blocks all attempts to discern alignment.

More importantly, murdering important citizens has, or should have, serious repercussions. Not just in terms of breaking the law, but in pissing off the victim's allies & organization (not necessarily evil themselves), and in removing a critical cog in the social/political machine.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

More importantly, murdering important citizens has, or should have, serious repercussions. Not just in terms of breaking the law, but in pissing off the victim's allies & organization (not necessarily evil themselves), and in removing a critical cog in the social/political machine.

Besides, that "killing people because of their alignment" issue is giving D&D gamers a bad name...

 

[Raven Crowking]

Besides, that "killing people because of their alignment" issue is giving D&D gamers a bad name...

I know. I was lucky I got to my auto mechanic before my players caught up with me.....





...What?

 

[Numion]

More importantly, murdering important citizens has, or should have, serious repercussions. Not just in terms of breaking the law, but in pissing off the victim's allies & organization (not necessarily evil themselves), and in removing a critical cog in the social/political machine.

Evil should go unpunished because punishing evil has nasty consequences? Sounds like cowardly adventuring.

Screw the consequences and kill the bad guys would be my approach. Consequences should not deter any stalwart adventurer, but they should be mitigated. You know, make evil dudes death look like an accident, make him disappear, etc.. Just come up with a way that keeps your part secret (this might be hard, and has to be resurrection proof).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

This thread made me think. Apparently, some people take the stance that the point of really high character levels is that you are going to slay bigger monsters, face bigger threats, and get bigger treasures.

But I can't help but wondering: Can this really be all there is to high levels?


After all, at some point - depending on the setting, but usually arriving at 20th level at the latest - the typical party has the power to topple entire nations all by themselves. That means that they have massive political power - if they choose to use it.

That's a big point. If.

And in the typical D&D world there are quite a few nations ruled by obvious tyrants. So why don't they topple those nations and strive to make them a better place - or rule them as tyrants themselves, if they are so inclined?

Because they might mess things up worse? I don't know about you, but I don't think my Int 8 Cha 8 half-orc Fighter/Barbarian is going to do a good job at leading any place.

Note that kingdom-building doesn't suit all PCs reasonably well (eg those with lower mental stats, or who want to sit in a tower and make new spells, or who worship a deity that insists on keeping them out of politics, or who want to become a mercenary commander, etc), and many PCs won't want to do that until they retire.

The only way I'd do something like that is if:

1) I have an additional motivation (eg marrying the beautiful princess, getting paid, etc)
2) It's part of an adventure. I'm not going to topple the tyrant if the DM clearly didn't take that into account along with the thirty fairly detailed scenarios they're juggling; that wouldn't be much fun for myself or the DM.

Even if they don't try to rule a nation, it will still be seen as a political decision that the PCs need to explain and defend. "You are so powerful that you could easily get rid of Dark Lord Elmer, so why don't you do something about him?" is a question they will probably get asked frequently if they have a known code of ethics. And if so, are they really content with letting innocents suffer under tyrants?

Because Lord Elmer is ready for them, smarter than them, has an army and has defeated previous adventurers? He has some secret weapon that the PCs don't know about and aren't ready to face? Why didn't some other high level adventurers knock him out? Oh, right, they're busy with all the other dangers in the setting (except in a few settings, where the high-level adventurers could topple Elmer in an afternoon).

And once they got rid of the tyrant, what then? He might been the only thing holding his nation together - so if they don't take charge of it, it will dissolve and start an ugly civil war that will cause even more deaths. So what are they going to do about it - other than ruling the nation themselves?

That's why you don't go knock off a tyrant without a plan to prevent the anarchy. (Alternatively, you could go and knock off the tyrant, and then just leave. Some adventurers are motivated by fun, and keeping a kingdom alive isn't fun.)

My point is that once the PCs become powerful enough to defeat whole armies by themselves, they should think in grander terms than just slaying bigger monsters. They have the power to shape the world for good or ill - so at the very least they need to come up with good explanations for why they aren't doing just that.

Different players have different styles... as has been pointed out several times over the thread.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Because they might mess things up worse? I don't know about you, but I don't think my Int 8 Cha 8 half-orc Fighter/Barbarian is going to do a good job at leading any place.

Then how about looking for someone who is, and helping him to get into that position?

The only way I'd do something like that is if:

1) I have an additional motivation (eg marrying the beautiful princess, getting paid, etc)
2) It's part of an adventure. I'm not going to topple the tyrant if the DM clearly didn't take that into account along with the thirty fairly detailed scenarios they're juggling; that wouldn't be much fun for myself or the DM.

You are assuming that this is the sort of adventure that's over in one evening. What's wrong with telling the DM "I'd like to do something about toppling Mad Lord X" at the end of a gaming session, and then have a short brainstorming session with everyone to discuss what you could do?

This way the DM can prepare for such plans. And I've never yet met a DM who objected to free adventure hooks given to him by the players.

Because Lord Elmer is ready for them, smarter than them, has an army and has defeated previous adventurers? He has some secret weapon that the PCs don't know about and aren't ready to face?

Then they can try to learn about their precedessors and that secret weapon so that they can neutralize it - in other words, this provides even more adventure hooks.

That's why you don't go knock off a tyrant without a plan to prevent the anarchy.

And the planning is part of the fun!

(Alternatively, you could go and knock off the tyrant, and then just leave. Some adventurers are motivated by fun, and keeping a kingdom alive isn't fun.)

This doesn't have to matter as long as they have a conscience that prevents them from just walking away from the chaos they have created. (Note: Whether something is fun for a character is an entirely different matter than whether something is fun for a player. In my current campaign, becoming the ruler of a small nation was the last thing one of the characters wanted - but the player seemed to enjoy that plot twist.)

 

[kigmatzomat]

Evil should go unpunished because punishing evil has nasty consequences? Sounds like cowardly adventuring. Screw the consequences and kill the bad guys would be my approach.

Knowingly causing harm, possibly death, to large numbers of people in pursuit of personal goals? Sounds like evil adventuring to me.

 

[Numion]

Knowingly causing harm, possibly death, to large numbers of people in pursuit of personal goals? Sounds like evil adventuring to me.

Altering power structures will usually result in collateral deaths (like we've seen throughout world history up to this day), and it's always a heated debate if the new power structure is worth the deaths. But to claim that altering the (originally evil) power structure is outright EEVIL? I'd wager not.

Example: US civil war. It was not all about slaves (not my strong subject), but should they have let that power structure standing because altering it was going to cause a lot of death? After all, a system of slavery is a thing that could be called evil in D&D terms.

The analogy is not perfect, because in real world changing a power structure quickly usually requires a revolution or war. In D&D a power structure can be effectively decapitated by a group of high-level adventurers. Closest RL analogy would be how a small band of conquistadors punked a whole nation of aztecs with superior technology.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Example: US civil war. It was not all about slaves (not my strong subject), but should they have let that power structure standing because altering it was going to cause a lot of death? After all, a system of slavery is a thing that could be called evil in D&D terms.

Different scenario. The PCs would not actually be toppling the existing power structure as much as stopping a rebellion. The analogy would be Andrew Jackson in the role of "young Lord Elmer" as he tried to claim his own empire.

An appropriate historical comparison to toppling Dark Lord Elmer would be if the Europeans had invaded Germany preemptively to stop Hitler and the Nazis. Multiple organizations did try to covertly monitor and halt German crimes.

Closest RL analogy would be how a small band of conquistadors punked a whole nation of aztecs with superior technology.

Actually the Spaniards conquered the aztecs thanks to a neighboring state that had been at war with the Aztec for just about ever. The Spanish actually got into a fight with that tribe and, according to some spanish conquistadors, probably would have lost if they hadn't managed to team up against the Aztecs.

Oh, and don't forget the joys of european-supplied smallpox, which at the very least decimated the Aztecs during the siege, and possibly wiped out half the population.

Technology meant very little. Politics and plague meant much more.

But "technology" sounds so much better, kind of like it indicates the Aztecs and other peoples were destined to fall to the Spanish. Had the mezoamerican states banded together they could have held off the spanish indefinitely, given the relative length of the supply chains. Logistics wins more wars than technology and the Aztecs had logistics down pat.

 

[Numion]

Actually the Spaniards conquered the aztecs thanks to a neighboring state that had been at war with the Aztec for just about ever. The Spanish actually got into a fight with that tribe and, according to some spanish conquistadors, probably would have lost if they hadn't managed to team up against the Aztecs.

Oh, and don't forget the joys of european-supplied smallpox, which at the very least decimated the Aztecs during the siege, and possibly wiped out half the population.

Technology meant very little. Politics and plague meant much more.

But "technology" sounds so much better, kind of like it indicates the Aztecs and other peoples were destined to fall to the Spanish. Had the mezoamerican states banded together they could have held off the spanish indefinitely, given the length of their supply chain.

Feel free to point out my inferior knowledge of the conquistadors / aztecs and sidestep any points I made in the rest of my post.