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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kabouter Games" data-source="post: 7034344" data-attributes="member: 6788812">Nah. It's just ENWorld. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />You're welcome. I hope you can tease some signal out of the noise.Good point. I think I might have jerked my knee a bit too hard, there.Here we begin to skate on the thin ice of fantasy tropes, in which some things are assumed to be inherently an irrevocably evil. This is the well from whence the whole "paladin killing a village of orc babies" debate - into which I do not wish to spiral - springs.This is one of those tropes - the evil McGuffin is irrevocably evil - that I dislike breaking. Frodo didn't try to talk the Ring into being nice. He decided to unmake it in the Fire. That's a bad metaphor, since the Ring wasn't an individual, sentient, evil magical item, but it's all I can come up with on one cup of coffee. Some things, some entities, are just Evil, and that's that. Would you try to talk a balor into giving up that demoning thing and turning over a new leaf? Maybe you would. If that works for your table, fine! It all comes down to what works for the people around a particular table. Heck, if the rest of my table decided to make it work for them, I'd allow it, even though I don't care for it. As for "losing" all its power, I don't think I said that. I said "removing and replacing it" - in the case of unmaking and remaking it - or "refusing to use it." Speaking of which...I'm not saying I wouldn't allow the attempt. I'm saying I would absolutely ensure the attempt to change the entity's alignment, even if technically successful, wouldn't have the result the player wants. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> It's just too awesome an opportunity for me to create drama. I mean, FFS, do you just let them use wish without doing everything you can to twist it? That way lies madness!Okay, try to change the thing. Until you convince it, every time you try to use it, you're in Conflict, and you stand a good chance of not getting anything done. "What? Not kill the kittens? Pansy. Stand aside, weakling, and let me get on with it."When you're in the middle of convincing it, winning it over, it's in an existential crisis which stops it providing its powers. "But you said killing for fun is wrong. It still feels fun to me. I dunno...I have to think about it." Once you do convince it, it has the zeal of the newly converted, and you'll have to convince it to use its powers. "Stab the orcs? Wait, what? You hypocrite! You told me killing is wrong! How could you!? Let me talk to them instead."In every case, Conflict, according to the DMG, p. 216. That's not just rules-based Conflict, that's also conflict in the context of dramatic incidents. Conflict is what drives Story, which is what this game is about. So not giving the player exactly what she wants contributes infinitely more to the game.This is a fun conversation. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Bob<a href="http://www.r-p-davis.com" target="_blank">www.r-p-davis.com</a></blockquote>

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