NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="riprock" data-source="post: 2972803" data-attributes="member: 42506">Getting your soul stolen isn't scary if it's not your fault.If a big bully chases you down and beats on you, and there's no way for you to defend or escape, you're not guilty of cowardice:  you're simply outgunned.  No one can expect you to fight an unwinnable battle.If a big demon eats your soul and makes you suffer eternally or cease to be -- there's no horror.  You didn't sin.  You had no chance.  If that can go on eternally, then there is no justice is the cosmos, and you have no reason to care.  Suffering although you don't deserve to suffer is merely proof that your torturer is an idiot.If the gods are unjust, humans don't owe them any awe.  They're just big, idiotic bullies.If, however, the gods are just, and human souls can suffer eternally because of sins they could have avoided .... that's horrifying.Unfortunately, *all* role-playing games tend to be characterized by unwise, arbitrary decisions on both sides of the DM's screen.  So if any gods are roleplayed, chances are good that they won't deserve awe.So, if the DM uses game mechanics to imperil the PC's soul, then tries to get emotional shock out of the story that the player character's immortal soul is suffering dreadfully, the player should realize the DM is trying far too hard.  IMHO, the correct response is frivolous laughter, possibly followed by, "You're a lousy DM."  Game mechanics usually reduce or destroy emotional impact.If, on the other hand, the DM and the players are both on the same cultural wavelength and can agree to a notion of sin, it's more interesting.  Then the DM can trick the player character into sinning.  And when the players realize that, the correct response *is* horror, pity, and terror -- in other words, a classical catharsis.  In many years of role-playing, I've played with dozens of groups.  I've only known one or two groups that had a chance to achieve truly cathartic moments of drama.  I think it was Jonathan Tweet who said that D&D souls, alignments, and gods resemble ritual impurity more than ethics.  I wouldn't go that far, I would just say that it's only one group out of a hundred that has a chance to make a real drama instead of a silly melodrama.</blockquote>

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