The Tyranny of Good (aka The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intensions)

[Felix]

Whilst I disagree with the sentiment you can only fight fire with fire (or at least I think that's what this quote intends to portray)

That would be the underlying assumption; at least, using fire makes you effective and widens your options.

The PCs would be faced with a choice between an effective government that will occasionally misfire against its own citizens and a government of Good that, according to our assumption, won't be as effective in fighting its enemies.

 

[sckeener]

As long as the LNs who wrote the laws or are enforcing the laws have a good explanation for their actions, I'm sure you can have a fairly tyrannical government. Plenty of societies use fear as a means to do all sorts of acts in the name of Justice and Good.

This won't spoil the plot in the book that Umbran and Mouseferatu are discussing because it is discussed right at the beginning, one plot you could have is the brainwashing of Evil (or even neutral) creatures to Good creatures. Ditto for the lawful - neutral - chaotic axis if that is also a problem.

A little bit over kill and a bit evil is the mindrape spell from BOVD. You could have a couple of LN's casting that and even editing each other's minds as they become too evil to bring them back to LN.

Personally this sounds like a campaign that might be better suited for 4ed when alignment is minimized or it might work better with the allegiance system from Modern.

Of course you could actually have a few LE's hidding themselves at the top and enacting laws that seem good but have horrible ramifications...

Now for the annoying problems of a totally 'good' society.

My favorite is the Nanny laws or laws where they try to govern people's actions when they can only affect the self. A modern example would be consensual crimes and thought police. Good examples would be found here Plenty of those concepts would hit gamers hard....no loose women, no gambling, etc...
heck are the adventurers using government approved armor/weapons (seat belt/helmet laws?)

My next favorite is the extra step laws. Where they pass a law that sounds great, but it doesn't solve the problem because of all the hurdles placed in its way...extra forms, delays...basically anything that denies money. Good example of this is HMOs. I can see the government saying they will funding a 'healer' god to ensure everyone has the basic health coverage and then requiring extra paperwork for the cleric to get reimbursed for their healing. If the government does it right, the church providing the healing will get the blame for the lack of healing.

personally if you are sticking with the classic alignments, I'd have a few LEs hidden in the governemt structure that are causing all the headaches....

Oh and another thing...I assume you are not going for a medieval feel for every place. The modern concept of privacy is very different. As an example, it was quite common for entire family to sleep (and do other things) while the rest of the family was in the same bed. It is very possible that the average Joe in the society would have no problems with his neighbor spying because he believes in the concept of 'as long as you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide'

The reason I mention that is if you combine the consensual crimes with other activities, you could have the pcs break laws they didn't even know existed...and then have them faced with being mindraped so they never commit that sort of crime again.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

A different twist if the players are open to it:

PCs are all about the same age and are all recruits in an organization designed to train the next generation of leaders. One of their instructors used to be a Paladin of one of the old gods. He recognizes that the Law of the People has overshadowed the Good of the People. He has become a mentor to the PCs, whom he thinks might be able to one day make a difference if he can make them understand that Good is equally as important as Law.

The PCs have completed their training and have received their first posting. While most of the others in the program have been assigned to prominent postings, the PCs have been sent to a remote town where problems with Lawlessness have been common. Their superior in this town sends them on various assignments to restore the rule of Law. At first it will be simple things that many 1st level PCs do - go hunt down the orc raiders in the hills north of the town, root out a small cabal of acolytes worshipping the dark gods, etc. Eventually the assignments can start to turn a little darker - find out who has been illegally teaching magic, and bring them in for questioning, locate the group of farmers who have been secretly growing and distributing herbs used as magical components and destroy their crops. Discover and destroy a group that has been calling for an end to the current governership of the area.

At some point the PCs former instructor can make contact with them, covertly giving them different assignments that might uphold the law using Good methods that are counter to the instructions by their official superior. The instructor wants the PCs to work within the system, rather than being outright rebels. Depending on how things go, the instructor might be found and the PCs become suspects of the government, leading them to more direct rebellion, or they could still try and work within the system, leading to political intrigue.

 

[Henry]

Check out the Kingpriest of Istar in Dragonlance for an example of exactly what you're proposing.

I second this - It was done exceedingly by Weis and Hickman in the late 1980's, with their "Time of the Twins" trilogy which depicted the situation.

118 PC - The Kingpriest, Vasari II, makes the Proclamation of Manifest Virtue. Clergy of Istar start to lose favor with the gods.
100 PC - After 20 years of fighting, Ardosean IV emerges from the southern city of Losarcum to fight for the throne. Pradian is cut down by an archer’s arrow. Ardosean, who beheads Vasari II, wins the title of Kingpriest.
Only Ergothian priests now speak out against the Kingpriest. everyone else — even the majority of Ergothian citizens — believes the Istaran claims that the Kingpriest is the supreme agent of the gods in the mortal realms.

94 PC - Extermination of Evil Races. The Kingpriest declares a number of races—including wizards—evil and orders their extermination.
80-20 PC - Istar's Clergy Dominant. The Istarian priesthood becomes increasingly totalitarian.
19 PC - A Siege on Sorcery. Mobs attack the Towers of High Sorcery; Daltigoth's tower and the Tower in the Ruins are destroyed. Istar's tower is given to the Kingpriest; the Tower in Palanthas is cursed by Andras Rannoch and the wizards withdraw to the Tower of Wayreth.
6 PC - Edict of Thought Control. A reign of terror begins as the Kingpriest declares evil thoughts a crime. (957 IA)
1 PC- The Kingpriest completes preparations for his ascent to godhood. On the Night of Doom, true clerics are taken from Krynn by their patron deities. (962)
0 PC/1 AC - The Cataclysm. A fiery mountain is launched upon Istar, driving it to the depths of the newly-created Blood Sea.

First comes the edicts against "obviously evil" races, like goblins and ogres. Next comes the pogroms against magic. Then come reading thoughts to lock away those with evil thoughts. All this in the name of the Gods of Good. Heck, even the gods of Neutrality are recast by the Kingpriest as gods of evil in disguise. Finally, the gods saw it had gotten so out of whack they pretty much chucked the whole thing for about 300 years.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I never really liked that element of the Dragonlance cosmology. If you have interventionist deities, and if clerics are actually receiving power from them (both true in the DL cosmology), then Paladine should have conspicuously stripped the Kingpriest of his clerical powers at a critical moment and revealed him as an unfaithful servant of Good. Why all this killing thousands of people apocalyptic nonsense?

I'm with Mouseferatu here; "balance" between Good and Evil doesn't make much sense to me, since Good and Evil are definitionally... well, good and evil. No evil and much good would be the best of all possible worlds.

 

[Samnell]

I never really liked that element of the Dragonlance cosmology. If you have interventionist deities, and if clerics are actually receiving power from them (both true in the DL cosmology), then Paladine should have conspicuously stripped the Kingpriest of his clerical powers at a critical moment and revealed him as an unfaithful servant of Good. Why all this killing thousands of people apocalyptic nonsense?

Amen. Paladine and the "good" DL gods blew up the world to fix a problem they created through their own inaction and incompetence, when they had any number of less cataclysmic options available to them. I can believe a chaotic neutral or chaotic evil deity would act with that kind of cosmic egomania and petulance, but Paladine is described as lawful good. With good gods like that, I don't see how the Kingpriest ever got deprived of magic except that Paladine was worrying about someone else getting in on his action.

 

[Slife]

Amen. Paladine and the "good" DL gods blew up the world to fix a problem they created through their own inaction and incompetence, when they had any number of less cataclysmic options available to them. I can believe a chaotic neutral or chaotic evil deity would act with that kind of cosmic egomania and petulance, but Paladine is described as lawful good. With good gods like that, I don't see how the Kingpriest ever got deprived of magic except that Paladine was worrying about someone else getting in on his action.

Paladine is only pretending to be lawful good. Look at his name for a moment. Does it remind you of a different name? Someone else who holds the power to destroy a planet? Someone who rose to power claiming to reform a corrupt government and bring good laws to the people? Someone who is, like Paladine secretly is, completely evil and ruthless?

Hmm... I can't think of any character known to the mainstream audience who appeared in at least half a dozen films that fits that description. Nevermind, just a pointless tangent.

 

[ruleslawyer]

You win the thread.

 

[Gothic_Demon]

I never really liked that element of the Dragonlance cosmology. If you have interventionist deities, and if clerics are actually receiving power from them (both true in the DL cosmology), then Paladine should have conspicuously stripped the Kingpriest of his clerical powers at a critical moment and revealed him as an unfaithful servant of Good. Why all this killing thousands of people apocalyptic nonsense?

If I remember this bit correctly, the Kingpriest was already so powerful that his magic was sucked from the gods, not the other way around. They finally threw a mountain at him when he began to force them into making him a god as well.

The issue with this scenario, and I think the one you (original OP) put forward, is the idea that evil can be eradicated from the hearts of men. By trying too hard to eradicate evil, the people who do so overstep the mark and begin that slide down the slippery slope paved with good intentions. These people certainly believe that what they do is good, then that what they do is for the good of all.

To eradicate evil, all people have to be good. And as the majority of commoners are neutral...

 

[wedgeski]

If I remember this bit correctly, the Kingpriest was already so powerful that his magic was sucked from the gods, not the other way around. They finally threw a mountain at him when he began to force them into making him a god as well.

Even as a big Dragonlance fan (I've had a DL campaign of one form or another on the go for about 20 years), I've never been able to get my head around the actions of the Gods at this point in history. I think part of the problem is that in the initial treatment, the Cataclysm was a critical part of Krynn's history, without the material ever trying to pin down the mythology. The Kingpriest was a victim of his own hubris and represented *some* kind of threat to the world, therefore drastic actions were necessary. It spoke to me of the inscrutable minds of the divine... we can only try and understand them, but being mortal ourselves, the battle is lost before it even starts. It worked... kind of.

However, then came the Twins trilogy, the Kingpriest trilogy (a good set of books in itself, BTW), a bucketload of gaming material, and a million internet message boards debating what alignment the Kingpriest actually was. In all that noise, the mythology has been replaced with history and fact and it just falls to pieces.