D&D General Too many cultists

[Coroc]

Thats rather the point though - PCs are getting hired to hunt down those minor cults before the grow to be big cults. Thats the premise of the Conan the Barbarian movie and Conan the Destroyer and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and ...

I did a campaign once in which the PCs were all part of the Inquisitors in Mother Church and were charged with recovering Holy Artifacts and hunting down evil cults and heresies

That is a cool idea, especially if you build a world with a monotheistic god or dual deities.

I think the OPs trying to say that the thing to use cultists for about every second issue is a bit overused.

To go back to those FR and GHK deities of evil: Ok let us take a e.g. temple of Nerull, given that it is a known location, maybe the ruler does tolerate it, is the priesthood and those who attend it a cult?
Maybe those are simple people who want to appease the god of death so he let's them live.
It becomes a cult when said temple starts to sacrifice the population and mass produce undead out of their corpses but before that it is just a temple of an evil deity.

Let us compare the cult of the dragon, I am not very well with its lore atm. I think they praise Dracolichs, I might be wrong here, but it is something about that as far as I can recall. But that is not the point, the thing is, a dragon, or a dracolich or whatever mob does not need a cult to be a dangerous and cunning opponent. If you want to add minions as his servants, a tribe of kobolds or Ogres perfectly does the job.

Same with a crime syndicate, it is not necessary that the leader is in truth a priest of a hideous demonprince who plans to take over and rule the world with the help of his thieves guild.
It is far more plausible that the leader of a thieves guild is a rogue himself who got into this position than someone else. Ok, ok, Xanathar is also a cool idea, but his thieves guild is just that, and not a beholder cult.

 

[Caliburn101]

organized crime by its nature is too subtle and stealthy for DnD, its just a whole lot of petty mooks whereas the Big Boss stays hidden and unknown. In contrast baby skilling cultist in league with eldritch horrors are starkly evil and worth killing Even if they are just low level neophyte who havent yet been allowed to join the orgies.

That said I do like killing bandits, especially the despicable kind who rape the feilds and pillage the women.

Serial Killers are another good group to use - Human cannibals lurking in the woods outside of town., although they are often just cultist without the dark powers to motivate them

It may be for the style of D&D you and your group typically play, but organised crime has figured large in some of the games I have run, and will run.

Despite the fact much of the rules are given over to combat, killing everything should rarely be the whole point of a campaign. Intrigue and the criminal underworld are great elements in any long-standing campaign, or even a single adventure arc, as old adventures like "The Assassin's Knot" demonstrate.

 

[Shiroiken]

Cultists are fairly common in most settings, and so is "organized crime." The problem is that organized crime can be a pretty broad category, including bandits, thieves' guild, assassins' guild, and even the nobility. Cultists and bandits are usually small and easy to stamp out as an adventure, while taking on a guild or a corrupt noble is a far more extensive situation, possibly being a campaign in itself.

 

[JasonZZ]

IMHO cultists are a go-to enemy for the same reason Nazis end up one in modern games--there's no moral ambiguity there. When your enemy literally wants to sacrifice people and bring about the destructive re-ordering of the world (or outright wants to end it), there's no real question about whether you're doing the right thing fighting them.

 

[GreyLord]

And here I thought Goblins, Orcs, and Hobgoblins as well as skeletons and Zombies would be what people would complain about being overused...

 

[Jd Smith1]

The key is to take a lesson from WH FRPG: cults there are pervasive, and each aspect of Chaos has radically different cultists. Moreover, the cults are part of a larger whole: the cults in society, the bands of beastmen in the forests, the armies of Chaos are all linked.

 

[MGibster]

Organized criminals are nothing more than businessmen with a violent bent. If faced with a tough group of outsiders, they will simply try to buy them off, frame them for something, bribe officials to harass the PCs, or lure them away with false (or real) rumors. They have no reason to stand and fight. They are part of the community, and can simply wait out any storm the PCs can bring, until the PCs leave.

You're making a great case for the use of organized criminals in games because those all sounds like excellent adventure hooks to me. The cartels in Mexico don't seem to be afraid of a fight when bribes, threats, and other options fail them.

If the PCs (outsiders) start killing locals (criminals) the local authorities are going to take a dim view, especially if they are on the payroll.

Isn't this applicable to just about anyone the PCs kill? If they're in Baldur's Gate there's a good chance those cultist came from the local area, right?

Slavers have been used a lot, but they only work if they are in a place where slavery is illegal, and they have a market where it is illegal. If slavery is legal, then the PCs will have a serious problem.

Again, that sounds like a fantastic adventure hook. And Harriet Tubman did it in real life so I don't see we can't do that in a fantasy game.

 

[Coroc]

The key is to take a lesson from WH FRPG: cults there are pervasive, and each aspect of Chaos has radically different cultists. Moreover, the cults are part of a larger whole: the cults in society, the bands of beastmen in the forests, the armies of Chaos are all linked.

Hm, this is what some occult corrupting force could do to a campaign world: acting on many different levels towards some common goal (maybe unbeknownst to some/all of the cultists themselves)

I would not consider this to be the standard except in maybe a world with a dualistic good evil pantheon.
It is an interesting take never the less.

 

[Coroc]

...
You're making a great case for the use of organized criminals in games because those all sounds like excellent adventure hooks to me. The cartels in Mexico don't seem to be afraid of a fight when bribes, threats, and other options fail them.

...

Correct, but any criminal organization not dealing with e.g. assasinations as their prime business case, but rather things like smuggling, trading illegal substances, extortion etc. prefer to avoid direct conflict even if they have the power to do so. Your example is the extreme but a good example of what happens if things get out of control.
The standard would rather be like e.g. some burglar wants to do burgling not killing people and would prefer to flee than to fight if confronted with the law.
The reason behind this is that in many societies punishment really starts to hurt if the case is for murder whereas with lesser offenses criminals have the chance to get away with a bearable punishment if they are caught.
Of course in middle ages there were many crimes other than murder which also resulted in death penalty so your example is not so unjustified, since it does not matter the for the criminal if he fights back or not, if they hang him anyway for theft.

 

[MGibster]

Correct, but any criminal organization not dealing with e.g. assasinations as their prime business case, but rather things like smuggling, trading illegal substances, extortion etc. prefer to avoid direct conflict even if they have the power to do so. Your example is the extreme but a good example of what happens if things get out of control.

That's generally true of most organizations though. Even pirates don't really want to get into a fight as they just want to steal something while minimizing any risks to themselves. So like any good drama you set up a conflict between the PCs and the criminal organization that doesn't have a simple solution. It could be PCs are tasked with ending the smuggling operation or it could be a bit more complicated. Maybe the PCs acquired a fiefdom and smugglers are cutting into their tax base. Maybe the PCs need what's being smuggled in quantities they can't afford to buy.