D&D General What are your reasons for doing something because "It's what my character would do"?

[DammitVictor]

The whole point of a D&D world or a similar setting is that the monopoly of violence has broken down and private individuals are allowed to kill and steal with impunity or even the approval of authorities.

I am an American, sir. For us, that is the point of the first Tuesday in every November.

And your  fantasy in this scenario is to deliberately antagonize the only people in the world willing to protect you from all the others? I used to think that D&D characters having minimum INT and WIS scores of 6 was for the benefit of munchkins... now, I realize it's for the sake of realism so that the standard D&D party is composed of people who'd survive their first foray into a dungenon with a standard D&D party.

I feel like I owe Monte Cook an apology and I will never forgive you for that.

 

[AlViking]

The whole point of a D&D world or a similar setting is that the monopoly of violence has broken down and private individuals are allowed to kill and steal with impunity or even the approval of authorities.

That may be true in your D&D campaigns, it's not true in every D&D campaign. My campaign world is more violent than the modern world, but in most cases the real world was far more violent throughout history until quite recently. Still doesn't mean the characters can be murder-hoboes.

 

[GothmogIV]

ah, nice bait-and-switch

Thanks!

 

[Thomas Shey]

That may be true in your D&D campaigns, it's not true in every D&D campaign. My campaign world is more violent than the modern world, but in most cases the real world was far more violent throughout history until quite recently. Still doesn't mean the characters can be murder-hoboes.

I'd say it tends to be the case in D&D settings that there's more tolerance for situational violence than their is in our world--and less assumed governmental monopoly on violence. Which, as you say, was true of a lot of our own world throughout a lot of history once you got away from very heavily regulated areas. We're kind of biased by the assumptions carried in a lot of places in, honestly, just the last century and a half or thereabouts (and even there selectively geographically).

 

[AlViking]

I'd say it tends to be the case in D&D settings that there's more tolerance for situational violence than their is in our world--and less assumed governmental monopoly on violence. Which, as you say, was true of a lot of our own world throughout a lot of history once you got away from very heavily regulated areas. We're kind of biased by the assumptions carried in a lot of places in, honestly, just the last century and a half or thereabouts (and even there selectively geographically).

In our modern day "civilized" world we make a lot of assumptions about thing like ... prisons which for the most part are a pretty recent invention, or basing convictions on evidence. I don't want to run a game for murder-hoboes but at the same time I accept that my campaigns are set in a violent world.

 

[Kurotowa]

I'd say it tends to be the case in D&D settings that there's more tolerance for situational violence than their is in our world--and less assumed governmental monopoly on violence. Which, as you say, was true of a lot of our own world throughout a lot of history once you got away from very heavily regulated areas. We're kind of biased by the assumptions carried in a lot of places in, honestly, just the last century and a half or thereabouts (and even there selectively geographically).

A big complication is the question of how diegetic the whole system of levels is. Because if we assume that it's not a privilege of only the specific PCs, then the D&D world is one where the profession of adventurer has an absurdly high mortality rate, but the lucky few that survive earn immense power. Power enough to ignore governments, if not topple them. Which means governments exist by either not crossing too many high level adventurers, or by somehow fielding an equal force.

That's why in the Japanese branch of fantasy adventure stories, which tend to be both highly diegetic and valuing of social order, you so often have an official Adventurer's Guild whose high level senior members regulate and police the rest. And they exist in a balance of power with high level government champions, the Royal Knights or some such, often with some headhunting between branches.

 

[...m...]

...i make suboptimal choices all the time because algorithmic gameplay is boring as heck, but it's always driven by playing my characters from their own in-world perspective...

 

[Lanefan]

Me: (makes a terrible strategy decision)
Other Players:
Me: (pointing at my dump stat, Intelligence) ¯\ (ツ) /¯
Other Players:

Change "Intelligence" to "Wisdom" in the quoted post and you've nailed my playstyle bang on.

 

[Lanefan]

That may be true in your D&D campaigns, it's not true in every D&D campaign. My campaign world is more violent than the modern world, but in most cases the real world was far more violent throughout history until quite recently. Still doesn't mean the characters can be murder-hoboes.

Why not?

In a might-makes-right society, which many D&D settings strongly tend toward, being or becoming the biggest baddest band o' murderhoboes in the land would seem to be a highly viable career goal.

That, and for my part I see D&D settings as being every bit as violent as the historical real world, if not sometimes more so.

 

[Lanefan]

A big complication is the question of how diegetic the whole system of levels is. Because if we assume that it's not a privilege of only the specific PCs, then the D&D world is one where the profession of adventurer has an absurdly high mortality rate, but the lucky few that survive earn immense power.

That's very much how I see it.

Power enough to ignore governments, if not topple them. Which means governments exist by either not crossing too many high level adventurers, or by somehow fielding an equal force.

Or the government is largely made up of retired high-level adventurers who have kept their skills current. Slots in well with the 1e idea that name-level characters retire and become lords or ladies - i.e. minor nobility, even if self-styled - overseeing a stronghold or domain or whatever.