Why do NPCs join cults?

[500 Toads]

I mean, that is a good cult story, but it is not a good "we can kill all these BLEEPS" story.

Depending on the system and tone, it may be perfectly appropriate for players to feel obligated to forcibly dismantle a cult even while being aware that the members may be utterly misguided rather than purely malicious; or that they even might have a point, for the Greater Good. For instance, it's entirely reasonable for a Delta Green agent to have to deal with an organization whose members have somehow been manipulated into becoming carriers for a contagious, unnatural threat -- it's a setting in which even knowledge can be innately, horrifically dangerous -- and those members need to be thoroughly yet discreetly eliminated in order to contain the threat.

That sort of thing may be less appropriate for a more traditional knight-in-shining-armor heroic fantasy game where characters aren't expected to be frequently questioning how far they're willing to go for the sake of the mission, of course. But even in such a setting, if a heroic party discerns that a cult is growing by, say, forcible possession by a malevolent force -- this adds obvious pressure to go after the cult as soon as feasible in order to prevent more innocents from being "recruited", and to forestall whatever other schemes they may have.

 

[payn]

That's why they need dental.

And cool aid to wash them down.

 

[Fenris-77]

And cool aid to wash them down.

Calm down there Jim.

 

[overgeeked]

Seth Skorkowsky just dropped a 30+ minute video on cults. The first 10ish minutes are about why people would join.

 

[Fifinjir]

Encountering the entity they worship and it rocking their world. A profound spiritual experience with the exact wrong kind of spirit.

 

[MGibster]

Seth Skorkowsky just dropped a 30+ minute video on cults. The first 10ish minutes are about why people would join.

I knew he was spying on us!

 

[overgeeked]

I knew he was spying on us!

I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t done a cult video before now. His game of choice is Call of Cthulhu and he’s been posting videos for years.

 

[Bae'zel]

What finally made me "get it" was reading up more on the Warhammer 40K setting and playing Baldur's Gate 3.

Basically, we have people who are downtrodden, miserable, hopeless or constantly victimized by outside forces (eg actual monsters or apathetic nobility). Then comes along a friendly, welcoming group of people who offer actual relief from your suffering and power to finally make a difference in the world.

Shar offers to remove your feelings of anguish, despair, loss or regret (at the cost of Faith in Nihilism)

Nurgle offers relief from the pain and death of disease (at the cost of carrying and spreading disease and death).

In the 40K setting, the leadership doesn't care about you or value your life at all: you are expendible cattle (sometimes literally, as your flesh gets processed to feed other poor people). Then a cult comes along and offers you peace, freedom and relief from the merciless grind.

Some cults even offer actual power to enact revenge against untouchable foes or rivals, or give a sense of community that actually feels genuine.

It all makes more sense now.

 

[Celebrim]

It all makes more sense now.

That would make sense in a world where there is no good like BG3 or WH40K or Diablo, where the supposed paragons are as demonic as the demons and the bad guys are as likely or more likely to be heroic as anything that looks noble or beautiful, but if you allow for the existence of actual good (rather than just "hats") instead of having a grim dark setting that suggests any pretense of good is almost certainly hypocrisy, then I think you have to have something more subtle going on. You have to create a world where not all evil is just victims who are looking for a way out. Not all good is hypocrisy. Not everyone who is oppressed becomes an oppressor. Not everyone who is successful or advantaged is a victimizer. Not everyone's reasons for joining a cult have to be sympathetic or rational. If the terms have any meaning at all, then they have to describe something different from each other, otherwise why bother using them? If a demon or an angel is just a mortal with different forehead bumps, why apply the terms to them?

I mean, a lot of tables I think do make that decision, that the labels aren't meaningful so they won't be used. But I find that a bit of a copout. Even if you don't believe in the ontology of good and evil in the real world, in the fantasy world it's an assumed thing most of the time, so I feel like you ought to engage with that.

And, of course, I do think that there are people who will insist that despite the appearances to the contrary and all the corruption, there is something importantly different in the WH40K universe between the philosophies of Nurgle and the philosophies of the Sons of Vulkan, and that while maybe no one's virtue (especially when taken collectively) is pure that there is virtue. And that is itself interesting as an exploration. Is there still something pure - a diamond in the muck - in a situation as corrupt as WH40K? Can you still find a place to stand where you can legitimately condemn the followers of Nurgle as objectively wrong?

 

[Celebrim]

Encountering the entity they worship and it rocking their world. A profound spiritual experience with the exact wrong kind of spirit.

In this sense, evil is like a narcotic. It can "one shot" you as they say these days. You can get into a situation where you get corrupted or addicted to whatever rush evil is offering, some visceral but objectively destructive pleasure: to eat without satiation or ceasing of pleasure, the joy of exerting your will over others, of taking what you wanted but which was always forbidden, of pleasure despite the circumstances of your life, of prioritizing your own wants and wishes to the exclusion of anything else, of having orgiastic glee in whatever you are doing however mundane or destructive. It's like going to a rave and getting high and everything else stops mattering, and even when you come down, walking away from that on a hard road is always a lot harder than going back for more.