Author Topic: Virtue goes up too much!  (Read 32988 times)

Offline Kish

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #75 on: June 18, 2004, 04:44:27 PM »
First, can illithid ever possibly be "innocent"? I admit that I am probably prejudiced against them (I really hate illithid), but the whole point of their existence seems to be to enslave and suck the brains of other races. Further, these illithid are not innocent by any stretch of the imagination. They have enslaved people for pit fights, and they have enslaved other people and stuck them to a machine.
None of which you have any way of knowing until you've already gone to their city.  The question is whether it's evil to agree when someone who is obviously evil says, "Go to a neighboring city and slaughter the most prominent resident for me, dealing with any other residents who get in your way."
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I do think it's "worse" to slaughter the drow, because they seem altogether more open to change. It is certainly an unintelligent thing to attempt.
Why?

Remember--the other three races are rivals to the drow, not lessers.  Destroying an illithid city should, on average, be just as difficult as destroying a drow city (in this case destroying the drow city in the game is easier than destroying the illithid city in the game, which is not remarkable).
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I don't think people should have to give up all self-interest in order to retain their virtue.
All self-interest, no.  But should people not have to give up willingness to kill for their own gain to retain their virtue?  Again, that has interesting implications if applied to the case of Irenicus stealing the PC's soul.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2004, 05:03:25 PM by Kish »
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Offline neriana

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #76 on: June 18, 2004, 05:04:54 PM »
None of which you have any way of knowing until you've already gone to their city.  The question is whether it's evil to agree when someone who is obviously evil says, "Go to a neighboring city and slaughter the most prominent resident for me, dealing with any other residents who get in your way."

Yes, so the question is whether you should take a virtue hit for saying "yes" during that conversation.

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I do think it's "worse" to slaughter the drow, because they seem altogether more open to change. It is certainly an unintelligent thing to attempt.
Why?
Because I have seen no evidence of illithid, Beholders, or Kua-Toa who have changed, but many drow have. They are less monolithic than the other races in question.

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I don't think people should have to give up all self-interest in order to retain their virtue.
All self-interest, no.  But should people not have to give up willingness to kill for their own gain to retain their virtue?  Again, that has interesting implications if applied to the case of Irenicus stealing the PC's soul.

Not necessarily. If they are killing to regain their soul, or to save their lives, or to free slaves, as a few examples, they should retain their Virtue. Irenicus went out and stole an innocent person's soul purely for his own gain, and he could have repented and been welcomed back. I believe that stripping his soul in the first place and then trying to make him someone else's problem was also wrong, both morally and practically.

Edit: Corrected the overwhelming purpleness.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2004, 07:28:27 PM by neriana »
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Offline jester

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #77 on: June 18, 2004, 06:02:00 PM »
The self defense argument in the case you stumbled into one of the cities is only valid, if you withdraw from combat after securing your retreat, and not 'clear out' the entire lair. Good people (Paladins above all) are meant to be very constrained by their beliefs, whereas clearly Korgan could free the slaves just because he likes killing others regardless of their trade, there is more money in it (A substiantial game flaw that the slavers do not counter your threat and try to bribe you like the rest of the city) or he just did not like L. either. Killing soemone else, because of the loot or it is the easiest way is definitely not a virtuos approach.
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Offline Imrahil

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #78 on: June 19, 2004, 01:27:29 AM »
Would it be Evil then if Adalon asked you to storm Ust Natha & retrieve her Eggs by force?  Does the source of the request to attack a known Evil, enslaving race factor in at all?

I think some races are considered inherently Evil (Drow, Illithid, Red Dragons, Beholders, etc.) & a Paladin might routinely be charged with wiping out a settlement "for the greater good".  Certain lone exceptions aside, those races are known for attacking civilized races, slavery, torture, even feeding on the civilized races.

As has been pointed out, you accomplish a great deal of Good by taking out the Illithid - freeing their human slaves.  Maybe the Virtue MOD could add a "hint" - Ardulace could mention that they have recently captured a group of Humans - this would be motivation enough for a Good character (& certainly a Paladin) to mount an assault, freeing the slaves while fulfilling the Matron Mother's request.  If you take one of the easier routes (& IMO the Beholders & the Kuo Toa are easier), then you might be open to a Virtue hit (although I'd still maintain that Beholders are a "known" Evil).

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Offline Kish

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #79 on: June 19, 2004, 01:35:42 AM »
"Are considered?"  Passive voice alert.  Who considers?
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Offline Imrahil

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #80 on: June 19, 2004, 01:52:44 AM »
Errr... the general public of every human, elven, dwarven, & halfling civilization?  Are you *really* asking who considers Drow & Red Dragons Evil?  Maybe I should just try for a more active voice... or am I missing something? 

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Offline Kish

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #81 on: June 19, 2004, 02:03:30 AM »
I'm asking who considers drow and red dragons inherently evil--rather than culturally evil.  Someone who's never heard of Drizzt, I presume?
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Maybe I should just try for a more active voice... or am I missing something? 
I'll put it more directly, if you like:
"Inherently evil" is a load of immoral hogwash.  Certain (low-quality) works of fiction use it, but in decent fiction, as in reality, villains need reasons to be villains beyond "because they are."
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Offline SixOfSpades

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #82 on: June 19, 2004, 02:40:49 AM »
Dola Fadoon is the Genie being tortured by a group of Drow just inside Ust Natha. They heal him at the same rate that they injure him, so he cannot achieve death and so return to his home plane. He makes loud, repeated requests for a mortal blow. If the party kills him, they must either pay the torturers blood money or have the city turn hostile to them.

The discussion of "Is it right to kill Evil creatures if they're staying within defined boundaries and minding their own business" is indeed a worthy one, but drawing Paladins into it is a fallacy: Paladins are Holy Warriors, and as such would only let you get as far as, "Is it right to kill Evil creatures--" before they responded with a resounding Yes.

With this in mind, the prospect of a Virtue hit for invading the various Tunnels might actually have to take the PC's Alignment into account. A LG Paladin, as stated above, would be perfectly in character in striding into the Beholder hive, killing the gatekeepers in a combination of racial assumption and self-defense, tossing up a Detect Evil to confirm his hunch about the rest of the place, and then casually processing sliced meat out of the things. Therefore, no Virtue hit. A Druid, on the other hand, would be disastrously unbalancing the Underdark ecosystem by annihilating a major race (and the pre-Tactics Beholder lair is the only area where you can reach the "objective" without destroying pretty much the entire place, unless you count the Drow stuck in buildings in Ust Natha), and therefore probably should take a Virtue hit for breaking from their alignment. Holy crap, is the philosophy behind all this getting convoluted! I'm going to go home and rebalance Sahuagin, that's much simpler.  ::)

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #83 on: June 19, 2004, 05:04:52 AM »
Well if your in the sahuagin city Keldorn advises you to kill every last one of them since they're evil. If he would be there with his Radiant Heart buddies they would. Would they all become fallen paladins?

As for the Mae'Var quest I doubt any lawful person would kill a CW just becaus an evil RW told them. There even is a way of completing the quest for good people - kill edwin.


Offline seanas

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #84 on: June 19, 2004, 01:53:54 PM »
i've been staying out of this debate cos i didnt want to wade into another argument about morality, but i find i have to now because, Kish, you've persuaded me.

what yr saying, yeah, is that there's an anthropocentrism to Virtue - as indeed there is to all AD&D: it's ok to kill evil monsters without a reason because they're inherently evil; it's not ok to kill evil humans such as the CW without a reason, because although they're evil they have free will, and so aren't necessarily committng evil acts at the time we're killing them: of which the Talossians and Rayic Gethras are excellent examples.

short of re-writing huge portions of BGII to give mindflayers, beholders, trolls, etc the ability to choose whether or not to attack the party, the only option for a virtue-mod can be attack blue=bad; attack red=good. it isnt consistent with any notion of morality or of alignment [which would pretty much require LG to attack CE, etc, unless there were mitigating circumstances, i would have thought] but it *is* consistent with the game engine.
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Offline Kish

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #85 on: June 19, 2004, 02:01:31 PM »
short of re-writing huge portions of BGII to give mindflayers, beholders, trolls, etc the ability to choose whether or not to attack the party,
What?
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Offline nurgles_herald

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #86 on: June 19, 2004, 09:25:51 PM »
But why are drow, illithids, goblinoids, etc. culturally evil?  Why were they driven to such a status, to become so morally destitute that, though they may not be on the verge of extinction, they still commit wholesale slaughterings of innocent bystanders?  Personally, I like to blame racial hatred- the humans, elves, haflings, dwarves, gnomes etc. (good creatures) banned together to poopoo the 'evil' creatures, all of which happen to either be ugly (beholders), carnivorous in disturbing ways (vampires, goblins) or both (illithids).  The only exception to this rule is the drow, who I think were simply massacred by the elves for sadistic glee...

Translated- I believe that, under the pro-munchkindomness of DnD in today's day of age, every race is evil.  The 'good' races committed horrible attrocities upon the 'evil' races for being socially unacceptable.  In response, the 'evil' races fought back.  Over time, though, the 'good' races wanted to seem higher than the 'evil' races and thus left the 'evil' races to wallow in morally destitute practices such as slavery and rape.  However, because war is an evil act unto itself (regardless of the circumstances), nobody is really the 'good' guy.  Everyone is involved in the brutalization of races, the hatred of peoples and the pillaging of cultures.  And to think this could have all been avoided if TSR had made DnD less battle oriented and more role playing oriented, particularly in 3rd Edition (which is so unbelievably munchkin I want to hurl.... excuse me, I'll clean that up).  Tut tut, silly munchkins.

Clarification- the munchkins I allude to are not the small people in Wizard of Oz, but rather those presented in the Munchkin's Guide to Powergaming.  They might be better known as powergamers, tweaks, min-maxers etc.

Edit: Added clarification
« Last Edit: June 20, 2004, 08:57:06 AM by nurgles_herald »
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Offline Imrahil

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #87 on: June 19, 2004, 09:28:11 PM »
I'm asking who considers drow and red dragons inherently evil--rather than culturally evil.  Someone who's never heard of Drizzt, I presume?

As I said... "Certain lone exceptions aside..."

Quote
I'll put it more directly, if you like:
"Inherently evil" is a load of immoral hogwash.  Certain (low-quality) works of fiction use it, but in decent fiction, as in reality, villains need reasons to be villains beyond "because they are."

Again, as I said... "I think some races *are considered* inherently Evil..."  Whether or not they actually are inherently Evil is beside the point (even Sola's not sure if the Drow are inherently Evil or if it's a case of nurture vs. nature).  The general populace, when told of a nearby settlement of Drow, Illithid, Beholders, etc., would react with fear of being killed, enslaved, eaten, etc.  Some races have a (deserved) reputation for being Evil, because they consistently commit Evil acts.

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Offline Lord Kain

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #88 on: June 20, 2004, 08:31:54 PM »
Drow are not inherently evil. If you take a infant drow and have it raised by high elves. It has just a good a chance at becoming evil as the next elf.
The socially evil races have there god to blame.
The Orc god is evil thus most orcs become evil.

Drow are evil because they follow Loith.



inherently evil creatures such as red dragons are often born intelligent. A newborn dragon can already speak a few languages.

No one has a clue how a Mind Flayer is born. They may be socially or inherently evil. How every the do feed of the brains of sentient creatures so that leds to evil.

In D&D we need inherently and heavily social evil creatures.
Its good for role-playing. For instance the party sides with the secretly evil Baron because they won't believe the words of a Drow who unknown to them is actually good. It should be noted that there a dozen ways to block the detect evil spell.

In a dragonlance campaign I was in the party was shocked to meet the worlds only Lawful Good Red Dragon.

Now, at last, the masks had fallen away.  The strings of the puppets had become visible, and the hands of the prime mover exposed.  Most ironic of all was the last gift that Raziel had given me, more powerful than the sword that now held his soul, more acute even than the vision his sacrifice had accorded me - the first bitter taste of that terrible illusion:  Hope.

Offline jester

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #89 on: June 21, 2004, 02:42:05 AM »
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...Mind Flayer... They may be socially or inherently evil. How every the do feed of the brains of sentient creatures so that leds to evil.
Vegans would agree to that.
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Offline nurgles_herald

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #90 on: June 21, 2004, 07:51:48 AM »
"Inherently evil" is a load of immoral hogwash.  Certain (low-quality) works of fiction use it, but in decent fiction, as in reality, villains need reasons to be villains beyond "because they are."

You're absolutely right, Kish.  However, is it ever revealed why Sauron is so extremely, nastily evil (I know they touch on this in the Simarillion, but I haven't worked up the energy to go out and read it)?  The 'god/ess' explanation to racial alignment is just an easy way of explaining the world.  However, like most easy ways, it is not as accurate as it could be.  Personally, I think that certain races are considered inherently good or evil simply because it makes DnD black and white.  It's much easier to pick fights, gain levels, grab experience and kill stuff if you are playing in a black and white world, rather than a world with shades of gray and (horrors!) colors.  Personally, I think there are just inherintly evil races because DnD in its most classical sense (particularly in 3rd Edition, silly munchkins) is just a game about commiting genocide and feeling good about it.  Thank my DM for encouraging good roleplaying and smiting munchkins horribly whenever they rear their ugly heads.  Stupid munchkins.

Clarification- In one of my other posts, I clarified the same munchkin statement.  These are not the small people from Wizard of Oz.  These are the freaks depicted in the Munchkin's Guide to Powergaming.

Edit: added a question mark...  :P
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Aristothenes

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #91 on: June 21, 2004, 11:47:53 AM »
Just some questions about Virtue:
Visualise a number band -2 -1 x 1 2
Now, your conceptual starting virtue is x. Does your starting virtue depend on your alignment, and does it change _IN VALUE_ depending upon whether you are Chaotic, Neutral or Lawful Good to begin with?
And does a Lawful Good person -> Lawful Evil upon 1 bad act, or Neutral Good upon 1 bad act?
And if you're Chaotic Good, -> Chaotic Evil or Lawful Evil upon 1 bad act...?

The mod sounds good, but I've a few evil things in mind (taking all 3 underdark lairs - hey we got to be prepared for the Five, right?) and taking out Belmin Gergas (the weirdo at the Promenade) and (if characters react to quickly)..that scimitar throwing dude (al alaffiff or whatever) if he can't get away in time...

If i decide to kill/just seal off Demogorgon, any difference in Virtue? as in Up or Down?

And does abandoning NPCs mean leaving the pocket plane with Sarevok still inside as you left SOA with 5 NPCS (your party is full?)

Or does that mean you leave Imoen to fend for herself in Spellhold as your party is full/you leave someone else behind in Spellhold to take Imoen?

In either case..virtue Up or Down? or unaffected?

(This mod kind of scares me). Thanks in advance for your replies.

Offline Kish

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #92 on: June 21, 2004, 11:57:00 AM »
Just some questions about Virtue:
Visualise a number band -2 -1 x 1 2
Now, your conceptual starting virtue is x. Does your starting virtue depend on your alignment, and does it change _IN VALUE_ depending upon whether you are Chaotic, Neutral or Lawful Good to begin with?
And does a Lawful Good person -> Lawful Evil upon 1 bad act, or Neutral Good upon 1 bad act?
And if you're Chaotic Good, -> Chaotic Evil or Lawful Evil upon 1 bad act...?
Lawful is not "more good" than Chaotic.
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Aristothenes

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #93 on: June 21, 2004, 12:33:18 PM »
That's just great.
So from Clint Eastwood, you become Pedro Alonzo Lopez....with 1 single bad act...?

Offline SimDing0™

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #94 on: June 21, 2004, 12:35:50 PM »
There's a difference between becoming evil and a paladin falling. Reynald is fallen, but not evil.

Offline Kish

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #95 on: June 21, 2004, 12:46:20 PM »
That's just great.
So from Clint Eastwood, you become Pedro Alonzo Lopez....with 1 single bad act...?
English, please.
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Offline jester

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #96 on: June 21, 2004, 01:02:05 PM »
However, is it ever revealed why Sauron is so extremely, nastily evil ..?
Just how it should be, by choice. He was one of the commanders for Melkor in the ages before the War of the Rings, but he is a Maiar like Gandalf and Saruman. Being evil is a conscious choice not an inheritage.


Sidenote: There should be a Virtue drop for leaving the now reborn Sarevok in the PPL to die when it collapses just like in the Minsc/Jaheira situation. I would not dare to guess Clint's alignment.
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Aristothenes

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #97 on: June 21, 2004, 01:10:16 PM »
Pedro Alonzo Lopez - Mass singular killer (in other words 1/2/3 kills/day over a period of a few years). Recently caught and sent to jail. 'Killer of the Andes'. Victims mostly young girls. Troubled childhood, jailed at 18. The world's worst serial killer.

Offline SimDing0™

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #98 on: June 21, 2004, 01:14:03 PM »
My answer remains the same.

Aristothenes

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Re: Virtue goes up too much!
« Reply #99 on: June 21, 2004, 01:35:05 PM »
Then can I have some answers to these please?
1.The mod sounds good, but I've a few evil things in mind (taking all 3 underdark lairs - hey we got to be prepared for the Five, right?) and taking out Belmin Gergas (the weirdo at the Promenade) and (if characters react to quickly)..that scimitar throwing dude (al alaffiff or whatever) if he can't get away in time...

2.If i decide to kill/just seal off Demogorgon, any difference in Virtue? as in Up or Down?

3.And does abandoning NPCs mean leaving the pocket plane with Sarevok still inside as you left SOA with 5 NPCS (your party is full?)

4.Or does that mean you leave Imoen to fend for herself in Spellhold as your party is full/you leave someone else behind in Spellhold to take Imoen?

In either case..virtue Up or Down? or unaffected?