D&D and Dorks, Nerds, Social Stuff

[Plotinus]

I think that's a good and coherent system! And that scenario sounds a lot of fun.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I think that's a good and coherent system! And that scenario sounds a lot of fun.

I never figured out what level adventure it'd be. You'd have 1 Wight, which D&D Beyond says is a Challenge of 3. After that, the DM running the scenario would have a lot of leeway to decide just how many undead there are. Every person killed by the Wight would be a Ghoul, by my house-rules, or a Zombie, if you're playing 5th Ed by the book. You'd also be able to choose how long the Wight rampaged undetected, especially in the The Walking Dead-style scenario, where the zombie outbreak builds slowly, over some number of days. In that scenario, the Wight preys on people at night and hides during the day. She'd keep 12 Zombies around her as a kind of bodyguard (it says Wights can control up to 12 Zombies - after that, victims of the Wight just roam freely as uncontrolled Zombies). In the early stages of this slower, longer scenario the players would have to (a) beat down groups of zombies as they appear and (b) plot out the groups of zombies on a map of the town, to track the movement of the Wight and triangulate her lair. The DM could control how many people the Wight kills each night. It could be as few as 1, or as many as the occupants of a building (1 family - 6 people?) or a whole street (10 houses, 10 families - 30-50 people?). If your party was all 6th-level, for example, how many zombies could they cut through in one battle? That'd be your benchmark, I guess. That's in 5th ed.

In my original scenario, using 2nd-ed rules, the player-characters would have to arrive on the scene shortly after it started, or it would already be out of control. But maybe it would be okay if the players arrived too late to save the town. Maybe the DM decides that she wants the town to be a lost cause, beyond saving, and instead the player-characters have to traverse a warzone in pursuit of the villain who'd unleashed the Wight. Maybe there'd be so many ghouls and zombies everywhere, the players couldn't even fight them all (you could say the players are able to send a rider to summon help, a company of soldiers, paladins and priests who can come 'cleanse' the town, but they won't arrive for a couple of days, by which time the villain will have escaped). Either way, there could be a church or an abbey or other consecrated ground that serves as a temporary respite, where some of the townsfolk had gathered, and where the players could rest and heal. You could create some fun horror moments, with the townsfolk on the outside scratching and clawing at the doors and windows of the church while the survivors huddle together inside. Maybe the players have to subdue a civilian whose wife or child is calling to him from outside...

(Image, not a spoiler)

Spoiler :

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm running 5E and old school campaign.

Old school nights are fine of you foreshadow them. Going gotcha lose a level isn't fun.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'm running 5E and old school campaign.

Old school nights are fine of you foreshadow them. Going gotcha lose a level isn't fun.

Back in the day, one of the most fun events my gaming-group had were the one-night, hardcore games, where falling into a trap was usually instant death, and some monsters weren't even meant to be fought. "A troll?! But we're only first level!" "Welp, better not let him see you, then..." We did it in D&D and in Call of Cthulhu a lot. I once had my 1st-level Thief get shredded by rotating blades after he rolled a 1 on "disarm trap." The DM didn't even bother rolling the damage, my character was just hamburger. I remember one of my players falling out of his chair laughing after his Call of Cthulhu character got swallowed whole by a giant beast. Playing Darkest Dungeon many years later reminded me of those games. We played Boot Hill a little bit, and that game was so deadly we just got into the habit of rolling up two characters for each player, right at the start.

 

[Zardnaar]

Back in the day, one of the most fun events my gaming-group had were the one-night, hardcore games, where falling into a trap was usually instant death, and some monsters weren't even meant to be fought. "A troll?! But we're only first level!" "Welp, better not let him see you, then..." We did it in D&D and in Call of Cthulhu a lot. I once had my 1st-level Thief get shredded by rotating blades after he rolled a 1 on "disarm trap." The DM didn't even bother rolling the damage, my character was just hamburger. I remember one of my players falling out of his chair laughing after his Call of Cthulhu character got swallowed whole by a giant beast. Playing Darkest Dungeon many years later reminded me of those games. We played Boot Hill a little bit, and that game was so deadly we just got into the habit of rolling up two characters for each player, right at the start.

Heh sounds about right.

I never really ran my games like that back in the day (mid 90s). Wasn't really a gotcha DM but was tough luck if something did go wrong.

I award xp for more things now and at a faster rate. For example I don't track individual monster xp. I'll round it the nearest easy number and each PC gets it vs divided up.

You'll get xp for

Treasure
Monsters (outsmarted or killed)
Role-playing
Magic items
Quest/missions

Etc.

In the one I'm using you have two numbers 12 an 18 for proficient/non proficient. That's your number to beat on ability checks. Add your ability modifier and level to make them.

We had a bew player join. Her rogue gas a +2 modifier and is level 5. On her skill checks she just has to roll 5 or better to hit DC12 and 11 or better for 18 (80% or 50/50).

Alot better than say 1E (rogues sucked). Kinda plays like 1E or old B/X and the sandbox adventures from back then vs dungeon hacks.

Doesn't use THAC0 either said rogue has +5 or so to hit (THAC0 15 in effect).

I'm running a 1E adventure from 1987 iirc tonight.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

He gets killed off at the end of Summer Flame, and then brought back at the start of Fallen Sun.

I found Steel extremely annoying, because I couldn’t understand what the motivation could be for an incredibly honourable character to be completely devoted to a profoundly dishonourable deity. I quite liked the basic idea of creating a character who is very honourable and yet also evil, but I don’t think it really made sense - perhaps this just reflects the basic incoherence of the Lawful Evil alignment itself.

It so happens that Dragons of Summer Flame is the only Dragonlance book I had handy, and I've just started to re-read it (about 20 minutes ago).

It's been enough years since the last read that I'll have forgotten a lot of the plot details. I'm just up to the part in the beginning where the Irda kick Usha off the island and send her to Palanthas.

The point the Irda make in the infodump given by the Decider is that evil turns on itself, making it difficult to impossible to accomplish the original goal. Therefore, Ariakan created the Knights of Takhisis, similar to the Knights of Solamnia, and a major tenet is that if you have to sacrifice something - even your own life - to accomplish the overall goal, you do it. No more being selfish and turning on your own people.

Given who Steel's mother was (Kitiara), and the fact that he never met his father (Sturm Brightblade), it doesn't surprise me that he became a Knight of Takhisis.

So it is possible to embrace and behave with honor, while following a deity or cause that other people find abhorrent.

After all, given the sheer hypocrisy and bigotry of many of the Knights of Solamnia - who worship Paladine - is there so much difference between them? This is especially illustrated by the Kingpriest of Istar (going away from Weis & Hickman to the Kingpriest trilogy, which isn't precisely the same as the events in the Legends trilogy, because Raistlin, Caramon, and Tasslehoff didn't go back in time in this one). The Kingpriest's decision to rid Istar of "all evil" - including mages, non-humans, etc. and to demand the cooperation of the gods was pretty appalling. And presumably the Kingpriest would have been classified as Lawful Good if he had ever been given stats.

No, although I have found recipes for Otik’s potatoes online!

Did you try them?

Why would he want children, though? Not everyone does! And much of the point of Raistlin’s arc is that he consciously and deliberately turns his back on all the “normal” sources of happiness in favour of his quest for power. (Though it’s never really explained *why* he’s so obsessed with acquiring ultimate power in the first place. Is it really just because he gets bullied as a child?)

A lot of Raistlin's outlook and psychology is explained in the novels that focus on him, and the gamebook about his test in the Tower of High Sorcery (The Soulforge).

Raistlin was basically the weakling, the runt that nobody wanted (except Kitiara and Caramon). He grew up unable to pursue fighting, and discovered that he had a talent for magic. He was mocked and distrusted for that, and yes, he was bullied.

Bullying can have a profound effect on a person's psyche, whether it's physical or psychological. Pursuing "normal sources of happiness" becomes a difficult challenge, at best. In Raistlin's case, it becomes an impossible thing, and so he decides that if he can't be happy, he'll be powerful.

In a situation like that, a child wouldn't necessarily be thought of as a way to be happy. A child would be thought of as someone to teach, to train, and as a legacy. A child would be an heir to power, not happiness. So in that respect, I can see why Raistlin might want one. Of course he's got Dalamar, but Dalamar isn't the same as a blood heir.

I didn't mind Steel and the arc made sense.

LE can include honor. Honor can be abused after all.

Exactly.

Maybe. But I think the problem with Steel in particular is that he seems to be entirely honourable. He never abuses that honour or uses it as an excuse to act cruelly. In fact there seems to be nothing "evil" about him at all. He's not particularly pleasant, but his personality is pretty much the same as Sturm's. The only difference is that he serves a deity who is evil (not to mention chaotic), but that doesn't make a person evil, just misguided.

To be fair, this is just a symptom of the fundamentally broken and incoherent alignment system as it functions in Dragonlance. The problem isn't really Steel himself, it's a worldview which tries to present "good" and "evil" as equally necessary and legitimate value systems while at the same time celebrating "good" behaviour and condemning "evil" behaviour. Steel is supposed to be an example of a character who is "evil, but that's OK", in line with the official moral philosophy of the Dragonlance universe, but they take such pains to emphasise his OK-ness that there's no real sense of his being evil at all.

I'm re-reading Summer Flame now, and will revisit this after I'm done.

Takhisis is LE.

Latter her knights revert to form Steel was an exception.

I gave up after Summer Flame.

Summer Flame had all the interesting characters killed off. I really couldn't give a damn about Palin, Usha, or Crysania. They're boring, like watching paint dry.

So she is! I honestly thought she was CE. She certainly acts chaotically (never sticking to agreements, for example). I see though that there are already substantial arguments online about this...

That forum hasn't been used recently, by the look of the dates.

I'm not familiar with Dragonlance, per se, but the D&D alignment system always chafed at me and my players. We kind of settled on the notion that Evil-with-a-capital-E was a state of being and an energy that was inimical to the 'good' races. Necromancy, therefore, was a form of magic that tapped into that energy, and super-dangerous to the user. Beings like Demons and Devils were beings native to planes of existence where that energy - Evil - was innate, sort of in the same way most humans and demi-humans can't live in the ocean because they can't breathe water. Pure Evil was almost a form of radiation. Undead were 'powered' by Evil - animated by it, in the case of the mindless undead (zombie; skeletons; ghosts) or the feral undead (wights; ghouls; wraiths); empowered by it, in the case of the intelligent undead. Necromancers and demonic cultists embraced Evil in order to gain power, and it frequently warped them, such as with liches, death knights, and some vampires. Humans and demi-humans who were greedy, venal, power-hungry, violent, or selfish were malignant, but not Evil.

More on my interpretation of Evil in my D&D games. No spoilers, but a long-ish spiel.

Spoiler :

I also decided, as a DM, that beings of pure Evil had a hard time living in our world, just as we would have a hard time living in theirs. That's what prevented them from taking over. Demons and devils possessed people and tempted people because they found it draining to exist in our world, in their natural forms. That's also why the more powerful undead were burned by sunlight - as their link to Evil got stronger, they got more powerful, but they also found it more difficult to exist in our world, and they couldn't go outside during the day. This also meant the more powerful undead were more susceptible to being Turned than weaker undead. A person of faith - you didn't even have to be a Cleric - could keep a vampire or a lich at bay with a holy symbol, or by reaching consecrated ground. Of course, a Lich or a Vampire doesn't have to get their hands on you to be a threat - keeping them at arm's length was only a temporary solution. (And I decided Clerics couldn't destroy powerful undead by Turning. I didn't want it to be that easy. I didn't want my party's Cleric to just immolate Valek or Count Dracula. That'd be no fun. A crowd of zombies? Okay, sure, but I wanted them to have to be a little more clever to defeat The Big Bad.)

I was heavily influenced by the movies of John Carpenter. Specifically The Fog (1980) and Prince of Darkness (1987). Later on, Carpenter's Vampires (1998), too. I once helped a player who was reluctant to play a Paladin by having him watch Vampires and telling him that Jack Crow was a valid interpretation of what a D&D Paladin might be like, if he didn't like the "upright shining knight" archetype.

This also gave me an "out" for why the energy-draining undead didn't spread like wildfire. The Evil weakened over time if it wasn't reinforced by, say, unholy ground, or a shrine or a dimensional portal radiating negative energy. A wraith or a wight could live forever inside a dungeon or temple of Evil, but they couldn't just go wherever they pleased, whenever they pleased. I also decided that when an energy-draining undead killed someone, the victim rose as the next-weakest type of undead. A Wight would kill 1 0-level NPC every turn, with a single strike. According to the game, every one of those people should rise as a Wight in a few minutes. Okay, that would be the end of the world, right there, starting with a single Wight getting inside a city or large town. So I decided that the Evil had to fade a little with each generation of undead: The victim of a Master Vampire would rise as a Vampire; the victim of a Vampire would rise as a Wight; the victim of a Wight would rise as a Ghoul; and the victim of a Ghoul would rise as a Zombie (victims of Zombies didn't rise at all, they were just dead).

About 20 years ago, I wrote a D&D adventure that I never got a chance to try out: A villain rolled a cage containing a single wight up to the back door of a tavern full of people, and then opened the cage. A weapon of mass destruction, designed to wipe out the town. Within a few minutes, mayhem erupted inside the tavern. People at the back of the tavern were being slaughtered before the people at the front of the tavern even knew anything unusual was happening. Within 5 minutes, there were 2-3 Ghouls rising, in addition to the original Wight, who of course was still going. In 10 minutes, most of the people who were in that tavern were dead and seeking more victims. A few people managed to get out the doors and windows with ghouls at their heels, and now there were zombies rising as well. Not long after that, the player-characters would have arrived at the gates of the town, wondering why all the screaming. You might already be able to guess what the name of the adventure was: 28 Minutes Later...

EDIT: I went and looked up 2nd-ed. Wights, because I couldn't remember how many attacks they got. It's only 1. But then I looked at 5th-ed. Wights and they've made them much less virulent. In 5th-ed. someone hit by a Wight's Life Drain is allowed a DC13 CON check, and anyone slain by the Life Drain rises 24 hours later as a Zombie. So the World War Z-style wildfire of wights that you could get in earlier editions isn't really possible. A single Wight could still sow chaos, but it's not quite so insane. A Wight who went undetected in a population center would create a Walking Dead-style zombie outbreak, rather than a World War Z-style outbreak of Ghouls. (In D&D parlance, slow zombies from the movies are Zombies and fast zombies from the movies are Ghouls.)

This puts me in mind of some of the TV shows I watched in the '90s that had undead characters. I'm thinking of Highlander (most of the main characters have died temporarily many times since their original death), and The Crow: Stairway to Heaven. The TV series changed part of the premise from the movie/graphic novel so Eric Draven is on a quest for personal redemption, not revenge - though as the season progressed, the gang that murdered him and Shelley are being picked off slowly, one by one in a way that always has negative consequences for Eric.

Eric obviously has flaws, and he also has undead enemies. Nobody in that show could be considered Lawful Good (well, maybe Albrecht and Sarah, but even they do questionable things at times).

Back in the day, one of the most fun events my gaming-group had were the one-night, hardcore games, where falling into a trap was usually instant death, and some monsters weren't even meant to be fought. "A troll?! But we're only first level!" "Welp, better not let him see you, then..." We did it in D&D and in Call of Cthulhu a lot. I once had my 1st-level Thief get shredded by rotating blades after he rolled a 1 on "disarm trap." The DM didn't even bother rolling the damage, my character was just hamburger. I remember one of my players falling out of his chair laughing after his Call of Cthulhu character got swallowed whole by a giant beast. Playing Darkest Dungeon many years later reminded me of those games. We played Boot Hill a little bit, and that game was so deadly we just got into the habit of rolling up two characters for each player, right at the start.

*sigh* It once took me 52 tries to make it through a Fighting Fantasy gamebook. That one was viciously difficult, and required rolling up 52 characters.

 

[Hygro]

I'm not familiar with Dragonlance, per se, but the D&D alignment system always chafed at me and my players. We kind of settled on the notion that Evil-with-a-capital-E was a state of being and an energy that was inimical to the 'good' races. Necromancy, therefore, was a form of magic that tapped into that energy, and super-dangerous to the user. Beings like Demons and Devils were beings native to planes of existence where that energy - Evil - was innate, sort of in the same way most humans and demi-humans can't live in the ocean because they can't breathe water. Pure Evil was almost a form of radiation. Undead were 'powered' by Evil - animated by it, in the case of the mindless undead (zombie; skeletons; ghosts) or the feral undead (wights; ghouls; wraiths); empowered by it, in the case of the intelligent undead. Necromancers and demonic cultists embraced Evil in order to gain power, and it frequently warped them, such as with liches, death knights, and some vampires. Humans and demi-humans who were greedy, venal, power-hungry, violent, or selfish were malignant, but not Evil.

More on my interpretation of Evil in my D&D games. No spoilers, but a long-ish spiel.

Spoiler :

I also decided, as a DM, that beings of pure Evil had a hard time living in our world, just as we would have a hard time living in theirs. That's what prevented them from taking over. Demons and devils possessed people and tempted people because they found it draining to exist in our world, in their natural forms. That's also why the more powerful undead were burned by sunlight - as their link to Evil got stronger, they got more powerful, but they also found it more difficult to exist in our world, and they couldn't go outside during the day. This also meant the more powerful undead were more susceptible to being Turned than weaker undead. A person of faith - you didn't even have to be a Cleric - could keep a vampire or a lich at bay with a holy symbol, or by reaching consecrated ground. Of course, a Lich or a Vampire doesn't have to get their hands on you to be a threat - keeping them at arm's length was only a temporary solution. (And I decided Clerics couldn't destroy powerful undead by Turning. I didn't want it to be that easy. I didn't want my party's Cleric to just immolate Valek or Count Dracula. That'd be no fun. A crowd of zombies? Okay, sure, but I wanted them to have to be a little more clever to defeat The Big Bad.)

I was heavily influenced by the movies of John Carpenter. Specifically The Fog (1980) and Prince of Darkness (1987). Later on, Carpenter's Vampires (1998), too. I once helped a player who was reluctant to play a Paladin by having him watch Vampires and telling him that Jack Crow was a valid interpretation of what a D&D Paladin might be like, if he didn't like the "upright shining knight" archetype.

This also gave me an "out" for why the energy-draining undead didn't spread like wildfire. The Evil weakened over time if it wasn't reinforced by, say, unholy ground, or a shrine or a dimensional portal radiating negative energy. A wraith or a wight could live forever inside a dungeon or temple of Evil, but they couldn't just go wherever they pleased, whenever they pleased. I also decided that when an energy-draining undead killed someone, the victim rose as the next-weakest type of undead. A Wight would kill 1 0-level NPC every turn, with a single strike. According to the game, every one of those people should rise as a Wight in a few minutes. Okay, that would be the end of the world, right there, starting with a single Wight getting inside a city or large town. So I decided that the Evil had to fade a little with each generation of undead: The victim of a Master Vampire would rise as a Vampire; the victim of a Vampire would rise as a Wight; the victim of a Wight would rise as a Ghoul; and the victim of a Ghoul would rise as a Zombie (victims of Zombies didn't rise at all, they were just dead).

About 20 years ago, I wrote a D&D adventure that I never got a chance to try out: A villain rolled a cage containing a single wight up to the back door of a tavern full of people, and then opened the cage. A weapon of mass destruction, designed to wipe out the town. Within a few minutes, mayhem erupted inside the tavern. People at the back of the tavern were being slaughtered before the people at the front of the tavern even knew anything unusual was happening. Within 5 minutes, there were 2-3 Ghouls rising, in addition to the original Wight, who of course was still going. In 10 minutes, most of the people who were in that tavern were dead and seeking more victims. A few people managed to get out the doors and windows with ghouls at their heels, and now there were zombies rising as well. Not long after that, the player-characters would have arrived at the gates of the town, wondering why all the screaming. You might already be able to guess what the name of the adventure was: 28 Minutes Later...

EDIT: I went and looked up 2nd-ed. Wights, because I couldn't remember how many attacks they got. It's only 1. But then I looked at 5th-ed. Wights and they've made them much less virulent. In 5th-ed. someone hit by a Wight's Life Drain is allowed a DC13 CON check, and anyone slain by the Life Drain rises 24 hours later as a Zombie. So the World War Z-style wildfire of wights that you could get in earlier editions isn't really possible. A single Wight could still sow chaos, but it's not quite so insane. A Wight who went undetected in a population center would create a Walking Dead-style zombie outbreak, rather than a World War Z-style outbreak of Ghouls. (In D&D parlance, slow zombies from the movies are Zombies and fast zombies from the movies are Ghouls.)

I've gone the other way.

Petty evil is alignment evil. People considered "good people" by many are still simply evil aligned for their lack of action, wilfull blindness, and convenient acceptance. Indeed only deeply committed good transcends "neutral". Evil, the capital E superforce, is constantly gaining a foothold and whole areas can fall to blight with their easy invitation. A world of heroes, ancient oaths, and committed societies is all that keeps the demons from consuming the world.

 

[Zardnaar]

Remember people don't consider themselves evil.

As for honor clasic LE are the Bazis. They abused the hell out of paths of loyalty to the Austrian painters.

Dragonlanced example of evil always turning on themselves is kinda silly espicially when its LE. CE sure.

Early Takhisis imho was portrayed more like Tiamat including the CE part. CE state or organization is a bit of an oxymoron.

 

[Plotinus]

It so happens that Dragons of Summer Flame is the only Dragonlance book I had handy, and I've just started to re-read it (about 20 minutes ago).

It's been enough years since the last read that I'll have forgotten a lot of the plot details. I'm just up to the part in the beginning where the Irda kick Usha off the island and send her to Palanthas.

The point the Irda make in the infodump given by the Decider is that evil turns on itself, making it difficult to impossible to accomplish the original goal. Therefore, Ariakan created the Knights of Takhisis, similar to the Knights of Solamnia, and a major tenet is that if you have to sacrifice something - even your own life - to accomplish the overall goal, you do it. No more being selfish and turning on your own people.

Given who Steel's mother was (Kitiara), and the fact that he never met his father (Sturm Brightblade), it doesn't surprise me that he became a Knight of Takhisis.

So it is possible to embrace and behave with honor, while following a deity or cause that other people find abhorrent.

The problem then is: in what sense are these people "evil" at all? If they're honourable and self-sacrificing and unselfish, isn't that good? The fact that someone serves somebody who is evil doesn't in itself make that person evil themselves. It also raises the question: why are they serving Takhisis at all? The obvious answer is because they are greedy for the rewards that the Queen promises her (successful) servants. That's why Ariakas and co served her. But then someone with that motivation isn't being self-sacrificing and unselfish, so that won't work for someone like Steel.

After all, given the sheer hypocrisy and bigotry of many of the Knights of Solamnia - who worship Paladine - is there so much difference between them? This is especially illustrated by the Kingpriest of Istar (going away from Weis & Hickman to the Kingpriest trilogy, which isn't precisely the same as the events in the Legends trilogy, because Raistlin, Caramon, and Tasslehoff didn't go back in time in this one). The Kingpriest's decision to rid Istar of "all evil" - including mages, non-humans, etc. and to demand the cooperation of the gods was pretty appalling. And presumably the Kingpriest would have been classified as Lawful Good if he had ever been given stats.

Yes, the Kingpriest is classified as LG. But again, it just doesn't seem coherent to me. If a person seeks to destroy people he doesn't approve of and force everyone to accept his views, and if he acts arrogantly and without compassion, that is not good behaviour.

In Dragonlance there's this basic idea that both good and evil are necessary and equally viable, and we're told that characters like the Kingpriest or those elves who are intolerant and xenophobic are exaggerations of goodness, showing what happens if you have too much goodness and too little evil. But really those characters aren't exaggerations of goodness, they're exaggerations of lawfulness. It's perfectly plausible to suppose that characters can be too lawful and, as a result, less good. It makes no sense to say that they're too good and, as a result... bad? Conversely, there's never any attempt to explain how evil can be good, beyond the aesthetic observation that the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas mirrors the Temple of Paladine in a satisfying way. How do evil characters make the world better? It's never explained. The whole system is incoherent because it wants "good" and "evil" to be basically the names of factions, which are meant to remain equally balanced, and yet it also wants to make them moral categories such that good people are good and evil people are bad, and it's better for the former to win. And this just doesn't make sense.

Did you try them?

Not yet!

A lot of Raistlin's outlook and psychology is explained in the novels that focus on him, and the gamebook about his test in the Tower of High Sorcery (The Soulforge).

Raistlin was basically the weakling, the runt that nobody wanted (except Kitiara and Caramon). He grew up unable to pursue fighting, and discovered that he had a talent for magic. He was mocked and distrusted for that, and yes, he was bullied.

Bullying can have a profound effect on a person's psyche, whether it's physical or psychological. Pursuing "normal sources of happiness" becomes a difficult challenge, at best. In Raistlin's case, it becomes an impossible thing, and so he decides that if he can't be happy, he'll be powerful.

This makes sense, but isn't it contradicted by those passages where Raistlin does find happiness in simple things, at least for a bit? The section in Winter Night where he travels across Balifor as the "Red Wizard" is the most prominent, where he enjoys doing the shows and being with his friends, but at the end of it very deliberately turns his back on that sort of life in order to betray his friends to death and seek power. There's something quite tragic about it, but also I never really felt it was fully explained.

If anything I thought that the books that focus on Raistlin make him less comprehensible, not more so. For example, in the Legends trilogy, although Raistlin wears the Black Robes, he is a renegade, not operating within the laws of High Sorcery. That is presumably because he's become so uber-powerful he no longer needs or cares for that system any more. But in Dragons of the Hourglass Mage, we find that he takes the Black Robes quite a long time before acquiring his uber-power (which comes only right at the end), and does so without permission, making him a renegade quite early on. But... why? In The Soulforge and Brothers in Arms he's almost obsessive about reporting and confronting renegades (reporting Immolatus as one, for example, even though he doesn't have any real evidence that's he's a renegade at all). In Hourglass Mage he says he didn't seek permission to change his robes, even though he could have done, because he didn't want to have to do what other people told him. But this just comes out of the blue. It makes no sense given the trajectory of the character before that point, or indeed after it, given that he then spends most of the rest of the book trying to worm his way up through society in Neraka precisely by doing what he's told, even quite menial tasks. I feel that for this to make sense there needs to a clear point or reason why Raistlin becomes disillusioned with the High Sorcery system, or realises that being a renegade is to his advantage, or something like that, to explain this change of attitude. But we don't get one.

In a situation like that, a child wouldn't necessarily be thought of as a way to be happy. A child would be thought of as someone to teach, to train, and as a legacy. A child would be an heir to power, not happiness. So in that respect, I can see why Raistlin might want one. Of course he's got Dalamar, but Dalamar isn't the same as a blood heir.

But would Raistlin want that kind of power? Does he ever care about his "legacy"? What's the point of power if you're not there to enjoy it? Raistlin is consistently dismissive about things like reputation and social standing - it seems to me he wouldn't care much about influencing society after he's gone. But as I say, he's not an entirely consistent character, so who knows? In "The Legacy" he (his ghost?) expresses regret that Palin isn't his own son, whom he could have trained, so perhaps he does have that desire. (I find the desire for children incomprehensible anyway, even in people who aren't power-hungry archmages!)

BTW I found someone on Reddit actually named after Raistlin (and they have a skin condition), which in one way is pretty cool but in another maybe less so. I love him, but... I'm not sure I'd take it to that extreme!

Summer Flame had all the interesting characters killed off. I really couldn't give a damn about Palin, Usha, or Crysania. They're boring, like watching paint dry.

Palin becomes a lot more interesting in the War of Souls trilogy.

Remember people don't consider themselves evil.

As for honor clasic LE are the Bazis. They abused the hell out of paths of loyalty to the Austrian painters.

People always cite the Nazis as LE, but that's only really true of storybook Nazis. In real life the Nazis were, if anything, CE. Their worldview was based on the ideal of constant struggle and war. They used unpredictable outbreaks of violence to secure and maintain their rule - e.g. the Night of the Long Knives and Crystal Night. Even their system of government was completely disorganised, running on indefinitely prolonged "emergency" provisions and with rival competing governmental bodies without any clearly defined areas of responsibility. Their wartime strategy tended to devolve over time into wasting enormous resources trying to spread terror and chaos in the enemy population, as with the V2 programme, rather than taking out militarily useful targets. In the final crisis, Hitler tried to destroy Germany itself rather than allow it to survive without him. People think of fascism as an inherently super-lawful system, but that's at best a surface impression - it's always fundamentally chaotic, because it's always fundamentally obsessed with violence and disruption.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The problem then is: in what sense are these people "evil" at all? If they're honourable and self-sacrificing and unselfish, isn't that good? The fact that someone serves somebody who is evil doesn't in itself make that person evil themselves. It also raises the question: why are they serving Takhisis at all? The obvious answer is because they are greedy for the rewards that the Queen promises her (successful) servants. That's why Ariakas and co served her. But then someone with that motivation isn't being self-sacrificing and unselfish, so that won't work for someone like Steel.

I tend to see it as a Krynnish version of the multiple religious factions we had in real history, from medieval times (knights on crusade, some of whom committed acts that were most definitely neither honorable nor in accordance with the religion they claimed to follow) on to the present. Is the Pope evil? Some people get very upset at the mere suggestion. But there are things he's said and done, and things he's failed to say and do that he should have, and therefore I wouldn't classify him as Lawful Good (talking about Francis, not the previous one).

So yeah, you can observe and obey the letter of the law and spin all kinds of scripture-backed reasons to justify actions that "the faithful" agree with, but are actually harmful to some people.

Not that I want to hijack this into yet one more real-world religious thread, but I can't see it any other way. Sturm had a rude awakening when he finally made it to Palanthas and discovered that his heroes weren't as honorable as he'd imagined them to be.

Yes, the Kingpriest is classified as LG. But again, it just doesn't seem coherent to me. If a person seeks to destroy people he doesn't approve of and force everyone to accept his views, and if he acts arrogantly and without compassion, that is not good behaviour.

Imagine the Kingpriest as the Krynnish equivalent of a RL priest, minister, or whatever. Imagine he has the authority to mete out punishment (as they did centuries ago). That's seen as Lawful Good in that society. But for the victims and people who have a more objective view, it's anything but LG.

In Dragonlance there's this basic idea that both good and evil are necessary and equally viable, and we're told that characters like the Kingpriest or those elves who are intolerant and xenophobic are exaggerations of goodness, showing what happens if you have too much goodness and too little evil. But really those characters aren't exaggerations of goodness, they're exaggerations of lawfulness. It's perfectly plausible to suppose that characters can be too lawful and, as a result, less good. It makes no sense to say that they're too good and, as a result... bad? Conversely, there's never any attempt to explain how evil can be good, beyond the aesthetic observation that the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas mirrors the Temple of Paladine in a satisfying way. How do evil characters make the world better? It's never explained. The whole system is incoherent because it wants "good" and "evil" to be basically the names of factions, which are meant to remain equally balanced, and yet it also wants to make them moral categories such that good people are good and evil people are bad, and it's better for the former to win. And this just doesn't make sense.

Neutrality has to fit into the equation somewhere. After all, Raistlin started out serving the god of neutrality and wearing the red robes.

If you want an example of how someone can be "too good" and therefore bad, just look (again) at certain religious figures. Any religious authority who spouts off about how (for instance) abortion is evil and must be prohibited, no exceptions ever, may be seen as supremely good by the people who agree with that. But when there's a problem with the pregnancy or the 'mother' is a 10-year-old rape victim, prohibiting an abortion is an act of utter evil (in my view).

Of course it could be said that the story of the Kingpriest angering the gods with his arrogant demands so they chucked a "fiery mountain" at Istar is a fanciful way of explaining how Krynn got in the way of an incoming comet or meteor that was large enough to do serious damage to the planet, but not catastrophic damage that would wipe out significant numbers of species.

This makes sense, but isn't it contradicted by those passages where Raistlin does find happiness in simple things, at least for a bit? The section in Winter Night where he travels across Balifor as the "Red Wizard" is the most prominent, where he enjoys doing the shows and being with his friends, but at the end of it very deliberately turns his back on that sort of life in order to betray his friends to death and seek power. There's something quite tragic about it, but also I never really felt it was fully explained.

It's an interlude that shows Raistlin to be more than just a walking set of stats in prose form. People aren't always organized, even the ones with enormous self-discipline and a firm goal in mind.

If anything I thought that the books that focus on Raistlin make him less comprehensible, not more so. For example, in the Legends trilogy, although Raistlin wears the Black Robes, he is a renegade, not operating within the laws of High Sorcery. That is presumably because he's become so uber-powerful he no longer needs or cares for that system any more. But in Dragons of the Hourglass Mage, we find that he takes the Black Robes quite a long time before acquiring his uber-power (which comes only right at the end), and does so without permission, making him a renegade quite early on. But... why? In The Soulforge and Brothers in Arms he's almost obsessive about reporting and confronting renegades (reporting Immolatus as one, for example, even though he doesn't have any real evidence that's he's a renegade at all). In Hourglass Mage he says he didn't seek permission to change his robes, even though he could have done, because he didn't want to have to do what other people told him. But this just comes out of the blue. It makes no sense given the trajectory of the character before that point, or indeed after it, given that he then spends most of the rest of the book trying to worm his way up through society in Neraka precisely by doing what he's told, even quite menial tasks. I feel that for this to make sense there needs to a clear point or reason why Raistlin becomes disillusioned with the High Sorcery system, or realises that being a renegade is to his advantage, or something like that, to explain this change of attitude. But we don't get one.

In the gamebook, we see the actual tests that Raistlin faces. The last of them is less a test of his magical ability than a test of his psychology. What if Raistlin was in danger of defeat, and Caramon comes along and zaps Raistlin's opponent with magic and it's effortless? When Raistlin asks, "How did you do that?" Caramon shrugs and says, oh the magic? It's something I could always do, but usually don't bother with because I like fighting more. The tone is careless and and implies that Raistlin can have his magic, but it's not really that special.

Raistlin is dumbfounded, and filled with rage and jealousy that something he worked at his whole life is something that his brother can just casually toss around and say he doesn't even need it. Raistlin's final act during the Test is to use his magic to kill Caramon...

And the whole thing was an illusion devised by the mages who were responsible for Raistlin's Test. It was meant to show Raistlin's true self - and if I remember correctly, this is what led to him being cursed with golden skin and hourglass eyes.

But would Raistlin want that kind of power? Does he ever care about his "legacy"? What's the point of power if you're not there to enjoy it? Raistlin is consistently dismissive about things like reputation and social standing - it seems to me he wouldn't care much about influencing society after he's gone. But as I say, he's not an entirely consistent character, so who knows? In "The Legacy" he (his ghost?) expresses regret that Palin isn't his own son, whom he could have trained, so perhaps he does have that desire. (I find the desire for children incomprehensible anyway, even in people who aren't power-hungry archmages!)

I agree with the last point. Kids weren't what I wanted. Cats, on the other hand? These past several weeks without Maddy have been driving me crazy. Something is seriously missing from my life, and it's not just one specific cat, but cats in general.

Not that I expected to pass any legacy along to them, of course. But most people who gain power don't want it to be for nothing, so they seek someone or some group that will carry on with whatever they were doing when they had that power. They want their accomplishments to mean something after they're gone.

Raistlin's inconsistency makes him more real to me. Who among us is entirely consistent all the time? Nobody I know. I'm not consistent all the time.

BTW I found someone on Reddit actually named after Raistlin (and they have a skin condition), which in one way is pretty cool but in another maybe less so. I love him, but... I'm not sure I'd take it to that extreme!

What, to name your hypothetical child after an archmage? It's odd, but nowhere near as eyebrow-raising as the case of someone who was part of the science fiction club in college. His parents named him Tarl... after Tarl Cabot, in the Gor books. He was a young guy, barely 20, so I guess most of his age-peers wouldn't have been familiar with the source for that name. But older people who either read those books or heard about them found his situation a bit bemusing, and he said he found his name to be embarrassing.

Palin becomes a lot more interesting in the War of Souls trilogy.

I started to read the first book in that trilogy, but honestly couldn't finish it. I might try again someday.

But for now, I'll add Dragons of Summer Flame to my bedtime reading (which means it'll probably take a couple of months at least to finish, since I'm still working my way through a novel about Anne Boleyn, and I might read anywhere from 2-3 pages or maybe a chapter each night).

 

[Zardnaar]

I tend to see it as a Krynnish version of the multiple religious factions we had in real history, from medieval times (knights on crusade, some of whom committed acts that were most definitely neither honorable nor in accordance with the religion they claimed to follow) on to the present. Is the Pope evil? Some people get very upset at the mere suggestion. But there are things he's said and done, and things he's failed to say and do that he should have, and therefore I wouldn't classify him as Lawful Good (talking about Francis, not the previous one).

So yeah, you can observe and obey the letter of the law and spin all kinds of scripture-backed reasons to justify actions that "the faithful" agree with, but are actually harmful to some people.

Not that I want to hijack this into yet one more real-world religious thread, but I can't see it any other way. Sturm had a rude awakening when he finally made it to Palanthas and discovered that his heroes weren't as honorable as he'd imagined them to be.


Imagine the Kingpriest as the Krynnish equivalent of a RL priest, minister, or whatever. Imagine he has the authority to mete out punishment (as they did centuries ago). That's seen as Lawful Good in that society. But for the victims and people who have a more objective view, it's anything but LG.


Neutrality has to fit into the equation somewhere. After all, Raistlin started out serving the god of neutrality and wearing the red robes.

If you want an example of how someone can be "too good" and therefore bad, just look (again) at certain religious figures. Any religious authority who spouts off about how (for instance) abortion is evil and must be prohibited, no exceptions ever, may be seen as supremely good by the people who agree with that. But when there's a problem with the pregnancy or the 'mother' is a 10-year-old rape victim, prohibiting an abortion is an act of utter evil (in my view).

Of course it could be said that the story of the Kingpriest angering the gods with his arrogant demands so they chucked a "fiery mountain" at Istar is a fanciful way of explaining how Krynn got in the way of an incoming comet or meteor that was large enough to do serious damage to the planet, but not catastrophic damage that would wipe out significant numbers of species.



It's an interlude that shows Raistlin to be more than just a walking set of stats in prose form. People aren't always organized, even the ones with enormous self-discipline and a firm goal in mind.


In the gamebook, we see the actual tests that Raistlin faces. The last of them is less a test of his magical ability than a test of his psychology. What if Raistlin was in danger of defeat, and Caramon comes along and zaps Raistlin's opponent with magic and it's effortless? When Raistlin asks, "How did you do that?" Caramon shrugs and says, oh the magic? It's something I could always do, but usually don't bother with because I like fighting more. The tone is careless and and implies that Raistlin can have his magic, but it's not really that special.

Raistlin is dumbfounded, and filled with rage and jealousy that something he worked at his whole life is something that his brother can just casually toss around and say he doesn't even need it. Raistlin's final act during the Test is to use his magic to kill Caramon...

And the whole thing was an illusion devised by the mages who were responsible for Raistlin's Test. It was meant to show Raistlin's true self - and if I remember correctly, this is what led to him being cursed with golden skin and hourglass eyes.


I agree with the last point. Kids weren't what I wanted. Cats, on the other hand? These past several weeks without Maddy have been driving me crazy. Something is seriously missing from my life, and it's not just one specific cat, but cats in general.

Not that I expected to pass any legacy along to them, of course. But most people who gain power don't want it to be for nothing, so they seek someone or some group that will carry on with whatever they were doing when they had that power. They want their accomplishments to mean something after they're gone.

Raistlin's inconsistency makes him more real to me. Who among us is entirely consistent all the time? Nobody I know. I'm not consistent all the time.


What, to name your hypothetical child after an archmage? It's odd, but nowhere near as eyebrow-raising as the case of someone who was part of the science fiction club in college. His parents named him Tarl... after Tarl Cabot, in the Gor books. He was a young guy, barely 20, so I guess most of his age-peers wouldn't have been familiar with the source for that name. But older people who either read those books or heard about them found his situation a bit bemusing, and he said he found his name to be embarrassing.


I started to read the first book in that trilogy, but honestly couldn't finish it. I might try again someday.

But for now, I'll add Dragons of Summer Flame to my bedtime reading (which means it'll probably take a couple of months at least to finish, since I'm still working my way through a novel about Anne Boleyn, and I might read anywhere from 2-3 pages or maybe a chapter each night).

Old school LG was more vengeance based.
Gary wrote as late as 2005 a LG paladin could murder CE types races including their children and not suffer alignment consequences for it.

Dragonlance was written during 1E Gary was still at TSR until end of 85.

Anyway great session tonight. Picked up a new player who observed. Started an adventure from 1987 1E using Castles and Crusades which is a modern take on 1E with ascending AC and elements of red box basic line.

Loot found included a +2 shortbow of speed. Automatic initiative and double attacks.

 

[Plotinus]

I tend to see it as a Krynnish version of the multiple religious factions we had in real history, from medieval times (knights on crusade, some of whom committed acts that were most definitely neither honorable nor in accordance with the religion they claimed to follow) on to the present. Is the Pope evil? Some people get very upset at the mere suggestion. But there are things he's said and done, and things he's failed to say and do that he should have, and therefore I wouldn't classify him as Lawful Good (talking about Francis, not the previous one).

So yeah, you can observe and obey the letter of the law and spin all kinds of scripture-backed reasons to justify actions that "the faithful" agree with, but are actually harmful to some people.

Right, but I'm not arguing that it's incoherent to have a Kingpiest-like character who is super-lawful and yet not good. I'm arguing that it's incoherent to call a character like the Kingpriest good at all. In your example, assuming for argument's sake that we agree with your assessment of Francis, he's extremely lawful, but he's not extremely good (perhaps not good at all). He's only "good" in the sense that people who agree with him think he's good. But you could say that about absolutely anyone, which makes the term largely meaningless. And even if you think that this is how "good" and "evil" work in the real world, it's not how they're meant to work in Dragonlance.

Imagine the Kingpriest as the Krynnish equivalent of a RL priest, minister, or whatever. Imagine he has the authority to mete out punishment (as they did centuries ago). That's seen as Lawful Good in that society. But for the victims and people who have a more objective view, it's anything but LG.

Right, but then you're taking "good" to mean merely "seen as good by those who agree with them" - you're making it a wholly subjective term. But in the world of Dragonlance, or indeed D&D in general, that's not what "good" means. In that world, "good" and "evil" have objective reality. If (say) a minotaur were to regard his society as good because he thinks that being ruthless and cruel is good, that minotaur would, in the Dragonlance universe, be mistaken - his society is actually LE. But the Kingpriest is supposed to be actually really good. That's what Fizban tells the companions at the end of Spring Dawning: the time of the Kingpriest was when good really was in the ascendancy, not merely a form of evil that people mistakenly called "good".

That's another inconsistency, by the way - Paladine is supposed to be the embodiment of pure good, but he recognises that good and evil must exist in balance. So it seems that goodness, as exemplified by Paladine, incorporates the toleration or even encouragement, to some degree, of evil. But the Kingpriest, who was also meant to be supremely good, did not. The inconsistency comes again from the fact that "good" is being used both as the name of an inherently morally neutral faction (represented by the Kingpriest) and as a term of moral approval (represented by Paladine).

Neutrality has to fit into the equation somewhere. After all, Raistlin started out serving the god of neutrality and wearing the red robes.

No, he started out wearing the White Robes! He only switched to Red at the end of his Test - because of how he reacted to the illusion of Caramon.

If you want an example of how someone can be "too good" and therefore bad, just look (again) at certain religious figures. Any religious authority who spouts off about how (for instance) abortion is evil and must be prohibited, no exceptions ever, may be seen as supremely good by the people who agree with that. But when there's a problem with the pregnancy or the 'mother' is a 10-year-old rape victim, prohibiting an abortion is an act of utter evil (in my view).

Yes, but in your example, the religious people who oppose abortion under all circumstances aren't good, they just say they are. So this is a case not of being "too good" but of wrongly labelling evil as "good". In the world of Dragonlance, not only are "good" and "evil" objective realities, but we are told that even some characters who seem not good at all really are "good". The Kingpriest isn't just "good in the eyes of white-robed clerics", he's good, full stop. And yet he clearly is not - at best he's LN. So there's something fundamentally wrong with how the concept of "goodness" is treated in Dragonlance. One might perhaps say that it means something different from what it does in the real world. Perhaps the Kingpriest's actions really do exemplify "goodness" in the Dragonlance world, but then (a) it's weird to use the word "good" to refer to it, and (b) it's not clear what this "Dragonlance goodness" actually is. As I said above, I'd say that if the Kingpriest represents an extreme it's lawfulness. But "good" isn't the same as "lawful", in Dragonlance as elsewhere in D&D. So what is it?

On a sidenote, I've often been puzzled by the fact that Tracy Hickman is a devout Mormon and yet constructed this rather odd system of morality that's profoundly at odds with what Mormonism, or indeed any kind of Christianity, holds about ethics - while still including other elements clearly based on Mormonism, such as the Disks of Mishakel! I suppose that's another example of the kind of inconsistency that people have in real life.

It's an interlude that shows Raistlin to be more than just a walking set of stats in prose form. People aren't always organized, even the ones with enormous self-discipline and a firm goal in mind.

Yes, I suppose that's true. Still, I did find with the post-Legends books that Raistlin feels diluted rather than rounded out, if you see what I mean. (And I still maintain that bringing him back in Summer Flame was a terrible idea.)

And the whole thing was an illusion devised by the mages who were responsible for Raistlin's Test. It was meant to show Raistlin's true self - and if I remember correctly, this is what led to him being cursed with golden skin and hourglass eyes.

No, Par-Salian gave him the hourglass eyes deliberately after the Test in order to try to teach him compassion. The golden skin came from the loss of his life-force to Fistandantilus, not from the Test itself. That's why, when in Time of the Twins he travels back to a time before this happens, he lacks the golden skin and looks how he would have done if he'd never made the bargain with Fistandantilus. (I'm aware that this makes no sense at all, but there we go.)

What, to name your hypothetical child after an archmage? It's odd, but nowhere near as eyebrow-raising as the case of someone who was part of the science fiction club in college. His parents named him Tarl... after Tarl Cabot, in the Gor books. He was a young guy, barely 20, so I guess most of his age-peers wouldn't have been familiar with the source for that name. But older people who either read those books or heard about them found his situation a bit bemusing, and he said he found his name to be embarrassing.

Partly that, but more to name your child after a character who, although compelling and popular, is after all incredibly evil, commits multiple murders, etc... I mean, everyone likes Raistlin, but you wouldn't want to be like him, would you? (Also, it's rather awkward to pronounce, something you don't appreciate when you only read the name and almost never actually say it. Maybe this is why Caramon always calls him "Raist". Also I've noticed that Raistlin himself very rarely addresses other people, or even refers to them, by name, preferring instead descriptions, even of his friends and family - "the knight", "the kender", "my brother", "half-elven", etc. Only in highly emotional moments does he ever address Caramon by name. Perhaps he's self-conscious about the awkwardness of his own name and that leads him to avoid using other people's?)

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Right, but I'm not arguing that it's incoherent to have a Kingpiest-like character who is super-lawful and yet not good. I'm arguing that it's incoherent to call a character like the Kingpriest good at all. In your example, assuming for argument's sake that we agree with your assessment of Francis, he's extremely lawful, but he's not extremely good (perhaps not good at all). He's only "good" in the sense that people who agree with him think he's good. But you could say that about absolutely anyone, which makes the term largely meaningless. And even if you think that this is how "good" and "evil" work in the real world, it's not how they're meant to work in Dragonlance.

The thing is, before the novels, there were modules. Modules don't have the scope to go into details of the morality of a fictional setting, as they're concerned with getting the characters from point A to point B, and have them do a series of actions that will result in some kind of success. The novels had room for shades of grey, as not all the characters were in agreement over what constituted "good" and "evil", but it was quite obvious that there were some parts of the Chronicles trilogy where the game mechanics were placed (at a crossroads, which way do you go, and there were other places where it was obvious that the DM was rolling dice; this is absolutely what you want to avoid when adapting a module or gamebook to prose as the last thing you want the reader to figure out is where the dice rolls happen).

Right, but then you're taking "good" to mean merely "seen as good by those who agree with them" - you're making it a wholly subjective term. But in the world of Dragonlance, or indeed D&D in general, that's not what "good" means. In that world, "good" and "evil" have objective reality. If (say) a minotaur were to regard his society as good because he thinks that being ruthless and cruel is good, that minotaur would, in the Dragonlance universe, be mistaken - his society is actually LE. But the Kingpriest is supposed to be actually really good. That's what Fizban tells the companions at the end of Spring Dawning: the time of the Kingpriest was when good really was in the ascendancy, not merely a form of evil that people mistakenly called "good".

Good is a subjective thing, most of the time. What one person considers good, another may consider evil, or at least not as good as the other.

As for Fizban talking about the Kingpriest in Spring Dawning, that book was published before three of the characters went back in time to Istar, and also before the Kingpriest trilogy was published (by another author). So there are at least three versions of the Kingpriest story running around, and who knows which one is actually the unvarnished correct one? The one thing they all agree on is that the Kingpriest was the very embodiment of Good, but he took it too far and became arrogant, angered the gods, and they retaliated by throwing a fiery mountain at Istar.

That's another inconsistency, by the way - Paladine is supposed to be the embodiment of pure good, but he recognises that good and evil must exist in balance. So it seems that goodness, as exemplified by Paladine, incorporates the toleration or even encouragement, to some degree, of evil. But the Kingpriest, who was also meant to be supremely good, did not. The inconsistency comes again from the fact that "good" is being used both as the name of an inherently morally neutral faction (represented by the Kingpriest) and as a term of moral approval (represented by Paladine).

Part of the problem with figuring out Paladine is that he most often appears in his Fizban the Fabulous persona. And Fizban, most of the time, comes off as just plain nuts!

No, he started out wearing the White Robes! He only switched to Red at the end of his Test - because of how he reacted to the illusion of Caramon.

Okay, but which book came out first - the Soulforge gamebook or Dragons of Autumn Twilight? He's wearing Red Robes in the novel. And that novel was my first introduction to Raistlin. I don't remember what the modules may have said; I'd have to dig them out and look.

Yes, but again, it's the same issue: in the world of Dragonlance "good" and "evil" are objective realities. The Kingpriest isn't just "good in the eyes of white-robed clerics", he's good, full stop. And yet he clearly is not. So there's something fundamentally wrong with how the concept of "goodness" is treated in Dragonlance.

I think we should probably chalk this up to the fact that Dragonlance wasn't only the work of Weis and Hickman. It took a committee to come up with this setting, and some of it was revised after they playtested the modules.

On a sidenote, I've often been puzzled by the fact that Tracy Hickman is a devout Mormon and yet constructed this rather odd system of morality that's profoundly at odds with what Mormonism, or indeed any kind of Christianity, holds about ethics - while still including other elements clearly based on Mormonism, such as the Disks of Mishakel! I suppose that's another example of the kind of inconsistency that people have in real life.

There's no reason why he should have to model a fictitious morality system (with its accompanying formal religions) after his own personal faith. In the King's Heir adaptation I'm working on (novelizing a computer game), I decided to chuck any and all references to Christianity partly to avoid having to research the Crusades and other significant historical events and figure out how to sandwich the fictitious kingdom of Griffinvale into the historical 11th-century England, and partly because I really don't want to have real-world religion in that story. It's already a mishmash of cultures and odd geography, so I made up a polytheistic religion for them, and decided that the "crusade" the protagonist's father went on was to somewhere other than Jerusalem (which basically never existed in this alt universe, or at least none of the characters have ever heard of it).

So if I, a fanfiction-writing atheist, can make up a religion for the setting I've been building well beyond the source material, Tracy Hickman can certainly do it for the setting he helped build.

Yes, I suppose that's true. Still, I did find with the post-Legends books that Raistlin feels diluted rather than rounded out, if you see what I mean. (And I still maintain that bringing him back in Summer Flame was a terrible idea.)

I suppose they felt he needed some kind of redemption, to earn a more peaceful death.

No, Par-Salian gave him the hourglass eyes deliberately after the Test in order to try to teach him compassion. The golden skin came from the loss of his life-force to Fistandantilus, not from the Test itself. That's why, when in Time of the Twins he travels back to a time before this happens, he lacks the golden skin and looks how he would have done if he'd never made the bargain with Fistandantilus. (I'm aware that this makes no sense at all, but there we go.)

I never said he had the hourglass eyes before the Test, or even during it.

Admittedly I'm a bit foggy about when he dealt with Fistandantilus. It's been literally decades since I last read most of these books, and there are some details I've forgotten.

Partly that, but more to name your child after a character who, although compelling and popular, is after all incredibly evil, commits multiple murders, etc... I mean, everyone likes Raistlin, but you wouldn't want to be like him, would you?

Okay, here's a wild comparison. Leaving off the children part, there are similarities between Raistlin and Severus Snape. Both of them have done appallingly cruel things, violent things that deny a victim's basic personhood, or at least sat by and observed, not lifting a finger to help or uttering a syllable of protest. And both of them have a spark or two of compassion or at least some positive feeling toward two people (Bupu and Caramon, plus Lily and Draco). I guess you could say that Snape is less evil because 1. He didn't have ambitions of becoming a god; and 2. He gave his life to defeat Voldemort. I can't see Raistlin unselfishly sacrificing himself.

Would I like to be like either of them? Well, I wouldn't mind having their capacity to do magic. I wouldn't use it for the same purpose they do, of course.

 

[Plotinus]

The thing is, before the novels, there were modules. Modules don't have the scope to go into details of the morality of a fictional setting, as they're concerned with getting the characters from point A to point B, and have them do a series of actions that will result in some kind of success. The novels had room for shades of grey, as not all the characters were in agreement over what constituted "good" and "evil", but it was quite obvious that there were some parts of the Chronicles trilogy where the game mechanics were placed (at a crossroads, which way do you go, and there were other places where it was obvious that the DM was rolling dice; this is absolutely what you want to avoid when adapting a module or gamebook to prose as the last thing you want the reader to figure out is where the dice rolls happen).

True, and arguably many of the problems with the Dragonlance novels stems from their being game module adaptations. (The Legends weren't, which may be one reason why they're better.)

Good is a subjective thing, most of the time. What one person considers good, another may consider evil, or at least not as good as the other.

As for Fizban talking about the Kingpriest in Spring Dawning, that book was published before three of the characters went back in time to Istar, and also before the Kingpriest trilogy was published (by another author). So there are at least three versions of the Kingpriest story running around, and who knows which one is actually the unvarnished correct one? The one thing they all agree on is that the Kingpriest was the very embodiment of Good, but he took it too far and became arrogant, angered the gods, and they retaliated by throwing a fiery mountain at Istar.

The problem here is that what you're saying isn't consistent. First you say that "good is subjective", but then you say that everyone agrees that "the Kingpriest was the very embodiment of Good". These things can't both be true, at least not within the same fictional universe! If the Kingpriest is the embodiment of Good then Good, in that universe, is a thing, not just a subjective idea.

I don't think that good is subjective. Different people have different ideas about what's good, but I think that - just as people might have different ideas about physics or history - some of those ideas are wrong, and there is an objective fact of the matter: some things are good and some things are bad whether people realise it or not. But even if you disagree with that, it's certainly true within the rules of D&D and any fictional setting that follows those rules, with the alignment system that says some people are "good" and some people are "evil", not merely that they call themselves that.

Okay, but which book came out first - the Soulforge gamebook or Dragons of Autumn Twilight? He's wearing Red Robes in the novel. And that novel was my first introduction to Raistlin. I don't remember what the modules may have said; I'd have to dig them out and look.

Ah well, I don't know the module. He wears white robes in the novel The Soulforge. Autumn Twilight starts after his Test, so he's already wearing Red Robes when it begins.

So if I, a fanfiction-writing atheist, can make up a religion for the setting I've been building well beyond the source material, Tracy Hickman can certainly do it for the setting he helped build.

Of course. I just find it slightly odd that he should be endorsing not just a fictional setting or religion but a fictional moral system. But I suppose that's just me.

Okay, here's a wild comparison. Leaving off the children part, there are similarities between Raistlin and Severus Snape. Both of them have done appallingly cruel things, violent things that deny a victim's basic personhood, or at least sat by and observed, not lifting a finger to help or uttering a syllable of protest. And both of them have a spark or two of compassion or at least some positive feeling toward two people (Bupu and Caramon, plus Lily and Draco). I guess you could say that Snape is less evil because 1. He didn't have ambitions of becoming a god; and 2. He gave his life to defeat Voldemort. I can't see Raistlin unselfishly sacrificing himself.

Would I like to be like either of them? Well, I wouldn't mind having their capacity to do magic. I wouldn't use it for the same purpose they do, of course.

You're not the first to make the comparison! But surely also Snape is less evil because, apart from anything else, he never kills anyone, and even goes so far as to actively protect people he hates. Maybe Raistlin seems less bad in some ways because he's more charming - at least after his rise to uber-power, which apparently involves a big boost to his CHA stat as well as everything else.

 

[Zardnaar]

True, and arguably many of the problems with the Dragonlance novels stems from their being game module adaptations. (The Legends weren't, which may be one reason why they're better.)

The problem here is that what you're saying isn't consistent. First you say that "good is subjective", but then you say that everyone agrees that "the Kingpriest was the very embodiment of Good". These things can't both be true, at least not within the same fictional universe! If the Kingpriest is the embodiment of Good then Good, in that universe, is a thing, not just a subjective idea.

I don't think that good is subjective. Different people have different ideas about what's good, but I think that - just as people might have different ideas about physics or history - some of those ideas are wrong, and there is an objective fact of the matter: some things are good and some things are bad whether people realise it or not. But even if you disagree with that, it's certainly true within the rules of D&D and any fictional setting that follows those rules, with the alignment system that says some people are "good" and some people are "evil", not merely that they call themselves that.


Ah well, I don't know the module. He wears white robes in the novel The Soulforge. Autumn Twilight starts after his Test, so he's already wearing Red Robes when it begins.

Of course. I just find it slightly odd that he should be endorsing not just a fictional setting or religion but a fictional moral system. But I suppose that's just me.

You're not the first to make the comparison! But surely also Snape is less evil because, apart from anything else, he never kills anyone, and even goes so far as to actively protect people he hates. Maybe Raistlin seems less bad in some ways because he's more charming - at least after his rise to uber-power, which apparently involves a big boost to his CHA stat as well as everything else.

Good is subjective.
Personally I think the kingpriest was corrupted. LG basically hints at organized but tempered with mercy.

They still might have death penalty and sone form of slavery though.

Old D&D was also cosmic good and evil. B

See all the old alignment debates D&D used to have and espicially things like Paladins.

Modern D&D is more nuanced. The only real true evil things are demons, devils and some aberration sone of whom are born or created evil/sentient.

Old school oec always evil/chaotic a non evil one was possible probably a PC, 3E they were usually evil bit acknowledged exceptions exist and 5E they are not excepy in the MM.

Current adventure I'm running has aLG kobolds worshipping Bahumet.

 

[Voidwalkin]

In that world, "good" and "evil" have objective reality

Years ago, when this was explained to me, it put me off D&D lore. It still does, a little. It would be difficult for me to RP that with much relation. I find it hard to fathom what place neutral would realistically have within that world, but those would likely be the most personally relatable characters.

That was a great general discussion between a host of posters, though. Impressive lore depth. Good stuff.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The fun of RPG, for me, is the live interaction. It's okay. It's a cherished aspect of my past life. If I designed a campaign with CFCers in mind, I would do so knowing full well that I would never actually GM the campaign; it would be purely for nostalgia's sake.

Run sessions on zoom?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

True, and arguably many of the problems with the Dragonlance novels stems from their being game module adaptations. (The Legends weren't, which may be one reason why they're better.)

Not a dice roll lurking anywhere, unless one sneaked into the Arena in Istar.

The problem here is that what you're saying isn't consistent. First you say that "good is subjective", but then you say that everyone agrees that "the Kingpriest was the very embodiment of Good". These things can't both be true, at least not within the same fictional universe! If the Kingpriest is the embodiment of Good then Good, in that universe, is a thing, not just a subjective idea.

I didn't say that "everyone" (as in all people) agree that the Kingpriest was the very embodiment of Good. I did say that all the versions of the Kingpriest story agree on that point. But they also agree that the Kingpriest went too far, became arrogant, made demands of the gods, and they were angry enough to chuck a "fiery mountain" at Istar.

It's entirely possible that somewhere in Mt. Nevermind there may be a Gnome astronomer snickering over the foolishness of the other races in believing that the gods were responsible for the destruction of Istar, when in fact it was just a rock from space that happened to land there and cause all the upheaval. Not understanding this, people made up a story to explain it, and who knows what the Kingpriest was really like? According to the Kingpriest Trilogy (by Chris Pierson), the Kingpriest's original name was Beldinas, and he lived a humble life in his early years. But after he was made Kingpriest, power and politics began to corrupt him, while his followers continued to insist that he was Good.

I don't think that good is subjective. Different people have different ideas about what's good, but I think that - just as people might have different ideas about physics or history - some of those ideas are wrong, and there is an objective fact of the matter: some things are good and some things are bad whether people realise it or not. But even if you disagree with that, it's certainly true within the rules of D&D and any fictional setting that follows those rules, with the alignment system that says some people are "good" and some people are "evil", not merely that they call themselves that.

Every story setting has its own set of internal rules, and that includes deciding what's good, what's bad, and what's morally grey/up for negotiation. That holds true for everything from D&D to Harlequin Romances to Star Trek (ie. it may have been the showrunners who decided that Jean-Luc Picard is a paragon of virtue, but he lost that for me in the first season when he became annoyed when the crew decided to save the three 20th-century people in cryogenic freeze; Picard didn't think they were worth the time and bother "because they were already dead" and even became annoyed when one of them expressed grief about realizing that everyone she had ever loved had died centuries ago and she'd never see them again... this is NOT how a LG character would behave!).

Ah well, I don't know the module. He wears white robes in the novel The Soulforge. Autumn Twilight starts after his Test, so he's already wearing Red Robes when it begins.

Of course. I just find it slightly odd that he should be endorsing not just a fictional setting or religion but a fictional moral system. But I suppose that's just me.

Hickman, as an author, would have made many decisions about how his settings worked, without holding the same beliefs as his characters. As another example of this, I used to run a time travel novel group on Yahoo!, and one day some of the women there started ranting about Robert Silverberg. They'd just read his novel Up the Line, which contains some really sexist things that some of the main characters say and believe. They thought Silverberg must be a really horrible person to write these things.

I've met Silverberg at a couple of conventions and attended his panels. He's a very smart, creative person, and definitely does not subscribe to sexist attitudes in his own life. He's close to 90 now, and still mentally alert, participates in the email group, and attends conventions (most recently Worldcon in Glasgow).

He mentioned awhile back that Up the Line has been optioned. I don't know if it's meant to be a movie, miniseries, full TV series, or whatever else, but I do know that there are some scenes that are going to have to be rewritten for modern audiences. What was considered okay in a book published in 1969 wouldn't be considered okay now, in some respects.

You're not the first to make the comparison! But surely also Snape is less evil because, apart from anything else, he never kills anyone, and even goes so far as to actively protect people he hates. Maybe Raistlin seems less bad in some ways because he's more charming - at least after his rise to uber-power, which apparently involves a big boost to his CHA stat as well as everything else.

High charisma in no way guarantees that the person possessing it is a good person.

As for Snape, he sat by while Charity Burbage was tortured, killed, and fed to Nagini. There's no way that this isn't evil.

Good is subjective.
Personally I think the kingpriest was corrupted. LG basically hints at organized but tempered with mercy.

They still might have death penalty and sone form of slavery though.

There was slavery in Istar under the Kingpriest's rule. That's how Caramon ended up as a gladiator in the Arena.

 

[Zardnaar]

Not a dice roll lurking anywhere, unless one sneaked into the Arena in Istar.


I didn't say that "everyone" (as in all people) agree that the Kingpriest was the very embodiment of Good. I did say that all the versions of the Kingpriest story agree on that point. But they also agree that the Kingpriest went too far, became arrogant, made demands of the gods, and they were angry enough to chuck a "fiery mountain" at Istar.

It's entirely possible that somewhere in Mt. Nevermind there may be a Gnome astronomer snickering over the foolishness of the other races in believing that the gods were responsible for the destruction of Istar, when in fact it was just a rock from space that happened to land there and cause all the upheaval. Not understanding this, people made up a story to explain it, and who knows what the Kingpriest was really like? According to the Kingpriest Trilogy (by Chris Pierson), the Kingpriest's original name was Beldinas, and he lived a humble life in his early years. But after he was made Kingpriest, power and politics began to corrupt him, while his followers continued to insist that he was Good.


Every story setting has its own set of internal rules, and that includes deciding what's good, what's bad, and what's morally grey/up for negotiation. That holds true for everything from D&D to Harlequin Romances to Star Trek (ie. it may have been the showrunners who decided that Jean-Luc Picard is a paragon of virtue, but he lost that for me in the first season when he became annoyed when the crew decided to save the three 20th-century people in cryogenic freeze; Picard didn't think they were worth the time and bother "because they were already dead" and even became annoyed when one of them expressed grief about realizing that everyone she had ever loved had died centuries ago and she'd never see them again... this is NOT how a LG character would behave!).



Hickman, as an author, would have made many decisions about how his settings worked, without holding the same beliefs as his characters. As another example of this, I used to run a time travel novel group on Yahoo!, and one day some of the women there started ranting about Robert Silverberg. They'd just read his novel Up the Line, which contains some really sexist things that some of the main characters say and believe. They thought Silverberg must be a really horrible person to write these things.

I've met Silverberg at a couple of conventions and attended his panels. He's a very smart, creative person, and definitely does not subscribe to sexist attitudes in his own life. He's close to 90 now, and still mentally alert, participates in the email group, and attends conventions (most recently Worldcon in Glasgow).

He mentioned awhile back that Up the Line has been optioned. I don't know if it's meant to be a movie, miniseries, full TV series, or whatever else, but I do know that there are some scenes that are going to have to be rewritten for modern audiences. What was considered okay in a book published in 1969 wouldn't be considered okay now, in some respects.


High charisma in no way guarantees that the person possessing it is a good person.

As for Snape, he sat by while Charity Burbage was tortured, killed, and fed to Nagini. There's no way that this isn't evil.


There was slavery in Istar under the Kingpriest's rule. That's how Caramon ended up as a gladiator in the Arena.

Yeah older D&D also had a more lenient take on good vs evil especially the killing evil part.

You didn't redeem them you put them in the ground.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Run sessions on zoom?

And we share pizza how, exactly?