Making D&D morality less repulsive.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, so, Dungeons and Dragons morality is caught in a double-bind of bullshit.

1) At its core, it's a game about invading peoples' homes, killing them, and taking their stuff. While it's of course possible to construct scenarios where it is morally okay for this to happen, it's also really really easy to ignore that and accidentally paint the protagonists as the real villains.

2) To justify point one, the game goes out of its way to handwave the victim status of the former group by presenting them either as Animals, Abominations, Unthinking Automatons, or Baby-Eating Sadists. But D&D loves its large bestiary, so the game shoehorning in all of these sapient critters into one of these four categories gets depressing after awhile.


I think that it's time for the game to really rethink its core paradigms. I mean, shit, when the fucken Super Mario Bros. is ahead of you on the morality curve, it's time to redo your franchise. So here's my list of suggestions for D&D.

• Get rid of battle-based experience. 3E and 4E's way of trying to avert this was bullshit because even if it didn't directly endorse murder it endorsed brinksmanship that very likely lead to combat. Characters should only get experience for completing an objective or adventure. If they get clogged down in unnecessary fights on the way to complete it, then tough cookiepuss.
• The game should default to non-lethal damage. Yes, I know it creates the 'I knocked the orc out with my +2 Reaving Longbow' silliness, but if you give players the default assumption that their enemies live if defeated and that you actually need to go out of your way to kill them, players will be a lot more thoughtful about it.
• Most sapient critters should be able to be reasoned with. Unless you have an irredeemably evil race like balors, you should be able to talk/bluff/intimidate your way out of most fights.
• If you're going to have evil sapient critters capable of moral choices, the game should make it clear that they're evil because of their upbringing and not race. Not only will this stop people from slaughtering the orc raiding party who just wanted to get some food, but it also makes killing the actual evil bastards more satisfying. No one really gives a shit about taking out Random Mook #32, but people will line up around the block to stick a sword in Luca Blight or Szass Tam.
• D&D needs to make it so that most critters will run or surrender on losing odds--this includes if they think that they're outmatched. It makes players feel badass if they see the ogre army crumble and head for the hills if they recognize the PCs. It makes the PCs feel badass if a lizardman chief approaches them respectfully in the woods and offers them peace in return for respecting the forest.
• D&D needs to make it so that critters are actually easily convinced to abandon their evil ways. Even if you take out the band of deserters nonlethally and tie them all up, what are you going to do with them? You could leave them to die in the woods, which is just as bad, or you could go through the inconvenience of carrying them around. Or you could just tell them that if they swear allegiance to your Lord and give up their evil ways, they have a hot meal and a pardon waiting for them in your hometown and here's a symbol showing that they have PC protection.
• D&D really needs to stop that whole 'less pretty races are less advanced and more violent' bullshit. In the next campaign setting, the Mountainhome Alliance should be composed of goblins, halflings, humans, dwarves, and warforged. The Forest Federation should have elves, lizardmen, orcs, birdfolk, and aasimar in it. Seriously. And unless you're specifically trying to paint a society as evil, they should have critter intermixing.
• Evil societies need to be as evil as you can get while still maintaining a PG-13 rating. This means going a bit further than Nazi Germany. The best way to do this is to implement a Halo-style caste system with the upper echelons being multicultural or being headed by actual demons or gods or whatnot.
• People actually need to see rewards for being good. Your party should be PROUD of the fact that they've defeated over a thousand foes without killing a single one. They should take PRIDE in the fact that they're the only ones the Sahugin will listen to because they've treated everyone fairly. As it is, D&D is a wasteland of nihilism and greed and that just generates a 'fuck it, even if I kill all of these dragons no one will give a shit' attitude.
• Because people still like killing shit, the Monster Manual should have a lot more critters where it's actually acceptable to kill them on sight without thinking about it too hard. When you destroy a sentient golem, you're actually doing it a favor because you're releasing the tortured elemental spirit. Killing a Dire Wolf shouldn't make PCs feel bad about harming nature because they're stupider than chickens and attack everything else on sight for the lulz. Ghouls literally have no purpose in life other than to harm others; kill them and feel good about it. A lot of critters, like demons and mind flayers, are actually composed of concepts like greed and sadism--destroying them doesn't even kill them because they'll be back in a few years and they have a racial hivemind anyway.

And so on.

[MfA]

[*] The game should default to non-lethal damage. Yes, I know it creates the 'I knocked the orc out with my +2 Reaving Longbow' silliness, but if you give players the default assumption that their enemies live if defeated and that you actually need to go out of your way to kill them, players will be a lot more thoughtful about it.

Why not just expand negative hitpoints to some huge value? (Say, max hitpoints.)

[RobbyPants]

The game should default to non-lethal damage. Yes, I know it creates the 'I knocked the orc out with my +2 Reaving Longbow' silliness, but if you give players the default assumption that their enemies live if defeated and that you actually need to go out of your way to kill them, players will be a lot more thoughtful about it.

This isn't too far off from something else I've dabbled with: converting half damage to nonlethal and keeping the rest lethal. You still have the option of dealing full nonlethal damage normally, but I wanted to try this to help with low-level survivability and to have in combat healing go a bit further. Also, I wanted a second wind mechanic to remove nonlethal damage.

Anyway, if using that, this also accomplishes the same thing for the monsters. Sure, if an orc has 5 HP, it still only takes 5 to KO him, but it takes a lot more to actually kill him. So you still have the hostage/negotiation situation during and after combat, and you likely have fewer kills.

[RobbyPants]

Double post.

[MGuy]

These two:

• The game should default to non-lethal damage. Yes, I know it creates the 'I knocked the orc out with my +2 Reaving Longbow' silliness, but if you give players the default assumption that their enemies live if defeated and that you actually need to go out of your way to kill them, players will be a lot more thoughtful about it.
• D&D needs to make it so that critters are actually easily convinced to abandon their evil ways. Even if you take out the band of deserters nonlethally and tie them all up, what are you going to do with them? You could leave them to die in the woods, which is just as bad, or you could go through the inconvenience of carrying them around. Or you could just tell them that if they swear allegiance to your Lord and give up their evil ways, they have a hot meal and a pardon waiting for them in your hometown and here's a symbol showing that they have PC protection.

Are the only ones I disagree with. Coming to blows should be a lethal ordeal that has the ever present danger of death (by default) for both sides. It might just be a personal thing but PCs who WANT to care about this shit should really have to go out of their way a bit to see it done. Plus if the whole "run/surrender" thing holds true it won't be difficult to keep and still have players deciding to spare a thing or two.

Secondly I don't believe it should be particularly "easy" to turn creatures away from darkness. Get them to stop doing what they are doing right now? Sure that's plausible. Turn them into the authorities? That is also good. But overrunning a camp of ne'er do wells and turning them instantly over to TEAM GOOD by virtue of "I just kicked your ass so do it" doesn't sit well for me. It doesn't sit well for me in my animes I don't want it in mah DnDz.

[TOZ]

Get rid of the -4 for dealing nonlethal with an inappropriate weapon. Characters are more likely to do it if there is no penalty.

[Vebyast]

Get rid of the -4 for dealing nonlethal with an inappropriate weapon. Characters are more likely to do it if there is no penalty.

I was thinking something like that, but more so. Swap the penalty over to lethal damage, and increase it. You can do as much nonlethal damage as you want, but you take a -10 to attack when you try to deal lethal damage.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Lago, I this this is a great idea. Coming up with a framework in which player characters can actually be heroes and then fitting the pieces in should be a basic premise now that D&D has been around for almost 40 years.

---

Double post.

You can delete your double posts so long as someone else (say, me) hasn't already posted after you.

[Roy]

Get rid of the -4 for dealing nonlethal with an inappropriate weapon. Characters are more likely to do it if there is no penalty.

I was thinking something like that, but more so. Swap the penalty over to lethal damage, and increase it. You can do as much nonlethal damage as you want, but you take a -10 to attack when you try to deal lethal damage.

So, longsword (and spears, and axes, and maces, and spells, and all the other lethal things) are poorly suited to killing fools?

No. Remove the goddamn penalty to do non lethal damage if you want to go that route, but don't pretend swords are bad at killing fools in the face.

[Vebyast]

So, longsword (and spears, and axes, and maces, and spells, and all the other lethal things) are poorly suited to killing fools?

No. Remove the goddamn penalty to do non lethal damage if you want to go that route, but don't pretend swords are bad at killing fools in the face.

It's far easier to completely disable someone than it is to kill them instantly. A sword can end your participation in a fight in any number of ways, but actually killing you D&D-style requires a clean shot to the head or body. Anything else will take you out but leave you alive for a few hours or days, and (in the DND-land of fast-healing barbarians, potion-chugging fighters, and clerics) nonlethal damage is the best way to simulate that without another hit point track entirely.

Second, in historical battles, most kills were by coup de grace. I'm no expert, but my understanding is that guys in armor fought until one of them got knocked down or hit on the head, and then the other guy stuck a knife in his eye or his armpit while he was down.

Also, consider armor. Knocking someone around and bruising them badly is pretty easy, no matter what you're using. Planting a spear on a curved piece of eighth-inch steel without it sliding off is really, really hard.

[FatR]

Lago, I share many of your sentiments expressed here, but as long as action movies/books/whatever are about ganking bad guys, DnD is going to follow suit and killing people in your way will remain if not the main solution to problems, then an integral part of it.

Also, I'm firmly disagree about nonlethal damage as default. If you want solving conflicts without just killing the other side to be something players should congratulate themselves for, it should be at least marginally harder than just killing the other side.

[Vnonymous]

My solution is to forget about it. Heroes and adventurers kill shit and are not regarded as bloodthirsty monsters because when they get into fights they win them.

Alexander the Great is an awesome character, and his actions would fall under super evil in your morality system. People want to go to war, and that means they will work with people like Achilles and Ajax and Lu Bu and Napoleon and Odysseus and Gilgamesh and blah blah blah.

Heroes in that sort of environment do not practice christian ethics and modern day morality simply does not apply to them.

[Doom]

Exactly. D&D morality is only repugnant from a Christian mindset and cosmos.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Exactly. D&D morality is only repugnant from a Christian mindset and cosmos.

Heroes in that sort of environment do not practice christian ethics and modern day morality simply does not apply to them.

Christian ethics?! Good gravy.

D&D morality is repugnant from any mindset BUT the most barbaric and/or xenophobic ones. I think you'll find any Abrahamic/Buddhist/secular humanistic/Hinduist/etc. would vehemently oppose the cycle of looting and murder D&D characters indulge in. If a modern work of fiction came out where the protagonists acted like D&D ones they'd get eaten alive--hell, look at all of the whining and teeth-gnashing Eragon got because he killed a surrendering soldier of an unabashedly evil empire! Imagine if Luke Skywalker cut off the heads off of four Stormtroopers who weren't doing anything but casually guarding a storehouse of crystals just so he could get a yellow lightsaber.

The only reason why it works at all is if people don't think about it in the slightest. This is why alignment always devolves into arguments and players pretty much have to compartmentalize from day one; but honestly that's no way to enjoy a game.

Also, I'm firmly disagree about nonlethal damage as default. If you want solving conflicts without just killing the other side to be something players should congratulate themselves for, it should be at least marginally harder than just killing the other side.

It's a bad idea, because there are always going to be players who simply won't give a shit beyond the stimulation of the reptilian cortex of rolling dice. If you offer the path of least resistance to them, then they'll take it.

This leads to the predictable situation of:

Paladin McGoody Goody: Maybe we shouldn't kill all of the orcs, they were just defending their land. It'd be pretty rotten of us to kill people whom are never going to interact with us in any way ever again.

Beerenpretzels von CasualPlayer: Dude, no way. I'm not going to take a -2 penalty to all of my attacks just for that.

So then you have strife at the table; either the Paladin has to accept that his partner is killing people right in front of them for their loot and Deal With It, or Beerenpretzels has to gimp their character for a reason they don't want to.

[PoliteNewb]

I don't mind, most of the time, if the heroes in the RPG are not necessarily what I would consider "moral" in the strictest sense of the word in real life. Because it's a fantasy.

I don't want real-life cops to act like Tango & Cash, Riggs & Murtaugh, or Dirty Harry Callahan...but I don't get my panties in a bunch when I watch them blow away a ton of dudes on the screen, because I am indulging in a fantasy world. Similarly, I am cool with having my D&D characters act like Achilles, Conan the Cimmerian, or the dudes from The 13th Warrior, even if I don't want any of those guys living next door to me in real life.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I get what you're saying PN, but while I enjoy sometimes playing a murderous bastard like The Punisher or (non-pussified) Wolverine who is a hero only by the point of view of the comic, I don't like having to be railroaded into the choice all of the damn time.

As it stands, it's extremely hard to play a hero in D&D with modern sensibilities. This wouldn't bother me so much if A) D&D was the 800-lb gorilla of fantasy TTRPGs and there aren't really any alternatives, B) D&D didn't constantly crow about how you get to play real heroes and all that jazz.

[TOZ]

Get rid of the -4 for dealing nonlethal with an inappropriate weapon. Characters are more likely to do it if there is no penalty.

I was thinking something like that, but more so. Swap the penalty over to lethal damage, and increase it. You can do as much nonlethal damage as you want, but you take a -10 to attack when you try to deal lethal damage.

A -10 to shove your sword through their skull? I can't get behind that.

[shadzar]

Imagine if Luke Skywalker cut off the heads off of four Stormtroopers who weren't doing anything but casually guarding a storehouse of crystals just so he could get a yellow lightsaber.

Or if Darth Vader kills Admiral Ozzel just for coming out of lightspeed too soon.

How dare the main protagonist of the story do that! Revolting, unaccept...wait...people did accept it quite easily.

[shadzar]

As it stands, it's extremely hard to play a hero in D&D with modern sensibilities.

That is because most of D&D is themed around a more barbaric time. It isn't meant to be played as "modern" in any way. That is what they made d20 Modern for, to emulate modern world.

Those wanting to delve into the world of medieval era use D&D for that.

One of the biggest things I have had to explain alignment to people that "don't get it" is to stop using modern references for it. Stop using the 9 point system, and break it down into its parts and check those parts against the D&D world.

Would these people see this action as evil?

The entire purpose of a setting or era for a story it to envelope the traits of that era or setting around the story.

Since D&D uses the medieval era as its main set piece, then you have those parts of it there as well.

It isn't that people want to play CSI the RPG and try to use D&D for it, because it simply wasnt made for that.

You can alter the setting as much as you want, but so long as you are using D&D, its mechanics, and concepts will be based around that more barbaric time of medieval and related eras.

Using swords to begin with shows the signs of the times where people carried the law in their own hands rather than having a centralized government make and uphold those laws.

So if you are looking for something with more modern social aspects, D&D is not what you want to use.

If you are wanting to play D&D, you have to accept what it is at its core.

It is a game where killing and such on a whim is the nature of the beast.

So it will always be hard to paly someone of modern sensibilities in it as it wasn't made for that, and if you are only finding it hard to do so, you are lucky as it was never intended that you do so, and should be damn near impossible.

The only way around this would be to play a political campaign, rather than having combat as a focus, or even present.

[Doom]

I'm just thinking if Tolkein wrote with modern morality in mind.

Bilbo:"Sorry dwarves, I'm no burglar. Thou shalt not steal, and all that."

Remember the loot Bilbo got from the trolls? "Hey, this stuff needs to be returned to the rightful owners, or their heirs. Good thing Gandalf knew where the sword came from."

"So Aragorn, you're the son of a king, eh? Too bad what we need is a democracy, do you wish to abdicate power now, or should be exile you, or what?"

"Cool ring, Frodo. But the owner is clearly Sauron. Should we walk it back to him, or just hand it off to the Black Riders coming to pick up his own property?"

Frodo: "Gollum is a murderer, possibly many times over, and deserves to die." Gandalf:"Yep, that's right."

"Those ents are attacking Saruman's tower. We should help him protect his land and property rights!"

"Gee, Pippin, that's a nice crystal ball you found. We should give that back to Saruman right away!"

I could go on. Granted, D&D isn't LOTR, but I'm really hard pressed to think of any fantasy fiction where "kill monster and take stuff" isn't in there somewhere...at least any fantasy fiction in a world I want to play in. The first half-decent adventure in WoT had Matt looting a dagger, if I recall correctly. Conan plundered a tomb or two, if I recall. I guess Thomas Covenant didn't have much looting (been so many years since I've read it that I can't name anything, but might have been)...there was hunting down Lord Foul in his lair and kicking his butt.

I just don't buy the premise that the morality of D&D is bad on the face of it. You may as well try to fix Chess, since all that slaughter is pointless.

[Orion]

Thomas Covenant:

Book One: Stormed Mount Thunder, stole Staff of Law and Kevin's Second Ward

Two: Broke into Melekurion to drink the Earthblood.

Three: no theft here that I remember.

Four: Stole the Krill from the Clave, IIRC

Five: Minimal theft?

Six: Anti-theft. Broke into Foul's house to give him presents.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Look, I'm not against the idea of good guys occasionally picking up trinkets or weapons from enemies they defeat. Leaving the +4 Sword of Souls right on the ground makes even less sense than just putting it in your trophy room.

But that kind of thing is done at climaxes or critical plot junctures. D&D makes an entire game out of doing that. While it's quite possible to construct an adventure where the loot falling into the PC's hands is just a side-effect of some nobler objective rather than a thing in of itself, it becomes increasingly contrived as time goes on.

I could go on. Granted, D&D isn't LOTR, but I'm really hard pressed to think of any fantasy fiction where "kill monster and take stuff" isn't in there somewhere...at least any fantasy fiction in a world I want to play in.

C'mon, man, you're not even trying. Star Wars. Harry Potter. That stupid new Merlin live action show. Eragon. The big three of shounen fantasy; Naruto doesn't shy away at all from killing but looting corpses is something done by bad guys in that fiction--in a setting filled with ninjas. The only corpse looter in One Piece is being set up to be the BBEG of the setting--in a setting filled with pirates.

And those are fantasy cartoons in which the protagonists kill/cripple bad guys. Avatar: TLA makes it an enduring plot point in which the lead guy refrains from killing. Looting is quite obviously out of the question. And it's the best action-adventure animation... ever, pretty much.

The whole 'good guys regularly kill people with the expectation of getting upgrayddes' is confined nowadays to D&D, D&D spin-offs, and video games.

[shadzar]

C'mon, man, you're not even trying. Star Wars. Harry Potter. That stupid new Merlin live action show. Eragon. The big three of shounen fantasy; Naruto doesn't shy away at all from killing but looting corpses is something done by bad guys in that fiction--in a setting filled with ninjas. The only corpse looter in One Piece is being set up to be the BBEG of the setting--in a setting filled with pirates.

And those are fantasy cartoons in which the protagonists kill/cripple bad guys. Avatar: TLA makes it an enduring plot point in which the lead guy refrains from killing. Looting is quite obviously out of the question. And it's the best action-adventure animation... ever, pretty much.

The whole 'good guys regularly kill people with the expectation of getting upgrayddes' is confined nowadays to D&D, D&D spin-offs, and video games.

You are missing something in all those that you mention. They are not adventuring to obtain wealth or power such as the D&D game has it set.

One Piece the good guys DO take things from anyone. Nami isn't opposed to take anything, Sanji will take any culinary item he can find, Ussop will take ranged weaponry, Luffy will take any food that isn't already in your stomach being digested, Zoro will take any sword that will benefit him in his quest to be the best swordsman.

Aang and crew stole often. Katara stole the water-bending scroll from pirates. Aang, Sokka, and Toph swindled people out of money. Sokka would act like Snails from D&D and pick up anything he thought could be of value (not monetary) to them and shove in his bag. Aang also is of a religious nature not akin to anything you would find in the common D&D world that stretches back centuries in its beliefs, but don't think for a minute Sokka wouldn't kill, or Toph, or Suki. Even his past lives told Aang he must kill Ozai. The last Air Bender Avatar told him specifically, that he cannot attain enlightenment as his duty was to the world. Only the Lion Turtle (deus ex machina) had knowledge of a way to do it otherwise, as his own brother Iroh thought he needed to be killed as well his son Zuko.

Naruto they do take weapons from "corpses" just like in D&D save for a few such as Zabuza's sword, for the sake of them not coming into the hands of those who would be hurt by them. They don't immediately go and collect every kunai after it is thrown, but collect back what they can so they don't have kids playing with them.

Creepy fucker from the Gotei will take anything he can get, and Captain Zuraki will fight and kill for the thrill of the fight. These are the good guys.

Harry took the Elder Wand from Voldemort's corpse.

Merlin and Arthur have taken weapons from corpses with which to fight. Merlin even risked killing his mentor, Uther, and Arthur on many occasions for the sake of Camelot and its people. Ok maybe Uther isn't the best good guy, but you get the idea.

While this corpse looting may not be for treasure hoarding as you would think the main reason in D&D, all these shows follow the same lines of D&D corpse looting/killing.

D&D is about getting upgrades, because the stories are about obtaining power, and the system it uses works within that. It is not a level-less system such as all these other shows can be.

[MGuy]

Lago if people care about not killing people they will take the extra step to not do so. If they don't then let them kill. If a group, at all, wants to beat someone down and let them go they have their option and it should be HARDER to play true hero then to not to. In anime the reason people don't die is because it takes EXTRA effort to actually kill someone and because heroes have plot armor. Star Wars? Not counting the kid show but I believe in each of the more "modern" episodes the heroes kill someone. Harry Potter? The wizards have to go out of their way to learn a death spell and they are kids. Never seen that Merlin show...

[RobbyPants]

Double post.

You can delete your double posts so long as someone else (say, me) hasn't already posted after you.

Yeah, but I didn't see the option available. Oh well.