Doc Democracy

Interesting, I dabbled with 4th edition and never went back (4th was the first edition I never bought a book for). All my D&D is 3.5 and before. It is interesting that they seem to have moved in a similar direction to me (narcissist, not me! 🙂 ). Probably things from and with connections to the various non-prime material plane entities. Have they grappled in 5th edition with what the plane of elemental evil actually means? Is it simply a huge source of energy to tap? I kind of bet they dont philosophise about what evil is and is not... I have read both Invincible and the Boys. Not seen the animated series though. What is better about it??

I have indeed thught about it a lot because of my Greyhawk HERO project. I wanted to replicate the universe in HERO terms which, like many things in HERO, meant I had to delve deep to understand what question I was actually asking. All I wanted was to build detect evil and protection from evil. Suddenly I was wondering what it was I was detecting and protecting from.... 😄

Our problem is that we are making all this stuff up and trying to relate it to our own experiences. As such, our understanding of what it would be like or our understanding of it would be like, by default, is always going to be faulty in some way. Looking around for comparisons, in the past, people often cast those with mental health issues as evil or possessed. We now have a dilemma of whether someone who would do really evil, cruel acts can actually be defined as sane. It is a good debate to have. Do you need to be "insane" to be evil, or can you be sane and choose to do such things? The criminal justice system can wrangle with those issues. In gaming, if a race created by an evil god has a link to that god, which rages inside their brain, urging them to do the cruel and evil acts, that you need to presume generate mana for those particular dieities (why else to do it), then are they insane, evil, robots, free-willed, in pain?? Can that link be severed? Can it be blocked? Are there some who are born without it? Does the link (as I suggested up-thread) provide some advantages if you lean into it (like the Dark Side)? All of that stuff is gameable. And none of it needs humanoid races to be irredeemable but might "explain" why so few of them manage to live "good" lives. If the majority tend certain direction then the inertia of the society probably pushes most of everyone else down that way. Just think growing up in such a society where to show kindness is likely to be seen as weakness and you become prey? In the D&D-verse. Does detect evil mean that you detect that the person has committed evil acts in the past, has thought about committing evil acts, approves of evil acts or has a link to the elemental plane of evil?? I know which one makes more "sense" to me. Doc

Have you just created an axiom that proves every other RPG is evil, as HERO does not embrace the absolutist ideas of other systems. 😁

I don't think so, they are not sentient beings. Of course, in a theistic world with active gods, it is probably rare for many of those things not to be the result of an evil act. It would not be a stochastic universe.

Greyhawk exists in a humanistic universe. The Old Ones, Deep One's and mildly twisted one's exist within that reference and are evil, because they are bringing human existence to an end. That doesn't mean every universe is so deterministic but it does mean you cannot use "common sense" words like good and evil and expect everyone to be on the same page.

Oof, that is dark and doesn't help with all of other evil races. Would also mean an orc horde was a sign of a LOT of extreme horridness. Demographics would be skewed too.

I think the planes of elemental good and elemental evil remove any relativity in the idea of good and evil. It also makes it difficult to define. Good enhances the universe, helps it to develop while evil works to rip things up and makes life worse.

I had 100% forgotten this was how Desolid worked.

Ach, tripped myself up. I meant not because they are evil and act evil. I think inherently evil might have a different terminology in my Greyhawk. Inherently evil would mean you have a link to the Plane of Elemental Evil. Some races are born with such a link but it does not dictate their alignment and the various detect spells are sensitive enough to differentiate between evil and "inherent" evil. I think any D&D campaign has that planar theology built in. I think the mortal races should be equivalent in that they can choose how they want to behave and have a behavioural alignment. Similarly, elves are inherently good, that link works when they watch to leave the mortal realm and "travel" to whatever end place their theology determines for them. I am inclined to treat drow and duergar like orcs and goblins, twisted races that have had that link to the plane of Elemental Evil added to their essence by some god or another. I am also inclined to give those races the ability to draw on the link for benefits. So a goblin might lean on the link to add to its sneak ability (+2 to begin, possibly upto +5 as it gains ability). Such use will change their alignment to evil. Orcs might be able to use it to boost STR, Drow to cast magic etc. drawing on it will change their behaviour, like the Dark Side of the Force. In that way, their God has given them a temptation to become evil and do evil. It does not mean they give in and a non-evil orc might be seen almost better than a non-evil man, elf or dwarf because they constantly fight, and win, against the very real temptations they face every day. All this works better in HERO because it can model all that better than D&D. Doc

The problem doesn't arise in one-offs and dungeon where everything you meet is slavering hordes ready to tear you apart. Killing in those situations is effectively self-defence. The problem is in campaign play where you have tribes of orcs, goblins etc. Mothers and children. When your "good" party raid the village to accomplish their quest, killing 99% of the warriors, what do they do with the "evil" non-combatants. After all, they remain evil. As my group never grapples with such high-falutin ideas we rarely have any issues. I do think a large part of that is that we are, to a man, white middle class folk that have never suffered discrimination. I do think that the presence of folk that are inherently evil opens up the option for bad behaviour (random slaughter of essential innocents) simply for existing under the flag of "Well, they are evil and I am good". It is the whole poor take on alignment that permeated D&D. The same players would scream injustice if I persecuted their LE assassin character in cities of "good" folk. As a workaround, I have proposed in my Greyhawk HERO, that goblins and orcs were created by evil gods. They live in the wildernesses and lands ruled by evil Lords because it is the only place they are welcome. The reason? Not because they are inherently evil but evil shaman/priests can sacrifice any single orc/goblins etc to create a horde (size limited by the power of the priest and length of the ritual). It is the reason such hordes exist and towns often refuse entry to these creatures because of the risk inherent in their very existence. Their actions determine their alignment, just like anyone else but their heritage determines their risk. As such, even the non-ravening hordes, non-evil acting tribes of humanoid creatures have a dislike of "good" nations who force them to live in horrid places with horrid people. In the example above, the mothers and children cannot be presumed evil, there will be the usual ratios of good folk and bad folk in the village. They will hate the players who just slaughtered their men-folk though. This may change how players interact with humanoid villages, but it has to change how I play them too. For instance, why would a whole village accept the kidnap of a local human maiden? Why would all the menfolk fight to defend that bad action? There will be good and bad humanoid communities. There will be times when a village of orcs has come under malign influences, just as that might happen with human villages. There will be times the players consider atrocities but it could no longer have the convenient cover of "it doesn't matter, they are all evil, even the babies". Doc

How odd. My very first post on these boards, 20 years ago was about desolidification and invulnerability!

We often ascribe too much wisdom to the people who laid down the foundations of a system. It us like when you grow up and realise that your parents never really knew all the answers, they were just trying to do their best at the time. To me, being desolidified is a combination of effects. One is the ability to travel through solid objects leaving behind no trace of passage. That could easily be Tunneling with invisible effects. One is that damaging effects don't affect them. We have a number of powers that might be used for that. There is nothing fundamental about the power except an absolute effect that we don't hold for anything else having. As for not knowing how much desolid you want, have a look at the table of materials. You want to pass through them all? Buy the relevant level of Tunnelling. Link the defence to the Tunnelling (or vice versa), make it all drain together. Call it phantasmal form. More true to the HERO axioms and it avoids all the issues of having to buy affects solid on your attacks (unless you take that as a disadvantage on the defences).

I think that I usually bought my force field down to 0 END so often that I have not really felt that particular change - my 20PD/20ED Force Field (0 END) always did cost me 60 points.

The purpose of the power was to speak in tongues, where people would be able to undertand what you had to say. The conceit would be that someone with mental defence, high EGO and/or high DECV would realise that someone was seeking to communicate with them and would be able, if they wnted, to understand him. They would have an additional defence if the person relied on that power to persuade, interrogate or anything else that required them to comprehend things. Just having spent on those things should not inhibit you more than anyone else. The other thing, you as a GM can do, is come up with a power that reliably works for the average person in the campaign and then declare that it is a "thing" that work in the described manner for a described price. Steve Long, several times, said that it would be fine for a GM to work out how much it would cost to endure the majority of attacks in the campaign, then declare, for that cost, you can purchase Invulnerable, and ignore damage regardless of the role or details of the damage inflicted on them. In this case, you have worked out a reasonable way to allow everyone (not explicitly enhaneced) to understand your speech. After that, you ignore the core mechanics of it, and call it Speaking in tongues (anyone that can hear you speak can understand what you mean), Xpts. Do not allow the details of the system rob you of cool powers, or force you into a never-ending recursion of powers, advantages and disadvantages to better model reality. Doc

I agree, but I reckon there are going to be a chunk of people that dont become aware of the need for such decisions until they are well into the game and others that make ad hoc decisions, or assume stuff because they played earlier editions 20 years ago. I think people starting with NTH create their game, if they stick with it long enough but the failure to recognise them, means we probably lose a chunk of those people that end up thinking HERO is too complicated.

Yeah, I have a problem with that kind of fixed value power. I reckon the cost should be based on the campaign limits, possibly with a floor and ceiling values, rather than being absolutely fixed. The reason I mention floors and ceilings is because, no matter how many points players are given, some things are not worth that much (like life support and enhanced senses) while others should probably not go below a certain value (like desolid). All begins to sound a bit complicate though, doesnt it? 🙂 Doc

I just wrote a post talking about instant change. I think Desolid has a big relationship with it. It is a black box to allow players to have something cool. It was fine for years but the more us geeks talked about it, demanding standard pricing for things the more the non-standard nature of its existence became exposed. Even just the fact that it is a standard price. It should probably vary its cost depending on the starting points of characters in the campaign. Limitation valuers should also be campaign dependent. I think it probably is now too cheap, a 40 point power that cost 8 END was a big investment for a character built on 150 points+points for disadvantages. For 6E characters, 40 points that costs 4 END is not really the same investment. Doc

I think a strength of the system (and a problem sometimes for GMs) is that there are often lots of ways to achieve an effect in game. The best thing I get from seeing the details of someone's build is to get insight into how they did it, how they looked behind the understood or implied game effects and used that mechanic to deliver something else. For instance, I liked to see how Steve deconstructed instant change and gave a build. I did not NEED that to use instant change in my game. I still dont. What it did do was give me ideas on how to achieve similar things when players came, stuck on how to do a build. I have learned so many things on these boards by people saying Energy Blast [sic] is not an energy blast, it is a way to do damage to someone at range. If you want to lift someone into the air and drop them to do damage, then Energy Blast is probably what you should be thinking about, and everything else is SFX.

I will put my hand up for 1E Champions. I think you missed out a category though, those who just run a game under 6E without trying to "create" a game from the system toolkit...

Yeah, but removing line of sight range and adding area effect (anyone who can hear voice) covers most of that. Defences could be an issue, though similar things can prevent other solutions. There are hand wavy things with a few things. I like Dean's solution but Detect feels fundamentally hand-wavy to me when you get to speaking and writing and reading. I am however, fundamentally accepting of waving hands to achieve a reasonable solution to say yes to a player for a cool power. Doc

To be honest Duke, you bring a kind of New Testament take to 2E, even if your commitment to it might be quite fundamental...

Says the man shouting from the midst of the biggest cloud of woodsmoke seen on the North American continent in recent history...

You are 100% right here. Duke says we ruled too much about 2E and wanted the true answer to Al, our gaming queries instead of being content with a few rough options and a steer to doing what was most fun. Steve Long was probably the right answer to the wrong problem. He dedicated himself to getting all the details folk argued about in the rules sorted and pushed into the main rules. What we needed was someone who was more focussed on game theory, boiling the system down to its essentials, who was the ghost written by someone who was focussed on delivering gameplay. And Steve writing a bunch of Almanacs outlining options on how to use the rules if you wanted to nail down the details. A lean, flavourful core. A suite of genre books that provided the spices to deliver specific types of game and another suite for the number geeks who wanted detail on what that cool thing should look like in HEROcode.

You are going to have to explain how understanding spoken words helps you read or write a language you don't know...