Redcloak would like to have a word with you.
That’s something that always bugged me about D&D ethics.
Raising the dead is always Evil in and of itself (even though a corpse is just a hunk of meat and bones at this point, and while I’m aware necromancers raising armies of undead have gotten bad press it’s really not much different from using drones or constructs in warfare) but mind domination ? No big. Sure, the person is still conscious inside, has no mouth and must scream but they were probably big meanies anyway, go go good team !
I mean, even if you don’t go the extra mile and do the Polish minefinder thing, just mindraping someone into attacking their allies (which is use n°1 of Charm/Control/Dominate/Suggestion spells in any D&D group) seems exrta evil to me…
OK, Kobal2, I not only agree with you, but I want to buy you a drink!
Every time I think this thing is tapped out, it surges ahead to the point of being practically asymptotic.
So I give up. Fine. We’re going to break $1.2 million. We’re going to break the last Mystery Prize line. We’re going to raise a billion dollars and Rich will buy an island with a volcano somewhere and become a supervillain. Who knows?
The difference is that Dominate Person is only as evil as what you do with it, while the magic of animating the dead is evil in and of itself. If all you’re doing is Dominating bandits to walk to the nearest city and turn themselves over to the authorities, that’s not evil, any more than if you’d manacled them and escorted them yourself.
What if the only reason I animate the dead is to have 'em slap on said manacles before escorting said bandits to the authorities?
I don’t think the Kickstarter can reach Mystery Prize #10 (or #9), but I stand ready to eat my words.
What’s inherently evil about animating the dead ? I guess there would be a consent argument, same as harvesting organs, but beyond that I honestly don’t see what’s the big, or how the “it depends what you do with them” argument wouldn’t apply.
Mindraping a bandit into giving himself to the authorities IS very different from manhandling them yourself, too. It’s, well, mindrape. It doesn’t really get more rapey than violating someone’s entire body and will all in one go. You’re basically inducing locked-in syndrome, which is the stuff of nightmares even before you’re forced to act against your own will !
I think that you’re talking about ANIMATING the dead, such as what’sherface did to get all those wights and such (she really LOVED the dead, you know 
). Raising or resurrecting the dead is to bring someone back to life, and this is viewed as being good or neutral. Good clerics have absolutely no problem with raising or resurrecting their dead teammates. And evil clerics will do it out of pragmatism, if nothing else.
I’m right behind you on the mindrape thing, though. I’m really surprised that Roy has tolerated this Domination of Freshmouth for so long. We all know that V has some pretty flexible morals, and if Belkar is OK with something, I take that as a pretty good guideline that it’s Evil with a capital E, except when he cares for Mr. Scruffy.
It’s going to be close:
14,454 BACKERS
$1,205,956 PLEDGED OF $57,750 GOAL
3 HOURS TO GO
Yes, that’s what I was talking about, thanks for the correction/clarification ! Rassum frassum Gary Gygax’s thesaurus. What I’m saying is: when life gives you lemons, make lemoliches !
Mmmmmm…lemoliches…
Back to animating the dead…I don’t know of any DM who allowed goodly clerics to animate them without suffering an alignment hit. And this wasn’t something that would age off, either. The cleric would lose his/her powers and spells and have to undertake quests and all that good stuff. The cleric’s diety MIGHT allow casting of healing spells, but nothing offensive, during this time, depending on the diety. I spent most of my gaming time with DMs who had modified the rules, so I don’t know what the official rules are, but in the worlds I played in, clerics could cast spells on the spur of the moment, which meant that they didn’t have to pray for them the night before, so a cleric might decide that he really, really wanted to Animate that dead half-ogre and use it because s/he’s desperate. Now, the clerics had to spend some time each day in meditation and devotions, and had to promote their gods when possible, but the DMs basically said that clerics (and in a couple of cases, mages) could just cast whatever spells they had the power for, they didn’t have to study them beforehand, except in a few rare cases. If the spell called for a material component, the cleric or mage DID need to have it available. I always figured that this was a better system, since the original D&D magic system was based on one series of books, and just about every other magical system allowed spellcasters to cast whatever they knew, if they had the power for it.
IIRC, in earlier versions animating skeletons could be an G vs E ethically-neutral activity (although definitely chaotic), because skeletons were the only TN undead. Of course that’s dropped by the wayside, but it’s still how I think of it when I DM.
Aaah, Rolemaster…
It’s up to 1,220,519 with two hours to go. I even refreshed from about 10 minutes ago and it had jumped approximately $3,500.
At that rate, it’ll make it.
Yeah, Vancian magic is a bit retarded, and many RPGs do it the way you describe either by giving magic users a pool of generic magic points per diem they can spend on any spell they know (with beefier spells costing more magic points, natch), or letting mages cast as many spells as they goddamn please but each spell cost them in other ways, be it physical fatigue, actual damage, risks or going insane, risks of attracting the attention of something very very nasty etc…
But then again, I kinda like the way D&D does it, within the context of D&D played more as a tactical wargame than a “real” role playing game ; because it goes straight into the game balance column and adds another layer of strategery to the proceedings IMO.
Most other games I DM I’m way fuzzy about the rules, the ranges, the rolls etc… to make way for the story and keep combats from taking all afternoon (also because I can’t be bothered with that shit, goddammit you DM if you’re so hung up on doing it right !) ; but D&D is the only game where we still use grid maps, miniatures, are sticklers for tracking spell durations to the round or memorizing the Grappling rules and so on - or have scenarios that consist entirely in “go to Foreboding Location 01, map the shit out of it, kill everything in sight, look for traps, loot up, learn about Foreboding Location 02”.
Not sure why. Not sure why it’s still genuinely entertaining to do that either, whereas the same mindless dungeon crawls would be boring as watching paint dry if we did it in Mage, or Deadlands, or Shadowrun, or L5R (not to mention the heroes wouldn’t get past the first room in L5R :]). To my gaming group, D&D is a guilty pleasure, the Japanese zombie flick of RPGs - turn off brain, get popcorn, enjoy the 'splosions and the samurai girls in bikinis 
I really liked this strip’s examination of the unusual ethics within D&D. You’ve Roy taking the thinking LG view by objecting to YukYuk being used as a Polish minesweeper. (Per Kobal2, though I was thinking more of the Soviet Army’s penal battalions when I read the strip.) Then there’s Haley sort of rationalizing her actions by pointing out that Y has rogue levels, while cleverly not stating how many, whether it’s more than she has, or whether Y’s Search skill is anywhere near her’s. Haley might even be correct when she says
If Girard et al’s trap setting skill is Epic like the rest of him, it doesn’t matter if there’s a delta between Haley’s and Yukyuk’s skill: neither of them would likely find the traps anyway.
V’s adds to the ambiguity (naturally) by mentioning that s/he could issue Yukyuk the command to search to the best of his ability, and responding “Indeed” when Haley asks V to do it. I still don’t know if V did tell Y to actively search for traps, or just to walk up the stairs, or if Yukyuk’s skill check is so poor that there’s no substantive difference between the two. Related to that, I can see Yukyuk as another joke on Belkar, in that their builds may have utterly neglected any skills that didn’t involve killing an opponent. I mean, who takes Rogue levels and ignores Search or Disable Device? It’s as silly as a Ranger who can’t track, right?
Just an interesting strip. I love the ambiguous language, and the insight within each character’s reaction to the situation.
On OOTS and Dominate Person, does the Dominated entity have any memory of what they did while Dominated? I know they can alter their behavior based on stimuli they receive while Dominated—Y trying to actively kill Z after Z popped off a Phantasmal Killer at him—but do they remember anything? Judging by Thanh’s comments after being freed from Tsukiko’s Domination spell, I’m not sure if they do:
I guess that could be a punchline, not meant to be taken at face value though. Be really funny if one of the traps was a Dispel Magic trap, though I guess he can’t do that much damage w/o his hand crossbows.
Given the motif of the temple, I’m have expecting to see some heads rolling down the stairs, a la Apocalypto.
Reasons to be excited:
- It’s breaking records.
- It’s a bunch of folks like me acting together to do something awesome.
- It’s purpose is to build up stock to send to book and comic stores, reaching out to new potential fans.
- It’s regular updates WITH CARTOONS that really keep us in the loop.
- It’s regular strip updates. WHEEEEE!
- It’s a chance, after nine years, to figuratively tap Burlew’s paypal button.
Seriously. Rich has built up nine years of hey-cool-I’d-like-to-kick-in-just-a-bit pressure.
I may have missed a reason or two, but that’s more than enough reason to be excited.
I was never much of a D&D player. Somebody educate me on the Ranger class.
As Gray Ghost pointed out, Belkar appears to have skipped all the useful skills that come from being a Ranger. Given Belkar’s personality, the general image of Ranger doesn’t seem like a natural fit for him (I see him more as somebody who would have majored in Assassin Studies). So is there some in-joke about why Belkar would have chosen to become a Ranger?