Binder class - REALLY bad art decision by WotC

[Ashtagon]

{Scrubbed}

[Tulya]

Given that the core game already supports playing devils and demons and doing horrific things as an Evil character, I'm not sure a demonology-inspired class from a splatbook written in the last couple years of 3.5E support really matters. For that matter, the older Book of Vile Darkness already touched on things condemned in the early history of Dungeons and Dragons, such as sacrificing sentient life to evil gods for power.

Edit: Yeah, here we go:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/24200-tracy-hickmans-view-dragon-300-sealed-section.html

[Gnorman]

Better not play Shadow Hearts, then. A fairly recent JRPG might teach you to summon demons too!

Seriously, D&D hasn't exactly been worried about this kind of stuff since 2nd edition.

[Ashtagon]

It's one thing to write about playing BadNastyStuff (tm). It's steps over the edge when they use material that was, at the time of writing, sincerely believed to be a real way to summon the things.

It's comparable to if the Arms & Equipment Guide went into graphic detail on the correct way to use a garotte. We know D&D is about killing monsters and taking their stuff. But no one can pretend it's a real manual on how to do that for real, because it doesn't actually use material from manuals that claim to help you do it for real.

Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when D&D books were publicly burned. It can still happen again. Excuse me if I worry about this stuff.

[Gnorman]

How about this for a compromise: next time someone summons one of the demons from the Ars Goetia, we'll blame WotC.

[Wavelab]

D&D is based on fiction and mythology. Like most of the Lords of the Nine Hells like: Asmodeus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asmodeus), Beelzebub (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beelzebub), Bel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_(mythology)), Dis Pater (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dis_Pater), Mammon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammon), Belial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belial), Mephistopheles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mephistopheles). They are a reference to The Seven Princes of Hell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_princes_of_Hell).

Other things like: the Tarasque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasque) and The entire Deities and Demigods sourcebook (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deities_%26_Demigods).

There's a reason people like Chick Publications find it easy to incriminate D&D as satanic, it's because that's one of the things D&D is based upon.

[Eiko]

You are aware of the difference between say, Goetic daemons as summoned by the lesser keys of Solomon and say.... The Judiochristan demons which have a variety of summoning methods.

The former are mostly just spirits and what-not lumped under a blanket term, the latter are our more traditional demons and completely unrelated to the former.

[Madara]

Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when D&D books were publicly burned. It can still happen again. Excuse me if I worry about this stuff.

*Tears up and shakes hand*

"Thank you, your generation of gamers survived the witch trials of our game. If you had given up, I wouldn't be playing the game I love today. Thank You." :smallsmile:

Seriously, Thank You.

[Marlowe]

Black Leaf died for our sins. etc.

[Keneth]

{{scrubbed}}

[Suddo]

Cough, cough, pentagram. It was stated above this isn't the first use of pentagram. And if you give into the Angry Christians they win.

[Answerer]

The names of most vestiges come from The Lesser Key of Solomon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lesser_Key_of_Solomon#Ars_Goetia) (which dates to the 17th century), specifically the 72 demons listed in the first section, labeled "Ars Goetia." The drawings of the seals (basically all of them) come from Aleister Crowley's publishing of the Key (http://hermetic.com/browe-archive/pdf/goetia.pdf).

I had a rather-long explanation of the Key, seventeenth century occult secret societies, and its relation (and lack thereof) to Christianity, but then I realized there was no way it could be considered anything but a discussion of religion, and that's not allowed. Suffice to say that the demons presented in the Key have only slight relation to the Christian concept of demon, and moreover the Goetic arts would never have been anything like worship of said demons.

[ILM]

It's one thing to write about playing BadNastyStuff (tm). It's steps over the edge when they use material that was, at the time of writing, sincerely believed to be a real way to summon the things.

It's comparable to if the Arms & Equipment Guide went into graphic detail on the correct way to use a garotte. We know D&D is about killing monsters and taking their stuff. But no one can pretend it's a real manual on how to do that for real, because it doesn't actually use material from manuals that claim to help you do it for real.
I don't think I could successfully summon demons even if I used the Tome of Magic as instructions.

Although you know what, I should probably test this before I make that claim. Brb, going to slaughter a goat to my new dark masters.

edit: well shucks, nothing happened and now I have goat innards all over my IKEA carpet. :smallmad:

[Ashtagon]

edit: well shucks, nothing happened and now I have goat innards all over my IKEA carpet. :smallmad:

Sheesh. No wonder it didn't work. IKEA carpets aren't exactly masterwork carpets.

[Tulya]

Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when D&D books were publicly burned. It can still happen again. Excuse me if I worry about this stuff.

"Moral panics" don't rely on the facts of what is. If there's little to spark genuine concerns, tons of false or misleading ones will spawn and spread and very few people upset enough to make a stink will actually take the time to verify their accuracy or reconsider their position in the face of exposed falsehoods.

Did you know Pokemon is really short for Pocket Demons? My neighbors were 'informed' about that, and how they're inspired from Satanism and Demonology, and how children that friends of a friend know were influenced into immorality by exposure. They smashed their kids' games with a hammer, and forbade anything Pokemon related from their household. It apparently came from the grandparents, who in turn got it from a guest speaker.


Edit: On a related note, WotC Magic the Gathering division had the same concerns. I remember an article about why Humans weren't an official tribe, and how averse they were to printing any card with "Sacrifice a Human" on it for fear of the public reaction.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=227405

They've just crossed that threshold with Innistrad's block, Dark Ascension.

Double Edit:
Though technically they already touched similarly dark themes back in the very beginnings, but that was before they realized they had a property of significant worth and became very cautious about the image of Magic the Gathering.
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1176

[Yuukale]

Pocket Monsters, not demons.

talking about bad art decision, I've always been confused by the first crusader art. Not sure if a guy or a girl but anyway, it's ugly as hell.

[Big Fau]

Did you know Pokemon is really short for Pocket Demons?

And yet the fastest way to disprove that is to show them the original Japanese title, which is in plain English.

[Keneth]

At that point, showing that pocket demons are in fact just pocket monsters wouldn't have made much of a difference with people who were willing to destroy a video game with a hammer because of it. :smallbiggrin:

[Urpriest]

There's a reason that they switched back from exclusively using Baatezu and Tanar'ri to also using Devils and Demons: the people who think of D&D as Satanic are no longer a meaningful part of the market. Time has passed, and the groups behind these sorts of moral panics, while noisier, are on the decline in terms of real power. Harry Potter was protested in the same way D&D used to be, and J.K. Rowling changed nothing.

[Tulya]

At that point, showing that pocket demons are in fact just pocket monsters wouldn't have made much of a difference with people who were willing to destroy a video game with a hammer because of it. :smallbiggrin:

Yeah, they were swept up in some community fervor. They also snapped a number of Playstation discs at the time, such as anything from the Final Fantasy series.
The James Bond burning I respected, though. The parents liked Bond and had a collection of tapes, but had a change of heart about the role models they wanted in their home. All else aside, it was an informed decision and consistent with their expressed values.


In recent times, I've found parents seem to be more concerned with issues like the dangers of social networking, and older fears have fallen to the wayside as gaming, roleplaying, and fantasy literature become more pervasive and popular in the general population.

[prufock]

D&D was becoming too mainstream anyway. What we need is a good old-fashioned controversy to make it badass again.

What's your beef here really? I mean, 3.5 is a closed system now, having moved on to 4e and soon D&D Next. Do you think this art decision was reflected in sales for Tome of Magic or what?

[Grollub]

you mean you all don't sacrifice a goat at the beginning of each game for good luck on the dice rolls?

[T.G. Oskar]

Well, it's pretty much settled: no matter what you do (like, publishing a book that deals with GOOD in all shiny and golden letters and how difficult, yet rewarding, can that be), if there's some sort of reference to sensitive material, people WILL take the time to decry and condemn it. The fact that there are some inconsistencies with the canon definitely doesn't help: what some "guest speakers" and "scholars" might claim as canon doesn't necessarily needs to be fact OR taken straight from the source, but rather part of tradition. It can be surprising how many things from myth can be considered canonical. For a not-so-sensitive, mythological example: Snorri Sturlsson and his eddas, who managed to survive but forever changed the perceptions of people like Odin/Wotan, Loki and most of the Norse deities. However, some people claimed his eddas to be canonical, considering few existing data about them could be reclaimed aside from the spoken word.

Yet, that tidbit of inspiration made the binder a bit more unique. Considering they're D&D's version of summoners (which already existed with the Thaumaturge and the Malconvoker, through Summon Monster, Planar Ally, Planar Binding and Gate spells) in response to another form of unique summons (aka, Final Fantasy's summons/Espers/Guardian Forces/Eidolons/Aeons), they did a pretty impressive, if rather dark, set of mechanics. Consider them as fluff, since the vestiges themselves are actually quite far from the "real" (if you can claim it as real) thing, and it'd be quite shocking to summon a demilich known for creating the most famous death-trap/dungeon, or the discarded husk of a fictional fiend based on a mythological creature (Orcus, after all, is based on a Grecorroman deity IIRC).

It's best to consider that D&D looks at all beliefs from a skeptic perspective (all things are myths in RL), then shapes them into the fantasy world as real things. In that sense, things that would exist in actual religions would be taken, suitably altered, as inspiration, but not exactly in the way it actually exists. As per a skeptic, despite your actual beliefs, it is best to consider anything within D&D, even if based on actual myth or even existing religions (most of the Monster Manual is based on actual myth, barring some legacy monsters and Product Identity), to be a work of fiction and enjoy it as such. Observing and enjoying the game in that matter can help quite a lot in a healthy path to adulthood, as you'd mature into a reasoning being, even if you do hold some set of beliefs at heart (not to mention developing friendships and interpersonal skills).

That said, I don't believe the thread will evoke any non-sensitive discussion, so I wanted to say my piece before it gets closed.

In a nutshell: in b4 closing - don't worry, be happy.

Oh, I almost forgot: geeks are the people who should least worry about sensitive things. I mean, we joke about "throwing dice the right way" or "discarding accursed dice" or "taking away the 1's" or "buying the dice that rolls the most 20's" in the name of "appeasing/avoiding the wrath of the Random Number Gods", on which none of us actually believe...right? Right?

Maybe that's why my rolls are always so average...;)

[Agent 451]

you mean you all don't sacrifice a goat at the beginning of each game for good luck on the dice rolls?

Goats are too expensive. I like to bless every die I own in blood before a game (and everyone knows that sacrifice to blessing is a 1:1 ratio, no dipping multiple dice at once allowed.), so I buy mice from the pet store at a bulk discount.

[JoshuaZ]

Huh. I had known that they had taken the names from the Lesser Key, but I hadn't realized the seals were also from a version of that.

[Yukitsu]

"Moral panics" don't rely on the facts of what is. If there's little to spark genuine concerns, tons of false or misleading ones will spawn and spread and very few people upset enough to make a stink will actually take the time to verify their accuracy or reconsider their position in the face of exposed falsehoods.

Did you know Pokemon is really short for Pocket Demons? My neighbors were 'informed' about that, and how they're inspired from Satanism and Demonology, and how children that friends of a friend know were influenced into immorality by exposure. They smashed their kids' games with a hammer, and forbade anything Pokemon related from their household. It apparently came from the grandparents, who in turn got it from a guest speaker.

Kid shoulda distracted his parents with a copy of the Digital Devil Saga, or the Lucifer ending from Shin Megami Tensei. Though to be fair, if they're going to burn those games, they'd probably have to go book burning Milton as well, which would probably have gone over considerably more poorly.

[ngilop]

So, a bad choise to use some hermetic qabalah symbologoly, which in itself is based on Jewish Kabalah?

consideirng that the whole binding thing is basically what this represents, I think its a very spot on art decision.

[Eldan]

Huh. I had known that they had taken the names from the Lesser Key, but I hadn't realized the seals were also from a version of that.

And not just any version, Aleister Crowley's version.

I thought this was actually pretty well known since the book first came out. But these are goetic demons, which are bound by King Solomon, so summoning them is not evil. Something like that, I think.

[Calanon]

D&D is based on fiction and mythology. Like most of the Lords of the Nine Hells like: Asmodeus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asmodeus), Beelzebub (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beelzebub), Bel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_(mythology)), Dis Pater (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dis_Pater), Mammon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammon), Belial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belial), Mephistopheles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mephistopheles). They are a reference to The Seven Princes of Hell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_princes_of_Hell).

Other things like: the Tarasque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasque) and The entire Deities and Demigods sourcebook (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deities_%26_Demigods).

There's a reason people like Chick Publications find it easy to incriminate D&D as satanic, it's because that's one of the things D&D is based upon.

Same can be said for Orcus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orcus) and Demogorgon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogorgon) whom are greek Demons.

Anywho! The whole "D&D = Satanic thing" really lost its meaning to me after a friend in my D&D group recently came out and told me that he wants to go into long term religious service (i.e. become a Priest) :smalltongue:

[Slipperychicken]

Even if D&D were somehow teaching us to summon Fiends (if I was getting anything close to dnd magic out of this, I sure wouldn't be trolling a forum all day :smallcool:), wouldn't it also be teaching us to summon Good-aligned outsiders to this plane as well? Then it could be used for good, and the world would be flooded with Angels doing justice and righting wrongs... actually, that's one of the game's more powerful tactics.

[Tanuki Tales]

Even if D&D were somehow teaching us to summon Fiends (if I was getting anything close to dnd magic out of this, I sure wouldn't be trolling a forum all day :smallcool:), wouldn't it also be teaching us to summon Good-aligned outsiders to this plane as well? Then it could be used for good, and the world would be flooded with Angels doing justice and righting wrongs... actually, that's one of the game's more powerful tactics.

Playing Devil's Advocate (*ba-dum dish!*), but that only assumes the that Light is Good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LightIsGood), instead of the increasingly more popularly portrayed Light is Not Good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LightIsNotGood), Pure is Not Good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PureIsNotGood), Lawful Stupid (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawfulStupid), Knight Templar (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KnightTemplar), Good is Not Nice (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsNotNice), Jerkass Gods (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JerkassGods), God is Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodIsEvil), or any combination of the above.

[Jodah]

This is actually why I dislike the Binder. It just registers too high on my creepy scale. I really like the mechanics, I really like a lot of the flavor (making deals, penalties for not obeying them, etc.), but the whole summoning circle takes it too far for me. Hell, the names are even stolen from the demons. I think it really comes down to the individual's conscience though. I can't do it without refluff -- so I am working on making the fluff something tolerable.

[Slipperychicken]

This is actually why I dislike the Binder. It just registers too high on my creepy scale. I really like the mechanics, I really like a lot of the flavor (making deals, penalties for not obeying them, etc.), but the whole summoning circle takes it too far for me. Hell, the names are even stolen from the demons. I think it really comes down to the individual's conscience though. I can't do it without refluff -- so I am working on making the fluff something tolerable.

If you're worried about demon-summon-ritual-y flavor, you might also want to change the Planar Binding spells, and make it so you don't have to chant strange words and wave around bizarre objects for half a minute to summon things.

Tangent: I'm starting to enjoy the image of a stereotypical aged wizard, standing atop a cliff with a burning candle in hand and a grey good over his stern face, chanting terrible words of arcane power... and a monkey appears before him for a few seconds before vanishing again.

[Marlowe]

Playing Devil's Advocate (*ba-dum dish!*), but that only assumes the that Light is Good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LightIsGood), instead of the increasingly more popularly portrayed Light is Not Good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LightIsNotGood), Pure is Not Good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PureIsNotGood), Lawful Stupid (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawfulStupid), Knight Templar (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KnightTemplar), Good is Not Nice (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsNotNice), Jerkass Gods (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JerkassGods), God is Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodIsEvil), or any combination of the above.

Can you imagine how the religious right would feel if role-playing geeks managed to summon Angelic beings and achieve direct contact with the Metatron while they could not? Unspeakable embarrassment all round. Let's just keep them thinking it's about summoning Demons. They'll get less worked up that way.

DISCLAIMER: This post represents a personal passing whimsy from one individual and is not intended to provoke offense from anyone including members of the religious right, the religious left, the irreligious center, beings Angelic or Infernal, the Metatron, roleplaying geeks, or God.

[Gnorman]

DISCLAIMER: This post represents a personal passing whimsy from one individual and is not intended to provoke offense from anyone including members of the religious right, the religious left, the irreligious center, beings Angelic or Infernal, the Metatron, roleplaying geeks, or God.

As a denizen of Mechanus, I find this disclaimer (and the concept of personal passing whimsy, and the notion that we are "individuals") offensive.

[GoatBoy]

If I worked for WotC, or any RPG company who had been a target of the anti-demon witch hunts, I'd see the end of the fuss over it as a good sign that it's time to start pushing the envelope some more.

I'm glad that D&D stays away from vivid descriptions of real-world violence, at least away from showing it in an insensitive light, but when it comes to evil spirits and demon-trafficking, I say bring it on. There is a vast difference between discussion of real-world issues and violence (which could be a sensitive spot for some people) and what essentially equates to fancy names for the bogeyman.

The only argument that could be taken against the portrayal of supernatural evil is that it might offend someone. And you're dealing with a segment of the population whose predecessors took every existing divine pantheon, every goat-headed fertility deity, and every nature cult and labelled it all as "evil," and thus decided to be offended by it.

All hail Asmodeus, High Emperor of Evil and Darkness. Each being I slay is a dedication to your eternal, terrible glory. End transmission.

[Marlowe]

As a denizen of Mechanus, I find this disclaimer (and the concept of personal passing whimsy, and the notion that we are "individuals") offensive.

My Inevitable foe. :smallmad:

[Ashtagon]

One way I think the binder could be made a useful and non-controversial class is to refluff it. For example...

Binders are found in dwarven communities and other societies that are heavily focused on ancestor worship. The 'vestiges' that they 'bind' are actually the spirits of their ancestors, which they have learned to channel through lifelong dedication and a ritual. The ancestor lives again through the binder, who in return gains some of the ancestors memories and talents. Instead of drawing those circles, they sit down and calmly meditate for a few minutes. The ancestor spirit appears as they did either at the prime of their career, or as they did at death, depending on the spirit.

[The Gilded Duke]

I actually really enjoy the binder fluff. It references a neat bit of mythology, and portrays it well. Instead of tapping into the same myths and legends as other dnd systems and settings seem to, it goes to one that is largely untapped in dnd.

[Gnorman]

The main thing to remember is that this book was published six years ago, and there have been approximately zero incidents of public outcry over the use of the Ars Goetia (at least that I could find - typing "tome of magic," "binder," and "controversy" into Google produced pretty much only this thread). It was either A.) not offensive enough or B.) too far under the radar to cause a hub-bub. I don't think it's going to now.

And even if, by some rare circumstance people pounce on this again, I echo these immortal words: "There is no such thing as bad publicity."

[Jodah]

If you're worried about demon-summon-ritual-y flavor, you might also want to change the Planar Binding spells, and make it so you don't have to chant strange words and wave around bizarre objects for half a minute to summon things.

Tangent: I'm starting to enjoy the image of a stereotypical aged wizard, standing atop a cliff with a burning candle in hand and a grey good over his stern face, chanting terrible words of arcane power... and a monkey appears before him for a few seconds before vanishing again.

To be strictly honest, I don't play with outsiders that can be mistaken for real world things (not bothering to get into a debate if demons or angels are real, simply suffice that it is based on material that is thought by many to be real). That means to celestials, no fiends (though elementals do work).

The closest I get are avatars of gods from pantheons that I completely manufacture. So I don't have need of planar binding, and the summon spells become more along the idea of creating an astral construct from the psionics side - it is a new entity that exists for a few minutes and then evaporates into the aether from which is was made.

I try to maintain a pretty big boundary line there, as I am going into the pastorate and many people I play with are in the church.

Tangent: I find it funnier if it is imagined in Curious George style with cymbals and everything.

[Harry]

{Scrubbed}

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Discussion of real world religion is prohibited on this forum, even when it intersects a gaming, comic, or other permitted topic. Thread locked.