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DaOldeWolf
2014-10-27, 05:24 PM
I have been DMing (my first time ever) for a campaign centered around the theme on how each axis from the alignments can bring disgrace and ruin to the world. I have been working the plot as the characters move along so I wasn't expecting to get stuck on a point.

To explain the campaign, each continent that the chars visit is based on one of the alignment axis (chaos, law, good, evil, neutrality). During their journey through each continent, they face the good and the bad of each alignment and how the continent is currently in trouble due to the tendencies of its residents.

The problem is that they are going to visit the "good" continent next but I am still a bit stuck on how to make the "good" alignment look "bad" and make the players try to right this "good". So, I am hoping I can get some assistance from the great minds that lurk GitP.

Tommy_Dude
2014-10-27, 05:29 PM
Good is just as subjective as anything else. A good continent that throws anyone not deemed by their own high standards as good into the prisons is a good idea for this. If the "Church of Light" imprisons anyone who is even slightly different from the norm, lest these individuals corrupt the minds and souls of the populace, doesn't scream "Good taken too far" then I'm out of ideas.

Mono Vertigo
2014-10-27, 05:58 PM
The thread title invoked me!
... you had to use it after I changed my username, of course. :smallsigh:

Okay. So Good could be intolerant. Could hold a philosophy of perfection (when perfect is the enemy of the good; perfection is not actually attainable, or the cost to achieve it seriously harms other domains).
If you consider Truth to be somewhat synonymous with Good (after all, why not, Deception might be considered Evil as well), remember that truth often hurts. The Good in Truth reveals Evil, and that's bound to tarnish many memories and opinions. It also comes with its own tyranny: if you don't accept or like the truth, you're part of the lie, and are henceforth Evil too! What, it turns out your mentor murdered innocents in his youth out of greed? That this one goblin you killed back in the day was not actually Evil at all, but got caught in the slaughter only because he was the same race as your aggressors? That the kindly old merchant you rescued wished you dead more than once because your actions embarrassed him somehow? Good doesn't care about excuses, Good wants you to fully acknowledge all this, even if the offenders have since sought redemption! See all the Evil - all of it - that the light of Good reveals. (In contrast, Evil surely doesn't care so much about the good you're doing, big or small. It doesn't matter that your love for your parents is genuine when you also violently murder random people for fun.)
Last one. Love is good, right? It brings out the best of you. It also brings out the worse of you and hurts pretty bad. Lose someone you love, and suffer. You may genuinely love every one and be perfectly compassionate, but you're only dooming yourself to be betrayed, or abandoned, or driven mad, or just hurt many times over, more than one can reasonably stand. Maybe, just maybe, you don't have to love everyone.

Grim Portent
2014-10-27, 06:31 PM
One of the things about the Good is that they expect others to act like them because of course it's the correct way to live.

Good taken to it's furthest extreme would be incapable of understanding what motivates evil and neutral people to act the way they do.

Good would incorporate a lot of things into law and custom that a neutral society would leave up to individual choice because they think choosing not to act the 'proper' way is an aberration and that if the neutral and evil people would only have a chance to try being good that of course they would come around and see the light.

I would expect to see a lot of confusion or disgust at things like theft, brawling, killing (even in some justifiable circumstances), carrying weapons in peaceful situations, usage of various mind altering substances, not paying money to charitable causes, refusing to help people with problems, not participating in public events for the greater good, so on and so forth.


A good incident would be a person asking the party to give money for a good cause (making it a somewhat frivolous good cause wouldn't hurt). If they refuse the person should go glassy faced, look at them with great bewilderment and ask again and again until they do as he expected them to.

Others would be NPCs expecting them to perform in various services for free because it's the right thing to do. Killing vermin infestations (giant spiders in the sewers maybe) or clearing out a group of evil raiders.

Essentially good in it's bad sense isn't simply self sacrificing, it expects everyone who's on it's side to also be self sacrificing because it's the good thing to do and gets confused and irritated when people disagree.

TandemChelipeds
2014-10-27, 06:45 PM
The opposite approach: Good is ineffectual and soft. Because they've never been exposed to real cruelty, everyone there is incredibly thin-skinned; simply expressing a negative opinion honestly is enough to make people break out into tears. The Good world is a bubble-wrapped society. Nobody wants to hurt anyone, so people carry on oblivious to their own flaws. People are also impractically polite; people have starved to death in arguments over who should go through a door first, for example. The result is that although nobody's trying to tell you what to do, you essentially have no freedom whatsoever. It's the purest hell of all: A hell without anyone to blame, a hell without anyone to hate.

DaOldeWolf
2014-10-27, 06:56 PM
The thread title invoked me!
... you had to use it after I changed my username, of course. :smallsigh:

Okay. So Good could be intolerant. Could hold a philosophy of perfection (when perfect is the enemy of the good; perfection is not actually attainable, or the cost to achieve it seriously harms other domains).
If you consider Truth to be somewhat synonymous with Good (after all, why not, Deception might be considered Evil as well), remember that truth often hurts. The Good in Truth reveals Evil, and that's bound to tarnish many memories and opinions. It also comes with its own tyranny: if you don't accept or like the truth, you're part of the lie, and are henceforth Evil too! What, it turns out your mentor murdered innocents in his youth out of greed? That this one goblin you killed back in the day was not actually Evil at all, but got caught in the slaughter only because he was the same race as your aggressors? That the kindly old merchant you rescued wished you dead more than once because your actions embarrassed him somehow? Good doesn't care about excuses, Good wants you to fully acknowledge all this, even if the offenders have since sought redemption! See all the Evil - all of it - that the light of Good reveals. (In contrast, Evil surely doesn't care so much about the good you're doing, big or small. It doesn't matter that your love for your parents is genuine when you also violently murder random people for fun.)
Last one. Love is good, right? It brings out the best of you. It also brings out the worse of you and hurts pretty bad. Lose someone you love, and suffer. You may genuinely love every one and be perfectly compassionate, but you're only dooming yourself to be betrayed, or abandoned, or driven mad, or just hurt many times over, more than one can reasonably stand. Maybe, just maybe, you don't have to love everyone.

Well, the title was mostly just for fun and reference (don't take it too seriously) but thanks for liking it. Still, there is some good material here. Thank you for the advice.


Good is just as subjective as anything else. A good continent that throws anyone not deemed by their own high standards as good into the prisons is a good idea for this. If the "Church of Light" imprisons anyone who is even slightly different from the norm, lest these individuals corrupt the minds and souls of the populace, doesn't scream "Good taken too far" then I'm out of ideas.

Mmmh....this gives me an idea of vampire/werewolves eradication program regardless on how the vampire/werewolf is. Not sure if it will be enough though. My players usually need the "Elan treatment" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0759.html) to see that what a character is doing is wrong. Thanks for the advice.

Hopefully, some more ideas will be delivered. :smallbiggrin:

NInjaŽd: @Grim Portent, that is certainly true. i hadn't thought about that. Annoying good, its such a good idea. Thanks!

@TandemChelipeds: True, there is so many ways to see the good alignment that i really haven't though about. Thanks you!

Honest Tiefling
2014-10-27, 07:04 PM
Could be complete pacifists that refuse to take a life, no matter what the person has done. While there is some weight that reformation is a viable method of dealing with criminals in our world, we don't tend to have people devoted to evil and human sacrifice, either. Taking care and guarding these people will also take a lot of resources that our modern world has, but this one might not.

They could also choose to be completely ignorant of evil, and therefore don't know what to do when confronted with undeath. They might not even be able to comprehend that others would wish to do evil and be incredibly gullible as a culture or in their body of law. They might not have protocols in place to confront sneak attacks, sabotage or betrayal. Maybe it isn't a choice, since their continent is so goodly, its hard to protect against something you haven't seen in a few centuries.

Traab
2014-10-27, 08:31 PM
Could be complete pacifists that refuse to take a life, no matter what the person has done. While there is some weight that reformation is a viable method of dealing with criminals in our world, we don't tend to have people devoted to evil and human sacrifice, either. Taking care and guarding these people will also take a lot of resources that our modern world has, but this one might not.

They could also choose to be completely ignorant of evil, and therefore don't know what to do when confronted with undeath. They might not even be able to comprehend that others would wish to do evil and be incredibly gullible as a culture or in their body of law. They might not have protocols in place to confront sneak attacks, sabotage or betrayal. Maybe it isn't a choice, since their continent is so goodly, its hard to protect against something you haven't seen in a few centuries.

The problem with that is the country would only exist until anyone not a total pacifist came along and took it over without a struggle (because its a kingdom of pacifists) I got one.

Good generally means you follow a specific moral code. In a united kingdom, this would likely take the form of "This action is right, every other action is wrong" It would fossilize the nation into one where every interaction is basically a ritual exchange of lines and actions. If you read the somewhat odious eragon series, its like the elves where each conversation starts off with the same ritual opening and gesture, only the entire interaction is like that. If you deviate from that ritual exchange, you are doing something wrong, and that triggers an automatic aggressive response. I foresee a lot of confrontations and battles as the party tries to assemble the proper phrases and actions needed to avoid getting into trouble. Spending lots of time spying and observing and keeping track of how everyone deals with each other so they can blend in long enough to do what they came there to do and leave. For example, say they want to sell some vendor trash and look for gear. If they walk right up to the merchant, there will be a big battle because they wont know the right way to talk to him. If they hang back and quietly observe a random npc talk to the merchant, they will see what they have to do.

Vva70
2014-10-28, 12:59 AM
Before you can accurately assess this issue, you have to define what "good" and "evil" mean in the context of your game world.

In real life, we generally take "good" to mean acting in a manner that is morally right, given all relevant circumstances. By this definition, there is no moral flaw in taking it to the extreme. Any example a person could give of a "good" society doing bad things under this definition is not an inherent flaw to "good," but rather a flaw of the society not living up to their own "good" standards. There is, however, a practical limitation to this brand of "good." In a situation where a good person is constrained to take only morally licit options, a person who is not so constrained has all of the morally licit options and all of the morally illicit options. Thus, a neutral or evil person is able to take easier, less dangerous, and more efficient paths through life.

Other definitions of "good" are possible in a fantasy setting, but are going to be less intuitive for many players. Subjective good is commonly attempted, as is "good" and "evil" being morally equivalent extremes with the ideal being "balance." Mostly, though, I tend to find that these don't usually hold up under scrutiny.

OldTrees1
2014-10-28, 03:18 AM
A Trope for pitting Mortals against Angels:
Righteousness without Empathy. Justice without Mercy. The Purifying Flame that eradicates any imperfection, any immorality no matter how small.


For double the fun combine this with the sheltered good mentioned above.
Any failure to behave above the call of duty is deemed an inconceivable crime. The society wants to enforce an extremely harsh penalty but is ineffective about capturing and punishing the criminal.

Altair_the_Vexed
2014-10-28, 03:37 AM
I've got a "good" policy that needs reforming...

An old D&D setting I played in / helped run had a kingdom founded in the wilderness by a LG church. The church then had a very tight immigration policy - using Detect Evil spells and the like.
Any time a criminal was caught, they'd use Detect Evil on them, and eject them from the country if they pinged as evil.
There were no attempts at reform, just deportation into big evil refugee camps on the borders.

Demon Prince
2014-10-28, 05:32 AM
The problem with that is the country would only exist until anyone not a total pacifist came along and took it over without a struggle (because its a kingdom of pacifists) I got one.

Well, it's its own continent. It could've gone on in isolation for some time.


Good generally means you follow a specific moral code. In a united kingdom, this would likely take the form of "This action is right, every other action is wrong" It would fossilize the nation into one where every interaction is basically a ritual exchange of lines and actions. If you read the somewhat odious eragon series, its like the elves where each conversation starts off with the same ritual opening and gesture, only the entire interaction is like that. If you deviate from that ritual exchange, you are doing something wrong, and that triggers an automatic aggressive response. I foresee a lot of confrontations and battles as the party tries to assemble the proper phrases and actions needed to avoid getting into trouble. Spending lots of time spying and observing and keeping track of how everyone deals with each other so they can blend in long enough to do what they came there to do and leave. For example, say they want to sell some vendor trash and look for gear. If they walk right up to the merchant, there will be a big battle because they wont know the right way to talk to him. If they hang back and quietly observe a random npc talk to the merchant, they will see what they have to do.

This sounds specifically Lawful rather than just Good, though.

Grim Portent
2014-10-28, 05:56 AM
I'd advise not having the Good nation engage in genocide, purges or any other violent form of dealing with evil on a regular basis. It tends to imply 'Evil pretending to be Good' rather than 'Good doesn't mean correct'.

One of the qualities of good is the belief that people can change for the better, the problem is that sometimes this belief becomes an expectation that most people won't live up to or will actively reject. This can cause an adverse reaction from the good.

It may also help to think of sins/vices/flaws that Good can possess as an inherent aspect of itself.

The 'vices' (if such they may be called) of good could probably be summed up as: Self-Righteousness, Invasive Curiosity, Tactless Honesty, Unconditional Love, Preconceptions, Community Spirit and Benevolent Interference.

Joe the Rat
2014-10-28, 07:27 AM
One of the qualities of good is the belief that people can change for the better, the problem is that sometimes this belief becomes an expectation that most people won't live up to or will actively reject. This can cause an adverse reaction from the good.

This is one of those pieces that you can use to make Good downright creepy. A Good society may not believe in punishment, but rather reform. Which means that any "criminals" will be taken to some sort of reformatory to correct their behavior. They'll make them good, whether they like it or not. Forcing alignment changes isn't inherently evil so long as you aren't trying to make them Evil, apparently.

This does bring up a fun facet to play with. You have an entire continent to play with. You could really have fun with exploring excess of the various elements. Protection. Liberty. Charity. Preservation. Nurturing. Your local empire is run by the Benevolent Big Brother - monitoring everything and everyone to make sure the greatest sum goodness is achieved, as uniformly as possible, but some may suffer in order to improve the greater whole.

Or perhaps you've got a Post Zeroth Law Rebellion society - Those charged with protecting the people have determined that the best way to do that is to take people out of harm's way. Any harm. The "civilian" populace living a life of absolute and enforced leisure. Traditionally this is done with mechanical servitors (imagine an army of Warforged Paladins doing everything in the society, and capable of smiting (and Laying Hands on) anyone who tries to do something potentially self-injurious like explore or use sharp tools), but a fanatical servant base could fill this role. Or some sort of self-aware, self-sustaining magic.

Of course, then you have your nest of Counterproductive Crusaders, each acting towards What Is Best For All without necessarily considering the collateral damage of their quests. Good Intentions Paving Company.

And then you have these in conflict. The monolithic protector state clashing with hordes of righteous self-thinkers of the most noble caliber, with the conflict zone being threatened by those that would see no harm wrought by conflict, putting everyone involved into suspended animation.

DaOldeWolf
2014-10-28, 09:28 AM
Before you can accurately assess this issue, you have to define what "good" and "evil" mean in the context of your game world.

Well, I am assessing it on three areas:

+Good Spells are "good". Spamming them will eventually "taint" your alignment and bring it a step closer to good.
+Actions that bring power to the abstract concept of good or that will rebalance the alignment axis in favor of the forces of "good". Ex: killing/destroying/redeeming a foul evil being, promoting/assisting the churches of good gods, increasing the army of good, etc.
+Actions about helping/assisting others without expecting a reward. Ex: creating justice and equality to people, promoting love for everybody and forgiving others, make a better life for other people to live in.

That is basically, how i have been playing good in the campaign. Hope it helps. :smallsmile:

Now, I would like to thank everyone for their contributions. After reading all of the new comments about bringing others towards good and forced redemption, I remembered about the Sanctify the wicked spell (don't know if there is a Pathfinder counterpart) but i don't think there will be any objections about adding the spell to the campaign from the players (still gonna inform them about that).

Werephilosopher
2014-10-28, 09:38 AM
Before you can accurately assess this issue, you have to define what "good" and "evil" mean in the context of your game world.

In real life, we generally take "good" to mean acting in a manner that is morally right, given all relevant circumstances. By this definition, there is no moral flaw in taking it to the extreme. Any example a person could give of a "good" society doing bad things under this definition is not an inherent flaw to "good," but rather a flaw of the society not living up to their own "good" standards. There is, however, a practical limitation to this brand of "good." In a situation where a good person is constrained to take only morally licit options, a person who is not so constrained has all of the morally licit options and all of the morally illicit options. Thus, a neutral or evil person is able to take easier, less dangerous, and more efficient paths through life.

Other definitions of "good" are possible in a fantasy setting, but are going to be less intuitive for many players. Subjective good is commonly attempted, as is "good" and "evil" being morally equivalent extremes with the ideal being "balance." Mostly, though, I tend to find that these don't usually hold up under scrutiny.

^This. Taking Good to extreme levels cannot, by definition, create moral flaws. Far better to show flaws in understanding, like the whole "Good cannot comprehend Evil" thing.

Delusion
2014-10-28, 11:52 AM
How about a system that assumes everyone in there to be good and selfless and thus lacks the checks and balances on power that individual can field? For example justice system would be formed around resolving disputes between people who are willing to cooperate and are willing to see the other side of the issue? In other words, the system would work as long as everyone is good and self sacrificing ,but falls apart as soon as you include an evil person in it.

No safe guards towards abuse, because no one good would abuse another person and that sort of thing.

Dasgovernator
2014-10-28, 12:36 PM
I think the "Utopia utterly unable to cope with external danger" approach would work well, especially if you're looking for a reason why this idea could ruin the world. Think a city with no walls, no town guards, not even locks on their doors (They are a sign of distrust of the community), and what happens to that once a marauding band of CE Orcs show up. Depending on how much of a caricature you want to make it, you could even have something where high-level Good Clerics spend their rounds trying to explain to the orcs that are swinging axes at them that what they're doing is wrong, right up until the clerics all get killed (Because violence is never the answer).

If you're willing to be a bit more cruel to your players, put them on trial for a 100% clear cut case of self defense (You killed the Orcs that were attacking you!). Better yet, require them to pay a penance of some kind for every living creature they kill (So instead of a reward, they come back to a bill), and to donate any loot they would have picked off the corpses (identified by the town officials via divination magic). That would probably make them just try to leave though.

Charity-shaming is an interesting idea as well, though it could also make the society seem Xenophic if not done right.

illyahr
2014-10-28, 01:08 PM
Think VIKI from the I, Robot movie. Her entire intention was to prevent humanity from destroying itself. She tried to protect all humans with as little violence as possible. Everything she tried to do was for the greater Good of mankind, as she saw it.

The_Werebear
2014-10-28, 01:34 PM
Of course, then you have your nest of Counterproductive Crusaders, each acting towards What Is Best For All without necessarily considering the collateral damage of their quests. Good Intentions Paving Company.


Can I steal that? You have just summed up three of my last five characters.

PendragonSpirit
2014-10-28, 04:40 PM
If you do not mind borrowing (heavily. Very heavily...) from a literary work, there is a concept from Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" I found intriguing.

One possible world woven toward the end of the series is a world without evil - without the "Dark One" (the BBEG of the series.) On the surface, it seems idyllic, until it is inspected more closely and considered that to have a world without evil, you would have to remove someone's capacity to CHOOSE evil. In essence, robbing them of their humanity (or dwarf-ity, elf-ity, whatever..) by removing the power to make their own decisions for good or evil. Limited to a single continent, I can imagine some form of powerful magic stripping the knowledge of evil from its inhabitants, forcing them to be little more than automatons.

Geostationary
2014-10-28, 05:45 PM
I suppose the society presented in the anime Psycho-pass could be considered "good". The basic conceit of the series is that criminality and psychological health can be objectively and accurately measured in a person, which is compiled into this thing called a psychopass (represented as a numeric score and a color). Once your score is above a certain point, you become a target for law enforcement. Depending on your score and circumstances, people are then taken for therapy or confined away from the populace in relatively comfortable institutions as "latent criminals". Next, society is controlled by a thing called the Sibyl System, which is best described as an aggressively utilitarian computer program that basically manages most aspects of society while optimizing for physical and psychological well-being as primarily measured through low psychopasses (low is good). It gets around the problem of evil people/outside influence through 1) pervasive surveillance and control over the populace and 2) being aggressively isolationist. The advanced robots also help.

Anyways, more lawful good than good per se, but I think it's a better alternative than easily misled people incapable of understanding evil. As you may imagine, the show itself is all about how this is not an ideal system.

Hyooz
2014-10-28, 08:55 PM
I agree with the plot in theory, but have to echo other posters that say it doesn't really work with the traditional DnD alignment axis.

Don't get me wrong, this kind of virtue-twisting is a favorite conceit of mine, the Ultima series is one of my favorites in all of gaming-dom, and every game since the fourth took a perverse pleasure in twisting the Virtue system in some new way.

For DnD, though, Good and Evil aren't sets of laws or philosophies, but literal, primal concepts. There is no Good-taken-too-far-acting-evil because that's just straight Evil at that point. Good, in DnD, is primal good-ness, seeking the welfare of others above the welfare of self (and in that could be an interesting hook - say a small tribe or group so dedicated to others over self that they are actively dying off out of refusal to take action for self preservation.)

So Good can be an excuse, or even a motivator for evil acts like "reformation" camps or strict adherence to the Laws of society or what-have-you, but that simply makes it DnD Evil disguised as Good.

So you'll need to define what the alignments mean in your world more fully to really develop this idea entirely.

Esprit15
2014-10-28, 10:46 PM
I would say look around on TVTropes, starting on the pages Good is not Nice (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsNotNice) and Good is not Soft (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsNotSoft) for ideas on how to run scary Good.

The thing about DnD alignment not reflecting real world morals is that that makes it perfect for comparisons. Things that we would see as bad can still be totally consistent with a Good alignment. And remember, there are still the Lawful and Chaotic axis to consider. If the party just came from an Evil land, have the paladins in the LG land ask them why they smell of Evil, and bring them in for questioning. Good in its extreme is not tolerant of Evil. Why were they in such a fowl place? Why did they come here so soon after? Why did they even leave the land alive while it was still standing. "All fall short of glory" should practically be the motto. Better to have died trying to destroy such a place than to turn and run. Self sacrifice is a given, and anything less is insufficient.

Joe the Rat
2014-10-29, 08:26 AM
Can I steal that? You have just summed up three of my last five characters.Go for it. I'm sure I stole it from somewhere in the first place.

Frozen_Feet
2014-10-29, 09:56 AM
When the players get to the Continent of Good, they find it to be a completely barren desert. The only creatures they meet there are Celestials or Constructs, beings that don't need to eat, sleep or even physically interact with anything on the whole continent. The reason is that life, itself, necessitates evil and breeds suffering. Benefit of one is the detriment of another. Even plants, which superficially only rely on sunlight, water and minerals, compete for living space and smother each other. The only way to escape this is to transcend life, to abandon it alltogether. The continent isn't a desert due to their actions; it always was so. People moved there precisely because there was no-one to hurt, and no-one to hurt them there and meditated until the heat and drought made their physical bodies perish. The Celestials are their enlightened spirits while the Constructs are their "offspring" of sorts.

Sith_Happens
2014-10-29, 10:55 AM
For DnD, though, Good and Evil aren't sets of laws or philosophies, but literal, primal concepts. There is no Good-taken-too-far-acting-evil because that's just straight Evil at that point.

On the other hand, there's definitely such thing as Good-taken-so-far-that-99%-of-PCs-will-want-nothing-to-do-with-the-place.:smallwink:

Friv
2014-10-29, 12:31 PM
When the players get to the Continent of Good, they find it to be a completely barren desert. The only creatures they meet there are Celestials or Constructs, beings that don't need to eat, sleep or even physically interact with anything on the whole continent. The reason is that life, itself, necessitates evil and breeds suffering. Benefit of one is the detriment of another. Even plants, which superficially only rely on sunlight, water and minerals, compete for living space and smother each other. The only way to escape this is to transcend life, to abandon it alltogether. The continent isn't a desert due to their actions; it always was so. People moved there precisely because there was no-one to hurt, and no-one to hurt them there and meditated until the heat and drought made their physical bodies perish. The Celestials are their enlightened spirits while the Constructs are their "offspring" of sorts.

Hell, yes. This is beautiful.

You can add some kind-of-creepy hermits that are slowly starving to death if you want conflicts for the players to engage in.

Admiral Squish
2014-10-29, 02:27 PM
I'm sorry, but the title line is driving me crazy as long as it remains unfinished. I just... have to do the whole thing.
To protect the world from devastation!
To unite all people within out nation!
To denounce the evils of truth and love!
to extend our reach to the stars above!
Jessie!
James!
Team rocket, blast off at the speed of light!
Surrender now, or prepare to fight!
Meowth, that's right!
God, that's deeply programmed, isn't it?

DaOldeWolf
2014-10-29, 03:24 PM
First of all, i would like to thank everyone for their contributions and feedback. Now to address the posts:

@PendragonSpirit & Geostationary. Those are a pretty nice concepts of "scary good".

@Esprit15: yeah, that is certainly true, with that i have the base for the main "good" antagonist.

@Frozen_Feet/Friv: While the idea of a desolated continent would be a nice twist to the usual good environment, my aim is to show the good and bad of each alignment.

Like with chaos, they got to enjoy the freedom of doing whatever they wanted without much consequences, commoners feared adventurers and would even give tokens to try to get on their good side and got to enjoy aspects like the praising of individuality and having to only worry about themselves.but they also, had to deal with merchants selling overpriced products because there were no regulations, with bandits and criminals trying to take their stuff and having to deal with the fact that there no authorities regulate criminals and thus no place to send them after they captured them.

The whole thematic of the campaign is to show how none of the alignments are better than the others (with all having their nice and disgusting traits) and how if one of the alignments dominated them all, the world would be a big mess.

@Admiral Squish: well, as long as it helps you get it out of your system. :smallwink:

THEChanger
2014-10-29, 03:57 PM
@Frozen_Feet/Friv: While the idea of a desolated continent would be a nice twist to the usual good environment, my aim is to show the good and bad of each alignment.

Like with chaos, they got to enjoy the freedom of doing whatever they wanted without much consequences, commoners feared adventurers and would even give tokens to try to get on their good side and got to enjoy aspects like the praising of individuality and having to only worry about themselves.but they also, had to deal with merchants selling overpriced products because there were no regulations, with bandits and criminals trying to take their stuff and having to deal with the fact that there no authorities regulate criminals and thus no place to send them after they captured them.

The whole thematic of the campaign is to show how none of the alignments are better than the others (with all having their nice and disgusting traits) and how if one of the alignments dominated them all, the world would be a big mess.

I mean...I don't know. It seems like the desolated continent is a pretty good way to do that for Good. Because you don't really need to show the good of Good. It's right there in the name. In my own experience, people are pretty well convinced that Good is, in the end, the superior option, especially when presented as D&DLand Universal Constant kind of Good. Just look at the thread at how entrenched that kind of thinking is.

Your players already understand the benefits and good points of D&D Good. People helping each other. Community action. Not killing people for their stuff(Okay, maybe that part isn't so beneficial for D&D characters, but your players should get it). The desolate continent shows the bad part of D&D Good, and the problem I've always had with actually calling it lower case g good.

Mortals don't get to have it.

The truth of D&D Good is that a completely Good Material Plane, even a completely Good continent, isn't possible while mortal races have a survival instinct. Absolute Good requires respect for life - all life, selflessness, generosity. A person without any Evil in them wouldn't be able to even eat plant life. They would make any sacrifice to help another, so long as it did not endanger anyone. And mortal people can't do that. We require some impulses which D&D Absolute Morality would label Evil, or at the very least not-Good.

So, if the world was completely Good...we wouldn't be in it. Nothing would. It would be a stagnant, dead world with no conflict and no growth. That's what this continent would represent. A world that is Good is a world without mortal life, and I would argue that such a world is not good.

Honest Tiefling
2014-10-30, 01:39 PM
Maybe they live on the best, the most fertile lands, with gentle winters and mild summers. Plenty of game, plenty of fish, plenty of water. People work happily under somewhat strict, but good governments. Few people have needs or wants.

People have upheld traditions for generations, not even realizing that the reason for doing so have long since passed. But they keep doing it, because that is the old ways, the ways that honor the gods/land/spirits/ancestors, what have you. They are also the ways that bind and connect them together as a people, as a civilization. They might have really strict hospitality laws.

Ambition above one's station is seen as also being selfish. You have your place in society, you will be taken care of. Why upset things because you want more? What of the society's needs in general? It needs farmers, and you are a farmer. You will never be anything else, and you should be happy there. Who are you, to overthrow centuries of tradition, centuries of stability and peace for your own desires? Why would you do such a hateful, petty thing?

They have also stagnated. Necessity is the mother of invention, and they don't have any real need to invent things. People might even be hostile to the idea of introducing new ideas, if something isn't broken, don't try to fix it. Wasting resources for things that will definitely not work is considered selfish, which means that making prototypes and testing ideas is seen as erratic, crazy and wasteful.

Hey, why was there a twang sound and now is a pointy stick with feathers on the end in my chest now?

More...Lawful good, so maybe they have decided to isolate themselves from their Chaotic good counterpart. The two co-exist, but find it hard to work with one another as they see bending their own ethics to be evil and sorta pretend the other side doesn't exist at all.

JusticeZero
2014-10-31, 12:51 PM
"We will help and protect you whether you want it or not". A lot of cultural segments that pride themselves on being good tend to Savage Slot the heck out of people. Look at the general conflicts between sex workers and people fighting prostitution for instance. (You don't have to take or agree with any given side.) The issue there is that some of those in the trade are upset by grainy and simplistic attempts to protect them. The efforts to address the social problems involved actually create a lot of headaches for people who don't fit the stereotype. So if you have some victimless crimes in the area, you can show the effects of Good being dismissive of the needs of a bunch of nominal criminals who are not causing any problems, or a bunch of "victims" for whom the aid doesn't work and isn't wanted.

Sartharina
2014-10-31, 05:45 PM
It's really hard to not say "Look at Canada"
Good provides two options - Reform Yourself, or Go To Hell (Free one way tickets!) There is no room for vice and selfishness in Good. With heavy emphasis on the former. They may or may not respect your refusal to reform. If they do... well, sorry, but you can't live or stay here. See you in the next world! If they don't - you're quarantined from society until you re-align your mind with Good. People are polite - not out of necessity, but because it's the right thing to do. If you get caught stealing from someone for selfish means, you can expect a lecture about life choices from the owner. And then, depending on your financial situation, either be allowed to keep what you stole, trade what you stole for similar monetary but lower sentimental value, or be required to donate what you stole and more to those in greater need (Including the ones you just robbed).

Also - there is nothing that you can possess beyond what you need to live a comfortable and contented lifestyle and assist others in doing the same that will not be requisitioned and seized to help the less fortunate attain a comfortable and contented lifestyle - either by voluntarily donating your stuff, or finding it stolen and redistributed by any of the million Robin Hood types living on the continent.

The people of a Good nation might be "Forgiving, but cautious". No, they don't hate you going on a killing spree and brutally murdering innocents - but they cannot allow you to not see the error of your ways, and WILL use whatever level of force is necessary to keep you contained - up to and including lethal force if the situation warrants. You'll get another chance to talk to them in the next life, either because you're Good All Along and are finally in a place completely free of evil (No minor evils that the Good nation couldn't quite stamp out and might drive someone to apparently overt evils), or because your soul has gone to a lower-than-upper plane, and the Upper Planes have the strength to conquer the multiverse - All aboard the train of redemption! If you're not ready to be redeemed, we'll quarantine you and let you writhe in the filth of your own corruption (And separated from anyone you could hurt) until you are.

DaOldeWolf
2014-10-31, 06:11 PM
It's really hard to not say "Look at Canada"
Good provides two options - Reform Yourself, or Go To Hell (Free one way tickets!) There is no room for vice and selfishness in Good. With heavy emphasis on the former. They may or may not respect your refusal to reform. If they do... well, sorry, but you can't live or stay here. See you in the next world! If they don't - you're quarantined from society until you re-align your mind with Good. People are polite - not out of necessity, but because it's the right thing to do. If you get caught stealing from someone for selfish means, you can expect a lecture about life choices from the owner. And then, depending on your financial situation, either be allowed to keep what you stole, trade what you stole for similar monetary but lower sentimental value, or be required to donate what you stole and more to those in greater need (Including the ones you just robbed).

Also - there is nothing that you can possess beyond what you need to live a comfortable and contented lifestyle and assist others in doing the same that will not be requisitioned and seized to help the less fortunate attain a comfortable and contented lifestyle - either by voluntarily donating your stuff, or finding it stolen and redistributed by any of the million Robin Hood types living on the continent.

The people of a Good nation might be "Forgiving, but cautious". No, they don't hate you going on a killing spree and brutally murdering innocents - but they cannot allow you to not see the error of your ways, and WILL use whatever level of force is necessary to keep you contained - up to and including lethal force if the situation warrants. You'll get another chance to talk to them in the next life, either because you're Good All Along and are finally in a place completely free of evil (No minor evils that the Good nation couldn't quite stamp out and might drive someone to apparently overt evils), or because your soul has gone to a lower-than-upper plane, and the Upper Planes have the strength to conquer the multiverse - All aboard the train of redemption! If you're not ready to be redeemed, we'll quarantine you and let you writhe in the filth of your own corruption (And separated from anyone you could hurt) until you are.

This is amazing material, i want to use this as base for the continent population. Thank you very much. :smallbiggrin:
Now, i have everything i will need. An environment, annoying quirks, ideas for quests on the region, even the "BIG GOOD". Thanks to everyone for assisting me!

Erik Vale
2014-10-31, 09:07 PM
*Reads first few, skips to the end*
Good thing I just read SCP.
SCP 752, Homo eudaimonia. (http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-752)

Everyone gives their all and works for the group... Which results in a caste system where workers willingly work themselves to death in their fourties and have effectively isolated themselves into a sup-species through selective breeding. Cannibalism is rampant, in that otherwise you're wasting corpses. The disabled/severely injured commit suicide because they are, and don't wish to be a burden on society [oh, and they're then eaten, because of the cannibalism]. The feeble are put down, that way they don't become a further waste of resources [Sorry Hawking].

This society may work best for LG, as they've got strict moral systems. However, things are also heavily debated before being put in, and are probably constantly debated.
In effect, they exhibit behaviours that most would consider heinous [effective slavery, cannibalism, euthanasia, forced euthanasia], but the cooperate with each other to a greater degree and are advancing at an above average rate. One could compare them to DA Qunari, but we don't see enough of them, and I'd peg them more as being LN.
Edit to this section: For this the Island would need to be quarantined, or they'd have to have never thought of boating... Or for some reason haven't been able to make it work, because theoretically they'd out compete everyone.

As for CG... They never get much done unless they absolutely have to, and by then they'll either narrowly succeed due to the delay, or all die because of it.

Edit: Also, that Charmed episode where everyone is cheery, and parking your car illegally gets you shot and left to bleed out on the street... And people bleeding to death in childbirth [there's a term, I've forgotten it] are left to die, because they're going to die. No attempt to save them, even if they could.

Aaaaand I didn't notice the thread was complete... That may be worth a title edit.

Sith_Happens
2014-11-02, 07:00 PM
The fact that there are two axis in the first place immensely complicates things. For example:


Like with chaos, they got to enjoy the freedom of doing whatever they wanted without much consequences, commoners feared adventurers and would even give tokens to try to get on their good side and got to enjoy aspects like the praising of individuality and having to only worry about themselves.but they also, had to deal with merchants selling overpriced products because there were no regulations, with bandits and criminals trying to take their stuff and having to deal with the fact that there no authorities regulate criminals and thus no place to send them after they captured them.

To me this sounds less like the faults of extreme Chaos and more like the faults of people being so focused on Chaos that they don't notice or care when someone is Good or Evil. Bandits? Evil. Price gouging merchants? Possibly Evil (also a problem of insufficient competition, the free market as we understand it is fundamentally Chaotic). What to do with the bandits? That is in fact a Law-Chaos problem at its heart, but it should be easy to find some local vigilantes to turn them over to, the question is what they'll do with the bandits and whether you can stomach it.

So if you want to fit the same pattern, the Good continent would have a lot of people behaving detrimentally Lawful or Chaotic, but no one cares as long as they're still being Good about it.


It's really hard to not say "Look at Canada"
Good provides two options - Reform Yourself, or Go To Hell (Free one way tickets!) There is no room for vice and selfishness in Good. With heavy emphasis on the former. They may or may not respect your refusal to reform. If they do... well, sorry, but you can't live or stay here. See you in the next world! If they don't - you're quarantined from society until you re-align your mind with Good. People are polite - not out of necessity, but because it's the right thing to do. If you get caught stealing from someone for selfish means, you can expect a lecture about life choices from the owner. And then, depending on your financial situation, either be allowed to keep what you stole, trade what you stole for similar monetary but lower sentimental value, or be required to donate what you stole and more to those in greater need (Including the ones you just robbed).

Also - there is nothing that you can possess beyond what you need to live a comfortable and contented lifestyle and assist others in doing the same that will not be requisitioned and seized to help the less fortunate attain a comfortable and contented lifestyle - either by voluntarily donating your stuff, or finding it stolen and redistributed by any of the million Robin Hood types living on the continent.

The people of a Good nation might be "Forgiving, but cautious". No, they don't hate you going on a killing spree and brutally murdering innocents - but they cannot allow you to not see the error of your ways, and WILL use whatever level of force is necessary to keep you contained - up to and including lethal force if the situation warrants. You'll get another chance to talk to them in the next life, either because you're Good All Along and are finally in a place completely free of evil (No minor evils that the Good nation couldn't quite stamp out and might drive someone to apparently overt evils), or because your soul has gone to a lower-than-upper plane, and the Upper Planes have the strength to conquer the multiverse - All aboard the train of redemption! If you're not ready to be redeemed, we'll quarantine you and let you writhe in the filth of your own corruption (And separated from anyone you could hurt) until you are.

On the other hand, this. So much this.