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Great cthulhu
2018-03-17, 11:19 AM
So, Ive been playing some non-D&D roleplaying games, and from what i can see, evil wizards have more powerful spells. Here are some examples:

In MERP(middle earth role-playing game) the rules for magic specifically state using too many powerful spells can corrupt you like saruman. I can understand some good wizards or clerics would rather die than become corrupt, but does that mean my evil half-troll wizard can use very powerful spells with no disadvantages?
In rogue trader, I play as a daemon sorcerer, who openly worships chaos (basically evil in the 40k universe), though he serves aboard an imperial vessel. This character uses sorcery, a super powerful spell list that corrupts the user as he gains more spells.

Excluding the fact that other characters will dislike the evil wizard, does that make him nonetheless more powerful than the other players?

Tiadoppler
2018-03-17, 11:31 AM
The following is all stereotype/cliche that frequently occurs in stories, not some inherent rule.


Evil could be defined as the willingness to harm others to benefit yourself.

A single Evil wizard may be willing to grab more sources of power, cast crueler spells, and use more immoral methods to succeed than a Good wizard, so a single Evil wizard is often more "powerful" than a single Good wizard, who is constrained by their personal ethics.

Good wizards have friends and social acceptance. A team of Evil wizards frequently backstabs each other, while a team of Good wizards can cooperate and function together. A team of Good wizards is often more powerful than a team of Evil wizards.

Aliquid
2018-03-17, 11:45 AM
It isn’t a matter of the magic just making the character “evil”. It is more like a situation where the wizard is no longer controlling the magic, because the magic is now controlling the wizard.

even a wizard who starts evil is no longer completely in control... they might care less that the magic makes them do chaotic things “oops, I just lost it and killed my assistant... he was a good one too... oh well, that’s the price you pay for being a powerful wizard”

Tanarii
2018-03-17, 11:56 AM
Of course. As the Emperor, Vader, Ben, and Yoda have taught us, the dark side is always more powerful than the light side. You just have to be willing to pay a terrible price.

Pleh
2018-03-17, 12:20 PM
Of course. As the Emperor, Vader, Ben, and Yoda have taught us, the dark side is always more powerful than the light side. You just have to be willing to pay a terrible price.

Luke "Is the dark side stronger?"

Yoda "No! No. Only faster, more seductive."

Bastian Weaver
2018-03-17, 12:26 PM
No, no, no. Dark Side is not more powerful. Dark Side is easier.
And corruption is a problem for evil characters, too. The Nazgul, for example, are powerful, but forced to serve Sauron.

Great cthulhu
2018-03-17, 12:32 PM
You know Pleh, I was going to post that same message, then I remembered...

This is coming from a guy who served an order who lied to its members saying that destroying the dark side would bring balance to the force, as well as kidnapped children and forced them to relinquish their humanity, all against their will.

PrismCat21
2018-03-17, 12:39 PM
You know Pleh, I was going to post that same message, then I remembered...

This is coming from a guy who served an order who lied to its members saying that destroying the dark side would bring balance to the force, as well as kidnapped children and forced them to relinquish their humanity, all against their will.

I don't recall anybody in the Jedi order that claimed destroying the Dark Side would bring balance to the Force.

I'm fact, I can't recall them saying anything about destroying the Dark Side at all.
If they did, please remind me.

Adeon Hawkwood
2018-03-17, 12:51 PM
I think another thing is that from a narrative perspective it's often necessary for evil wizards to be individually more powerful to counterbalance the fact that they don't cooperate. If the good wizards are working together to learn new spells, increase their power and train apprentices while the evil wizards are all hoarding power for themselves and constantly backstabbing each other they need to be individually more powerful to explain why the good wizards don't just form a few hit squads and take them out one by one.

Tanarii
2018-03-17, 02:57 PM
Luke "Is the dark side stronger?"

Yoda "No! No. Only faster, more seductive."
Classic Yoda. He gives the wrong answer, then it sound like wisdom, while also providing the actual answer.

Faster is more powerful. The problem is seductive, and the price it leads to.

Edit: but point made. Yoda doesn't teach it's more powerful

Pleh
2018-03-17, 03:07 PM
I don't recall anybody in the Jedi order that claimed destroying the Dark Side would bring balance to the Force.

I'm fact, I can't recall them saying anything about destroying the Dark Side at all.
If they did, please remind me.

Maybe not the dark side itself, but certainly the Sith. Windu (without correction from Yoda who was there) stated that the "chosen one" was supposed to bring balance to the force. Obi Wan, in confronting Anakin, elaborated that the Jedi believed that this meant Anakin was supposed to destroy the Sith (not join them!)

It seems to depend on what you perceive "balance" in the force to look like. If you think of it as balance between the light and dark, the Jedi were absolutely opposed to balance. They wanted the light side to totally win out and eradicate the dark side.

This comes from a perception that the dark side itself IS the force in a state of imbalance. The light side, ergo, is the nature of the force when perfectly at balance. Therefore, the jedi hope to see the chosen one to abolish the dark side and leave only the light side of the force, like resolving the force's own mental issues so it can act more rationally rather than destructively.

Pleh
2018-03-17, 03:11 PM
Classic Yoda. He gives the wrong answer, then it sound like wisdom, while also providing the actual answer.

Faster is more powerful. The problem is seductive, and the price it leads to.

Edit: but point made. Yoda doesn't teach it's more powerful

We kind of saw that it WASN'T stronger at most every point of contest. Anakin and Obi Wan on Mustafar got locked trying to push each other and it came out a tie. Yoda and palpatine was neck and neck for the entire fight.

In every one sided fight, it was more about one side being higher level, rather than being light or dark.

tensai_oni
2018-03-17, 03:21 PM
There is no "light side" of the Force. There is the Force and the unbalanced Dark Side.

Balance and the Force dominating are one and the same. Balance between "light" and "dark" sides of the Force is fanon.

At least that's how things used to be because post-Disney, what is canon and what isn't became muddled.

EDIT:

On point. Technically, evil and non-evil wizards have the same potential for power. However evil wizards have fewer taboos they are unwilling to break in pursue of power, and because of that they have more opportunities to grow powerful by for example sacrificing innocents or their soul to demons or whatever.

Satinavian
2018-03-17, 03:27 PM
Sure, evil wizards re more powerful.

Basically they are free to do all the magic the good wizards do and can additionally use magic with drawbacks that harm other people.
If your setting does not have some kind of cosmic force punishing the evil wizards and/or rewarding the good ones, that will them make stronger. A lot of settings do have such a force though.

Knaight
2018-03-17, 03:27 PM
In MERP specifically evil wizards appear to be stronger. It's also a fairly common trope in fantasy literature, and thus crops up every so often in works emulating that literature. With that said, it may or may not be true in aggregate across RPGs. For all that there's games which either have powers that support evil wizards specifically (from blood sacrifice rules to vile feats to corruption to magic only being available to terrible people) there are also games which expect heroic PCs and explicitly work off the PCs being individually stronger than most anything they're likely to come across. The average could go either way.

Martin Greywolf
2018-03-17, 03:56 PM
Others have pointed out setting and genre specific stuff that says yes, evil is more powerful.

I'd like to chip in with an alternative way to look at things. If you define evil sa completely amoral, or willing to cross lines others wouldn't, then it does make evil wizards more powerful in the fireballs per day sense, but. Using other people like disposable tools will turn against you after a while, and will promptly result in no one really liking you, all your allies being of convenience and ready to backstab you at a second's notice. The good wizard will have a lot more people he can rely on to help, maybe even an army, and these people will be much more willing to go the extra distance.

The most successful wizard in this case, however, is machiavellian - keeps a good eye on PR and pesky morals, but isn't afraid to do some morally shady things (or utterly reprehensible things, provided he can cover them up) if it will serve him. A wizard like this, well, you can argue about his alignment all day.

Speaking of Saruman, while he did some supersoldier breeding, he also wanted to help the people of Dunland repel foreign invaders of their lands (Rohirrim and Numenoreans), but that's what happens when you take a simple good vs evil story and try to apply realpolitik to it. Let's just say that LotR is a product of its time and has some problems in this regard.

Cazero
2018-03-17, 03:56 PM
Faster is more powerful.
By that logic, the Linear Fighter is stronger than the Quadratic Wizard.

Florian
2018-03-17, 04:01 PM
By that logic, the Linear Fighter is stronger than the Quadratic Wizard.

Depends on what edition you play.

@OP:

Look at Maho Tsukai as a prime example. Power for a price. That's not a player PrC because that price can´t be met in the long run.

Great cthulhu
2018-03-17, 04:17 PM
Continuing on with this new dark/light side of the force conversation,

An entire order, hundreds of "good guys" could not beat two "bad guys" They played both sides, eventually resulting in almost every single member of the Jedi ended up dying. TWO "bad guys"
Also, from what i've seen in alignment in the movies:
Light side: neutral
Dark side: neutral
Sith: Evil
Jedi: Evil
Rebellion: good
Empire: evil

Florian
2018-03-17, 04:26 PM
Continuing on with this new dark/light side of the force conversation,

Just a thought: It is always easier and more convenient to just nuke a city than spell the blood and conquer the city.

Knaight
2018-03-17, 04:46 PM
By that logic, the Linear Fighter is stronger than the Quadratic Wizard.

Linear doesn't mean faster - it potentially means initially faster, but eventually it's going to be slower. Faster power growth at all times is going to result in more power.

Cazero
2018-03-17, 05:04 PM
Linear doesn't mean faster - it potentially means initially faster, but eventually it's going to be slower. Faster power growth at all times is going to result in more power.
If you make the assumption that Yoda lied and that the dark side is more powerful, your reasoning is correct.

However, if you make the assumption that Yoda is correct and that the dark side is not more powerful, then it is pretty clear that we are in one of the two following situations :
1) the dark side is a power spike followed by sluggish growth,
2) power caps out, and going to your maximum faster is usualy pointless (and may even reduce it).

PhoenixPhyre
2018-03-17, 05:29 PM
If you make the assumption that Yoda lied and that the dark side is more powerful, your reasoning is correct.

However, if you make the assumption that Yoda is correct and that the dark side is not more powerful, then it is pretty clear that we are in one of the two following situations :
1) the dark side is a power spike followed by sluggish growth,
2) power caps out, and going to your maximum faster is usualy pointless (and may even reduce it).

To amplify #2 above, taking short-cuts in learning (e.g. memorizing special cases instead of learning the general principles) often reduces your knowledge ceiling. So you can go faster, but cap out much lower than if you did it the "right" way.

Bastian Weaver
2018-03-17, 06:10 PM
Is it really necessary to mention that the antagonist must seem stronger than the protagonist to keep the conflict interesting?..

Pleh
2018-03-17, 07:17 PM
Continuing on with this new dark/light side of the force conversation,

An entire order, hundreds of "good guys" could not beat two "bad guys" They played both sides, eventually resulting in almost every single member of the Jedi ended up dying. TWO "bad guys"
Also, from what i've seen in alignment in the movies:
Light side: neutral
Dark side: neutral
Sith: Evil
Jedi: Evil
Rebellion: good
Empire: evil

Double edged sword. Two sith with unlimited resources couldn't kill more than 1 out of 3 jedi 20 years later.

Might be more an issue of, "don't try to kill a mosquito with a cannon" than dark>light.

Also, Rogue One really draws into question your assertion the rebellion was Good and not merely Neutral.

Edit: yoda in the prequels and Luke in the new trilogy both kind of insinuated the fall of the order (both times) was personal hubris. Not a weakness of the light side, but user error.

Tanarii
2018-03-17, 07:46 PM
By that logic, the Linear Fighter is stronger than the Quadratic Wizard.
You misunderstood. By that logic, a level 10 character, who gained XP faster, is more powerful than a level 5.

Anonymouswizard
2018-03-17, 08:29 PM
From a gaming perspective it's not a universal thing, and arguably having it inbuilt in the system is rare (it's not in the majority of my fantasy games, but I don't own that many, and most of them don't track any sort of character morality).

From a story perspective, it depends. Sometimes the evil wizard is more powerful, sometimes they have more resources (so are more powerful, but not because of their magic), are willing to tap into sources that are dangerous to themselves to others, or are just willing to break taboos that good magicians aren't.

FWIW it's common in gaming so that you can have the party beat up the evil wizard without it feeling too one-sided.

Mechalich
2018-03-17, 08:43 PM
Evil wizards - and in some cases just evil characters generally - are more powerful if doing evil provides rewards that are greater than the rewards for doing good. Often this takes the form of specific actions that only evil people would conduct that provide a material benefit with not counterbalancing good action.

A simple and classical example is human sacrifice: if killing people provides power, and saving people doesn't provide the same amount of power (or no power at all) then evil is more powerful and your world has an inducement to terrifying cosmic horror that will produce a world of hideous grimdark. In D&D context the type example is Dark Sun: Defilier magic allows for power at the expense of the ecosystem. The result is a destroyed ecosystem and a grimdark hellscape ruled by corrupt wizard gods.

It should be noted that this is bad setting and system design if you are intending to produce a world that is not a grimdark hellscape or a rumination on cosmic horror you should not build a world this way. In fact, given incentives, laziness, and other factors it is generally better design if good is explicitly stronger than evil, though usually a more difficult path. Many settings often fail to do this. One reason is the influence of salvationist moral thinking in which the entire world is functionally a test. In a salvationist scenario it doesn't matter if the world is a grimdark hellscape, only personal virtue matters, because everyone is facing an inescapable, all-powerful judgment in due course and will be rewarded appropriately. Many settings apply options that make sense in the context of a salvationist world - like the ability to sell your soul for temporary power - that become meaningless when judgment will never come.

Cluedrew
2018-03-17, 09:21 PM
There is no "light side" of the Force. There is the Force and the unbalanced Dark Side.This is also my interpretation too, although I think the two-sides view got picked up in later works and might now be the "proper" one. Of course I'm not sure what happened with that when the cannon reset.

In terms of wizards, the only idea I can think of is goodness as a (metaphoric) payment. It is related the magic that makes you strong, but also leaves you as a shadow of your formal self.

And then good wizards tend to support each other, so you can be a mediocre or weak good wizard. However an evil wizard will either be hunted, or used and cast aside, shifting the average. Although that one doesn't cover the upper limit.

Morphic tide
2018-03-17, 09:43 PM
In roleplaying games that give access to "evil" abilities, almost always yes, because of a heavy bias towards "Good is Hard" making cases of giving balancing bonuses for not using the Evil abilities rare. For example, one of the darker jokes in 3.X is that there's virtually nothing that can't be accomplished by killing enough people, made literally true with the Book of Vile Darkness introducing rules to kill people for everything from negating crafting costs to a one-per-person Wish (and getting the Wish from a livestock sacrifice isn't particularly difficult by level 5). And summoning Fiends, which is actually rather minor compared to the other options.

The stuff on offer for being Good requires you to take an unbreakable oath to abstain from mechanically-important things, you lose the benefits the moment you commit a single Evil act, and mostly only benefits Paladins and Clerics, of which the latter has better options independant of alignment and the former is too **** for it to really help, especially when required oaths can include forsaking all magic item use, never using a single consumable item or accepting any magical buff, forbidding yourself from ever inflicting lethal damage and other stuff extremely problematic for 3.X. Meanwhile, the living sacrifice rules are an Evil act to use, but don't require you to be a raging dickwaffle at all times to use them, unlike the "you must literally make actual saints look shady in comparison to your righteous ass to have this" Exalted feats.

Few systems integrate mechanical penalties for being Evil or have all the Evil options include clear disadvantages that are problematic for PCs, because then the allure of Evil vanishes. And then they abstain from having rules that have Good outdoing Evil actually work, as they rarely specify that the Evil powers require you to be a backstabbing ******* and as such Lawful Evil Giganazis can happily trample over the do-gooders because they've god fundamental objective advantages.

Tanarii
2018-03-17, 10:06 PM
Few systems integrate mechanical penalties for being Evil or have all the Evil options include clear disadvantages that are problematic for PCs, because then the allure of Evil vanishes.
There are many systems that do this. Or have magic be inherently corrupting, so that any use of it is trading power for risk, regardless of alignment.

Warhammer, both Fantasy and 40k. Runequest. Call of the Cthulu. Beyond the Supernatural. Those are four off the top of my head. I'd also count AW. I haven't played enough WoD so something else would have to comment.

IMX D&D used to be something of to be the outlier on "magic comes without an in-game price" system in RPGs. Instead it used real-world price: time. Magic-users required a lot more invested real world time to gain power.

But like pretty much anything, most people want easy "power" without having to work hard for it. This is as true in RPG-land as anything else. So as the market expanded, instead of having easy power come from something only in-game twisted people would do, and with downsides only in-game twisted people would risk, or with a real-world large invested time price tag attached ... now survival, leveling, and rapid gain (or starting with) large relative power is much more common in the market.

I seem to have wandered slightly off topic in my nostagic rant. :smallbiggrin:

Mechalich
2018-03-17, 10:52 PM
Few systems integrate mechanical penalties for being Evil or have all the Evil options include clear disadvantages that are problematic for PCs, because then the allure of Evil vanishes. And then they abstain from having rules that have Good outdoing Evil actually work, as they rarely specify that the Evil powers require you to be a backstabbing ******* and as such Lawful Evil Giganazis can happily trample over the do-gooders because they've god fundamental objective advantages.

TTRPG design is rightfully leery of introducing 'corruption' impacts that alter the personality of a PC is meaningful way, because it's basically a license for the GM to abuse a character. Unfortunately, this is classically how the self-destructive nature of being corruptive by evil plays out in essentially all storytelling. Instead you get super-functioning psychopaths with no moral restraint but non of the other pathologies that cluster with them.

As a result we tend to get moral metering systems that have a bunch of purely fluff impacts until a PC crosses some metaphorical redline and becomes an NPC. This is what happened in VtM when you ran out of humanity, it was how several iterations of dark side point systems worked in Star Wars, and there are other examples. Corruption is hard to model mechanically in the mid-range and most morality mechanics are fairly easy to metagame around - 'got to avoid that last dark side point.'

Also, many systems try to put forward social impacts for evil, and this rarely works because in most systems PCs are well beyond the power of society to easily constrain. Having the city guard arrest you for murder quickly becomes a ridiculous exercise in D&D and many other systems, and having OP NPCs running around the setting to maintain the moral structure - like in FR - is a terrible setup anyway.

Bohandas
2018-03-17, 11:20 PM
We kind of saw that it WASN'T stronger at most every point of contest. Anakin and Obi Wan on Mustafar got locked trying to push each other and it came out a tie. Yoda and palpatine was neck and neck for the entire fight.

In every one sided fight, it was more about one side being higher level, rather than being light or dark.

It's stronger if you're human and don't have 900 years to master the light side

Bohandas
2018-03-17, 11:25 PM
Having the city guard arrest you for murder quickly becomes a ridiculous exercise in D&D and many other systems,

Indeed it's intrinsically a problem in D&D because if the city guard is powerful enought to handle the PCs they're powerful enough to handle whatever the problem is and that sort of negates the premise

Bohandas
2018-03-17, 11:34 PM
There are many systems that do this. Or have magic be inherently corrupting, so that any use of it is trading power for risk, regardless of alignment.

Warhammer, both Fantasy and 40k. Runequest. Call of the Cthulu. Beyond the Supernatural. Those are four off the top of my head. I'd also count AW. I haven't played enough WoD so something else would have to comment.

IMX D&D used to be something of to be the outlier on "magic comes without an in-game price" system in RPGs. Instead it used real-world price: time. Magic-users required a lot more invested real world time to gain power.

It requires quite a bit of in-game time too. 9 hours total for spell preparation. You can't just spam spells like every wizard in every fantasy movie, TV show, and anime ever

oxybe
2018-03-17, 11:49 PM
Evil is more... pragmatic then Good.

Evil does what it has to, to gain power. This is what's scary about evil.

Evil has just a few qualms burning down an orphanarium as it does building a new one, as long as doing so is the action that best serves it's goals. This is the scary thing about Evil: being evil doesn't preclude the Evil from doing good, it's just doing good for selfish reasons instead of altruistic ones.

In this case our Evil wizard is in a sense more powerful then a non-evil one in that all else being equal, the Evil wizard will choose the path that will best serve it's needs more then the non-evil one, who may choose a more self-destructive, but altruistic one, coming out at a "loss" when all is said and done.

And I say "loss" because for the non-evil wizard, what he lost in the act is less in comparison to what he gained, so po-tah-to, po-tay-to (boil 'em, mash 'em stick 'em in a stew!. Largely it's about that perspective.

The other issue is that of moral objectivity.

See, outside of Skeletor going around yelling "NYEAH! I WILL GO KILL THE HE-MAN AND THEN DROWN THIS BAG OF PUPPIES BECAUSE I AM TEH EVIL... NYEAH!", most villains don't see themselves that way.

To them their actions (which us the viewer, as well as the hero to contrast the Evil Wizard, whom I now decided is called Edward Vil Wizarddington the VIIIth) aren't evil/wrong... they're justified. Some may feel remorse but in the end say "I did the right thing/what had to be done".

And if to make that omelette you have to force-crack a few younglings, well...

So the path of Evil isn't one that's more powerful, just one that plays by a different set of rules then the path of Good: since Evil's path has fewer self-imposed restrictions then the Good one, that's where the "power" comes from and is more then willing to play by Good's rules if they also play to Evil's strengths, but are more then ready to discard them if they don't.

In short, Good chooses to play Soccer on Evil's Calvinball pitch.

Pleh
2018-03-18, 04:51 AM
It's stronger if you're human and don't have 900 years to master the light side

So, Obi Wan never defeated Darth Maul, or Vader on Mustafar, and Luke never beat Vader (in 2 out of 3 movies)?

I'm not impressed by this idea that human lifespan makes the darkside more worthwhile. All the combat we've seen between dark and light side human jedi again comes down more to natural talent mixed with practice than whether they use light or dark.

The only real difference seems to be that the dark side has more proclivity to directly harming people through the force itself. Honestly, the lightsaber both sides wield is their least humane method of dealing damage.

Satinavian
2018-03-18, 06:33 AM
Well, Star Was has such an extra actor rewarding/punishing. It is the Force itself this time.

Unfortunately we mostly see Light Side Users, getting guidance, prophecies, lucky coincidences etc. and we don't really know, if Dark side users get the same. But it is hinted that they don't or at least don't get those to a similar extend.

But what is far more important is the punishing here. Dark side users are pretty much all insane. Where evil is willing to make sacrifices good is not willing to do, Dark side users lose the ability to think rationally about this additional cost and weight it up against the benefit. They always become obsessed with something and waste all the power they amassed for achieving that goal. Suddenly no price is ever to high for a Dark side user. And if that was not already bad enough, they also get paranoia. Some sources even hint they also get cravings for stupid evil things turning them from additional options to pure necessity. And then there is that strange side effect through which all Dark side users develop serious disablities or disfigurements, which is sometimes treates as rule and price, sometimes as pure coincidence.

So yes, Light side is stronger.

khadgar567
2018-03-18, 09:24 AM
you know what Red Fel, Red Fel, Red Fel. we need the master of evil to show the proper way one more time as this is getting sly.

Andor13
2018-03-18, 10:07 AM
Evil, IMHO, is generally rooted in some combination of selfishness, self-deception, and short term thinking, it also tends to focus on negative sum and zero sum transactions and has kind of a blind spot about positive sum transactions. Evil often has a short term advantage, because it is focused on the short term, but in the long term it tends to be self-crippling.

This is a IRL evil, everything goes out the window with Supernatural Evil, because magic does whatever the author wants it to. In most of the heroic fiction that D&D draws on Wizards tend to be, at the very least, not good. This is either because they acquire power by serving dark forces, or because they have become so powerful that they have no need to fear consequences. (See H.G.Wells The Invisible Man, Griffin becomes a villain, not because he is more powerful than any other man, but because he thinks his invisibility gives him freedom from the consequences of his actions.) Note however that D&D has become a genre unto itself, and magicians are at least as often heroes as villains.



Well, Star Was has such an extra actor rewarding/punishing. It is the Force itself this time.

Unfortunately we mostly see Light Side Users, getting guidance, prophecies, lucky coincidences etc. and we don't really know, if Dark side users get the same. But it is hinted that they don't or at least don't get those to a similar extend.

I feel like we didn't watch the same movies. Palpatine's strongest powers by far were his foresight, and his ability to cloud the sight of the Jedi while retaining his own.

Pleh
2018-03-18, 11:41 AM
I feel like we didn't watch the same movies. Palpatine's strongest powers by far were his foresight, and his ability to cloud the sight of the Jedi while retaining his own.

Yeah, the "supernatural force guidance" powers seem pretty universal. It seems more a question of how much are they listening and paying attention, which requires discipline to quiet the mind and focus.

The benefit jedi have is that all their teachings emphasize this kind of self control and attentiveness. The Sith undermine their ability to hear by intentionally filling their minds with noisy emotions like hate and pain that make the attempt to listen to counsel difficult. The Sith who master foresight often do so similar to predators that have to push aside hunger to focus on the act of hunting, which is exactly what palpatine what truly skilled at doing: having the patience to focus all his dark emotions to pursuing long term goals.

The battle for every jedi is having enough discipline to hear even the most subtle stirrings of the force. The battle for every sith is maintaining their presence of mind while harnessing the power of their destructive negative emotions.

But if you watch carefully, palpatine (and vader) never actually says that the dark side is stronger. They suggest that it is powerful, but never deny the strength of the light side. At best, they imply the dark side is stronger, but they never outright declare the dark side stronger. Palpatine teaches that the dark side possesses different powers (some would consider "unnatural") and he implies it has a strength that is unlike the light side. It would be quite fitting for the dark side to fool its users into believing it to be stronger than it actually is, because deception is a form of power as well.

"But more kinds of power IS more power." Not necessarily. Just as faster power isn't always more power.

Suppose we had one magic class in 3.5 that only had one spell per spell level and had no choice of which spell, but all the spell gained were the most powerful and broken abilities available. Then compare with a class that can choose from any spell list even at first level, but never gets more than their first level spell slot. Which is stronger?

A faster power progression may be limited by having a shorter power scale. A more diverse selection of abilities may be stuck choosing from a set that fails to compete with a more limited set.

Tanarii
2018-03-18, 11:43 AM
All the combat we've seen between dark and light side human jedi again comes down more to natural talent mixed with practice than whether they use light or dark.
All the combat we've seen involves fighting with a light saber.

Whenever it goes to telekinesis or force lightning, only Yoda manages to hold his own.

Pleh
2018-03-18, 11:55 AM
All the combat we've seen involves fighting with a light saber.

Whenever it goes to telekinesis or force lightning, only Yoda manages to hold his own.

You've clearly forgotten half of it, then.

Obi-Wan deflected Dooku's lightning with lightsaber assistance (that can't be a mundane effect, he was going half and half lightsaber and force).

Anakin and Obi-Wan tried a simultaneous push and broke even.

Your memory seems a bit selective.

Bohandas
2018-03-18, 12:37 PM
Unfortunately we mostly see Light Side Users, getting guidance, prophecies, lucky coincidences etc. and we don't really know, if Dark side users get the same.

Snoke definitely did, although they were vague enough to be fatally misinterpreted. (unless he really is Plagueis as some fan theories contend and really is unable to be permanently killed, in which case he may have seen it clearly and not cared)

He was also able to implant false visions and prophecies in others.

Tanarii
2018-03-18, 01:50 PM
Obi-Wan deflected Dooku's lightning with lightsaber assistance (that can't be a mundane effect, he was going half and half lightsaber and force).Deflecting force lightning with light sabers is very much a mundane effect, and part of the reason for them.


Anakin and Obi-Wan tried a simultaneous push and broke even.Oh my bad. A fully trained Jedi managed to handle a Padawan just turned to the dark side. How could I possibly have overlooked it.


Your memory seems a bit selective.ironic. :smallbiggrin:

Red Fel
2018-03-18, 02:52 PM
you know what Red Fel, Red Fel, Red Fel. we need the master of evil to show the proper way one more time as this is getting sly.

Sure, okay, I'm in.


So, Ive been playing some non-D&D roleplaying games, and from what i can see, evil wizards have more powerful spells. Here are some examples:

*SNIP*

Excluding the fact that other characters will dislike the evil wizard, does that make him nonetheless more powerful than the other players?

Short version? There are two spectra of power to consider.

First is distinctly Evil powers and spells. The Yoda quote has already been raised, but it's a fair point - many powers that are intrinsically Evil are shortcuts. Good powers, or non-aligned ones, tend to require more work to get the most mileage, but they tend to pay off pretty well. Evil powers tend to frontload their efficacy, but do so with a cost, and in endgame, Evil powers may or may not have as much punch as their Good or non-aligned equivalents.

That said, Evil powers also tend to be far more utilitarian. Good powers, or again non-aligned ones, can handle pretty much whatever, from cleansing a water supply to helping crops grow; neat little tricks, not necessarily useful. Good powers in particular tend to be more subtle, and therefore harder to call "powerful," than Evil ones - for example, telekinesis or the "Jedi mind trick" are only as useful as you make them. Evil powers tend to be results focused - typically, destroying or dominating your enemies, causing them pain, and so forth.

So, in terms of Evil powers versus everything else, I'd say it's a bit of a mix - Evil powers tend to be more destructively-focused, and tend to show their strength earlier on, but other powers can exceed them in the long run. It's just a matter of "power now, at any cost," versus "power later, maybe."

Next spectrum, however, deals with Evil characters versus Good or non-aligned. And here's the big difference: An Evil character will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals, unconstrained by morality.

This point has been raised, but it bears noting. Evil Wizards, or Sith, or whomever, appear more powerful because they refuse to stand in their own way. If a Good character is thinking about killing you, they will have second thoughts or restrain themselves. If an Evil character is thinking about you, you are already dead, and he or she will use whatever tools are available.

This creates an appearance of being more powerful, due to the fact that (1) the Evil character is able to take actions that other characters can or will not, and (2) the Evil character is willing to use means that other characters can or will not. Which means that, generally, (3) the Evil character will be more effective, more successful, than other characters. And that makes the Evil character look more powerful by comparison.

Pleh
2018-03-18, 03:06 PM
Deflecting force lightning with light sabers is very much a mundane effect, and part of the reason for them.

I don't think so. Mace Windu had to work pretty hard to ward off palpatine's blast while Obi Wan had no trouble with Dooku's when given the opportunity to focus. Seems pretty clearly a force ability.

Also, Mace deflected Palpatine's lightning, which even Yoda struggled at. 900 years only made Yoda slightly more effective at it.


Oh my bad. A fully trained Jedi managed to handle a Padawan just turned to the dark side. How could I possibly have overlooked it.

Correction, Anakin was a fully trained Jedi Knight prodigy with a higher medichlorian count than Yoda who had recently been seriously considered for being granted the title of Master only a short time before this conflict. By that point, Anakin has already fully trained *another* jedi (ashoka).

In terms of training, they were near equals, and the fight with Dooku during Palpatine's rescue showed that Anakin had just about surpassed Obi Wan in skill with the blade.

This was a contest between a veteran jedi master and a knight bordering on master who had "chosen one" attributes and doped up on the dark side. It still came out a tie.

Satinavian
2018-03-18, 04:11 PM
So, in terms of Evil powers versus everything else, I'd say it's a bit of a mix - Evil powers tend to be more destructively-focused, and tend to show their strength earlier on, but other powers can exceed them in the long run. It's just a matter of "power now, at any cost," versus "power later, maybe."
Quite a lot of evil powers are just about taboo breaking, there does not need to be anything destructive involved. Most of the necromancy stuff is the obvious one, but nearly every version of seeking immortality and quite a bit of disregarding natural order (e.g. making chimeras) is branded evil too in a surprising number of settings.

Kitten Champion
2018-03-18, 04:25 PM
There's a certain assumption in many TTRPGs that you're going to default to a Good-to-Neutral party. Of course there are numerous games which intentionally buck that and push you into various shades of grey and black, but works like D&D and its various cousins are centred around delivering that party-based Heroic Fantasy experience. Evil magicians are presumed to be villains that your protagonists fight, it's a pretty well-established archetype in myth, folklore, and contemporary fantasy after all.

One of the benefits of having Evil magician gain power in a mechanical sense by doing Evil is to provide a straightforward motivation for them. "S/he/it's sacrificing innocents for cosmic powers!" is easy as far as creating conflicts go, you can even bake it further into the setting like Dark Sun does if you want to make it more thematically developed. Having more power make them more difficult to fight, and thus more fun as villains. The question of "why doesn't Evil rule over everything if they get more power that way" is partly resolved by the fact that D&D stereotypical Evil is intrinsically selfish and unstable, the Drow for instance are collectively quite powerful with numerous high-level magic users without scruples but their knife-in-back ways makes them a marginal threat to every else. The individually weaker but collectively stronger approach of an Adventuring Party balances against them.

Of course, you usually have the option to be Evil yourself, but in doing so you invert the conflict to turn society against you. Which also works to balance things somewhat.

My impression of D&D over editions has been that the designers have realized that a lot of players want those Evil abilities without being strictly Evil, so they've boxed many of them into being culturally taboo - or at least frowned upon - and moved more to a murky grey territory than just making them outright tools of villains. You can see similar positions developed for video games like Warlocks and Demon Hunters in WoW, or Blood Magic in Dragon Age -- that fantasy is something people want but at the same time they don't want to actually be treated with the kind of hostility and dread that the powers they use would usually entail in the lore, though those games have to then balance those so they aren't actually overpowered.

Lord_Drayakir
2018-03-19, 05:09 PM
Yes, evil wizards are generally more powerful than good wizards. In general, evil people are more powerful than good people because Evil is less self-limiting. Granted, Good is more likely to cooperate, so your best bet as an Evil wizard/person is to be Evil enough where you have an advantage over everybody, but not Evil enough where Good is going to team up on you.

Benthesquid
2018-03-19, 09:26 PM
Urban Shadows has an interesting mechanic for this- Corruption. When you do things that Corrupt your character (each Playbook has a different thing that will trigger this, plus just generally being evil can, at the MC's discretion) you mark Corruption. Mark enough and you mark a Corruption advancement.

Corruption Advancements come with some really cool, powerful moves. (The Vamp, for example, can get "That human NPC can't escape you no matter what, and you can kill them or feed on them at will). Those moves also cause you to mark corruption.

But here's the catch- there are a limited number of Corruption Advances, and one of them is "Retire your character. They may return as a Threat."

So yeah, you gave into Corruption. Congratulations. You've been Corrupted. You're no longer the character you were. Give your sheet to the MC and figure out who you want to play next. And brace yourself for the character you built and gave all those cool, dark, twisted powers to come back, under the MC's control, and tear down everything you'd previously accomplished with them.

tomandtish
2018-03-19, 11:11 PM
There is no "light side" of the Force. There is the Force and the unbalanced Dark Side.

Balance and the Force dominating are one and the same. Balance between "light" and "dark" sides of the Force is fanon.

At least that's how things used to be because post-Disney, what is canon and what isn't became muddled.

EDIT:

On point. Technically, evil and non-evil wizards have the same potential for power. However evil wizards have fewer taboos they are unwilling to break in pursue of power, and because of that they have more opportunities to grow powerful by for example sacrificing innocents or their soul to demons or whatever.

In old AD&D (1E) days in the DragonLance setting, Black robe wizards (generally thought of as evil) could gain power more quickly, but were more limited in spells they could cast. At 18th (as high as the old table for DL went), a Black robe wizard spells by level were: 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 2 1. A White robe wizard on the other hand, required more XP per level (so gained power more slowly), but ended up with spells of: 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 3 3

Tanarii
2018-03-20, 06:42 AM
In old AD&D (1E) days in the DragonLance setting, Black robe wizards (generally thought of as evil) could gain power more quickly, but were more limited in spells they could cast. At 18th (as high as the old table for DL went), a Black robe wizard spells by level were: 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 2 1. A White robe wizard on the other hand, required more XP per level (so gained power more slowly), but ended up with spells of: 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 3 3
This is, that's comparing apples (level X black robe) to oranges (level X white robe). That's why they get "less" spells, the levels aren't flat equivalents, unlike later editions. And in DL nobody "ended up" at max level, that was just there to prevent west coast power gaming. The only character to ever reach the level cap was Raistlin, the lore was explicit about that back then. Black robes were just flat out more powerful, because they advanced faster.

And they weren't generally thought of as evil, they were required to be evil.
(Color coded alignment for your convenience. :smallamused: )

Segev
2018-03-20, 10:35 AM
While Red Fel breaks it into two "facets," I actually think they boil down to the same thing: willingness to take the short cut. Red Fel did mention this, but mostly as the second "facet."

Are your powers evil because they "corrupt" you, or because you had to make a dark pact for power now that you'll owe on later? That's a short cut. Are your powers evil because they require a high cost, but you can make others pay it? (e.g. sacrificing virgin elves as part of a heinous ritual) That, too, is a short cut. The final use of that ritual's granted power can almost certainly be obtained through other, harder means that may cost you, personally, more in time, effort, or other substance, but the ritual is easier on you for the power it grants.

I won't say that evil is necessarily less likely to hesitate about killing. There is still the consideration of consequences for it which may stay their hand: future utility of the person to be killed compared to the threat they pose/joy killing them would bring; concern over vengeful friends/family; possible legal repercussions (including fines for killing somebody else's serfs); etc. In addition, Terry Pratchett points out that, once the choice to murder somebody has been made, evil men are more likely to relish the moment. To gloat, or pause to savor, or extend it with pain before finishing off their victim. Good people, once they've decided somebody must die, will just do it as quickly as possible. They take no joy in it. There's nothing to savor.

But yes. Evil will take the direct path. The short cut. This isn't "cheating," to them. It's pragmatic. Foolish evil thinks they'll never have to pay the credit card debt, and will just rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars of it. Wiser evil will recognize that there are ways to exploit it so that somebody else winds up paying their debts for them.

Max_Killjoy
2018-03-20, 11:02 AM
There is no "light side" of the Force. There is the Force and the unbalanced Dark Side.

Balance and the Force dominating are one and the same. Balance between "light" and "dark" sides of the Force is fanon.

At least that's how things used to be because post-Disney, what is canon and what isn't became muddled.


That was one agenda that was pushed by certain in-setting factions and by those fans who took the words of those factions as gospel.

The Force having "light" and "dark" sides predates Disney and appeared in official Lucas-level canon-level material. For starters, it appeared in 100% cannon Clone Wars animated series, and those episodes built on far earlier ideas.

Of course, what's canon and what actually makes any damn sense are often quite divergent even in the Lucas era.

Max_Killjoy
2018-03-20, 11:13 AM
Something to consider is the difference between the magic itself being inherently corrupting, and the price one has to pay being inherently corrupting.

For example, immortality.

In some settings, obtaining immortality is evil because it requires clearly evil steps to complete the process. It's not the immortality itself that's evil.

In other settings, just obtaining immortality is seen as evil, because it "breaks the natural order" or "violates the cycle life and death" or some other equally vapid bullcrap. Even if someone could obtain immortality by saying "I'd like to live forever" three times, it would still be "evil" in that setting, "because".


Going back to the Star Wars example, it's widely asserted that "force lightning" is automatically evil... because it is. It's largely based on who we do and don't see use it, and little else, with a lot of retroactive justification whipped up. What really makes "force lightning" a "dark side power", through, other than "because we said it is"?

Morphic tide
2018-03-20, 12:22 PM
Going back to the Star Wars example, it's widely asserted that "force lightning" is automatically evil... because it is. It's largely based on who we do and don't see use it, and little else, with a lot of retroactive justification whipped up. What really makes "force lightning" a "dark side power", through, other than "because we said it is"?

Something, something "can only be done by intending a painful murder", far as I know.

Pleh
2018-03-20, 01:28 PM
The desire to torture a person to death directly through use of the Force itself inflicting massive pain and shock seems pretty much a "dark side" way of resolving things.

I thought Luke learned a "green lightning" lightside power in the old EU?

PhoenixPhyre
2018-03-20, 01:32 PM
The desire to torture a person to death directly through use of the Force itself inflicting massive pain and shock seems pretty much a "dark side" way of resolving things.

I thought Luke learned a "green lightning" lightside power in the old EU?

It's also a power that can a) only be used as an attack (can't be used defensively or for non-combat purposes) and b) kills slowly and painfully. Seems like a shoe-in for a dark side power to me.

Max_Killjoy
2018-03-20, 01:59 PM
Don't want to derail the thread, so no one has to answer, but consider this question: what's the difference between force lightning, and any other method of killing that doesn't drop the target instantly? (And keep in mind that unlike what happens in Hollywood fare, most combat deaths aren't anything near instant, most involve a lot of suffering.)

PhoenixPhyre
2018-03-20, 02:18 PM
Don't want to derail the thread, so no one has to answer, but consider this question: what's the difference between force lightning, and any other method of killing that doesn't drop the target instantly? (And keep in mind that unlike what happens in Hollywood fare, most combat deaths aren't anything near instant, most involve a lot of suffering.)

For most methods, faster death/disablement is a pro. For force lightning, it's a con. Force lightning wielders enjoy (or so I understand) the excessive pain it causes.

It's the difference between killing an animal quickly (with a single hit from an appropriate weapon) and slowly bleeding it to death while carving off small chunks.

This is all personal canon, so :shrug:

Pleh
2018-03-20, 02:20 PM
Don't want to derail the thread, so no one has to answer, but consider this question: what's the difference between force lightning, and any other method of killing that doesn't drop the target instantly? (And keep in mind that unlike what happens in Hollywood fare, most combat deaths aren't anything near instant, most involve a lot of suffering.)

In a world that has a physical force of corruption that eats away a piece of your soul every time you consent to using its power, there's a huge difference (bringing the question more or less back on topic).

It's non-trivial to consider that the power requires that you want more than to defeat your opponent in combat, but to express physical, unnecessary cruelty as well. Yes, I think the canon is pretty clear that the Dark Side doesn't actually activate unless you are really acting on malicious intentions. The more sophisticated, more experienced Sith that can activate Dark Side powers in a controlled state probably just know how to both arouse their own anger while keeping it focused and directed.

A lightsaber or a blaster pistol is just a mundane weapon and using one to defend yourself is a neutral act, regardless how painful getting hit by one happens to be. If you have a blaster pistol that can only fire if you really want your target to be overwhelmed with pain, it's a little different than a pistol that has a simple trigger.

And yes, I think most SW RPG rules would say that if you are using a blaster pistol to torture a person (shooting them in the leg while they're tied to a chair because you want to hear them scream), you'd probably get a Dark Side point for it.

Is it possible to use Force Lightning without a sadistic urge to inflict pain? Maybe that's the Green Lightning that Luke discovered. Maybe removing the element of Dark Side from Force Lightning actually changes the nature of the ability.

Morphic tide
2018-03-20, 02:52 PM
Don't want to derail the thread, so no one has to answer, but consider this question: what's the difference between force lightning, and any other method of killing that doesn't drop the target instantly? (And keep in mind that unlike what happens in Hollywood fare, most combat deaths aren't anything near instant, most involve a lot of suffering.)

It's that it honestly kills through pain alone, more often that not. We've seen Force Lightning be used, and it doesn't do much in the way of burning the target. Lightsabers are horrific, when you start really thinking about it, but they at least can kill quickly. Unlike Force Lightning taking multiple minutes to kill, causing close to the absolute upper limit of pain possible.

Friv
2018-03-20, 06:34 PM
Yes, evil wizards are generally more powerful than good wizards. In general, evil people are more powerful than good people because Evil is less self-limiting. Granted, Good is more likely to cooperate, so your best bet as an Evil wizard/person is to be Evil enough where you have an advantage over everybody, but not Evil enough where Good is going to team up on you.

I can make a strong argument that Evil is not so much less self-limiting as differently self-limiting. This feeds back to the "good is more likely to cooperate" thing:

The thing about getting used to taking shortcuts is that it pre-disposes you to look for shortcuts. The more you get used to not having to do the heavy lifting yourself, the more tempting it looks when you see a way to let someone else pay the price. And then you let people down, and then when you need help they're not there for you. This doesn't have to be because you're literally betraying and murdering your friends - you just burn through the people who might otherwise be willing to put a lot on the line to help you out.

Evil self-limits by being self-focused. One evil wizard is likely to be more powerful than one good wizard, but ten evil wizards are not stronger than ten good wizards, because when one of those evil wizards gets attacked, what are the chances that the others will put themselves at risk to help out?


Don't want to derail the thread, so no one has to answer, but consider this question: what's the difference between force lightning, and any other method of killing that doesn't drop the target instantly? (And keep in mind that unlike what happens in Hollywood fare, most combat deaths aren't anything near instant, most involve a lot of suffering.)

Based on the fact that Force Choking is also shown as being kind of dark side, but less so than Force Lightning, I think it's largely about deliberately forging a psychic connection to somebody while you inflict pain on them, and then holding that connection as they suffer. It's very up close and personal, and it taints you because if you aren't at least okay with feeling their suffering intently, you won't be able to sustain the power.

Cluedrew
2018-03-20, 06:45 PM
Urban Shadows has an interesting mechanic for this- Corruption. When you do things that Corrupt your character (each Playbook has a different thing that will trigger this, plus just generally being evil can, at the MC's discretion) you mark Corruption. Mark enough and you mark a Corruption advancement.

Corruption Advancements come with some really cool, powerful moves. (The Vamp, for example, can get "That human NPC can't escape you no matter what, and you can kill them or feed on them at will). Those moves also cause you to mark corruption.

But here's the catch- there are a limited number of Corruption Advances, and one of them is "Retire your character. They may return as a Threat."

So yeah, you gave into Corruption. Congratulations. You've been Corrupted. You're no longer the character you were. Give your sheet to the MC and figure out who you want to play next. And brace yourself for the character you built and gave all those cool, dark, twisted powers to come back, under the MC's control, and tear down everything you'd previously accomplished with them.Yep, that is a Powered by the Apocalypse way of handling the issue is I have ever heard one. And now I have.

To Friv: I feel like this somewhere: A evil individual is stronger than a good individual, but a good organization is stronger than an evil organization. And it fits the fantasy adventure as well. The good wizard often doesn't defeat the evil wizard directly, but collects up a bunch of heroes and takes down the evil wizard and all their minions.

FreddyNoNose
2018-03-20, 07:22 PM
I can't help but imagine the evil mage is finally going to catch up on all his magical reading and has read magic and the likes memorized on the one day the PCs decide to raid his tower....

2D8HP
2018-03-20, 09:13 PM
"Are evil wizards more poweful that non-evil wizards?"

On average?

Yes.

But not just in the way you phrase it.

Yes certain magic requires "Evil acts" (to become a Lich in D&D for example).

And in Howard's Conan stories most Magic-Users are evil.

And in Pratchett's Discworld stories, acts of magic may weaken reality allowing creatured from the Dungeon Dimensions entry.

And in Niven's The Magic Goes Away stories, each act of magic depletes the totally magic in the world, which will doom werewolves to always be wolves, dragons to turn to bones, et cetera.

What makes evil magicians (on average) more powerful is this:

Magic is power.

Power corrupts (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/power-causes-brain-damage/528711/) (it makes you lose empathy for the humble).

And power has a price (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PowerAtAPrice).

Evil lusts for power.

And power turns one evil.

NorthernPhoenix
2018-03-21, 05:34 AM
One of the most interesting topics in this thread, I think, is the idea of how the only punishment for taking evil shortcuts to supernatural power is, in RPGs, in the afterlife, rather than in the mortal realm. How much you care about this or believe you can circumvent it will obviously greatly impact how far a evil character is willing to go, as the one thing these characters often care about is their own ability to avoid the consequences of their actions.

Florian
2018-03-21, 06:23 AM
Don't want to derail the thread, so no one has to answer, but consider this question: what's the difference between force lightning, and any other method of killing that doesn't drop the target instantly? (And keep in mind that unlike what happens in Hollywood fare, most combat deaths aren't anything near instant, most involve a lot of suffering.)

The willingness how far you're ready to go to overcome your enemy.

Deadly conflict is, by itself, a pretty neutral thing. Horrible and full of suffering? Yes, sure.

For the "good guys", it is enough to down or disable enemy combatants to "win the fight" or "get to their objective" (Might sound harsh, but if I chop of your legs you're as out of the way as if I´d kill you).

For the "bad guys", the main objective is to actually kill and remove everyone in their path, which is seen as the only surefire way to "get to their objective" (No difference between a force lightning and using mustard gas on this).

Segev
2018-03-21, 11:07 AM
An interesting take on the "immortality is evil" angle shows up in the webcomic El Goonish Shive. There is class of beings called "immortals," which are all quite powerful and generally unseen if they don't want to be. There are a number of things that I'm going to leave out, but the important bit for this sub-topic is this: They are capable of "resetting," a process that purges them of most of their memories, and gives their new "incarnation" only a "read it in a book" type of understanding and knowledge of selected memories. It's practically suicide, if you consider yourself the sum of your memories, and often comes with a huge shift in personality, but it's still them, in as much as (if not more than) any reincarnation-type event which wipes memories can leave you "you."

The longer they go without resetting, the more powerful they get. However, they also become more erratic, more emotional, and more weighed down by their long years of experience. They, essentially, start going mad. Not senile, but their self-control becomes less as their power grows.

So there's a literal corruptive essence, there, simply by virtue of their nature as they accumulate too many memories.



On the topic of the Force, specifically, the Light Side is all about control, zen calm, and focus. It's the Vulcan side of the Force. The Dark Side is all about emotion and feeling it viscerally. The Dark Side is "easier" because simply giving in to emotion is easier than carefully feeling out something with utter calm. Note: I base this entirely on what I've seen in the movies and how the Jedi and Sith describe it; I assume - perhaps wrongly - that between two opposed philosophies views on each others' use of the Force, there's at least enough canon truth to piece together a coherent understanding.

I assume, therefore, that you get strong in one or the other because you have to either be in a calm, clear-headed state (to get the most out of the Light Side), or you have to be tapping your emotions deeply (to get the most out of the Dark Side). Trying to use the Light Side with emotional distraction disrupts and weakens your control; trying to use the Dark Side with a calm and analytic control denies you its strength.

The Dark Side is so oft considered evil because it's a) easier, and b) anger/hate are greater motivating emotions than joy, and even if you're doing nothing wrong when celebrating fun happy Dark Side play, the fact that your emotions are in tune with the Force means you're less likely to control your anger when you are enraged, and that your power is there to answer you.

The Light Side is considered "good" in comparison to the infamous Dark Side users. It has its own corruptive influence, however: seeking to achieve a zen detachment leaves one vulnerable to truly becoming detached from the world. One's logical and methodical pursuits start to take precedence over any sort of practicality, and can even lead to the prequel trilogy's "for their own good" sorts of ... malfeasances. Of course it's right to take these children away from their families forever; it's for their own good. We know better, because it's logical, and all that emotional binding will only make using the Light Side harder, and make using the Dark Side more tempting.

Bohandas
2018-03-21, 11:42 AM
An evil character in general has access to several asymmetric abilities when opposed by a good character. Not least of which being the ability to hide behind a human shield,

If a group of good wizards and a group of evil wizards find themselves facing off in the midst of a busy marketplace crown the good group are liable to find themselves fireballed while the evil wizards remain safe from such tactics and instead find themselves only vulnerable to individual attacks

tomandtish
2018-03-21, 12:58 PM
This is, that's comparing apples (level X black robe) to oranges (level X white robe). That's why they get "less" spells, the levels aren't flat equivalents, unlike later editions. And in DL nobody "ended up" at max level, that was just there to prevent west coast power gaming. The only character to ever reach the level cap was Raistlin, the lore was explicit about that back then. Black robes were just flat out more powerful, because they advanced faster.

And they weren't generally thought of as evil, they were required to be evil.
(Color coded alignment for your convenience. :smallamused: )

Par-Salian was 18th. Justarius and Ladonna were both 17th (so one off Cap).

And it makes the point exactly. Black robes obtain power quicker. White robes take longer to get there but obtain more power in the end. Now, which equals "more powerful" depends on the game you play....

TheYell
2018-03-22, 01:19 AM
If you go with a Tolkienesque magic setup, warping reality through craft is best done by divine beings, and they expect to do indirect intervention through mortals living up to divine ideals, including arcane casters. So the Valar don't come back to defeat Sauron and Saruman, but they do empower and enhance those who fight them. Gandalf's resurrection is a great example.

In such a setting a "good wizard" could expect divine empowerment, and a "evil wizard" has only what he can crank out himself.

But I don't think many people, especially fans of evil wizards, want to see that implemented in tabletop settings.

ross
2018-03-24, 07:22 PM
evil is more powerful and has way better tailors

Red Fel
2018-03-24, 10:02 PM
evil is more powerful and has way better tailors

Concise and accurate.

We'll be such friends.

LordofBones
2018-03-25, 01:23 AM
Speaking of Saruman, while he did some supersoldier breeding, he also wanted to help the people of Dunland repel foreign invaders of their lands (Rohirrim and Numenoreans), but that's what happens when you take a simple good vs evil story and try to apply realpolitik to it. Let's just say that LotR is a product of its time and has some problems in this regard.

Um...no?

Saruman settled in Isengard in 2758 of the Third Age; the area where the Rohirrim dwelled belonged to Gondor and was given to the people who would become the Rohirrim who helped liberate the area from the Balchoth, an Easterling tribe spurred on by Sauron. Dunland is a separate kingdom entirely that was nominally under Gondor's rule until the death of the royal line.

Saruman himself didn't give a hoot about the Dunlendings; he based his Uruks on the original strain of Uruk-hai that issued from Mordor in 2475.

Drascin
2018-03-25, 05:33 AM
Correction, Anakin was a fully trained Jedi Knight prodigy with a higher medichlorian count than Yoda who had recently been seriously considered for being granted the title of Master only a short time before this conflict. By that point, Anakin has already fully trained *another* jedi (ashoka).

In terms of training, they were near equals, and the fight with Dooku during Palpatine's rescue showed that Anakin had just about surpassed Obi Wan in skill with the blade.

This was a contest between a veteran jedi master and a knight bordering on master who had "chosen one" attributes and doped up on the dark side. It still came out a tie.

Anakin was also, has to be noted, one of the best lightsaber fighters in the entire order. In multiple side materials, he's called out as being plain and simply better than most Masters at stabbing things. Anakin was a Jedi of the turbulent time of the Clone Wars, and focused his training on fighting, where most old Masters tended to abhor fighting. Anakin got constantly sent into real bad battlefields because the entire order realized he was ridiculously good with a blade, with the only people above him being, like, guys like Mace Windu who more or less literally invented an entire form. He was basically one of the Jedi SWAT.

Morphic tide
2018-03-25, 01:27 PM
Anakin was also, has to be noted, one of the best lightsaber fighters in the entire order. In multiple side materials, he's called out as being plain and simply better than most Masters at stabbing things. Anakin was a Jedi of the turbulent time of the Clone Wars, and focused his training on fighting, where most old Masters tended to abhor fighting. Anakin got constantly sent into real bad battlefields because the entire order realized he was ridiculously good with a blade, with the only people above him being, like, guys like Mace Windu who more or less literally invented an entire form. He was basically one of the Jedi SWAT.

Obi Wan is noted as being the single best defensive fighter in the entire Order. Which is the explicit reason (at least in the "Legends" EU) that he was sent to deal with Grievous.

S@tanicoaldo
2018-03-25, 04:39 PM
Isn't love and hope the most powerful things in most universes? They are not reallt evil things most of the time so, no?

EDIT: Oh, I forgot about the power of friendship.

Max_Killjoy
2018-03-25, 04:47 PM
Isn't love and hope the most powerful things in most universes? They are not reallt evil things most of the time so, no?

EDIT: Oh, I forgot about the power of friendship.

{cynic}
Few things cause more suffering than hope and love.
{/cynic}

Pleh
2018-03-25, 04:47 PM
Obi Wan is noted as being the single best defensive fighter in the entire Order. Which is the explicit reason (at least in the "Legends" EU) that he was sent to deal with Grievous.

Hence why he won by taking a defensible position. He was backpeddling for almost the entire fight, half because that was his style, half because with Anakin's skill and aggression, it was all he *could* do.

Segev
2018-03-28, 11:47 AM
"Evil will always triumph, because Good...is dumb."
-Lord Dark Helmet

Lord Arkon
2018-03-28, 11:16 PM
Few systems integrate mechanical penalties for being Evil or have all the Evil options include clear disadvantages that are problematic for PCs, because then the allure of Evil vanishes.

In the game Ironclaw, any magic with the 'Unholy' descriptor (most notably Necromancy) carries a risk of allowing hostile forces to work their will on the world. In game terms, this means that anytime three sixes are rolled in relation to an Unholy magic effect, something bad happens that is of no advantage to anyone. Hauntings, possession, food supplies rotting, undead monsters, it's all at the whim of the GM. Black magic isn't exceptionally powerful for the setting, just nastier. Mind you, you can pretty evil using all the other magic, it's just that black magic draws from a corrupt source.

Drascin
2018-03-30, 05:00 PM
Obi Wan is noted as being the single best defensive fighter in the entire Order. Which is the explicit reason (at least in the "Legends" EU) that he was sent to deal with Grievous.

Yeah. Obi won by mounting an unassailable defense and waiting for Anakin to screw up - he couldn't really move into the attack without getting murdered, but his style takes a lot less effort than Anakin's Form V, so his tactical options here were basically "wait for an opening, he'll do something stupid eventually, he's Anakin Skywalker".

I was just pointing out that Anakin was already a top-level swordsman, and in fact part of why Obi-wan's defense was so flawless is years of regularly training with someone that would absolutely dismantle you if you gave the smallest opening. Saying that Anakin was a rookie when he was batting in the same level as Obi-Wan Kenobi, best practitioner of Form III in several centuries, is kind of understating things a bit :smalltongue:.

Max_Killjoy
2018-03-30, 05:56 PM
I have trouble taking anything in that fight at all seriously when it ended on the clownish and absurd "I have the high ground" thing.

Tanarii
2018-03-31, 10:08 AM
I have trouble taking anything in that fight at all seriously when it ended on the clownish and absurd "I have the high ground" thing.
Meh. The director knows his audience. He established long ago the Star Wars movie line is about making everything explicit, over the top obvious, with no subtly. Narrating tactical advantages for the audience is actually on the low end for him.

The funny thing is, while they're clearly made for children, most young children I've known find them too scary to watch. There appears to be a sweet spot for them, 8-15 years old. Young enough that simple good vs evil, plot lines, and acting aren't panned, and old enough the bad guys aren't scary. Basically, the age range where Darth Vader isn't too scary or silly.