PDA

View Full Version : Roleplaying Ideas for putting an establishment run by an evil wizard out of business?



MonkeySage
2018-06-09, 01:23 PM
The business is a popular stop for travelers on the same road I'm building my settlement on. Since my character is chaotic good, he understands the particular needs this business appeals to, but he sees it as a stain that must be removed. Since the mage has a right to run his business there, my character is unwilling to just go in and kill him. But the mage employs succubi in addition to mortals, and clients often have their souls sucked out as a result.

In addition to the Temple of Sharess I'm building in my settlement, I was thinking of setting up a similar business just, without the demons. My hope is to out compete with the wizard, both by having the establishment built in a convenient location within city walls, nearby to said Temple of Sharess, and by providing much better service. What else can I do to make this establishment more appealing than that of the wizard?

Koo Rehtorb
2018-06-09, 02:08 PM
What sort of wimpy chaotic good character shies away from a little justified murder? You are aggressively justified in stabbing a demon summoner in the throat repeatedly.

If you really want alternatives though you should probably clarify exactly what sort of business this is. I'm assuming it's a brothel, but you keep hinting around it.

MonkeySage
2018-06-09, 02:43 PM
It is a brothel. Well, the reason I'm against murdering the wizard is that it could cause more trouble than its worth, resulting in the loss of innocent lives.

Poiuytrewq
2018-06-09, 02:53 PM
You could expose the fact your rival's establishment literally murders anyone who has sex with some of his escorts, that's a bad busniss desision, I'm suprissed people stilll go there.

MonkeySage
2018-06-09, 03:06 PM
So my gm seems convinced that if I tried to murder or ruin this wizard, that would be an evil act. That the wizard's worst crime is assisted suicide. I'm trying to explain that that doesn't really matter. I'm trying to persuade him that I would be morally justified to do either, in a setting where morality is objective.

The biggest problem is that, well, everyone knows he employs demons. His business was apparently approved by the King, and the local lords.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-06-09, 03:13 PM
So it sounds like people know about the whole soul sucking thing and the people who go there looking for a succubus are intentionally committing suicide. It's still evil. You are still entirely justified in killing this guy because he's building a business off empowering the lower planes for profit.

Demon summoning is bad bad bad and ruining an evil business that's been approved by local officials is the definition of chaotic good.

JoeJ
2018-06-09, 03:19 PM
So it sounds like people know about the whole soul sucking thing and the people who go there looking for a succubus are intentionally committing suicide. It's still evil. You are still entirely justified in killing this guy because he's building a business off empowering the lower planes for profit.

Demon summoning is bad bad bad and ruining an evil business that's been approved by local officials is the definition of chaotic good.

Yeah, but arguing with the GM about the what alignment terms really mean is pretty much always going to be a losing proposition.

MonkeySage
2018-06-09, 04:06 PM
I already have an idea for dealing with the wizard's mortal employees: my own settlement is run by the guilds, and each year the guilds elect the Lord Mayor. My character is the current Lord Mayor, by virtue of being the founder. Once the settlement is built, there will be a Guild for almost everyone, and that includes the workers at the brothel.

The mortal employees, by switching to my service, are directly improving their lives over what the wizard offers.

Xuc Xac
2018-06-09, 07:02 PM
The mortal employees, by switching to my service, are directly improving their lives over what the wizard offers.

How so? What will you do if they make their own guild, get their own vote, and convince enough of the other guilds to join them in electing the evil wizard as the next Lord Mayor?

comk59
2018-06-09, 07:56 PM
Infitrate the local home owners association, and get an ordinance passed that levies huge taxes on brothels. Strongly imply that the only people who would vote against it need to frequently visit the brothel. Meanwhile, your business will be a gentlemans club that allows for private shows on the second floor, which is totally different and thus completely exempt from said taxes.

Alternatively, secretly hallow the brothel without their knowledge.

Haldir
2018-06-09, 08:25 PM
Love the idea or installing a fascist HOA. Rhymes so well with reality.

My suggestion is in a similar vein of letting someone else do your dirty work for you: get the churches involved. Support and grow a religious organization that is willing to co opt divine powers to take the fight to the populous directly via the word of Gods. Bypass everything the lords and the markets do by appealing directlyto spiritual currency

MonkeySage
2018-06-09, 08:42 PM
Only guild members can be elected, and the wizard would be rejected, based on the fact he's not a citizen of the city and has claim on it.

Perch
2018-06-09, 09:39 PM
How is owning a brothel not evil?

MonkeySage
2018-06-09, 09:53 PM
More a question of who owns it, and who's empowered by that ownership. My idea is that the brothel, if established, should serve the interests of the ones doing the work, should be owned by them. If I established it, I wouldn't "own" it, it would be owned by the escorts themselves like a smithy is owned by the blacksmith, or a farm by the farmer.

JoeJ
2018-06-09, 11:39 PM
How is owning a brothel not evil?

ISTR that there is a mention in Planes of Chaos of a "festhall' (the 2e term for brothel) in Ishtar's realm in Arborea, which would mean that it's not inherently incompatible with chaotic good.

Xuc Xac
2018-06-10, 12:30 AM
How is owning a brothel not evil?

As a mutually beneficial exchange of money for services rendered, it's neutral at worst. There are often many evil acts associated with brothels, but they aren't an intrinsic part of the business model. You might as well ask how owning a farm is not evil because slaves have been used as farm labor.

WindStruck
2018-06-10, 12:58 AM
I would say that if your character is chaotic good, that doesn't automatically mean you have to kill an evil wizard that summons succubi at a brothel for clients. A chaotic good character should also place a high value on freedom and the value of freedoms of others, and their consequences (your freedom is still worth way more than others' though!). ...so if everyone knows full well what this wizard is doing, and clients willingly get intimate with a succubus, that's their own faults.

If you still really wanted to run this guy out of business, I may have some ideas... buy or start your own publishing company, and continually run bad publicity on the wizard. Stories of families and hearts broken by the debauchery that goes on in the brothel, of lives destroyed and children left fatherless to fend for themselves...

Maybe hook the wizard up with a gold digger wife somehow...

Or if all else fails, any of the standard murder hobo tactics probably work. But your DM is probably right that murdering him would be an evil act. Sometimes you can't save people that don't want to be saved after all....

MonkeySage
2018-06-11, 12:28 PM
They know, a lot of the clients go there to die. And of course, their souls are destroyed so they don't even get an afterlife.

hamishspence
2018-06-11, 12:48 PM
RAW, "death by energy drain" doesn't actually destroy souls. Generally, it takes archfiend-level power for a fiend to be able to destroy a soul completely.

MonkeySage
2018-06-11, 12:58 PM
In this particular setting anyway, when a succubus devours someone's soul, that soul is destroyed. Within my own party, there've been time when we defeated an enemy, and then isolated the larva. My character has always refused to kill the larva, but that didn't stop a couple other members of the party. Apparently destroying the soul of an evil creature isn't an evil act. Souls are pretty fragile things in this setting.

That's not the case in my own setting: When someone is killed by a succubus's energy drain, their soul is devoured by the demon, sometimes transforming the demon. At least a couple of demon lords in my setting were succubi or incubi at one time. It remains there until the demon is killed. Occasionally, angelic raids will kill scores of demons and liberate the souls trapped within. Very few things can destroy a soul in my setting, such as shinigami set out to punish that soul for a serious crime, and as you said, archfiends.

Mastikator
2018-06-11, 01:56 PM
Is there any particular reason you can't just banish/kill the demons in his employ? Is this a society where extradimensional beings of pure evil illicit sex are given human rights and protected under the law?

Does the fact that they kill people not make them fair game for murder?

MonkeySage
2018-06-11, 02:10 PM
Banishing the demons would be a very temporary fix, because the wizard would just summon more of them.

Nifft
2018-06-11, 02:12 PM
Banishing the demons would be a very temporary fix, because the wizard would just summon more of them.

Do it, then catch him summoning demons.

I'd wager that demon summoning is very illegal.

Haldir
2018-06-11, 08:47 PM
Do it, then catch him summoning demons.

I'd wager that demon summoning is very illegal.

damn good idea for an encounter, I must say.

icefractal
2018-06-11, 09:44 PM
They know, a lot of the clients go there to die. And of course, their souls are destroyed so they don't even get an afterlife.In that case, I'd say your biggest priority should be finding out why you have so many suicidal citizens, and dealing with the problems that cause such a situation. As a side benefit, the Wizard may go out of business or at least need to change his practices once the demand for suicide brothels is gone.

Incidentally, binding succubi for such a purpose is like renting a heavy-duty cargo truck to carry your groceries in. Have you considered that he may actually be using them to covertly gain control of the kingdom? Or maybe has already done so; it would explain why his known demon summoning is tolerated.

Anymage
2018-06-12, 12:47 AM
This sounds like table drama just waiting to happen.

First you have the question of monsters being irredeemable baddies vs. them being generally free willed with some tendencies and maybe social pressure. Then you have prostitution and assisted suicide, which are contentious topics in real life. When they're presented as an ambiguous evil at worst, it's not hard to read the DM's personal political stance into things.

If the DM is saying that the wizard isn't evil evil because he isn't causing harm to someone not consenting, I wonder what other players think on the topic. I expect there to be an argument the moment someone takes an alignment ding, and other players to pile up with their takes shortly thereafter.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-06-12, 02:21 AM
Kill the wizard. If the DM gets mad and/or makes a big alignment thing out of it then you'll know you're better off not playing with him any more anyway.

TeChameleon
2018-06-12, 04:20 AM
Honestly? If you have, or can get, the resources, the earlier suggestion about casting consecration on the brothel would probably be the simplest and most effective way to deal with this. Sure, the evil wizard can just cast desecration, but if you get one of the big temples behind you, most likely you'll be able to keep up the consecration a lot more effectively than he'll be able to get rid of it, and he won't be summoning any succubi while it's up, that's for sure. If you really want to grind it in, follow said evil wizard every time he tries to relocate, consecrating his lair constantly. If you get one of the temples of one of the more justice/retribution oriented lawful good deities involved, the odds of them being vindictive enough to keep after this guy until he gives up or snaps and commits suicide-by-angry-priest/avenger/paladin are pretty good.

All that being said, a suicide brothel is a terrible business model; what, exactly, is this evil wizard getting out of this? Does he just hate everyone and want to kill them in pointlessly elaborate fashions, or does he have a longer game plan? Why are there so many people in the area who want death by snoo-snoo? A lot of this doesn't really add up :smallconfused:

Wraith
2018-06-12, 04:38 AM
Even if the wizard is only "evil-with-a-little-e", Demons such as Succubi absolutely are "Evil-With-A-Capitalised-E" - it's in the book, and everything! :smalltongue:

It's a Knowledge roll of something like DC10 to realise that Succubi are evil, soul-sucking demons who literally come from Hell. You don't even need to know more than that, if anything claiming that it's superstitious common knowledge works in your favour.

Make that roll, then go find a troupe of Paladin and tell them that you know where there's a demon to Detect Evil at. Tell them who summoned the demon. If they don't kill the succubus and at least banish the wizard into exile (they probably ought to kill him outright too for consorting with demons, but maybe they're feeling generous today) then they're not proper Paladin.

MonkeySage
2018-06-12, 09:14 AM
I am in luck, some what. My cohort is a level 10 Cleric of Desna, and a city which is home to a Temple of Sarenrae is 2 days away.

BreaktheStatue
2018-06-13, 03:47 AM
I already have an idea for dealing with the wizard's mortal employees: my own settlement is run by the guilds, and each year the guilds elect the Lord Mayor. My character is the current Lord Mayor, by virtue of being the founder. Once the settlement is built, there will be a Guild for almost everyone, and that includes the workers at the brothel.

The mortal employees, by switching to my service, are directly improving their lives over what the wizard offers.

You're the Lord Mayor and founder of the city? Just get the guild leaders together and use zoning laws and red tape to 'bureaucrat' his business to death.

"Yeah, we just passed an ordnance, and brothels can't be located within 500 meters of a house of worship or school. And also, anyone serving alcohol has to be over 21, and also pay 75gp per year for an alcohol server's license from the settlement. Oh, and you'll need to make sure that those windows are at least 36 inches wide, and you have rope ladders for fire escapes on the third level, and...."

Knaight
2018-06-13, 05:45 AM
You're the Lord Mayor and founder of the city? Just get the guild leaders together and use zoning laws and red tape to 'bureaucrat' his business to death.

"Yeah, we just passed an ordnance, and brothels can't be located within 500 meters of a house of worship or school. And also, anyone serving alcohol has to be over 21, and also pay 75gp per year for an alcohol server's license from the settlement. Oh, and you'll need to make sure that those windows are at least 36 inches wide, and you have rope ladders for fire escapes on the third level, and...."

For all the blue text here, that's not a bad idea. Driving the business out of business might be near impossible, but making it obnoxious enough to stay that the wizard either packs up and leaves or does something drastic and stupid that provides an opportunity to deal with them more thoroughly seems like it might be a bit more possible.

Brother Oni
2018-06-13, 06:32 AM
For all the blue text here, that's not a bad idea. Driving the business out of business might be near impossible, but making it obnoxious enough to stay that the wizard either packs up and leaves or does something drastic and stupid that provides an opportunity to deal with them more thoroughly seems like it might be a bit more possible.

Given that the OP is also setting up a competing business, he'll need to be careful not to hoist himself by his own petard when introducing all the new ordinances. If the DM is feeling mean, he might get dinged a few points front and back towards Lawful Evil.

MonkeySage
2018-06-13, 12:19 PM
Problem is, this business is 6 hours down the road- any ordinances I pass wouldn't affect it. It's a problem because both the city and the brothel are built on a major trade route- thus they both get a lot of traffic from it. That's actually the whole reason i chose to set up the city where it is, so it would boom from the trade.

Mastikator
2018-06-13, 03:03 PM
Problem is, this business is 6 hours down the road- any ordinances I pass wouldn't affect it. It's a problem because both the city and the brothel are built on a major trade route- thus they both get a lot of traffic from it. That's actually the whole reason i chose to set up the city where it is, so it would boom from the trade.

If it's 6 hours from civilization then it's probably safe to just kill them all and burn the house to the ground.

JoeJ
2018-06-13, 03:59 PM
I would think that a death brothel would be serving a pretty niche market. How does it stay in business? Just how depressing is life for most people in that world?

Nifft
2018-06-13, 04:36 PM
I would think that a death brothel would be serving a pretty niche market. How does it stay in business? Just how depressing is life for most people in that world?

Suicide brothel sounds better than the foreseeable real-life future:


https://i.imgur.com/I3hmZEx.jpg

BreaktheStatue
2018-06-14, 06:16 AM
-snip-

In addition to the Temple of Sharess I'm building in my settlement, I was thinking of setting up a similar business just, without the demons. My hope is to out compete with the wizard, both by having the establishment built in a convenient location within city walls, nearby to said Temple of Sharess, and by providing much better service. What else can I do to make this establishment more appealing than that of the wizard?

Leverage your position as Lord Mayor and convince local business owners to subsidize your Legit Brothel. Offer services for like half the cost as Wizard Brothel. Convince the owners that if you can undercut Wizard Brothel and put it out of business, it'll benefit the town as a whole, bring in more business, etc.

Brother Oni
2018-06-14, 10:02 AM
Problem is, this business is 6 hours down the road- any ordinances I pass wouldn't affect it. It's a problem because both the city and the brothel are built on a major trade route- thus they both get a lot of traffic from it. That's actually the whole reason i chose to set up the city where it is, so it would boom from the trade.

Given that D&D is built on the medieval standard that everybody walks or rides everywhere, 6 hours is at least a full day's travel. That's a long way to go to get your end away, so would primarily be the preserve of travellers using that route anyway and the citizens with access to magical travel, severely limiting its clientele base.

As Mastikator said, at 6 hours away from the nearest major population centre, just kill everybody in the dead of night and make it look like a bandit attack or a paladin troop raid.

JoeJ
2018-06-14, 04:00 PM
As Mastikator said, at 6 hours away from the nearest major population centre, just kill everybody in the dead of night and make it look like a bandit attack or a paladin troop raid.

The character is chaotic good, and I understand that the GM has already ruled that simply killing the wizard would be considered an evil act. Murdering everybody (wizard, servants, customers, etc.) would no doubt be even less acceptable.

MonkeySage
2018-06-14, 04:07 PM
That's why I'm trying to out compete with him. The Temple of Sharess is, among other things, going to be aimed at tackling the issues that would drive someone to visit that wizard's brothel. I figure, of all deities, she'd be the most appropriate- and that's why i'm having my own built right next to her temple.

Nifft
2018-06-14, 11:58 PM
That's why I'm trying to out compete with him. The Temple of Sharess is, among other things, going to be aimed at tackling the issues that would drive someone to visit that wizard's brothel. I figure, of all deities, she'd be the most appropriate- and that's why i'm having my own built right next to her temple. Naming the place ought to be fun.

Broth-El.

Slut-lestials.

Stairway to Heaven.

Straight & Narrow Pole Dancing.

Hooters (now with genuine Owl Archons).

The Man-Date of Heaven (now with genuine Solars).

noob
2018-06-15, 01:54 AM
Naming the place ought to be fun.

Broth-El.

Slut-lestials.

Stairway to Heaven.

Straight & Narrow Pole Dancing.

Hooters (now with genuine Owl Archons).

The Man-Date of Heaven (now with genuine Solars).

Why do you mention two lawful good creatures when it is supposed to be next to a chaotic good temple?(it is not incompatible but I wonder why)

Nifft
2018-06-15, 02:24 AM
Why do you mention two lawful good creatures when it is supposed to be next to a chaotic good temple?(it is not incompatible but I wonder why)

Solars are any Good, please look this stuff up before trying to nit-pick.

Owl Archons are forced to work as prostitutes by the Chaotic owner out of spite, because f--- the Law.

JoeJ
2018-06-15, 12:39 PM
Solars are any Good, please look this stuff up before trying to nit-pick.

The OP didn't say what game this is, but the discussion of alignment strongly suggests D&D. The D&D Monster Manual lists solars as Lawful Good.

Nifft
2018-06-15, 12:47 PM
The OP didn't say what game this is, but the discussion of alignment strongly suggests D&D. Correct.


The D&D Monster Manual lists solars as Lawful Good. Incorrect.

Citation: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/angel.htm#angelSolar

Since there's no edition specified, I'm picking one arbitrarily, and specifically one where noob's negative nitpicking is wrong.

Yerok LliGcam
2018-06-15, 12:51 PM
So my gm seems convinced that if I tried to murder or ruin this wizard, that would be an evil act. That the wizard's worst crime is assisted suicide. I'm trying to explain that that doesn't really matter. I'm trying to persuade him that I would be morally justified to do either, in a setting where morality is objective.

The biggest problem is that, well, everyone knows he employs demons. His business was apparently approved by the King, and the local lords.

sounds like you should kill the king and rule the kingdom...

i mean cmon.

"hey good king, i'm hiring these DEMONS to kill my clients okay? cool. ttyl"

and the kings cool with this? if you don't like the employee you speak to the manager.

go to the king, and use your chaotic goodness to propose to take care of this issue and if he's like "no, he's fine!" then by golly you have a whole can of worms to deal with friend.

JoeJ
2018-06-15, 01:22 PM
Citation: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/angel.htm#angelSolar

The current version of the MM, however, begins the stat block with: "Solar. Large celestial, lawful good." (Monster Manual p. 18).


Since there's no edition specified, I'm picking one arbitrarily, and specifically one where noob's negative nitpicking is wrong.

So anybody could just as fairly pick an edition where your negative nitpicking is wrong.

Yerok LliGcam
2018-06-15, 01:23 PM
They know, a lot of the clients go there to die. And of course, their souls are destroyed so they don't even get an afterlife.

nevermind don't kill the king, just say to your DM

"oh... well my character finds this sad... then heads out of town to go find SANE people"

then you DM can let that go... and you haven't provoked the evil wizard in any way. you've merely moved on looking for greener pastures.

don't fix what aint broke no matter how weird it is.

Nifft
2018-06-15, 01:34 PM
So anybody could just as fairly pick an edition where your negative nitpicking is wrong.

JoeJ, I had actually made a bunch of jokes, which could have taken the discussion somewhere fun.

Instead, someone tried to nitpick them, and here you are for some reason supporting the thread-crapping nitpicker.

Correcting the nitpicker isn't identical to nitpicking -- you're just trying to use my words, instead of having any thought yourself.

Congrats, you've sucked some possible fun out of the thread, and you've supported some brainless nitpicking over either being on-topic, or being fun.


Additionally, you're wrong. In the absence of an edition, all editions are valid -- so you can't support the claim that Solars are always Lawful Good, since some editions have some of them non-Lawful. "All x are y" is contradicted by a single example, which I've provided.

I think you might have been mislead, since you're not usually someone I associate with this sort of poor quality thinking.

JoeJ
2018-06-15, 02:07 PM
JoeJ, I had actually made a bunch of jokes, which could have taken the discussion somewhere fun.

Instead, someone tried to nitpick them, and here you are for some reason supporting the thread-crapping nitpicker.

Correcting the nitpicker isn't identical to nitpicking -- you're just trying to use my words, instead of having any thought yourself.

Congrats, you've sucked some possible fun out of the thread, and you've supported some brainless nitpicking over either being on-topic, or being fun.


Additionally, you're wrong. In the absence of an edition, all editions are valid -- so you can't support the claim that Solars are always Lawful Good, since some editions have some of them non-Lawful. "All x are y" is contradicted by a single example, which I've provided.

I didn't say that all X are Y, but that X in the current edition are Y.


I think you might have been mislead, since you're not usually someone I associate with this sort of poor quality thinking.

Your jokes were funny. But your response to noob to "please look this stuff up" seemed pretty harsh, considering that noob might well be unfamiliar with editions prior to 5e and very possibly did look that stuff up. Couldn't you have just explained that in 3.x solars can be of any good alignment?

Nifft
2018-06-15, 02:24 PM
I didn't say that all X are Y, but that X in the current edition are Y. Solars occur in several editions of D&D, and all editions of D&D are relevant in this forum. If you a discussion which is limited to 5e Solars, you'd want to visit threads in the 5e subforum, which is not where we are.

5e Solars are always LG.
3e Solars are any good.

Are all Solars LG? No, because not all Solars are 5e Solars.

This really shouldn't be new information for anyone.



Your jokes were funny. But your response to noob to "please look this stuff up" seemed pretty harsh, considering that noob might well be unfamiliar with editions prior to 5e and very possibly did look that stuff up. Couldn't you have just explained that in 3.x solars can be of any good alignment? Probably because I saw that post as an attempt to derail the funny into exactly this sort of crappy downward spiral of corrections and defenses. One which you've been instrumental in digging, and which really isn't much fun for me.

It sounds like you're doing this because you're offended on someone else's behalf. Is that accurate?

MonkeySage
2018-06-15, 04:47 PM
Well this got outta control. o.O I did specifically try to avoid naming the edition, though. The setting borrows deities from multiple other settings- Sharess from FR, for example. And given my gm, probably at least one Dark Souls deity thrown in. He's a bit of a fan.

That said, I can't really move the city, since it was built on a very important location, where a major river meets the road on a trade route. Boats can be sent down stream to expand trade from there. My character started out as a merchant and got rich from it. Even founding the city was part of his mercantile work.

TeChameleon
2018-06-16, 02:09 AM
Is there any reason why the consecrate-the-evil-brothel scheme wouldn't work? Once the succubi are out of the equation, well... no offense to your DM, but this evil wizard sounds like he is spectacularly bad at running a brothel. No supernatural sluts, no evil-wizard-brothel... and even if he manages to stay in business somehow (DM fiat?), if he's not killing people, who cares?

... although thinking about it, it might be worth ganking him for his hat alone- a pimp wizard would have to have a blindingly magnificent(?) hat.

noob
2018-06-16, 04:05 AM
I am sorry nifft that I did something that made you believe I wanted to start an annoying discussion about alignment.
I only told it was weird to summon a lawful good creature just next to a chaotic good temple but alignment works at your table the way it works so if at your table it is fine then you can carry on.

afgun
2018-06-16, 03:54 PM
Let your dogs pee in his black rose garden. Send kobolds sappers to undermine the foundation of his brothel. Use illusions and charms to embarrass him publicly. Get the wizard to attack you.

Seriously, it sounds like your DM either has a long game planned for this guy, or he's a ****. Either way, have some fun with it along the way.

Lunali
2018-06-16, 05:00 PM
The suggestions in this thread are just plain weird to me for the situation. The DM is claiming that killing someone who is directly responsible for several murders is an evil act, but no one has any problem with the chaotic player character not only being mayor but using particularly lawful methods to run the murderer out of town. If it were my call, neither method is particularly good or evil, one is chaotic and one is lawful.

JoeJ
2018-06-17, 02:19 AM
It sounds like you're doing this because you're offended on someone else's behalf. Is that accurate?

Yes, that's accurate. I saw noob's post as being a simple question that somebody who is new to D&D (as their screen name suggests) might reasonable ask, and that's precisely the kind of person I don't want to see driven off.