How Would You Settle This Situation?

[Bartmanhomer]

Ok let say the Metallic Dragons who worship Bahamut, Tamara and Hlal were having a Dragon carnival. Everybody was invited (Including non-dragons and Gem Dragons). The carnival doesn't allow Chromatic Dragons of any kind. So the adventure party (A Warblade, Cleric, Swordsage and Wizard) all of them are at level 9 was having a good time at the Dragon carnival until they saw a young male black dragon and an adult male brass dragon arguing. The young male black dragon wants to go to the carnival but the adult male brass dragon wouldn't let the young male black dragon to enter the carnival because it will cause so many problems. The young male black dragon refuses to budge and continue to argue the adult male brass dragon. What would you settle this situation?

[Karl Aegis]

Steal some hoards while the dragons are distracted. Convince dragons to not have carnivals.

[Bartmanhomer]

Steal some hoards while the dragons are distracted. Convince dragons to not have carnivals.

Ok. LOL! :biggrin:

[Crake]

This is like showing up to a party you weren't invited to and refusing to leave because they won't let you in. The black dragon isn't welcome, if he starts a fuss, he's going home bloodied or in a body bag, and he would well deserve it. If the black dragon wants to be invited, maybe he should stop being such a ****, but that probably won't happen, because being a **** is in a black dragon's nature. The other dragons aren't obligated to let him in, it's a privately run event and they set the rules however they like.

[Bartmanhomer]

This is like showing up to a party you weren't invited to and refusing to leave because they won't let you in. The black dragon isn't welcome, if he starts a fuss, he's going home bloodied or in a body bag, and he would well deserve it. If the black dragon wants to be invited, maybe he should stop being such a ****, but that probably won't happen, because being a **** is in a black dragon's nature. The other dragons aren't obligated to let him in, it's a privately run event and they set the rules however they like. Best plan ever. :smile:

[zlefin]

Ok let say the Metallic Dragons who worship Bahamut, Tamara and Hlal were having a Dragon carnival. Everybody was invited (Including non-dragons and Gem Dragons). The carnival doesn't allow Chromatic Dragons of any kind. So the adventure party (A Warblade, Cleric, Swordsage and Wizard) all of them are at level 9 was having a good time at the Dragon carnival until they saw a young male black dragon and an adult male brass dragon arguing. The young male black dragon wants to go to the carnival but the adult male brass dragon wouldn't let the young male black dragon to enter the carnival because it will cause so many problems. The young male black dragon refuses to budge and continue to argue the adult male brass dragon. What would you settle this situation?

I woudln't.
it's not my job, and not my place to settle the issue.
I'm not part of carnival security or the carnival organizers. Let the bouncers/gatekeepers do their job; and let the organizers/manager decide how to settle the issue.
right now the situation isn't violent.

[Meditation]

This is like showing up to a party you weren't invited to and refusing to leave because they won't let you in.


Oh, it isn't like that. That's exactly what it is, so you are even more right than you expressed.



The black dragon isn't welcome, if he starts a fuss, he's going home bloodied or in a body bag, and he would well deserve it.
(Emphasis added.)


Well, no, because --


If the black dragon wants to be invited, maybe he should stop being such a ****, but that probably won't happen, because being a **** is in a black dragon's nature.
(Emphasis added.)

— which means that not letting the black dragon in is either a) literally racist (why’d the dragon have to be black?) if alignments are not choices or b) the black dragon is not truly a sapient being with free will because of the inborn alignment stricture which is why alignments are awful (see every discussion on alignments in the last 25 years). I literally had this conversation during Bill Clinton’s first term and the topic was old then.

But let’s sidetrack the core alignment entirely as we’re looking for a practical solution.

Here is how everyone gets to be happy — follow the following steps:


1) Solemnly swear all parties present, preferrably with a geas, to do the following:

1a) Follow all of the steps listed herein.
1b) Allow the black dragon to leave the carnival unmolested.
1c) Allow the black dragon to enter the carnival unmolested after step (3) is accomplished.
1d) Hold all to civilized standards of behavior* during the party — e.g., no plotting against each other to take advantage of the presence of all concerned at the carnival.
1e) All parties swear that such plotting has not occured before the commencement of the carnival.


2) Give the black dragon a helm of opposite alignment.
3) Have the dragon wear said helm.
4) Have the dragon enter the carnival.
5) Remove the helm from the dragon once the dragon deigns to leave the carnival

5a) Ending the carnival cause the dragon to leave the same.

* A vague clause determined by the specifics of dragon culture in your campaign. I’m assuming that dragons consider themselves civilized, if not the most civilized beings around.

Getting the helm might be the easy part. The harder part might be hiring the lawyer** to write up the contract (who could then help the dragons determine contract penalties). Unless dragons in your setting are the kinds of beings to refuse to work with lawyers, in which case, allons-y.

** Well, getting a lawyer could be hard if you’re picky. If you’re not, summon a lawful being with a high Int. I don’t have anymore time and I’m AFB, but I’m sure someone can come up with a summonable NPC capable, in flavor and in mechanics, of whipping up a contract with dragon-appropriate contract penalties for default.

[Quertus]

Well, I suppose I'd murder the entire gathering, lot their bodies, skin the corpses, animate the bones, and use Speak with Dead to learn about their treasure hoards. Using Teleport Through Time once the party was high enough level to actually accomplish this feat, of course. :smallwink:

EDIT: how inefficient of me, I forgot to donate the meat to the local orphanage.

[Karl Aegis]

Wait, why is not letting in potentially belligerent cultists to your carnival racist? From what I can tell it's a collaboration between three cults and parties from rival cults aren't allowed.

[Crake]

2) Give the black dragon a helm of opposite alignment.
3) Have the dragon wear said helm.
4) Have the dragon enter the carnival.
5) Remove the helm from the dragon once the dragon deigns to leave the carnival


You understand that not everyone is just going to be happy about slapping on a cursed item right? Also, you know, just taking the helmet off doesn't reverse the effects.


— which means that not letting the black dragon in is either a) literally racist (why’d the dragon have to be black?) if alignments are not choices or b) the black dragon is not truly a sapient being with free will because of the inborn alignment stricture which is why alignments are awful (see every discussion on alignments in the last 25 years). I literally had this conversation during Bill Clinton’s first term and the topic was old then.

Think of it less like he's "drawn toward evil", and more that he has an innately aggressive instinct, with little to no empathic sense. A psychopath with aggressive tendancies and the form (a ****ing dragon) to carry out those urges. He's still fully sapient, but he has little regard for life, and gets primal joy from inflicting pain on others. His natural state is one of a viscious hunter who enjoys causing pain and suffering for the fun of it. He can be taught otherwise, but in a vacuum he will rarely, if ever tend toward any other conclusion. This does not devalue his sapience, it merely shapes it through the lens of his natural instincts.

You can't really make a real-world comparison, because there aren't any other animal species that evolved sapience alongside us but with differing instinctual behaviour.

[Red Fel]

I'm going to ask what should be an obvious question, but maybe it's only obvious to me: Why is this Black Dragon still alive to be making this a problem?

Let's once more review. You have an event full of Metallic Dragons who worship the various Metallic Dragon deities. Up strides an arrogant Chromatic Dragon. Why is he not immediately set upon and murdered?

From lore, we know that Draconic morality, while still adhering to D&D's objective morality system, is somewhat alien to that of mortals. We also know that Bahamut is sworn to defeat Tiamat, and his worshipers are similarly sworn to defeat her children. This is not a case where a merciful discussion is in order. This is more a case where an army is making camp, and a single member of the enemy army, wearing the enemy colors and carrying no flag of truce, casually walks up to the gates.

This kid is dead, is my point. How is there even a discussion?

[Quertus]

I'm going to ask what should be an obvious question, but maybe it's only obvious to me: Why is this Black Dragon still alive to be making this a problem?

Let's once more review. You have an event full of Metallic Dragons who worship the various Metallic Dragon deities. Up strides an arrogant Chromatic Dragon. Why is he not immediately set upon and murdered?

From lore, we know that Draconic morality, while still adhering to D&D's objective morality system, is somewhat alien to that of mortals. We also know that Bahamut is sworn to defeat Tiamat, and his worshipers are similarly sworn to defeat her children. This is not a case where a merciful discussion is in order. This is more a case where an army is making camp, and a single member of the enemy army, wearing the enemy colors and carrying no flag of truce, casually walks up to the gates.

This kid is dead, is my point. How is there even a discussion?

Ah, good - you got the impetus behind my response.

Something is clearly amiss. Best to kill them all, and hope that better versions of these defective dragons that we don't need to kill come along.

[Uncle Pine]

How would you settle this situation?
If the black dragon somehow survive, I would definitely have him curse the youngest wyrmling of the king of metallic dragons to prick her finger on a spear and die on her 51st birthday. Or if he dies, have him come back as a ghost and do it anyway.

[KillianHawkeye]

So, are the players all dragons in this situation? Because otherwise, I don't see why they'd get involved in a dispute between dragons that hasn't anything to do with them.

Is the relative age of the dragons supposed to be important? Are we meant to be more sympathetic to the Evil dragon because it is young?

Are you trying to draw some parallel with real life racism? Should we be more understanding of a young black man... er... Black Dragon rolling up to a gathering of high class Gold and Silver and just assume he's trying to better himself by breaking out of the bad situation that he was brought up in? Because it doesn't really work that way for DRAGONS.

Why does the Black Dragon even want to be there?


So I guess my response is to ask a lot of questions because the scenario doesn't really make any sense on its own.

[Meditation]

You understand that not everyone is just going to be happy about slapping on a cursed item right? Also, you know, just taking the helmet off doesn't reverse the effects.

Curse removal is trivial at the power levels the dragons are playing at, and helm removal is a proxy/euphamism for curse removal as, typically, you can’t take it off without removing the curse at all.



Think of it less like he's "drawn toward evil", and more that he has an innately aggressive instinct, with little to no empathic sense.

No, I will not think of it like that, because that’s not what’s going on here. The fundamental failure of alignment is that it asserts that a set of cosmic, sapient, transcedential entities exist that happen to share the names of a) ethical poles and b) a set of broad-based adjetives and that we are to therefore assume, without question, that said entities are the exact same thing as those concepts — even though they aren’t, by definition. Then, said entities impart their essential nature to a set of other sapient beings and said beings act in accordance with a suite of literally incomprehensible (especially in the case of Lawful and Chaotic) behavioral patterns to the point that their sapience is actually in doubt: the behavioral patterns include literal suicidal tendencies.

Alignment is gibberish, and has been for decades. The first time I discussed this is old enough to buy a sports car to prove his masculinity is still intact. Alignment doesn’t represent instincts or urges or anything of the sort because it is subjectively redefined whenever it’s asthetically convenient whereas instincts have objective relationships with the species in which they arise. Alignment’s original purpose was to denote team jerseys: if you’re on Team Porridge you can kill Team Licoricie without consequence, and vice-versa, and back-engineering it into anything more than that is a 40-year old merry-go-round where no one gets off.

If the black dragon is to be rejected because of its political faction, it will be opposed regardless of its alignment (and possibly killed on sight depending upon the cultural milieu of dragons in the OP’s world background) — but it wasn’t, so it isn’t. The OP has implicitly foreclosed that possibility.

If the black dragon is to be rejected because its behavior is bad, use technology (magic) to change its behavior and the problem is rectified.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

On the topic of the helm of opposite alignment: you really ought to double-check the alignment of the dragon in question. After all, if he's not Evil already, you might just turn him such. Permanently, That would be bad.

[Particle_Man]

I would take the black dragon aside and see how much they would pay for some convincing gold body paint. :smallbiggrin:

[ezekielraiden]

I don't really see that it's my place or prerogative to "settle" this. The black dragon wants in on a thing run specifically by beings who worship deities opposed to chromatic dragons. If he's belligerent about it, that's his own problem.

[The Insanity]

@Red Fel
Probably because the OP got an idea into his head and didn't bother thinking about it.

[Florian]

This kid is dead, is my point. How is there even a discussion?

Basically, because the OP comes up with situations that would fit into something like Pokemon or MLP?

[Torpin]

Ok let say the Metallic Dragons who worship Bahamut, Tamara and Hlal were having a Dragon carnival. Everybody was invited (Including non-dragons and Gem Dragons). The carnival doesn't allow Chromatic Dragons of any kind. So the adventure party (A Warblade, Cleric, Swordsage and Wizard) all of them are at level 9 was having a good time at the Dragon carnival until they saw a young male black dragon and an adult male brass dragon arguing. The young male black dragon wants to go to the carnival but the adult male brass dragon wouldn't let the young male black dragon to enter the carnival because it will cause so many problems. The young male black dragon refuses to budge and continue to argue the adult male brass dragon. What would you settle this situation?
i would seduce the black dragon and the brass dragon, and everyone else there, have a big orgy, then go about my day

[Particle_Man]

i would seduce the black dragon and the brass dragon, and everyone else there, have a big orgy, then go about my day

Those half-dragon templated characters have got to come from somewhere! :smallbiggrin: