Theron_the_slim
2019-12-13, 07:50 AM
Hi people of the Internet,
I come to you with a somewhat small dilemma that turns out to be a more than slight annoyance in my world building as a DM (in the best way by the way, since I think searching answers for this makes for better rounded NPC´s, why I thought of getting a little bit help in the first place) .
(Sidenote: I basiclly run a forgotten realmish setting, with societies mostly a bit less developed than the Forgotten Realms, so more early middle ages, but I think my Question is also applicable to those setting I think, if not more so)
Okay, my Question: How do smart, evil, (non spellcasting) people justify their actions, if they know the hells exist?
I get it for people who maybe don´t know anything about it, some dude in a remote village who never saw a cleric cast a spell and really wants his neighbours fancy hat (so yeah, murdertime).
I somewhat get it for powerful spellcasters (or those who plan to become one), since they at least have a potential path to immortality and therefor can somewhat realisticly reason with them self that they don´t have to face those consequences after death. (becoming a Lich as the most obvious one)
But let´s say we have some dude in the middle to upper management of a thieves guild or even some lord really abusing his people. You know, or anyone that isn´t a stupid brute, but who acts deeply immoral for his personal gain and a more luxurious lifestyle (or pretty much anyone whos evil deeds do not include preventing the afterlife-punishment for those evil deeds and is smart/informed enough to consider the consequences of their actions).
Well that is pretty much the lense through I view almost all of my villains while building them.
I honestly never found anything close to a general rule why somebody would act like this, some logical, informed counterargument for (in this world) certain and maybe eternal damnation. If you find one, you can call me insanely impressed and for bureaucracy´s I also ask this question, even if I don´t really expect an answer.
What I found are some personal exceptions and setting based loopholes I like to employ. For me those are often a great way to build a new NPC or even a group of NPC´s according to those princibles, and those are the answers I am most interested in, since I found a few, but there surely are much more to be found.
I only would make up 3 general rules for potential answers.
1. No NPC with indifference to his fate (meaning no NPC who just wants something more than he would like to prevent his eternal suffering, this Includes NPC´s that act irrational because of there emotions etc ... it´s not that those are by default bad or something, but those are more dodging the question than answering it)
2. No Lich or servant of a dark god Situation Situation, so nobody who is (maybe even rightfully) convinced to don´t face hellish consequences.
3. No NPC´s that have been lied to in that matter (so nobody that thinks the hells aren´t a thing, nobody that thinks if he does x he won´t go to the lower planes)
So yeah, I am very curious what this comes up in this discussion, until then, bye.
I come to you with a somewhat small dilemma that turns out to be a more than slight annoyance in my world building as a DM (in the best way by the way, since I think searching answers for this makes for better rounded NPC´s, why I thought of getting a little bit help in the first place) .
(Sidenote: I basiclly run a forgotten realmish setting, with societies mostly a bit less developed than the Forgotten Realms, so more early middle ages, but I think my Question is also applicable to those setting I think, if not more so)
Okay, my Question: How do smart, evil, (non spellcasting) people justify their actions, if they know the hells exist?
I get it for people who maybe don´t know anything about it, some dude in a remote village who never saw a cleric cast a spell and really wants his neighbours fancy hat (so yeah, murdertime).
I somewhat get it for powerful spellcasters (or those who plan to become one), since they at least have a potential path to immortality and therefor can somewhat realisticly reason with them self that they don´t have to face those consequences after death. (becoming a Lich as the most obvious one)
But let´s say we have some dude in the middle to upper management of a thieves guild or even some lord really abusing his people. You know, or anyone that isn´t a stupid brute, but who acts deeply immoral for his personal gain and a more luxurious lifestyle (or pretty much anyone whos evil deeds do not include preventing the afterlife-punishment for those evil deeds and is smart/informed enough to consider the consequences of their actions).
Well that is pretty much the lense through I view almost all of my villains while building them.
I honestly never found anything close to a general rule why somebody would act like this, some logical, informed counterargument for (in this world) certain and maybe eternal damnation. If you find one, you can call me insanely impressed and for bureaucracy´s I also ask this question, even if I don´t really expect an answer.
What I found are some personal exceptions and setting based loopholes I like to employ. For me those are often a great way to build a new NPC or even a group of NPC´s according to those princibles, and those are the answers I am most interested in, since I found a few, but there surely are much more to be found.
I only would make up 3 general rules for potential answers.
1. No NPC with indifference to his fate (meaning no NPC who just wants something more than he would like to prevent his eternal suffering, this Includes NPC´s that act irrational because of there emotions etc ... it´s not that those are by default bad or something, but those are more dodging the question than answering it)
2. No Lich or servant of a dark god Situation Situation, so nobody who is (maybe even rightfully) convinced to don´t face hellish consequences.
3. No NPC´s that have been lied to in that matter (so nobody that thinks the hells aren´t a thing, nobody that thinks if he does x he won´t go to the lower planes)
So yeah, I am very curious what this comes up in this discussion, until then, bye.