Quote Originally Posted by Saint-Just View Post
Finally, Raziere: killing those who will not listen? Really?
Its a last resort if being a trickster-teacher doesn't work out, because just speechifying at them directly doesn't work on people. if were being realistic making big speeches and telling people directly what is moral will just make them more resistant and make your think your just an unreasonable moral crusader/twee and thus defy you anyways. therefore the best way to get people to change without measures is often in ways that require cleverness and changing other factors- things that you might not always have time for in a fantasy game where there might be some other evil lurking about/threatening things, and having the guile and intelligence for such work in the first place is already quite lucky and requires some social focus which my character might not have. leading people to the right answer without directly telling them so that they won't resist those answers is delicate work. and again I don't plan on killing civilians.

whats your alternative?

"Stop enslaving people"
"No, I'm not listening"
"oh well I guess I'm just going let that happen."

"Stop oppressing people for having different religion/physical features/partners than you."
"No, I'm not listening."
"oh well I guess I'm going to let that happen."

"Stop being a corrupt jerk who hoards wealth"
"No, I'm not listening."
"oh well I guess I'm going to let that happen."

"Stop going to war"
"No, I'm not listening"
"oh well I guess I'm going to let that happen."

"Stop abusing your power"
"No, I'm not listening"
"Oh well, I guess I'm going to let that happen."

not all of us view playing in settings as taking a tour of suffering we can look at without being able to change much outside of what the GM's wants us to focus on. and if your putting that stuff into fantasy full of fantastic abilities and classes that capable of combat and being badass over others, don't be surprised when violence is what is resorted to.

you want to play out that social change realistically with player involvement you better make sure up front from the start that its a political intrigue game, make sure that a complete noncombat character with social skills is not only a viable character concept, but one of the more optimal ones and that no greater evil or dungeon-crawling is involved at all, because your asking for something that requires total focus of concept, and if there is anything greater than that politics at work the only choice will be to start taking shortcuts to make sure both evils are defeated, lesser and greater. because there is always the chance the lesser evil will be corrupted by the greater one anyways. there is a universe that has both such greater evils and such politics, its called Wh40k, and the people there take violent shortcuts with the politics within to make sure they can deal with the threats from without which are always more pressing.

its the "Thousand Dooms" problem of Exalted 2e: why care about doing the politics and culture properly if some big supernatural disaster or whatnot is constantly going roflstomp over everyone's lives if you don't deal with that anyways? might as well resort to military rule and force them into it, because that is what will be most efficient to responding to those threats.