What makes a world worth living in (or why we flee the Forgotten Realms)

[MoiMagnus]

Scale of threats: When there isn't a CaS GM guaranteeing level-appropriate challenges, a 1st level commoner kinda gets insta-gibbed by an ancient dragon. There's a huge power scale at play on Toril, and that should be as rightly terrifying as nukes were to the Eminence in Shadow pre-Isekai. But I struggle to think of many settings that don't have dragons or gods or nukes or the sun or lightning and thunder or otherwise have things far beyond the scope of the inhabitants (except maybe one two settings where the sun is just "some dude" (although still a far more powerful dude than your average citizen)), so I'm not sure what a good takeaway here would be.

IMO what happen is that peoples don't want to live in a world where they would be the under-priviledged (in term of power, social class, etc), and where this lack of privilege would be felt in their day-to-day life.

So I guess that the "take-away" is that if your world are peoples that are seriously under-privildeged to the point that it makes their life a living hell, make sure that readers don't identify with those under-privildeged but instead identity to peoples higher in the pyramid of powers. It's kind of difficult to do because everyone identify with different characters, but for example you might have an easier time selling your ruthless medieval setting if you bake in it the default assumption that every PC or relatable character is a noble.

[icefractal]

That brings up a big point - are we entering this world through a "veil of ignorance" where we could end up as anyone? Or are we people who'd be PCs/protagonists?

Because most D&D settings, for example, are harsh and dangerous worlds for the majority of people in them, but "high-level caster" is a pretty sweet gig. Get to live forever, no worry about disease or injury, travel dimensions, hang out with all kinds of interesting people, as much money as you want, literally make your own (small) world, etc.

But if it's purely random and I'm more likely to end up as "farmer who gets eviscerated by an Ogre before the heroes get there" then hell no.

[gbaji]

I usually do assume that PCs are "special", but not in some sort of magical way, but more of a "these are people who, for whatever reason, decide to do something about <bad things> going on in the world around them". They are people who will spend their spare time actually practicing, training, and preparing for whatever conflicts they may later encounter. And yeah, that may reflect itself in bonuses in game for various things.

I once had a fellow GM for a game world we were running (we tend to share GMing duties), and he was constantly calculating the skills and abilities for NPCs based on the game systems experience system. His thinking was that these were the rules in the book, so therefore everyone in the game followed those rules. I pointed out that, no, these were the rules in the book which represent the maximum gains someone could get, over time, assuming they are spending pretty much all of their spare time/effort improving themselves in game relevant skills. It's designed to tell us what PCs can get in terms of skill/ability increases over time, when they are not actively adventuring.

But most people in most settings don't spend their time preparing for going on an adventure later, right? Most people, having spent enough effort to put a roof over their heads, and food in their belly, will spend the rest of their time on leisure activities, right? They aren't going to obsessively work out, or train with weapons, or practice spellcraft. They're going to hang out with their friends at the local tavern. Maybe take in a show. Engage in social/fun activities. You know... the stuff normal people do.

So yeah. PCs are assumed to be exceptional in that way, and that will result in increased skills/abilities/spells/etc relative to "regular people". Of course, some NPCs are also going to be of the same mindset as well. But not all. This concept allows us to explain why every single soldier in the evil Duke's army isn't a top level weapons expert. And why every thief in town can't actually rob everyone blind. And why everyone who studies wizardry isn't blasting small towns off the map by the time they're in their 40s. Only the rare exceptional people spend the amount of time/energy/focus to achieve those levels of ability. PCs are somewhat assumed to be in that category (though you can certainly play characters who are not, if you really want to). The GM should have a light hand in terms of which NPCs also fall into that exceptional category.

And yeah. This concept also makes settings work better IMO.

[Telok]

The PCs aren't special because they're PCs--they're PCs because they're special (for other reasons). In this case, we follow their adventures because they're interesting.

Uh, I'm not seeing what you mean? In Boot Hill, PCs are "special" not at the setting level, but they experience things that most "normal" people in the setting don't. That's why they're PCs. That's the meaning of "special" I intend. Paranoia, they're troubleshooters. Most citizens are not troubleshooters. Thus, PCs are special.

See, its like you're saying pcs are special in the setting not because they're pcs and then you turn around and say they aren't special in the setting that they'te speciap because thry're pcs. You make no sense there. And the way Paranoia works all clones start infrared and follow the security colors up, since all red citizens are troubleshooters therefore nearly every single red & higher citizen is or has been a troubleshooter. So in Paranoia being a troubleshooter is not special.

But yeah, the forums' monofocus on d&d does screw up talking about general gaming stuff and non-d&d games. I agree with you there. But its a tangent so I'll drop

[Mechalich]

See, its like you're saying pcs are special in the setting not because they're pcs and then you turn around and say they aren't special in the setting that they'te speciap because thry're pcs. You make no sense there. And the way Paranoia works all clones start infrared and follow the security colors up, since all red citizens are troubleshooters therefore nearly every single red & higher citizen is or has been a troubleshooter. So in Paranoia being a troubleshooter is not special.

I think the idea is that PCs have an uncommon role in society that is generally presumed to be more 'exciting' than what the average person is doing, usually by a very large amount. 'Exciting' usually means that whatever this person is doing has very high stakes, whether in terms of money, emotions, freedom, or life&death. That's why there are so many dramas set in high finance (money), extremely dysfunctional families (emotions), law enforcement or the judicial system (freedom), or medicine (life&death). This doesn't imply that the PCs are 'special' as people - most cops, to use the obvious case, are, the moment they take the uniform off, stunningly ordinary individuals - but that they occupy circumstances that are special from the view of the society they occupy.

This is, however, rather rare in RPGs. Many, possibly most, games posit that the PCs are inherently special, either through the possession of special abilities (superpowers), special training (which is what a D&D PC class represents), or membership in a special class (like being a Vampire in VtM). Even when this is not the case, the PCs are usually presumed to be part of some elite subset within some larger group of people who lead exciting lives - the crew of the best starship, the students at the elite academy, the members of the championship sports team, etc. Stories and games focused on Joe Average are rare.

[KorvinStarmast]

Jeez, it isn't that complicated.
PCs in any role-playing game are the protagonists of the story, so the spot light is necessarily on them.
Just like in TV shows, movies, plays, etc ...

One of the things I like about the way our GM is running our Blades in the Dark game is that he shares with us the results of some of his rolls/off screen deliberations, via informants or allies we make, that let us know how some of the other factions are doing, or what they are doing, while we are mucking about doing crime. In a few cases this has led us to change what score we were trying to set up and achieve ...

[PhoenixPhyre]

Jeez, it isn't that complicated.
PCs in any role-playing game are the protagonists of the story, so the spot light is necessarily on them.
Just like in TV shows, movies, plays, etc ...

Yeah, that was my intent. But I missed a "may" in my original statement--a more full statement might be:

PCs may or may not be special in setting. If they are special in setting, it's not because they're PCs. At least in most games that don't involve 4th wall violations as a core mechanic.

Regardless of their special nature (or lack thereof) in setting, PCs are PCs because they are interesting to observe from the outside. They have adventures, meet things, do things, etc so that having the spotlight on them is interesting. And this is why they're PCs--very few games[1] are devoted to following the non-exploits of uninteresting, utterly ordinary people going about their daily business in a perfectly normal, boring world. The game conceit is that by creating the PCs, they're guaranteed to be cursed with interesting lives. And part of the social contract of most RPGs is that the players will accept that curse and lean into it, not have to be dragged kicking and screaming to bite at "plot hooks" or other ways the universe (aka whoever is narrating, if anyone) decides to make their lives interesting.

Another consequence of this is that the view of the setting PCs (and thus players) see is extremely warped toward the "interesting". Which in D&D particularly, tends to mean violent, rife with potentially (if not stopped) cataclysmic events and high-power people. We only see what the spotlight is focusing on with any clarity--and that's focused on the "interesting" life of the PCs most of the time.

[1] all generalizations, including this one, are false. So I wouldn't be too shocked to find there is at least one RPG out there that specializes in "slice-of-life" games where nothing "interesting" (in the sense used above) happens. But they're not the majority, by far.

[KorvinStarmast]

Regardless of their special nature (or lack thereof) in setting, PCs are PCs because they are interesting to observe from the outside. They have adventures, meet things, do things, etc so that having the spotlight on them is interesting. And this is why they're PCs--very few games[1] are devoted to following the non-exploits of uninteresting, utterly ordinary people going about their daily business in a perfectly normal, boring world. The game conceit is that by creating the PCs, they're guaranteed to be cursed with interesting lives. And part of the social contract of most RPGs is that the players will accept that curse and lean into it, not have to be dragged kicking and screaming to bite at "plot hooks" or other ways the universe (aka whoever is narrating, if anyone) decides to make their lives interesting.

The stories we tell about the adventures we shared seems to me an integral part of the point of a TRPG.

Another consequence of this is that the view of the setting PCs (and thus players) see is extremely warped toward the "interesting".

If one didn't do that, the players would get interested in something else, like a board game, Twister, what have you.

I wouldn't be too shocked to find there is at least one RPG out there that specializes in "slice-of-life" games where nothing "interesting" (in the sense used above) happens. But they're not the majority, by far.

I quite a D&D game over the overuse of the 'slice of life' aspect of the game. I like it, a lot, in measured doses, but there can be too much of a good thing. (The Dm also bragged about being a low prep DM, which also informed my decision to use my free time elsewhere and elsewhen.

[gbaji]

The game conceit is that by creating the PCs, they're guaranteed to be cursed with interesting lives. And part of the social contract of most RPGs is that the players will accept that curse and lean into it, not have to be dragged kicking and screaming to bite at "plot hooks" or other ways the universe (aka whoever is narrating, if anyone) decides to make their lives interesting.

I guess that's a way of looking at it. I really do prefer to think of it, not in terms of some external "curse", but rather an internal choice by the PCs. They are PCs because they're the ones who choose to do something about something. They happen to be the 4-6 people in the bar who, when the old man stumbled in holding a tattered map in his hand, and then promptly expired, decided "we'll take the map and go see what it leads to" and *not* "well just mind our own business and let the experts handle things".

If they don't do that, and some other people do, then *they* are the PCs. This is more or less why I have a rule of "one random conicidence per scenario" (which is usually the hook for it). You can say "what are the odds that the exact characters we just rolled up happend to all by right there when this event happend that started the adventure", but the answer is simple: "I was having you roll the stats and determine the background for the exact people who *were* standing there when this happened". There was always going to be a group of people who find the map and follow it. You were always going to play those people. I mean, you could choose not to, but then why are you playing the game?

And yeah, that's where I agree 100% on the absurity of thinking that the players have to be dragged kicking and screaming into things. Um... You decided to play the game. Somewhat by definition, you are agreeing to engage in the events that happen in that game. You are free to roleplay a person who doesn't do anything interesting or exciting or dangerous if you want, but go do that on your own time. I don't find any problems at all with the GM making this assumption and moving forward with it.

Um... But from that moment forward, there is nothing "special" about the PCs at all, other than whatever stats/skill/abilities they have. Fate may have brought them the circumstances that started the adventure, but there's no magical fate that ensures what sequence of events happen after that point. That's all up to the players. And yeah, they are absolutely free to decide to have a character retire and live out their days on an okra farm or something. Great. Roll up a new character and that's the next person who is interested in engaging in exciting/dangerous things and will just happen to be waiting around when the next opportunity for someone to join the group occurs.

It is funny, because I hear about some players who do this sort of thing, but I just don't get it. Yes. You are free in my game to do anything you want (and can physically do based on what's on your sheet). And I'll play that out for you if you want. But there are very high odds that, if I've written a scenario for the game, that nothing you decide to do that *isn't* that scenario is going to be anywhere near as interesting. You want to wander the hills looking for treasure. Ok. You spend X time doing that. You found <rolls dice> 16 copper pieces and an old rusty hammer. And yeah, if a player just insists on not going along on an adventure, I'll happily just leave them behind. They can sit and "roleplay" their character doing mundane things back where we left him, while everyone else is having a grand adventure. And your table time will consist of me telling you once a sesssion "Nothing interesting happens to your character", perhaps followed by "Do you want to roll a new character? Maybe someone actually interested in adventuring with the rest of the group?"

Dunno. It seems like a self correcting problem to me. And yeah, that doesn't mean that players can't come up to me with a "plan" they want to do. That can totally lead to all sorts of adventures (and I will certainly inject little side stuff along the way based on this as well). But this is a group game and group experience, so there is an expecation that I'm writing stuff that everyone can particpate in, not just the stuff you want to do all by yourself. Now, you come to me with something interesting, and I'll write an adventure using it, which will (purely by coincidence of course!) happen to involve 3-5 of your friends and cohorts helping you with whatever you wanted to accomplish. Amazing how that just happens to work out that way. Anything else you want to do can happen off table.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I guess that's a way of looking at it. I really do prefer to think of it, not in terms of some external "curse", but rather an internal choice by the PCs. They are PCs because they're the ones who choose to do something about something. They happen to be the 4-6 people in the bar who, when the old man stumbled in holding a tattered map in his hand, and then promptly expired, decided "we'll take the map and go see what it leads to" and *not* "well just mind our own business and let the experts handle things".

If they don't do that, and some other people do, then *they* are the PCs. This is more or less why I have a rule of "one random conicidence per scenario" (which is usually the hook for it). You can say "what are the odds that the exact characters we just rolled up happend to all by right there when this event happend that started the adventure", but the answer is simple: "I was having you roll the stats and determine the background for the exact people who *were* standing there when this happened". There was always going to be a group of people who find the map and follow it. You were always going to play those people. I mean, you could choose not to, but then why are you playing the game?

And yeah, that's where I agree 100% on the absurity of thinking that the players have to be dragged kicking and screaming into things. Um... You decided to play the game. Somewhat by definition, you are agreeing to engage in the events that happen in that game. You are free to roleplay a person who doesn't do anything interesting or exciting or dangerous if you want, but go do that on your own time. I don't find any problems at all with the GM making this assumption and moving forward with it.

Um... But from that moment forward, there is nothing "special" about the PCs at all, other than whatever stats/skill/abilities they have. Fate may have brought them the circumstances that started the adventure, but there's no magical fate that ensures what sequence of events happen after that point. That's all up to the players. And yeah, they are absolutely free to decide to have a character retire and live out their days on an okra farm or something. Great. Roll up a new character and that's the next person who is interested in engaging in exciting/dangerous things and will just happen to be waiting around when the next opportunity for someone to join the group occurs.

It is funny, because I hear about some players who do this sort of thing, but I just don't get it. Yes. You are free in my game to do anything you want (and can physically do based on what's on your sheet). And I'll play that out for you if you want. But there are very high odds that, if I've written a scenario for the game, that nothing you decide to do that *isn't* that scenario is going to be anywhere near as interesting. You want to wander the hills looking for treasure. Ok. You spend X time doing that. You found <rolls dice> 16 copper pieces and an old rusty hammer. And yeah, if a player just insists on not going along on an adventure, I'll happily just leave them behind. They can sit and "roleplay" their character doing mundane things back where we left him, while everyone else is having a grand adventure. And your table time will consist of me telling you once a sesssion "Nothing interesting happens to your character", perhaps followed by "Do you want to roll a new character? Maybe someone actually interested in adventuring with the rest of the group?"

Dunno. It seems like a self correcting problem to me. And yeah, that doesn't mean that players can't come up to me with a "plan" they want to do. That can totally lead to all sorts of adventures (and I will certainly inject little side stuff along the way based on this as well). But this is a group game and group experience, so there is an expecation that I'm writing stuff that everyone can particpate in, not just the stuff you want to do all by yourself. Now, you come to me with something interesting, and I'll write an adventure using it, which will (purely by coincidence of course!) happen to involve 3-5 of your friends and cohorts helping you with whatever you wanted to accomplish. Amazing how that just happens to work out that way. Anything else you want to do can happen off table.

I don't actually disagree with any of this. In my mind, at every moment in a campaign the players have two choices that are in keeping with the overall social contract[1]. Choose to have their characters follow the Call To Adventure (even if they have to make that Call themselves) or have their characters retire and bring a new one. In which case the old PC is now an NPC (allowed to be boring) and the new character is the new PC. PCs have the spotlight because they do interesting things. As soon as they stop doing interesting things (for more than an inter-arc break or beach episode or so), the spotlight finds someone else and the old characters fade back into the background. A meta-aware character who can see the PC tag would correlate "PC" with "always in the right place for something to happen". But it's not always the same ones, and it's not some in-universe "destiny". Unless it is in some cases.

If someone decides that their character is interested in X, and X is interesting to the rest of the party (which usually means some form of adventure, although palette cleansers with things like rock concerts[2] can work if they're understood as tension/pace management not a steady diet), then everything's fine. We do X. If they don't have some driving thing they want to explore, then the adventure might come to them (in the form of plot grenades or plot hooks, where "plot" should be interpreted very widely as "anything that starts another narrative arc not as some pre-determined path). But either way, you're not sitting at home. You're out there doing something. And that puts PCs in a very different environment than the rest of the "normal" (ie non-PC, even if adventurer) population.

My setting has "adventurers" as a formalized social class that roughly replaces "mercenary", and most of the military of a group of countries (by international treaty). The ultra-vast majority of all adventurers never graduate past guarding caravans or possibly engaging in light banditry themselves. They adventure for a few months, sometimes make a "big" strike or get hurt, then retire. Most of the "professionals" or "lifers" have never seen anything more exciting than a pack of marauding hippogryphs or a raid by some of the "wild" (ie not treaty-member) goblin tribes. And those who are not adventurers have seen even fewer "interesting" things. There may be the dryad of the local woods, but they're aware of her foibles and their shaman/priest/Listener handles propitiating her so they can gather enough firewood. Etc. Yet my last 3 campaigns have dealt with dragons plotting to blow up all the other adult+ dragons, have blown up two different mountains and saved a different one. One fought and defeated the avatar of one of the major deities on live worldwide TV[3]; another ended up destroying the incarnation of Despair, an entity trapped outside of time and space, by invading its thoughts and smashing its True Name with an artifact. They've consorted with demon princes, devil dons, and angelic leaders. With Ascendant Powers, fey quasi-deities, and one even is dating the one who is responsible for keeping time nice and linear. Etc.

[1] Ok, 3. They can choose to leave and find a different table (or not).
[2] Hey Dil! I especially liked the finale where you recreated King Kong. And didn't tell two of the party members (or even their players!) you were going to pretend to be kidnapped and that the giant ape was really Tsun, polymorphed.
[3] well, really the deific equivalent. The goddess of Justice tends to go for very blatant means when she wants to get the point across that someone dun screwed up. And the god deserved it, he shouldn't have crashed Tsun's kid's wedding and started throwing threats around. That wasn't very nice of him.

[Telok]

I think there's conflicting assumptions going on here. Things I'm seeing:

1. Rules as physics + what rules are used for a setting. I can run any setting using Call of Cthulhu, Champions, or Paranoia rules. But if you insist on rules as physics you get stuff like a CoC-ruled D&D-land with higher body counts & insane murderoid magic users, or a Champs-ruled CoC-world with no sanity loss and normal people tanking 2 storey falls every five minutes (falling rules in supers tend to be generous). To the contrary, if you assume the rules only generally describe how to play a rpg game in the setting without actually being perfectly accurate in all details then you get a different outcome. There you get stuff happening as described in the setting and generally along "like RL except where noted", rather than depending on specific game rules.

2. Narrative causality + speed of plot. Narrative causality is stuff happening to make a 'better story', and speed of plot is basically a subset of that. What happens though is if you assume rules as physics and narrative causality then anyone in a setting you talk about to any significant extent becomes a PC and starts encountering 'interesting' situations and using PC advancement rules. Now for, say Classic Traveller, you might not notice a big change. People can start play as PCs in their 50s after retiring from active military service in a shooting war. There's two to six weeks per hyperspace jump and potentially several jumps between 'interesting' stuff, which can just be a broken non-critical ship part. And it takes 2+ years of most of your spare time to learn basic competent anything like computer programming or knife fighting. But for a modern D&D rule set you get average of 3-6 "level appropriate" fights a day and new superpowers every 10-20 fights, plus after your first couple days you can start casting magic spells because the rules say so. Without narrative causality, totally different.

3. "I am PC, hear me min/max my xp grind". Do you assume you're "you", with full knowledge of the setting & game, dropped into a setting that's running rules as physics, and as a PC (maybe even edit or being generous with your own 'character sheet' a bit?) with the full access to those rules and a missing/ultra-permissive GM? Yay! Time to abuse rules loopholes (if any which is usually a yes) to powerlevel up to god-level. Or you can ask what the vast majority of people, or yourself as a normal person, experiences in a setting as the setting is described as working, without relying on any specific narrative causality to gaurantee your survival & optional rules/permissive rulings to shortcut your way to superpowers.

I've been tending to assume not rules as physics, no narrative causality, and not being dropped into the setting as a fanfic self insert. In that case, 1920s Call of Cthulhu Earth isn't a utopia but its a damn sight better than D&D ass-gods and random wererats or goblins ganking your cr 1/16th self in Forgotten Realms. But then something like Classic Traveller or Eclipse Phase totally wins out there, the default setting having decent medical care and no current serious wars or universe destroying threats. Assume all the murder-hobo rpg character enablers & narrative causality are turned up to 11? Sure, go with some WotC D&D FR. But only because its sloppy rules let me hook up with a party of clerics & paladins while cheesing my way to god-wizard status and dumping the setting like a sack of rotting fish guts for another, nicer, place (Wish spell sez 'hi!').

[KorvinStarmast]

My setting has "adventurers" as a formalized social class that roughly replaces "mercenary", and most of the military of a group of countries (by international treaty). The ultra-vast majority of all adventurers never graduate past guarding caravans or possibly engaging in light banditry themselves. They adventure for a few months, sometimes make a "big" strike or get hurt, then retire. Most of the "professionals" or "lifers" have never seen anything more exciting than a pack of marauding hippogryphs or a raid by some of the "wild" (ie not treaty-member) goblin tribes. And those who are not adventurers have seen even fewer "interesting" things. There may be the dryad of the local woods, but they're aware of her foibles and their shaman/priest/Listener handles propitiating her so they can gather enough firewood. Etc. Yet my last 3 campaigns have dealt with dragons plotting to blow up all the other adult+ dragons, have blown up two different mountains and saved a different one. One fought and defeated the avatar of one of the major deities on live worldwide TV[3]; another ended up destroying the incarnation of Despair, an entity trapped outside of time and space, by invading its thoughts and smashing its True Name with an artifact. They've consorted with demon princes, devil dons, and angelic leaders. With Ascendant Powers, fey quasi-deities, and one even is dating the one who is responsible for keeping time nice and linear. Etc.

But because there are a number of adventuring companies, each of whom has their own agendas or priorities, this adds some depth in terms of political nuance and scheming, but it also provides another hook for the players to plug into the game world. (I am/was a player in all three of the campaigns Phoenix has mentioned)

[2] Hey Dil! I especially liked the finale where you recreated King Kong. And didn't tell two of the party members (or even their players!) you were going to pretend to be kidnapped and that the giant ape was really Tsun, polymorphed.

Dreaming up and then executing that publicity stunt was some of the most fun I've had at a D&D table, ever. Tsun's enthusiastic support of the idea - which we discussed in Discord - was an important aspect of making that possible, as was the pre briefing I had with you. Engaged players make a big difference, whether one is a Dm or one is another player.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Dreaming up and then executing that publicity stunt was some of the most fun I've had at a D&D table, ever. Tsun's enthusiastic support of the idea - which we discussed in Discord - was an important aspect of making that possible, as was the pre briefing I had with you. Engaged players make a big difference, whether one is a Dm or one is another player.

Amen to that. Both parts, but especially that last sentence.

[Kami2awa]

To make a world people want to live in, I think one way is to take a leaf (or rather, several hundred pages) from Tolkien's books.

Middle-Earth is not always a good place. There are dark lords, orcs, corruption, literal demons, and every so often civilisation collapses and has to rebuild in a new Age. It's definitely an imperfect world (and Tolkien's fantasy theology has a lot to say about that). However, it is also full of joyous things. Light, food, good cheer, song, family, and beautiful things and places. Tolkien, perhaps because he fought in the First World War and so had to leave all the comforts of home behind, really knew what makes people happy, and he put it into his world in contrast to all the darkness and evil.

So that's why people would want to live in that world - there need to be things to make people happy, in contrast to all the bad stuff.

[gbaji]

That's a really good point. While full on grim/dark worlds can work sometimes, it's helpful to have a "what are we fighting for" concept in there. There should be areas of the world (perhaps quite large portions in fact) that are peaceful, fun, enjoyable, etc. The idea being that the PCs are maybe motivated to go into the more hellish areas, and fight against terrible enemies, specifically so that their influence/evil/whatever doesn't spread to those nice parts of the world.

[gatorized]

What's the problem with the wall of the faithless?

[glass]

What's the problem with the wall of the faithless?

It is torture, for millennia. That would be excessive and monstrously evil even if it applied to people who had done something in life that deserved some kind of punishment. And it doesn't.

[Anymage]

What's the problem with the wall of the faithless?

In universe it makes the gods - even good gods - out to be bullies who have to compel worship on pain of torture instead of earning it. There's also the part where supposedly good aligned characters who one would expect to be unhappy at this thing existing are instead indifferent to supportive of it. And how a lot of attempts to justify it have had authors make claims that either fail to track with real people or assume an intrinsic level of jerkishness to every living humanoid in the world.

Out of universe, it also feels like commentary on real world religious beliefs, or at least analogues thereof. And while some might say that real world religious beliefs should be considered irrelevant to fantasy worlds, I invite them to write an adventure where the villainous cult has all the trappings of a given real world religion and then observe fan and publisher reactions.

[Vahnavoi]

What's the problem with the wall of the faithless?

Nothing. The concept is of the sort you'd find in actual myth, so fits fantasy just fine. It's the rest of the Forgotten Realms that is a mess.

Some people get offended by it because it doesn't fit with what they personally believe or want out of a fantasy. Same goes for the cataclysm in Dragonlance. That's not particularly damning because the same would be true of all the real myths these fictional devices are based on.

I invite them to write an adventure where the villainous cult has all the trappings of a given real world religion and then observe fan and publisher reactions.

Outside places such as this forum, this is just day like any other.

[Telok]

Nothing. The concept is of the sort you'd find in actual myth, so fits fantasy just fine. It's the rest of the Forgotten Realms that is a mess.

Keeping in mind that the myths we're talking about aren't the sanitized Disney versions, but the ones where a prince mouthed off to some random old woman last month and now night monsters have killed and eaten half the children in the kingdom.

[Cazero]

Some people get offended by it because it doesn't fit with what they personally believe or want out of a fantasy.

It's not a problem of opinion. It's a problem of internal consistency.
You think people are "offended" by it ? Try "verisimilitude passing under a train" due to the massive blow to morality and agency an Evil of such scale poses to all non-Evil gods.
Especialy when fixing it would be so trivial. Any Good god could just claim all faithless, no questions asked, and the problem would vanish.

edit : even easier fix, make the god of death Evil and untouchable. Stuff like can't die unless he wants to because god of death. Not a chump that changes every edition.

[gatorized]

Sounds like you should probably worship a god then. problem solved.

[Kish]

Sounds like you should probably worship a god then. problem solved.

No, that would be the solution to the problem "some players are complaining about something I don't want to worry about." It has nothing to do with the problem "all the gods of the Forgotten Realms are supportive of a horrific punishment for something that isn't evil, and the setting doesn't permit anyone to meaningfully oppose it."

[Vahnavoi]

@Cazero: The (already feeble) internal consistency of Forgotten Realms is not wrecked by Wall of the Faithless. What is wrecked is consistency with external opinions, such as notions end-users have of what is plausible of a good god. That is all verisimilitude is. Feeling your verisimilitude got run over by a train because something reflects badly on fictional entities is not an alternative to being offended because fiction didn't fit your real beliefs or expectations of a fantasy; it's an example of it happening.

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@Kish:

It has nothing to do with the problem "all the gods of the Forgotten Realms are supportive of a horrific punishment for something that isn't evil, and the setting doesn't permit anyone to meaningfully oppose it."

This isn't a problem that needs fixing, it's a statement to make players (and their characters) pick a side. Which side to pick is the actual player-facing problem.

[Cazero]

What is wrecked is consistency with external opinions, such as notions end-users have of what is plausible of a good god.

I'm sorry, but this is basic definitions. Good and Evil are incompatible, by definition. If your definition of Good allows to be okay with infinite Evil, your definitions are broken.

[NichG]

@Cazero: The (already feeble) internal consistency of Forgotten Realms is not wrecked by Wall of the Faithless. What is wrecked is consistency with external opinions, such as notions end-users have of what is plausible of a good god. That is all verisimilitude is. Feeling your verisimilitude got run over by a train because something reflects badly on fictional entities is not an alternative to being offended because fiction didn't fit your real beliefs or expectations of a fantasy; it's an example of it happening.

Being a 'world worth living in' isn't about verisimilitude or internal consistency though. Ancient myths aren't generally about how awesome a place the world is. While they're often about the things people wonder over, they're just as often about things people deeply fear.

The Wall of the Faithless can be a coherent element of a setting, but if you were a multiversal traveller it'd definitely mark a setting as 'caution: this is a really bad place to die'. Or, if your character comes into enough power or importance that their decisions determine whether a setting should be saved or fled or burned down or allowed to collapse under its internal threats, well, it shifts the needle towards 'get out' or 'let it burn'. It makes it a world worth ending rather than saving.

[Kish]

@Cazero: The (already feeble) internal consistency of Forgotten Realms is not wrecked by Wall of the Faithless. What is wrecked is consistency with external opinions, such as notions end-users have of what is plausible of a good god. That is all verisimilitude is. Feeling your verisimilitude got run over by a train because something reflects badly on fictional entities is not an alternative to being offended because fiction didn't fit your real beliefs or expectations of a fantasy; it's an example of it happening.

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@Kish:



This isn't a problem that needs fixing, it's a statement to make players (and their characters) pick a side. Which side to pick is the actual player-facing problem.

An epicure dining in Crewe
Found a rather large mouse in his stew
Said the waiter, "Don't shout
And wave it about
Or the rest will be wanting one too!"

[Vahnavoi]

I'm sorry, but this is basic definitions. Good and Evil are incompatible, by definition. If your definition of Good allows to be okay with infinite Evil, your definitions are broken.

Good and Evil are incompatible when considering alignment of a single action. This doesn't mean a Good character is incapable of Evil actions, characters aren't presumed to be perfectly consistent over time.

Forgotten Realms gods are characters. They aren't perfect. They can and do take out-of-alignment actions, and occasionally suffer the consequences for it.

As for the "infinite evil" bit? That's a red herring. Even admitting the Wall of Faithless is an infinite evil doesn't preclude Good gods being okay with it. Why? Because it's not the only infinity in D&D cosmology. So even infinite evil of the Wall can be justified from a divine perspective, if it exists to keep some even greater infinite evil in check, whether that be the Abyss or the Far Realm or whatever else. Never mind all possible infinite goods that good gods can only offer if - get this - people have faith in them. Those stand even if there is no Wall, so the idea that being Faithless or False is not Evil in a setting like Forgotten Realms is suspect under the same logic of infinities you use to complain about the gods.

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@NichG: we aren't in disagreement over that. Not wanting to live in a setting because it offends one's real beliefs or because it doesn't fit what one wants out of a fantasy is perfectly normal. My larger point is that it's silly to single out the Wall for when Forgotten Realms is a mess in general.

[Mechalich]

People really, really seem to make factual errors about the Wall of the Faithless.

First off, it's not infinite and it's not a fundamental part of the FR cosmology. It's a bit of divine artifice created by the direct action of Myrkul sometime after he ascended to the position of God of Death in -357 DR. For the overwhelming majority of FR history - the history of FR goes back to ~35,000 DR - Jergal was god of the dead and he apparently treated the Faithless like he did everyone else: he ignored them. It is also implied in the novel Crucible: the Trial of Cyric the Mad, the Kelemvor either god rid of or seriously modified the Wall of the Faithless to be a little more bland and boring, however a series of bad copy pasta ever since has made it completely unclear what happens to the Faithless after all.

Second, the gods of good, or even neutrality, can't really do anything about it. The way the FR cosmology is structured, the God of Death has dominion over the Faithless. Myrkul was an Evil entity, so he treated them in an evil manner. Jergal and Kelemvor, being Neutral, did not. That doesn't mean they were nice to the Faithless, but it would seem rather strange for the gods to reward those who fail to worship them.

Third, being Faithless in the realms is just an odd thing overall. The gods manifestly do exist, intervene actively in the world, have pervasive priesthoods, and are quite clear that worship is compulsory. In order to become Faithless a mortal has to pervasively and continually deny this fundamental fact of reality. The gods consider it perfectly acceptable for their worshippers to hate them - there are a lot of male Drow in the Demonweb Pits.

Fourth, being stuck in a wall until you merge with a plane is a long, long way from the worst thing that can happen to someone in the FR version of the afterlife. Souls don't need to eat, sleep, or breathe, all being stuck in a wall does is immobilize them. A male Drow in the Demonweb Pits is highly likely to also be immobilized, just in a spiderweb instead of a wall, and poisonous spiders will continually eat their flesh for all eternity. That's very clearly a much worse outcome.

My larger point is that it's silly to single out the Wall for when Forgotten Realms is a mess in general.

Yeah, the Wall is mostly just an odd quirk of the setting, especially considering how rare Faithless are in the Realms. Hardly any sources reference it, and it's not considered sufficiently important for 5e to even properly decide whether or not it exists (the Sword Coast Adventures Guide initially mentioned it and then quietly removed all reference via errata). The whole thing was created by Troy Denning for the novel Waterdeep in 1989 as a way to hold a threat over the character of Adon for daring to doubt the gods. Considering Troy Denning's generally antagonistic relationship with coherent world-building, it can be assumed that no coherent thought into the cosmology of the Realms was made when the Wall of the Faithless was created.

[Telok]

Considering Troy Denning's generally antagonistic relationship with coherent world-building, it can be assumed that no coherent thought into the cosmology of the Realms was made when the Wall of the Faithless was created.

To be fair, for most people who have only encountered FR's "setting" via a random selection of WotC's adventures (myself among them), the phrase "<author name>'s generally antagonistic relationship with coherent world-building, it can be assumed that no coherent thought..." pretty much sums up FR as a setting anyways.