Eh, DnD morality is just fundamentally broken at a conceptual level, and people have known that since forever. Every GM basically overlays their own opinions on what good/evil/lawful/chaotic mean, and there’s no consistency from table to table.
True but I do feel like the issue described in the meme is one that I’ve rarely seen questioned. Ultimately, D&D was designed to be a game about murdering the bad guys, and while you can play a different type of campaign if you really want to, it would be a bit like using your mattress as a raft.
So for me as someone who is fairly committed to nonviolence outside the game, it’s just too difficult to run a campaign that really shakes the foundations in this way.
I played a campaign where the entire thing was a murder mystery dinner and the only actual combat was a hunting scenario as part of the wedding party events and the final confrontation with the murderer, which only went hot because all our characters sucked at being detectives and the perp was talking circles around us. If any of us had thought to read “Sounding like a competent detective in a pinch for dummies” we could have beat that camp with zero actual murder hoboing!
The good news is there are other systems that aren’t focused on combat. D&D isn’t the right choice. So many people act like D&D is the only system and it sucks. It isn’t even the best at the things it’s built to do!
Hasbro just has so much money they control the space, and then they use that money to send the Pinkertons after people. Go play anything else, please!
Yeah that’s kind of what I was implying. However I haven’t found the right system yet. It needs to be simpler than D&D for my group to be interested I think.
I haven’t played it, but I’ve watched some. Vampire: The Masquerade seems like a good system that’s focused on social storytelling. It’s not a fantasy setting though, so if you want that it probably isn’t the right choice.
I will say that D&D is a game with some disturbing assumptions smuggled into its “objective” morality.
Eh, DnD morality is just fundamentally broken at a conceptual level, and people have known that since forever. Every GM basically overlays their own opinions on what good/evil/lawful/chaotic mean, and there’s no consistency from table to table.
True but I do feel like the issue described in the meme is one that I’ve rarely seen questioned. Ultimately, D&D was designed to be a game about murdering the bad guys, and while you can play a different type of campaign if you really want to, it would be a bit like using your mattress as a raft.
So for me as someone who is fairly committed to nonviolence outside the game, it’s just too difficult to run a campaign that really shakes the foundations in this way.
I played a campaign where the entire thing was a murder mystery dinner and the only actual combat was a hunting scenario as part of the wedding party events and the final confrontation with the murderer, which only went hot because all our characters sucked at being detectives and the perp was talking circles around us. If any of us had thought to read “Sounding like a competent detective in a pinch for dummies” we could have beat that camp with zero actual murder hoboing!
The good news is there are other systems that aren’t focused on combat. D&D isn’t the right choice. So many people act like D&D is the only system and it sucks. It isn’t even the best at the things it’s built to do!
Hasbro just has so much money they control the space, and then they use that money to send the Pinkertons after people. Go play anything else, please!
Yeah that’s kind of what I was implying. However I haven’t found the right system yet. It needs to be simpler than D&D for my group to be interested I think.
I haven’t played it, but I’ve watched some. Vampire: The Masquerade seems like a good system that’s focused on social storytelling. It’s not a fantasy setting though, so if you want that it probably isn’t the right choice.