[X] My Assistant

[hyzmarca]

[Kagetenshi]

No, actually, Evil can't be more moral, because moral is defined as what Good does. The problem in that situation is just that Ravor fails to see that the moral choice is to slaughter that village.

~J

[Wounded Ronin]

[GrepZen]

In regards to the D&D alignment: Take a look at the Eberon campaign setting...it has a much better take on alignment & the factionalization there of. You have a mythos and people of all alignments who follow said mythos but, have their own interpretation of how it should be followed. Kind of like real life. It still breaks down around the LG slaughter of the kobold village but thats just one of those paradoxal quagmires based upon changing social mores.

[Kagetenshi]

Why do you say it breaks down?

~J

[GrepZen]

That kind of goes into the whole "inherently evil/good genetic pre-destination/disposition" thing unless you are playing strictly by the rules and what the stats book says holds true for all members of the species. Logically a person/monsters character is shaped by its social dynamic & experience. There are exceptions to the norm but, in general an intelligent being doesn't instantly want to eat the tasty hobbit right from birth so killing of said babe by the Lawful Good Paladin of the God of Justice and All Things Nice isn't a very good or moral act in today's terms.
Of course "good" & "Moral" are terms subjective to the periods society & cultural norms.

[Zhan Shi]

The "Book of Exalted Deeds" goes into much more detail about what constitutes an evil act...at least from a game perspective.

[GrepZen]

I thought the "Book of Vile Darkness" was much more fun. Of course the rules in both books were pretty much the same differing only in application.

[Wounded Ronin]

OK, I have thought a lot about Mai Lai the paladin.

Mai Lai should be female because the name sounds a bit feminine in the context of fantasy RPGs. Mai Lai's shtick is, of course, systematically trying to "cleanse" places that have the wrong species living in them. As such, Mai Lai would first generally try to recon a place, sketch a preliminary map, and then plan an assault such that there's nowhere for the defenders to escape and they can be slaughtered to the last individual.

With these objectives in mind Mai Lai is likely to spend a lot of money on hirelings in order to be able to block off areas to the enemy and conduct systematic sweeps. Furthermore, since chopping goblins with a sword is a bit inefficient and tiring, Mai Lai likes to use flaming oil a lot so as to hit as many enemies at once as is possible. Perhaps Mai Lai will even be saving up to finance a wheeled catapult that fires incindiary projectiles.

Naturally Mai Lai is Lawful Good and the character concept is to see how far we can push Lawful Good to resmble Lawful Evil while still being Lawful Good and not violating any paladin-fu rules.

[Ravor]

Oi, and now we see why I only play either Lawful Neutral or Chaotic Neutral characters in DnD. :cyber:

[Crusher Bob]

Bonus points if you are playing in the Realms, since athiest and other such undesireables are fated to suffer horribly in the wall of the faithless after they die. Therefore, it is a good act to convert them to be a follower of your god, by torture, if necessary. :rotfl:

[Fortune]

[Critias]

My wife and I recently moved, and since we scored a second bedroom we've decided it'll be a game room. Other than the computer desk and a tv/X-Box combo, this room is books. Shelves and shelves of the damned things. We are both gamers, you see, and both had been gamers for over a decade a piece before we even met -- we have books a-plenty.

For shits and giggles, I decided to organize our books while unpacking. I cleared out a bunch of space on the floor and just started stacks, sorted (roughly) by game company. I had one for D&D, one for Shadowrun, one for Privateer Press, one for Games Workshop, one for Star Wars, one for CP:2020, one for L5R, one for Champions/HERO, etc, etc, all the way down to one for "other." In addition to being a handy way to roughly categorize them to make it easier to find what I'd be looking for some hypothetical day, I figured it would be fun to see what game system could lay claim to the most shelf space.

My money was on Shadowrun. We've both been playing it since SR1, are both rabid collectors (not just players), and, hell, we met playing Shadowrun. Even with us selling or trading away most of our doubles (to save shelf space, after moving in together), I figured it was a shoe in.

To my surprise and chagrin, it was the World of Darkness stack that won out when all was said and done, looming over its rivals like the mightiest oak in the forest, leeching sunlight from its lessers and growing ever taller at their expense. It was a stack roughly as high as my wife's chin, with its nearest rival (Shadowrun) just about the right height for a boobie shelf.

Two things struck me; it was going to be a pain to get the stacks of books turned vertical instead of horizontal and put onto shelves, and either my wife is even shorter than I tease her about, or we've got a fuck ton of WoD books we never use.

Turns out it's the latter. She didn't shrink or anything, we've just got a lot of World of Darkness crap. And -- lemme tell you -- I've played in exactly two sessions of a Vampire or Werewolf or any other game of theirs in the last ten years.

So my wholly unscientific little study of "what books do I have the most of" just made me realize I really do just have their shit lying around because I enjoy reading them, and not because they've got a core system that makes them worth actually playing.

[fistandantilus4....]

[Fortune]

[pbangarth]

:rollin: *Ducks and runs*

[hyzmarca]

[Penta]

Oy, did we need to bring up geezerboobs?

[Zhan Shi]

Bad Fisty! :D

My White Wolf Stack was very large as well. I traded them in to an online store for credit. All together, I estimate I got about $1,000 of store credit for them. I think the most I got for a single book was either "Games of Divinity" (Exalted) or "Into the Labyrinth" (Wraith). That surprised me; I had no idea that those books were so sought after. But this was shortly after White Wolf played out the "Armagedon" in their old game lines, and started fresh. Maybe that caused a spike in demand.

Reading the last few posts made me think about a joke I heard on the third Blue Collar Comedy show, about baloons three days after the party... :eek:

[SinN]

[Angelone]

I have twice as many White Wolf books than all my other gamebooks put together. I have damn near all the vampire and mage books, with a good chunk of the werewolf/changing breed thrown into the mix. I'd say I could stack it as tall as I am if not taller.

[Grinder]

[Kagetenshi]

I think I have one copy of the Mage core book somewhere that someone gave me once. Always did mean to get around to reading it.

~J

[Angelone]

Mage is my favorite WoD game. You can get really creative with the stuff you can do. You also get to say "Isn't that a coincidence" or some version thereof alot.

[fistandantilus4....]