Rusty and Co. Crossover, Part 2/5
It’s Part 2 of the ongoing crossover between The Handbook of Heroes and the redoubtable Rusty and Co. Unfortunately, it looks like a few wires got crossed in the matchmaking department. I guess putting a causality manipulator in the same room with a bad-luck magnet wasn’t such a hot idea after all.
While Madeline the Paladin sorts out her spot in The Evil Party’s marching order, why don’t we focus our attention on the second-cutest character in today’s comic? Just look at Poor Patches the Unkicked there. Poor little fella. He has once again been pressed into service as a big fat moral dilemma. And while there are worse jobs for an adorable puppy, there are few that I find more irritating.
To my way of thinking, moral dilemmas are at their best when they rise naturally out of narrative. You must choose whether to help the ungrateful villagers or leave them to their fate. Whether to use that last genie wish for unselfish purposes. Or decide how much of your humanity you can afford to sacrifice in pursuit of power. These are general situations with lots of moving parts. There are Gordian knots to be cut and character-specific actions to be taken, and to me that’s interesting.
In contrast, there’s something that rubs me the wrong way when these sorts of moral questions get stuffed into canned encounters. I’m thinking of the orphaned goblin scenario. All those “gotcha” paladin traps. The slave-taking fiend who rolls up to combat with eight victims tethered to each of the eight squares around him on the combat grid.
“Pitiful fools! To get to me, you must cut through my wall of innocent flesh! See how you are bound by your hypocrisy? Sinister laugh!”
I mean sure. I guess we can hash out some ethical business during game night. We can invoke Kant and utilitarianism and have a proper Moral Philosophy 101 seminar. Or we can just stab a few dragons and make off their loot. I know which one I signed up for.
Of course, this is just one man’s opinion. When I tried to draw the distinction between types of moral conundrum, my lovely illustrator shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t really see the difference. But remember that Exalted campaign you ran where the Mask of Winters had my love interest strung up and ready to sacrifice? He was all like, ‘Join me, or this one dies?’ And I was all conflicted? That was great!”
Suffice it to say that there are differing schools of thought on the subject. So how about it, gang? If you stood in Madeline’s place, faced with an innocent creature defending the forces of evil, would you stay your hand? Or would the divine Rake of Justice reap its bloody harvest? And more importantly, would you enjoy being faced with that choice in a game? Let’s hear how you deal with moral dilemmas down in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Twice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
“Pweese don’t huwt my fwiends”
Now you got me thinking about Token Good Teammates and why would they be tagging along an Evil Party. Personal attachment? Shared goal that’s important enough to look past their allies’ “methods”? Simple ignorance? And most importantly, how long can you remain pure when your group routinely interrupts other people in the cinema?
So, what I’m saying is this: even if the little furball hasn’t turned to evil yet, it inevitably will. Kick the puppy, Madeline!
Also, might I just say that I hate Paladin Traps. Even if the “wrong” answer doesn’t result in a fall, to me at least it runs counter to the “core fantasy” of a Paladin. You’re supposed to be the Big Good, the classic hero. You’re the knight in shining armor, doing the right thing, helping the innocents and vanquishing evil. If I wanted a redemption arc, I’d be looking at another class.
We kind of had one of those in the last campaign. It was around level 10. We came upon a forest of alien plants that was growing rapidly, with alien animals inside the “barrier” of the outer-most plants. We made our way through and found a spaceship with sleeping elves from another plane inside. They were escaping from “The Darkness” that destroyed their homeworld and came to ours to rebuild. They had been planning to stay in suspended animation for a few thousand years so any native species would die off. But their computer malfunctioned and had started terraforming early. We had to make a choice – smash the machine so the alien forest wouldn’t continue to grow and swallow the continent, which meant the life support systems would no longer work and the elves would die. Or leave them sleeping and try to stop the forest from growing another way. It took forever to decide.
So, what did you decide?
We managed to figure out how to wake them up so that they could stop the rapid growth themselves.
I like dilemmas when they create a conflict between two things that a character values, like loyalty to a kingdom versus loyalty to a lover. Those dilemmas have some meat to them, and they make a player think through just what’s most important to their character. Or, of course, a problem that pits two PCs against one another because of their differing morals and allegiances.
Moral dilemmas where there’s just no right answer and all choices suck aren’t fun, though. All they do is make people feel bad. Doubly so for using them as a trap for paladins. The best response to choices like that is for the party cleric to cast a spell like divination or commune and ask an Objective Moral Guide what they should do. Either you get the answer, or you force the GM to admit that it was a garbage contrived trolley problem.
Might just be me, but I feel like more of the links than intended lead to the same images.
I suspect that “ungrateful villagers” wasn’t meant to point at Puppy Kicking, or “paladin traps” at the cover of Vampire the Masquerade.
Thanks for the heads up! I think that over half of them were off for some reason. If it was just one or two I would have thought I was being careless. With that many though, I’m wondering if there wasn’t some kind of technical weirdness afoot.
Fixed in any case.
When I present my PCs with a moral dilemma, I usually try to cast it in terms of the easy way, or the good way, with shades in between. That is, moral quandaries that are not “gotcha” scenarios. In my opinion, having them face a quandary of female orc warriors riding into battle with their infants strapped to their backs just isn’t fun, especially if you’re throwing it at a party where holding back basically assures death. On the other hand, the aforementioned slaver with slave meat shields is one I’d be fine with using, provided that the slaver would normally be a relatively easy fight. Now the PCs have a choice: the battle would be fairly easy if they carved through the slaves, but that would also be on the lower alignment scale; alternatively the battle will be harder if they come up with a clever way to take him out without hurting the slaves. It’s harder, but still a viable option.
There’s another point about moral quandaries: a really tough one will slow down the game a lot at the players debate what the right thing to do is OOC, especially if it pits different ethical systems against each other. A moral quandary that pits, say, Kantian against Aristotelian ethics? Watch your game grind to a standstill as players debate not just the right action, but ethics in general. All for a situation designed to have no right answer and make them feel bad no matter what.
In short, ethical quandaries are great. Bad, trolley, “gotcha” quandaries are terrible.
Is the “bad guy is using innocent hostages to shield himself” trope a moral dilemma? I always saw it as a method of defense, and a time for strategy and tools in order to strip away an enemies defenses with no collateral damage.
It’s only a moral dilemma if the bad guy’s strategy has a chance to work. If it’s just an excuse for the Gunslinger to quickdraw and put a bullet between the baddy’s eyes then there’s no issue. If it’s truly a choice between harming Innocents and fighting evil, then you’re in a moral dilemma.
My last few characters have been morally flexible enough that they don’t mind doing a little evil if it gets the job done (or in a few cases morally bankrupt enough that it’s their go-to option), but I like when such situations arise organically, but not so much when they’re forced. It might be mostly cause I basically never play alignment-restricted characters, but a naturally occurring moral choice can be a fun way to discover exactly how far your character will go to do their thing.
If anyone is interested in turning an NPC into an insant, complete scumbag that every PC will loathe AND combine it with a moral dilemma, look no further than the Necklace of Lovelies.
http://nethystest.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Necklace%20of%20Lovelies
In essence, it’s a necklace with three (or more/less) imprisoned Pixies, who are forced to share damage with its owner. Anything that would end up being a lethal/damaging blow to the wearer is redirected to the Pixies, causing them to explode in a horrifying fashion! All the morality and protection of baby armor with none of the drawbacks. Until you run out of pixies. Then you get violently slaughtered by a paladin. And for the RPers, the Pixies even offer you something in gratitude if you can rescue them.
Patches gets belly rubs, I will kill any who disagree.
I wholeheartedly agree
That’s what the rake is for! The deepest belly rubs.
I despise moral dilemmas because they’re just an asshole’s way of making you feel bad no matter which choice you pick. And that’s why figuring out how to get the best of two moral worlds is so fun! Or the worst, if you want some Multi-track drifting shenanigans. It’s just like the hostage issue you addressed in an earlier comic- Just stab through the hostage, revival spells are cheap enough.
Done well, they can be everything you mention. And that takes a light work, and players that will enjoy it.
Done poorly, and you can get players infighting and walking. I’ve had cases where I playing the main party healer with wizard (Possible nicely in 5e now thankfully.) Got into arguing with the rogue on matters of him swaying the paladin on information we needed.
I was halfway tempted to Wall of Force, teleport myself out, and let the party to rot in a demon and undead infested castle.
The gm had to step back on things from it, and force a 10 minute bit to cool down, but it was worked through after matters.
End result, was that the information and summon managed to save the paladins life not once, but twice in two fights with said summoned mirror demon.
Hostage takers are just an excuse for the non-lethal combat rules of the system to be useful for once. Pathfinder has plenty of resources for it, like mercy weapons, saps, and sleep spells. However, if the GM shoots down any attempt to solve the problem without murder, or letting the villain go, then I’ll get a bit miffed.
Obviously Madaline should use her paladin charisma to talk down Patches. Failing that, there are plenty of other ways to avoid or nonlethally incapacitate the puppy available to a sufficiently-prepared player, such as sneaking past, tying them up, knocking them out or disabling them with magic.
More generally, I like moral dilemmas that pit a character’s values or loyalties against each other. Will the knight disobey her king to rescue prisoners from the orcs? If two of your friends are in danger, which would you help first, knowing that the other one is likely to die? Done well, these kinds of choices add drama and help explore the characters.
Of course, another important thing about moral dilemmas is they have to be fair, with all the consequences being reasonably predictable. You should know if saving the friendly wizard means letting a powerful artefact fall into enemy hands. If the rampaging dragon is actually an innocent princess who was polymorphed and brainwashed, or the old man you rescued from brigands was actually an assassin out to kill the duke, there should be a way to see it coming. Screw paladin traps and other “gotcha” moments.
This situation is one of the things the “knock unconscious” rule is for in 5e. Just conk that innocent over the head and get to smiting the real targets.
But yeah, moral dilemmas can be tricky. The only one that’s really cropped up in my game was entirely my player’s idea: her Warforged Barbarian follows the Three Laws of Robotics and refuses to harm any human(oid) creature (though he’s okay with his friends hurting humanoids — in battle, at least — since he’s not going to force a moral code on anyone). So far, we’ve mostly got it resolved, as Beep Boop will either fight non-humanoid targets (like the orcs’ pet ogre) or try to hinder opponents without hurting them (pin them down, gently shove them into nearby barrels, etc.).
Through various events, this quirk has also led to Beep Boop deciding he wants to make orcs stop being evil by defeating Gruumsh. So far, most of the people he’s talked to about this have answered with variants of “uh… good luck with that”, but eventually he’s going to talk with somebody who will know enough to ask him if he’s thought through the ramifications of what might happen if a god is defeated (vacuum of power, what about the mortal followers of said god, etc.). Should be interesting when it happens.
Kill the puppy. If someone defends the forces of darkness it’s looking for problems, unless it’s defending a force of darkness trying to reach redemption. Even if he is doing it unwillingly his sacrifice is for a greater good. Or at least that is how i “help” our group paladin to rationalize wiping out a whole town 😛
Now moral dilemmas are not bad, in my group we enjoy philosophy a lot and here is something we have learned: you make the problem. A moral dilemma can’t be forced, it can be presented but it’s up to the player if it’s a problem or not. In pathfinder there is a image of the iconic paladin facing a sing post pointing a burning orphanage and antipaladin’s castle. A player can have a moral dilemma between saving the burning orphans or defeating their nemesis. I would be split between beating the crap out of the idiot and enjoying the show 😀
Now i am the ones who has questions. I have read this comic for a while but i don’t get what Necromancer is saying. What first choice she refers? Also which grinner does the alt-text reference? o_O
Apparently, the Evil Party were at some point asked* who they would like to team up with during this crossover event.
Their first choice was Calamitus (according to the list in the alt text) buuuuut in the previous comic we say Dorilys drawing names out of a hat. And it looks like they got randomly matched with Maddie instead.
And Grinner is this guy:
http://rustyandco.com/comic/level3/level-3-1/
http://rustyandco.com/comic/level-7-82/
*In the absence of other evidence I’m going to guess that Quest-Giver organised this. Who would be his counter-part in the Rusty-verse? Zar maybe?
Thanks, it really confused me. And the alt-text only made things worse. Wasn’t Calamitus one of marvel villains, the one with the bucket on his head that eats worlds? o_O
That i play Warframe doesn’t help with a name like Grineer 😛
Since this is a crossover comic (and the last comic established that all the characters know it is a crossover and they decided which characters would interact by pulling things out of a hat), I think Necromancer wanted to team up with a villain from the Rusty and co. comic, but instead got the comic’s resident paladin coming after them, with nothing but a cute puppy to keep them from getting Rake of Justice’d into oblivion.
(Haven’t actually read Rusty and co., but I believe all of the alt-text names are villains from that comic.)
Yep, the names in the Alt-text are from Rusty and Co. Team Evil was hoping to get one of the evil characters, but instead they got the (very badass) paladin lady. Those characters mentioned are:
Calamitus is your standard Evil Sorcerer BBEG (when he’s not holding the Idiot Ball).
Grinner is a Gnoll who is very good at planning deathtraps and predicting his opponent’s moves.
Anti-Madeline is the Evil within Madeline (the paladin in this comic) personified by an artifact into an Anti-Paladin. She’s also about two inches tall (Madeline, being a paladin, doesn’t contain very much Evil).
The Interdimensional Horror from Beyond the Edge of Reality is exactly what it sounds like.
It’s a fun comic; I highly recommend it.
Thanks for the info, specially the part about the very “badass” paladin with a rake that can’t cast smith because a little dog is one the line of fire 🙂
Rusty and Co. is worse than bad, to me is uninteresting 🙁
I think it might be a language thing. R&C has much better and more consistent pun-work than I’ve ever managed, and that don’t translate so good.
Your puns make me laugh, R&C is even less funny than Steve Carell* 🙁
*Who while officially a comedian haven’t made me laugh not even once. There are dead fishes on ice on fisheries that are more fun than him 🙁
Fair enough. I think we all have that comedian.
For example, Will Ferrell annoys the shit out of me. I got a headache when my buddies insisted we watch Talladega Nights because I was frowning so hard the whole time.
Who doesn’t find Will Ferrell annoying? o_O
Don’t worry about it. Humor and by extension the people who made it can be tricky in that they can tell a joke and the public can know that it is a joke, that jokes and funny and people laugh at funny things, but still be as serious as if they were in a funeral. British humor can cause that mainly, i have watch some show that are hilarious but the people around me just watching me asking themselves what the hell i was laughing about. This Rusty and Co. is like that, it isn’t bad, but i don’t find it, funny or interesting. Good thing the HBoH always makes me laugh 😀
I haven’t read the comic either, and according to the other comments you are complete right 🙂
Not knowing the references can shroud in darkness the joke 😛
This is what the “-4 attack to do nonlethal damage” rule is for, Colin!
In the campaign I am currently running, the dilemmas mostly revolve around which of the not-great factions the party sides with. My players being chaotic neutral (not PCs, PLAYERS), this hasn’t bothered them all that much, since they can calculate it from the “what’s in it for me?” side of things. Though events have caused them to have a much friendlier relationship with the tyrannical, ends-justify-the-means government than I originally foresaw.
The campaign I am a player in that has all of the PCs keeping secrets from each other pretty much runs on moral dilemmas. The main government is a semi-colonial power that conquered one of its neighbors 20 years ago and is quickly sliding towards a war with its other neighbor now. But factions in the conquered neighbor WERE committing heinous crimes in the colonial power’s territory, and there is some evidence that the colonial power’s rule is more moral (they banned slavery, for example, and life under the occupation doesn’t seem TOO bad). The current slide towards war is less the result of an official government policy, and more an economic scheme encouraging stupid private citizens to pick fights across the border, and the government feeling obligated to step in when that goes poorly. So while a war against this neighbor would not be justified, at the moment we haven’t seen anyone on the front lines who seems remotely evil, either.
The big moral issue in the campaign, though, is the main antagonists. Telepathic fungal creatures, they get into peoples’ minds. They sometimes eat humanoids. Their leader seems to want to be worshiped. But they are providing aid to the war-threatened neighbors. At least one of their cults is made up of disaffected veterans from the last war who want to overthrow the government. And they keep giving the PCs nice things (especially stat boosts) for not being hostile. So should we kill them or not?
I think these dilemmas have been helped by the fact that the PCs all have different backgrounds that lead them to have different perspectives. One PC is from the conquered neighbor state, so she’s not a fan of the conquering government, but doesn’t like her own people’s leaders either and is highly suspicious of the fungus (“fungoids”, as we call them). One PC is a government soldier from that war and doesn’t trust the conquered state not to return to their slaving ways or strike back at their conquerors if given the opportunity, making the occupation a necessary evil. But he is also disillusioned with his government, and heavily sympathizes with the fungoid-worshiping war veteran cultists (who used to be his comrades) even as he begins to believe that the fungoids must be stopped. And the last PC has no love for the government, and has basically gotten everything she’s ever wanted from the fungoids, putting her sympathies towards them. When everything goes to hell, is the party going to pick a side to support or tear itself apart?
Ah yes, the moral dillema. Sometimes, the players create these for themselves, through their own action. In this case, it even changed one of their alignments!
Fairly early in my party’s campaign, they had to deal with a Vigilante who was making merry hell. Not because they disagreed with her, they were both actually after the same thing- ousting the count from his place. The problem was, she was too violent. She wanted death to all nobility, they wanted to quietly replace the count with someone who was less of a raging asshole.
The climactic battle with the vigilante ends with two of our heroes on the ground dying- the alchemist and the antipaladin (he was a Tyrant antipaladin, who are Lawful Evil. He eventually rose and retrained to Fighter/Barbarian) with an Inquisitor, a Kineticest, the party’s own vigilante, and a monk still standing. Our villain of the day about to escape, the inquisitor had a choice to make. Does he heal the dying antipaladin, or does he dispel magic the escaping vigilante’s Cape Of The Mountebank, disabling it for the precious few seconds the party needed to bring her down?
He opted to dispel her cloak, rushing past his collapsed allies to get in range. The scroll of dispel magic had a 25% chance of success… and he passed the check. With her cloak’s magic gone, the vigilante was forced onto the backfoot, and the monk closed in, cleanly ending her life with a strike to the temple.
What actually changed the inquistor’s alignment from Neutral Good to Neutral was lying (in-character, OOC both players knew the truth) to the antipaladin and saying he had no choice because he was out of healing.
Luckily for him, we’re still playing Pathfinder 1st ed, and Neutral is still in Sarenrae’s list of allowed alignments for her divine casters.
Easy solution. Incapacitate the innocent, and then mete out justice upon the evildoers. A couple hurt feelings and a minor concussion are a small price to pay for stopping evil.
Gotcha. So the key to making this an interesting encounter is to make “the innocent” a proper threat.
Aaaand that’s the point where Fighter looks up the exp value of ‘proper threat’ innocents.
Dammit Fighter….
Eh, Madiline has got mad ups, she can just jump over patches and back strike ol Necromancer and Anti
Have to say, I think Evil Party dodged a bullet here. Calamitus seems a bit more “pointless evil” than they normally go in for (reminds me of Repugsive from Nodwick actually) and Grinner is a bit too evil for them. Anti-Madeleine would have been fun though, but their perfect match would probably have been that hipster vampire.
Would you put “I want to hang out with a hipster vampire” on your preference chart?
Three words: non-lethal takedowns.