GM and Storytelling Issues

[Mirrah]

1. If I were to make a game module or campaign that doesn't require a GM using some tricks I learned from Mythic, should I put it in the "Choose Your Own Adventure" sub board?

I’m not certain what you mean by this, as it sounds a bit vague to me. Would the format you’ll be using for posts similar to those already used in the Choose Your Own Adventure threads? Would it be an interactive story, which the readers could engage in by picking choices for you’ve presented, to integrate into your posts? If your answer is no, perhaps it should go on a different board. What did you have in mind for it?

2. Would it be offensive or controversial to make an adventure path or module that takes place in Aokigahara Forest in Japan?

No, I do not think that having the setting be the forest in Japan would be considered offensive or controversial, however it never hurts to include trigger warnings for your story and/or posts, so readers know what to expect, and can avoid them if it is something that might set off their triggers.

3. In case #2 is too iffy, I was wondering if someone could help me make a completely fictional American Forest for my adventure game?

The Worldbuilding section of the forums is a great place to do this. If you decide to build your own forest or details to add to your RP world, feel welcome to create a thread in that part of the forums, and ask for input. It’ll also help keep the information all together, so anyone can look it over. Never know, maybe they'll get ideas at that time, to share with you. :-)

4. Are there any Brazilians (or anyone who has visited or live in Brazil) on this site who can teach me about Brazilian culture and geography?

I’m sorry, I can’t help you with this one, but maybe Google and/or another person on E who might know, can help you out.

5. Lastly, has anyone here ever played DragonRaid, a game known for claiming to be a "moral substitute" for D&D?

No, sorry. I have very little experience with D&D, and none with DragonRaid.

Best of luck with your D20 game!

[Meatboy]

I've always had a problem with "always chaotic evil" races. I find it both perplexing and difficult to add them into a game.

I know that Pathfinder has a lot of them but prefer to twist canon so that there are always "good guys" even among orcs, goblins and even black dragons.

I've always preferred the DragonRaid route and make most of the villains fiends (who are evil incarnate) or "uniquely evil" beings like greedy humans.

I'd like to ask what's your opinion, if you're willing to share it?

[Inkidu]

Don't worry, you're not alone. Tolkien himself struggled with this concept and his orcs and uruks How does a society bent on destruction ever produce anything? Society is built on building things. Codes, mutual trust, norms and mores. A complicit and mutual understanding of why we do what we do isn't just a matter of morally wrong or right, but the backbone of a social contract.

Orcs never have any of that. That's why I adore 5th ed D&D for keeping the alignments basically out of everything except character flavor. And while I don't like it per se, the Drizzit school of the one good guy is always an option. However, all you have to do is:

Not use them.

Good and evil, right and wrong are some of the earliest concepts of philosophy humans have. They are questions that are debated with Trolley Problems and books, and no one really knows much more than Socrates, Plato or Diogenes.

Use people with evil intent, use people who think they're doing good. There exist villains who think they're doing what's right because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and there is great evil done because someone think that their version of morality is absolute and correct.

I saw a funny image one time but if you think about it long enough it also makes sense morally.

It's a picture of a lone heroic paladin facing down a teeming horde of orcs and the caption read

"You see an epic level raid."
"They see a final boss."

or

"You see a teeming horde of barbarians."
"They see a religious fascist."

I'm not saying that there aren't absolute right and wrong things in the world, but there is no such thing as an all evil race of beings. If you want an all evil race of being though go the corruption route. Some spell, abyssal mutation, some unnatural force corrupting otherwise normal beings into unspeakable horror.

Have multiple cultures for each race. One race of goblins runs on duplicity and backstabbing in its social order while one likes to make chocolate and clocks and big guns.

It's your game, it can be as morally complex or simple as you want it to be.

[Meatboy]

To clarify #1: The idea was less a choose your own adventure but a sort of GM-less game where you not only read a story but also become part of it by fighting the monsters involved and overcoming the challenges.

#5: DragonRaid is actually another game different from D&D. It's quite famous, or rather INFAMOUS, for being heavily Christian-themed and borrowing quite a bit from LotR and Narnia. It's also considered a "moral substitute" to most Tabletop RPGs which moral guardians find questionable.

[RedPhoenix]

I understand that tabletop games are escapist to a certain extent, but black and white morality is more disturbing to me than a fun fantasy experience.

One of the old school founders of DnD actually said that adventurers should kill orc babies if they have the chance. In a world where a baby orc is inevitably and irrevocably going to become something that magic will tell you is evil, that makes sense in a very twisted way, just to me the orc isn't the actual evil one in that situation.

I like games that treat evil more like what it is in real life - a label people give freely to anyone they dislike or disagree with, and that very rarely is ever objectively true. Supernatural fiends for example, those can work if you really need a purely evil nemesis, but if you make them a saturday morning cartoon villain you strain credibility of why would anyone ever work for them? I remember watching those types of shows where the bad guy beats up their followers all the time thinking, shouldn't those people just quit? And if they are too scared to doesn't that make them weak and helpless, and the sort of people the heroes should be helping, not slaughtering?

And then there's the fact that ultimately, everything comes from human imagination and inevitably everything is an expression of a type of human and the evil types of humans always seem to end up resembling something other than mainstream Eurocentric society and ... yeah. I'm just not about that. Fuck that in fact.

Yeah, I don't see anything good coming of strictly enforced racial morality and I echo Inkidu that 5e doing away with it is one the best things about it.

[Gnollboy92]

I can only speak for my experiences Pathfinder and D&D 3.5 here but I have trouble with chaotic evil races not just for the unrealistic aspects or the accidental racism but also because it seems to be broken on a fundamental level.

D&D morality has always struck me as a bit of an oddity as it treats morality much like a fundamental force of the universe, like gravity or fire being hot. It appears to be built around an assumption of a true universal 'Good' opposed by a true universal 'Evil' regardless of the thoughts or feelings of mortal creatures. This rapidly runs into problems when you have a group which expects morality to be more in keeping with our modern understanding of moral relativism. Within reason, we know there are some things that are outright wrong no matter the situation but we accept that there's a degree of flexibility, that sometimes what's moral to one person is immoral to another. For example, to a dedicated vegetarian it would be aberrant to eat meat, yet the act of eating meat is not treated as innately evil. That example is rather weak but it was the least contentious topic that came to mind.

So in D&D it seems that 'Good' is... I guess it's the GM's moral code? It gets even messier when one adds in Law and Chaos as well but that's getting somewhat tangential.

[Oniya]

[King Serperior]

In the campaign I am in, the only one on the Alignment Chart is the DM, who is Lawful Evil, according to the players who have been in his previous campaigns.

The DM is of the opinion that everyone is good and everyone is evil, but it just depends on the situation.  Heck, he even said in our last session when we were joking about a character death happening (one character was knocked down to 1 health) and stated that he would allow us to make a character who could become a Lich if they were willing to take the souls of others.

Also, this is adorable!  <3

[Meatboy]

Thank you for all your replies.

Truth be told, I think that certain FACTIONS can be Always Evil (as they sometimes are in real life and even THAT is open to some debate although I think the Nazis, extremists and terrorist organizations are evil any way you look at them) but races should most certainly NOT.

[Blythe]

To clarify #1: The idea was less a choose your own adventure but a sort of GM-less game where you not only read a story but also become part of it by fighting the monsters involved and overcoming the challenges.

Ah, I see what you mean here, given my general experience with Mythic. I would suggest World Building for this, personally, unless you are actively going to encourage player participation in the thread. In which case, I think the Storytelling Forum might be a slightly better fit.

[Deamonbane]

I'm Brazilian, so let me know if you have any questions! If nothing else, I can direct you to where you can get the info you need.

[Meatboy]

I'm Brazilian, so let me know if you have any questions! If nothing else, I can direct you to where you can get the info you need.

Mostly just about geography and culture of Brazil. Like are Brazilians mostly Catholic like Filipinos and Mexicans? Do you have a strong sense of humor and laugh a lot unlike, say, Singaporeans and Koreans? What can be considered taboos in Brazilian culture such as do you give special treatment to senior citizens, do you prioritize the welfare and rights of children and what are the common fads that can be found in Brazil?

As for everyone else, thanks a lot for replying!

[Deamonbane]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Brazilian Geography is pretty diverse. To the northwest, you'll find the Amazon Jungle. Northeast, a bit to the south of the amazon, you'll actually find a bit of desert before getting to the beaches of Recife and Bahia. I lived some four years in Bahia as a kid, and I can tell you it's one of the most beautiful places in the world. The name basically just means Bay in old Portuguese, which makes sense, since the capital of the state, Salvador, is located on what is called the Baía de Todos os Santos or All Saints Bay. There's a lot of history there, considering that the first European to visit the area was Amerigo Vespucciu back in 1501.

That's actually not an area that I know much about, since I spent most of my life in Central and South Brazil. More to the center, you'll find another place that's rich with Wildlife that they call the 'Pantanal' which basically means swamp. Which is an accurate description. It has a huge swathe of wildlife though, and is an incredible place to visit.

Head a bit more to the center, and you find a massive plateau. There you'll find the capital Brasilia, built in the shape of a plane. Cool history to that city.

You head a bit further south and a bit more to the East, you find Rio de Janeiro. It's not that big of a state, compared to some of the others, but it's pretty densely packed. You'll find a lot of dense jungles in that area too, what they call the Atlantic Forest, or Mata Atlântica. Rio is probably the place that people know the most about, with the Beaches and the favelas in the area. It's beautiful, but not the safest place to visit.

A bit further inland, you'll find the state of São Paulo, of which the capital (Also called São Paulo) is the largest city in the country by population. It's a metropolis that is actually connected with group of other cities that spreads through most of the center of the state. Driving through the rest of the state, you see a lot of sugar cane plantations. That's actually what I remember most about the place. That and the traffic jams spanning miles. In that city, you'll find the greatest football team of all time, called Corinthians. You can ignore all the others.

São Paulo has connection to the coast too which people call the Baixada Santista, which most people just call Santos. They have a team too, called Santos, which is where Pelé played for most of his career.

Head on south, and you see it starting to resemble central Europe a lot more, with most of the immigrants to the area being from Germany, Italy and the Ukraine. Between the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grando do Sul, you'll find a lot of vineyards. They also have a lot of culture in common with Argentina and Uruguay. A lot of people speaking Spanish in the area, and it's one of the locations in the country where there are snowfalls in the country, though not too regular.

If you couldn't tell from the names of places, you'll find that Catholicism is the majority religion in the country, and that reflects a lot on the culture. Again, such a huge country with so many influences is bound to be different from one city to the other, but I've found Brazil to be an incredibly warm place that's very accepting and open to different cultures with a couple of massive asterisk. Due to the recent political climate, I'll avoid going into the details. Kind of a sore subject for me lately. You'll find that cross-dressing is a fairly common tradition, especially during the Carnaval season, but it's mostly played for laughs. Men pretending to be women is hilarious to Brazilians. We do have an interesting sense of humor, but it's a little difficult to explain. We love us some slapstick. In general, Brazilians are a people of very strong emotions. We party hard when the time comes to party, we work hard when the time comes to work. Brazilian conversations are very physical affairs, with a lot of hugging and kissing, even between men, lots of gesticulating, very loud talking and a lot of jokes and laughter.

I've seen the treatment of senior citizens to be fairly similar to that of other places in the western world. You'll find that there is a culture of corruption in the country that stems from the time of the Portuguese colonization (What we call the 'jeitinho Brasileiro'). It's hard to explain, so here's a wikipedia page on it :D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeitinho

Welfare hasn't been a big thing until recently, and even now you'll find a lot of people are still very much against it, with it being a major talking point in this year's elections.

That's really all I can think of, off the top of my head. Let me know if you have any questions :D

[Meatboy]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Brazilian Geography is pretty diverse. To the northwest, you'll find the Amazon Jungle. Northeast, a bit to the south of the amazon, you'll actually find a bit of desert before getting to the beaches of Recife and Bahia. I lived some four years in Bahia as a kid, and I can tell you it's one of the most beautiful places in the world. The name basically just means Bay in old Portuguese, which makes sense, since the capital of the state, Salvador, is located on what is called the Baía de Todos os Santos or All Saints Bay. There's a lot of history there, considering that the first European to visit the area was Amerigo Vespucciu back in 1501.

That's actually not an area that I know much about, since I spent most of my life in Central and South Brazil. More to the center, you'll find another place that's rich with Wildlife that they call the 'Pantanal' which basically means swamp. Which is an accurate description. It has a huge swathe of wildlife though, and is an incredible place to visit.

Head a bit more to the center, and you find a massive plateau. There you'll find the capital Brasilia, built in the shape of a plane. Cool history to that city.

You head a bit further south and a bit more to the East, you find Rio de Janeiro. It's not that big of a state, compared to some of the others, but it's pretty densely packed. You'll find a lot of dense jungles in that area too, what they call the Atlantic Forest, or Mata Atlântica. Rio is probably the place that people know the most about, with the Beaches and the favelas in the area. It's beautiful, but not the safest place to visit.

A bit further inland, you'll find the state of São Paulo, of which the capital (Also called São Paulo) is the largest city in the country by population. It's a metropolis that is actually connected with group of other cities that spreads through most of the center of the state. Driving through the rest of the state, you see a lot of sugar cane plantations. That's actually what I remember most about the place. That and the traffic jams spanning miles. In that city, you'll find the greatest football team of all time, called Corinthians. You can ignore all the others.

São Paulo has connection to the coast too which people call the Baixada Santista, which most people just call Santos. They have a team too, called Santos, which is where Pelé played for most of his career.

Head on south, and you see it starting to resemble central Europe a lot more, with most of the immigrants to the area being from Germany, Italy and the Ukraine. Between the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grando do Sul, you'll find a lot of vineyards. They also have a lot of culture in common with Argentina and Uruguay. A lot of people speaking Spanish in the area, and it's one of the locations in the country where there are snowfalls in the country, though not too regular.

If you couldn't tell from the names of places, you'll find that Catholicism is the majority religion in the country, and that reflects a lot on the culture. Again, such a huge country with so many influences is bound to be different from one city to the other, but I've found Brazil to be an incredibly warm place that's very accepting and open to different cultures with a couple of massive asterisk. Due to the recent political climate, I'll avoid going into the details. Kind of a sore subject for me lately. You'll find that cross-dressing is a fairly common tradition, especially during the Carnaval season, but it's mostly played for laughs. Men pretending to be women is hilarious to Brazilians. We do have an interesting sense of humor, but it's a little difficult to explain. We love us some slapstick. In general, Brazilians are a people of very strong emotions. We party hard when the time comes to party, we work hard when the time comes to work. Brazilian conversations are very physical affairs, with a lot of hugging and kissing, even between men, lots of gesticulating, very loud talking and a lot of jokes and laughter.

I've seen the treatment of senior citizens to be fairly similar to that of other places in the western world. You'll find that there is a culture of corruption in the country that stems from the time of the Portuguese colonization (What we call the 'jeitinho Brasileiro'). It's hard to explain, so here's a wikipedia page on it :D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeitinho

Welfare hasn't been a big thing until recently, and even now you'll find a lot of people are still very much against it, with it being a major talking point in this year's elections.

That's really all I can think of, off the top of my head. Let me know if you have any questions :D

Thanks for that.

What I had in mind was a game/story similar to [REC] wherein people get stuck inside a building with a portal to hell instead of zombies.

[Meatboy]

Would a game, or at least game setting, with strong politically offensive theme be banned here? Or would it depend on the actual content?

Suppose the game setting contains caricatures of certain political figures, would that be grounds for banning?

[RedPhoenix]

No. None of those things are grounds for banning. I've written tons of stuff that at least someone out there would find politically offensive.

There really isn't much you can do to get a story banned for what happens in character. Basically it's don't write underage smut, don't steal copyrighted work, and post your story in the right forum.

You can check the roleplay rules here -> https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=98632.msg12542286#msg12542286

If you're worried about offending people, put a warning in your thread title or something.

[Blythe]

There really isn't much you can do to get a story banned for what happens in character.

^ This. I've seen outright political RP ideas. It's not grounds for banning.

If you're worried about offending people, put a warning in your thread title or something.

Also this, yes. Use trigger warnings as appropriate if you think you're going to talk about things people will find triggering or deeply offensive.

[Meatboy]

Got a new idea about a game using the Mythic/Fate System but will be a lot like Cthulhutech. I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how I can combine Religious and Cosmic Horror? I mean, is it even possible?

[Avis habilis]

In a way, Cthulhu already is. Not only are all human religions false, but the only gods that do exist are mindless monstrosities that will annihilate the universe without ever knowing we were here.

There's also Kult: God existed but ran away at the beginning of time & left us all in the hands of a Demiurge who hates us & wants to keep us all in Hell for eternity.

[RedPhoenix]

Most religious entities are also cosmic entities. I don't see the trouble connecting the two.