Quote from: Cipher on February 08, 2024, 03:46:08 AM

Pretty much... yeah. If the DM had expressed before that in his games no creature is always Evil or that alignment is more of a guideline and that whatever RAW says about it is fluff, then I was never informed. I could only go on with what I know of the setting (Forgotten Realms) and my own experience with D&D in general, since this was my first time actually playing 5e.

However, after reading the Monster's Manual, the entry on vampires fully agrees with my take that vampires are always evil and that their own undead existence corrupts their "once pure feelings" and twists them, even if they recall their past memories. Seems to me the game agrees undead are monsters or at least vampires are always monsters.

This is another thing wotc has lost with all their incessant lore fuckery. Used to be alignment really was a guideline. But not set in stone. Alot of the old modules played around with that too and Dungeon really ran with it in a few modules.

Its pathetic how wotc was pushing "no alignments for monsters! Be free!" and yet are even more restrictive.

Quote from: blackstone on February 08, 2024, 08:16:51 AM

I can only imagine what they consider racist or sexists (they'd probably consider the title of Oriental Adventures "racist").

I hope this sort of behavior isn't considered "normal" among gaming groups today.

If wotc has their way then eventually more and more players will have this sick mindset.

Right now its probably 25% loons and 75% sane. But if the indicators of 6e go through, expect things to get alot worse. We woll be dealing with the woke and a resurgence of storygamer tyranny.

Quote from: blackstone on February 08, 2024, 08:16:51 AM
After reading the longer version of event, I still hold firm in my original assessment.

When they started attacking you personally, that's when they crossed the line.

They really have a warped sense of morality when it comes to labeling things as bigotry.

I can only imagine what they consider racist or sexists (they'd probably consider the title of Oriental Adventures "racist").

I hope this sort of behavior isn't considered "normal" among gaming groups today.

Oh they 100% do think that is racist and suggesting it's not will get you a permanent ban over at TBP for violating their racism policy.  They can and will label pretty much anything bigotry. 

Quote from: yosemitemike on February 11, 2024, 07:03:24 AM

Quote from: blackstone on February 08, 2024, 08:16:51 AM
After reading the longer version of event, I still hold firm in my original assessment.

When they started attacking you personally, that's when they crossed the line.

They really have a warped sense of morality when it comes to labeling things as bigotry.

I can only imagine what they consider racist or sexists (they'd probably consider the title of Oriental Adventures "racist").

I hope this sort of behavior isn't considered "normal" among gaming groups today.

Oh they 100% do think that is racist and suggesting it's not will get you a permanent ban over at TBP for violating their racism policy.  They can and will label pretty much anything bigotry.

Unless you're being bigoted towards the correct targets.

Quote from: jhkim on February 10, 2024, 02:06:30 AM
Here I disagree. As DM, I am not required to pre-announce to players if there are monsters different than the description in the Monster Manual. I will freely introduce new monsters, variant monsters, new monsters that look like old monsters, or old monsters that look different than their canonical description. I'll only tell the player as much about a monster type as their character would reasonably know. I might give a skill roll for their character to know some details, based on their background.

  Whether the character would know about vampires possibly being good or not, he would most definitely know about how Lathander expects his paladins to deal with them, whether it be "smite them without question" or "give them a chance if they might be unwilling victims."

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on February 11, 2024, 02:33:08 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 10, 2024, 02:06:30 AM
Here I disagree. As DM, I am not required to pre-announce to players if there are monsters different than the description in the Monster Manual. I will freely introduce new monsters, variant monsters, new monsters that look like old monsters, or old monsters that look different than their canonical description. I'll only tell the player as much about a monster type as their character would reasonably know. I might give a skill roll for their character to know some details, based on their background.

Whether the character would know about vampires possibly being good or not, he would most definitely know about how Lathander expects his paladins to deal with them, whether it be "smite them without question" or "give them a chance if they might be unwilling victims."

That's reasonable if vampires are common. If vampires are rare, it's possible that there isn't a standing vampire policy that all paladins of Lathander are taught. In which case, the answer presumably should be "Investigate and learn more about the creature to determine what to do, based on the general principles of Lathander."

Cipher assumed that the policy was "Kill on sight anyone that you think is a vampire" -- such that when he opened the door to the study and saw the figure looking out the window, he called out for it to die and attacked immediately. The other players apparently thought that this was premature, and they should question the figure in the study first.

I'm still not clear on why they thought the figure in the study was the vampire in question. The people locked in cages in the dungeon below said that they were kidnapped by a vampire, but why did that mean the figure in the study was the vampire? It seems possible, but not proven. Even if there was a vampire, there could be more than one. Cipher said the other didn't argue on whether it was the vampire, but it would be a question I would bring up for the "kill on sight" behavior.

Quote from: jhkim on February 11, 2024, 05:38:10 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on February 11, 2024, 02:33:08 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 10, 2024, 02:06:30 AM
Here I disagree. As DM, I am not required to pre-announce to players if there are monsters different than the description in the Monster Manual. I will freely introduce new monsters, variant monsters, new monsters that look like old monsters, or old monsters that look different than their canonical description. I'll only tell the player as much about a monster type as their character would reasonably know. I might give a skill roll for their character to know some details, based on their background.

Whether the character would know about vampires possibly being good or not, he would most definitely know about how Lathander expects his paladins to deal with them, whether it be "smite them without question" or "give them a chance if they might be unwilling victims."

That's reasonable if vampires are common. If vampires are rare, it's possible that there isn't a standing vampire policy that all paladins of Lathander are taught. In which case, the answer presumably should be "Investigate and learn more about the creature to determine what to do, based on the general principles of Lathander."

Lathander's view is to destroy all undead. Vampires are undead. If vampires are rare, it doesn't matter, they are still undead. If, however, Lathander no longer requires its worshippers to destroy undead, then that's something else. Something I should know, since it is a pretty big deviation from the lore.

Quote from: jhkim on February 11, 2024, 05:38:10 PM

Cipher assumed that the policy was "Kill on sight anyone that you think is a vampire" -- such that when he opened the door to the study and saw the figure looking out the window, he called out for it to die and attacked immediately. The other players apparently thought that this was premature, and they should question the figure in the study first.

Again, I didn't "assume" anything. We all assumed, or more correctly, agreed that the culprit was a vampire and this person was the culprit. I said it as much. The discussion points mentioned by the players confirm this. If they others weren't sure, why didn't they bring that up? Why say "killing a vampire is murder because they are intelligent and suffer if slain!" or "vampire spawn must obey their Master, so he is actually a victim!"

Such arguments make absolutely no sense if the Players weren't sure that this was our culprit and that he was a vampire. You are either willfully ignoring this or pretending not to notice to imply that somehow I was the only one believing this person was the vampire and the culprit.

Quote from: jhkim on February 11, 2024, 05:38:10 PM

I'm still not clear on why they thought the figure in the study was the vampire in question. The people locked in cages in the dungeon below said that they were kidnapped by a vampire, but why did that mean the figure in the study was the vampire? It seems possible, but not proven. Even if there was a vampire, there could be more than one. Cipher said the other didn't argue on whether it was the vampire, but it would be a question I would bring up for the "kill on sight" behavior.

What does it matter if there was more than one vampire?  As I said before, sure, this guy could be someone else. But, if it was, no one else thought of that. The discussion revolved around me being a murderhobo for trying to "murder" a vampire (which is impossible since he is already dead) unprovoked. Not "you are just attacking someone we don't know could be a vampire".

At best you are playing Devil's advocate. At worst you are taking their side. It's fine. But again, for the last time, please engage the discussion from the arguments made. There is no way your reasoning makes sense given the information provided. You can disbelief the information provided, but that's not what you are saying here. You are trying to make the case the only I was sure this was the vampire. Previous posts, ones that I made across these two weeks and that remain, to this day, unedited clearly dispel that notion. Since that angle cannot make sense with the arguments made by the Players against me.

Unless you are just trolling me and want me to waste time writing these replies.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt one last time:

I said it in my long post. I am not entirely sure. I was the new guy and mostly went along with whatever the party wanted to do. After we heard the stories of the people in the cages, that they were kept mostly without food and sometimes the people in cages would wake up and find others that were in the cages no longer in the cages, implying they were "moved" from the cages at night. Someone said that it must be vampires. Then, the gish class character said that it would be unlikely for a full vampire to be the culprit and that it must be a vampire spawn.

As I said, I am not sure if this was determined via in game knowledge skills or whatever or through metagaming. People said: "vampires!" I said: "Ok. Let's get some Van Helsing groove going!". We knew the person in the studio was the vampire because he was alone, at night in the estate.

It is very reasonable to believe this is the lord of the manor. Guests wouldn't be staring at the window alone in a studio inside of a private estate without the owner present.

As I said, as well, the rest of the party prepared themselves for a "boss" fight, this is most surely metagaming knowledge and something I don't really enjoy in my games, but like I said in my long post, I wasn't about to start chastising people for the way they play in a game with an established group that I was just joining.

Also, in that long post I said that I cannot give more specifics than that since, again, this is a D&D gaming group, they play D&D like most people play D&D. Specially the WotC D&D. There is some roleplay but there's also a lot of talk about "D&D terms". It is not my preference to play like this, but I was willing to just have fun and let it slide because I really wanted to get back into the hobby and also as a forever GM for over a decade I make an effort not to judge how others run games.

I said it many times before, it doesn't really matter how this was determined because everyone else believed that the culprit was a vampire and that the vampire was the merchant, the owner of the estate, and that when we opened the door of the studio we were expecting to meet this person.

Once the discussion started, no one made the argument of "we don't even know this is our guy!" or "we don't even know he is actually a vampire"

I said as much in the very, very lengthy post that I wrote just for you, jhkim. It seems you either didn't read it completely or just skimmed through it.

At this point, it seems you are trying to find me tripping on my account of the events. Either you believe me or you don't. It's fine if you don't believe me. Really, it is. But, please, stop pretending like there's some big detail that I am missing since I already explained it across the posts I've made and specifically addressed this in the long form post that was a direct response to you.

Are there gaps in the story? Sure. It's been two weeks from the time I created the original post. I am not a court reporter. I was going off on memory alone. Also, while I took the game seriously, I made an effort to be more of a passive observer and go along with the party because I just wanted to play. As long as we were playing the 'good guys', I was fine with whatever they decided.

I said as much, that my biggest contributions were tying up the bandits after we roughed them for info and asking about the other cages to investigate if they were recently used. I am not an attention hog and specially not when I am the new guy on an established gaming group.

I provided as much information as I can. The very fact that the group did not ever questioned that this guy was our culprit and that he was the vampire is self-explanatory. You are trying to dissect this as if this was a novel written with intention that went over multiple drafts and editors. It's not. This was a D&D 5e game. Someone said "he's a vampire!", everyone went along with it.

Fact of the matter is, maybe there wasn't even a boss fight planned. Maybe the DM intended for it to be cultists, like the Mayor suspected, but when someone said "vampire!" then maybe the DM decided to go along with it. A LOT of people run games like that.

I am not saying that's the case. I am saying I don't know. And there's NO WAY to know. And the reason there's no way to know, because everyone, included the DM, never put that information into question during the discussion.

As I said before, either you believe me and take my word at face value or not. You can decide not to, you are a free person. But, stop the vague attempt at forensics. You are not "suddenly" going to catch me tripping, because I already provided as much description of the events as I can recall and as much as it is needed for the discussion at hand.

For the last time: The discussion was always, always centered around the Players telling me, another Player, about being a murderhobo and a bigot. No discussion in-character took effect. No roleplay. No one put into question the information we were operating by. The problem was I said "filthy bloodsucker" and decided to attack an undead on sight.

Some people took offense on attacking on sight, calling me a murderhobo, but the biggest issue, the one that kept resurfacing across the almost 2 hours of discussion, was that I was being a bigot due to the usage of my words that were spoken out of "hate" or something to that effect and thus that meant that I had broken the trigger warnings agreement made in Session 0 and we, apparently, needed to stop the game and have a discussion about that, culminating in them reaching the consensus that I was, indeed, in the wrong and that if I moved forward with the actions I declared my character was taking, I would lose my powers as a Paladin and who knows what else. Because that's just the DM ruling in regards to my character's actions, I am not sure what was in store for me as the Player that broke the trigger warning contract.

THIS is why I decided to leave the game, in the most calm and polite way I could do so. And then the DM said I was wrong and due to my attitude I would not be invited to continue playing with that group. Most likely, this was going to be the end result of that discussion, perhaps after the session was over. OR, maybe they just wanted me to admit I was being a bigot and apologize and then I would be allowed to continue playing with them.

I don't know because I did not stick around to find that out.

Interestingly (to me at least), the more recent WOTC material kind of removes the moral question. The Forgotten Realms Wiki contains the following quote in its "Church of Lathander" entry, for which it cites the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide:

"They viewed undeath as abhorrent, believing the existence of undead as unnatural and antithetical to the ideal of change and new beginnings."

That phrases it as a dogmatic position as much as a moral one, which would actually make Cipher's behavior more in character. "That looks like an undead. Therefore it must be destroyed" would be in line with the 5e Lathandrian dogma, whether it was right or wrong.

When running a published setting, one of the first things I do is make clear to my players which sources are and are not canon. It's supremely unfair to a player to let them unwittingly make a character based on source material they thought was fair game, only to pull the rug out from under them once the game starts; Heading that issue off at the pass will save you tons of headaches as a DM. I think a unique problem has arisen with Faerun, due to WOTC's decision to simultaneously make it the default setting for D&D while not producing a complete setting guide for the current edition. I suspect this has lead to a lot of newer players being unaware of how much lore the setting actually has. If all you have to go on is the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, you could be forgiven for thinking that Faerun was largely a blank slate setting you were designed to build out with your own canon. All fine until you get players in the group that know the setting from older editions and bring those assumptions into the game with them. Come to think of it, they made the same mistake with 3rd edition. Greyhawk was the official setting, but they never produced a proper setting book for it.

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Odd coincidence, but I had a very similar event play out in one of my campaigns not long ago. The players unwittingly stumbled into a vampire's lair. He'd set up shop in the secret tunnels leading into a castle they were trying to infiltrate  (on account of being an ancestor of the current Baron, and the one who ordered the tunnels constructed in the first place). Exploring it they found evidence of black magic and (empty) cages for holding prisoners in, and had a run-in with a succubus the vampire had enslaved, who "enticed" the party Sorcerer to kill the vampire so that she could be released from his service. By the time they actually met him, they'd correctly deduced what he was. Ironically, the knight in the party was prepared to hear him out, and it was the party assassin who got outraged and immediately attacked. This was arguably the wrong decision. If they hadn't attacked, the vampire was actually going to offer to help them (for personal reasons; he was still evil), and by defeating him, they released the succubus, arguably a worse threat to the population at large. Plus he escaped, earning them a powerful enemy, and the one "prisoner" they rescued from him had already been turned into a vampire herself.

Funny thing is I didn't even make the connection between that scenario and this one until just now, because when it happened in my game, it was a complete non-issue. I go out of my way to make clear to the players that talking to NPCs might yield better results than attacking, to the point where they often surprise me by attempting to negotiate their way out of what I assume to be combat encounters. I fully intended them to talk to this vampire, but was still prepared for what would happen if they didn't. This was actually the second time that assassin player had defaulted to attacking a potentially friendly NPC. The player's a bit of a hothead, and I know him well enough to expect that. But its hard for me to imagine a DM of any experience at all not being prepared for the possibility of players attacking any NPC they find suspicious.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 11, 2024, 08:35:41 PM
Interestingly (to me at least), the more recent WOTC material kind of removes the moral question. The Forgotten Realms Wiki contains the following quote in its "Church of Lathander" entry, for which it cites the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide:

"They viewed undeath as abhorrent, believing the existence of undead as unnatural and antithetical to the ideal of change and new beginnings."

That phrases it as a dogmatic position as much as a moral one, which would actually make Cipher's behavior more in character. "That looks like an undead. Therefore it must be destroyed" would be in line with the 5e Lathandrian dogma, whether it was right or wrong.

When running a published setting, one of the first things I do is make clear to my players which sources are and are not canon. It's supremely unfair to a player to let them unwittingly make a character based on source material they thought was fair game, only to pull the rug out from under them once the game starts; Heading that issue off at the pass will save you tons of headaches as a DM. I think a unique problem has arisen with Faerun, due to WOTC's decision to simultaneously make it the default setting for D&D while not producing a complete setting guide for the current edition. I suspect this has lead to a lot of newer players being unaware of how much lore the setting actually has. If all you have to go on is the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, you could be forgiven for thinking that Faerun was largely a blank slate setting you were designed to build out with your own canon. All fine until you get players in the group that know the setting from older editions and bring those assumptions into the game with them. Come to think of it, they made the same mistake with 3rd edition. Greyhawk was the official setting, but they never produced a proper setting book for it.

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Odd coincidence, but I had a very similar event play out in one of my campaigns not long ago. The players unwittingly stumbled into a vampire's lair. He'd set up shop in the secret tunnels leading into a castle they were trying to infiltrate  (on account of being an ancestor of the current Baron, and the one who ordered the tunnels constructed in the first place). Exploring it they found evidence of black magic and (empty) cages for holding prisoners in, and had a run-in with a succubus the vampire had enslaved, who "enticed" the party Sorcerer to kill the vampire so that she could be released from his service. By the time they actually met him, they'd correctly deduced what he was. Ironically, the knight in the party was prepared to hear him out, and it was the party assassin who got outraged and immediately attacked. This was arguably the wrong decision. If they hadn't attacked, the vampire was actually going to offer to help them (for personal reasons; he was still evil), and by defeating him, they released the succubus, arguably a worse threat to the population at large. Plus he escaped, earning them a powerful enemy, and the one "prisoner" they rescued from him had already been turned into a vampire herself.

Funny thing is I didn't even make the connection between that scenario and this one until just now, because when it happened in my game, it was a complete non-issue. I go out of my way to make clear to the players that talking to NPCs might yield better results than attacking, to the point where they often surprise me by attempting to negotiate their way out of what I assume to be combat encounters. I fully intended them to talk to this vampire, but was still prepared for what would happen if they didn't. This was actually the second time that assassin player had defaulted to attacking a potentially friendly NPC. The player's a bit of a hothead, and I know him well enough to expect that. But its hard for me to imagine a DM of any experience at all not being prepared for the possibility of players attacking any NPC they find suspicious.

As I said before, I wasn't privy to changes to the lore and was going off of the established lore as I knew it. I was fine with the lore in 5e being different, but that wasn't ever called into question. I would have been completely OK with the DM saying "my game world is within the Forgotten Realms but in a broad strokes way, and deviates from the lore whenever I see fit. Don't take the established lore too much into concideration and consider it more as a loose baseline for my world". Or, if he had said "please, base your knowledge of the lore in this material". Or not even all that. As I said previously, I would have been 100% fine with the DM making a ruling just right after I declared my attack saying "keep in mind in my world vampires are not always evil" or "Alignments as described in the books are more like loose guidelines and generalities. For all you know, this vampire could be neutral good". And then let me make a decision.

Now, I know why there was no such mention. The lore remains basically the same. Lathander is still anti-undead. So, my paladin was actually following the tenets of Lathander more closely than the player playing the cleric of Lathander character.

Quote from: Cipher on February 11, 2024, 10:21:02 PM
...

Now, I know why there was no such mention. The lore remains basically the same. Lathander is still anti-undead. So, my paladin was actually following the tenets of Lathander more closely than the player playing the cleric of Lathander character.

I wouldn't be surprised if the DM didn't even know. Doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who's doing a detailed read on the source material before he runs a setting. Hell, I spent hours reading the 3rd edition Faerun book back in the day (still have it on my shelf even), and I still had to go back and check the difference between Lathander and Ilmater. He probably glanced over it, got "sun-themed good god" and didn't think it through any further.

A good DM would have brushed up on the religion of two of the clergy characters in his party, but this clearly isn't a good DM, so...

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 11, 2024, 11:54:49 PM

Quote from: Cipher on February 11, 2024, 10:21:02 PM
...

Now, I know why there was no such mention. The lore remains basically the same. Lathander is still anti-undead. So, my paladin was actually following the tenets of Lathander more closely than the player playing the cleric of Lathander character.

I wouldn't be surprised if the DM didn't even know. Doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who's doing a detailed read on the source material before he runs a setting. Hell, I spent hours reading the 3rd edition Faerun book back in the day (still have it on my shelf even), and I still had to go back and check the difference between Lathander and Ilmater. He probably glanced over it, got "sun-themed good god" and didn't think it through any further.

A good DM would have brushed up on the religion of two of the clergy characters in his party, but this clearly isn't a good DM, so...

I understand different DMs do varying degrees of prep. I wouldn't expect the DM to know about this, just to either decide to respect the lore or change it. It the lore is the same and the DM doesn't care then that's fine. If the lore is changed then I expect the DM to let the Players know. The DM doesn't have to go into details just something to the effect of: "I am taking a very loose approach towards the lore of the Forgotten Realms. Take the setting as a lose baseline, so the Sword Coast exist, Baldur's Gate exist, Amn exist but everything else is subject to deviations".

That's it. Then I would have asked, "hey DM, so in this version of the realms, what's Lathander's view towards undead?" And if the DM said something to the effect of "Case by case. Lathander respects life and wants the destruction of evil. Nothing specific towards undead". Then that would have made all the difference for me.

It's like making a game with Star Wars and Jedi in the era before the Empire, when Jedi were numerous across the galaxy and then 3 games in turns out my Jedi character will never get a lightsaber because in this version of Star Wars there are no lightsabers.

Or the other way around, my Jedi gets a lightsaber but turns out the Force is more like a myth and in this version of the setting the Jedi don't have powers.

Playing within a setting creates an expectation of adherence to the established lore. GMs can deviate from this lore but I strongly believe that this has to be explained to the players.

I did that on my own Star Wars game, set 40 years after the Battle of Yavin in the Legends canon. But, I explained that I only respected Legends canon up to the end of the Vong wars. After that I made some changes to suit my tastes and I provided a timeline of events so everyone that was expecting certain things to have occurred understands how those events played out and realize some events actually changed their outcome and some never happened.

The reason I think its important because my character, as a living entity in that setting should be acquainted with the events that pertain to this world. As such, a paladin of Lathander doesn't need to know every single deviation from the established Forgotten Realms lore, but at least I expect my character to understand the religion he is a part of and thus any deviation to the way Lathander is viewed by mortals and the expectations of his worshipers are things my character must definitely should know. 

Cipher did nothing wrong.

Vampire killing is an ancient and noble profession. Hellsing, Belmont, Blade, Joestar, Buffy, Abraham Lincoln. Their footsteps are a venerated path.

Humanized vampires than can or should be reasoned with are a modern construction, not the default. Cipher should be in no way sanctioned for assuming the default to be the default without being priorly informed that the vampires in the DMs setting are less Count Dracula Vlad Ţepeş and more rhinestone-skinned safe-edgy bad boys. His actions at absolute most warranted correction about the basic information that his character definitely would know in world, and allow him to redo his uninformed action with the benefit of knowledge his character was privy to at the time of acting.

The very first literary Vampire of note, Varney the Vampire, started off as monstrous but became more human as the story went on (and on and on) tp the point where he finally threw himself into a volcano

Quote from: JeremyR on February 12, 2024, 03:04:55 AM
The very first literary Vampire of note, Varney the Vampire, started off as monstrous but became more human as the story went on (and on and on) tp the point where he finally threw himself into a volcano

What I'm reading is that he slowly came to the definitely objectively correct conclusion that vampire killing is a high virtue, and took matters into his own hands. topkek

Quote from: Zenoguy3 on February 12, 2024, 03:23:44 AM

Quote from: JeremyR on February 12, 2024, 03:04:55 AM
The very first literary Vampire of note, Varney the Vampire, started off as monstrous but became more human as the story went on (and on and on) tp the point where he finally threw himself into a volcano

What I'm reading is that he slowly came to the definitely objectively correct conclusion that vampire killing is a high virtue, and took matters into his own hands. topkek

He read the Necronomicon, and wanted to become a Fire Vampire.