Badmike wrote:Druids in all my campaigns are NG or NE...no one, I'm sorry, could ever be TRUE neutral without eventually going bonkers at some point in their lives... Enough! Dimbulb the 1st level druid should never have to wrestle through existential questions of existance that a Tibetian Zen Master could only begin to fathom. Also, true neutral IMO means you can never go adventuring....what party in their right mind harbors a guy who any moment might yell "Run away, grizzly bear, the party wants to take your fur!"
Marlith wrote:My campaign had the Good Druids being the friendly environmental types who wanted to protect the environment but if civilization was really going to suffer they would agree to what was for good of civilization (within reason). The Dark Druids were the radical environmental types. They were anti-civilization and would often go out of their way to disrupt things they saw an encroachment on their "wilds".
MShipley88 wrote:"Balance" is another fantasy gaming concept that I find amusing. I could accept the Balance between Chaos and Law of Michael Moocock's writings. That works. But a "Balance" between Good and Evil makes me laugh: "I need some evil to balance all the good I have done. What do you suggest?" There is too much good? We need some evil?:
DungeonDelver wrote:"El, you really must try this because it's puerco pibil. It's a slow-roasted pork, nothing fancy. It just happens to be my favorite, and I order it with a tequila and lime in every dive I go to in this country. And honestly, that is the best it's ever been anywhere. In fact, it's too good. It's so good that when I'm finished, I'll pay my check, walk straight into the kitchen and shoot the cook. Because that's what I do. I restore the balance to this country. And that is what I would like from you right now. Help keep the balance by pulling the trigger. "
Deadlord36 wrote:And the muff. Don't forget the muff.
Achizar wrote:I personally never understood the interpretation that the neutrality balance has to have such granularity that each individual act has to be balanced. That indeed is just silly.I always interpreted it as more of a Daoist big picture concept of balance, or better yet, a position above/beyond moral classifications & judgments, as in Nature itself. I.e., in nature nothing judges whether a lion eating an antelope is good or evil, or whether a beaver cutting down a tree is good/evil. Nature just happens, and is self-regulating through maintenance of balances. (e.g., get too many prey species, and predator species flourish...until there are are too many predators, and they die down a bit. Anything that throws off that self-regulating mechanism is bad, but there's no moral component to it.
MShipley88 wrote:The druid as presented is not a medieval point of view. It is much closer to a modern, secular whatever-ism. The game druid does not even match the historical druid. The concept of a defender of nature is entirely modern. Medieval Europeans (the people of 90% of fantasy game worlds) would not have even been able to understand the concept...would have returned only blank and puzzled stares even if you explained it to them. 8O The concept of "no moral component" is alien to heroic fantasy role-playing. Good and evil are starkly contrasted. The idea of remaining neutral in such a clash is incomprehensible. Even when the characters and the conflicts take on modern tones (such as the Elric novels), even the evil guys know they are evil. :evil: So, the druids on the sidelines, yawning enormously, are not one of the better components of the game. :roll: Mark
Deadlord36 wrote:Sooooooo, about that objectionable art..............
Achizar wrote:Well, Daoism is hardly modern OR secular. That leads to the question of (1) whether D&D druids are meant to represent Daoist principles and (2) if so, whether they belong in the default D&D milieu any more than monks do (and EGG is on record as saying that the latter really didn't). As for what historical druids did or what medieval Europeans would have understood, I doubt they would have comprehended killing orcs or finding the Eye of Vecna, either, so that's not really the litmus test. Obviously the game is not intended to be a realistic historical simulation.Your strongest point is the one about heroic fantasy. I admit it's hard to imagine how true neutrality fits in this scheme, though I wonder whether that's more to do with the conceit or our lack of imagination.It's hard. People struggle with paladins, too, for I think the same reason. The alignment requirements of these classes require a very fine sense of moral subtleties and if you paint them with too broad a brush, the classes become caricatures at best and unplayable at worst.