Have you ever tried talking to the antagonist? Nobody is truly evil...

Have you ever tried talking to the antagonist? Nobody is truly evil, they might have their own reasons for what they are doing and by understanding one another you can work things out without violence.

I tried but his bodyguards wouldn't let me meet him and now I'm banned from his haven. Fighting is suicide so we'll be trying a stealthy approach next session.

Yes. Turns out Dragons don't care about 'the right thing to do'

Yes. He just commanded his mooks to kill us, then teleported out. We've had, like, four encounters with him until we killed him for good, and we still don't know what the fuck was that guy's problem two campaign later.

Tried to.
Apparently eldritch space robots don't like chatting with organic lifeforms.

Have you tried a sternly worded letter to the dark lord?

That could work...

>Nobody is truly evil

Try telling that to Demogorgon and the other Demon Lords as they claw free of their abyssal prisons and shove their giant barbed demonic cocks, both figurative and literal, into the material plane

>playing D&D
At least tell me you use another system.

Have you seen Lotus Dimension by any chance?

My current party managed to talk an evil vampire elf lady out of fighting after she had come back from the dead maybe half an hour after we'd slain her.
She was very upset and angry, but we smoothed it out, and in return for getting her amour back she even gave us some useful information.

Come to think of it, she might not actually have been evil, but she put a lot of effort into appearing like a shady villain, so we didn't take any chances when we came face-to-face with her (and killed her, before she revived).

Yes. But his reasons stemmed from issues that the party couldn't fix and ended up with is fighting anyways.

Yeah we did a DnD campaign were the finally big baddy we literally ended up talking outta it because we ended up rolling really high charisma checks the whole time and our DM sucked at rolling that night.

Looked up the video, it seems pretty interesting but I'll have to find out more about the mechanics and how much freedom you have in terms of what you can do. I'm curious if intimidation, blackmail or empty threats are viable options.

We spent an hour arguing with the boss of last sessions fight before reaching the conclusion that diplomacy has failed and there's nothing more to say to each other.

This is a base assumption in our games. If the opponent is at least mildly intelligent, parley happens. Also lots of backstabbing, from both sides. Not every deal is perfect, not every negotiation results in a mutually beneficial agreement. Then again, there's little this party won't do to advance their goals. Heroic mindset isn't really a thing except our superhero games, where talking to antagonists doesn't happen as much as a beating the shit out of them periodically in the best of superhero comics tradition.

I'm in a Nanoha game. Heartfelt feelings and friendship lasers are the order of the day.

Personally I just hope it's done something interesting with the mechanics instead of being a generic rpg without a combat system

Sure did. He got talked down from fighting and it turned into a long debate that ended in him compromising to be less evil and releasing prisoners in exchange for him leaving to continue his revised plan.

>Posting tired old memes
At least tell me you also insult shitty modern rpg players.

>Nobody is truly evil

The 'villain' is an Evil Elemental from the elemental plane of evil.

dont you mean, a misunderstood elemental from the plane of subjective understanding?

Yup. That lich left his conversation with my character seriously reconsidering his life choices.

I later wound up killing him in a three-way fight between us, him, and a Red Dragon by throwing his phylactery down the dragon's throat as it breathed fire.

> Nobody is truly evil,
they can literally be MADE of pure evil if they're a demon or devil.

>not playing D&D
At least tell me you don't not kill yourself.

If talking gets us the same loot that killing does, sure

>D&D hijack lol
Please leave.

>Have you ever tried talking to the antagonist?
Yes, he won initiative and and TPK'd us.

But also, I did once manage to free a mind-controlled angel and get her to stay at our base. She was supposed to be a boss monster, the GM didn't expect it, and other players trolled her relentlessly, so she wound up not being as useful as I hoped.

Nigger, everyone's evil just waiting for an opportunity to strike!
Kill them all!

The ultimate antagonist is known as the God of Eternal Darkness, I don't think a new perspective is going to change his methodology.
His lead avatar that we actually interact with is less insane but reasoning with that one would only delay the inevitable.

I try it all the time. It never ever works, because fights involve the whole party, whereas a conversation is just two people.