"Just because I wear black armor, use necromancy and have a harem of vampires and succubi doesn't make me a bad person...

"...I suppose you're technically right. Carry on, citizen, but we'll be keeping an eye on you. I don't appreciate being called out on noise complaints this early in the morning. "

"Sorry about that. The gals were just getting rowdy. Good day officer."

you could take blood without killing them and just heal em after like Order of the Stick did

What about criminals? Every kingdom has criminals.

Surely getting exsanguinated by a qt vampire girl is a more human manner of execution than hanging.

>True resurrection is necromancy

What if the criminal is a fag or a straight woman? Then you're basically raping them as they die, and that's super evil.

Do they need blood from people? Just use goblins or cows.

Wait, what criteria are you using here to determine which kinds of humanoids are people and which aren't?

Is it really controversial to say that goblins aren't people?

Next thing you know, someone will say that Negroes should have the vote!

They are intelligent sure but have animalistic souls. Like dolphins or cats.

>that one greentext story where the one guy played a lich showing peasents how to use necromancy and skellingtons to make their life easier
>has his work undone by GM's other 4-player party that find a broken old man in place of an all-powerful icon of evil and undeath

Open your mind, m8

Unfortunately intolerance exists in many forms.

>actually, genuinely, sincerely, unironically debating rules as written
>not debating what purpose those rules are supposed to fulfill thematically and how they relate to and change gameplay
come on, Veeky Forums, you can be better than this

Shit that was a good story. Do you have the screencap?

...

Why yes, I too have visited your average book store today.
Although, I am playing a NG Necromancer currently. But that's not her fault and she's also a sorcerer so it's not like she studies this shit. She just gets the powers.

iirc it was technically in the Necromancy school in pre-3e, same with healing spells. 3,X made healing and revival Conjuration for some stupid reason, and IDK about post-3.X editions.

Thing is, have you ever seen a vampire eat up anyone that wasn't human?

If they won't settle for wild animal blood why should goblins be any better.

How do you feed your vampires?

>not hurting anyone
How would you know? It's not like you can see what's going on from beneath that helmet.

Well, no harems or succubi, but I guess my backwoods adventurers do have black armor, necromancy, and a vampire friend who only gets by on the fact they reached golconda unwittingly.

not brutally murdering you and taking your stuff would hurt my bank balance and level progression scheme

i hate vegans

You're hurting the reputation of the necromantic community. So they paid us to kill you.

god fucking dammit

With volunteers.

Some people get off on it.

Some of the best and kindest people i've ever met were clad in black leather and steel spikes. They also listened music that sent them into rage trances and made them fight among themselves, only to forget it hours later and laugh the anger away.

Just because your character looks and delves into traditionally evil things, doesn't mean he actually is. I'll let your actions from now on decide that.
As for the common folk, well, expect them to treat you with some revulsion and fear. You look, after all, very threatening.

If there is something i never understood, is common villagers trying to lynch evil or demonic looking PCs. Now, guards and all that? I get it, but farmers and civillians? At worst they would be as cooperative as possible so they don't get "cursed" and then call for the guards when the PC is gone. Do they believe they can take on a person who can cast "dark evil" magic?
Even if you go by the idea of the witch trials you have to admit a group of peasants would run away when said demonic looking character showed some magic ability

First of all, this never happened. Second of all, I'm so tired of this "Villains dindu nuffin, heroes are the real villains, and good is bigoted!" reddit-tier trope that I see all the time in writing prompts.

>Le so subversive xD le automated utopia wer every1 lives in paradyse xD its le future xD if le Christia- I err mean [LG Deity] didn't le hold back progress we'd be le colonising le moon xD xDDD #NeilDeGrasseTyson #science(Tm)

You deserve to be fucking curb stomped.

>dude take this thing everyone conceives as bad (generally because it is)
>and instead make it super duper perfect so nobody can possibly level any criticism at my retarded premise and retain flawless moral superiority

Veeky Forums does this hipster contrarian shit so often that I've learned to post in perpetual opposite of how I feel so that you cucks end up agreeing with how I really feel on principle. Subverting the subverters.

You got it wrong mate.

It is about perspective. The necromancer saw what he did as good, as did his followers.

The heroes, and those that were saved, also thought of these people as good.

Neither side was evil. It's like the terrorist/freedom fighter discussion. One side perceives them as evil and insane, while the other side views them as heroes.

Having your heroes be revered by everyone aside from the cackling, babyeating maniacs is piss poor writing. Nothing is this black and white, and having nuances is a lot better for almost any story.

autism

Pure drivel, no wonder you cretinous redditors gobble fake bullshit like that up without question

I shudder to imagine how many 90 IQ twits were captivated by this screencap and the made their groups suffer through a "totally unique and fresh" idea for a benevolent necromancer.

>Subverting the subverters.

Now the question is - are you being honest, or metatrolling yourself in the hopes of getting people to argue that we're not contrarian?

>that I see all the time in writing prompts.

Then don't use writing prompts, fag.

t. reddit. I'm sure you also vape and still wear your Bernie Sanders shirt.

I like to sort of pull a reversal on that as well, when I do light grey and dark grey settings.
>The heroes are the 'good guys', but they don't always make the best decisions and their vices often get the better of them
>The 'bad guys' have virtues and meaningful motivations as well, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be stopped
The idea that 'there is no good side' can be useful, but it honestly doesn't have much of a useful niche in adventurous fantasy where the point is to enjoy being a hero.

It's not about villains being the real heroes, it's about villains not waking up in the morning and deciding to be dickheads.

Having a villain who's just evil because reasons is shallow storytelling and it just invites further obvious questions that the GM can't easily answer and that ruin immersion; why does the lich want to rule the world again? Oh he just does? But why would he want to, he's a lich, the rulership of an entire world would just get in the way of the stuff he really wants to be doing.

The precon for 5e, hoard of the dragon queen/rise of Tiamet is this to a tee; why would cults want to summon dragons in the first place? Any one even slightly familiar with dragons knows this is a hugely bad idea for any other non-dragon sapient creatures.

yeah man, organisations like Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban operate in such a morally grey area. Whose really to say that they're the bad guys. It's all so morally ambiguous. Maybe we're like the terrorists for overthrowing a confirmed genocidial authoritarian in Iraq, y'know?

Assblasted Redditor crying high fructose corn syrup tears right now

Yes, it is. Read the fucking greentext again - good boy necromancer literally dindu nuffin wrong and created an utopia, where his skeletons and zombies are doing all the work - and then evil bigoted heroes destroyed all of his beautiful work and recreated evil, opressive monarchies with dem evil judeochristian churches.
I absolutely despise stories like that. It's basic role reversal that's so unimaginative, even mainstream video games like Overlord did it - and it was bad even there.

This is why settings where necromancy actively harms the soul of the deceased or is otherwise inherently harmful are best, sidesteps this stupid contrarian nonsense entirely.

It's thinly veiled edgy Marxist shit

I'm serious, it's not even as crazy as it sounds. Just replace "automation" and "machinery" with "zombie", "corpse" and "necromancy".

Chapter 15 of Das Kapital to be specific.

How to fix necromancy in DnD:
All undead that are non-sentient now (skeletons, zombies) are fully aware of their state and exist in a state of eternal agony, but they are powerless to actually do anything but watch their bodies do whatever the necromancer commands them to.

>I command them to do what they want
>Then I ask for their help

> "I want to die. Every second of my existence feels like an eternity of torture, and I regret every single time I've wished to live forever."
Wat do?

No wonder Liches are so pissy.
>"Fuck, this was a terrible idea! How am I supposed to study when I burn with the pain of being a crime against reality? I can feel myself being torn between life and death all the fucking time! That shit hurts, man. But I can't even kill myself, so how the hell am I supposed to find someone who can kill me?"
>"Do what we want? I want to go back to the afterlife, man, that place is comfy as fuck."
>Crumbles to dust
On the bright side, that makes the possibility of a skeletal paladin summoned up for One Last Quest when everything's gone to shit and they can't find a cleric to pull a real Resurrection.
>"I will stay here a bit longer, summoner. But only since there is no-one left able to aid the forces of life. Otherwise, it is the duty of the living to carry their own burdens."
Could be breddy gud, but it would have to take place in a real Nobledark shithole of a world.

...

>How can you die, you're already dead!

Nobledark would be the best place for this
>Forbidden ritual to bring forth a Paladin
>Dark magic fueling him where once holy magic was
>"Even in death, I still smite."

>"You're not commanding him?"
>"No. He's a powerful enough paladin that it would be useless to try, anyways. He could just dispel my casting as soon as I called on him, or even go so far as to defy and kill me for raising him as an undead."
>"So why does he allow it? It's torturous, isn't it? Traumatizing, even. And for such periods of time?"
>"Because it's the best chance I have of living long enough to find a way to restore the light, and we both know it."
>"And what of the darkness? Why does it allow a champion of light to return, with all of the horrible things going on?"
>"Perhaps it's being cruel, and wants to present us with hope before crushing us. But right now, hope, any hope, is the only thing keeping this world alive. Even if the 'hope' itself is undead."

Or you could see that it is only one side of the story : the necromancer's side.
See Maybe all those apprentices just went mad with power while their master was away spreading freedom, democracy and post-scarcity economy through necromancy.

Maybe necromancy had other, less savory aspects that the old man overlooked by ignorance ?
Ex : maybe animating an undead result in binding the previous soul to the body, using it as a battery through a very painful process ?

Anyway, the heroes confront the necromancer, who's about to die. They listen to the monologue, watch him die and then they shrug :
>That guy was completely nuts !!
They cut the head and bring it as proof of a deed well done.

IRA and England, a big cluster fuck with legitimate arguments for both sides.

Read the fucking greentext again.

Do you find out a single thing about the campaign the heroes were going through that isn't seen through the Necromancers view points?

It's entirely possible - even fucking likely - that shit really was fucked and that the heroes were legitimately doing the right thing and helping save people.

What we know:
1. The Necromancer didn't stay and directly over see any of the places where he taught necromancy to the populace in the belief that they'd use it for good.
2. The Necromancer is likely one in a long line of Necromancers/Liches who may actually all be getting confused for a single long-lived Arch Liche.
3. The GM seems good enough to run a strong, engaging game even for just one player - a feat not every GM can pull off.

Based on this, isn't it safe - even logical - to assume that maybe shit went south in these peasant villages that suddenly had a tyrant overthrown and were taught necromancy without the teacher sticking around to make sure everything went alright (the players character is 60 and claims to have saved many villages and such, so how long could he realistically have been in ever location to get things going right).

Seems to me what was happening objectively was a good-hearted Necromancer was going around teaching necromancy to less-good people, thinking they'd do the good thing and going on his merry way while shit steadily went to hell.

Cue Adventurers following in his wake repairing things and hunting for the fucker teaching necromancy to cunts.

>role reversal
>in Overlord

I'm sorry, but I don't remember any of Overlord games having the main character presented in a positive light. Even the "good" ending of the first game can be presented as a LE.

If anything, the message of Overlord games is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, no matter the side.

>On the bright side, that makes the possibility of a skeletal paladin summoned up for One Last Quest when everything's gone to shit and they can't find a cleric to pull a real Resurrection.
>>"I will stay here a bit longer, summoner. But only since there is no-one left able to aid the forces of life. Otherwise, it is the duty of the living to carry their own burdens."
>Could be breddy gud, but it would have to take place in a real Nobledark shithole of a world.

This is actually really fucking awesome. Especially if he has mad bantz with his necrobuddy.

Way overhyped but I'll bite

>England fucks with Ireland for hundreds of years
>Ireland: "Hey stop fucking with us"
>England: "no"
>few bombs and generations later
>Irish and English literally don't care anymore now

Looks like Ireland is in the right senpai. NI is a meme and England should have just gtfo'd. Was the IRA even that bad really? Besides Thatcher did they ever actually bomb any civilians?

>Just because I wear black armor
Kill the bastard

>"That's a little-known symbol of the solar god."
>"It is?"
>"Yes, representing a regular revival. You would know that, if you had been a cleric."
>"If I had been a cleric, I would have been killed."
>"And that would have been a terrible tragedy, I'm sure."

Yes, lots.

You're ill-informed.

Besides, you write off what you thought was their only attack as it involved Thatcher and was therefore fine.

She was a controversial figure among the working class, sure, but she was a human being nonetheless, even if you ignore her contributions to the UK long term.

Don't be such a prick if you're ignorant, it stands out far too much to be defensible.

>but she was a human being nonetheless
Debatable

She was the right leader for the country back then.
She was hard bitch but the country needed one.

>controversial figure among the working class

that's a fucking understatement for a cunt who did everything in her goddamn power to ruin the lives of honest folk

>Was the IRA even that bad really? Besides Thatcher did they ever actually bomb any civilians?
Is it that far back that people have forgotten bloody friday?

I'm not even bong and I know about it.

>"Just because I wear black armor, use necromancy and have a harem of vampires and succubi doesn't make me a bad person. I am not hurting anyone!"

YOU'RE BEING A FUCKING POSER.
STOP BEING A FUCKING POSER.

>YOU'RE BEING A FUCKING POSER.

>Black armour is the uniform.
>Necromancy is versatile.
>Vampires and Succubi both work for an alternative payment scheme where-in being part of my harem IS there payment. Admittedly to my detriment, but that's my cross to bear.

Fuck off, fedorafag. Come back when you get a real job. In the mean time, I'm going to be enjoying the overtime pay as a minion in the Evil Overlords guard.

>tfw played a fiend bladelock with white hair, pale skin, red eyes, dark purple armor full of spikes, dark aura while being generous as fuck, outgoing, happy go lucky, optimistic, always with a wise but naive phrase to cheer up my party in difficult times

Except she didn't. Don't present the modern narrative as historical fact.

Objective fact exists, therefore objective truth exists, therefore moral relativism is false, therefore one side is wrong.

Truth is grounded in perspective, which is a variable construct.

One man's objective truth is another man's objective lie.

>therefore objective truth exists, therefore moral relativism is false

This is your error.

Objective truth does exist. Up is up. White is white. Under most circumstances, one plus one equals two.

Moral relativism understands that objective truth exist. It's claim is just that terms such as "good", "bad", "right" and "wrong" do not stand subject to universal truth conditions at all; rather, they are relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of an individual or a group of people.

Objective truths exist. And objective truths would dictate that there is no such thing as 'right' or 'wrong' when it comes to morals.

Well good ridance anyway. I hope she burn in hell

What about Bloody Sunday ?

>Objective truth
>In non-scientific, non-calculable opinions

Ohohohoh, you silly people.

>All these people arguing morality of liches.
>Not realizing that 'good' and 'evil' are the most relative things in existence.
>Not being able to see what a world ruled by a Lich would really be like

I pity them.

But anooon, in muh D&D setting morality is objective because of muh planes.

Well fuck your planes son, you know what a world ruled by this guy would be like?

>No wars
>No conflicts
>Centralized military against foreign threats (Demons)
>No souls are damned because no souls pass on
>Families reunited beyond death
>Science and Art flourish with lack of internal conflicts

The worst you could call a well done Lich is Lawful Neutral.

>there are people on Veeky Forums that use Detect Evil for every decision instead of doing what THEY think is the right thing to do
Why is Veeky Forums so shit at being noble?

>>Science and Art flourish with lack of internal conflicts
they can stagnate, conflict is helluva moving power

".....I asked you if your property taxes are okay in this area though? Jesus Christ dude, you always spaz out and say the most random shit in conversations for no reason. This is why you don't have any real friends except me dude and you have to hang out in basements with dead people; literally in the middle of productive conversations you say shit about necromancy, woman wearing armor, fey catboys and a whole lot of other random nonsense. Half of the time I can't even understand what the fuck you're saying when you open your mouth because it's like you never actually even recognize the context of anything going on around you ever."

"...I don't want to offend you dude, but I think you might be seriously autistic."

INTERNAL Conflict. I.e. goblins and gnomes no longer compete with one another, they work together.

The same goes for Mages and Scientists. Not having two factions fight each other for reasons as stupid as

>'I think that that uncontrollable demon that gnome accidently summoned while trying to summon a DIFFERENT uncontrollable demon was actually YOUR fault so I'm going to drop any pretense of sanity and call you out on it, even though we're fighting literally in the back yard of someone who can raise the dead and can likely take over the world.'

means that sabotage is non-existant and everything can be targetted at a single foe, rather than having 'Elf-killer' mines and other assorted racial targetting devices.

Kel'thuzad did nothing wrong.

>'good' and 'evil' are the most relative things in existence.
Nigga you what.
This is the most basic shit.
Evil boils down to putting your own agenda over the well being of the world and Its residents.
Good boils down to caring about your world and being able to suffer for the good of It.

There's obviously more to It, but the very core, It comes down to It.

A world where fucking over the other person is acceptable, killing another person just for looking at you funny might be acceptable but It's still pretty much evil. It's just like the Objective truth this guy is talking about

Well what if, by your own view, your agenda is for the well being of the world?

Does It involves hurting the people on It or the world Itself? Because that's the whole point.
If yes, bad idea.
Performing small evil for the greater good, is still evil. Now, doing nothing still counts as evil.

Does It mean that you're fucked either way? Yes.
Can you carry on still? I don't know. Will your evil acts ever be forgiven? Maybe.
Either way, no one can really blame you for doing nothing. Doing evil to do good is fucking hardcore.
But evil is still evil, and good is not the easy choice. You can't always do good. But you can still very well try. That's life, man

Dude, the shit I just told you contradicts what you're linking too.

In an objective truth universe, murdering everyone you see isn't good or evil. It just is. There are no morals in a universe of pure objective truths. Morals are shit we through on top based on opinion and perspective.

Killing one person to save billions - neither good nor evil, just a matter of perspective.

I know your kind of guys.
Bet you're gonna kickstart a skeleton-powered industrial revolution and destroy the economy of all your neighbors with your cheap magg-produced goods, causing millions to suffer from unemployment and subsequent famine. You monster

Yeah, It doesn't sound great.
What I meant Is, good or evil are pretty much a thing. You can call It whatever, you can find one more acceptable that the other, but those "ways of acting" are still the most basic, very much existing forces that drive all sentient beings.
We can fight over the specifics and train dilemma all day, but that won't change the fact that the "basics" are still there

Yeah, but those basics are different based on a shitload of factors.

There is no objective good/bad.

There is.
You suffer yourself for the good of the world.
Or
You make others suffer for your own good

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.

3.x moved them to conjuration (healing) because NECROMANCY IS A BAD SCHOOL FOR BAD PEOPLE so obviously you can't have healing in there because healing isn't bad

>Does It involves hurting the people on It or the world Itself?

What the fuck does "hurting the world" mean? Damaging the planet? Destabilising the ecosystem?

Does it mean damaging human society? In what way? By killing people? By destroying institutions that people rely on to live? By promoting certain cultural attitudes or beliefs? By voting for the wrong political figure?

Your statements make no fucking sense.

lol youtube.com/watch?v=NspLA6mzST4

just another example of 3e dumbing D&D down for videogamers