A Moral Grey Gone Black?

[Rasczak]

If you want roleplaying then you should know that every deed does not earn a reward and doing good instead of evil does not get you anything either. There is no xp for roleplaying here so I would suggest pulling out NWN again if that's what you are looking for.

If a quest effects your morals then move on to the next one.

[Arculea]

I felt bad after doing that quest..even though this is a game..
It gets me thinking. Why should i kill other people just because they believe in a different god?

I felt the same after doing it with my neutral good bard.
I think for roleplay purposes, I will not do this quest with any one of my neutral good characters anymore.
I will however do this quest with any lawful neutral or lawful good characters I possess (after all lawful is about upholding the laws and after all that´s what I do in this mission, enforcing the "law" of the silver flame, which doesn´t permit any rival churches in "their city".

But I have to admit, it would be good if the dialogue with the questgiver included a dialogue option, in which you decline the quest for moral reasons

[Catholicon]

I felt the same after doing it with my neutral good bard.
I think for roleplay purposes, I will not do this quest with any one of my neutral good characters anymore.
I will however do this quest with any lawful neutral or lawful good characters I possess (after all lawful is about upholding the laws and after all that´s what I do in this mission, enforcing the "law" of the silver flame, which doesn´t permit any rival churches in "their city".

But I have to admit, it would be good if the dialogue with the questgiver included a dialogue option, in which you decline the quest for moral reasons

Just because something's the law doesn't mean it's good.

[Arculea]

Just because something's the law doesn't mean it's good.

Yes, but the silver flame is AFAIK a good aligned religion,
so I can still reason, that the leaders of "my church" know what´s best for Eberron and that the people I kill during the mission (although good aligned) die for the greater good.

I would draw a comparison with the albigensian crusade in the 13th century...
many people fighting on the catholic side probably really believed that they were doing good by fighting the cathars, despite the fact that the cathars were christians as well (just not christians of the "right", i.e. catholic faith)

[ristretto93]

I'd have to agree with you MyfSeran. I simply cannot bring myself to run this quest on my Paladin (which, if I did, any logical DM would quickly make a fallen Paladin).

Okay, this is a role-playing stretch, but even as a non-rp'ing xp-grinding powergaming loot-loving favor-farming jerk I still had to justify running this quest with my LG paladin (who serves the Sovereign Host!) somehow:

I had not chosen a faith yet when I ran it, and maybe *in character* I was up to that point blindly following the ways of the Silver Flame and after this quest, slaughter and guilt of it all, chose to (spend the action points) adopt the ways of a seemingly less brutal faith like the Sovereign Host...

...like I said, its a stretch, and as a DM in a PnP game I would at least temporarily punish a LG paladin that had committed this act. Luckily, the DM governing my moral/behavioral choices and consequences in DDO is a little more focused on selling Turbine Points to players than with noticing my blatant alignment slip

[SirAggravator]

I've seen this discussed a few times since the beginning and the one thing about Eberron that I read
was "The idea that good people can do evil is a central concept in Eberron."
Reference

I've come across a few people who refuse to do this quest and I think the moral dilemma was a nice feature by the quest writer. Roleplayers who don't want to accept the quest shouldn't really be worried that there is no favour/xp/loot to be gained - in refusing the quest that's kind of sticking to your principles (which I think can be a good thing ).

At the same time it would be much better if there was an option to complete the quest without killing everyone.
Perhpas at the final fight a token could be given to deceive Gnomen that you had completed the task (when you had spared them).

The quest makes us think "why are we slaughtering thousands of 'monsters'" instead of just reading the objectives and see "Kill X kobolds". It's like the first time in STK you see the kobolds and immediately try to attack them - only to realise you can't harm them because they are non-hostile.

[Letrii]

No good deed goes unpunished.

[Rasczak]

I will use the Terry Pratchet approach

Noone said elves are good. Elves are bad!

Hence any elf, midget elf (halfling) or elven association, I will kill and slaughter to my hearts content knowing I am justified

As for religious leaders doing what their assumed alignment says they should.....I laughed at this for good long time.
I've had demons posing as religious leaders, I've had the fanatics warping religious text and I've had the plain old selfish greedy mortal approach of using power of the church to get me lots of stuff.

Assume nothing.....you have no idea what the actual story behind the quest is as why would Gnomon tell a mercenary any of the nitty gritty details? He has no need to....he pays and you do it.


And that's my roleplay take on it as even though I have said the game isn't roleplay friendly in some ways I am still a roleplayer of 25 years and now and then I can't help myself

[phillymiket]

Im new to DDO. I love to role play. My first character was a paladin and i wasnt even breaking boxes if the "owner" (quest granter) was not evil. I was avoiding the death of any neutral animal/vermin types even if it imperiled me personally. (Anyone questing with me loved the first part and hated the second part). But i was at too much of a disadvantage so i stopped.
This game cant have the scope of PnP which takes place in your imagination not on a computer server. There is a million things a paladin just wouldn't do without being "demoted" to fighter.
My solution was to make a chaotic character!
"Fixing" one quest wont change the fact that this game cant have a instance for every alignment or 6 ways to complete every quest.
So...make someone you can play in character if thats what drives you. Invent your own story line if you want. You could imagine they are evil. After all you're already pretending to be elves and wizards
That being said...
It sure would be a huge improvement if they had two instances for all quests. Evil and Good. Neutrals could pick at creation which side they quest with. Evil doers can't quest with Goodies. Many quests could simply have different dialog from NCPs to accomplish this. Many more could just a few different skins applied turning orcs into humans, wargs into unicorns etc. Many of course would need to be repopulated but few would need to be reinvented wholecloth.
Later content could be added geared to this. Party vs Party quests could be added... Battlefield areas (raid vs raid)...Guild vs Guild longterm goal contests.
Man that would be cool........sorry i was dreaming for a sec but now im back. Of course someones mom would sue as soon as some kid blames getting gagged shoplifting on the "evil influance" of DDO. I remember those news reports back in the day blaming PnP for suicide and all manner of stuff!!!
Anyway im very impressed with how faithful this game is to PnP and can deal with its few understandable limitations after all their are thousands of us interacting with this program.

[Anderei]

Aren't paladins eithway smug do-gooders who actually don't really care/philosophise/think about what consequences they're actions have? The order told you, killing these is good, and therefore you do it, the world must be ordered the firm rules! Don't actually cares that much which ones. Matters more you have something firm to orient yourself to. Only then the paladins inner fears of questions in this chaotic world go silent. I understand when your neutral-good fighter gets a problem with this, or the cleric, but from all classes not the paladins ever have to wonder!

(I hope this PnP-paladin-prejudice doesn't offent anyone )

[phillymiket]

Aren't paladins eithway smug do-gooders

If thats how you play it...or your a deeply spiritual warrior of your god who would always question worldly affairs especially orders. Ask you DM as the good book says

[Lorien_the_First_One]

...like I said, its a stretch, and as a DM in a PnP game I would at least temporarily punish a LG paladin that had committed this act. Luckily, the DM governing my moral/behavioral choices and consequences in DDO is a little more focused on selling Turbine Points to players than with noticing my blatant alignment slip

No DM that understood religion and religious history would punish the paladin for doing as his code requires in this case, to purge those that the leaders of his religion declare to be evil. Honestly has no one read about the cruisades? That's what the palidins were based on and it was all about killing evil people who were evil only because they were non cristian living where jesus came from. The slaughter of innocents blood is at the root of what the crusaders...the original palidins...were about.

[Anderei]

who would always question worldly affairs especially orders.

Sounds much more chaotic-good to me than lawful good.

[Letrii]

Paladins have to balance obedience to secular and religious leaders against their sense of what is Right.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Paladins have to balance obedience to secular and religious leaders against their sense of what is Right.

And that "doing what is right" probably includes wiping out those that they consider to be doing evil or following paths to evil.

What many people in this thread totally fail to understand is that most people who wear "the black hats" in real life and fiction think they are the "good guys". Once again, go back to the cruisaders for a real life example of real palidins (or at least the inspiration for palis) and you will see the slaughter of innocents by them.

[Arlith]

It's not PnP. And thank (insert deity name here) for that.

All these paladins running around here? Paladins will get you into more fights and more trouble than any rogue every would.

If Paladins worked like they were supposed to, they wouldn't need DA for them. Just a voice coming from a side room. "Help me, Help me! He's tying me up... again!" Doo Dee Doo!! There goes the pally! You don't find out till AFTER you kill a bar full of people it was a two bit hooker doing a little "role playing" of her own.

Bah! Stupid Pally's.

[ddaedelus]

<OP goes here -- clipped for space>

Then don't do those quests.

But I sympathize. I've always been a roleplayer and a lore fanatic. But in an MMO (and arguably any video game), the "plot" or "character motivation" is at best an excuse to get to the killing.

This is precisely why I do not bother to roleplay in MMOs, and also why I rarely bother to read the flavor text any more.

Blah blah blah people I don't like blah blah blah kill them blah blah blah reward. Good enough. Let's go.

[Failedlegend]

Here-in lies your problem your assuming a Lawful Good Paladin is the same as any Lawful Good character which is wrong...Paladins are what I like to call Lawful stupid they follow most of the rules of Lawful good except for three things...

1. They will blindly follow their higher-ups in their church/religion in this case the silver flame and just assume its the right thing (ie. high priest says to kill the nearest small child the Paladin would do it)

2. They usaully refuse reward (N/A for an MMO as no one would play the class)

3. They will defend anyone regardless of alignment (ie. they wont let you torture an Evil Outsider for info)

Thus the Silver flame quest your Paladin should have no problem with

[DoctorWhofan]

I haven't run this one in a while, but Dead Girl's Spell book? If I chose to destroy the book (good) I got no end reward. The only quest I know of that gives you a moral choice!

[DoctorWhofan]

Then don't do those quests.

But I sympathize. I've always been a roleplayer and a lore fanatic. But in an MMO (and arguably any video game), the "plot" or "character motivation" is at best an excuse to get to the killing.

This is precisely why I do not bother to roleplay in MMOs, and also why I rarely bother to read the flavor text any more.

Blah blah blah people I don't like blah blah blah kill them blah blah blah reward. Good enough. Let's go.

actually, that's why I don't role play in this game either.