TOPIC: On the Morality of Soul Eating (Spoilers)

Brad Mortensen wrote: @Picc - I’m college my favorite author was Kurt Vonnegut. The quote that stuck in my head decades ago was from Mother Night: “We tend to become what we pretend to be, so we must be very, very careful what we pretend to be.”

Maybe that’s why I always play heroes in D&D. To say this sounds like my least favorite room in a decade of playing TD would be an understatement.

That is a wonderful line, whelp guess I know what audio book I'm searching up at work today

...well crap, now I feel I’ve failed as a paladin because I didn’t even think of the moral implications of this room. I need atonement!

Picc wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: @Picc - I’m college my favorite author was Kurt Vonnegut. The quote that stuck in my head decades ago was from Mother Night: “We tend to become what we pretend to be, so we must be very, very careful what we pretend to be.”

Maybe that’s why I always play heroes in D&D. To say this sounds like my least favorite room in a decade of playing TD would be an understatement.

That is a wonderful line, whelp guess I know what audio book I'm searching up at work today

I’ve used that philosophy for years. I was painfully shy and insecure until D&D let me pretend to be a confident leader. I credit D&D roleplaying with getting me through Office Training School in the Air Force, and 20-year-old me could never lead a team of nearly a dozen software test engineers as I do today. I know it worked to make me a better, more successful person, so I’m convinced it would work in reverse.

But maybe I’ve gotten a little off topic. Forcing people to pretend to be evil is just one of those things I feel strongly about. At least Kobolds Ate My Baby isn’t shy about telling you what you’re getting into if you choose to play. (No offense to those who do.)

Slap an NC17 label on the module and I retract all my objections to the puzzle as written.

PalaDan wrote: ...well crap, now I feel I’ve failed as a paladin because I didn’t even think of the moral implications of this room. I need atonement!

I thought I heard you murmur, "Hey guys, I don't know how I feel about this." at least once before quickly grabbing the chain. Or you could just tell Pelor that you held the chain in your hands but didn't move it.

Actually on our run I never heard that so I had no idea that that was what we were doing

The GM that was running it when we were in the room was talking about what "kind" of souls they were. I kind of brushed it off at the time, but thinking back I would have totally tried to talk the party into whiffing it if one of the souls was some sort of good alignment.

Matthew Hayward wrote: I want to talk about one of the rooms in E3, and see if maybe I missed something, or there was an easter egg or alternative solution.

We entered a room with a cultist / robed DM (our DM was simply amazing for this room, Friday 10:14 AM!) who said we were in our subconscious, and made lots of jokes and puns and was very engaging.

Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ] [ Click to hide ]

This room was a physical challenge where the party had a 6 inch in diameter ring with 10 long chains coming off it.

There was a CGI projected dot on a table, and the party had to keep the ring surrounding the dot for a while until the dot turned red and moved towards a skull at one end of the table where it was consumed.

Now, I noticed a few things about this:

1. The room seemed really easy - we beat it on nightmare in like 4 minutes. The DM saved this room by asking us what came before in character and keeping it fresh.

2. We were... in our subconscious? And we were capturing souls and guiding them to be consumed? This seems like a lawful-evil thing to be doing.

I was wondering if anyone did detect evil in this room, or tried to free the souls, or otherwise attempted an alternate solution?

Heyya Matthew!

I was the DM in the robes!
Excellent topic here, and yes. This is not good morally to feed/eat souls. But, given the whole situation of the room and puzzle and such, I had to come up with something entertaining.
Honestly, it was the first time DMing for me. At the last minute, I was able to volunteer for True Dungeon and didn't get a coaching slot. But, it was something new, and I wanted to go to Gencon too (although I wasn't able to do anything except eat at Steak and Shake a bunch... lol).
Throwing together a set of robes, and a stick. I attempted to get into the whole idea of doing my job as entertaining as possible. I thought the puzzle was extremely easy and I guess that I make for a lousy referee, heh. I did, later on in the day and into Saturday, develop the whole storyline into something better and more entertaining by working with the DM in room 3 to 'flesh out room 4. I also provided tokens to place in his "book" that he tries to get a party member(s) to read and then blamed that the room 4 was created by the reading of the "book".
I honestly wish that there was a description paragraph writing in the room that the party waits at for me to bring them into room 4 that read, "After exiting the frightening room/dungeon (Room 3), your party decides to camp out for the night. However, whilst dreaming, a nightmare was beginning to form." Or something like to that affect.

Lonerli wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: I want to talk about one of the rooms in E3, and see if maybe I missed something, or there was an easter egg or alternative solution.

We entered a room with a cultist / robed DM (our DM was simply amazing for this room, Friday 10:14 AM!) who said we were in our subconscious, and made lots of jokes and puns and was very engaging.

Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ] [ Click to hide ]

This room was a physical challenge where the party had a 6 inch in diameter ring with 10 long chains coming off it.

There was a CGI projected dot on a table, and the party had to keep the ring surrounding the dot for a while until the dot turned red and moved towards a skull at one end of the table where it was consumed.

Now, I noticed a few things about this:

1. The room seemed really easy - we beat it on nightmare in like 4 minutes. The DM saved this room by asking us what came before in character and keeping it fresh.

2. We were... in our subconscious? And we were capturing souls and guiding them to be consumed? This seems like a lawful-evil thing to be doing.

I was wondering if anyone did detect evil in this room, or tried to free the souls, or otherwise attempted an alternate solution?

Heyya Matthew!

I was the DM in the robes!
Excellent topic here, and yes. This is not good morally to feed/eat souls. But, given the whole situation of the room and puzzle and such, I had to come up with something entertaining.
Honestly, it was the first time DMing for me. At the last minute, I was able to volunteer for True Dungeon and didn't get a coaching slot. But, it was something new, and I wanted to go to Gencon too (although I wasn't able to do anything except eat at Steak and Shake a bunch... lol).
Throwing together a set of robes, and a stick. I attempted to get into the whole idea of doing my job as entertaining as possible. I thought the puzzle was extremely easy and I guess that I make for a lousy referee, heh. I did, later on in the day and into Saturday, develop the whole storyline into something better and more entertaining by working with the DM in room 3 to 'flesh out room 4. I also provided tokens to place in his "book" that he tries to get a party member(s) to read and then blamed that the room 4 was created by the reading of the "book".
I honestly wish that there was a description paragraph writing in the room that the party waits at for me to bring them into room 4 that read, "After exiting the frightening room/dungeon (Room 3), your party decides to camp out for the night. However, whilst dreaming, a nightmare was beginning to form." Or something like to that affect.

That's great - well - thanks for building some RP into the dungeon - it was outstanding!

If I can get a chance to do so again, I would! And I would like to encourage other volunteers to do the same. Although only doing two shifts of DMing that room destroyed my voice for the next few days. (I did assistant player coach on Thursday and tear down on Sunday.) I find it hard to image if I could've done three or more shifts like what I did. I still would like to try though :3

Lonerli wrote: If I can get a chance to do so again, I would! And I would like to encourage other volunteers to do the same. Although only doing two shifts of DMing that room destroyed my voice for the next few days. (I did assistant player coach on Thursday and tear down on Sunday.) I find it hard to image if I could've done three or more shifts like what I did. I still would like to try though :3

Pro tip, bring some hals/fisherman's friend lozenges and start sucking on them day one. If you use them before you feel like you need them they can save your voice.

Picc wrote:

Lonerli wrote: If I can get a chance to do so again, I would! And I would like to encourage other volunteers to do the same. Although only doing two shifts of DMing that room destroyed my voice for the next few days. (I did assistant player coach on Thursday and tear down on Sunday.) I find it hard to image if I could've done three or more shifts like what I did. I still would like to try though :3

Pro tip, bring some hals/fisherman's friend lozenges and start sucking on them day one. If you use them before you feel like you need them they can save your voice.

I've been bringing some just to pass out the last few years. Day 4 of a con is rough even when you haven't been talking for 8 hours a day.

Brokkr wrote:

Picc wrote:

Lonerli wrote: If I can get a chance to do so again, I would! And I would like to encourage other volunteers to do the same. Although only doing two shifts of DMing that room destroyed my voice for the next few days. (I did assistant player coach on Thursday and tear down on Sunday.) I find it hard to image if I could've done three or more shifts like what I did. I still would like to try though :3

Pro tip, bring some hals/fisherman's friend lozenges and start sucking on them day one. If you use them before you feel like you need them they can save your voice.

I've been bringing some just to pass out the last few years. Day 4 of a con is rough even when you haven't been talking for 8 hours a day.

True enough. I would also recomend drinking as much water as your bathroom accessible will allow. Doesnt do much but every bit helps by day 4.