Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy: Paragons and Knaves

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I kind of feel like I owe Greg Littmann an apology. Partly because I wasn’t able to find anywhere to mention that he is, in fact, an associate professor of philosophy at the Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville, and that while I stand by my assertion that his philosophy (as represented in Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy, anyway) is amateur hour tripe, he is in fact a professional philosopher. It’s kind of like how Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is technically a professional work even though it has the quality of shitty fanfiction.

Mainly, though, I think I should apologize to Greg for being so harsh on him because after reading how painfully, abysmally hideous this next one is, just being wrong and occasionally misleading seems like a pretty minor offense. Greg, at least, had a fundamental respect for the intelligence of the reader. With Greg, at least, I had to get like three sections into his six section essay before I lost faith that he was going to turn this around, and it wasn’t until the last section, when he implored the reader to do something he’d just claimed was impossible, that I decided I needed to write an angry blog post to get it out of my system. With Paragons and Knaves, that moment came on page three.

Also, I want to offer an actual legit apology because in retrospect, considering the time he gave to things like compatibilism and quantum probabilities, his failure to include some valid counterarguments to his position is probably a result of human error and not an intentional omission intended to mislead readers. I maintain that he is wrong, but in retrospect he’s probably not being an asshole about it.

But look, we all know that to the extent this post will be successful, it won’t be because I took personal responsibility for things. People are here to read about how Paragons and Knaves authors JK Miles and Karington Hess are stupid assholes who are wrong about everything, so let’s get to it.

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Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy: Sympathy for the Devils

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I’m not just using a generic title here to refer to a philosophical rant on Good vs. Evil in D&D. This is the title of chapter one of Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy, of the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series of books, which I just got in a bundle from the Humble Bundle on a sale which I pretty much guarantee has expired by the time you read this post even though it will (hopefully) be published before the end. You can still buy it at full price, although I’m pretty iffy on whether you’d want to so far. Its examination of philosophical concepts as related to D&D has been pretty basic so far, and through to the end of the first chapter I’ve never had the kind of “huh, interesting” moment that you want from a philosophy book.

Instead, what I’ve had are a few “you presumptive ass” moments that come from reading someone packaging their answers to philosophical problems directly alongside their initial presentation of them, with no space dedicated to opposing viewpoints at all. If you’re introducing philosophical arguments to an audience who may not be familiar with them, you have an obligation to present any reasonably respectable perspective, even if only to destroy them. This is what legit philosophers like Plato and Aristotle did all the time (including to each other), presenting an opposing viewpoint so that it could be dismantled, but they still presented it. Being confident you are correct is one thing, but rigging the game undermines the search for truth and beauty, which is fundamentally the goal of philosophy.

Hi, me from the future here. Just wanted to post something from the next article on the subject of the paragraph just above this one:

“Also, I want to offer an actual legit apology [to Greg Littmann] because in retrospect, considering the time he gave to things like compatibilism and quantum probabilities, his failure to include some valid counterarguments to his position is probably a result of human error and not an intentional omission intended to mislead readers. I maintain that he is wrong, but in retrospect he’s probably not being an asshole about it.”

So let’s talk about the failures of the first chapter specifically today, and tomorrow we’ll talk about the next. Different chapters are each different, self-contained essays by different authors, so it’s very possible that despite ripping the first chapter up today, tomorrow I’ll mostly be praising the good work of a different author writing on an entirely different subject. For now, though, let’s get complaining.

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The Devourer

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Summary: A genetor’s hidden enclave is host to a powerful bioweapon that can mimic creatures’ anatomy and behavior, even humans or xenos, with quite some fidelity. It’s extremely biologically adaptable, based on the space marine omophagea organ and polymorphine. A small piece of it has gotten loose and is now rapidly consuming biomass and mutating in secret, harvesting more knowledge of the facility and the outside world with each being it consumes.

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GM’s Guide: Sphere of Influence Campaigns

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Building Sphere of Influence Campaigns

A sphere of influence is a form of empire-building used in ancient Greece and the modern day whereby the imperial capital uses economic dependence, military alliance, and/or influence over the leadership of outlying territories to exert control without directly administering those territories. For example, Daggerford’s entire economy is based on trade with Waterdeep. If Waterdeep cuts that trade off, Daggerford will collapse. Waterdeep would lose the valuable link to Baldur’s Gate and Cormyr, but would be able to keep itself afloat off its trade with Neverwinter, Luruar, across Anauroch to the Moonsea and Cormanthor, and all along the Sword Coast using its port. This economic asymmetry means that Waterdeep has a lot of influence over Daggerford, and can make Daggerford do almost anything. Daggerford will do whatever Waterdeep says unless their relationship gets so bad that Daggerford would rather be destroyed if it meant they could spite Waterdeep on the way out.

Daggerford isn’t the only town in this position with Waterdeep. The Dessarin Valley, Triboar, Secomber, and others besides are similarly dependent. On top of that, all the Lord’s Alliance, covering the bulk of the Sword Coast and a few places beyond, have a military alliance with Waterdeep, which means they’d all like to keep Waterdeep happy enough with them to continue that alliance. Waterdeep doesn’t have nearly as much influence over them as it does over Daggerford, but it has some influence. Luruar has much stronger military ties between its cities, with Silverymoon effectively governing the other cities by virtue of the others being dependent upon Luruar for military support, even though their economy is independent by way of trade with the nearby dwarven strongholds of Felbarr, Adbar, and Mithral Hall. Zhentarim Keep, back before the Netherese razed it, controlled many Moonsea cities via planting infiltrators throughout the government such that the leaders answered to their hidden conspiracy even though the cities were all nominally independent. Economic dependence, military dependence, personal loyalty of the leadership, these are what make a sphere of influence.

Alright, so poli-sci 101 aside, why do we care? We care because a sphere of influence campaign allows for players to take over the world without doing an awful lot of mass battles. In a sphere of influence, players are more concerned with things like clearing ancient mines overrun by monsters that contain valuable treasures (the mines, not the monsters) in order to secure an economic treaty with towns in the area, winning the personal loyalty of the king of the next kingdom over by saving his kidnapped daughter from a dragon, and killing the champions of a rival power so that they can no longer guarantee the safety of an important border town, thus forcing the government of that town to turn to you for help or else be overrun by a horde of orcs headed their way (and also subsequently defeating that horde of orcs).

With the exception of the parenthetical, none of these are major battles, but all of them expand the section of the map that players control, and that’s a sphere of influence campaign in a nutshell. It has the advantage of being extremely flexible. Since you’re not occupying any territory, you don’t need an unbroken supply line to your territory which means you can jump all over the map as the mood suits you. Standalone adventures, whether published adventures or ones you made for earlier campaigns, can be slotted in wherever, and so long as the plot has serious implications for the military, economic, or political landscape of the area it takes place in (very likely), you can come up with a sphere of influence-related plot hook and you’re golden.

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GM’s Guide: Military Campaigns

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Building Military Campaigns

As you might expect, a military campaign involves a lot of mass combats. Although mysteries, dungeon crawls, and wilderness adventures all come up occasionally, mass combats will be the plurality, if not the majority, of a military campaign. As such, this is a campaign type for people who like to fight major wars and build large empires almost exclusively. For those who like world domination but also want to be closer to the action and/or roleplay more often (not to say that military campaigns are devoid of roleplay, but it does become more rare as the amount of combat skyrockets), a sphere of influence campaign might work better.

A mass combat game divides the world up into a few dozen territories. Each territory has an army attached to it, which is usually at least six or seven individual units. Big enough that you could fight a mass combat with it if you had to, but small enough that you’d rather not. Some territories, densely populated and wealthy ones, might support a much bigger number of units in their army. For example, Waterdeep has a huge population and plenty of money, so their army holds something like twenty units. On the other hand, some territories are sparsely populated and contain relatively few units in their army. Icewind Dale, for example, might have as few as four units in their army. Each army can do basically two things: It can move, or it can replenish itself.

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GM’s Guide: Intrigue Campaigns

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Intrigue Campaigns

An intrigue campaign revolves around a web of relationships within a council (which can be a king’s court, or a senate, or a college of cardinals, or any other group of a relatively small number of very powerful people). This council has de facto (if not de jure) control over an organization much too powerful for the party to influence directly, the generic example being a king and his council having control over a kingdom that commands armies and resources much greater than the party could possibly contend with. The king technically has final say over everything, but he doesn’t want to upset his powerful dukes or alienate his vital ministers, or he might find himself the target of a coup or even just commanding a lame duck court that performs all tasks ineptly because they despise the person they work for and cannot be fired. As such, even though the king has de jure power to do anything he wants, he is de facto more like the head of an aristocratic legislature than an undisputed monarch. He probably has veto and tie-breaking authority, but he isn’t all-powerful.

In order to control the kingdom (whether there are specific policies they want implemented or they just want to force the king to abdicate the throne to them or what) the party must control the council, and to do that, they must master both the favor economy and the relationships the councillors have to one another and their courtiers.

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GM’s Guide: Urbancrawls, Megacities, Megadungeons, and Megamysteries

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Urbancrawls

A hex crawl can be split into three main features. Most of the map is covered in hexes that contain quick encounters or short adventures. A few places on the maps contain complex, multi-level, multi-faction dungeons. Then there are the cities where the party can go to rest and recuperate between excursions. Cities are hardly a stranger to adventure and danger, though. In fact, cities usually concentrate crime and corruption just like they concentrate everything else. Put a hundred thousand people in close proximity to one another and the absolute number of thieves, assassins, vampires, and changelings will get high enough for each of them to have their own guild even if the overall density doesn’t budge.

So you’d expect cities to contain some adventure just like the wilderness and the dungeons, and the structure for that adventure is the urbancrawl. Just like hex crawling and dungeon crawling allow a party to explore wilderness and fortresses according to their own curiosity and courage (or foolishness, as you prefer), an urbancrawl lets them explore a city.

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