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Rain Burn / Re: Rain Burn, page 433

« on: September 27, 2025, 01:54:11 AM »

I'll go break this down.

First, I disagree.  Quetz are not better simply because they're Quetz.  Or all dragons.  Or whatever.  Not all Quetz are the same, can do the same thing, think the same things, etcetera.  They're individuals, like everyone else.  That means they should be treated as individuals.  Sure, they are powerful and many of them have abilities, but they're all different from each other, and, beyond that, Quetz can change themselves with time and effort.  They do things, make their own decisions, and live their own lives.

Second, you're strongly defending slavery.  I'm just going to put this out there.  You're saying it's okay to own others, and following up the example with the Aves to provide a second example of slavery existing, in service to the Queen of the Sea.

Someone else doing a bad thing does not justify you doing that bad thing yourself.  You make the decision to pull the trigger, or to send out the blackshirts to do kidnappings or burn down the homes of dissidents.  No matter what the big man tells you, you are capable of making your own decisions.

I'll then state why I believe the Aves do know this is wrong.  Page 415 has the mayor showing off the results of them raising their own children, stating, to someone he believes can allow them to keep more children, that letting them keep their children was a good thing.  He's trying to sell someone he sees as a Quetz Princess that letting them keep some of their children was a good thing, and that they should be allowed to keep more in the future.

End of the day, they should be allowed to make their own decisions.  And they are.  The mayor chooses to try and establish their freedom through diplomacy rather than combat, but the mayor is making the deliberate decision to treat an ambassador nicely, and to try and butter up the princess to the idea of allowing them to keep more of their children.  Brand can help them by coming up with ideas, or by opening up more options for them, or by fighting their overlords and liberating them.  Brand is just too good a person to understand how slavery endures and why some people support dictatorships, and not knowing that, doesn't know how to effectively help these Aves.

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Rain Burn / Re: Rain Burn, page 433

« on: September 25, 2025, 07:27:39 PM »

"I'm gonna steal their kids first" isn't any better.  Do need a good plan, and not one that's just repeating the same evil.

As for unquestioning obedience, yeah, it's there.  It's obedience to the scariest group out there, which is the Quetz.  Brand-as-Saida can be scary, but Saida isn't a massive half-deity Quetz, so it works like this.

"I'm an X, you obey Xes, you must obey me!" got met with..

"I'm going to ask your mother first, the Quetz I actually do obey without question, as you are asking me to go directly against my orders from her."

So Brand has no leverage.  Not the scariest Quetz, and authority from being a Quetz is entirely devolved from Saida's mother.  So no personal authourity from being scary, and no positional authourity from being a princess.  Saida's mom is both scarier and higher in rank than Saida is.

This sort of thing would have worked if Brand knows how it works.  But Brand has ethics and is not familiar with this kind of obedience to authourity.  So Brand doesn't know how to use it.. or abuse it.

Take the example of the Captain of Köpenick, where a raw outsider can come to a place and make them do incredibly stupid things, simply due to their willingness to follow orders, and the appropriate uniform. (Body, in this case.)  But Voight still knew the language, the phrasing, and enough of the culture to know how to use the privileges of the rank he didn't have.  Brand doesn't know how to issue orders like this, doesn't know the language, and doesn't want to have a host of minions.

The part about talking to Saida is partially correct.  A discussion with Saida about how to give the right orders, and how to stop the child-stealing, could well have worked, as Saida may well know how to give orders to Aves that will be followed out, no questions asked.

As a hypothetical, Brand could have said that too many of their children had been stolen and they need to recover from their drafts for a few seasons, and then asked a few follow-up questions.  After the mayor answers them, he could have moved onto issuing more complete orders about hiding the eggs, producing a more plausible story and couching the orders in a way that makes them seem like they come from the Quetz.  That could have worked, which would have ended the child-stealing for a cycle.  It would have required some long conversations with the mayor, and likely some advice from Saida, but it could have been done.

Alternatively, being the big scary monster could have worked as well, but I think it would have been harder.  Saida is only perhaps a bit more powerful than the average Quetz soldier, so it would have taken more prep work in my opinion.  It would have taken more than fifteen seconds of flying around casting lightning bolts, though.

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Rain Burn / Re: Rain Burn, page 433

« on: September 22, 2025, 09:40:57 PM »

Ahh, unquestionably following orders from authourity.

But yeah, 'I have the big stick now, you must do what I say' is addictive.  Raising the kids free of the Quetz would be good, but it's going to take more than a minute or two of effort and a 'but thou must' to make it stick.

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Random Topics / Re: D&D, A Frustrating Dm.

« on: August 11, 2025, 06:06:45 PM »

Could be either way, in my opinion.

That said, there are some things which stand out.

"As this game is already one where you cannot really recuperate from a fight. As once the clock hits 12 we all wake up back at our camp regardless if were alive or not."

That sounds like a situation where death is a slap in the wrist.  Maybe you can use this?  When I read this it's like 'oh, that's why the guards are invincible, because there are no consequences to the players losing a fight with them.  They don't seem to stay hostile between loops, too, hmm..'

There's a lot of information that I'd like to know here.  Is it a proper groundhog's day loop where everything is reset, or is it just the party?  If so, what happens if you, say, wreck a building?  Can you set up a decoy or incite a riot or something and see how things respond to that?  Can you sneak into forbidden areas, knowing that there aren't going to be any permanent penalties to getting caught?

The biggest question I have, though, is about the other players.  Who are they?  What are their characters?  What do they like to do?  D&D is a team game and involves a team.  Whatever you want to accomplish it's better if it's done as a team game.

'As i just want to roll some dice and slay some monsters. Not role play how my guy gets his head caved in for the 10th time.'

There's nothing wrong with trying to slay monsters.  Maybe you shouldn't try to fight everything, though.  Since you were GMing before, did you ever make situations or threats where there were options for the players other than fighting?  Nothing too tough for them where they might need to find allies, or friends, or resources?

It sounds like you had a player in your GM sessions that wasn't getting what they wanted, that is, more complicated problems outside of ones which are just bashing, and wanted to run a very different session than the ones you were running for them.  And now you're in the reverse position, inside a game that isn't giving you what you want.

D&D's a team game, and it's always a mutual association between the entire group, both the GM and the players.  People want different things out of it, and finding the right balance and satisfying everyone is always challenging.

Your suggestion that guards should auto-win if they're invincible sounds reasonable, unless you're just entering the city and attacking one immediately.  "Describing your character's death in detail" might be something your GM is doing to try and discourage that behaviour.  I don't think I'd try that myself, but I wouldn't say it's absolutely wrong.

I would recommend asking on the Order of the Stick forums, but I do have one recommendation:  Know who the other party members are, and describe them, too.  There's always a give and take between "My GM is incredibly railroady and only has interest in making people explore a Magical Realm" and "This is a player who disrupts the game because he can't go five minutes without getting his hit of combat/roleplay/romance, etc."  It's a constant conflict and one very common in all games.  They've seen it, and the OotS forums has lots of people who give good advice on the problem.

Not knowing (or caring), who the other players are is a very bad look.  If you don't pay attention to your fellow party members you might be the one not paying attention to their needs.  Particularly since it sounds like you were the GM for these people.

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Rain Burn / Re: Rain Burn, page 418

« on: August 04, 2025, 11:00:54 PM »

I'd be a lot more sympathetic towards Taras should he stop killing people casually while saying how they don't count as people.

Some things are complicated.  Some things are not.  And I don't have to waste my time saying how they must be doing <long list of horrible things> for a good reason.

Sometimes when you stop doing horrible things to people, it turns out there was no good reason for it in the first place.

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Rain Burn / Re: Rain Burn, page 418

« on: August 03, 2025, 08:29:09 PM »

Well, we can look back at page 66, where Taras happily ashes an Ave into dust for talking back to him.  And by talking back, he means 'saying anything in his presence.'  While calling them worthless servant-birds.

The only thing to know for certain is that whenever there's brutal, powerful people enslaving the innocent, there's people on the internet ready to jump to defend them.

The tao of Fred Rogers has the right of it.  Look for the helpers.  Saida knows this is wrong and needs to change.  Taras doesn't.  And it's immediately following a plot where Saida saved the lives of her companions, at risk to her own life.

For some people, deciding that authouritarianism is wrong is unacceptable.  Not following orders?  You're an unforgivable traitor.  I think that's the crime that Saida has committed here.  Deciding to break away from them and to follow a better path.