What did Larian mean by this

[Koopa]

you attack the druids at the gate and they loudly announce that I'm supporting zevlor which leads to the druids slaughtering everybody including the unarmed civillians

wtf does larian have against druids why are they all comically evil

"yes I like nature" literally genocides unarmed combatants what r they smokin

[LeFrench]

Originally posted by Mormacil:

Every druid can feed 10 people a day at a minimum. The math isn't mathing. Especially when we take into account the refugees are also doing things like hunting to supplement. A food shortage simply makes no sense.

haha. yeah, i had the same thoughts. that's the problem with high fantasy settings. nothing makes sense... because magic undermines all the day to day realities.... and the writers.... well, they just can't keep up with the plot holes as a result.

[LeFrench]

Originally posted by Mongooses:

Every one looks to the druids as a force of good. But they're a force of balance. While yes they would typically help when asked, there are also druids that follow the survival of the fittest.

i've never understood the 'balance' claims when it comes to alignment. keeping balance would be 'do a little bit of murder, as long as you do a little bit of saving'? as long as you keep the good and the evil balanced? that is borderline psychotic.

I think its all a nutty philosophy borne out of not very well thought out concepts from a time when eastern mysticism was trending in the 70s.

we also saw it in starwars.... 'bring balance to the force' which was also a product of that time. can anyone tell me what they think 'balance' actually is, and don't use equally ambiguous words like 'harmony' and 'peace' without defining them, because i'd define them as 'good' not as 'balanced'.

[Harukage]

Druids keep the Balance between civilisation and nature, as well as natural and abberant. Not whatever schizophrenic things people think of.

[seeker1]

Without getting into real world philosophy and ethics, (we could discuss Taoism), true neutral is an alignment in D & D, and at least in 2E, druids were "locked" into that alignment. In 3E they had to be "some kind of neutral" so they also could be NG, LN, CN, or NE.

5E lifted those restrictions. Now, no character has their alignment stated in BG3, but there's a decent case for arguing both Jaheira and Halsin are NG. In Jaheira's case, the Harper's philosophy also includes the maintenance of balance.

I would describe the Shadow Druids as evil. Eco-terrorists might work.

[♂Warrior of Gachi♂]

Originally posted by LeFrench:

i've never understood the 'balance' claims when it comes to alignment. keeping balance would be 'do a little bit of murder, as long as you do a little bit of saving'? as long as you keep the good and the evil balanced? that is borderline psychotic.

That's how you keep Jaheira happy in Bg2. Need to kill some babies in between saving towns, or she starts whining about "muh balance".

[Harukage]

That is not the problem of druids that is the problem of how classic DnD moral compass works, and how it compels you to do stupid things to stay neutral as a druid, ot lawfull good as a paladin.

[The Gunsmith]

"you attack the druids at the gate" shoot first get shot at, not rocket science.

[Punished Jeremy]

Something something shadow druids something something gaslighting

[Mormacil]

Originally posted by LeFrench:

Originally posted by Mormacil:

Oh no why would the Druids under control of the Shadow Druids who are explicitly militant and extremist act as extremists...

only Khaga was under the influence.... the rest of the druids are just selfish jerks, like most tribalists. any tribal mentality always leads to selfish extremism. better to stick to individualism and a general humanity.

I never said they were Shadow Druids, I said they were under their control. Which they are through Khaga. Doesn't even mean they agree with the Shadow Druid teachings, merely they're under their control.

[Mister Magician]

Originally posted by LeFrench:

Originally posted by Mormacil:

Oh no why would the Druids under control of the Shadow Druids who are explicitly militant and extremist act as extremists...

only Khaga was under the influence.... the rest of the druids are just selfish jerks, like most tribalists. any tribal mentality always leads to selfish extremism. better to stick to individualism and a general humanity.

oh boy, not one bit.

Originally posted by LeFrench:

Originally posted by Mongooses:

Every one looks to the druids as a force of good. But they're a force of balance. While yes they would typically help when asked, there are also druids that follow the survival of the fittest.

i've never understood the 'balance' claims when it comes to alignment. keeping balance would be 'do a little bit of murder, as long as you do a little bit of saving'? as long as you keep the good and the evil balanced? that is borderline psychotic.

I think its all a nutty philosophy borne out of not very well thought out concepts from a time when eastern mysticism was trending in the 70s.

we also saw it in starwars.... 'bring balance to the force' which was also a product of that time. can anyone tell me what they think 'balance' actually is, and don't use equally ambiguous words like 'harmony' and 'peace' without defining them, because i'd define them as 'good' not as 'balanced'.

Now we can agree on something.

If you want the absolute most insane depiction of this, play final fantasy 14.

in one part of the story a hero saved a villain's life to try to redeem him, and then the planet exploded because of an "imbalance of light energy." it's so dumb.

Old star wars is a bad example, because "balance" there is used in the actual eastern sense of "things are as they should be." Like a still pond, where evil disturbs the flatness of the water.

In other words, eastern cultures sometimes used "balance" to mean Good, or what is Rightly Ordered. Sometimes they didn't. A lot of eastern religions are actually warrior religions that only pretend to be peaceful when interacting with deracinated westerners.

New star wars (in no small part due to the prequels and kotor) use the psychopathic definition you mention here, though mostly due to ignorance and then due to license.

[Lord Adorable]

Originally posted by Mister Magician:

Originally posted by LeFrench:

only Khaga was under the influence.... the rest of the druids are just selfish jerks, like most tribalists. any tribal mentality always leads to selfish extremism. better to stick to individualism and a general humanity.

oh boy, not one bit.

Originally posted by LeFrench:

i've never understood the 'balance' claims when it comes to alignment. keeping balance would be 'do a little bit of murder, as long as you do a little bit of saving'? as long as you keep the good and the evil balanced? that is borderline psychotic.

I think its all a nutty philosophy borne out of not very well thought out concepts from a time when eastern mysticism was trending in the 70s.

we also saw it in starwars.... 'bring balance to the force' which was also a product of that time. can anyone tell me what they think 'balance' actually is, and don't use equally ambiguous words like 'harmony' and 'peace' without defining them, because i'd define them as 'good' not as 'balanced'.

If you want the absolute most insane depiction of this, play final fantasy 14.

in one part of the story a hero saved a villain's life to try to redeem him, and then the planet exploded because of an "imbalance of light energy." it's so dumb.

How is that dumb? It fits with that settings' lore. The person who caused it pushed the scale-already at it's absolute breaking point- over the edge and the rest was history.

Elemental imbalances in FFXIV have always been bad and a cause for calamities, no matter which element it is. SO it's not dumb, it's consistent with what's been there since before A Realm Reborn.

[Hobocop]

Originally posted by Яeplicant:

As for FF14 or FF in general... Well, every single game has at least one over-the-top thing included. Latest victim of that was FF16, specifically after the encounter with Bahamut in outer space and Dion falling towards the planet in human form afterwards (!!!) with only a couple of bruises.

For someone being a fan or close to it of JRPGs, you sure are unaware of a lot of things that happen in those games specifically.

The example used is also only dumb or over the top if removed from the context of the established setting which draws inspiration from the real world elemental wheel. Magic the Gathering also uses this concept, so it's hardly a region specific idea.

[Cerberus Shepard]

Druids are arrogant bigoted elitist fascist trash who will kill anyone who disagrees with them and their view that cities are bad.... Larian got it 100% right with making the druids nasty little evil rat bastards

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Harukage:

Shadow Druids are a special case. So that does not count. They deny Balance around wich the whole druidic culture and Sylvanus teachings are based, and revert to the most primal and savage practices.
And i would not really take games as 100% accurate source.

The same way that Mystra is the goddess of all magic, so too is Sylvanus the god of all nature.

Shadow Druids aren't seeking to disrupt the balance of the natural ecosystem. They believe that said ecosystem and civilization are incapable of peaceful coexistence.

So, in order to preserve nature, they wish to tear down and destroy civilization. before it threatens the wilderness.

Interestingly enough, the Stag God in Pathfinder operates under a similar mindset to Shadow Druids, in that he hates large scale civilizations and encourages his worshipers to limit themselves to only forming small communities.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by LeFrench:

i've never understood the 'balance' claims when it comes to alignment. keeping balance would be 'do a little bit of murder, as long as you do a little bit of saving'? as long as you keep the good and the evil balanced? that is borderline psychotic.
.

Yeah, the whole "you need misfortune in your life so that you can learn to appreciate the good in it" comes across as straight up Abuser Mentality.

Nobody wants there to be suffering in their life. The entire goal of why we continue to advance as a civilization, is to make life ever more convenient for ourselves.

If you had the opportunity to live a life where you would never experience any kind of hardship or challenges whatsoever, I'm going to guess that most people would seize it.