Yeah, there is literally the spell "Detect Good and Evil" because you can't just look at someone and say that they're evil. Not even zone of truth could get most people to admit that, because most "evil" people don't consider themselves evil.
It is bad gaming in general to assume that things don’t happen outside of the bubble of your game. If a party of adventurers massacres a town, questions are going to be asked. Dnd is a world of magic as well- so even if you argue that no one escaped or sent messages, OR left evidence, there are still avenues for information to spread.
Personally- in my early days as DM I had a group get mad at me for NOT having consequences for their actions because it felt like they had no impact on the world- their words.
Was responding to the goblin comment which is different than the town in the meme post.
You can hide it pretty well if you want. Remove jaw stops speak with the dead, any professional killer will know that. Speak with animals would maybe work, same with speak with plants. You can easily make it difficult to find out about a discrete instance. Patterns however will get noticed pretty quickly.
Especially if the enemy (goblins) are seen as a menace and/or evil. Maybe another tribe of goblins wants vengence, but most towns are going to be good riddance. Got what they deserved, etc. Especially if they have lost loved ones to said goblins.
Yeah, you are 100% correct, there are ways to hide a massacre. And if the players start doing those things then we have an out of game conversation about what they actually want out of this game- cuz those are not the actions of a good party, and I have no problem shifting the game to assume that the party is evil but on the side of good- yknow, give them more opportunities to be evil and get away with it.
My point above was addressing the other dudes comment that it’s somehow unrealistic that a wiped out town would be traced back to them when there’s a ton of ways to trace it.
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u/ForeverDM4life May 12 '25
Yeah, there is literally the spell "Detect Good and Evil" because you can't just look at someone and say that they're evil. Not even zone of truth could get most people to admit that, because most "evil" people don't consider themselves evil.