Thoughts on the Love Domain Cleric

As I looked through a bunch of the discussion around the Love Domain cleric, it became clear that the criticism of some of the powers removing consent wasn't clear, especially concerning the criticism made that it could be referred to as the "'roofie' domain."

I appreciate that discussion was fast and often furious and folks might not want to discuss the details anymore. Having a full-time job and a three-year-old makes it hard to participate in the conversation in a more timely manner, but I'd like to give the conversation a try.

First, I want to say it's clear that through some of the design that thought was put in, especially in the area of the bonds. My gut tells me some portion of the folks involved in the design were going for an Aphrodite/Eros/Cupid vibe and particularly their tendency to use mind control and those folks either weren't aware or chose to ignore the problematic aspects to those stories.

I don't say that to shame or otherwise assign blame. Just that we live in a culture that tends to minimize the importance of consent and sometimes make excuses for stories that involve in removing the ability to willingly and enthusiastically consent.

Second, while it's important at some point to discuss the role of consent when it comes to sex (especially with regards to a Love Domain), for the purposes of this discussion, I'm going to keep the conversation more centered on the idea of what it means to remove consent and how some types of drugs make that easier. I won't talk about instances of sexual assault or rape but will use the story of someone who was drugged but didn't have anything additionally negative happen to them.

With all that said, let's dig in, shall we?

Understanding Roofies

One of the first things that stood out to me reflecting on the response is that a lot of folks don't understand the group of drugs called "date rape drugs" or "roofies." For instance, I recently had a conversation with someone under the impression that roofies knocked the victim out, rendering them unconscious. That was because the expected usage is to help people unable to fall asleep do so.

However, when these drugs are used in an off-label way (often on unknowing or unwilling participants), it's the combination of the following reactions that the administrators of the drug are looking for: reduce inhibitions, sedate folks, and cause memory loss. It's also important to note here that while "roofies" are often used to facilitate sexual assault and rape (along with other substances such as alcohol), there have actually been many cases of people just adding these substances to people's drink for what they consider to be fun.

Because people are sometimes unwittingly drugged by an unconnected third party, we have situations where reliable third parties are present during the episode. For instance, I found this description in an article by Jordan Kisner, describing what happened when she was drugged while at a bar with her then-boyfriend, John.

Twelve hours after being drugged, I woke up shaking in John’s bed, fully clothed, and on top of the covers. My knowledge of the interim is pieced together mostly from what he told me. Apparently, I’d grown radiantly happy and then quickly, dramatically incapacitated. I’d stopped talking, and then walking. I ran into walls. He took me back to his apartment to put me to bed, but I managed to lock myself in his bathroom for 30 minutes and either wouldn’t or couldn’t respond to his attempts to coax me out. When I finally emerged, he suggested I sit down, and I sat. He told me I should drink water, and I wordlessly accepted the cup. This was what unnerved him the most in the retelling: how pliable I had been. “You would do things, but you weren’t there,” he said.

https://www.thecut.com/2014/10/what-you-might-not-know-about-getting-roo...

What we can get from this description is that for at least some folks, the response is not to turn into an unconscious log but rather someone who clearly has an altered mental state and may become more "pliable" or compliant. It's important to keep that in mind as we look at the components of the domain.

Comparison to Charm Person

Now let's quickly look at Charm Person and Charmed.

Charm Person
You attempt to charm a humanoid you can see within range. It must make a Wisdom saving throw, and does so with advantage if you or your companions are fighting it. If it fails the saving throw, it is charmed by you until the spell ends or until you or your companions do anything harmful to it. The charmed creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance. When the spell ends, the creature knows it was charmed by you.

Charmed
A charmed creature can’t Attack the charmer or target the charmer with harmful Abilities or magical Effects.
The charmer has advantage on any ability check to interact socially with the creature.

Right away I see a few things here that line up with the criticism. Charm person can take someone who is hostile to you and make them a friendly acquaintance. It doesn't say it here, but I think it's common knowledge that the reason why this spell exists and used is to make the target more agreeable to the person. This could be relatively benign, for instance a character could use it to counter someone who is under a different mind control spell. Or it could be more malicious, make someone more likely to do something that is in the caster's favor at the expense of the person who would have benefited from the target's free will.

Most importantly, this sort of modification, typically for the benefit of the administrator of the substance, of a person's mental state is the purpose of these drugs. And yes, there are additional protections here that don't apply in real life, the caster and their companions can't do anything that the DM would rule as harm to the target and amnesia isn't part of the spell. But I hope that folks can at least see where this criticism is still valid. The intent of both is to alter someone's mental state and make them more likely to do things they wouldn't otherwise do.

Comparison of Hypnotic Pattern, Confusion, and Hold Monster

Hypnotic pattern
You create a twisting pattern of colors that weaves through the air inside a 30-foot cube within range. The pattern appears for a moment and vanishes. Each creature in the area who sees the pattern must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature becomes charmed for the duration. While charmed by this spell, the creature is incapacitated and has a speed of 0.
The spell ends for an affected creature if it takes any damage or if someone else uses an action to shake the creature out of its stupor.

I hope by now, this is an easy one to see the comparisons. As with charm person, the creature becomes charmed, making the target more pliable. And now, we've added incapacitation which can be an outcome of many of the date rape drugs.

Confusion
This spell assaults and twists creatures' minds, spawning delusions and provoking uncontrolled action. Each creature in a 10-foot-radius sphere centered on a point you choose within range must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw when you cast this spell or be affected by it.

More mind control, this one honestly feels eerily similar to what happens with some abusers.

Hold monster
Choose a creature that you can see within range. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be paralyzed for the duration. This spell has no effect on undead. At the end of each of its turns, the target can make another Wisdom saving throw. On a success, the spell ends on the target.

Another incapacitation outcome.

Comparison to Channel Divinity: Impulsive Infatuation

You can use your Channel Divinity to overwhelm a creature with a flash of short-lived but intense admiration for you, driving them to rash action in your defense. As an action, you present your holy symbol and choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. That creature must make a Wisdom saving throw; a creature can choose to fail this saving throw if it wishes. On a success, the creature is unaffected. On a failure, the creature is charmed by you until the start of your next turn, and it must immediately use its reaction to make a weapon attack against a target you designate. If there are no valid targets, it uses its reaction to admire you.

Here again, we are overriding a creature's free-will and consent in hopes of influencing the outcome of an event and making that part of a "love domain." It's a bit harder here because the issues are only implicit in the text. By and large, the reason this class feature exists is to force a creature to do something it would not do such as attack one of its allies or something in the environment that would be helpful to hostile enemies.

Not only do the same critiques of charm person apply, but not only are we engaging in removing consent, it's a domain feature. Unlike charm person, which is just part of the game (not saying there aren't issues there, just the issues get highly magnified when packaging with the Love domain), this domain feature should, in part, be key to telling us what this domain is about. This should be iconoclastic. And what we end up getting is tightly tying the domain to removing consent.

Thoughts

Do I think this is easy to forget when designing something? Abso-f*ing-lutely. Especially when combined with all of the other criticism of the game, right? I mean, the bond powers are nice, but a lot of folks have been upset when clerics don't get enough damage dealing powers, right? And we definitely want to be careful of that with the love domain because it often gets thought of as feminine, right? Add into that a healthy serving of stories where this makes sense (looking at you Aphrodite/Eros/Cupid) and I totally get how someone gets to this place in writing.

But moving from there to publishing is super hard. We know the time we live in. Where we're still in the position of having to say "Cosplay is not consent" and even trying to get the public at large to live by the fact that consent can be withdrawn at any time. We live in a time of #MeToo. To put this as a domain feature of the love domain is, well, it's hard to process and feels, from the outside, like a failure somewhere in the chain.