In a recent show, I won't name it for spoiler reasons, the hero basically used their power to modify the painful, traumatic memories of the villain that caused them to become a villain in the first place.
It got me to thinking of attempting to use the spell that way in a D&D campaign. Maybe one could do some sort of magical research into the BBEGs past and get them to change their ways through therapeutic use of MM?
That still does bring up the issue for me of the morality of coerced mental manipulation like that, but I suppose its still probably better than killing? Anyway, just some random thoughts I felt like putting out there. Feel free to respond or add anything.
I can see MM healing that "traumatic" event and making the BBEG realize he’s wrong doings, but that really change all the evil things that he have done along the way?
The biggest problem with this is that per the spell description, you basically need to cast it as a 9th level spell to get at anything formative, and you can only edit a single event of up to 10 minutes in length per casting. It’s quite a stretch to push a full evil to good switch from that. Plus the description specifically says that the spell doesn’t override beliefs, alignment, or inclinations; if the thin slice of altered memory is sharply against the rest of a being’s experiences, they’ll either disregard it or recognize that they were meddled with per the description. And of course the entire question of “brainwashing for the greater good” is a whole mess of ethical arguments. Imo I’d probably disallow it as one of those “too clever” attempts at trying to parley far more from a spell than it’s meant to give.
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In a recent show, I won't name it for spoiler reasons, the hero basically used their power to modify the painful, traumatic memories of the villain that caused them to become a villain in the first place.
It got me to thinking of attempting to use the spell that way in a D&D campaign. Maybe one could do some sort of magical research into the BBEGs past and get them to change their ways through therapeutic use of MM?
That still does bring up the issue for me of the morality of coerced mental manipulation like that, but I suppose its still probably better than killing? Anyway, just some random thoughts I felt like putting out there. Feel free to respond or add anything.
So, basically the plot of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?
Not quite. It was more like repairing painful memories than erasing them.
I can see MM healing that "traumatic" event and making the BBEG realize he’s wrong doings, but that really change all the evil things that he have done along the way?
It’s still messing with someone’s mind. It’s turning their personal history into a lie.
The biggest problem with this is that per the spell description, you basically need to cast it as a 9th level spell to get at anything formative, and you can only edit a single event of up to 10 minutes in length per casting. It’s quite a stretch to push a full evil to good switch from that. Plus the description specifically says that the spell doesn’t override beliefs, alignment, or inclinations; if the thin slice of altered memory is sharply against the rest of a being’s experiences, they’ll either disregard it or recognize that they were meddled with per the description. And of course the entire question of “brainwashing for the greater good” is a whole mess of ethical arguments. Imo I’d probably disallow it as one of those “too clever” attempts at trying to parley far more from a spell than it’s meant to give.