What do you think of ...
Quote from: Adam DrayAs I designed my setting for Hinterlands, I struggled with a key problem regarding all the typical genocidal bullshit in fantasy gaming. Here I am, building a setting and populating it with stuff for characters to kill. It's very difficult to get around that in a D&D setting, because fantasy gaming is so tightly integrated with the killing.
To some extent, the literature is about the killing, right? Swords and sorcery is full of morally ambiguous warriors and thieves slashing first and asking questions after--usually after they loot the tombs. And even if fantasy gaming exaggerates that aspect of the literature, gamers have come to expect it and the games reward that behavior and punish everything else.
To run an Old School Renaissance (OSR) game, you're basically saying "let's kill a lot of monsters and take the treasure and not really think too hard about what that means." It's one of the core tenants of OSR, even if I can't find it written down anywhere. I'm pretty sure that's what everyone really means when they say, "This product is compatible with the original White Box edition."
Before White Box, people were playing miniatures games like Chainmail. Generally, it was player vs. player (PvP). I could play the elves and you could play the orcs. This is a moral dynamic that is totally different than D&D. Two forces have met on a battlefield and we're not even sure why or what the stakes are. Different players have different stakes. There might be a referee for some of these battles, but he or she is supposed to be an impartial judge to maintain the fairness of the competition (between two opposing _players_).
When you get to White Box D&D, the DM's role changes. Now all the players are basically on the same side vs. The Rest of the World (played by the DM), or player vs. environment (PvE). Most of that DM advice to remain a "neutral arbiter" "(in Gygaxian parlance) echoes the old PvP-driven necessity for a fair referee, but it is really an admonition to the all-powerful DM to use his or her power in a reasonable way "against" the players. Basically, there's very little to check the power of the DM, so the rules basically tell the DM not to be a dick.
But now the players are all on one side and they're set up against the environment that the DM created, and they know they get 1 XP per quart of blood spilled and 1 XP per gold piece pried out of an orc's cold, dead hand. At least later on, in Basic D&D and so on, and at many game tables across the world, there's this growing expectation that the player characters (PCs) have a bit of script immunity and a certain amount of protagonism. These two things are signs that now we're supposed to be rooting for the PCs, because they are the "good guys."
It starts with two very simple rules in Basic D&D: 1) if your ability scores suck, the DM can let you reroll them, and 2) you can trade points two-for-one to increase your prime requisites. This is the first indication that PCs are special, a cut above the rest of society. Over time and many editions, this meme grew tremendously, to the point that 4E characters start out with 22 hit points and magic beyond the ken of mortals, and it's pretty hard to kill them if there's a cleric around, since they can go to a negative hit point amount equal to their Constitution score (so add like another 8-18 hit points before they really croak).
Script immunity gets embedded in the minds of DMs with advice to fudge die rolls to keep characters alive ("for the fun of the game"). Script immunity transforms the game from a true PvE challenge into a story, and once it's a story, everyone is asking who the heroes of the story are, and it's pretty clear that the PCs are those heroes. The early texts used the term "adventurers" a lot but seemed to avoid "hero" (and while the "name" level for Fighters was "Hero," they meant a hero like Conan or the original hero, Hercules, who didn't always do the right thing but had to face terrible challenges. As the edition numbers on our rule books increased, so did our tendency to make our PCs protagonists.
So we're telling stories about heroes who go into a post-apocalyptic fantasy wilderness, face terrible monsters, kill them, and take their stuff. For a while, taking their stuff made the characters stronger. 1 gold piece translated into 1 experience point (XP), and lots of XP advanced the "level," or killing ability, of the character. Nowadays, no one earns XP for treasure, only for surviving encounters, which most of the time means meeting a hostile monster and killing it, though the DM is expected to sprinkle traps and puzzles and negotiations and challenges of skills in there, too. But let's be honest, killing is a huge part of the game. Note that there is a Fighter class, but no Negotiator class.
My problem with the whole setup is that the reason for all the ultraviolence is rarely explored in any depth. Simply put: why do these monsters need to die? Okay, so they're Evil. D&D has an alignment system that categorizes everyone into three, five, or nine (depending on which edition you play) convenient morality boxes like "Lawful" or "Chaotic Evil." We're told that every orc is Evil, and that's sufficient excuse to kill every last one, including their women and children, without guilt. We're also told that they have chieftains, tribes, and settlements. Their "lairs" are described in loving detail, showing how the community lives and eats. But they're all Evil, so leave none alive.
So it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn. And I've played this way for decades and mostly just looked the other way or found various rationalizations and justifications for it.
The biggest rationalization is "It's fantasy, so I don't need to worry about it." I am at a point in my life where I can't say that anymore. The setting I create as a DM and the character I create as as a player are a kind of artistic expression and thus subject to analysis. What is the message of that art? If I want to show how disgusting the genocidal viewpoint is, then I better make that clear. If I don't want to address that, then I probably shouldn't set up a situation where the only acceptable action for a "hero" to take is to slaughter every last orc. I don't want to create a game world that validates the gross stereotypes and bigotry of the real world.
No, it's not okay to believe that every creature of a race that looks different than you is automatically bad, subhuman, worthless, and destined for a quick death. Just because I can make that fact true in the game world doesn't make it less okay.
I think we create and explore fantasy worlds for a couple reasons: to escape and to explore "what if" scenarios. I would like to think that my friends and I aren't yearning for a world where we can just solve all of our problems with a fireball. I really hope that they don't believe that burning a dozen orcs alive for their treasure doesn't make anyone a hero. On the what-if side, we could tell ourselves that we're exploring what would happen in a universe with a clear right and wrong, where the bad guys were irrevocably evil, and the only possible solution is to kill them all. And somehow not feel like Hutu killing Tutsis. But why would we do that? Why do we need to pretend that? And if we did want to explore that, wouldn't we want to walk away from the table with the same feeling of disgust I get when I watch Hotel Rwanda?
I keep coming to the same conclusion: Running a typical "kill them all and take their stuff" D&D campaign is awful.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think every D&D player is a horrible person. Generally, we do these things without thinking about them. Killing hundreds of orcs doesn't make you a real-life killer any more than winning Monopoly makes you a heartless landlord. Yes, it's a game, and we don't really think about what it means. But D&D is more than a game because it can be a highly creative art form akin to storytelling, and I think we should think about what it means a lot more.
So what's the fix? Do we just stop playing D&D? I don't think that's necessary. I think there are few steps everyone can take to avoid genocidal racism in their games.
First, get rid of race alignments. If you want, keep alignments for individuals, but forget the idea that every creature can be easily categorized as good or evil based on anything but that individual's personal actions. That means getting rid of the idea that most orcs are evil, too; sorry, no loophole there.
Second, treat intelligent creatures with the respect they deserve. They have complex communities with goals and most have charismatic leaders that guide the communities in different ways. Some of those ways are great and some are terrible. Lots of the individuals might get on board with the leader and others might follow along to avoid causing trouble and still others might secretly or openly oppose their leaders. This means that you can have tribes of orcs led by terrible, terrible orc chieftains. This means that the individual members of those tribes might be terrible, neutral, decent, or even admirable. This means that players will have to decide if their heroes mow them down or not, and yeah, that might not be as fun of a game as Old School hack-and-slash, but if you just want to kill stuff, then you don't need a world and tribes and history and crap.
Third, DMs should reward morally admirable behavior, or at least not punish it. If the heroes kill a few orc warriors and let their spouses and children go, don't have the family turn around and betray them first chance they get. They don't have to be grateful, because after all the party did just slay their mommy or daddy, but they shouldn't swear revenge and encourage the players to leave no orc unslain.
Fourth, substitute mindless monsters for the tribes and nations of humanoids. Maybe not entirely, but to a large extent. I don't think anyone has a problem with the killing of a gelatinous cube or a skeleton. There's a whole class of monsters that are intelligent but solitary--that is, they aren't races of creatures that are born with parents and a culture but rather are spawned or summoned. A classic example is the undead, which are just dead creatures usurped by terrible evil forces. Similar are demons and devils, which generally aren't considered a culture or nation. Yeah, there are some ethical problems with slaying animals and animal-like monsters just for the experience and loot, but those are different problems than genocide, and frankly those problems don't bother me as much.
Last, create real reasons for nations to fight, and make it fairly clear what you think the right thing to do is. This is fantasy gaming, so the author gets to bring Right and Wrong to the forefront of the story. Make it clear that slaying everyone who looks different than you is not acceptable behavior. However, find more acceptable reasons to fight certain groups. This group of orcs keeps attacking the keep. Make them stop. Maybe talking is a good first step but if that doesn't work, some of them might need to die. If your mental picture of fantasy gaming can weather it, you can even say a creature reduced to 0 hit points is apprehended and can be taken to trial.
I think these changes don't erode the fun of a D&D campaign. The complex moral issues that arise during play when heroes face a culture of intelligent "humanoids" can be interesting in their own right. There are plenty of terrible, mindless things to destroy if the fighting is what floats your boat. And if all of this makes you groan and roll your eyes and go back to your fantasy world where all orcs need to die, ask yourself why you need that.
Thanks to Levi for bringing this to my attention via this G+ entry. (https://plus.google.com/106374477644864180661/posts/c4WHXYSWe4m?hl=en)
Quote from: Benoist;477696What do you think of ...
Thanks to Levi for bringing this to my attention via this G+ entry. (https://plus.google.com/106374477644864180661/posts/c4WHXYSWe4m?hl=en)
Generally my games are set up as defensive situations.
Right now my group is fighting back against an goblinoid invasion force, which in my mind removes most of the issues he raises.
Quote from: Piestrio;477701Generally my games are set up as defensive situations.
Right now my group is fighting back against an goblinoid invasion force, which in my mind removes most of the issues he raises.
But is there an issue to be raised in the first place if you play this type of scenario?
I think the guy is taking his game too seriously and overestimating its impact on the himself and the world.
Quote from: Benoist;477702But is there an issue to be raised in the first place if you play this type of scenario?
You mean like "Why is it always race X doing the attacking"?
Well, it is and it isn't.
FREX in my current game the PCs are trying to stop a goblinoid host because the local lord is off trying to fight off grasping human enemies in other parts of his realm.
I think the "defensive set-up" removes the issues raised by humanoid families. I've never felt the need to present a situation where the players would need to decide to kill a bunch of children because... well... that's fucked up.
On the other hand I also "don't think about it much".
so.... *shrug*
Good and evil should really be defined by actions. If you take your regular superhero game, the supervillains are not the bad guys because they dress in black but because they are out there killing, stealing, trying to revive the Third Reich or plotting to bring the world to an end with doomsday device. Any one who can stop these guys may not necessarily be a saint but certainly deserves a pat on the back.
Now if you take a typical fantasy game or even something like Shadowrun, in effect it's the player characters who are doing the stealing and killing. And that's perfectly fine. It's just no worth pretending the players are good guys - I don't think anyone ever accused Conan or Elric of being good guys. At best there are no good guys, it's a just a question of who dies with most stuff wins.
Of course you can also play fantasy in a more heroic vein, fighting the good fight and saving the princess, only using force when necessary in the vein of Lord of the Rings. But in the scheme of things I lot of players just don't need to what right on their side. Might is more than enough to keep them happy.
tl;dr past "genocidal racism".
OOP is a fuckhead.
What gets to me is the narrow-minded approach to interpret what this or that game element might mean in the grand scheme of things. If you see an entry with "Orcs, Chaotic Evil" then it's automatically got to do with racism, with "portraying others different than you as things to kill". It's therefore totally a pass for colonial genocidal stuff, see. And it's bad. It's dirty. So here's what I'd do to fix the game.
Nevermind that this might not be an allegory at all. That this particular game element, the Orc, Chaotic Evil, might be interpreted in any number of ways in the game's context.
And nevermind that not all D&D games are about just going there killing chaotic evil orcs for no reason whatsoever. That's convenient to portray the game that way to then say "here's what D&D does so horribly wrong, and here's how to fix it!"
This is so narrow minded. So petty and ... just fucking stupid.
There's a spectrum. At one end, monsters are evil by default and exist to be slain. Just past that, there's the at-one-time-clever idea that maybe some of these monsters have their own motivations, and there are variants within a species. That can make the game interesting.
At the far end of the spectrum, there's deconstructionist counter-colonial wankery. That's where this guy lives, or is headed.
I suppose he gets upset playing Pac-Man because "won't somebody think of the poor ghosts"? Especially that transgendered one.
Quote from: Benoist;477696What do you think of ...
I've said most of this before but I'll add it here, too, I personally think the problem is that people no longer understand what evil is or believe that a sentient creature can be irredeemably evil. Where that causes a problem in this piece can be found here:
Quote from: Adam DrayMy problem with the whole setup is that the reason for all the ultraviolence is rarely explored in any depth. Simply put: why do these monsters need to die? Okay, so they're Evil. D&D has an alignment system that categorizes everyone into three, five, or nine (depending on which edition you play) convenient morality boxes like "Lawful" or "Chaotic Evil." We're told that every orc is Evil, and that's sufficient excuse to kill every last one, including their women and children, without guilt. We're also told that they have chieftains, tribes, and settlements. Their "lairs" are described in loving detail, showing how the community lives and eats. But they're all Evil, so leave none alive.
If alignment is simply a team marker (as Adam Dray seems to assume it is here), the label "evil" doesn't actually mean much behaviorally, and the sentient non-human creatures are simply funny looking people who behave the way they do as free moral agents and because of the culture they were raised in, then Adam Dray is absolutely correct because then the monsters are basically people, not monsters, and wiping them out because they are different does closely mirror the worst of the colonial expansionist mindset.
If, on the other hand, an "evil" alignment actually means something behaviorally and sentient non-human creatures are not free moral agents and have a compulsion to "debase or destroy innocent life", enjoy "hurting, oppressing, and killing others", "have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient", and/or "actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master" and no amount of compassion, kindness, negotiation, or treatment will change that (essentially, they are a species of violent psychopaths), then they are monsters and Adam Dray's concerns are not, in my opinion, relevant.
How can a species of violent psychopaths "have chieftains, tribes, and settlements"? The same way Dennis Rader (the "BTK Killer") managed to have a wife and two kids, hold a job, get elected president of his church's Congregation Council, and be a cub scout leader. The same way Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka managed to work as a team to brutalize and kill others. Being compulsively evil does not necessarily require an utter lack of intelligence or restraint, nor does it mean that one can't cooperate with other like-minded individuals toward and evil end. Psychopathic serial killers are an excellent model for how sentient evil works and I think that part of the problem is that the evil monsters in most games are depicted as what I'd call "naughty" rather than truly evil. If they peacefully farm the land, herd animals, have pet puppies, and generally mind their own business, then they aren't really evil.
Many people find the second choice as distasteful, if not more distasteful, than the first because it still sounds an awful lot like how racists and oppressive colonialists characterized other races and cultures in order to rationalize brutalizing or killing them (I discussed this at some length a while back) and because modern Western culture has pretty much taught most people that it's a great moral wrong to stereotype and categorize an entire group like that, largely as a sort of cultural inoculation against racism and other forms of bigotry being able to use stereotypes to promote group hatred. Similarly, we are taught that human behavior (with the apparent exception of sexual orientation) is a matter of nurture or choice rather than nature and that all evil is a product of environment or free will rather than instinct and nature. To treat those monsters as monsters requires not thinking about them as humans but as monsters, which means thinking about them in a way that most have been taught is a very bad and unacceptable way to think.
I do find curious is that I don't see similar arguments being made in objection to being expected to kill devils, demons, and other supernatural evil monsters on sight. So perhaps the best way to think of evil monsters is as a sort of lesser demon or devil. If you take the orc babies home, be kind to them, and send them to a nice school, it won't matter. You'll still find them standing over a dead body or torturing a human child someday because they just can't avoid being evil. It's their nature. And if you want to argue that simply killing them still isn't the solution, you can, but what's the alternative? Reservations? Internment camps? And doesn't that raise a whole host of other sins of humanity to deal with?
So my suggestion is either stop treating monsters as people and instead play them as evil monsters or stop treating monsters as monsters and treat them like funny looking people (or don't use them at all) but trying to treat funny looking people as monsters creates all sorts of problems, as does trying to treat monsters like funny looking people.
Quote from: Benoist;477709What gets to me is the narrow-minded approach to interpret what this or that game element might mean in the grand scheme of things. If you see an entry with "Orcs, Chaotic Evil" then it's automatically got to do with racism, with "portraying others different than you as things to kill". It's therefore totally a pass for colonial genocidal stuff, see. And it's bad. It's dirty. So here's what I'd do to fix the game.
I think that happens because people are taught that stereotyping people is bad and they are seeing the orcs as people. So seeing "Orcs, Chaotic Evil"
can look an awful lot like seeing "African American, Criminal" or "Muslim, Terrorist" or even "Caucasian, Racist". It pushes buttons because people are taught that stereotypes are bad and behavior is a product of upbringing rather than inherent nature. The very idea that all orcs will behave a certain way leads to the same lines of thinking that the idea that all people of a certain human race behave a certain way does. And let's be honest that a lot of the legends and pulps that served as a source for a lot of role-playing genres were not exactly racially sensitive and could even be downright racist. They also draw on ideas that are, at the least, outmoded, such as the idea that an ugly evil soul will be manifest in an ugly monstrous appearance. So I'm sympathetic to that line of thinking but I think the critical mistake is thinking of monsters as people in the first place.
And as I explained in an earlier thread, there is a lot of overlap because the goal of racists is to depict the group they hate as monsters. As such, they claim that the group(s) they hate have monstrous attributes that often have a lot in common with the monstrous attributes of monsters in role-playing games because those attributes strike the same psychological chords to make one hate, revile, and want to kill a monster. If a group really is an irredeemably vile inhuman threat, then it makes it reasonable to want to destroy them.
So even if you accept that they monsters are monsters and not people, you can still wind up swimming around in the same pool of monstrous traits (ugly or bestial appearance, violent disposition, physically threatening physique, lack of intelligence, etc.) that racists and other bigots draw on to encourage hatred of those that they hate, and I can see where that can bother people, too. So I'm also sympathetic to that line of thinking, even though I think there is an escape there, too, so long as you can separate people from monsters and understand that the monstrous traits that monsters have are not simply an unfair, inaccurate, and cruel stereotype driven by bigotry but an accurate reflection of the reality in the game setting.
Quote from: thedungeondelver;477708tl;dr past "genocidal racism".
OOP is a fuckhead.
Agreed, the guy is thinking way too much about a game played for fun. That, and his whole arguement has that "D&D is a game of murderous hoboes" false equivalency flavor to it.
The jab that's leveled at D&D here is the same one leveled at Tolkien, Howard, Burroughs et al - a rich white adolescent fantasy where darkies can be killed in endless numbers for treasure and no repercussions, indeed, praise and growth through it.
That notion is wrong, it's stupid, and I'd wager that there's nobody actually so goddamn dumb as to believe anything said in that. This is just someone trolling.
There are no facts to back up his assessment. There's plenty to back up the notion that he's a sour-grapes, hung-up-on-self 3rd rate nobody RPG author.
QuoteSo it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn. And I've played this way for decades and mostly just looked the other way or found various rationalizations and justifications for it.
The biggest rationalization is "It's fantasy, so I don't need to worry about it." I am at a point in my life where I can't say that anymore. The setting I create as a DM and the character I create as as a player are a kind of artistic expression and thus subject to analysis. What is the message of that art? If I want to show how disgusting the genocidal viewpoint is, then I better make that clear. If I don't want to address that, then I probably shouldn't set up a situation where the only acceptable action for a "hero" to take is to slaughter every last orc. I don't want to create a game world that validates the gross stereotypes and bigotry of the real world.
I wonder how this guy would react if he sets up a culture and home of some humanoid cast explicitly as oppressed minority (or better yet, actually uses a real-life oppressed people appropriate to the setting) in order to "show how disgusting the genocidal viewpoint is," and a player still treats it like Keep on the Borderlands?
The solution always been simple which is to use what Tolkien used.
Orcs are bad because the evil god made them that way. Philosophically you can appreciate that it isn't really the orc fault as part of the free will was taken away or damaged. The fact remains that they are going to rape and pillage and can't peacefully coexist with surrounding cultures.
An interesting aside is that if Tolkein's orcs are twisted elves captured by Morgoth, the question is that do they retain their immortality.
This guy's not a gamer, he's an "Intellectual Hobbyist".
He plays 4e and Sorceror.
His game design blog is filled with ideas for "conflict resolution".
His wife is a paranormal harlequin romance novelist.
He's never gotten a blow job from a woman without both parties carefully considering the power dynamics involved.
He's the least interesting GM in the world.
The OSR needs this guy like it needs the Fatal body part tables.
Quote from: JimLotFP;477722I wonder how this guy would react if he sets up a culture and home of some humanoid cast explicitly as oppressed minority (or better yet, actually uses a real-life oppressed people appropriate to the setting) in order to "show how disgusting the genocidal viewpoint is," and a player still treats it like Keep on the Borderlands?
I imagine lots of tears involved...and therapists.
I don't think there is a problem with "All Orcs are chaotic evil". I think the problem with this debate that I've seen when it comes up in the past is that everyone seems to get caught up arguing about the concept. The problem comes when in order to characterise this chaotic evil race designers or GM draw upon elements of real world cultures, or stereotypes about real world cultures.
In the situation of a small frontier town being attacked by Orcs, it may well be hard for the DM, creating things on the fly, not to draw upon half remembered sterotypes of natives american plunderers.
It also that role-playing games have an inherently deconstructive element. One can read Lord of the Rings without ever wondering if Orcs have children and if they are inherently evil too, you can just accept the narrative as given. But, in a game, players are going to do the unexpected and periphery elements, such as whether Orcs have children, are going to need answers.
The real dick move here is if the DM isn't clear. i.e he acts as if the Orcs are inherently evil creatures as the players may expect, and then a la, it turns out that they are just badly misunderstood and the players have been pandering to in game racist stereotypes. Or vice versa, if the players seem to think the Orcs are meant to be an example of racist misunderstanding than the DM needs to quickly clarify that the opinions NPCs hold about them in the game are meant to be objectively real.
Quote from: CRKrueger;477724This guy's not a gamer, he's an "Intellectual Hobbyist".
He plays 4e and Sorceror.
His game design blog is filled with ideas for "conflict resolution".
His wife is a paranormal harlequin romance novelist.
He's never gotta a blow job from a woman without both parties carefully considering the power dynamics involved.
He's the least interesting GM in the world.
The OSR needs this guy like it needs the Fatal body part tables.
The RPG hobby needs this guy like it needs a hole in the head.
I always thought Wizards and Evil gods make orcs out of fungus to bother humans.
Seriously. I've never really encountered the idea that orcs were people or had free will. We always knew they were monsters.
The idea of killing a bunch of orcs, later to discover they were the one tribe of good orcs, has been a running joke in gaming circles around here, but never taken seriously.
I'm with JM on this on. Monsters are monsters and people are people.
I think the man quoted in the original post needs to get his head on straight. Orcs aren't the place to start fighting fantasy about racism, Drow are.
"Don't judge me by the color of my skin."
Quote from: Cranewings;477731I always thought Wizards and Evil gods make orcs out of fungus to bother humans.
Seriously. I've never really encountered the idea that orcs were people or had free will. We always knew they were monsters.
The idea of killing a bunch of orcs, later to discover they were the one tribe of good orcs, has been a running joke in gaming circles around here, but never taken seriously.
I'm with JM on this on. Monsters are monsters and people are people.
I think the man quoted in the original post needs to get his head on straight. Orcs aren't the place to start fighting fantasy about racism, Drow are.
"Don't judge me by the color of my skin."
During a run through of G1, the group got down to the dungeon level and ran in to some orcs locked up in the prison area. The orcs, seeing that they might well be freed, were all to eager to point out the "trap" of a cell containing skeletons wearing suspiciously expensive looking jewelry. The orcs gesture and smile at the nearby cell and tell the first character they see (the Ranger): "We harp yu! No go! It trap!" whereupon the ranger opens their cell door and makes orc cutlets, all the while they're begging for their lives.
It's pretty much a running joke with the group now. "Don't let Richard talk to
anyone. His character's liable to stab them."
I went back and skimmed a little more. This made me laugh:
"When you get to white box D&D, the DMs role changes"
No it fucking well doesn't and the OOP is a dumb cunt and that line proves it. THERE ISN'T ANY FUCKING DUNGEON MASTER IN CHAINMAIL. No...no, deep breath, it's a troll, IHBT, there's no way someone can be that stupid...
I blame it all on GLEE.
Oh Nos, a Bully!!!
Quote from: a cocksmockIt's one of the core tenants of OSR
Tenets, you pretentious semi-literate fuckstick.
And anyway it's not.
Didn't this guy read
Unearthed Arcana? The gods cast lots for the lands their peoples would inhabit. The dwarves received the lot that let them live in the deep mountains, the elves the green forests, the men the lot that should let them live in any place with work, and so on. Then the other gods turned to Gruumsh and said "haha! there is no place for your peoples!"
And Gruumsh was angered, and the earth shook, and he took his great spear and plunged it into the plains, crying, "my people shall live here!" and then into the mountains, "and here!" and the forests, "and here!"
And this is why the orcs war endlessly to destroy and conquer all. They're looking for lebensraum.
If you're going to get offended at an imaginary mythology about an imaginary race, at least get it right, you cocksmock. Killing orcs is like killing Nazis: fun and amusing.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;477743Tenets, you pretentious semi-literate fuckstick.
And anyway it's not.
Didn't this guy read Unearthed Arcana? The gods cast lots for the lands their peoples would inhabit. The dwarves received the lot that let them live in the deep mountains, the elves the green forests, the men the lot that should let them live in any place with work, and so on. Then the other gods turned to Gruumsh and said "haha! there is no place for your peoples!"
And Gruumsh was angered, and the earth shook, and he took his great spear and plunged it into the plains, crying, "my people shall live here!" and then into the mountains, "and here!" and the forests, "and here!"
And this is why the orcs war endlessly to destroy and conquer all. They're looking for lebensraum.
If you're going to get offended at an imaginary mythology about an imaginary race, at least get it right, you cocksmock. Killing orcs is like killing Nazis: fun and amusing.
Hell Gruumsh even has an eyepatch, how does this stuff get missed? :D
I think it's possible to engage with and enjoy fictional tropes even though they can be problematic - just like how I can enjoy R.E. Howard's and H.P. Lovecraft's fiction even though they were extremely racist and related themes often show up in their writing. (John Morrow, I think, first pointed me to this essay (http://www.rehupa.com/romeo_southern.htm) on Howard's attitudes toward race.) I like to bring my own ideas into gaming, but I don't feel like my PCs have to be carbon copies of me acting out 20th Century morality.
However, I have had conflict with other players related to morality of behavior. My heroes tend to be violent to fit the adventures, but some players have complained about how that violence turns out.
I don't think this is just an "intellectual gamer whatever" thing.
I just started running Keep on the Borderlands last night, and one of the "regular" non-gamer folk attending was really put off by one of the gamer-dudes calling to slaughter the surrendering kobold warriors, as well as the kobold children and women. The person in question isn't even really that emotional, nor are they outspoken about any sort of sensitive issues IRL -- they're not a politically-correct warrior in the slightest. They were just honestly uncomfortable with the situation.
It works like this:
- Person X equates orcs with black people
- Person X looks at game materials, and becomes horrified by their racism
- Person X writes a long essay on the subject
- Persons Y, Z and N hold a long, productive and intelligent discussion on racism, privilege, misinterpreted Tolkien quotes and Keep on the Borderlands
- Curt closes the thread and bans 1d3+1 users
The trouble is, sometimes an orc is just an orc. You, Person X, drew the parallel between orcs and black people. How about examining your own goddamn biases and hangups instead of blaming ours?
(Coincidentally, it had never occured to me to portray orcs as any sort of minority before I read one of these threads - in the games I knew, they were "basically, pig-faced, potbellied brigands", and behaved as such. Brigands are generally bad people because they rob merchants, waylay travellers and sometimes terrorise villages. Brigands are also human, so a minimal level of decency applies even to them, but if they die, well, they die.)
(Also, as for the "orc women and children" argument, you don't kill them. Not because they represent black people but because killing women and children, or unarmed people in general is reprehensible.")
(Finally, Way Back Then when we played Photocopied AD&D that had bits from both 1e and 2e in it, every second player I knew wanted to play a half-orc, an assassin or a half-orc assassin. This was because of a local fantasy series which featured a half-orc fighter-cleric serving the god of Chaos and wearing "a cloak that reeked of chicken guts" as its protagonist. Half-orcs were just
in).
Thing is I like ambiguity in Orcs. There's no shortage of pure evil races if I I want one. I can have armies of undead, vampires, demonic invasions etc.
I find Orcs are more fun if they're like Klingons. A war-like culture that you can ally with or play as a character if you want.
Edit: And when a warlike band of Orcs is looting their way across the land it doesn't really matter if they're closer to Viking than they are to demons. It's still heroic to beat them down and stop them.
Quote from: Melan;477748(Also, as for the "orc women and children" argument, you don't kill them. Not because they represent black people but because killing women and children, or unarmed people in general is reprehensible.")
I agree, but then you have people in this thread arguing "evil is evil, monsters are monsters, and those babies will eat us someday."
Honestly, I just try to avoid those situations altogether unless I'm purposefully aiming for a game that addresses moral issues. Roleplayers may be able to adjust to situations like that with hard choices because of prior experiences, but coming from the impression I got last night, non-gamers do not expect to be tested like that in what they initially perceive to be a fun and relatively light-hearted game about dungeon-delving.
Put short*, I'd probably be more comfortable running this for regular folk if the monsters were truly monstrous and unnatural. Once you give them ecosystems, families, tribes, culture, whatever, it goes uncomfortable places.
Not because of some perceived parallel to IRL races/minorities, but because most people won't even agree to exact violence on lower life-forms, let alone intelligent creatures. Self-defense? Ok. Having the game implicate you've just slaughtered nearly the entire male population of a tribe, and thus threatened the survival of the women and children, not to mention the sort of retaliation said tribe could one day muster if it happens to survive and grow? Not quite everyone's idea of super-fun imagination time.
I don't know, though. We'll see where this current game goes. I make no moral judgment on players because of the actions of characters, even if I was very much taken aback by the one RPGer's call for slaughter -- the player will have to face the consequences of his actions eventually in-game if he ever decides to act on his whims. I just hope these sorts of situations don't turn off the few new gamers I managed to gather for
Keep.
*or maybe not.
The initial essay is pretty solid. You can do conflict without getting into weird jingoistic pro-genocide propaganda. And you should. Because racial inferiority and evil is a really creepy thing to talk about, and it is way too easy for RPGs to cross that line.
There is a reason that the volks at Stormfront have a series of RPG discussions where they discuss how best to exterminate the orcs and whether they are better used as a metaphor for Jews or Blacks. And yeah, people should be embarrassed every time their hobby could be easily mistaken for that.
-Frank
Quote from: Cranewings;477731I always thought Wizards and Evil gods make orcs out of fungus to bother humans.
Seriously. I've never really encountered the idea that orcs were people or had free will. We always knew they were monsters.
The idea of killing a bunch of orcs, later to discover they were the one tribe of good orcs, has been a running joke in gaming circles around here, but never taken seriously.
I'm with JM on this on. Monsters are monsters and people are people.
I think the man quoted in the original post needs to get his head on straight. Orcs aren't the place to start fighting fantasy about racism, Drow are.
"Don't judge me by the color of my skin."
I think there are cultural differences between gamers on this issue depending on what theire view of Orcs is. A lot of us grew up in the 2E days with Forgotten Realms and our view of Orcs (and evil races in general - notably Drow) were shaped by the inconsistencies of presentation during that period. Orcs might have been called a monster but they were treated like a race in a lot of material. We were given monstrous mythology with details of all their gods, we told in the novels and other material about Orc tribes which hinted at Orc culture. And in the north of the Forgotten realms they were there on the frontier carrying out raids in a way that obviously reminded one of indigenous races during periods of European colonisation.
This had two effects that I could see, it made many of us uncomfortable with the idea that
these Orcs were irredeemably evil, and secondly it made many of us interested in playing Orc characters (which also meant they couldn't be irredeemably evil.)
I remember years later when I started collecting older 1E material how much less confusion there was in the way that Orcs were treated. They were clearly monsters in the older material.
Quote from: VectorSigma;477710At the far end of the spectrum, there's deconstructionist counter-colonial wankery. That's where this guy lives, or is headed.
Yeah, the language used is distinctly Trotsky-entryist in tone and turn of phrase. The link doesn't work so I couldn't find out more about the author, but these guys work basically by trying to take over any organisation of people from within like a parasite hollowing out an animal. Or to put it another way, the "swine" of whom our host is so fond.
Quote from: John Morrow;477711So my suggestion is either stop treating monsters as people and instead play them as evil monsters or stop treating monsters as monsters and treat them like funny looking people (or don't use them at all) but trying to treat funny looking people as monsters creates all sorts of problems, as does trying to treat monsters like funny looking people.
This. Sometimes evil is just evil.
People who don't ask questions like this are generally shitty worldbuilders (which is not necessarily to say that they run shitty games). Part of building a compelling, interesting world that PCs can explore is figuring out stuff like "Why do the orcs raid human settlements"?
Answering that question with something more than the puerile "Because they're evil psychopaths" pushes one to really think about the logic of the world & fit things together so they make sense, as well as opening up more adventuring options and seeds than "A wizard wants you to recover his magical backscratcher and the orcs are the speedbumps along the way".
IRL, there are plenty of people who do horrible things who are not psychopaths, but who are reacting rationally, but callously, to a bad situation. That's a bit vacuous, but filling in the details for specific situations is basically identical to writing an adventure-situation.
e.g. If the orcs are raiding villages because they are rock-solid evil shits who are unable to be anything else, then yes, the only answer that makes sense is to exterminate them, and PCs essentially just make decisions over how many and how fast they want to do it.
If the orcs are raiding the village because the village controls the best farmland around and refuses to share it with them, then the PCs' decisions can be about resolving the problem, whether violently or not, and then narrow their scope down to things like how many and how fast. You add more agency and more opportunities for discovery, as well as drawing PCs into thinking of the world as a real sensible place familiar to them.
Quote from: Dog Quixote;477756I remember years later when I started collecting older 1E material how much less confusion there was in the way that Orcs were treated. They were clearly monsters in the older material.
My experience is that they've always been questionable - since I remember having similar discussions to this in high school in the mid-eighties. For one, we've had the half-orc as a player character race since 1st ed AD&D. Also, the original Monster Manual and all of the old modules made explicit the issue that there were orc women and children, leaving the tricky moral quandry of what to do with them. My old D&D groups would generally house rule that there weren't any women & children to deal with - but it was there in the rules and modules.
Quote from: jhkim;477763the original Monster Manual and all of the old modules made explicit the issue that there were orc women and children, leaving the tricky moral quandry of what to do with them.
Leave them alive so that the orc children can grow up to avenge their fathers, since this provides further plot opportunities. Plus the grownup orcs are worth heaps more XP than the babies.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;477764Leave them alive so that the orc children can grow up to avenge their fathers, since this provides further plot opportunities. Plus the grownup orcs are worth heaps more XP than the babies.
So the cycle of forgiveness (http://oglaf.com/gorek/) begins.
-Frank
On a related note to the "are Orcs bad guys or simply misunderstood folk exhibniting extremem cultural differences theme" - this comment popped up on a thread on the Mongoose site about my Age of Treason setting, here with my response to it:
Post subject: Re: [AoT] Questions threadPosted:
Quote from: SimulacrumQuote from: BlackyinkinHi,
I have been following the build up to this setting with anticipation, I had loved the originality I seeing grow in the work. Then I saw the word 'Orcs' and it put me off a little, why has such a great product steeped in a good knowledge of the ancient world should have to resort to the default fantasy rpg bad guy, it feels a little like a cop out. However keep up the good work, this is a really interesting setting.
Simon Bray
That's a really good question. AoT was originally developed as an alternative to ongoing Gloranthan campaigns (we'd take a break from one, swap GM role and play the other), and therefor tried to keep well away from what Glorantha did so well. A key part of this was that AoT was always a humanocentric world from its conception.
The Orcs are humans. Their unpleasantness is rooted not in an intrinsically evil nature but in worshipping gods with an appetite for human sacrifice, and the pressures that puts on how their society is set up. Thus far no worse than some historic human cultures; but given their holocausts deliver direct and manifest personal advantages, it is perhaps more of a stark moral choice than doing the same in order to ensure the sun rises and the crops grow to the benefit of all.
The orcs in question are distant. You won't encounter them at all in the regions covered by the current book (they appear in a gloss in the world chapter as the inhabitants of a faraway land).
So why call them Orcs? Originally I didn't, for much the reasons that hit you when you saw the word. From a design point of view, the name flags "bad guys", and just sometimes that's a liberating certainty for a story. If you encounter them, you are likely to be far from home, and have wandered into regions where AoT's gritty historical grounding is relaxed and a bit more high fantasy romp is on the agenda.
There are some historical reasons why in the end I did. As a side note, I ran Griffin Island in the setting for quite some time, with elves and dwarfs removed but the orcs, glorantha-style ogres and slarges left in - and we had a blast. The fact that 'orcs' still exist in the setting, albeit as a human tribe, is therefor also a bit of a memento of some very good times. I appreciate that is self indulgent.
Clearly prejudice against orcs is quite widespread. Now I am guilty here of playing with the morality and monstrousness of "Orcs" by insisting they are a human tribe (AoT admits rather more extremes of physical types and appearance for humans than most settings), but you only have to make as much of that as you want to. And like other posters here, I would generally not present the PCs with the opportunity or means of genocide. It's not exactly a fun dilemma on a game. Preventing the "Orcs" from dragging off an entire village for sacrifice - that's the story.
On the whole - it is hard to credit "orcs" and other fantasy evil tribes with acts any more heinous than many human peoples have been guilty of through history.
I think genocide is an important part of Tolkienesque D&D. It's not really 'colonialist' though - that's a misapplication of cultural Marxist terminology - because the Good Guys are rarely colonial empires conquering the analogue Americas/Africa/Australia, they usually have the Evil Hordes right on their doorstep and are typically fighting to defend their own lands from being overrun, as in Tolkien. The closest IRL medieval analogy, and the one I think influenced Tolkien, was the defense of the West against the Turks and Mongols. If the Good Guys are on the offensive then it can feel more like the Teutonic Knights or Nazis seeking Lebensraum at the expense of the Easterners (Lithuanian pagans, Russians et al) and obviously that's likely to make people feel uncomfortable.
You don't have to play D&D as Tolkienesque. You can play Conan style swords & sorcery; Conan might occasionslly lead his black warriors to sack a black village, but there's no real genocidal tropes in the Hyborean setting. Likewise Leiber's Nehwon - the Mingols are a big threat in Swords of Lakhmar, but otherwise there's nothing much in the way of discernible racial conflict; no 'orcs'.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;477762People who don't ask questions like this are generally shitty worldbuilders (which is not necessarily to say that they run shitty games). Part of building a compelling, interesting world that PCs can explore is figuring out stuff like "Why do the orcs raid human settlements"?
Answering that question with something more than the puerile "Because they're evil psychopaths" pushes one to really think about the logic of the world & fit things together so they make sense, as well as opening up more adventuring options and seeds than "A wizard wants you to recover his magical backscratcher and the orcs are the speedbumps along the way".
IRL, there are plenty of people who do horrible things who are not psychopaths, but who are reacting rationally, but callously, to a bad situation. That's a bit vacuous, but filling in the details for specific situations is basically identical to writing an adventure-situation.
e.g. If the orcs are raiding villages because they are rock-solid evil shits who are unable to be anything else, then yes, the only answer that makes sense is to exterminate them, and PCs essentially just make decisions over how many and how fast they want to do it.
If the orcs are raiding the village because the village controls the best farmland around and refuses to share it with them, then the PCs' decisions can be about resolving the problem, whether violently or not, and then narrow their scope down to things like how many and how fast. You add more agency and more opportunities for discovery, as well as drawing PCs into thinking of the world as a real sensible place familiar to them.
Why do you hate Warhammer?
Quote from: John Morrow;477714I think that happens because people are taught that stereotyping people is bad and they are seeing the orcs as people. So seeing "Orcs, Chaotic Evil" can look an awful lot like seeing "African American, Criminal" or "Muslim, Terrorist" or even "Caucasian, Racist".
I'm afraid I haven't been able to resist that last stereotype - I just introduced the "Neo-Nerathi" into my 4e/Wilderlands D&D campaign; and the 'Pure Alryan' Nerathi are distinguished from other humans (the Red Altanians) in the campaign area by their paler skin tone: http://4esouthlands.blogspot.com/2011/09/neo-nerath.html
It's a powerful trope, it lets me use Neo-Nazi and Neo-Confederate trappings on an antagonist group (the PCs are mostly Red Altanians). At the same time, not all Alryans will be depicted as Nazis, but there are interesting potential issues on divided loyalties, who can you trust, etc. Plus the Neo-Nerathi may have a legitimate gripe over the Altanian 'betrayal' at Gedden Plain - I'm leaving what actually happened there purposefully uncertain.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;477743If you're going to get offended at an imaginary mythology about an imaginary race, at least get it right, you cocksmock. Killing orcs is like killing Nazis: fun and amusing.
In recent versions of D&D it's the Hobgoblins who are the militarist Nazi-analogues, though. In Gygaxian Greyhawk Gygax just used humans, the blond Lawful Evil Suel & their Scarlet Brotherhood (symbol: blue quasi-swastika on scarlet field) are the Nazi analogues it's fine to kill.
Quote from: S'mon;477770In recent versions of D&D it's the Hobgoblins who are the militarist Nazi-analogues, though. In Gygaxian Greyhawk Gygax just used humans, the blond Lawful Evil Suel & their Scarlet Brotherhood (symbol: blue quasi-swastika on scarlet field) are the Nazi analogues it's fine to kill.
Not to mention that you can see the whole Orc myth, (or at least the one in Monstrous Mythology which I think is the same) as demonstrating how the other races' gods screwed the Orcs and forced them into the fringes of the world.
In any case, sympathetic reading or not, it doesn't strike me as particularly Nazi like.
Quote from: S'mon;477767Conan might occasionslly lead his black warriors to sack a black village, but there's no real genocidal tropes in the Hyborean setting.
In
Conan of Aquilonia, he journeys to the edge of the world to finally kill Thoth-Amon who has taken refuge with the snake-men, and he and his army butcher them all horribly.
In
Queen of the Black Coast when he's a pirate with Belit, he kills all the once-Stygian-now-were-hyenas (since they were created by ape magic we know it's all of them in the world) and the very last of the winged human-eating grey apes.
Does it count as genocide if there's only like one or two of them left?
Battling and even wiping out the last members of an ancient and evil race bent on enslaving and/or eating humans has a long tradition in swords and sorcery fiction. It's only right and proper for us to carry this fine and honourable tradition on.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;477772In Conan of Aquilonia, he journeys to the edge of the world to finally kill Thoth-Amon who has taken refuge with the snake-men, and he and his army butcher them all horribly.
In Queen of the Black Coast when he's a pirate with Belit, he kills all the once-Stygian-now-were-hyenas (since they were created by ape magic we know it's all of them in the world) and the very last of the winged human-eating grey apes.
Does it count as genocide if there's only like one or two of them left?
Battling and even wiping out the last members of an ancient and evil race bent on enslaving and/or eating humans has a long tradition in swords and sorcery fiction. It's only right and proper for us to carry this fine and honourable tradition on.
I was thinking more of large scale genocide like "kill all the blacks/whites/humans/elves/orcs". Literal Genocide by the good guys is not really a very strong trope in Tolkien - AIR the good guys kill the defeated/captured orcs after the defeat of Sauron, but nothing about going into Mordor to wipe out the orc women and children.
The one fantasy novel I can recall that centres on genocide is Moorcock's
Erekose - initially genocide of the Eldren (Elves) by the Humans, then genocide of the Humans by the Elves; the latter is presented as A Good Thing.
Quote from: Dog Quixote;477771Not to mention that you can see the whole Orc myth, (or at least the one in Monstrous Mythology which I think is the same) as demonstrating how the other races' gods screwed the Orcs and forced them into the fringes of the world.
In any case, sympathetic reading or not, it doesn't strike me as particularly Nazi like.
In
Unearthed Arcana it's presented as clearly an Orc-POV, self-serving myth. There are plenty of real-world analogues of the 'we were cheated' and 'manifest destiny' type; both sides of the Unionist-Nationalist conflict in my homeland have similar myths, even though we have no racial differences and minimal ethnic differences.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;477772Battling and even wiping out the last members of an ancient and evil race bent on enslaving and/or eating humans has a long tradition in swords and sorcery fiction. It's only right and proper for us to carry this fine and honourable tradition on.
I'm not sure that speaks to everyone nowadays, especially if you're speaking to people not prone to blind nationalism or those who don't thrive on the creation of the "other" -- whether it's communists, fascists, or whatever other demons you want to zoom in on.
Even
Stargate, despite initially presenting an alien race as evil, pulled the whole "It's not the race, it's the individuals" thing. Also,
Halo did nearly the same thing by presenting parts of the Covenant as sympathetic in the later games. And in those games/movies where you still have some sort of irredeemably evil race, there's still a lot of redirecting the blame for things back on humans.
Quote from: S'mon;477777In Unearthed Arcana it's presented as clearly an Orc-POV, self-serving myth. There are plenty of real-world analogues of the 'we were cheated' and 'manifest destiny' type; both sides of the Unionist-Nationalist conflict in my homeland have similar myths, even though we have no racial differences and minimal ethnic differences.
Well yes that's true. But if you look at where the Orcs live in the game world, and where the other races live, it's easy to come to the conclusion that maybe they
were cheated. That was definitely the perspective my non-evil Orc PC took.
I think its possible to enjoy games where there is more moral ambuguity, more reason behind things like orc raids, and also still enjoy games where orcs are pure evil and PCs hunt them down. For me it depends on how much realism I am in the mood for.
In the end it is still just a game. To me the argument that killing orcs has some broader impact on a person's life and is a form of crypto-racism (or endorsement of genocide) is the same kind of reasoning IMO behind the early 80s scare of RPGs and heavy metal music when people were worried about satanic setting material and subliminal messages.
1.) In our world people disagree on whether there is magic or not. - In a D&D world, it does.
2.) In our world people disagree on whether gods exist or not. - In a D&D world, they do.
3.) In our world people disagree on whether there is such a thing as absolute Good or Evil. - In a D&D world, there is.
Someone who is talking about killing orcs in a dungeon and calling it genocide, and then also calling it an allegory for white racism and colonialism has failed to grasp the three very basic concepts I listed above. You have to have a level of imagination capable of seeing things outside the world perspective you got spoon-fed at college.
Once you're capable of setting that aside, then you can get into the more interesting and rewarding conundrums of good and evil like JHKim and Pseudo are talking about.
The original author never got past that. He's just parroting.
Quote from: CRKrueger;4777813.) In our world people disagree on whether there is such a thing as absolute Good or Evil. - In a D&D world, there is.
This is frankly bullshit. While yes, D&D does
claim that there is absolute good and absolute evil, the game has never been able to coherently define what either of them actually are. It's all very well to say that you have a setting that doesn't have any shades of gray, but if you honestly can't define what the line between black and white are, you haven't actually delivered on that premise.
Maybe the D&D world runs on Divine Command ethics and whatever laws Pelor has set down are the actual real world definition of Good there. But since neither WotC nor TSR ever actually
wrote Pelor's rules down anywhere, it functions exactly the same as our world where there are shades of gray and most people use personal ethical stances that contain contradictions and unresolved dilemmas.
So saying that absolute Good and Evil exist in D&D resolves
fuck all, because it still doesn't answer the question about whether killing baby kobolds is OK or not.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477783So saying that absolute Good and Evil exist in D&D resolves fuck all, because it still doesn't answer the question about whether killing baby kobolds is OK or not.
By Crom, it's almost as if we were supposed to
roleplay things!
Please say it ain't so.
We've started to describe the differences between the player types as "gold farmers" and "role-players". If you give a grand description of the reason behind the mission, and all your players hear is "go there and kill everyone", then you have gold farmers. They're as bad in table top games as they are on-line. They don't care about the setting, they don't care about the reasons, and they sure don't care about role-playing. For them FRPGs are just like first person shooters.
But you as the game master control the game. You can make it a role-playng game or a mindless hunt and kill game. Look, most basic (class based) games do not allow for role-playing. Get a game that actually has skills for the Negotiator. (Carousing, Intimidation, Politics, Seduction, etc.) The more you allow them to do, the more they will do and the better your chances of avoiding what I always feel is a boring waste of time - rolling all night just to kill a swarm of orcs.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;477784By Crom, it's almost as if we were supposed to roleplay things!
Please say it ain't so.
That's a
fantastic idea. We'll all
roleplay having self-evident knowledge that cannot be argued with because it is absolute, unchangeable, and beyond question. And since each one of us will be making it up as we go along, we can have long shouting matches in real life when they inevitably conflict. It will be like having a role playing session with a Mormon Saint, and Islamic Mullah, a Catholic Bishop, and a Jewish Rabbi at the table. We can have the first session be about what the righteous way to prepare food is.
Alternately: this is a stupid fucking plan because there are no two people in the universe with the same exact ethical calculus and asking a table of five players to settle on a consistent absolute moral compass is worse than asking them to share a single large pizza with exactly three toppings.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477783So saying that absolute Good and Evil exist in D&D resolves fuck all, because it still doesn't answer the question about whether killing baby kobolds is OK or not.
-Frank
It doesn't resolve anything, except to clarify that
Evil does exist. Once you get there, then you can address the nature of whether a baby kobold is
Evil. Take that kobold, raise it in the home of a paladin and are you going to get a good little kobold or is the day going to come when the kobold kid wants a toy another kid has and the preschool turns into a slaughterhouse? Even if it is
Evil, does that justify killing it? You know, the kind of stuff gamers with imagination first thought about in 6th grade.
Quote from: Mr. Self-Loathing White MaleSo it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn.
This jackass - he never got that far. He didn't think about it at all until probably around the time he went to college, where the scales fell from his eyes and he saw what a horrible crime he had committed simply by being born with a penis that was kinda pink.
How to deal with intelligent "monsters" in D&D-genre settings makes for some of the more interesting role-playing opportunities, provided you're actually able to roleplay - something the OP clearly has issues with.
Quote from: CRKrueger;477793He didn't think about it at all until probably around the time he went to college, where the scales fell from his eyes and he saw what a horrible crime he had committed simply by being born with a penis that was kinda pink.
That's a funny line. :D
Re 'absolute Good & Evil' though, I think that's a fairly weak counter to the OP argument. Presumably a game like RAHOWA has absolute good & evil - Hitler & Nazis are Good, Jews & blacks are Evil, killing them is Good. But the reader isn't necessarily going to buy into the premise of the game. In FATAL, rape is Good (I'm guessing). TSR & now WoTC can declare 'Orcs are Evil, Killing them is Good, the Universe says so' but not everyone is going to buy into the premise that Genocide of thinking creatures can ever be Good.
Quote from: CRKrueger;477793How to deal with intelligent "monsters" in D&D-genre settings makes for some of the more interesting role-playing opportunities, provided you're actually able to roleplay - something the OP clearly has issues with.
Is the moral dilemma of whether kobold children should be killed really interesting?
There being no real world equivalent situation it's a dilemma that is completely artificial to the game world.
For some reason I'm strangely reminded of the arguments about anti-immersive disociated mechanics in 4E. For me there's something similiar going on when D&D throws up these kinds of situations.
Quote from: J Arcane;477768Why do you hate Warhammer?
Orcs are my least favourite part of the setting, actually.
Why is this an issue in fantasy games and not sci-fi, for example? What I mean is, there might be many alien races out there with inscrutable, or incompatible, moral frameworks but I don't seem to recall anyone making a fuss over it.
IMO, any sentient race should have their own moral framework and operate out of it accordingly. Orcs, kobolds, etc. are not just faceless and formless masses of slavering bad-guys, at least not in my settings. Now that does NOT mean they are not working at cross-purposes with the PCs, or other races in the setting, but there is usually a method behind their "madness" if you will.
I think the main problem is assuming that all races (fantasy or sci-fi) will have goals that are comprehensible to 21st Century humans raised in Western societies. Hell, most westerners don't understand parts of their OWN societies, much less those of China, or India, or anywhere else for that matter. I see no reason fantasy PCs will fare any better - but giving Orcs and Kobolds "depth" as a species is up to the DM in the final analysis.
Quote from: Werekoala;477799Why is this an issue in fantasy games and not sci-fi, for example? What I mean is, there might be many alien races out there with inscrutable, or incompatible, moral frameworks but I don't seem to recall anyone making a fuss over it.
It's because in games like D&D with Alignment there is supposedly only ONE 'Good' - and those Kobolds ain't it. Pre-4e they register as Evil on the Evil-o-meter (Paladin Det Evil in 3e, Know Alignment previously).
Quote from: Dog Quixote;477797There being no real world equivalent situation it's a dilemma that is completely artificial to the game world.
You mean like magic, apes riding dinosaurs, elves, dwarves, fairies and FTL drives?
Quote from: Dog Quixote;477797For some reason I'm strangely reminded of the arguments about anti-immersive disociated mechanics in 4E. For me there's something similiar going on when D&D throws up these kinds of situations.
You don't really understand the term then. If things such as Absolute Evil are part of a game setting (like Middle-Earth), then actually dealing with the situations that arise from it is by definition associated.
Quote from: S'mon;477801It's because in games like D&D with Alignment there is supposedly only ONE 'Good' - and those Kobolds ain't it. Pre-4e they register as Evil on the Evil-o-meter (Paladin Det Evil in 3e, Know Alignment previously).
Well this is true, of course. One reason why I tended to dislike the alignment system anyway. In fact, I can't remember any time in D&D it ever really came into play except for using it as you described, to locate "the enemy".
I'm waking up and have read everything so far in this fascinating discussion. However, I have also realized one very important thing.
In 30+ years of gaming, most of it D&D, nobody in-game has ever brought up the question of whether or not monsters are anything more than protagonists. This only seems to happen on the internet because everyone else seems to get that this is just a game where we are suppossed to be having fun.
I give Benoist a 10 out of 10 for this thread.
Quote from: jeff37923;477808I'm waking up and have read everything so far in this fascinating discussion. However, I have also realized one very important thing.
In 30+ years of gaming, most of it D&D, nobody in-game has ever brought up the question of whether or not monsters are anything more than protagonists. This only seems to happen on the internet because everyone else seems to get that this is just a game where we are suppossed to be having fun.
+1. And this reminded me that while I'm really into getting into the mindset of the bad guys and working out what makes them tick, that's not so I can confront the players with the moral ambiguities their characters are dealing with. It's not really for the players at all. It's for me. It's how I come up with the plot.
Quote from: S'mon;477767I think genocide is an important part of Tolkienesque D&D. It's not really 'colonialist' though - that's a misapplication of cultural Marxist terminology - because the Good Guys are rarely colonial empires conquering the analogue Americas/Africa/Australia, they usually have the Evil Hordes right on their doorstep and are typically fighting to defend their own lands from being overrun, as in Tolkien.
Actually the good guys were colonists. From Numenor. And the later years of the second age treated the mainland cultures pretty bad and descendents were known as the Black Numenoreans.
I am just teasing a bit, I agree with the main point of your post.
QuoteNo, it's not okay to believe that every creature of a race that looks different than you is automatically bad, subhuman, worthless, and destined for a quick death. Just because I can make that fact true in the game world doesn't make it less okay.
Okay, so he's saying that holding a particular belief is somehow morally wrong even in a case where said belief is true. Things like this are why I do not believe in morals, full stop. Believing a true thing is never morally wrong, and any system of morality contending otherwise is, simply, stupid.
QuoteI would like to think that my friends and I aren't yearning for a world where we can just solve all of our problems with a fireball.
Same here. But then again, I try not to design my campaign worlds as places that players would yearn to be, since those places aren't usually good places to find adventure in. D&D campaign worlds are, generally speaking, terrible, awful places that would be dreadful to live in, because nice happy places aren't much fun to play D&D in.
QuoteBut why would we do that? Why do we need to pretend that? And if we did want to explore that, wouldn't we want to walk away from the table with the same feeling of disgust I get when I watch Hotel Rwanda?
As far as why we would do this: because it's a game, it's supposed to be fun, and apparently enough people have decided that games about this sort of thing are fun to make such games popular. There's no need for more than that.
As far as why you don't walk away in disgust, I think that's a matter of perspective.
When you watch a movie like that, you're watching it from your own perspective - that of someone who probably lives in a first world country, and is probably educated and modern in outlook.
On the other hand, role-playing games are role-playing games: you play a role, and view things from that perspective.
To make an analogy to something else the poster'd mentioned: you, the poster, may view Hutu's killing Tutsis as worthy of disgust, but when viewed from the perspective of the Hutu doing the killing it probably IS an act of heroism.
Similarly, when you play an adventurer killing evil orcs, that's something best viewed from your character's perspective, not the player's, and the character probably would regard it as heroic.
Yes, if you're not role-playing well and are viewing things from your own perspective, things will probably get uncomfortable, but that's a problem with what you're doing, not with the game.
QuoteThird, DMs should reward morally admirable behavior, or at least not punish it.
The thing is, the behavior you go on to describe is not behavior that the character themselves would likely regard as being morally admirable.
If you reward them for this, you are rewarding them for acting out of character, and I don't see how rewarding people for role-playing poorly is ever good in a role-playing game.
If, in the game world, orcs are viewed as being uniformly evil and deserving of death, then killing them IS the most morally admirable way to handle them from the perspective of people in the game world and letting some live would be an immoral act. If the characters are intended to be heroes, then they should be rewarded for acts that would cause other people in their world to regard them as heroes.
QuoteThe complex moral issues that arise during play when heroes face a culture of intelligent "humanoids" can be interesting in their own right.
Can't disagree with you there in the least! Situations like that can definitely lead to interesting roleplay. But: orcs aren't the humanoids you're looking for in this particular case.
You can have both inherently evil and not inherently evil humanoids in your worlds. There's nothing wrong with you going off and making a species of hostile-but-not-necessarily-evil humanoids to use in your own game or in material you're publishing. But... making them doesn't mean you have to take away the ones that ARE inherently evil.
Go off and make your morally complex antagonistic humanoids - if you publish them and I like them, I may even use them sometime. But don't take away our orcs.
Quote from: bombshelter13;477815Okay, so he's saying that holding a particular belief is somehow morally wrong even in a case where said belief is true. Things like this are why I do not believe in morals, full stop. Believing a true thing is never morally wrong, and any system of morality contending otherwise is, simply, stupid.
No. He is saying that when you create the parameters of the world in the game or story you are creating, that you are morally responsible for the moral truths your parameters advocate. If you make a story where hypotheses that would be morally objectionable are definitively true, then your story is morally objectionable on the same grounds.
RaHoWa is a real game. In RaHoWa, Blacks and Jews are
objectively evil. This makes RaHoWa morally objectionable. It makes the writers of RaHoWa morally objectionable, and it makes people who
play RaHoWa unironically morally objectionable.
Interestingly: Tolkien himself noted that treating Orcs as inherently and irredeemably evil was itself morally objectionable, and that's why he explicitly disavowed that interpretation. He stated publicly that Orcs
weren't inherently evil, and in the afterward stuff the post-Sauron Orcs like settle down and farm and shit.
-Frank
I had to deal with this when I was writing up Red Tide (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=89888). The setting is intended to be old-school friendly, but one of the core conflicts in the setting is between the native orc-equivalent Shou and the human refugees who've arrived in the island archipelago. It's possible to run the Shou as born-to-be-vicious ravagers deserving only of a quick death, but I thought it was more interesting to emphasize the inevitability of conflict in the situation given Shou and human cultures.
The Shou are almost exclusively hunter-gatherers, and despise farming as slave work. The human population is steadily growing, and the available land supply on an island archipelago is strictly limited. It doesn't matter if the Shou are all saintly pacifists and the humans are noble-minded paragons of virtue, somebody is gonna have to die. There just isn't land enough to support the growth of both populations, so in the end, it doesn't really matter whether the combatants are good people or bad people. All they have to be is people disinclined to see their families starve and as a result, there's going to be genocidal warfare.
There are ways to solve the fundamental conflict, of course. Someone could invent a farming method that vastly increases human output, or the Shou could become convinced that farming was honorable and thus survive on vastly decreased amounts of land, or the apocalyptic extraplanar invasion that consumed the rest of the world could be driven back so the human refugees could go home again. But barring such a resolution, the only way for humans or Shou to survive long-term is to wipe out the opposing group.
I think such situational conflicts are a lot more interesting than resting the game on alignment-based disputes. Yes, the Shou are racist xenophobes who spend more time fighting each other than humans, but there are human cultures on the isles who are zealous devil-worshipers. Neither side has a monopoly on bastardliness, and both are equally subject to the brutish cold equations of food supply and population growth.
Quote from: estar;477814Actually the good guys were colonists. From Numenor. And the later years of the second age treated the mainland cultures pretty bad and descendents were known as the Black Numenoreans.
I am just teasing a bit, I agree with the main point of your post.
Well I was thinking about Lord of the Rings obviously, not The Silmarilion, which is written at such a remove the reader isn't expected either to identify with Numenor nor worry about the Orientalism inherent in the Numenorean sociopolitical
Weltanschauung. :p
Quote from: bombshelter13;477815Okay, so he's saying that holding a particular belief is somehow morally wrong even in a case where said belief is true. Things like this are why I do not believe in morals, full stop. Believing a true thing is never morally wrong, and any system of morality contending otherwise is, simply, stupid.
But an author, including an RPG author, can invent a world where the beliefs of any ideology are Literally True. That doesn't make it uncriticisable. Personally I have no problem with Orcs, but I would have a problem with say RAHOWA (Neo-Nazi RPG), no matter that in that world the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are real, Jews really do drink the blood of Christian babies, etc. I've played a German soldier in a WW2 RPG, but I wasn't going to accept that in that universe Hitler & co really were The Good Guys. Likewise I'd play one of Fidel & Che's Communist revolutionaries, but that doesn't mean I'd accept that in that universe Communism was objectively good & right, no matter what the author of the game nor the GM told me.
Jesus.
The bloke is taking things far too seriously (if he's being honest and the entire thing isn't just trolling bullshit).
You can't just say "It's just a game" ?
Actually, you can. I just said it. Orcs are evil, so slaughter the fuckers. Many people are happly to play like this. It doesn't make them unthinking racists. It means they are people who enjoy a straightforward game of D&D.
Does that mean you can't explore the morality of Orc/Human/Elf/Dawrf conflict? Of course not. As has been pointed out, that can lead to interesting moral dilemas and alternative ways of resolving conflict rather than drawing steel. This is likely to prove difficult, but there is the challenge.
These are just different ways of playing the game. People who play the first way are not automatically arseholes. People who play the second way are not automatically morally superior or nicer people. They just like their fun in different ways.
Perhaps he should just play a Sword and Sorcery game, where everyone is human aside from demons and the undead, and the evil bastards are clearly the sorcerers and their minions.
Or perhaps he not someone who is thinking too much about a wonderful pastime but is just a trolling wanker.
The kind of line he appears to be pushing is similar to the self-regarding idiots who say that anyone who enjoys pulp games (like me) is a closet white supremiscist fascists because all the pulp writers were. Tossers!
Quote from: bombshelter13;477815Okay, so he's saying that holding a particular belief is somehow morally wrong even in a case where said belief is true. Things like this are why I do not believe in morals, full stop. Believing a true thing is never morally wrong, and any system of morality contending otherwise is, simply, stupid...
...you, the poster, may view Hutu's killing Tutsis as worthy of disgust, but when viewed from the perspective of the Hutu doing the killing it probably IS an act of heroism.
Is it ok in your view to make and play
Interahamwe: The RPG where Tutsis are inherently and absolutely evil, and for the Hutu PCs killing them is an act of heroism? I would say no, same as RAHOWA, same as FATAL.
Maybe it's a small offence, God knows there are plenty of morally disgusting books and movies out there, plenty of them seem to be advertised on the London Underground on my way to work (yaay torture porn movie ads on public transport, not). That Brett Easton Ellis or Oliver Stone can do more harm in an afternoon than an RPG writer can manage in his whole life doesn't make it ok, though.
YMMV. And I like Orcs. :)
Quote from: SineNomine;477817I had to deal with this when I was writing up Red Tide (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=89888). The setting is intended to be old-school friendly, but one of the core conflicts in the setting is between the native orc-equivalent Shou and the human refugees who've arrived in the island archipelago.
Given your themes, why did you make the Shou 'Orcs' rather than Humans? Isn't making them 'Orcs' going to be a big "Bad Guy Here: Please Kill" sign over their heads?
Normal person objects to story-game, rpgsite rallies.
Normal person (th ones in my game and people elsewhere) objects to the way dnd presents moral dilemmas in a game format largely about killing things and taking their stuff -- socialist spoon-fed liberals with white guilt! *shakes fist*
Sorry guys, but if you're going to defer to the "normal" people for strengthening your own moral arguments, at least be consistent about it. The truth is that encapsulating those sorts of moral dilemmas in the context of dnd is not fun for most people. Perhaps in another type of game, but not one where you get xp mostly for killig and looting.
But you know, poisond is just a game, too. See what a great argument that makes for?
Unless somehow dnd players are immune to the same sorts of rigorous judgment you put storygamers through.
TheRPGSite is a collective consciousness? Am I arguing with myself? :(
Spoiler
Different people have different opinions. I tend to think most of the talk here about storygames is vacuous bullshit, the generalisations in those threads intellectually dishonest, and "Swine" has become a meaningless term.
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Quote from: Melan;477827"Swine" has become a meaningless term.[/SPOILER][/COLOR]
I take it to mean "People who design games, whose politics are slightly to the Left of theRPGPundit/Bill Maher" :D
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477816He stated publicly that Orcs weren't inherently evil, and in the afterward stuff the post-Sauron Orcs like settle down and farm and shit.
Farm? In MORDOR?
Shit, man, the only thing you have any chance of cultivating in Mordor is a japanese rock garden.
Late to the party, but my take on things (both of which I'm sure someone already must've pointed out):
1. Alignment sucks. I can live with and even sometimes relish the single-axis (OD&D, B/X, BECMI, RC) system of Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic because it leaves everyone a lot of wiggle room. The "Good/Evil" axis is more of a headache than anything, really.
2. Just because your game is about heroic PC commandos fighting Arab terrorists or Russian mafioski or Neo-Nazis, doesn't mean you're preaching genocidal war against Arabs, or Russians, or white people. Do people still need this to be spelled out, in this day and age? Jesus fuck.
Thesis: If there are non-evil orcs, they're not the PCs' concern, anymore than the decent, hard-working, law-abiding citizens of any day and age concern bad-guy-stomping PCs of all persuasions.
Quote from: S'mon;477823Given your themes, why did you make the Shou 'Orcs' rather than Humans? Isn't making them 'Orcs' going to be a big "Bad Guy Here: Please Kill" sign over their heads?
Sure- and if GMs and players want to run it that way, more power to them. I put it plainly in the book that if you want to make the Shou monsters and fight them with old-fashioned simplicity, then that works fine. Not everybody is up for a campaign of "Let's face a world cruelly indifferent to our moral preferences". But for those who do prefer such a world, perhaps in order to play characters bent on changing the equation or breaking loose from the limits of the situation, the option should exist.
Quote from: SineNomine;477833Sure- and if GMs and players want to run it that way, more power to them. I put it plainly in the book that if you want to make the Shou monsters and fight them with old-fashioned simplicity, then that works fine. Not everybody is up for a campaign of "Let's face a world cruelly indifferent to our moral preferences". But for those who do prefer such a world, perhaps in order to play characters bent on changing the equation or breaking loose from the limits of the situation, the option should exist.
I'm interested in why you didn't make them human, rather than the question why you didn't make them Always Chaotic Evil.
It's fantasy heartbreaker syndrome all over again.
"But my elves are different!"
Quote from: S'mon;477835I'm interested in why you didn't make them human, rather than the question why you didn't make them Always Chaotic Evil.
Because making them human makes it
impossible to make them Always Chaotic Evil. You can write as much in the source text, but the idea of a race of humans that are deserving only of genocide... yeah, that's not going to fly with players, and it's not something I feel like writing in the first place. So if I'm going to leave the Always Chaotic Evil option open to the GM, I needed to make them nonhuman.
Quote from: Melan;477827TheRPGSite is a collective consciousness? Am I arguing with myself? :(
Spoiler
Different people have different opinions. I tend to think most of the talk here about storygames is vacuous bullshit, the generalisations in those threads intellectually dishonest, and "Swine" has become a meaningless term.
You know who I mean. Let's not pretend certain opinions and moral crusading aren't popular around here.
Quote from: The ButcherThesis: If there are non-evil orcs, they're not the PCs' concern, anymore than the decent, hard-working, law-abiding citizens of any day and age concern bad-guy-stomping PCs of all persuasions.
That's not the issue I've run into. I don't have a problem mowing down the "bad guys" if they're trying to do bad things or trying to kill the party. But when I'm mowing down Nazis in a shooter, I'm a soldier on a battlefield far removed from their families and everyday society. The issue I've had with these few new players is that they're facing the fantasy equivalent of taking down a Nazi officer only to find his wife and child hiding in the closet, hell, maybe even mowing him down while his family watches. You're not just plowing through the bad guys but facing a serious moral crisis for having done so immediately after, again and again. These are not issues regular folk want to face when they're taking down the bad guys in an action-adventure game, especially in one that gives you XP for kills.
The solution is easy: In D&D style games, have orcs, trolls, goblins, etc, all spawn from the Underworld and the forces of chaos. No babies, no families, none of that shit. Now you can feel free to slaughter the forces of chaos without people getting forced into uncomfortable situations. I think this is something similar to what Philotomy does in his game, but he's free to correct me if I'm wrong in that assumption.
My problem is that despite that easy solution, it seems like a lot of old material shoved this sort of naturalistic bullshit in anyway, to the detriment of the adventures/modules/campaigns.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477816No. He is saying that when you create the parameters of the world in the game or story you are creating, that you are morally responsible for the moral truths your parameters advocate.
Oh, okay. In that case I guess we'd better stop writing any games or stories involving societies pre-dating those in the modern world then, seeing as they're pretty much generally regarded as all being pretty morally reprehensible these days.
After all, the world before about 1970 or so was basically filled with bigots, sexists and racists, so clearly we have to whitewash those sorts of views out of any fantasy cultures that are either inspired by or merely resemble pre-modern Earth cultures.
I still can't see why the fact that such views are entirely likely to exist in medieval or quasi-medieval societies is not relevant, and how including them makes me a bad person.
QuoteIs suggesting that 'beings who are provably and irrevocably evil should be killed' a morally objectionable hypothesis?
Interestingly: Tolkien himself noted that treating Orcs as inherently and irredeemably evil was itself morally objectionable, and that's why he explicitly disavowed that interpretation. He stated publicly that Orcs weren't inherently evil, and in the afterward stuff the post-Sauron Orcs like settle down and farm and shit.
Not disagreeing with anything here. Purely for reference, I'm using orcs merely as an example of a creature that has classically been considered objectively evil in D&D and am not making any particular reference to Tolkein-ian orcs, he may very well have viewed them as you described. For my arguments, I could have just as easily picked any Chaotic Evil creature personally designed by Gygax.
One thing I really enjoyed in the Red Tide campaign setting for Labyrinth Lord was how it was explicitly stated that, in addition to being interfertile with humans (as is the case in any D&D setting with half-orcs) most goblinoids (orcs, bugbears, goblins, etc.) would look almost exactly like humans if not for the tattoos, war paint, piercings and ritual scarifications that they adorn themselves with. A few of the oddly coloured ones (goblins do tend to be greenish) might look a little unusual, sure, but still basically human in every other physical respect.
It's even stated that with these adornments removed, most members of the goblinoid races would actually be considered quite attractive by human standards - something that one could easily attribute logically to them generally having more active lifestyles, and thus being in better physical shape.
Barring the fact that they're referred to as 'orcs', 'bugbears', etc. rather than being referred to as 'humans', it's never actually explicitly stated that they aren't biologically human, and the facts seem to suggest that they might be. Based on what's stated in the book, it's entirely possible that goblins ARE just tribal humans with a greenish skin-tone.
Quote from: Peregrin;477838You know who I mean. Let's not pretend certain opinions and moral crusading aren't popular around here.
You mean like what you are trying to do?
Quote from: Peregrin;477838That's not the issue I've run into. I don't have a problem mowing down the "bad guys" if they're trying to do bad things or trying to kill the party. But when I'm mowing down Nazis in a shooter, I'm a soldier on a battlefield far removed from their families and everyday society. The issue I've had with these few new players is that they're facing the fantasy equivalent of taking down a Nazi officer only to find his wife and child hiding in the closet, hell, maybe even mowing him down while his family watches. You're not just plowing through the bad guys but facing a serious moral crisis for having done so immediately after, again and again. These are not issues regular folk want to face when they're taking down the bad guys in an action-adventure game, especially in one that gives you XP for kills.
The solution is easy: In D&D style games, have orcs, trolls, goblins, etc, all spawn from the Underworld and the forces of chaos. No babies, no families, none of that shit. Now you can feel free to slaughter the forces of chaos without people getting forced into uncomfortable situations. I think this is something similar to what Philotomy does in his game, but he's free to correct me if I'm wrong in that assumption.
My problem is that despite that easy solution, it seems like a lot of old material shoved this sort of naturalistic bullshit in anyway, to the detriment of the adventures/modules/campaigns.
Uh, so only those monsters that do not sexually reproduce can be bad guys?
How about this novel idea, take the moral equivalency and shove it up your ass. Make all monster races irredeemably evil so that no question of morality arises when killing them and taking their stuff. If you can't handle that, then game in a neutered politically correct Federation like on
Star Trek.
Fuck, if I have a hard 50+ hour work week, I and many of my fellow Players may just want to kill some fucking orcs for fun and let the coffeeshop pseudointellectual crowd worry about the moral ambiguity of it all.
Then you can shove off about trying to be morally superior because you don't play shit like Poison'd.
All I'm doing is relaying the feelings of a few non-gamers, the types of people several guys here are so concerned about when it comes to perceptions of our hobby. If you can't fucking deal with that then maybe you shouldn't be trying to pass judgment on other gamers.
I don't give a fuck. Orcs are monsters, monsters are Evil and Evil must die.
Quote from: Peregrin;477844Then you can shove off about trying to be morally superior because you don't play shit like Poison'd.
Except in all those 30+ years of D&D gaming, neither myself nor my fellow Players wallowed in the graphic depiction of torturing and killing all of those monsters. Our moral superiority shines so bright when compared to
Poison'd apologists it is blinding.
(Actually, I remember one Player who liked to have his halfling play in the viscera of his kills. We nicknamed him "Dances With Entrails" and when talking to him about the creepy behavior didn't give him pause, we voted him out of the game group. Because like you, he just didn't get it.)
Poison'd doesn't force that content on you, either.
What it does force you to deal with is objectionable moral situations.
I'm not apologizing for Poison'd, I'm saying that some implementations of ideas in D&D can be just as objectionable.
If you want to have monsters, that's fine. But once you give those things families, culture, language, and a functioning social unit? They're no longer monsters. So either treat them as literal fucking monsters of chaos or treat them as a developed race. Trying to do it both ways doesn't work. If they're truly Evil, mindlessly violent creatures, the fact that they can fuck and have kids shouldn't even be important, so why include it?
If you want to deal with situations that involve orc babies and what to do with them, D&D is not the game to do it.
Quote from: SineNomine;477837Because making them human makes it impossible to make them Always Chaotic Evil. You can write as much in the source text, but the idea of a race of humans that are deserving only of genocide... yeah, that's not going to fly with players, and it's not something I feel like writing in the first place. So if I'm going to leave the Always Chaotic Evil option open to the GM, I needed to make them nonhuman.
I guess I've read a lot more Michael Moorcock than you have! :)
I included his A.C.E. Mabden as extradimensional invaders of my main campaign world.
Quote from: Peregrin;477848If you want to have monsters, that's fine. But once you give those things families, culture, language, and a functioning social unit? They're no longer monsters.
Only if you are no longer interested in playing the game for fun.
Quote from: Peregrin;477848So either treat them as literal fucking monsters of chaos or treat them as a developed race. Trying to do it both ways doesn't work. If they're truly Evil, mindlessly violent creatures, the fact that they can fuck and have kids shouldn't even be important, so why include it?
To give them some depth. Things can be Evil and still have depth, you know.
Quote from: Peregrin;477848If you want to deal with situations that involve orc babies and what to do with them, D&D is not the game to do it.
Why not?
Oh, right. "D&D is a game of murderous hoboes......"
If it's just a game for fun, then why is that sort of depth necessary? What sort of fun does throwing an orc baby in front of Aragorn add?
QuoteWhy not?
Oh, right. "D&D is a game of murderous hoboes......"
Dude, cut the shit. I play first-person shooters and games like Nethack. That's not my concern here. I'm fine with killing evil things. I'm fine with killing Nazis. But when I play
Medal of Honor I'm not suddenly confronted with a German kid and his mother around the next turn.
Quote from: Peregrin;477848Poison'd doesn't force that content on you, either.
What it does force you to deal with is objectionable moral situations.
I'm not apologizing for Poison'd, I'm saying that some implementations of ideas in D&D can be just as objectionable.
If you want to have monsters, that's fine. But once you give those things families, culture, language, and a functioning social unit? They're no longer monsters. So either treat them as literal fucking monsters of chaos or treat them as a developed race. Trying to do it both ways doesn't work. If they're truly Evil, mindlessly violent creatures, the fact that they can fuck and have kids shouldn't even be important, so why include it?
If you want to deal with situations that involve orc babies and what to do with them, D&D is not the game to do it.
Grendel's not a monster, because he has a mother?
And there's no moral equivalence between
Poison'd and
Keep on the Borderlands, just as there's no moral equivalence between the serial killer and the bomber pilot, even though the bombs he drops kill civilians too.
Quote from: Peregrin;477838The issue I've had with these few new players is that they're facing the fantasy equivalent of taking down a Nazi officer only to find his wife and child hiding in the closet, hell, maybe even mowing him down while his family watches.
You mean in your games, PCs chase down and kill the orc females and little ones?
That's never,
ever happened in one of my games. And believe me, I've gamed with some right bastards back in the day... jeff's "Dances With Entrails" would be right at home with my old group. I do vaguely recall the D&D BECMI entry on orcs giving numbers of females and cubs in a lair (see: "Gygaxian naturalism"). This is probably why I've never used them; PCs, like many of the literary characters who inspired them (e.g. Conan, Elric), will do morally reprehensible things
as long as you reward them (and back then I didn't have the common sense
not to award them XP for slaughtering defenseless non-combatants). If you stock a lair with women and children, this sort of thing is bound to happen.
Mind you, even though it's never happened to me, I don't think you're the only one who's been through this. But putting PCs in this sort of situation, awarding them XP for the onslaught and then whining about genocide on the Internet, strikes me as fairly inconsistent.
I'd say that the bottom line is, if something makes you uncomfortable, don't use it in a game. Which is pretty basic advice anyway, but sometimes things get out of control as a game session unfolds in unexpected ways. When this happens, I talk it over with everyone, we learn from the experience and we move on. No biggie.
Hope that helps.
Quote from: S'mon;477853Grendel's not a monster, because he has a mother?
Grendel fails to meet the rest of the criteria I listed. Try again.
QuoteAnd there's no moral equivalence between Poison'd and Keep on the Borderlands, just as there's no moral equivalence between the serial killer and the bomber pilot, even though the bombs he drops kill civilians too.
Are you trying to say the players should feel justified in slaughtering the tribes because "Well that's just war"? Because including the real horrors of war and violence in a game isn't exactly most people's idea of fun.
Quote from: The Butcher;477854Mind you, even though it's never happened to me, I don't think you're the only one who's been through this. But putting PCs in this sort of situation, awarding them XP for the onslaught and then whining about genocide on the Internet, strikes me as fairly inconsistent.
I didn't put them into the situation. I was running a module I was told was the gold standard for Basic. The awkwardness of the situation caught me by surprise as well. They chose to leave the non-combatants alone, because my players aren't apt to play psychos, even psychos believing they're fighting for the forces of Law against absolute Evil/Chaos.
QuoteI'd say that the bottom line is, if something makes you uncomfortable, don't use it in a game. Which is pretty basic advice anyway, but sometimes things get out of control as a game session unfolds in unexpected ways. When this happens, I talk it over with everyone, we learn from the experience and we move on. No biggie.
Hope that helps.
I understand this. Of course according to Jeffy, I'd be playing in some politically-correct, neutered, shallow game.
Quote from: CRKrueger;477803You mean like magic, apes riding dinosaurs, elves, dwarves, fairies and FTL drives?
Oh this shit again. To lazy a point to bother with.
QuoteYou don't really understand the term then. If things such as Absolute Evil are part of a game setting (like Middle-Earth), then actually dealing with the situations that arise from it is by definition associated.
I didn't mention absolute evil did I? Of course I understand the concept of absolute evil - any basic charitable reading would recognise that. So before you say I don't understand a term read the actual post you're responding to. I mentioned deciding whether to kill the children of evil races as an
artificial situation. Show me where to find that in Tolkien.
Quote from: Peregrin;477855Are you trying to say the players should feel justified in slaughtering the tribes because "Well that's just war"? Because including the real horrors of war and violence in a game isn't exactly most people's idea of fun.
Eh, no. I would say that there is a moral difference between the terrorist who murders people to achieve a political objective, and the serial killer who murders people for sexual gratification.
On Orc females & young - about 2/3 the time when my groups have attacked actual Orc lairs, the Orcs win - the PCs die or flee. The other 1/3 of the time when the PCs actually manage to defeat the Orcs, I've had the females & young flee into the Underdark, likely to get eaten by other monsters. The PCs did not pursue, and I'm sure they were happy not to have to debate morality of Orc genocide. Knowing that group they wouldn't have killed the orc noncombatants anyway though. (Actually, I know that - they did previously capture & release some Orc females, concubines of an Orc shaman they'd killed).
On real horrors of war and violence - well personally I'm very happy to engage with that kind of stuff in an RPG; maybe not D&D though, although a 'Midnight' campaign I played did pretty well. But deciding on the fate of A.C.E. Orcs isn't 'real'; they're too alien to non-Orc PCs. Deciding on the fate of Drow prisoners, maybe. Or humans. But IME most players apply a pretty consistent modern Geneva Convention sort of morality, even if it looks odd in the pseudo-medieval context.
Re 'fun', I noticed BTW that the 4e DMG explicitly tells DMs not to require PCs to finish off fallen foes after a battle* (whether for mercy or in case they get up again), it says to tell the players that NPCs always die instantly at 0hp. A lot of the time that's fine, but it does cut off a lot of possibilities for interesting scenes, and I've seen players frustrated at the lack of survivors.
*When I joined the army, AIR a lot of the field training concerned safe ways to finish off fallen enemies. This is a normal part of real combat that 'heroic' RPGs understandably avoid.
I love how the assumption that the mere existence of a reproductive cycle or social behaviors somehow makes things too human, not monstrous enough.
Lions and wolves have families, and tribal groups, and social dynamics, but that doesn't seem to affect their willingness to slaughter and eat the surrounding ungulates.
It's the old thing about how yes, the house cat is cute, but if he were big enough he'd eat you for breakfast tomorrow. You're anthropomorphizing things based on superficial resemblance to human culture, while ignoring the basic savagery of the thing.
It's so cluelessly naive, that it'd almost be adorable, if it weren't being used as the moral basis for condemning a game and it's players as racist monsters.
Quote from: Peregrin;477856Of course according to Jeffy, I'd be playing in some politically-correct, neutered, shallow game.
Well, that is what you want, isn't it? Because you sure as Hell are getting all butthurt over killing orcs because they have families.
Protip: You can always tell when someone is losing their arguement with me when they start calling me Jeffy.
I am definitely of the opinion that once you give a race intelligence and social order and politics and free will you can no longer cast them as inherently evil.
So I think the OP has a good point, which I have argued here before by the way often with JM :)
As Pseudo says if you are not at least considering these points then you are pretty crap at world building. And it's one of the main reason why my current world has no non-human races.
I am just reading Ambercrombie's The Heroes and one of the intersting things about it is that lots of the protagonists have in the past been allies in different wars and that there are black hearted evil bastards and noble heroes (well people that start with noble ideals) on both sides of the fight. They are at way doesn't mean they have to stop being polite.
I have deliberately made goblins 'human' with families and the like in the past. To cause these moral discussions.
As has been said you can easily make a 'race' totally evil when you are building a world. A 'race' of skeletons or zombies, or devils or orcs that are manufactured by sorcerous means. But if you build the bad guys as a race with families and motivation and all that entails then you really had better be aware of what the fuck you are doing.
If you really want to think about morality then almost by defintion Good means only punishing those who have committed crimes not those who will in the fuutre commit crimes beause of their nature. A good guy doesn't slit the throat of the unarmed villain while they sleep.
Dexter might only murder serial killers but that doesn't make him a goody.
Quote from: jeff37923;477860Protip: You can always tell when someone is losing their arguement with me when they start calling me Jeffy.
I can attest that this seems to be the case over a number of years now.
Say Jeffy and you have already lost. :rolleyes:
Quote from: Peregrin;477848Poison'd doesn't force that content on you, either.
From the infamous walkerp's review of Poison'd (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14570.phtml) on TBP:
"
The game is labelled as 'for adults, please' and it portrays the world of piracy as brutal and nasty to the extreme. Character generation and the rules drive the players and their ship to violent physical conflict and, most likely, unpleasant death."
"
These lists are harsh! You choose what sins you've committed (from adultery to murder to sodomy), how you've suffered (from accursing to branding to torture) and what your ambitions are (to be captain, to spit in the eye of god, to f*** someone else's character!). At first read, I found some of the items on the lists shocking, but appropriate to the genre. Some of them will definitely cross some players' boundaries of taste or playstyle. After a second read and a better understanding of the mechanics, the list items seem less harsh and more and more like excellent levers to give your character direction. Though they are pre-defined, these choices are broad and open leaving a lot of room in Poison'd for free roleplay and campaign development. But you will always be moving towards some kind of nasty fight."
Maybe it doesn't
force it, but the descriptions of it that I've read imply that it sure does
encourage it.
Quote from: Peregrin;477848If you want to have monsters, that's fine. But once you give those things families, culture, language, and a functioning social unit? They're no longer monsters.
What makes you think that being an evil monster is incompatible with a family, culture, language, and functioning social unit? Those things do not require friendship, affection, compassion, or tenderness. You don't even need real parental care if the young are born with teeth and claws and are hearty enough to survive on their own from birth.
In the real world, psychopathic serial killers have families and children, belong to social groups, and can function adequately, if not well, in polite society despite the fact that they might murder their own spouse or child if they become inconvenient and torture and murder strangers for fun when they think they can get away with it. Heck, take a good look at the Spartans and how they treated their own children and others.
Quote from: Peregrin;477848So either treat them as literal fucking monsters of chaos or treat them as a developed race. Trying to do it both ways doesn't work. If they're truly Evil, mindlessly violent creatures, the fact that they can fuck and have kids shouldn't even be important, so why include it?
You seem to equate "evil" with "mindlessly violent". While it can be, evil can also be intelligent, charismatic, and deliberately and thoughtfully violent.
So why include natural reproduction and kids? To make them a natural part of the environment, the same way that poisonous spiders and snakes are or rats or wolves or bears are.
Quote from: J Arcane;477859You're anthropomorphizing things based on superficial resemblance to human culture, while ignoring the basic savagery of the thing.
It's natural for people to assume that other people think the same way they do. It's why many people believe that all disagreements can be solved through sufficient conversation and understanding and it's why people often believe those with opposing politics are evil or stupid. People also tend to assume that everyone has a conscience, a mistake that psychopaths (who lack a conscience) use to their advantage.
From Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door (http://www.randomhouse.com/book/174276/the-sociopath-next-door-by-martha-stout-phd#excerpt):
"
Imagine--if you can--not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools. Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless. You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition."
"
In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world. You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences, will most likely remain undiscovered."
Jeff, I mentioned the issue because it was a legtimate problem for people new to rpgs. If passing it off solely as my own butthurt makes it easier to accept people might have a problem with something you think is okay, you're welcome to that.
John, you're talking about individuals, not races who are marked as the exact opposite of some absolute good.
To me it sounds like gamers are adopting the position of the hobby's critics: that the line between what we imagine in the game and what we think in real life will somehow be blurred. I've played mobsters, vikings and thieves and none of these things have intruded into my life or mindset in a negative way. These are make believe settings and adventures. I mean I've run games in settings where monarchies are the norm, this doesn't mean I endorse monarchy.
Quote from: Peregrin;477826Normal person (thE ones in my game and people elsewhere) objects to the way dnd presents moral dilemmas in a game format largely about killing things and taking their stuff -- socialist spoon-fed liberals with white guilt! *shakes fist*
WTF? Why does just the word storygame make an intelligent person start throwing up strawmen?
You did not start this thread. The "socialist spoon-fed liberal" stuff was not referring to your players as...
you did not start this thread. The OP in this thread expressed opinions like...
Quote from: spoon-fed white liberal criesSo it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn.
That is "normal"? You don't believe that. A non-gamer would object to slaughtering the children of orcs, goblins whatever, because for most humans, killing defenseless people is wrong, not because they've "realized" that killing these orcs was like re-enacting Wounded Knee.
Quote from: Peregrin;477826The truth is that encapsulating those sorts of moral dilemmas in the context of dnd is not fun for most people.
That I'll agree with, which is why most players just clear the dungeon and go home.
Quote from: Peregrin;477826Perhaps in another type of game, but not one where you get xp mostly for killig and looting.
Ah, that's a load of crap. D&D is a system. You could just as easily be talking about Broo children in Glorantha.
Quote from: Peregrin;477826But you know, poisond is just a game, too. See what a great argument that makes for?
Oh no you didn't. :D Again, I agree with you. "It's only a game." is never a useful argument in and of itself.
Quote from: Peregrin;477826Unless somehow dnd players are immune to the same sorts of rigorous judgment you put storygamers through.
But now you're just being dumb again. Poison'd is a game about sin and transgression in the most obscene way possible. The tagline may as well be "how horrible can you become?" It's coded into the rule system. I doubt highly you think D&D does that. How do I know? Because you can read. :D
Also out of interest I watched a very good Episode of Horizon the other day that demostrated very strong evidence that psychopathy seems to have a large number of genetic markers indicating its roots are inherited. Now not everyone with these markers becomes a psychopathic killer, that seems to be about nurture. However all psychpathic murderers do have these markers.
That would indicate that you should be able to genetically test babies in utero and abort any that demostrate the psychopathic markers. They won't all be evil but they all definitely have the potential to be evil and will be evil given the right environmental conditions.
Acceptible?
Quote from: jibbajibba;477868Also out of interest I watched a very good Episode of Horizon the other day that demostrated very strong evidence that psychopathy seems to have a large number of genetic markers indicating its roots are inherited. Now not everyone with these markers becomes a psychopathic killer, that seems to be about nurture. However all psychpathic murderers do have these markers.
That would indicate that you should be able to genetically test babies in utero and abort any that demostrate the psychopathic markers. They won't all be evil but they all definitely have the potential to be evil and will be evil given the right environmental conditions.
Acceptible?
Absolutely. Personally, I more in favor of people with major genetic problems not having kids at all. If they must, I don't think there is anything wrong with it, at least not anything more than regular abortion.
There is a difference between that and orcs though. I think orcs still have shame and guilt. They just have an inborn love for bloodshed and only respect leadership on the grounds that the leader can kill him. The shame and guilt they have might be for showing weakness or failing at a task.
Quote from: jibbajibba;477868Also out of interest I watched a very good Episode of Horizon the other day that demostrated very strong evidence that psychopathy seems to have a large number of genetic markers indicating its roots are inherited. Now not everyone with these markers becomes a psychopathic killer, that seems to be about nurture. However all psychpathic murderers do have these markers.
That would indicate that you should be able to genetically test babies in utero and abort any that demostrate the psychopathic markers. They won't all be evil but they all definitely have the potential to be evil and will be evil given the right environmental conditions.
Acceptible?
Jesus Wept. Nice threadjack, this one can go 100 pages by itself. :D
Quote from: J Arcane;477859I love how the assumption that the mere existence of a reproductive cycle or social behaviors somehow makes things too human, not monstrous enough.
Lions and wolves have families, and tribal groups, and social dynamics, but that doesn't seem to affect their willingness to slaughter and eat the surrounding ungulates.
It's the old thing about how yes, the house cat is cute, but if he were big enough he'd eat you for breakfast tomorrow. You're anthropomorphizing things based on superficial resemblance to human culture, while ignoring the basic savagery of the thing.
It's so cluelessly naive, that it'd almost be adorable, if it weren't being used as the moral basis for condemning a game and it's players as racist monsters.
People play these as PC races. They're not held on the same level as animals in the context of the game.
Also, regardless of what OP thinks, these issues can create problems for some people. It doesn't mean the people who can deal with those issues are bad, but just because some people are able to deal with it doesn't invalidate the problems others may have.
Quote from: Peregrin;477865Jeff, I mentioned the issue because it was a legtimate problem for people new to rpgs. If passing it off solely as my own butthurt makes it easier to accept people might have a problem with something you think is okay, you're welcome to that.
Well, that is the thing. I have never seen new Players have this moral quandry in actual games. I have only seen this come up on the internet. Maybe I am wrong, but it just hasn't been a problem in my experience.
Quote from: Cranewings;477870I think orcs still have shame and guilt. They just have an inborn love for bloodshed and only respect leadership on the grounds that the leader can kill him. The shame and guilt they have might be for showing weakness or failing at a task.
Or for not bringing back food or treasure to support the tribe, which is why many of my orcs raid settlements. Occassionally they even raid other orc tribes.
Peregrin,
For what it's worth, I understand your dilemma. You got B2 shoved on your plate and you rolled with it, with a bunch of new players and ended up with situations arising that you didn't expect - situations that maybe weren't the ideal way to introduce someone to the hobby.
Dealing with evil vs. Evil is one of the hardest parts of campaign or world-building, especially if you're using a generic world that is open to many different styles and interpretations. Dealing with it as a PC sometimes is even harder.
I agree that the specific situation the OP was raising might be a concern of your new players, however, I doubt highly it's for the same reasons, and yes, that does make a difference. That's why the concerns of your players are valid, and the concerns of the OP make me ridicule him.
Maybe dealing with "heavy" issues isn't what your players want to do. It just depends on how deep the players want to get into their characters and the world.
It seems like your posts have a little bit of a "I don't know why this crap is even in here, this stuff is for more serious games." attitude to them. I've played D&D games that were pure dungeon-romp, others that were very serious. Older games like early D&D and RuneQuest came way before "system matters" doctrine, they were used for everything, and as such, you're not going to find a tightly focused experience like the newer games you prefer. Your games can be all over the map content, maturity and immersion-wise. I don't want to go there, but you might say they lack "coherence". :eek: The thing to realize is, that's not a bug, that's a feature, it lets you do what you want.
Where I'm going with this is, in GMing D&D you're probably going to need to do more prep work then you thought was going to be required for such a simple game, even if all that means is, remove the humanoid families.
Quote from: jeff37923;477876Or for not bringing back food or treasure to support the tribe, which is why many of my orcs raid settlements. Occassionally they even raid other orc tribes.
In my current game, I have empires that are basically Persian and Greek. The idea of "Orc Tribes" doesn't give with it for me. I don't think human empires would allow tribes of orcs to exist. They would be wiped out. If there were dark gods making orcs in a place like Mordor, so that they have equal footing to humans, I'd get it.
I've wanted to run a stone age game for a long time. Ever seen the old Ralph Bakshi cartoon
Fire and Ice? I'd put orcs in something like that, treating them like an offshoot of humans where you don't know which race will endure.
Back to my current game, the party is about to come up against orcs for the first time. They are 5th level with lots and lots of extra power, so they won't be hard, but it is just the idea that there is a magical fungus wizards make to turn people into orcs that I think is a cool idea for bringing them into a setting where humans wouldn't let them wonder around.
Ill think over it some more, talk to my players, and see where things go.
I appreciate everyone's input, even if it may seem that I've dismissed it -- my own opinions are apt to change with experience and what's been said here will be taken into account. I came off somewhat confrontational and it didn't add anything to the discussion.
Quote from: Cranewings;477878but it is just the idea that there is a magical fungus wizards make to turn people into orcs that I think is a cool idea for bringing them into a setting where humans wouldn't let them wonder around.
Whenever you get into the "humanoid genesis pit" concept, keep in mind one thing. If the key to genesis is transformation, then there has to be enough non-orcs to support the orc population.
That's the big gaping hole in Middle-Earth logic.
Mordor orcs - no problem - Sauron, he uses Easterlings.
Isengard orcs - no problem - Saruman, he uses other orcs and Dunlendings.
Misty Mountain orcs which fill an entire mountain range and have several "cities" like Moria and Mount Gundabad? - big fucking problem
Quote from: Cranewings;477878In my current game, I have empires that are basically Persian and Greek. The idea of "Orc Tribes" doesn't give with it for me. I don't think human empires would allow tribes of orcs to exist. They would be wiped out.
Not neccessarily, all that orc tribes need to exist is a place of sufficient worthlessness to retreat to. If they can fall back to the mountains or impenetrable woods, they can make it more trouble than it's worth to go root them out, especially if there are bigger things to worry about. They then might thrive in these dark places, swell and grow powerful enough to threaten the realms of man.
Quote from: jibbajibba;477861I am definitely of the opinion that once you give a race intelligence and social order and politics and free will you can no longer cast them as inherently evil.
A great deal hinges on the "free will" and just how free anyone's will is. Most normal people have a conscience that constrains what they will willingly consider and do, which is why large scale warfare and genocide has often included dehumanizing the enemy and modern military training is designed to make soldiers act without thinking through the moral implications of what they are doing. The purpose of that is to get their consciences out of the way so they don't constrain their choices away from killing the enemy, because the truth is that "free will" isn't entirely free. And we can see the consequences of not having a conscience in the choices and behavior of psychopaths, whom I would argue have fewer constraints on their choices and more "free will". That's the point of the quote I posted earlier from the The Sociopath Next Door (http://www.randomhouse.com/book/174276/the-sociopath-next-door-by-martha-stout-phd#excerpt). Psychopaths "are completely free of internal restraints" with "unhampered liberty to do just as [they] please, with no pangs of conscience". And please note that I believe it takes more than simply being a psychopath to make one evil.
Quote from: jibbajibba;477861As Pseudo says if you are not at least considering these points then you are pretty crap at world building. And it's one of the main reason why my current world has no non-human races.
While I think there is truth to that, I do not think the option "Because they're evil psychopaths" is inherently puerile. That so many people here seem to have trouble imagining how an entire species of evil psychopaths could survive and even thrive, I'm tempted to argue that it may be more challenging to understand how such a species could make sense than to just treat them as funny looking people. And I think it's no less boring or simplistic than assuming that every villain or malicious species has a rational and understandable motive that explains their evil behavior and that sufficient investigation and negotiation can resolve the problem and everyone could live happily ever after. I don't think there should always be a non-violent solution to problems, but should point out that even when the opponent is inherently and irredeemably Evil, non-violent and negotiated outcomes are not impossible.
Even where the PCs know that the a certain species is inherently and irredeemably Evil, the GM can still play on their sympathies. In the D&D 3.5 campaign I ran, Evil NPCs begged for mercy, tried to make deals to have their lives spared, and otherwise played on the sympathies or pragmatic needs of the PCs to make the choice to kill or spare them more complex than a no-brainer. In the case where the PCs did exterminate an entire goblin lair, knowing full well that it was morally acceptable in the game and all but forced into it by goblin young and females attacking the PCs in a desperate attempt to escape, there was no cheering. The mood, when it was over, was grim.
Quote from: jibbajibba;477861As has been said you can easily make a 'race' totally evil when you are building a world. A 'race' of skeletons or zombies, or devils or orcs that are manufactured by sorcerous means. But if you build the bad guys as a race with families and motivation and all that entails then you really had better be aware of what the fuck you are doing.
I was fully aware of what I was doing when I made certain species in my D&D 3.5 campaign inherently and irredeemably Evil, I understood what it meant to do so, and I gave them plausible social structures such that I could tell you exactly how the goblin den exterminated by the PCs was organized, how they reproduced and survived, why the mothers drove their own young into the PCs, and so on. After all, I'm the guy who wrote the population and economics essays that appeared in the
Tribe 8 Companion, which started out as my attempt to make the setting and societies plausibly functional. The whole reason I wound up researching psychopathic criminals was so that I could really understand the mindset behind evil and how such a species might work.
Quote from: jibbajibba;477861If you really want to think about morality then almost by defintion Good means only punishing those who have committed crimes not those who will in the fuutre commit crimes beause of their nature. A good guy doesn't slit the throat of the unarmed villain while they sleep.
Dexter might only murder serial killers but that doesn't make him a goody.
As much as I have complained that people confuse naughty and evil and make evil bad guys sufficiently evil, I think that people also confuse nice and good and label characters Good who do not qualify for that label. The vast majority of role-playing games are about Neutral characters (perhaps on the Good side of Neutral but still Neutral) doing things for pragmatic rather than altruistic reasons. Even in Dexter's case, from what I've heard (since I don't watch it), they overestimate his consideration for others by assuming that he could develop real emotional attachments to a wife and family, something psychopaths don't do. One of my favorite quotes from the article Psychopaths Among Us (http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html), because it so perfectly captures the implications of a total lack of any emotional attachment, involves a psychopath talking about his mother. "
[M]y mother, the most beautiful person in the world. She was strong, she worked hard to take care of four kids. A beautiful person. I started stealing her jewellery when I was in the fifth grade. You know, I never really knew the bitch -- we went our separate ways."
That said, I think one could certainly constrain Good to having the authority to kill those who have only actually done something Evil and reserve the Evil alignment (and aura) in D&D for those who have actually done something Evil, such that Orc babies and perhaps even Orc females wouldn't actually rate Evil and it would be wrong to kill them. If I were to run another D&D 3.5 game, I might choose that option for a variety of reasons, but I don't think that's the only option. I think it's perfectly plausible to make an Evil alignment an attribute of creatures who are inherently and irredeemably Evil and to explain why exterminating them is the morally acceptable and sound decision in that setting.
As I mentioned in an earlier thread, if you can't coexist with an inherently Evil species, what are the alternatives to extermination? Reservations? Internment camps? Don't those push psychological buttons comparable to those pushed by genocide? And if you do consider those preferable, what are you condemning those confined to such spaces to, given that the only ones they can prey on will be others of their own kind?
Quote from: Peregrin;477865John, you're talking about individuals, not races who are marked as the exact opposite of some absolute good.
I am talking about a class of individuals who share common psychological characteristics, and it would not be difficult to imagine those psychological characteristics being common to an entire species rather than simply a subset of a species. The normal human mind is full of all sorts of innate psychological characteristics that make people behave the way they do and the only reason we know how important some of them are is because we have examples of people who don't have them and how it changes the way they think and behave.
For example, there are a small number of people who do not innately understand that situations they are about to put themselves in are dangerous. They need to consciously work out that, for example, stepping into a busy street is dangerous and they shouldn't do it. People who don't feel pain in their extremities often wind up with gangrene because they don't notice or properly care for wounds on their extremities, which is why people with leprosy were commonly depicted with rotting extremities. And people who don't have a conscience are morally callous to those around them. Add an enjoyment of cruelty and murder to such an individual and you are all but guaranteed to have a cold cruel killer. Make that the norm for a species and the species will be cold cruel killers.
Think outside of the box. What you are basically saying is that if it's not true for humans, it can't be true. What I'm saying is that if you make a creature innately not have the same mental capabilities as a human, all of their thought processes will be very different, just as they are in humans with different mental capabilities.
Quote from: jibbajibba;477868Also out of interest I watched a very good Episode of Horizon the other day that demostrated very strong evidence that psychopathy seems to have a large number of genetic markers indicating its roots are inherited. Now not everyone with these markers becomes a psychopathic killer, that seems to be about nurture. However all psychpathic murderers do have these markers.
As far as I know, they have yet to find any "nurture" cause and people from perfectly fine families with pleasant parents and non-psychopathic siblings grow up to be psychopaths. It can also appear at a fairly young age -- before 10. For example, "Nine-year-old Jeffrey Bailey, Jr. pushed a three-year-old friend into the deep part of a motel pool in Florida in 1986. He wanted to see someone drown. As the boy sank to the bottom, Jeffrey pulled up a chair to watch. When it was finished, he went home. When he was questioned, he was more engaged in being the center of attention than in any kind of remorse for what he had done. About the murder he was nonchalant. (http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/psychopath/1.html)" Some tie the onset of psychopathy to the development of understanding the distinction between a conventional transgression and a moral transgression, which happens by around 6.
My own amateur opinion is that psychopathy is a spectrum disorder like autism and that narcissism is the mild form of it (another name used to describe psychopathy is "malignant narcissism"). It's also important to understand that not all psychopaths are murderers or violent criminals. Plenty of them are far more benign, though even the benign ones tend to leave a trail of ruined relationships and wronged people in their wake. It takes more than simply the lack of a conscience to be an evil murderer. Adding an enjoyment of cruelty to the lack of a conscience seems to be a pretty reliable recipe, though, and that's what I use for fantasy monsters.
Quote from: jibbajibba;477868That would indicate that you should be able to genetically test babies in utero and abort any that demostrate the psychopathic markers. They won't all be evil but they all definitely have the potential to be evil and will be evil given the right environmental conditions.
I don't find that acceptable for a variety of reasons, a major one being that it's not a reliable predictor that they will become a psychopathic murderer. That said, I do think it could be useful to know which children are potentially psychopaths and which criminals are psychopaths so they can be treated differently, because the evidence suggests that successfully deterring psychopaths from crime requires a very different strategy than deterring a person with a conscience does. Knowing that someone is a psychopath, up front, could help make them a peaceful and productive member of society and could help identify those who have gone off the rails past the point of no return.
Quote from: bombshelter13;477839Oh, okay. In that case I guess we'd better stop writing any games or stories involving societies pre-dating those in the modern world then, seeing as they're pretty much generally regarded as all being pretty morally reprehensible these days.
After all, the world before about 1970 or so was basically filled with bigots, sexists and racists, so clearly we have to whitewash those sorts of views out of any fantasy cultures that are either inspired by or merely resemble pre-modern Earth cultures.
I still can't see why the fact that such views are entirely likely to exist in medieval or quasi-medieval societies is not relevant, and how including them makes me a bad person.
Having a story where people - even the player characters - believe morally objectionable things is fine. Having the game tell you that those morally objectionable things are literally true is not. It's totally fine to play the villains in a WWII RPG. It is not OK to play RaHoWa. The first is roleplaying a wicked character, the second is advocating a wicked position.
We aren't mad at Hugo Weaving for playing a villain. We are mad at Mel Gobson for being an asshole in real life.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477896Having a story where people - even the player characters - believe morally objectionable things is fine. Having the game tell you that those morally objectionable things are literally true is not. It's totally fine to play the villains in a WWII RPG. It is not OK to play RaHoWa. The first is roleplaying a wicked character, the second is advocating a wicked position.
We aren't mad at Hugo Weaving for playing a villain. We are mad at Mel Gobson for being an asshole in real life.
Completely agreed. When I worry isn't when someone plays a character who does bad things - it's if the player thinks that those things are really good ideas in real life. I've encountered a few times when players seemed to a little too enthusiastic about violence rather than just playing characters who were violent. (That doesn't mean they're really violent in real life, but it did suggest that they endorsed violence like some torture.)
To even suggest that the filthy existence of orcs and goblins could be construed as some form of "culture" by human standards is revolting to all who adhere to the precepts of Law and civilized religions. Let us here no more of the imagined dignities of these Chaos-spawn, but strike them down, yea, eradicate them, wherever they slink, slither, or crawl beneath the earth!
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;477866To me it sounds like gamers are adopting the position of the hobby's critics: that the line between what we imagine in the game and what we think in real life will somehow be blurred. I've played mobsters, vikings and thieves and none of these things have intruded into my life or mindset in a negative way. These are make believe settings and adventures. I mean I've run games in settings where monarchies are the norm, this doesn't mean I endorse monarchy.
Indeed. Much like in the case of the BADD moms, these people seem to have a serious problem separating fiction from reality, not to mention a seriously limited imagination that the idea a fiction could even exist separate from reality should cause so much trouble.
It makes me wonder how the hell they wound up in this hobby to begin with.
Quote from: jeff37923;477875Well, that is the thing. I have never seen new Players have this moral quandry in actual games. I have only seen this come up on the internet. Maybe I am wrong, but it just hasn't been a problem in my experience.
I also agree with this. I have seen the "orc babies" argument a million times in the last two or three decades, but I've yet to see anything like it actually occur in game.
It strikes me as something that would be a surefire calling card that the DM is a dick.
Quote from: jhkim;477903Completely agreed. When I worry isn't when someone plays a character who does bad things - it's if the player thinks that those things are really good ideas in real life. I've encountered a few times when players seemed to a little too enthusiastic about violence rather than just playing characters who were violent. (That doesn't mean they're really violent in real life, but it did suggest that they endorsed violence like some torture.)
Oh brother.
Seriously? What the fuck kind of judgmental, insulting, presumptuous shit is this?
Quote from: J Arcane;477906I have seen the "orc babies" argument a million times in the last two or three decades, but I've yet to see anything like it actually occur in game.
It strikes me as something that would be a surefire calling card that the DM is a dick.
How long have you people been playing D&D!
ORC BABIES EAT PEOPLE!
Let me rephrase that:
ORC BABIES EAT PEOPLE!
They are *NOT* human! D&D is not some bleeding-heart-star-trek-liberal-utopia-simulation! Orcs is monsters. Orcs' babies is monsters. Do you get it?
There sure as hell are orc babies in my game and orc mommies too, and the PCs, if they know the difference between Law and Chaos, sure as hell better slaughter them. I guess that makes me the king-daddy-dick of DMs.
Quote from: austinjimm;477907How long have you people been playing D&D!
ORC BABIES EAT PEOPLE!
Let me rephrase that:
ORC BABIES EAT PEOPLE!
They are *NOT* human! D&D is not some bleeding-heart-star-trek-liberal-utopia-simulation! Orcs is monsters. Orcs' babies is monsters. Do you get it?
There sure as hell are orc babies in my game and orc mommies too, and the PCs, if they know the difference between Law and Chaos, sure as hell better slaughter them. I guess that makes me the king-daddy-dick of DMs.
Well, that's the other thing. I believe that orcs are considered adult when they reach age 12 (half-orcs at age 14, humans at age 15). That is a pretty fast growth rate (which would require a lot of high protein food for the growth), and you are going to have a lot of whelps whose concept of "play" is based upon Chaotic Evil ideals - which to me means lots of fighting and killing. Orc whelps will be considered auxiliaries in combat and sent on secondary missions while the tribe's adults go on primary missions.
As far as orc females go, I doubt that they will be any less formidible than the orc males when it comes to combat.
Orc raiding parties are probably co-ed and if not, that is only because the males are confidant that the females left behind at home are just as capable of defending the tribe as the males are.
Quote from: John Morrow;477864It's natural for people to assume that other people think the same way they do. It's why many people believe that all disagreements can be solved through sufficient conversation and understanding and it's why people often believe those with opposing politics are evil or stupid. People also tend to assume that everyone has a conscience, a mistake that psychopaths (who lack a conscience) use to their advantage.
Yeah, I agree. Personally I tend to go with something like the Orcs = Lions/Wolves/Hyenas/Chimps etc approach. They're just doing their Orc thing when they kill and eat you. Condemning them for it is pretty pointless. You can try raising an Orc to be nice, just as you can try raising a Chimp to be nice. Just don't be surprised when it chews your face off.
I guess that's why my favourite parable is
The Scorpion and the Frog. :D
Quote from: Cranewings;477870Absolutely. Personally, I more in favor of people with major genetic problems not having kids at all. If they must, I don't think there is anything wrong with it, at least not anything more than regular abortion.
There is a difference between that and orcs though. I think orcs still have shame and guilt. They just have an inborn love for bloodshed and only respect leadership on the grounds that the leader can kill him. The shame and guilt they have might be for showing weakness or failing at a task.
Yeah, the psychopath is more like a FRPG demon or vampire. For orcs to have functional Gygaxian-natural societies, I think they can't be literal psychopaths. I prefer my chimpanzee analogy.
Quote from: Cranewings;477878In my current game, I have empires that are basically Persian and Greek. The idea of "Orc Tribes" doesn't give with it for me. I don't think human empires would allow tribes of orcs to exist. They would be wiped out. If there were dark gods making orcs in a place like Mordor, so that they have equal footing to humans, I'd get it.
You stick your orcs on the borders of the human empires, say in frontier mountain ranges like the Caucasus, or under the ground ('Underdark'). Orcs could also inhabit borderland regions (like
The House on the Borderland! :D) - eg you could have human Persian and Indian realms, and Orcs in the Afghanistan-analogue. For a Roman Empire type game, the Orcs are the Germans. Then when the declining Empire starts hiring Orc auxiliaries, you know you're in trouble...
QuoteI also agree with this. I have seen the "orc babies" argument a million times in the last two or three decades, but I've yet to see anything like it actually occur in game.
It strikes me as something that would be a surefire calling card that the DM is a dick.
I don't think there is any doubt that Gygax was kind of a dick. But in the AD&D Monster Manual it literally told you how many women, children, and babies were in an Orc camp. The battlefield
by default had Orcish babies and noncombatants in it. The question of what to do with them was left to individual play groups, but they were explicitly there.
Later versions of the monster manual shifted the described encounters to "war parties" and as such there were no children in them. But if you played in the 80s, discussion of what to do with the baby kobolds was
mandatory. Because they were right there in the encounter description.
Orcs were even fairly explicitly not "all bad", because player characters could have one or more parents who
were orcs and orcs were available as followers and mercenaries even for Good fighters. This wasn't even playing against the rules as intended, Robilar had a fucking army of Orcs.
And yet, there it was in the encounter guidelines: There is a group fo Orcs for you to fight, and there are their wives, mothers, sons, and daughters. Also: there are explicitly
no guidelines for what you are supposed to do about that. There aren't even a list of options. There are just crying children of the enemy on the battlefield for you to start thinking outside the box about.
A lot of people found that situation unnerving, unheroic, or even nauseating. And it certainly caused a
lot of arguments at tables. So it's really not surprising that later editions of D&D really shied away from that scenario.
-Frank
Quote from: jeff37923;477909As far as orc females go, I doubt that they will be any less formidible than the orc males when it comes to combat.
Orc raiding parties are probably co-ed and if not, that is only because the males are confidant that the females left behind at home are just as capable of defending the tribe as the males are.
Gygax tended to make the weaker humanoid races' females & young entirely noncombatant - but still Evil, of course. It would probably make more sense to make Gygaxian Orcs weaker versions of the males (as he did with eg bugbears & other stronger humanoids); as with my chimp analogy they can fight, but not as well as the males, being sexually dimorphic species.
With Gnolls I tend to reject the Gygaxian approach and treat them more like real-world hyenas, so the females are actually bigger and stronger than the males - and have a pseudo-penis, so unless they're in oestrus they're not easily distinguishable from the males by non-gnolls.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477922Orcs were even fairly explicitly not "all bad", because player characters could have one or more parents who were orcs and orcs were available as followers and mercenaries even for Good fighters. This wasn't even playing against the rules as intended, Robilar had a fucking army of Orcs.
Robilar was Lawful Evil, same as the 1e AD&D Orcs (who were not 'noble savages', or even savages at all really. They were more like grubbier hobgoblins, with pike formations and crossbows). And IME 1e tends to assume that most Half-Orcs are still Evil, just as most Half-Elves are Good.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477922But in the AD&D Monster Manual it literally told you how many women, children, and babies were in an Orc camp. The battlefield by default had Orcish babies and noncombatants in it.
I don't think that "Orc camp" and "the battlefield" are the same things. If you invade the orc's home, yes there will be women and children, but you're making it sound like the orc raiding party you can meet in a random encounter in the woods will be dragging their brats along. That would be silly.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477922A lot of people found that situation unnerving, unheroic, or even nauseating. And it certainly caused a lot of arguments at tables.
True evil gamemastering: Magic-user casts sleep on a group of humanoid guards in a lair. Just as the sleeping foes are about to be "dealt with," in comes a humanoid child, clutching the equivalent of a teddy bear (make it some stuffed human baby if you really want to make the whole situation truly macabre and bizarre), saying in broken common, "What are you doing to my daddy?"
Quote from: jeff37923;477808In 30+ years of gaming, most of it D&D, nobody in-game has ever brought up the question of whether or not monsters are anything more than protagonists. This only seems to happen on the internet because everyone else seems to get that this is just a game where we are suppossed to be having fun.
The internet is the natural habitat of BNGs, remember.
You get the same weirdness with any hobby or area of interest. I see it on fitness forums. Some guy has a "one lift a day" programme - just do one lift for like two hours. So all these dickheads pop up and say, "what if I do two lifts, if that still the one lift a day programme?" Or someone else has a routine where you go flat-out for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, repeat 7 more times, altogether 4'00" of hell. So a dickhead says, "what if I do it for 8 minutes?"
The answer, of course, is "try it and see." Many things which are interesting theoretical questions we could ponder for centuries turn out to have obvious answers, or else not be so interesting after all, once exposed to the light of actual practice.
Orcs are for killing, you fucking commie mutant traitors.
It's an entertaining rant, and it does bring up interesting topics to discuss. But it is not structured in a strong way, and would not be an essay I would base any lengthy argumentations on -- in any position. In other words, I wouldn't have a flame war over this.
However, considering old 1e modules had names and alignments for even semi-intelligent animals in dungeons, let alone intelligent fantasy ones, that does mean that the initial offerings were a bit more open to license than just "go in, kill 'em, and take their stuff." Parley was a real option. Whether that has evolved over the years into something more binary due to inculcation of video game tropes that's another (potentially interesting!) discussion. But even in the beginning, what was offered and what people did with it often had divergence.
I myself do feel where he's coming from because I'm bored to death from contextless dungeon crawls and endless combat. Why should I care about the game's "win condition" when it is wholly made up? Essentially it's a big, long magic tea party with optional rules, right? And from that viewpoint alone I stand apart from a segment of the rpg community: I have different goals when I role play. Some play to win (whatever that means to them at the time). I play to get lost in a role and explore. Neither is wrong, but we really don't blend well together without concessions.
BTW the OP link is broken, I've done some Google searches, and no sign of the OP rant anywhere but on this very thread... :rolleyes:
Quote from: JimLotFP;477934I don't think that "Orc camp" and "the battlefield" are the same things. If you invade the orc's home, yes there will be women and children, but you're making it sound like the orc raiding party you can meet in a random encounter in the woods will be dragging their brats along. That would be silly.
Remember that in AD&D, monsters had a certain percentage of their treasure "in lair" - meaning that the game literally and specifically encouraged you to track those Orcs back to their village in order to get the rest of your loot.
Also keep in mind that for bigger creatures like giants and dragons, the babies had
combat stats, indicating that in fact the author of the AD&D Monster Manual
did expect you to slaughter women and children at least some times. There were rules for it, after all.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477944the author of the AD&D Monster Manual did expect you to slaughter women and children
Females and young, Frank.
Females and young. :D
Personally I like
spawn for the young 'uns. :p
I think he s assuming all D&D characters (and campaigns) are actually like that in the first place. For example, a Cleric I play in Pundit s FR campaign avoids killing unarmed women and children, plus, the party aren t "heroes" at all. They usually know that what they re doing is wrong, but they simply don t care. Second, I think he s overestimating the impact of the game in our world. It s a game, if it s fun, don t bitch about it so much.
Do you think we should change Grand Theft Auto disks so we can t go on a mindless killing rampage too?Even better, why not make every random encounter in Final Fantasy games have moral choices? I mean, moral choices are usually part of a roleplaying game and what makes it fun, but sometimes the players just want to kick in the door of a dungeon and get every last copper piece there is.
It's just one of those arguments used by the storygames folk to justify liking Baker et al. Which is, of course, a logical fallacy, as usual.
This thread reminds me why I find the alignment idea stupid, inverosimile, and more important, boring.
My problem with Orcs = Evil = kill them all just because, is not a stupid problem like the OOP describes, which I think it happens only in his mind. My problem is one of suspension of disbelief, same as it happens with alignments.
In every species' behavior you have a nature part, and a nurture part. The more intelligent an specie is, the more chances you have of overcoming their insticts through nurture. There are people out there who can raise lions or tigers to be less agressive and not kill humans on the spot, making them into pets.
I'm more than ready to believe that, as John Morrow very well said, a different species may have completely different instincts and tendencies than humans. Maybe orcs have a flight or fight response more strong than humans', or maybe they're just more aggresive and prone to resort to violence. But it seems just unbelievably stupid to me that a natural, normal species would be just evil because my evil-o-meter just says so.
Let us not forget that good and evil are not natural things, they are human constructions that change over time. What was good a few centuries ago it's evil right now. That is why I find absurd to pretend that killing human babies in a war is horrid and killing orc babies in a dungeon crawl is OK.
Quote from: Peregrin;477848If you want to have monsters, that's fine. But once you give those things families, culture, language, and a functioning social unit? They're no longer monsters. So either treat them as literal fucking monsters of chaos or treat them as a developed race. Trying to do it both ways doesn't work.
Also, let us not forget that, for humans, killing is fucking hard.
So yeah, that is my position as well. Orcs may be aggressive, violent, barbaric, and we may have been at war with them for centuries, but as long as they're a sentient race and we can communicate with them (and we can, because you can learn their language) "kill them all" does not need to be the only solution.
QuoteIf you want to deal with situations that involve orc babies and what to do with them, D&D is not the game to do it.
I disagree, precisale for the same reasons Frank Trollman said: if you were playing AD&D or Classic D&D, there were baby orcs becuase the Monster Manual said so, inequivocably. So why not deal with that? It is there.
Quote from: The Butcher;477854You mean in your games, PCs chase down and kill the orc females and little ones?
No, but if they go to an orc lair they can find them. So, there's a choice to make.
QuoteIf you stock a lair with women and children, this sort of thing is bound to happen.
Yep, but that is what the rule book told you to do.
QuoteMind you, even though it's never happened to me, I don't think you're the only one who's been through this. But putting PCs in this sort of situation, awarding them XP for the onslaught and then whining about genocide on the Internet, strikes me as fairly inconsistent.
That is why the OOP is idiotic: whenever the issue came up, I made clear as a GM that there were no XP to be gained from killing defenseless NPCs, humans or not. If you kill them, is purely your decision.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;477866To me it sounds like gamers are adopting the position of the hobby's critics: that the line between what we imagine in the game and what we think in real life will somehow be blurred. I've played mobsters, vikings and thieves and none of these things have intruded into my life or mindset in a negative way. These are make believe settings and adventures. I mean I've run games in settings where monarchies are the norm, this doesn't mean I endorse monarchy.
100% agreement here. The hysterics about what happens in an imaginary situation are idiotic, either if you are a pseudo - intellectual worried about the Orc Genocide, or a Church Lady gamer worrying about Poison'd and alleged neck-raping episodes that may or may not happened.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477896Having a story where people - even the player characters - believe morally objectionable things is fine. Having the game tell you that those morally objectionable things are literally true is not. It's totally fine to play the villains in a WWII RPG. It is not OK to play RaHoWa. The first is roleplaying a wicked character, the second is advocating a wicked position.
Yes, this should be evident.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477922I don't think there is any doubt that Gygax was kind of a dick. But in the AD&D Monster Manual it literally told you how many women, children, and babies were in an Orc camp. The battlefield by default had Orcish babies and noncombatants in it. The question of what to do with them was left to individual play groups, but they were explicitly there.
Later versions of the monster manual shifted the described encounters to "war parties" and as such there were no children in them. But if you played in the 80s, discussion of what to do with the baby kobolds was mandatory. Because they were right there in the encounter description.
Orcs were even fairly explicitly not "all bad", because player characters could have one or more parents who were orcs and orcs were available as followers and mercenaries even for Good fighters. This wasn't even playing against the rules as intended, Robilar had a fucking army of Orcs.
And yet, there it was in the encounter guidelines: There is a group fo Orcs for you to fight, and there are their wives, mothers, sons, and daughters. Also: there are explicitly no guidelines for what you are supposed to do about that. There aren't even a list of options. There are just crying children of the enemy on the battlefield for you to start thinking outside the box about.
A lot of people found that situation unnerving, unheroic, or even nauseating. And it certainly caused a lot of arguments at tables. So it's really not surprising that later editions of D&D really shied away from that scenario.
-Frank
Whenever discussing D&D, is amazing how many players conveniently forget things that were written right there, in the books. Historic revisionism is doing great these days.
Fun Fact: Orcs and even half-orcs in AD&D don't have souls.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/12/16/weird-dd-questions-dungeons-dragons/
Anyway... Personally I don't want heaps of hacked baby orcs, but I wouldn't want a politically correct D&D where the PCs lasso the orcs and give them a sermon on the error of their ways, either. In the real world clashes between different cultures (over territory or whatever) usually generate considerable bloodshed...massive orc death is something I'd expect to see in a fantasy world, given that people historically are more than happy to murder and enslave over the most petty of appearance-based or religion-based issues.
However, I don't think there's a problem with orcs being destroyed by genocide, so much as people have issues with the way the alignment system show that this is a [Good] act. I'm sure someone, somewhere has interpreted their paladin's code of conduct to mean that its an evil act allowing evil to exist by not killing an orc baby when you get the chance.
However, its always seemed to me that D&D deliberately constructs its alignments using a quasi-medieval system, and its one that actually works as a roleplaying tool. A paladin has a (perhaps idealized) crusader's mindset - i.e. killing infidels and monsters for fun and profit is fine, while using poison is morally wrong and disgusting. Its an emulation of the mindset of the period that lets PCs behaving in-character actually have good alignments, instead of having the only LG characters in the campaign be non-adventuring NPCs.
Problems start appearing when you start bringing 20th-century ethics and morality into it. Just as a game set in the 1920s would reasonably have rampant racism and sexism, and a game set in 1 AD slavery is probably considered totally fine, D&D characters should be fine with orc slaying. There are contradictions in how alignment functions and is defined, but real people aren't necessarily consistent either: the definition of how 'Good' works for D&D syncs up reasonably well with a pseudo-historical interpretation, and explicitly does fall apart if you try to view it in line with a deeper philosophical framework.
What is perhaps interesting is that to modern sensibilities, its the Neutral characters who are closer to being actual good guys. The neutrals usually get shown as the ones trying to "balance" good and evil i.e. druids know that [evil] is just the [kill] tag, and are trying to save the orcs from the paladins and vice versa. Dragonlance's "Balance of Good and Evil" is perhaps related, and something that makes no sense using a more philosophical objective view of what is "Good".
Quote from: S'mon;477919You stick your orcs on the borders of the human empires, say in frontier mountain ranges like the Caucasus, or under the ground ('Underdark'). Orcs could also inhabit borderland regions (like The House on the Borderland! :D) - eg you could have human Persian and Indian realms, and Orcs in the Afghanistan-analogue. For a Roman Empire type game, the Orcs are the Germans. Then when the declining Empire starts hiring Orc auxiliaries, you know you're in trouble...
Haha, nice.
Quote from: J Arcane;477906I also agree with this. I have seen the "orc babies" argument a million times in the last two or three decades, but I've yet to see anything like it actually occur in game.
Since people keep claiming this is a myth, I'll add that I've seen this situation come up in actual games going back to D&D games in the 1980s. I've generally played in naturalistic games where the players play in character, wherever that leads, rather than to "win" and the idea that things orcs have to come from somewhere and have lairs that have young is part of that. But what I've generally seen, which mitigates the problem, are orc women and children presented as weaker monsters who will still try to rip your face off rather than frightened and pathetic innocents cowering in fear before the PCs.
Quote from: J Arcane;477906It strikes me as something that would be a surefire calling card that the DM is a dick.
I don't agree. To say that the PCs should never be allowed to encounter orc children because it might make them uncomfortable, to me, is a variation of the same sort of thinking that would claim that the PCs should never fail in a mission to save someone or face death in a combat encounter because it might upset the players. If you want a setting sanitized for your protection, then that's fine and you should feel free to play that way, but to suggest that everyone has to play that way or they are a jerk is as absurd as claiming that any GM willing to let the PCs fail to save an NPC or willing to let a PC die in a meaningless way as the result of bad rolls is a jerk. Yes, some people hate that sort of thing but it doesn't mean that everyone does or should.
Quote from: SineNomine;477837Because making them human makes it impossible to make them Always Chaotic Evil.
That's right. If they were Always Chaotic Evil, THEY'D BE ORCS.
Which is the whole point. I don't think the OP-quote really gives a fuck about "racism" (except maybe in the typical white-guilt sense); what he cares about, what offends his relativist post-modern collapse-of-civilization west-hating sensibilities is the very idea
that something can be evil, and should be fought.
That it can be GOOD to fight against evil, to fight for goodness, to oppose something else that is an evil and would be harmful to our civilization. That's what he hates, because he can't believe himself capable of doing that, because he has no values left in him he's willing to fight for.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Imperator;477957In every species' behavior you have a nature part, and a nurture part. The more intelligent an specie is, the more chances you have of overcoming their insticts through nurture. There are people out there who can raise lions or tigers to be less agressive and not kill humans on the spot, making them into pets.
Correct, but those people still can't turn their backs or let their guard down on those lions and tigers or sleep with them like a house cat. The same is true of chimpanzees once they reach adulthood. Humans cannot coexist with them roaming free because their instincts will inevitably get the best of them.
But I think the bigger issue is that here you seem to assume that the psychology of normal healthy humans is an inevitable byproduct of high intelligence and rational thought and underestimate the role that instincts play in producing normal human decisions and behavior, even though you acknowledge later in this reply when you point out, "for humans, killing is fucking hard".
Yes, killing is hard for normal humans because normal humans have a conscience that makes them feel bad about killing and disgusted by the idea of killing helpless innocent people. But psychopaths don't have that, which is why you'll find them brutally killing helpless innocent people and not feeling bad about it. If an entire species, rather than just a small percentage, have no conscience, then the entire species isn't going to feel bad about killing helpless innocent people, and that has nothing to do with intelligence.
Humans suffer from all sorts of impulses addictions that people are willing to engage in to the detriment of their health and other things that they care about an love. Intelligence doesn't necessarily save people from compulsive behavior or addictions because the problem is willpower, not intelligence. In fact, there are willpower-based tests that humans can pass but chimpanzees cannot pass, not because of an inability to understand the situation but because of a lack of self-restraint. Children below a certain age, even thought they can talk to you and understand the parameters of the test, can also not pass those tests. Self-restraint is not an inevitable byproduct of intelligence and it's not that difficult to imagine fully intelligent creatures who lack self-restraint.
This quote is from one of the articles I linked to below, concerning self-restraint over instincts that illustrates why it shouldn't be assumed to be possible for all creatures:
"
As with other powerful impulses, we try to shut down arousal by calling upon the right superior frontal gyrus and right anterior cingulate gyrus, according to research led by Mario Beauregard of the University of Montreal. He and others propose that these brain areas form a conscious self-regulatory system. This network provides us with the evolutionarily unprecedented ability to control our own neural processing—a feat achieved by no other creature."
If you are interested in the background of my thinking on this, look at the articles and videos here (I've posted most of these in the past here):
How We Think: Brain Researchers Are Using MRI's to Predict Our Decisions Before They Are Made. The Results are Intriguing, and a Little Disturbing (http://www.scn.ucla.edu/reject/12latimes.html)
Whose Life Would You Save? Scientists say morality may be hardwired into our brains by evolution (http://discovermagazine.com/2004/apr/whose-life-would-you-save)
I Didn't Sin—It Was My Brain
Brain researchers have found the sources of many of our darkest thoughts, from envy to wrath (http://discovermagazine.com/2009/sep/05-i-didn.t-sin-it-was-my-brain)
How Psychopaths Threaten Moral Rationalism, or
Is it Irrational to Be Amoral? (http://www.hum.utah.edu/philosophy/faculty/nichols/Papers/PsychopathsFinal.htm)
Introduction from The Sociopath Next Door (http://www.randomhouse.com/book/174276/the-sociopath-next-door-by-martha-stout-phd/9780767920209/?view=excerpt)
Ape Genius from PBS Nova (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3830684889540805606)
(If you want the more scientific peer-reviewed literature, search for the researchers named in these articles and video. Most of them have their papers online.)
Quote from: Imperator;477957I'm more than ready to believe that, as John Morrow very well said, a different species may have completely different instincts and tendencies than humans. Maybe orcs have a flight or fight response more strong than humans', or maybe they're just more aggresive and prone to resort to violence. But it seems just unbelievably stupid to me that a natural, normal species would be just evil because my evil-o-meter just says so.
The idea is that they would be "just evil" because (A) they lack a conscience that makes them feel bad about doing wrong to others, (B) they enjoy causing pain, suffering, and death to others, and (C) they lack the self-restraint and/or desire to behave differently. We can see all of these things in real live violent psychopaths, many of whom are highly intelligent and will clearly tell you that they like the way they are and have no desire to change. I don't find it difficult at all to imagine an entire species with the mental make-up of violent psychopaths any more than I find it difficult to imagine all vampires being bloodthirsty killers who can't control their hunger for human blood or imagine a hoard of zombies lusting after human brains, despite being otherwise intelligent. Heck, in one of the "Living Dead" movies, the zombies were intelligent and articulate enough to use a police radio to ask that more police be sent for them to kill.
Quote from: Imperator;477957Let us not forget that good and evil are not natural things, they are human constructions that change over time. What was good a few centuries ago it's evil right now. That is why I find absurd to pretend that killing human babies in a war is horrid and killing orc babies in a dungeon crawl is OK.
Actually, the core components of morality found in the normal human conscience are fairly consistent and most of what changes over time is how we frame moral problems and define the components. In an earlier thread, Kyle made a distinction between human, animal, and monster. If you get a human to think about an animal as a person, then they will start talking about killing animals as being murder. If you get a human to think about other people as animals, then they will start talking about killing those people the same way they'd talk about slaughtering animals. This is why dehumanizing or depersonalizing the enemy is such an important part of warfare and genocide. This is why personalization and humanization is such an important part of peace movements and charity.
Change the moral distance and you change the moral decision. Have the orc baby lunge at the PCs like a rabid animal and they probably won't be too troubled by cutting it down. Have the orc child look at the PCs with big puppy eyes full of tears and ask the PCs if they are going to kill them like they killed his daddy, and you'll get a different reaction. The core morality doesn't change but the context and emotional response does.
And this is also why I have sympathy for the argument presented at the top of this thread, even though I don't share the sentiment. Most people morally distance monsters to the point where they don't think about them as people. Heck, there are plenty of people who role-play who don't think about any of the characters as people, which is why psychopathic behavior is fairly common in role-playing games. But once you close that distance and start thinking about monsters as people, that does raise troubling moral questions. And that's why a lot of the replies revolve around simply not thinking about the monsters as people.
All of this, by the way, is why the idea that we should make moral and social decisions based only on the facts rather than emotions, a claim that I hear just about everyone making at one point or another, is so dangerous. If you remove emotion from moral and social decisions, you are essentially asking people to make decisions like a psychopath.
I play games as games, not as philosophical experiments. When I play Halo, I don't worry about the implications of my killing aliens, when I play Dungeons and Dragons I don't worry about my killing monsters. Look ethics, philosophy, and theology are all something that one should consider in the real world and the implications of these are great, but sitting around a table and rolling dice while eating chips and drinking Dew isn't going to change the real world. If you want to deal with real world problems, deal with it in the real world where you might actually make a difference. Pretending your elf isn't racist doesn't do a damn bit of good in the real world.
Quote from: RPGPundit;477964That's right. If they were Always Chaotic Evil, THEY'D BE ORCS.
The AD&D Orcs were Lawful Evil.
QuoteWhich is the whole point. I don't think the OP-quote really gives a fuck about "racism" (except maybe in the typical white-guilt sense); what he cares about, what offends his relativist post-modern collapse-of-civilization west-hating sensibilities is the very idea that something can be evil, and should be fought.
That it can be GOOD to fight against evil, to fight for goodness, to oppose something else that is an evil and would be harmful to our civilization. That's what he hates, because he can't believe himself capable of doing that, because he has no values left in him he's willing to fight for.
RPGPundit
This is extremely not what he said. He didn't complain about killing monsters or even stabbing individual villains in the face. Hell, he didn't even complain about killing whole
armies of Orcs. He complained about the setup that encouraged you to kill non-combatant humanoids. That's it. He said that murdering women in children because they were racially inferior has really ugly historical parallels and he doesn't want to do it.
And neither do I. Describing a village with women and children in it and then telling the players that they should murder all those children
because they are evil and inferior is really fucking sick.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477967And neither do I. Describing a village with women and children in it and then telling the players that they should murder all those children because they are evil and inferior is really fucking sick.
-Frank
Fungus orcs man. Fungus orcs. When used on grown men, produces orcs that are nothing but grown men. Good times. I think we can all agree that killing grown men is barely a sin when compared to killing women and children.
Quote from: Cranewings;477968Fungus orcs man. Fungus orcs. When used on grown men, produces orcs that are nothing but grown men. Good times. I think we can all agree that killing grown men is barely a sin when compared to killing women and children.
So it doesn't work on women and children? Women and children vampires and zombies are also off limits, then? And no female demons or devils, either?
Quote from: John Morrow;477969So it doesn't work on women and children? Women and children vampires and zombies are also off limits, then? And no female demons or devils, either?
I figure kids just die from the zombie plague or bite, being too little or having too weak immune systems. The fungus works on women and children. Any turned into orcs will either be strong enough to fight and be dangerous, or useless and killed or left to die before the PC's get there.
Especially heroic PCs might try to get to the orc baby and change it back before the evil wizard full transforms it, has it killed, or turns it loose in his maze:
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-idzbnD1RPMY/Th6e4E0RO4I/AAAAAAAAXN0/MarosZaEFUU/s1600/labyrinth_jim_henson_movie_poster.jpg)
Quote from: RPGPundit;477964That's right. If they were Always Chaotic Evil, THEY'D BE ORCS.
Which is the whole point. I don't think the OP-quote really gives a fuck about "racism" (except maybe in the typical white-guilt sense); what he cares about, what offends his relativist post-modern collapse-of-civilization west-hating sensibilities is the very idea that something can be evil, and should be fought.
That it can be GOOD to fight against evil, to fight for goodness, to oppose something else that is an evil and would be harmful to our civilization. That's what he hates, because he can't believe himself capable of doing that, because he has no values left in him he's willing to fight for.
RPGPundit
I'm pretty sure he thinks Racism is evil, and should be fought.
In fact I expect he thinks there should be a boot stamping on the face of Racism, forever.
Quote from: Cranewings;477968Fungus orcs man. Fungus orcs. When used on grown men, produces orcs that are nothing but grown men. Good times. I think we can all agree that killing grown men is barely a sin when compared to killing women and children.
Jeez, I hope that's a joke.
Quote from: Cranewings;477971(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-idzbnD1RPMY/Th6e4E0RO4I/AAAAAAAAXN0/MarosZaEFUU/s1600/labyrinth_jim_henson_movie_poster.jpg)
Slightly OT - I watched that movie again the other day and a) it has held up REALLY well (unlike say, the Dark Crystal) and the whole time I was watching I thought it'd make a pretty great D&D adventure.
Quote from: CranewingsFungus orcs man. Fungus orcs. When used on grown men, produces orcs that are nothing but grown men. Good times. I think we can all agree that killing grown men is barely a sin when compared to killing women and children.
Quote from: S'mon;477974Jeez, I hope that's a joke.
That is actually how Warhammer decided to address the problem. They announced that their orcs grew out of the ground, fully formed and ready to eat humans. That way you didn't have to worry about all the widows and bereft mothers you were making when you slaughtered a couple hundred Orcs, because they
had no families.
Basically there are things we feel good about stabbing in the face (zombies, robots, evil plants), things we feel reasonably solid about stabbing in the face (Nazis, vampires, demons), and things that we have various levels of moral qualms about stabbing in the face. It's a fine line that runs between enemy soldier, enemy child soldier, and just plain child that happens to be on the other side. AD&D pissed all over that line. Repeatedly. Figuring out how to plant one's self firmly on the side of the line where we feel comfortable has been a major factor in much of the last 30 years of D&D evolution.
-Frank
Quote from: S'mon;477942BTW the OP link is broken, I've done some Google searches, and no sign of the OP rant anywhere but on this very thread... :rolleyes:
That's because it was copy-and-pasted here from a private conversation.
Quote from: J Arcane;477982That's because it was copy-and-pasted here from a private conversation.
That doesn't seem like a very nice thing to do.
Quote from: John Morrow;477883A great deal hinges on the "free will" and just how free anyone's will is. Most normal people have a conscience that constrains what they will willingly consider and do, which is why large scale warfare and genocide has often included dehumanizing the enemy and modern military training is designed to make soldiers act without thinking through the moral implications of what they are doing. The purpose of that is to get their consciences out of the way so they don't constrain their choices away from killing the enemy, because the truth is that "free will" isn't entirely free. And we can see the consequences of not having a conscience in the choices and behavior of psychopaths, whom I would argue have fewer constraints on their choices and more "free will". That's the point of the quote I posted earlier from the The Sociopath Next Door (http://www.randomhouse.com/book/174276/the-sociopath-next-door-by-martha-stout-phd#excerpt). Psychopaths "are completely free of internal restraints" with "unhampered liberty to do just as [they] please, with no pangs of conscience". And please note that I believe it takes more than simply being a psychopath to make one evil.
While I think there is truth to that, I do not think the option "Because they're evil psychopaths" is inherently puerile. That so many people here seem to have trouble imagining how an entire species of evil psychopaths could survive and even thrive, I'm tempted to argue that it may be more challenging to understand how such a species could make sense than to just treat them as funny looking people. And I think it's no less boring or simplistic than assuming that every villain or malicious species has a rational and understandable motive that explains their evil behavior and that sufficient investigation and negotiation can resolve the problem and everyone could live happily ever after. I don't think there should always be a non-violent solution to problems, but should point out that even when the opponent is inherently and irredeemably Evil, non-violent and negotiated outcomes are not impossible.
Even where the PCs know that the a certain species is inherently and irredeemably Evil, the GM can still play on their sympathies. In the D&D 3.5 campaign I ran, Evil NPCs begged for mercy, tried to make deals to have their lives spared, and otherwise played on the sympathies or pragmatic needs of the PCs to make the choice to kill or spare them more complex than a no-brainer. In the case where the PCs did exterminate an entire goblin lair, knowing full well that it was morally acceptable in the game and all but forced into it by goblin young and females attacking the PCs in a desperate attempt to escape, there was no cheering. The mood, when it was over, was grim.
I was fully aware of what I was doing when I made certain species in my D&D 3.5 campaign inherently and irredeemably Evil, I understood what it meant to do so, and I gave them plausible social structures such that I could tell you exactly how the goblin den exterminated by the PCs was organized, how they reproduced and survived, why the mothers drove their own young into the PCs, and so on. After all, I'm the guy who wrote the population and economics essays that appeared in the Tribe 8 Companion, which started out as my attempt to make the setting and societies plausibly functional. The whole reason I wound up researching psychopathic criminals was so that I could really understand the mindset behind evil and how such a species might work.
As much as I have complained that people confuse naughty and evil and make evil bad guys sufficiently evil, I think that people also confuse nice and good and label characters Good who do not qualify for that label. The vast majority of role-playing games are about Neutral characters (perhaps on the Good side of Neutral but still Neutral) doing things for pragmatic rather than altruistic reasons. Even in Dexter's case, from what I've heard (since I don't watch it), they overestimate his consideration for others by assuming that he could develop real emotional attachments to a wife and family, something psychopaths don't do. One of my favorite quotes from the article Psychopaths Among Us (http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html), because it so perfectly captures the implications of a total lack of any emotional attachment, involves a psychopath talking about his mother. "[M]y mother, the most beautiful person in the world. She was strong, she worked hard to take care of four kids. A beautiful person. I started stealing her jewellery when I was in the fifth grade. You know, I never really knew the bitch -- we went our separate ways."
That said, I think one could certainly constrain Good to having the authority to kill those who have only actually done something Evil and reserve the Evil alignment (and aura) in D&D for those who have actually done something Evil, such that Orc babies and perhaps even Orc females wouldn't actually rate Evil and it would be wrong to kill them. If I were to run another D&D 3.5 game, I might choose that option for a variety of reasons, but I don't think that's the only option. I think it's perfectly plausible to make an Evil alignment an attribute of creatures who are inherently and irredeemably Evil and to explain why exterminating them is the morally acceptable and sound decision in that setting.
As I mentioned in an earlier thread, if you can't coexist with an inherently Evil species, what are the alternatives to extermination? Reservations? Internment camps? Don't those push psychological buttons comparable to those pushed by genocide? And if you do consider those preferable, what are you condemning those confined to such spaces to, given that the only ones they can prey on will be others of their own kind?
Good post. I agree with you here.
My issue with intelligent evil races isn't that you can't have them, not at all its that if you choose to have them then you create a dilema for your PCs in that it is not acceptable to kill them for fun and sport. This creates dilemas for the PCs I always try to create Dilemas for the PCs.
Someone posted that crusaders were Good because they were "allowed" to kill pagan children. That is like saying Jyhadist Suicide Bombers are good....
So my point would be that your good PCs have to know what the game you are running is about because D&D, and most other games as written, do not have good protagonists. Remember the Paladin rule ... what would Captain America do.
The assumption that intelligence automatically makes morality is as adorable as the previous assumption that family does.
You people really have surprisingly limited imaginations.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477981That is actually how Warhammer decided to address the problem...
I actually meant I hoped he was joking about it being barely a sin to kill grown men compared to killing women and children. It's one thing if the grown men are trying to kill _you_ at the time, but otherwise that kind of thinking leads to Srebrenica.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477967The AD&D Orcs were Lawful Evil.
That's really beside the point.
QuoteThis is extremely not what he said. He didn't complain about killing monsters or even stabbing individual villains in the face. Hell, he didn't even complain about killing whole armies of Orcs. He complained about the setup that encouraged you to kill non-combatant humanoids. That's it. He said that murdering women in children because they were racially inferior has really ugly historical parallels and he doesn't want to do it.
And neither do I. Describing a village with women and children in it and then telling the players that they should murder all those children because they are evil and inferior is really fucking sick.
-Frank
Its arguing a moral dilemma that no one in the real world has; if you're anyone other than a nazi. No one would argue for the extermination of other human beings, because we understand that Orcs and human beings are two different things.
Now, don't get me wrong, you can run a game where there are varying degrees of humanoid "nature": in my FR campaign, as one of my players here pointed out on this very thread, I made it clear from the start that while all goblinoids tend to have characteristics that would make them, at best, psychopaths by human standards, they are not inherently impossible to contain within civilization. The city where they started out, Tantras, had a certain minority of orcs and goblins living in the city and working as mercenaries for the overlord; they knew of other cities, particularly places known to be less moral, where goblinoids played a major part of the military forces of an otherwise human-centered polis. So when the PC party went into a goblin/hobgoblin cave complex with some fanatical Dwarven warriors, they knew that there could be some question as to whether it was really considered preferable to slaughter the goblin women and children (like the Dwarves wanted) or to just leave them be (which was ultimately what the PCs wanted, and leading to them leaving the Orcs behind).
But the other end of the spectrum, what we see in games like WFRP, or my Dark Albion campaign, is one where goblinoid creatures are not human-like at all, they are creatures of Chaos, pure evil, and to spare one's life is not an act of mercy or goodness but is instead likely to be a direct source of responsibility for the lives that goblinoid is likely to take in the future, because those creatures can't do otherwise than kill. They cannot be "civilized", they cannot be anything other than what they are.
The point missed in all of this is that goblinoids are not meant to be analogies for some kind of human group here, they're not jews or gypsies or black people; they are symbolic of certain moral concepts; of chaos, of barbarism, of evil, of greed, of bloodlust, whatever. This is such a big problem for some people because they cannot grasp the concept of there being absolute truths out there. So instead, they want to create a moral gray area where there is none.
RPGPundit
Quote from: S'mon;477972I'm pretty sure he thinks Racism is evil, and should be fought.
In fact I expect he thinks there should be a boot stamping on the face of Racism, forever.
Except that if you have no other actual values, if you hold no convictions, then your dislike of racism amounts to an intense "personal preference"; you have no true ethical basis from which to oppose it. If you attempt to deny the reality of things like self-evident truths or inalienable rights, then the most you could muster is a strongly held personal
"opinion" that "racism is bad", which you would have no more capacity to argue should be made binding on society than your personal dislike of carrots or rainy days.
RPGPundit
Moral absolutes and absolutes in general are boring. Angels are more interesting when they fall. Heroes are more interesting when they have flaws. Villains are more interesting when they have a few positive traits. Even cannon fodder are more interesting if they're motivations are well thought out.
On the other hand Afternoon Tea the roleplaying game is mostly popular with little girls and getting overly caught up in the moral implications of violence would get us all labelled as pedophiles.
Quote from: John Morrow;477965Yes, killing is hard for normal humans because normal humans have a conscience that makes them feel bad about killing and disgusted by the idea of killing helpless innocent people. But psychopaths don't have that, which is why you'll find them brutally killing helpless innocent people and not feeling bad about it. If an entire species, rather than just a small percentage, have no conscience, then the entire species isn't going to feel bad about killing helpless innocent people, and that has nothing to do with intelligence.
Given a fantasy world, certainly you can come up with explanation about how evil is baked into the genes of orcs such that they're irredeemably evil. I'm not sure that changes my view of things. Supposing I'm a player in a game, and I had the choice of two characters:
1) A hero that is rationally convinced based on evidence that orcs were irredeemably evil such that slitting the throats of helpless orc prisoners is the moral thing to do.
2) A hero who has some moral qualms about slitting prisoner's throats, but does it anyway because he's self-serving.
While choice #1 does make the hero in the right technically, it makes me a little uncomfortable to play because the only real-world parallels I can think of are yucky ones. I have regularly played fanatics, so I would play #1 in some cases, but for me it is a little easier to play #2.
QuoteSo it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn. And I've played this way for decades and mostly just looked the other way or found various rationalizations and justifications for it.
White guilt + whining + two semesters of sociology courses = no fun allowed.
Quote from: RPGpunditThe point missed in all of this is that goblinoids are not meant to be analogies for some kind of human group here, they're not jews or gypsies or black people; they are symbolic of certain moral concepts; of chaos, of barbarism, of evil, of greed, of bloodlust, whatever. This is such a big problem for some people because they cannot grasp the concept of there being absolute truths out there. So instead, they want to create a moral gray area where there is none.
For once, someone fucking nails it.
There's more kinds of symbolism and analogy than simply "These people stand for these other people."
Quote from: Imperator;477957Let us not forget that good and evil are not natural things, they are human constructions that change over time. What was good a few centuries ago it's evil right now. That is why I find absurd to pretend that killing human babies in a war is horrid and killing orc babies in a dungeon crawl is OK.
Except that in a
fantasy world Good and Evil
are natural things. Gods
do exist, and the answer to "Why do good Gods let evil things happen?" is "They don't, they have people in the world (Clerics, Paladins, etc) who do the God's will and stop Evil things from happening, by killing Evil beings who do those things.
Some humanoid races may simply have different psychologies that makes them more violent, competitive, whatever. Basically their biological DNA. You don't keep wolverines, tasmanian devils, or great white sharks around the house for kiddies to play with. You get a dog.
Some humanoid races may have a nature that is truly Evil, because they are essentially children of an Evil god. Call it their spiritual DNA. Their essential nature is Evil and always will be.
I find it weird how people can so completely divorce themselves from the belief that gods are real, even in a role-playing scenario.
Quote from: RPGPundit;478003The point missed in all of this is that goblinoids are not meant to be analogies for some kind of human group here, they're not jews or gypsies or black people; they are symbolic of certain moral concepts; of chaos, of barbarism, of evil, of greed, of bloodlust, whatever. This is such a big problem for some people because they cannot grasp the concept of there being absolute truths out there. So instead, they want to create a moral gray area where there is none.
RPGPundit
I would say that for some it's not that they cannot grasp it, but they actually deny it.
To be fair, most people do this because the human race has a long and storied history here on earth of creating absolute truth where there is none, in order to justify every crime you can think of against other humans.
I try to separate my own 21st century religious/political/whatever baggage from my character when I roleplay. I'm not always successful, but that's the goal.
Quote from: jhkim;4780091) A hero that is rationally convinced based on evidence that orcs were irredeemably evil such that slitting the throats of helpless orc prisoners is the moral thing to do.
2) A hero who has some moral qualms about slitting prisoner's throats, but does it anyway because he's self-serving.
While choice #1 does make the hero in the right technically, it makes me a little uncomfortable to play because the only real-world parallels I can think of are yucky ones. I have regularly played fanatics, so I would play #1 in some cases, but for me it is a little easier to play #2.
Now this is an incredibly honest post. :hatsoff:
Bound or unarmed prisoners, noncombatant females and young are helpless, or almost helpless. Killing helpless monsters is worth no xp, and almost helpless monsters very little xp. This is plain in xp guidelines in older editions of D&D.
Thus, the rules of older editions of D&D do not support war crimes or genocide. Killing prisoners, noncombatant females and children is like rape or pooing on a healing god's altar: the PCs can do it if they want to, but the rules will not reward them for being sickos.
Indeed, some editions don't reward killing even combatant monsters, but rather defeating or avoiding them.
The rules thus support cunning, tactics and sensible plans towards a particular goal.
Of course if you choose to ignore the rules and fail to reward with xp PCs who defeat or avoid monsters without killing them, and give them heaps of xp for butchering prisoners, noncombatant females and young, then you have only yourself to blame when your sicko players do sicko stuff, and you are a fucking moron who should be playing Forger games instead.
Quote from: jhkim;478009Given a fantasy world, certainly you can come up with explanation about how evil is baked into the genes of orcs such that they're irredeemably evil. I'm not sure that changes my view of things. Supposing I'm a player in a game, and I had the choice of two characters:
1) A hero that is rationally convinced based on evidence that orcs were irredeemably evil such that slitting the throats of helpless orc prisoners is the moral thing to do.
2) A hero who has some moral qualms about slitting prisoner's throats, but does it anyway because he's self-serving.
While choice #1 does make the hero in the right technically, it makes me a little uncomfortable to play because the only real-world parallels I can think of are yucky ones. I have regularly played fanatics, so I would play #1 in some cases, but for me it is a little easier to play #2.
In my original replies to this thread, I acknowledged understanding why people see real-world parallels and why it could make them uncomfortable. The goal of racists and other bigots is often to present all members of their hated group as inherently inferior and/or monstrous and it's no accident that the monstrous attributes that they draw upon to create fear an loathing (e.g., stupidity, ugliness, aggression, eagerness to rape, an so on) are the same attributes given to orcs and other monsters in D&D and other works of fantasy to make them subjects of fear and loathing. But giving the monsters of a game those attributes and then not making them actual monsters raises other questions.
Why do Orcs in D&D 3.5 have inferior Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma in exchange for brutish Strength? Doesn't that create some nasty real-world parallels, too? And how would an entire species that's objectively less intelligent, wise, and likable fit into a world's social milieu? If you want to excise the nasty real world parallels from your game, I'm left wondering how a species nasty stupid humanoid brutes, or many of them, have any role in it at all. If they aren't there to be monsters, then what are they there for? To make privileged adventurers feel human, elf, or dwarf guilt?
I also think you are missing a third option...
3) A hero that is rationally convinced based on evidence that orcs are irredeemably evil such that slitting the throats of helpless orc prisoners is the moral thing to do, but is still deeply emotionally troubled when required to do so.
So what's the benefit of having objectively and irredeemably Evil monsters in the first place? The reason for that can be found in
Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering (quoted from your page on it (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/robinslaws.html)):
"
The Butt-Kicker wants to let off steam with a little old-fashioned vicarious mayhem. He picks a simple, combat-ready character, whether or not that is the best route to power and success in the system. After a long day in the office or classroom, he wants his character to clobber foes and once more prove his superiority over all who would challenge him. He may care enough about the rules to make his PC an optimal engine of destruction, or may be indifferent to them, so long as he gets to hit things. He expects you to provide his character plenty of chances to engage in the aforementioned clobbering and superiority."
Basically, objectively and irredeemable evil monsters simplify the moral landscape for the player and green-light butt-kicking as a way to solve problems.
Quote from: David Johansen;478008Moral absolutes and absolutes in general are boring. Angels are more interesting when they fall. Heroes are more interesting when they have flaws. Villains are more interesting when they have a few positive traits. Even cannon fodder are more interesting if they're motivations are well thought out.
To be honest with you, I get the feeling that every writer today has learned that same lesson in school and when every hero has a flaw, every villain has a positive trait, and the cannon fodder all turn out to be real people, too, that becomes quite boring to me, too. For example, I was more interested in Jonathan Kent in Smallville when he was noble and near-perfect than after they gave him the obligatory flaws. I was more interested in Darth Vader in Star Wars than after George Lucas gave him a heart of gold at the end of Return of the Jedi and then gave us three more movies of his backstory so we could understand his motivations. In fact, writers have gotten to the point where they pile so many flaws on their heroes that many shows are being filled with unlikeable jerks who I don't care about. By the end of the new Battlestar Galactica, I was wishing that the mutineers would have just killed off the main characters and would have enjoyed a Blake's 7 style ending.
Resolved the issue with my players. Turned out to be a slight misunderstanding between the players, rather than an objection to the game. The non-gamers took one of the gamers' really dry attempt at humor ("Let's just slaughter them") as SOP for some groups, and took offense to that, not the mere presence of kobold young.
We've all agreed that anyone slaughtering helpless creatures will get the word "PUSSY" stamped on their character sheet, and to hire a humor coach for the one gamer, because his delivery sucks.
Wow coming in late, but for my response, the quoted post seems to assumes the thought process of the PCs and/or their patrons is
Orcs are evil->therefore they must be slain
Now I can see how in that over-simplification where the "racism" is. Who says orcs are evil?
In reality, the situation presented by a DM worth his salt goes something like this:
Orcs are evil->orcs are aggressive and a problem for all other races->other races must deal with them.
Evil isn't a label in the context of the game worlds. It's a fact. You can't just ignore them. You can't just play nice. The problem Adam Dray has here is that he assumes evil means what it does by spoken by small-minded people on earth here today: someone they don't like.
In other words, he's ignoring the whole premise of the problem.
Quote from: Peregrin;478022Resolved the issue with my players. Turned out to be a slight misunderstanding between the players, rather than an objection to the game. The non-gamers took one of the gamers' really dry attempt at humor ("Let's just slaughter them") as SOP for some groups, and took offense to that, not the mere presence of kobold young.
We've all agreed that anyone slaughtering helpless creatures will get the word "PUSSY" stamped on their character sheet, and to hire a humor coach for the one gamer, because his delivery sucks.
Actions have consequences, it would be interesting if your characters come back around to this area again 10 years later and have to deal with seeing the area decimated by the next generation of humanoids. The mayor who claimed them heroes now cursing them because his grand-daughter was butchered makes for a nice scene.
Someone who is afraid to make the hard choice is a coward as well. :D
Glad your group worked it out to their satisfaction, every table deals with this stuff their own way.
This thread's participation is awesome.
(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100911154233/lotr/images/1/1d/Lord-of-the-rings-orcs.jpg)
"Listen, and understand. Those orcs are out there.
They can't be bargained with.
They can't be reasoned with.
They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear.
And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."
Quote from: CRKrueger;478024Actions have consequences, it would be interesting if your characters come back around to this area again 10 years later and have to deal with seeing the area decimated by the next generation of humanoids. The mayor who claimed them heroes now cursing them because his grand-daughter was butchered makes for a nice scene.
Someone who is afraid to make the hard choice is a coward as well. :D
Glad your group worked it out to their satisfaction, every table deals with this stuff their own way.
I don't know if they've thought that far ahead, or ever will. They're a fairly selfish party -- they'd rather get loot and bail.
We're also talking about a group made up of PCs named Nads, Ned, Lars, Thefe (the Thief), and Dat Ho.
Oh, well Nads is dead. 2 HP at first level wasn't such a good thing for the poor fighter.
This thread reminds me of a DS9 episode:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Abandoned_%28episode%29
In short, the station picks up a genetically engineered warrior and half of them are pulling this whole "nobody is irredeemibly evil" schtick only to find out that in fact, he is unfailingly violent and hazardous.
Quote from: John Morrow;478021To be honest with you, I get the feeling that every writer today has learned that same lesson in school and when every hero has a flaw, every villain has a positive trait, and the cannon fodder all turn out to be real people, too, that becomes quite boring to me, too.
Yup, I hear you and bleeding heart political correctness is trying to poison everything in the world to be sure.
But I'm talking about depth and reasons.
There's a far cry between an interesting villain and a milksop whiner like Anakin.
The difference between a hero and a villain is that a hero will sacrifice even himself to prevent atrocities and a villain seldom even needs to rationalize them. But yeah the villain might love puppies and the hero might hate them. The difference lies in the willingness to sacrifice everything to do the right thing.
Hanibal Lecter's mannered and well groomed civility only serves to make him more chilling. Adrian Vedit's beauty and visionary altruism only makes him more repulsive.
Quote from: RPGPunditThe point missed in all of this is that goblinoids are not meant to be analogies for some kind of human group here, they're not jews or gypsies or black people; they are symbolic of certain moral concepts; of chaos, of barbarism, of evil, of greed, of bloodlust, whatever. This is such a big problem for some people because they cannot grasp the concept of there being absolute truths out there. So instead, they want to create a moral gray area where there is none.
That's charmingly naive, but here are the old Ral Partha Orcs:
(http://www.mhorann.demon.co.uk/figpics/ral-partha-orcs.jpg)
Yes, there has been a concerted movement to make them the "Greenskins" that are
no longer associated with any human ethnic group. But let's be honest here: in the old days Orcs were Black people and you were supposed to kill their females and young when you found their villages.
And just in case you try to weasel out that you were talking about
goblins (even though in AD&D Goblins and Orcs were all the same "giant class" of humanoid), let's look at the old Hobgoblins:
(http://www.otherworld.me.uk/images/Hobgobgrouppaint1_t.jpg)
They were
explicitly Orientals. Hell, that hasn't even changed. Even Games Workshop still talks about Hobgobla-Khans.
But detaching Orcs from analogies to real world peoples is part of the (quite commendable) movement to make Dungeons & Dragons less morally reprehensible. So if you get upset at people who want to make the Orcs more complex so there is a reason why you'd kill some and not all (thereby making it less about genocide), why the fuck aren't you upset at
your own fucking revisionism where you deny the real-world human racial origins of the fantasy races?
-Frank
Quote from: John Morrow;478019In my original replies to this thread, I acknowledged understanding why people see real-world parallels and why it could make them uncomfortable. The goal of racists and other bigots is often to present all members of their hated group as inherently inferior...
I understand the 'Evil/Monstrous' = 'OK to Kill' idea, but I don't really understand how you get from 'inferior' to implying 'should be killed'? 3e D&D advocates that Halflings should be killed because they have a -2 STR penalty? Dwarves must die due to their -2 CHA? Is 'inferior' here used as a Term of Art rather than in its normal meaning?
IRL 'inferior' might be taken to imply 'ok to enslave', as with common Bantu attitudes to Pygmies - 'they're smaller & weaker, it's ok to enslave them' but generally not 'should be killed'. It usually seems to be more feelings that the other group is
superior in some way - no doubt 'undesevered' superiority - that incites murderous feelings in humans: Nazi resentment of Jews, various SE Asian groups' resentment of diaspora Chinese, Hutu resentment of Tutsis. Arguably D&D does do this with a few monsters like Mind Flayers - "they're controlling our minds!" - but with Orcs it's not their superiority nor their inferiority that makes killing them advisable, it's their status as a direct threat.
Quote from: John Morrow;478021By the end of the new Battlestar Galactica, I was wishing that the mutineers would have just killed off the main characters and would have enjoyed a Blake's 7 style ending.
I'm with you there! After a few seasons of new BG I was strongly feeling "These jerks don't
deserve to survive!" - in fact I got quite resentful at the writers keeping such no-hopers alive, when IRL they'd have had to shape up fast or die off equally quickly - without script immunity they'd never get through 4 seasons of BG as the complete no-hopers we see on screen.
Quote from: Benoist;478025This thread's participation is awesome.
It seems a lot more mature than what you normally see on such threads.
Imagine this thread on rpgnet! :eek:
Quote from: John Morrow;478019So what's the benefit of having objectively and irredeemably Evil monsters in the first place? The reason for that can be found in Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering (quoted from your page on it (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/robinslaws.html)):
"The Butt-Kicker wants to let off steam with a little old-fashioned vicarious mayhem. He picks a simple, combat-ready character, whether or not that is the best route to power and success in the system. After a long day in the office or classroom, he wants his character to clobber foes and once more prove his superiority over all who would challenge him. He may care enough about the rules to make his PC an optimal engine of destruction, or may be indifferent to them, so long as he gets to hit things. He expects you to provide his character plenty of chances to engage in the aforementioned clobbering and superiority."
Basically, objectively and irredeemable evil monsters simplify the moral landscape for the player and green-light butt-kicking as a way to solve problems.
I can buy that
some butt-kicking players prefer orcs to be irredeemably evil. However, that green light isn't universal.
Maybe I'm not in Robin Laws' Butt-kicking category, but like I said, I'm actually
more comfortable playing a self-serving hero who is willing to slaughter barbarous orcs just to drive them off and take their stuff, as opposed to a righteous hero who slaughters orcs because he feels that is the morally right thing to do. The latter actually feels more twisted to me. I don't speak for everyone, but my impression is that many butt-kicker players are like this. That is, they are quite comfortable with their PCs being morally grey or even black.
This isn't a contradiction - but a caveat. Just make sure that if this is the solution suggested, that it is really addressing what your butt-kickers want. Actually, I'd be curious to see a poll - formal or informal - of people's preferences.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478035That's charmingly naive, but here are the old Ral Partha Orcs:
(http://www.mhorann.demon.co.uk/figpics/ral-partha-orcs.jpg)
Yes, there has been a concerted movement to make them the "Greenskins" that are no longer associated with any human ethnic group. But let's be honest here: in the old days Orcs were Black people and you were supposed to kill their females and young when you found their villages.
And just in case you try to weasel out that you were talking about goblins (even though in AD&D Goblins and Orcs were all the same "giant class" of humanoid), let's look at the old Hobgoblins:
SNIP
They were explicitly Orientals. Hell, that hasn't even changed. Even Games Workshop still talks about Hobgobla-Khans.
But detaching Orcs from analogies to real world peoples is part of the (quite commendable) movement to make Dungeons & Dragons less morally reprehensible. So if you get upset at people who want to make the Orcs more complex so there is a reason why you'd kill some and not all (thereby making it less about genocide), why the fuck aren't you upset at your own fucking revisionism where you deny the real-world human racial origins of the fantasy races?
-Frank
Your arguement is specious. Ral Partha did not write D&D and I find it very hard to swallow that a subset of orc miniatures can bring racism into the game. Only in your own imagination are orcs black people.
But lets look at some other examples of humanoids from back then, shall we? So that we do not blindly accept your own cherry-picked crap as truth. Check out this blog known as Back in '81 (http://backin81.blogspot.com/2009/04/gonna-paint-me-some-old-lead-minispig.html).
Here, I'll make it easy and just link some of the images:
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YZQKE8VlNxg/SfD71Tv03yI/AAAAAAAAAo0/xYTJzdr6Br4/s320/pigfaced+orc+d%26d+toon.bmp)
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YZQKE8VlNxg/SfDckBP5rpI/AAAAAAAAAk4/mP6SKYwIa4Y/s320/otherworld+minis+orc.jpg)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YZQKE8VlNxg/SfDc0fD5K2I/AAAAAAAAAlI/f2wcCk4WFWY/s320/otherworld+minis+orc+wife+WTF.jpg)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YZQKE8VlNxg/SfDcs5uDY0I/AAAAAAAAAlA/GYKEgIsjCCo/s320/otherworld+minis+orcs+group2.jpg)
Oh My Fucking God! Lookit All Them Pig-Faced Orcs!!
Wait, where did these pig-faced orc miniatures come from?
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YZQKE8VlNxg/SfDZ_-Fta9I/AAAAAAAAAko/W3xLXRUz-CI/s320/tsr+minis+monster+tribes+front.jpg)
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YZQKE8VlNxg/SfDaDOhZKrI/AAAAAAAAAkw/bmiBcvW-38c/s320/tsr+minis+monster+tribes+back.jpg)
Holy Shit! These Are Official TSR Orcs!
And not a one of them looks like a black person.
Hmm, how are orcs depicted in the AD&D
Monster Manual?
(http://i.somethingawful.com/u/sumner/earlyorcs.gif)
Hell, the pig-faced orc meme has even invaded my beloved
Star Wars by the time that
Return of the Jedi came out! Allow me to present, the Gamorreans!
(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060813142538/starwars/images/thumb/2/23/Gamorrean_Guard_with_Axe.jpg/298px-Gamorrean_Guard_with_Axe.jpg)
So Frank, please tell me where the real-world pig-faced people are who the orc is based off of you sorry fucking retard. To them pig-faces, I will personally apologize for all the rotten stereotyping we have done in our games.
EDIT: Oh shit! I almost forgot
The Orcs of Thar module!
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/GAZ10_TSR9241_The_Orcs_Of_Thar.jpg)
Quote from: wikipediaAccording to Lawrence Schick, in his 1991 book Heroic Worlds, The Orcs of Thar is "written in a humorous style that presents orcs as lovable goofballs who just happen to enjoy slaughter and pillage".
It should probably be noted that Frank Trollman wrote for Shadowrun, a game that more than any other ever written explicitly draws parallels between it's handling of non-human races, including Orcs, and real world racism in the most hamfisted way imaginable.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478035(http://www.otherworld.me.uk/images/Hobgobgrouppaint1_t.jpg)
They were explicitly Orientals.
So were Tolkien's Orcs - he said they looked like Mongols, though they spoke like Cockneys. GW Orcs follow Tolkien in being British Urban Proletariat - 'Chavs' as we now call them. Of course this has little emotional resonance for Americans, who go with "Orcs = Blacks" or, more plausibly, "Orcs = Red Indians". AD&D pig-faced Orcs don't look or behave anything like* either Africans or Amerindians, but their place in the 1e 'Old West Frontier' cowboy paradigm is clearly that of the Red Indians, not the Negros. I've never seen anything like that Ral Partha Orc pic before, whereas the Oriental hobgoblins are straight out of the 1e MM.
*1e Orcs wear the same armours (ring, scale) and use the same weapons (pole arms, crossbows) as the humans, though dirty and poorly maintained. They live either in cave complexes or fortified villages with catapults and ballistae. The Savage Orcs of 3e & 4e are a recent innovation.
Edit: I see Jeff beat me to it, only far less politely, and with pictures. :)
Frank resorting to selective citation to prove a point? Well I never! :hatsoff:
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478035*snip*
But detaching Orcs from analogies to real world peoples is part of the (quite commendable) movement to make Dungeons & Dragons less morally reprehensible. So if you get upset at people who want to make the Orcs more complex so there is a reason why you'd kill some and not all (thereby making it less about genocide), why the fuck aren't you upset at your own fucking revisionism where you deny the real-world human racial origins of the fantasy races?
-Frank
can't let this one slide
:huhsign:
Talk about revisionism...the orcs in 1ed AD&D MM looked like
PIGS not "black people"...and the RP orc minis I have are from the 70's early 80's and do not look anything like those pictured. How "old" are those minis I wonder....:hmm:
I have been collecting RP minis over 30 years and have never seen these so this is perplexing!
Can you provide any more info on these figs.?
And Orcs don't have souls so kill them all and let Gruumsh sort them out (Thanks for that interesting link BloodyStupid) and seeins how they are all Lawful Evil or whatever this should be easy.
The logic of the game is under your controll...
:)
EDIT: I see others have been faster on the keyboard regarding this post by FT...nice job!
Quote from: skofflox;478045I have been collecting RP minis over 30 years and have never seen these so this is perplexing!
Can you provide any more info on these figs.?
Yeah, I suspect those 'RP' Orc minis are highly modified from the release version.
Quote from: David Johansen;478033Yup, I hear you and bleeding heart political correctness is trying to poison everything in the world to be sure.
Someone (if they haven't already) needs to go watch some
Breaking Bad.
Quote from: S'mon;478046Yeah, I suspect those 'RP' Orc minis are highly modified from the release version.
this was my initial thought as well.
that shield is very suspect...I don't think it's stock...
It always amuses me when people attempt to project their racial prejudices onto others. We have become so indoctrinated into a "racially aware" narrative that everything must have some sort of racial undertones. My favorite is when one of my naive countrymen starts ranting about how Tolkien was racist because orcs are clearly a metaphor for black people and elves represent the superior Aryan ubermensch without realizing that Tolkien was a British anti-industrialist. Really, I think that immediately interpreting the savage, bloodthirsty orcs as being African-Americans tells us more about the racial scholars than it does about Tolkien.
But I digress. Frank is wrong, as anyone with a basic history of D&D would know.
QuoteOrcs vary widely in appearance, as they frequently crossbreed with other species. In general, they resemble primitive humans with grey-green skin covered with coarse hair. Orcs have a slightly stooped posture, a low jutting forehead, and a snout instead of a nose, though comparisons between this facial feature and those of pigs are exaggerated and perhaps unfair.
And another picture, this one from the D&D cartoon:
(http://www.80sanimation.com/dungeons-dragons/sg/orcs.jpg)
Quote from: skofflox;478045And Orcs don't have souls so kill them all and let Gruumsh sort them out
In 1e AD&D only Men, Dwarves and Halflings have Souls. Orcs, Elves and everybody else have Spirits, and are not subject to a 'raise dead' spell.
Funny if you read these posts back and you were an orc you would think this was an Elf Supremist site .....
JM hints at it but effectively all the comments from "Orcs are irredeemibly Evil", to "Orcs are inferior and brutish", to "it's our moral obligation to eliminate them before they can harm 'real people' ", to "there are no shades of grey there is good and there is evil and this entire race are evil" .... all of them sound just like racist/creedist polemic used by everyone from the Nazis to the KKK to Al-Qaeda.
If anything this thread has some to reinforce my beleive that there is inherent racism in the treatment of gobinoids in D&D. Even the occassional half-orc that manages to overcome his racial origins and rise up to live with humans is a reinforcement of the fact that the other can only be controlled and contained by civilisation.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478035let's be honest here: in the old days Orcs were Black people and you were supposed to kill their females and young when you found their villages.
[...] let's look at the old Hobgoblins:
They were explicitly Orientals. Hell, that hasn't even changed. Even Games Workshop still talks about Hobgobla-Khans.
First they're black, then they're oriental, though rather brown-skinned for Chinese or Japanese. So are they African or Asian? Please make up your mind which group is being oppressed by implicit comparison with orcs. Brown-skinned Asians, perhaps? Serving in the Qin army?
Um... Overweight Burmese mercenaries? With sharpened teeth?
Sharp-teethed Burmese. A common target of racism in the developed West.
Or possibly you're just full of shit. Orcs are green or grey-skinned. You are projecting your own racist ideas about blacks and Asians onto orcs. Don't look for bigotry in Gygax or Tolkien, examine your own festering pit of a heart.
They're orcs, motherfucker. And orcs are there to be killed for xp. It's not about justice, it's about righteous fury.
Seriously, you're in the USA, right Trollman? Your country has more than enough real racism and class injustice for you to worry about. If you're worried about brown people and Asians, start by writing your governor to stop executing them and imprisoning them for minor offences, to your local fruit company to stop keeping them in slave labour conditions, and your congressman to stop fucking blowing them up in other countries. Forget about the fucking orcs you stupid latte-sipping liberal commie mutant traitor.
Quote from: John Morrow;477965Correct, but those people still can't turn their backs or let their guard down on those lions and tigers or sleep with them like a house cat. The same is true of chimpanzees once they reach adulthood. Humans cannot coexist with them roaming free because their instincts will inevitably get the best of them.
Certainly, I can agree with this. And I have no problem whatsoever, again, with adjudicating whatever qualitites we want to an imaginary race, even if it strains my suspension of disbelief a bit. So, I can perfectly imagine orcs that are able of co-operate and have a complex society, and at the same time being completely evil and ruthless, specially against everything outside their tribe. I understand that they're not humans and thus, the rules tha govern the majority of humans won't apply.
QuoteBut I think the bigger issue is that here you seem to assume that the psychology of normal healthy humans is an inevitable byproduct of high intelligence and rational thought and underestimate the role that instincts play in producing normal human decisions and behavior, even though you acknowledge later in this reply when you point out, "for humans, killing is fucking hard".
Quite on the contrary :) I'm a pyshchologist, and I'm well aware of the huge importance of our instincts and unconscious bias.
QuoteYes, killing is hard for normal humans because normal humans have a conscience that makes them feel bad about killing and disgusted by the idea of killing helpless innocent people. But psychopaths don't have that, which is why you'll find them brutally killing helpless innocent people and not feeling bad about it. If an entire species, rather than just a small percentage, have no conscience, then the entire species isn't going to feel bad about killing helpless innocent people, and that has nothing to do with intelligence.
I agree. my point of objection is not if such an species could exist, but how organized could they get and thus, pose the veritable threat they are in many settings.
If you read that I'm trying to argument that an intelligent species cannot be purely evil, then I'm probably expressing myself poorly.
Quote"As with other powerful impulses, we try to shut down arousal by calling upon the right superior frontal gyrus and right anterior cingulate gyrus, according to research led by Mario Beauregard of the University of Montreal. He and others propose that these brain areas form a conscious self-regulatory system. This network provides us with the evolutionarily unprecedented ability to control our own neural processing—a feat achieved by no other creature."
I am familiar with this research, but I appreciate a lot you bringing this :)
QuoteActually, the core components of morality found in the normal human conscience are fairly consistent and most of what changes over time is how we frame moral problems and define the components. In an earlier thread, Kyle made a distinction between human, animal, and monster. If you get a human to think about an animal as a person, then they will start talking about killing animals as being murder. If you get a human to think about other people as animals, then they will start talking about killing those people the same way they'd talk about slaughtering animals. This is why dehumanizing or depersonalizing the enemy is such an important part of warfare and genocide. This is why personalization and humanization is such an important part of peace movements and charity.
I fully agree on this.
QuoteIf you remove emotion from moral and social decisions, you are essentially asking people to make decisions like a psychopath.
I agree. One thign is to try to remove our biases from the decision, and another is avoiding emotion altogether.
In my experience the "shall we kill baby-orcs?" dilemma has arisen several times, simply because if you followed the Monster Manual there could be a lair nearby with goodies, and in that lair there would be female and children. So, when the PCs arrived there, seeing that they were facing non-armed non-combatant beings, they issued them a stern warning "You have one day to leave or you will perish like your warriors did," and let them flee. Usually any dwarf PC would be wanting to kill them all like the orcs did, and usually some other PC would object on the basis that "this is why we're not like them, and this is why we're better than them." So, this situations usually conduced to a lot of interesting roleplaying, so everything was good.
It does not have to relate to baby orcs, anyway. One of the most dramatic and intense scenes in my recent run of Masks of Nyarlathotep came during the interrogation of a captured cultist in Limehouse, London. The cultist was shadowing the PCs, they turned the tables on him, and they interrogated him. They got some useful intel from him, but they knew they could not let the guy free. The guy was insane, was a psycho worshipper of Elder Gods who would probably run off to his masters and tell them everything.
So they decide, after many doubts, that the cultist has to die. And it's hard, because at that point of the game they have seen some nasty action in Harlem, they have killed in self-defense, but this is different and they're not psychopaths or hardened soldiers (only one of them has been in WWI and he didin't kill ever a prisoner), so finally one of the players says "Ok, I'll do it" so he gets the cultist's belt and strangles him.
At that point, I decided that it had to be significant, so instead of just saying, "Ok, he dies", I just made the PC roll the damage from choking until the cultist died. The player got very shitty rolls at first, so it took some attempts. With each roll, the players were feeling more and more uneasy, even though we didn't describe the situation in graphic detail, I just said "The cultist is still twitching and moving, roll again." It was a dramatic scene, because one of the PCs said at the end, when they were going to dump the body in the Thames: "The line between they and us has grown thinner."
I think that wanting to have clear lines between good and evil is totally OK, and I can't find anything reprensible with wanting to spend an evening bashing orcs. I have fun doing that. But usually I prefer this kind of decision and situations to show, because it helps me suspend my disbelief, and because it makes the PCs more believable and rounded, IMO. The stark contrast Good / Evil and, specially, the unerring ability of telling those apart, gets boring quickly for me.
Another example: I'm running a 7th Sea game. In that game, whenever you fell an enemy you decide if he's unconscious or just dead. One of the PCs is a terrifying Vesten pirate, and his motto is "Every enemy I fell is dead unless I say otherwise." On the other hand, another PC is a 12 year old Eisen girl who specified "My PC won't kill an enemy unless otherwise specified. They're always disabled or inconscious, as you see fit." I think this says a lot about the PCs, and has provided some interesting situations. Of course, if you want to emulate the swashbuckling genre, I feel that not finishing fallen foes or letting them flee when defeated is par for the course to a Hero. And even there, you get shadows of grey.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478058If anything this thread has some to reinforce my beleive that there is inherent racism in the treatment of gobinoids in D&D.
D&D is racist towards goblinoids, yup.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478058JM hints at it but effectively all the comments from "Orcs are irredeemibly Evil", to "Orcs are inferior and brutish", to "it's our moral obligation to eliminate them before they can harm 'real people' ", to "there are no shades of grey there is good and there is evil and this entire race are evil" .... all of them sound just like racist/creedist polemic used by everyone from the Nazis to the KKK to Al-Qaeda.
Slightly off topic, but of those three groups, only the Nazis are/were Eliminationist - 'it's our moral obligation to eliminate them' (Jews, Slavs, Gypsies etc). The KKK are/were Supremacist - in their ideology they believe in maintaining Whites' Supremacy over Blacks (through terror), not in genocide - although I did see a TV documentary where some Neo-Nazi group had appropriated Klan trappings. Al-Qaeda are not even racist, other than in accepting the mainstream Islamic view that Arabs are the 'best of peoples'* - but a non-Arab soul is still valuable, and worth converting to Islam. Some Al-Qaeda groups seem to advocate eliminating all non-Muslims (without regard to their race), but that is not their official ideology, which is mainstream Salafi.
*I have an Arab friend, and seeing the deference with which non-Arab Muslims (Pakistani etc) treat her, and her condescending attitude to them, can be a bit disturbing.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;478060First they're black, then they're oriental, though rather brown-skinned for Chinese or Japanese. So are they African or Asian? Please make up your mind which group is being oppressed by implicit comparison with orcs. Brown-skinned Asians, perhaps? Serving in the Qin army?
Um... Overweight Burmese mercenaries? With sharpened teeth?
Sharp-teethed Burmese. A common target of racism in the developed West.
I think 1e AD&D used some Japanese/Samurai tropes for the Hobgoblins. More WW2 Japanese, really. They're distinguished from Orcs in being highly disciplined, well regimented, good morale, and well maintained & polished armour & pole-arms.
GW's Mongol Hobgoblins are a bit different.
Quote from: S'mon;478063*I have an Arab friend, and seeing the deference with which non-Arab Muslims (Pakistani etc) treat her, and her condescending attitude to them, can be a bit disturbing.
You need better friends.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;478060Seriously, you're in the USA, right Trollman? Your country has more than enough real racism and class injustice for you to worry about. If you're worried about brown people and Asians, start by writing your governor to stop executing them and imprisoning them for minor offences, to your local fruit company to stop keeping them in slave labour conditions, and your congressman to stop fucking blowing them up in other countries. Forget about the fucking orcs you stupid latte-sipping liberal commie mutant traitor.
Funny rant :D - Although I think it's mostly Latinos working for the fruit companies in slave labour conditions these days. Mind you I did read recently about a large scale scam the US is running now, where very large numbers of young people are brought in from overseas on special 'student' visas - 'with a little work experience included'. When they get to the US they find they're actually working 14 hour days for starvation wages in factories, picking fruit etc, then they get sent home at the end. I think that does affect a lot of Asians as well as those from other countries.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;478065You need better friends.
I have better friends - and I've not seen much of her recently, since she got married again. She's very entertaining though. And the stories she tells about life back in the Gulf - when she gets drunk - are so hair-raising, they beggar belief. Rape, murder, paedophilia... I think the one from her childhood where a teacher (semi-accidentally) kills a fellow student for getting some question wrong in class was about the least bad of them. The one where she finds her ex-husband's VHS collection... And she tells them like they're 'this is kinda bad, but...'
Quote from: S'mon;478063Slightly off topic, but of those three groups, only the Nazis are/were Eliminationist - 'it's our moral obligation to eliminate them' (Jews, Slavs, Gypsies etc). The KKK are/were Supremacist - in their ideology they believe in maintaining Whites' Supremacy over Blacks (through terror), not in genocide - although I did see a TV documentary where some Neo-Nazi group had appropriated Klan trappings. Al-Qaeda are not even racist, other than in accepting the mainstream Islamic view that Arabs are the 'best of peoples'* - but a non-Arab soul is still valuable, and worth converting to Islam. Some Al-Qaeda groups seem to advocate eliminating all non-Muslims (without regard to their race), but that is not their official ideology, which is mainstream Salafi.
*I have an Arab friend, and seeing the deference with which non-Arab Muslims (Pakistani etc) treat her, and her condescending attitude to them, can be a bit disturbing.
Well.... I never said any of the groups proposed elimination merely that they use exactly the same language :) And I did note creedist as well as racist which gives Al-Qaeda the right to kill non-Muslims (or Muslims that believe in False versions of Islam), Christians the right to kill Muslims and Hindus the right to kill Muslims, etc etc ... that is where absolute truth gets ya.
It is also the language is used by most military groups to dehumanise their enemies whether its the British using it to describe the Hun in WW1, American Marines using it to describe the Japs in WW2 or just about everybody in the west using it to describe the 100,000 people killed in Iraq as revenge for an act of terrorism they had absolutely nothing to do with.....
just sayin....
Quote from: Imperator;478061It does not have to relate to baby orcs, anyway. One of the most dramatic and intense scenes in my recent run of Masks of Nyarlathotep came during the interrogation of a captured cultist in Limehouse, London. The cultist was shadowing the PCs, they turned the tables on him, and they interrogated him. They got some useful intel from him, but they knew they could not let the guy free. The guy was insane, was a psycho worshipper of Elder Gods who would probably run off to his masters and tell them everything.
So they decide, after many doubts, that the cultist has to die. And it's hard, because at that point of the game they have seen some nasty action in Harlem, they have killed in self-defense, but this is different and they're not psychopaths or hardened soldiers (only one of them has been in WWI and he didin't kill ever a prisoner), so finally one of the players says "Ok, I'll do it" so he gets the cultist's belt and strangles him.
At that point, I decided that it had to be significant, so instead of just saying, "Ok, he dies", I just made the PC roll the damage from choking until the cultist died. The player got very shitty rolls at first, so it took some attempts. With each roll, the players were feeling more and more uneasy, even though we didn't describe the situation in graphic detail, I just said "The cultist is still twitching and moving, roll again." It was a dramatic scene, because one of the PCs said at the end, when they were going to dump the body in the Thames: "The line between they and us has grown thinner."
I think that wanting to have clear lines between good and evil is totally OK, and I can't find anything reprensible with wanting to spend an evening bashing orcs. I have fun doing that. But usually I prefer this kind of decision and situations to show, because it helps me suspend my disbelief, and because it makes the PCs more believable and rounded, IMO. The stark contrast Good / Evil and, specially, the unerring ability of telling those apart, gets boring quickly for me.
Great example. Did you make the guy doing the killing make a sanity check? I would have. To be honest because I am a bit of a bastard I would have run a follow up dream sequence where that guy is strangling him and he wakes up in a cold sweat...
Quote from: jibbajibba;478068that is where absolute truth gets ya.
I guess you're one of those moral relativists RPGPundit was talking about, then? :D
Quote from: S'mon;478066Funny rant :D - Although I think it's mostly Latinos working for the fruit companies in slave labour conditions these days.
Remember that in the USA, Latin Americans are considered "non-white." Even pasty-faced red-headed Jews are borderline.
So when a US citizen is talking about racial issues, they're using definitions that make the civilised world scratch its head.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478068just about everybody in the west using it to describe the 100,000 people killed in Iraq as revenge for an act of terrorism they had absolutely nothing to do with.....
I guess I must live in the one part of the West where nobody said those 100,000+ Iraqis deserved to be killed on account of 9/11. Although my American wife worked for the British government, and she did hear a lot from her co-workers (who included a former Red Brigade terrorist) about how US soldiers deserved to be killed. That was during the start of the invasion, too, not during the occupation after it had become clear to everyone* just how fucked up the US was.
*By London standards I'm way right-of-centre; in March 2003 while my co-workers were off marching and wearing the badges for "Stop the War/Freedom for Palestine", I was ambivalent about the Iraq war, much as I'd felt about Kosovo in 1998/9, but "Surely Bush/Blair know what they're doing, right?" In this case of course my commie pinko liberal traitor co-workers (and the BBC) were right, and I was wrong. OTOH most of them (aside from the pro-Milosevic Hard Left) also supported Clinton/Blair's Kosovo War, and I realised that that had been equally wrong too, and equally built on a pack of lies, albeit the dead there numbered a few thousand Serbs, not a few hundred thousand Iraqis.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;478071Remember that in the USA, Latin Americans are considered "non-white." Even pasty-faced red-headed Jews are borderline.
So when a US citizen is talking about racial issues, they're using definitions that make the civilised world scratch its head.
I think they started off with "Mexicans are mostly Mestizo" - ie most have a good chunk of pre-Colonial indigenous ancestry - and using their 'one drop rule' went from there to "Mexicans are non-White". Nixon invented the Hispanic/Latino census category as some weird fucked up Republican ploy to split the Democratic base, and now they have a culture where Antonio Banderas becomes non-white the moment he steps off the plane from Spain.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478069Great example. Did you make the guy doing the killing make a sanity check? I would have. To be honest because I am a bit of a bastard I would have run a follow up dream sequence where that guy is strangling him and he wakes up in a cold sweat...
Everyone made a SAN check, the strangler's being hardest. I got some suggestions on how to handle it in DG: Countdown or Eyes Only, can't remember which. So even if he passed it, he lost a small amount of SAN. No one can do or watch such a thing and remain unchanged, I think.
Again, it's totally OK to declare that there are absolute Evil in the game world and that the only way of dealing with them is to kill them all. It can be fun, and I've had and still have fun playing in that conditions. It's just that I usually prefer the gray areas, as they make the situation more believable to me.
Quote from: S'montheir 'one drop rule'
Well, it does have the advantage that it makes their movie casting a lot easier. Like in
Collateral Damage where the role of a Colombian terrorist/guerilla is played by...
(http://www.sharewallpapers.org/d/388687-2/Cliff+Curtis+Collateral+Damage+001.jpg)
A Maori?
Brown people from NZ, brown people from Spain, brown people from Colombia, it's all the same, man. The latte-sipping liberals of Hollywood are racist, too? Shocking idea, I know. As shocking as the idea that these guys here are projecting their own racist ideas onto the depiction of orcs in rpgs.
If the OP and Trollman and the rest don't like dark-skinned non-Christians, that's okay. Just shut the fuck up about it, and stop trying to cover it up with your commie ideas.
Quote from: Imperator;478074Everyone made a SAN check, the strangler's being hardest. I got some suggestions on how to handle it in DG: Countdown or Eyes Only, can't remember which. So even if he passed it, he lost a small amount of SAN. No one can do or watch such a thing and remain unchanged, I think.
Again, it's totally OK to declare that there are absolute Evil in the game world and that the only way of dealing with them is to kill them all. It can be fun, and I've had and still have fun playing in that conditions. It's just that I usually prefer the gray areas, as they make the situation more believable to me.
Totally get you.
Persoanlly as I said my concern with racist goblinoid stereotypes in D&D isn't that these leak into the real world at all. It's that they have to be recognised in the game world and if you really want to play the champion of a Good God then the 'paladin' order that espouse genocide have to be tackled and brought to justice.
It's like Slavery in Roman games. It is not 'good' to buy and sell people and treat them like chattels even if the morality of the time says it is. It might be lawful but it is not good. Now I have no problem with PCs not being good I have no problems with PCs espousing morality in the forum and then going home and beating and raping their slaves .. so long as the Player understands that their PC is not good and that these are not good acts.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478077Totally get you.
Persoanlly as I said my concern with racist goblinoid stereotypes in D&D isn't that these leak into the real world at all. It's that they have to be recognised in the game world and if you really want to play the champion of a Good God then the 'paladin' order that espouse genocide have to be tackled and brought to justice.
It's like Slavery in Roman games. It is not 'good' to buy and sell people and treat them like chattels even if the morality of the time says it is. It might be lawful but it is not good. Now I have no problem with PCs not being good I have no problems with PCs espousing morality in the forum and then going home and beating and raping their slaves .. so long as the Player understands that their PC is not good and that these are not good acts.
I think Gygaxian 1e AD&D 'Good' was more or less his idea of a fantasy pseudo-medieval 'Good', which included stuff like baptising the orc prisoners into the Church of St Cuthbert before cutting their heads off so they wouldn't backslide. He himself seems to have preferred the Neutral alignment and presents it as morally superior in places, certainly in the Gord the Rogue books.
But his definitions in the 1e PHB are ambiguous and not well written. There was then a lot of drift (I remember the early-2e Dragon article on whether Slavery is Evil: 'Hm, owning them might be ok, but if you're actually raiding for slaves, that's bad'), and by 3e 'Good' seems to mean 'What West Coast Liberal WotC Staffers Actually Think is Good'. Which then raises issues like the one we're discussing today.
QuoteBut his definitions in the 1e PHB are ambiguous and not well written. There was then a lot of drift (I remember the early-2e Dragon article on whether Slavery is Evil: 'Hm, owning them might be ok, but if you're actually raiding for slaves, that's bad'), and by 3e 'Good' seems to mean 'What West Coast Liberal WotC Staffers Actually Think is Good'. Which then raises issues like the one we're discussing today.
That would be fine, except that WotC staffers aren't even all West Coast Liberals. If they were all Seattlite liberal atheists like Bill Gates that would at least be
consistent. But only
some of them are, and some of them are (no shit) East Coast
ordained ministers (like James Wyatt). And that is why you have inconsistent confusing tirades like the Book of Exalted Deeds, where you have such incomprehensible positions as:
"Poison is Evil, except for this weird glowing one that
punishes whores by making them die of horniness, which is Good."
Or the Book of Vile Darkness:
"Following the will of the gods is good. Turning away from the gods, like the Ur Priests, is wicked."
"Uh... aren't some of the gods like
Hextor and shit? He's evil. Why is following him good?"
"Uh...."
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478079That would be fine, except that WotC staffers aren't even all West Coast Liberals. If they were all Seattlite liberal atheists like Bill Gates that would at least be consistent.
Well I was exaggerating, and thinking of the Johnathan Tweet/Monte Cook 3e PHB - the difference between the attitude of the 3e PHB to Alignment and the 2e "Angry Mothers from Heck" mid-Western TSR version is quite striking.
But as you say, the inconsistencies in the varied approaches to what is supposed to be "Absolute Good, Inherent in the Multiverse" are really jarring. I'm really glad 4e D&D de-emphasises Alignment, though I'd prefer if they went back to a Law-Neutrality-Chaos Allegiance system, or just abandoned it.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478079Or the Book of Vile Darkness:
"Following the will of the gods is good. Turning away from the gods, like the Ur Priests, is wicked."
"Uh... aren't some of the gods like Hextor and shit? He's evil. Why is following him good?"
"Uh...."
-Frank
He he. :D
That particular paradox seems inherent in D&D's whole* "Christian churches with pagan gods at the altar" approach. In say classical Greek religion, it would be wicked not to pay appropriate respect to all the gods of the pantheon, albeit that some of them like Hextor represent vices not virtues. D&D's Zoroastrian-Dualist approach says "These Gods: Good. Worship. Those Gods: Bad. Fight." OK.... but then you get the 4e mish-mash where the Primordials are the enemy (Greek style), but then the evil gods are ALSO still the enemy (Christian/Zoroastrian style). And not really in an "Ares is a jerk, but hey, battle-lust is still part of life". No, it's more "Oh no, the Cult of Bane is spreading its lies on the Borderlands! Call out the Inquisition of Pelor to smite them!" :rolleyes:
*Gygax-derived. Greyhawk/Oerth in particular is an unspeakable mess. I've tried really hard to create something usable out of the Oerth religious system & its deities, which mashes up 15th century European Christianity (Bishops! Inquisitions in the See of Medegia!) with Roman-Greek-Norse style paganism, and it just can't be done.
Well, that is what I was saying before: whenever you try to define absolute good and evil, you are bound to run into inconsistencies.
Quote from: Imperator;478084Well, that is what I was saying before: whenever you try to define absolute good and evil, you are bound to run into inconsistencies.
Totally.
You just have to define some rough areas and point the PCs to them. Personally I go with putting others before yourself = good, putting yourself before others = evil, doing stuff to help yourself that doesn't actively help anyone but doesn't do them harm = neutral. The bands can be pretty wide so stealing bread from a rich baker who has plenty of bread is pretty neutral, but stealing a loaf of bread from a starving guy who only has one loaf of bread is probably evil.
Religion as always is the thing that really causes issues.
"It's good to sacrifice your firstborn son to The God, cos god says so."
"but what if that wasn't The God, that told you to do it but Another God"
" but there are no other Gods only God"
"Why that rule that we can't worship other Gods then?"
"Burn the Heretic!!!!"
Put religion to one side and let 'The Ethics of Captain America' decide what is good and what is not good. Then put religion back in and decide if that particular law is a good one or an evil one and they will tell you if you have been worshipping the right guy or not.
Killing your daughter for marrying into the wrong family - evil law
Helping the weak and sick - good law
Burning people that worship other gods - evil law
etc etc
But we are getting away from the OP.
Quote from: Imperator;478084Well, that is what I was saying before: whenever you try to define absolute good and evil, you are bound to run into inconsistencies.
Which is probably the core of the complaint with the attempts to justify genocide against Orcs. If you can't consistently define your absolute good and evil, you don't
have an absolute good
or an absolute evil. And then you're just a cafeteria christian - picking and choosing the segments of your book you will kill people for and refuse to discuss rationally and ignoring the rest or waving it off as a metaphor. A metaphor for... something... mumble...
You can't derive what you should do in a specific instance from the existence of absolute good until you can explain what absolute good actually
is. And since no one can actually do
that, absolute morality isn't a justification for
anything. It's just an excuse to yell at people who disagree with you.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478086Which is probably the core of the complaint with the attempts to justify genocide against Orcs. If you can't consistently define your absolute good and evil, you don't have an absolute good or an absolute evil.
Yeah, that is what I meant. Here in real world, religions may be as inconsistent as they please (and boy, are they) because there is not an objective way of knowing who's good or bad. But once you introduce alignments, that things changes and then.. what? How do you even conceive that?
Frankly, I find that uninteresting when compared with gray areas, and far less of a headache.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;478071Remember that in the USA, Latin Americans are considered "non-white." Even pasty-faced red-headed Jews are borderline.
So when a US citizen is talking about racial issues, they're using definitions that make the civilised world scratch its head.
Things have gotten quite a bit better than they used to be here (even better than as near back as the 80s when we had some serious problems with hate groups). But I always did find it odd that latino is treated as a separate group but arab, greek, etc all fall under white (at least in most of the forms I fill out here for employment and medical purposes). Just for clarity, Jewish also falls under white as well. I believe for the 2010 census they changed it so latino is no longer treated as a race.
Back in the 40s it was different. I just inherited some of my grandfather's old boxing licenses. He was an italian boxer in the 30s/40s and it had an entry for "complexion" (I assume for when the boxers fought in places like the south but I could be wrong). My grandfather was listed as medium.
Some of this stuff also comes from the way we assimilate in the US. Usually by the third generation people are pretty well assimilated, but (at least here on the east coast) people still consider their ethnic heritage important. My mom is third generation Italian and she still identifies as Italian and still does the feast of the seven fishes for Christmas Eve. I grew up in a Jewish area and they are very aware of their cultural and religious heritage (and they keep it alive). And Boston is famous for its Irish pride. You have people whose families have been here since the potato famine who still call themselves Irish. So some of these distinctions are not simply imposed on people but can also come from the fact that these groups still see themselves as different.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478086And then you're just a cafeteria christian - picking and choosing the segments of your book you will kill people for and refuse to discuss rationally and ignoring the rest or waving it off as a metaphor.
Aren't we all? I don't see a lot of adulterers getting stoned to death in Christian countries. I mean, it's in the Bible, right? :rolleyes:
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478086Which is probably the core of the complaint with the attempts to justify genocide against Orcs. If you can't consistently define your absolute good and evil, you don't have an absolute good or an absolute evil. And then you're just a cafeteria christian - picking and choosing the segments of your book you will kill people for and refuse to discuss rationally and ignoring the rest or waving it off as a metaphor. A metaphor for... something... mumble...
I am looking at the 3E definition of good and evil at the moment and I would say if offers a clear but simple definition of good and evil. It is all the general kind of principles you find most people agree are good things: altruism, respect for life, concern for the diginity of sentient life. Evil is described as being someone who debases or destroys innocent life. Implies hurting, oppressing, killing. It also suggests killing without qualms is evil or killing out of mere convenience.
I think they leave out specific instances of good and evil precisely because they know people will bring their own morals to the table.
The issue D&D alignment has never really clarified (and where I think it runs into problems) is when it is deemed okay to kill. Is it okay to kill orcs for existing because they are an evil race or do they need to pose an actual threat for it to be okay.
In most groups I've played with, walking into an orc camp for no reason and slaughtering them wouldn't be regarded as a good act by the players at the table. Killing orcs in war or self defense would be justifiable. But just seeking them out to kill them, wouldn't be. That said, I don't think any of the people I play with would take issue with a campaign based on killing and looting orc lairs.
QuoteYou can't derive what you should do in a specific instance from the existence of absolute good until you can explain what absolute good actually is. And since no one can actually do that, absolute morality isn't a justification for anything. It's just an excuse to yell at people who disagree with you.
-Frank
In fictional D&D world they do a pretty good job in my opinion of saying what absolute good is. In real life I think you can make a very strong case for what is good and what is evil (and it doesn't require a religious foundation to do so). If you can't do this, then that would make things like genocide as morally neutral as buying a loaf of bread (and I think no one here would reach that conclusion). And I don't think anyone here would regard passing judgment on people who commit genocide as just "yelling at people who disagree with you". It would also mean that during the civil rights movement Martin Luther King was just using his model of absolute morality to "yell at people who disagreed with him". To me this is just doesn't hold water.
Quote from: The Butcher;478089Aren't we all? I don't see a lot of adulterers getting stoned to death in Christian countries. I mean, it's in the Bible, right? :rolleyes:
And the reason is simple. Most christians aren't literalists anymore. The religion has evolved and our interaction with the text has developed alongside other advancements. That doesn't mean Christianity lacks a coherent moral framework. It just doesn't rely soley on a literal interpretation of the bible to construct that framework.
Quote from: The Butcher;478089Aren't we all? I don't see a lot of adulterers getting stoned to death in Christian countries. I mean, it's in the Bible, right? :rolleyes:
funny how a fair few would gladly stone gays though .....
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478088T You have people whose families have been here since the potato famine who still call themselves Irish. So some of these distinctions are not simply imposed on people but can also come from the fact that these groups still see themselves as different.
Awhile ago in the US, Indian (south Asian - Hindus, Sikhs etc) groups successfully lobbied to have their 'race' be reclassified from 'Caucasian' to 'Asian'. This was to make Indian-owned businesses, of which there are many, eligible for government set-asides targetted at 'disadvantaged minorities'. Ironic since both Indians and east-Asians in the US have higher per capita incomes than do whites. Meanwhile Arabs, of course, are still 'white', so no minority preferences in government contracts. And the black-owned businesses for whom the disciminatory preferences were originally invented now have to compete for the government boondoggles with rivals whose owners' ancestors have often been successful businessmen for thousands of years.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478092And the reason is simple. Most christians aren't literalists anymore. The religion has evolved and our interaction with the text has developed alongside other advancements. That doesn't mean Christianity lacks a coherent moral framework. It just doesn't rely soley on a literal interpretation of the bible to construct that framework.
Eh,
Jesus explictly said DON'T STONE THE ADULTERERS. :rolleyes:
Quote from: S'mon;478104Eh, Jesus explictly said DON'T STONE THE ADULTERERS. :rolleyes:
That is a good point. And I think most people extrapolate from Jesus words throughout the New Testament that many of the older laws had been effectively overturned or "clarified". My basic point is that for the most part most modern day christians (with some exceptions in the US) don't take the text so literally these days. Especially when the text conflicts with modern day assumptions about morality. So it is possible to be a Christian who doesn't view homosexuality as a sin, and not be a "cafeteria christian" because you understand the bible was a product of its own time.
Quote from: S'mon;478103Awhile ago in the US, Indian (south Asian - Hindus, Sikhs etc) groups successfully lobbied to have their 'race' be reclassified from 'Caucasian' to 'Asian'. .
I think most americans still don't view Indians as Asian. My understanding is this is the case in places like UK and Australia, but here it was a big surpise to me when I heard someone refer to Indians as asians (I guess because I tend to think of asians as being from places like Vietnam, China and Korea).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478108I think most americans still don't view Indians as Asian. My understanding is this is the case in places like UK and Australia, but here it was a big surpise to me when I heard someone refer to Indians as asians (I guess because I tend to think of asians as being from places like Vietnam, China and Korea).
Could that be cos American's have fuck all idea about Geography :)
Oddly in the UK you would not refer to Chinese Koreans or Japanese as Asians as here Asian is used to refer to South Asians (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh), and Oriental is used to refer to Chinese etc.
Of course Edward Said woudl refer you back to the Middle east being The orient in the Western Midset (well if he was still alive)
What the OP describes is basically a pure hack and slash game. I don't know about old published adventures or what have you, as I started playing in 3x, where the MM didn't define how many women in a group of orcs, and nobody used published adventures anyway. So what I've seen of these indiscriminate slaughter games is like what I've seen in videogames. There just plain aren't kids there, and everyone is an enemy combatant who fights to the death.
For my own games, I like intelligent and low-powered monsters to be playable (again, started with 3x, so all monstrous humanoids had player stats). Culturally ingrained (or circumstantially motivated) evil and an active military is all I need to make orcs "bad guys." And I need no special excuse for some orcs to be heroes, antiheroes, or whatever because individuals are individuals. If the players aren't dicks, the whole "women and children" thing doesn't have to be a problem. And as others have noted, this also broadens the possible solutions for problems involving orcs.
When I need unmitigated evil, I have demons, devils, mind flayers, undead, and too many others to count. Ghouls are my personal favorite, as they can be used from low levels in large numbers, and the cannibalism/contagion thing can be used to freak people out a little.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478110Could that be cos American's have fuck all idea about Geography :)
I am not going to defend american knowledge of geography. Our skill level there has been pretty well documented as poor (and when I did a little student teaching in college I was astounded by how little the students knew about geography--and these were history students).
But I don't think this comes from our understanding of geography. It comes from how americans view race. We don't look at race in geographical terms but in terms of appearance and skin color. So I think when an American thinks asian, he pictures someone who is Chinese or Japanese but not someone who is Indian.
QuoteOddly in the UK you would not refer to Chinese Koreans or Japanese as Asians as here Asian is used to refer to South Asians (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh), and Oriental is used to refer to Chinese etc.
I didn't realize that. Here Oriental is pretty much regarded as a slur when used to describe people. My understanding is Asian americans object to the term because its opposite, occidental, isn't applied to non-asians. Sometimes you hear oldtimers use it. But mostly when an american says asian he is thinking the far east.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478108I think most americans still don't view Indians as Asian. My understanding is this is the case in places like UK and Australia, but here it was a big surpise to me when I heard someone refer to Indians as asians (I guess because I tend to think of asians as being from places like Vietnam, China and Korea).
Traditionally in the UK 'Asian' means you're from the subcontinent; Chinese aren't Asian they're 'Oriental', which doesn't have any derogatory connotation.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478112I am not going to defend american knowledge of geography. Our skill level there has been pretty well documented as poor (and when I did a little student teaching in college I was astounded by how little the students knew about geography--and these were history students).
Friendly American Girl, 1997:
"Where are you from?"
Me:
"Britain."
Friendly American Girl:
"You speak English so well.... Do they speak English there?"
Me:
"Mostly."
Quote from: S'mon;478113Traditionally in the UK 'Asian' means you're from the subcontinent; Chinese aren't Asian they're 'Oriental', which doesn't have any derogatory connotation.
Here oriental has become a word most people avoid. It isn't like using the N word but people definitely bristle if you use it to refer to a person. When I was kid I think it was still pretty much okay to use. But somewhere (maybe the late 80s or early 90s), it became something asian people (at least those born in the US) took issue with. I have some asian american friends and I know if I used the word oriental around them, they would view it as a slur. My wife is from Thailand though and she wouldn't really care (but she was tought British English not American English in school).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478112My understanding is Asian americans object to the term because its opposite, occidental, isn't applied to non-asians.
I use
Occidental plenty! :D And I've had Americans correct me: "No, you mean Oriental..." (this was in a PBEM with an Oerth-style 'flipped' world-map, the Chinese-analogues were in the west).
Quote from: S'mon;478116I use Occidental plenty! :D And I've had Americans correct me: "No, you mean Oriental..." (this was in a PBEM with an Oerth-style 'flipped' world-map, the Chinese-analogues were in the west).
I think occidental gets some use here but mostly as an academic term. Like Joseph Campbell's Occidental Mythology.
Quote from: S'mon;478104Eh, Jesus explictly said DON'T STONE THE ADULTERERS. :rolleyes:
Well he was reported as saying that but a bunch of guys that never met him. But the whole business with dropping dietary requires etc had to wait til Paul saw it as an opportunity to recruit more Romans.
but this could so easily derail into an arguement about Christianity so lets stick to Goblinoids :) Or giants out of interest, how do we feel about killing all Stone Giants when they are Neutral bu the book.
Or evil characters killing all the human children. its no different afterall and in fact is far easier to defend in terms of the PC alignment.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478118but this could so easily derail into an arguement about Christianity so lets stick to Goblinoids :) Or giants out of interest, how do we feel about killing all Stone Giants when they are Neutral bu the book.
For me it killing stone giants for simply being stone giants isn't good. But my games are combat light and I don't run dungeon crawls or hack n slash adventures (I can see how someone running these would take a different view on alignment).
QuoteOr evil characters killing all the human children. its no different afterall and in fact is far easier to define in terms of the PC alignment.
I may be unclear on what you mean to say here, but I don't think anyone would say that evil characters killing children are violating their alignment (since that is an evil act). But I would also call killing orc children evil as well in my games. (Didn't the knights of the dinner table have a whole strip on this issue?). But it is also just a game, so if my players are going to go around wasting orcs because they are there, I won't take issue with it or get all indignant. It isn't like I believe there is a connection between behavior in the game world and real life.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478120I may be unclear on what you mean to say here, but I don't think anyone would say that evil characters killing children are violating their alignment (since that is an evil act). But I would also call killing orc children evil as well in my games. (Didn't the knights of the dinner table have a whole strip on this issue?). But it is also just a game, so if my players are going to go around wasting orcs because they are there, I won't take issue with it or get all indignant. It isn't like I believe there is a connection between behavior in the game world and real life.
I agree with you. I never think that game play will filter into real life.
For me the whole killing orc children thing is fine so long as the players know its an evil act and don't try to defend their paladin as a paladin of good as a result.
I do know plenty of DMs that woudl balk at their PCs killing human children though. They like their evil moustachio twirling, with an evil laugh but no actually nastiness.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478118Or evil characters killing all the human children. its no different afterall and in fact is far easier to defend in terms of the PC alignment.
I would shift their Alignment to Evil immediately.
Oh, wait...
Eh, what's the problem? I expect CE PCs to say things like "Kill everyone in the village". If your players appear to be relishing detailed descriptions of child murder, then that's a player issue, get rid of them. There's no PC issue.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478121I agree with you. I never think that game play will filter into real life.
For me the whole killing orc children thing is fine so long as the players know its an evil act and don't try to defend their paladin as a paladin of good as a result.
.
With Paladins I tend to be tough because they get all kinds of goodies and it is supposed to be balanced by them being lawful good. So for me lawful good characters wouldn't just slaughter orc children. I have heard arguments to the contrary, but I just don't see that as comforning to respect for life and law.
Shit, I missed several pages of "orcs = black people".
Crazy idea. Since obviously Drow are black people...
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;478126Shit, I missed several pages of "orcs = black people".
Crazy idea. Since obviously Drow are black people...
No Drow are sneaky Chinese oriental types that look like black people. You missed the memo :)
Those Ralpartha orcs are from The All American range that they came out with in response to GW's European Range which places them BEFORE THEY GOT THE D&D LISCENCE. The orcs from Crucible AFTER THEY LOST IT AND FASA BOUGHT THEM OUT also look like Zulus. I know because the ones pictured have cast on bases not plastic slotta bases.
Are historical wargamers playing out scenarios in Colonial Africa racist?
The earlier Ral Partha orcs by Tom Meir look more like Romans with big crazy falcheons.
The later ones from Battle Storm look more like traditional fantasy orcs. Warcraft orcs in particular...
Anyhow, there's a really simple GMing solution to the women and children debate. Make the dungeon a military outpost with no women or children. Alternately you could make orcs like ants with the warriors and drones all being female but still looking like orcs, though you certainly couldn't use the Tom Meir orcs that way :D. That throws a whole new angle on the half orcs and rape thing. Maybe they have an irresistable hormones that force errections?
Anyhow, as far as orc children go there's an unspoken assumption that they are weak and innocent like human children. (well victorian idealizations of human children anyhow) When it's entirely possible that they are savage frenzied tooth and claw horror swarms like the critters from Galaxy Quest.
Quote from: David Johansen;478130Anyhow, as far as orc children go there's an unspoken assumption that they are weak and innocent like human children. (well victorian idealizations of human children anyhow) When it's entirely possible that they are savage frenzied tooth and claw horror swarms like the critters from Galaxy Quest.
Or my boy. :D
Edit: Here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonlooks/5892954237/in/photostream) he is in a rare contemplative moment having just dispatched a small rodentoid lifeform.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478118but this could so easily derail into an arguement about Christianity so lets stick to Goblinoids :) Or giants out of interest, how do we feel about killing all Stone Giants when they are Neutral bu the book.
Better than that. 30% of the time, Stone Giants are encountered in their lair. When that happens, there is a 50% chance of there being one or two females, and a 25% chance of there being one or two children. Unlike for Orcs, Stone Giant women and children have combat stats. Stone Giant women are 8 hit die creatures and Stone Giant children are d% * 9 + 1-3 hit points hit die creatures (yes, really. Welcome to world of obtuse mathematical expressions that is AD&D).
QuoteOr evil characters killing all the human children. its no different afterall and in fact is far easier to defend in terms of the PC alignment.
I actually find this much easier to take. In either case, you're passive an explicit moral judgement on the action, but in the case of the evil character, you are judging the character to be doing the wrong thing. I have no problem with people taking the roles of villains and acting out villainous behavior. It's when they act out villainous behavior and then try to tell me that they are taking the roles of
good guys that I have a problem.
If someone wants to do morally complex things with their morally complex character, that's
great. But when someone does something reprehensible and then tries to tell me that the character is behaving capital-G
Godd, then that's
sick.
-Frank
Quote from: David Johansen;478130Those Ralpartha orcs are from The All American range that they came out with in response to GW's European Range which places them BEFORE THEY GOT THE D&D LISCENCE. The orcs from Crucible AFTER THEY LOST IT AND FASA BOUGHT THEM OUT also look like Zulus. I know because the ones pictured have cast on bases not plastic slotta bases.
Are historical wargamers playing out scenarios in Colonial Africa racist?
The earlier Ral Partha orcs by Tom Meir look more like Romans with big crazy falcheons.
The later ones from Battle Storm look more like traditional fantasy orcs. Warcraft orcs in particular...
Anyhow, there's a really simple GMing solution to the women and children debate. Make the dungeon a military outpost with no women or children. Alternately you could make orcs like ants with the warriors and drones all being female but still looking like orcs, though you certainly couldn't use the Tom Meir orcs that way :D. That throws a whole new angle on the half orcs and rape thing. Maybe they have an irresistable hormones that force errections?
Anyhow, as far as orc children go there's an unspoken assumption that they are weak and innocent like human children. (well victorian idealizations of human children anyhow) When it's entirely possible that they are savage frenzied tooth and claw horror swarms like the critters from Galaxy Quest.
But that is one of the OP points right. You can remove the orcs kids problem easily but the base games doesn't do that although you are still expected to kill em and not ask questions.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478135But that is one of the OP points right. You can remove the orcs kids problem easily but the base games doesn't do that although you are still expected to kill em and not ask questions.
I guess I don't see where the expectation that you will kill the children is coming from. Just because they have kids, and orcs are evil, that doesn't mean you are expected to kill their children.
QuoteAre historical wargamers playing out scenarios in Colonial Africa racist?
Depends. If they are using historically accurate army uniforms and formations, no. If they are using weird racist exaggerations of the African armies, then yes.
Playing Belgians vs. Congolese or Belgians vs. Zanzibar is problematic, because a whole lot of atrocities were committed. But no more or differently problematic than playing World War II scenarios out. As long as proper respect is being paid to historicity, you're in the clear.
-Frank
Quote from: S'mon;478104Eh, Jesus explictly said DON'T STONE THE ADULTERERS. :rolleyes:
It's just a metaphor. We can beat the shit out of them if we want to!
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478138Depends. If they are using historically accurate army uniforms and formations, no. If they are using weird racist exaggerations of the African armies, then yes.
How about if I use weird racist exaggerations of the Italian imperialists, then slaughter them with my heroic Ethiopian Paladins? :D
(I actually have Ethiopian Paladins in one of my D&D settings).
Quote from: Benoist;478141It's just a metaphor. We can beat the shit out of them if we want to!
"Let he who is without sin throw the first punch"?
Quote from: S'mon;478142How about if I use weird racist exaggerations of the Italian imperialists, then slaughter them with my heroic Ethiopian Paladins? :D
(I actually have Ethiopian Paladins in one of my D&D settings).
That would by definition also be racist. Although since Italians are not really a disadvantaged group anywhere that I know of in this day and age, it's less problematic. If you make fun of the president of the United States, you aren't exactly keeping the man down, you know?
Discriminating against people who are in a strong position is also wrong, but much less so than discriminating against the weak and powerless. Taking a loaf of bread from a rich man and a poor man is stealing in both instances, but the second is obviously more morally wrong because more real harm is done.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478145That would by definition also be racist. Although since Italians are not really a disadvantaged group anywhere that I know of in this day and age, it's less problematic. If you make fun of the president of the United States, you aren't exactly keeping the man down, you know?
Unproblematically racist. Thanks, got it.
I really just don't see the angst as being needed.
Sure, as we grow up and become more sophisticated, some players and GMs might want to play more grown up games that take advantage of the morality plays and try to deal with prejudice and racial/gender issues, or try to create a 'negotiator' class.
Other people might enjoy their games, prefering to focus on what their group of players finds fun. Yes, I think there are a lot of great opportunities in RPGs for some wieghtier issues...but only if that is what is fun for the players.
Quote from: S'mon;478082I've tried really hard to create something usable out of the Oerth religious system & its deities, which mashes up 15th century European Christianity (Bishops! Inquisitions in the See of Medegia!) with Roman-Greek-Norse style paganism, and it just can't be done.
Completely independent of the topic (and it probably deserves one of its own) something I'd love to see is an intelligently written alt-historical medieval Church that combines pantheism with the trapping of the medieval Catholic Church.
I've been listening to some audio lectures on the early Dark Ages and the development of the Christian Church, and very little of what we think of as traditional Catholic practices had anything to do with what was actually written in the Bible[1]. Swapping out the deit(ies) being worshiped would not, I think, affect much of the structure of the medieval Church.
I seem to recall Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion series has a wonderful example of a pantheistic religion that has the trappings of rural medieval Christianity, complete with Inquisitions and religious wars (there's some disagreement about whether the pantheon has four members or five).
[1] Inasmuch as there even were written Bibles to check at the time, which mostly there were not.
Quote from: The Butcher;478089Aren't we all? I don't see a lot of adulterers getting stoned to death in Christian countries. I mean, it's in the Bible, right? :rolleyes:
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478092And the reason is simple. Most christians aren't literalists anymore. The religion has evolved and our interaction with the text has developed alongside other advancements. That doesn't mean Christianity lacks a coherent moral framework. It just doesn't rely soley on a literal interpretation of the bible to construct that framework.
I think that the main difference is that in RL you can break as many commandments as you want without any direct discernible cause, but in an RPG world with real gods, they may come down really hard on you, without intermediaries.
Quote from: David Johansen;478130Those Ralpartha orcs are from The All American range that they came out with in response to GW's European Range which places them BEFORE THEY GOT THE D&D LISCENCE. The orcs from Crucible AFTER THEY LOST IT AND FASA BOUGHT THEM OUT also look like Zulus. I know because the ones pictured have cast on bases not plastic slotta bases.
*snip*
The earlier Ral Partha orcs by Tom Meir look more like Romans with big crazy falcheons.
*snip*.
Thanks for the info!
Love the Tom Meir minis...:)
EDIT: Could not find any pics. of the Zulu Orcs at "The Lost Minis Wiki" Ral Partha/All American Line so...?!
Quote from: Cranewings;477870I think orcs still have shame and guilt. They just have an inborn love for bloodshed and only respect leadership on the grounds that the leader can kill him. The shame and guilt they have might be for showing weakness or failing at a task.
If you ask me, this quote is an example of the source of the problem. "I think orcs (insert opinion)." Look, he's not wrong. In any campaign he's running, he's absolutely right. Just in my campaign he's wrong. Guilt? Shame? Nope. Wrong orcs. In my campaign...orcs are evil. They just are. The colonial argument stuff is laughable once you get to know my orcs. Men...women...children...they all gotta go. They just do. Leaving a baby orc or a mama orc alive to go on to kill and rape and torture innocent people would be the same thing as not plugging a hole in a dam full of innocent water.
I get the feeling that the moral-relativism guy that started this thread has redeemable orcs. Chaotic 3.5 pseudo-barbarians with big teeth? Misunderstood orcs with big sympathetic eyes like Shrek? A sensitive side like that huggably non-Klingon Worf? Whatever. If that's what you're calling orcs then you're probably right...killing them would be evil.
Define your orcs. If they're irredeemably evil, then killing them isn't evil (by definition). Killing Peter Jackson orc kids isnt evil - it's common fucking sense.
If you don't believe that any creature could conceivably be evil, then state that at the beginning and spare everyone the aggravation. If you just said that, then everyone could just ignore the thread, because plenty of GMs and world designers out there are working in realities that acknowledge and/or focus on the struggle between good and evil.
What is evil? Does it really exist? Hell, I'm not equipped to answer those questions. But in my campaign they ARE real and orcs are evil, and letting a cave full of females and young grow up and breed and spread devastation...that might not be evil in and of itself, but it sure as hell is depraved indifference.
Now if it were those cute Shrek monsters that OP's gf makes him watch...
No...I guess I'd still kill them. I'd just suck up the alignment hit.
OP is dead on right about the orcs in his campaign. What a moral mind-wracking players must have to go through to get to 2nd level in that world. There must be alot of hand-wringing and speeches. But in my campaign orcs are evil, so in my campaign he is wrong. Guys that kill orc families arent really ever compared to or treated like the tyrannical troops of Edward Longshanks, theyre treated like doughboys returning from Europe.
That argument aside...no group of adventurers in my campaign will ever have the luxury of standing around contemplating these things in the doorway of a room full of female orcs either. That's because my female orcs would be gutting the theologians with spears and splashing them with bowls full of scalding stew. My female orcs would kill all y'all - and if they didn't, the orc kids would.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478136I guess I don't see where the expectation that you will kill the children is coming from. Just because they have kids, and orcs are evil, that doesn't mean you are expected to kill their children.
I can easily see a character that seriously follows a code of chivalry not killing the orc babies. Not a whole lot of valor to gain and there's a good possibility to lose some.
Quote from: Imperator;478061It does not have to relate to baby orcs, anyway. One of the most dramatic and intense scenes in my recent run of Masks of Nyarlathotep came during the interrogation of a captured cultist in Limehouse, London. The cultist was shadowing the PCs, they turned the tables on him, and they interrogated him. They got some useful intel from him, but they knew they could not let the guy free. The guy was insane, was a psycho worshipper of Elder Gods who would probably run off to his masters and tell them everything.
So they decide, after many doubts, that the cultist has to die. And it's hard, because at that point of the game they have seen some nasty action in Harlem, they have killed in self-defense, but this is different and they're not psychopaths or hardened soldiers (only one of them has been in WWI and he didin't kill ever a prisoner), so finally one of the players says "Ok, I'll do it" so he gets the cultist's belt and strangles him.
At that point, I decided that it had to be significant, so instead of just saying, "Ok, he dies", I just made the PC roll the damage from choking until the cultist died. The player got very shitty rolls at first, so it took some attempts. With each roll, the players were feeling more and more uneasy, even though we didn't describe the situation in graphic detail, I just said "The cultist is still twitching and moving, roll again." It was a dramatic scene, because one of the PCs said at the end, when they were going to dump the body in the Thames: "The line between they and us has grown thinner."
A similar thing ended up happening to me, once. We were playing Shadowrun, and we were doing a straight up robbery of some tech company. I was the driver, and playing a bit of a nutter with a nasty streak. We broke in and found these two employees who we didn't expect to be there, and one of them ended up trying to scream for help. So, I said my guy was going to club him to death, and the GM decided I should roll it out. It ended up taking forever, with roll after roll after roll, and after a little while the whole thing just became exquisitely uncomfortable. We showed up at the table for some high spirited Pulp Fiction, and the dice turned it into Sympathy For Mr Vengeance.
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478176In my campaign...orcs are evil. They just are. The colonial argument stuff is laughable once you get to know my orcs. Men...women...children...they all gotta go. They just do. Leaving a baby orc or a mama orc alive to go on to kill and rape and torture innocent people would be the same thing as not plugging a hole in a dam full of innocent water.
I get the feeling that the moral-relativism guy that started this thread has redeemable orcs. Chaotic 3.5 pseudo-barbarians with big teeth? Misunderstood orcs with big sympathetic eyes like Shrek? A sensitive side like that huggably non-Klingon Worf? Whatever.
You're perfectly capable of saying that Good in your campaign is defined to include killing baby orcs. However, if I were playing in your campaign, I would still feel a little uncomfortable slitting those orc babies' throats in the name of Good. In fact, I would feel no more comfortable about it than if I were killing baby orcs in a game where there wasn't any codified alignment about it.
That's because what makes me uncomfortable is my own personal real-world morality, not the game-world alignment. Killing babies in the name of Good is just kind of creepy.
Quote from: jhkim;478194You're perfectly capable of saying that Good in your campaign is defined to include killing baby orcs. However, if I were playing in your campaign, I would still feel a little uncomfortable slitting those orc babies' throats in the name of Good. In fact, I would feel no more comfortable about it than if I were killing baby orcs in a game where there wasn't any codified alignment about it.
That's because what makes me uncomfortable is my own personal real-world morality, not the game-world alignment. Killing babies in the name of Good is just kind of creepy.
Maybe killing all orcs is not the real solution expected of Good characters. Maybe truly Good characters should try to change the nature of the Evil orcs in some way.
Quote from: jhkim;478194You're perfectly capable of saying that Good in your campaign is defined to include killing baby orcs. However, if I were playing in your campaign, I would still feel a little uncomfortable slitting those orc babies' throats in the name of Good. In fact, I would feel no more comfortable about it than if I were killing baby orcs in a game where there wasn't any codified alignment about it.
That's because what makes me uncomfortable is my own personal real-world morality, not the game-world alignment. Killing babies in the name of Good is just kind of creepy.
I hear where you're coming from, but "babies"...aren't you anthropomorphizing? Most of the time "baby", when referred to non-humans, is an adjective, not a noun. Baby elephants, baby snakes, baby orcs, but just the word "Baby"= baby human.
It seems like you're incapable of seeing the orc young as
fundamentally different from a human baby. I mean an orc "baby" might be like a wolverine. Not really a deadly threat to a man in armor with a sword, but it isn't defenseless. Would it be ok to kill it if it looked like a facehugger?
As far as the creepiness of it goes, there certainly can be an aspect of "god's madmen" to it.
Quote from: Machinegun Blue;478195Maybe killing all orcs is not the real solution expected of Good characters. Maybe truly Good characters should try to change the nature of the Evil orcs in some way.
Again the beauty of an rpg is that this is an intriguing possibility.
Not a desperately needed moral imperative .
Sounds like a great adult permutation.
Quote from: Machinegun Blue;478195Maybe killing all orcs is not the real solution expected of Good characters. Maybe truly Good characters should try to change the nature of the Evil orcs in some way.
Maybe, and maybe they're irredeemable. Maybe they have a different type of spirit, one created by their dark gods and invested not with free will, but with the desire to slay, dominate, and inflict pain.
I think people are missing the point that there is no right answer.
If DM-A says the Orcs in his Setting-A are not Absolutely Evil, and are redeemable, then they are.
If DM-B says the Orcs in his Setting-B are Absolutely Evil, and are irredeemable, then they are.
That doesn't make DM-B an "ist" of any type, as the OP suggests.
Quote from: Machinegun Blue;478182I can easily see a character that seriously follows a code of chivalry not killing the orc babies. Not a whole lot of valor to gain and there's a good possibility to lose some.
Or even a barbaric code of personal honor, where the orc women and young aren't worth killing.
But a character whose main concern is the welfare of the nearby human society? Now the fun begins. :D
Quote from: CRKrueger;478196I hear where you're coming from, but "babies"...aren't you anthropomorphizing? Most of the time "baby", when referred to non-humans, is an adjective, not a noun. Baby elephants, baby snakes, baby orcs, but just the word "Baby"= baby human.
I can understand some people's concern about anthropomorphizing. But TBH, isn't this something that could also be blamed on scifi and fantasy media over the last few decades? Nearly every race in Star Trek and and Star Wars are are anthropomorphized in some way, and even when they're regarded as "lesser" beings, there's still a "all life is sacred, find the least destructive solution" sort of feel to the narrative.
Even in the DS9 episode that was linked, the protagonists ultimately let the genetically modified warrior go, rather than killing him or submitting him as a research subject to Starfleet (much more pragmatic solutions, although more morally challenging ones).
edit:
Also, someone elsewhere on the net mentioned that before Good and Evil were added to the alignment axis in D&D, Chaos originally represented a more Lovecraftian/Moorcockian take on evil --
unnatural (rather than just Evil with a capital E), irredeemable, and unable to coexist with more civilized and peaceful beings. If that's the sort of perspective that was originally intended, it's a lot different than the type of Good/Evil back-and-forth that developed in D&D later on, and what I was introduced to with 3rd edition, but in that light things make a bit more sense.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478198Maybe, and maybe they're irredeemable. Maybe they have a different type of spirit, one created by their dark gods and invested not with free will, but with the desire to slay, dominate, and inflict pain.
Sure, but let's say that there's some kind of cosmic good/evil switch that can be flipped. Could make for a campaign right there.
Quote from: Machinegun Blue;478201Sure, but let's say that there's some kind of cosmic good/evil switch that can be flipped. Could make for a campaign right there.
Say there was an evil race. And some sort of...crystal...feeding their power. But if you completed a certain quest, you might be able to rid the world of pestilence...hmm... ;)
Quote from: CRKrueger;478198That doesn't make DM-B an "ist" of any type, as the OP suggests.
Does make him kind of a shit DM though, as I said earlier. Especially if a PC is uncomfortable killing orc babies and the DM goes "Naw, don't worry, they're irredeemably evil fuckers. Murder remorselessly."
Quote from: daniel_ream;478168Completely independent of the topic (and it probably deserves one of its own) something I'd love to see is an intelligently written alt-historical medieval Church that combines pantheism with the trapping of the medieval Catholic Church.
You've got it, really. Praying to patron saints of this and that, the saints performing miracles of their own, visiting altars of the saints, reverencing relics (ie bits of their bodies and clothing) and icons of the saints, while worshipping one main deity - basically it's pantheistic.
It's much less so since the 1960s and their various reforms of the Catholic church. Plus as people have become more secular generally, they've drifted off from the saints and saved their small amount of spirituality for their God and Jesus.
Quote from: S'mon;478073I think they started off with "Mexicans are mostly Mestizo" - ie most have a good chunk of pre-Colonial indigenous ancestry - and using their 'one drop rule' went from there to "Mexicans are non-White". Nixon invented the Hispanic/Latino census category as some weird fucked up Republican ploy to split the Democratic base, and now they have a culture where Antonio Banderas becomes non-white the moment he steps off the plane from Spain.
You can find an article from the Washington Post about the woman who coined the word "Hispanic" here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/24/AR2009072402091.html?sid=ST2010031902002):
"
There are many Hispanic activists who think that Richard Nixon did it. Well, no, Richard Nixon was very busy -- he didn't have time to be doing this. When I explain it, they get relieved. They were holding this anger that some nasty Anglo named them. Well, no, it wasn't. It was this little Hispanic bureaucrat."
Here is her explanation of why she coined that specific term:
"
The biggest concern was in those days they were beginning to hire a lot of minorities, especially Hispanic Americans, and if somebody would say, 'Well, I'm Latin and they're from Portugal, they're going to get hired.' And I said, 'That's not the point of what we're trying to do here. We're trying to open the doors for Mexican Americans.'"
…and…
"
All the people in South Texas I grew up with. So many of them were poor, so many were disenfranchised. I thought: How can we argue for more federal funds or more federal help if we don't know how many they are?"
Yes, that sounds like a vicious Republican ploy to me. :rolleyes:
Maybe if Gary Gygax had just made his orcs all look like Richard Nixon, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Clearly, it would be OK to slaughter orc women and babies if they all looked like Richard Nixon, since everyone believes he was the personification of Evil.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478205Does make him kind of a shit DM though, as I said earlier. Especially if a PC is uncomfortable killing orc babies and the DM goes "Naw, don't worry, they're irredeemably evil fuckers. Murder remorselessly."
Ho now wait a minute. If in my campaign orcs are irredeemably evil, like they are in... oh let's say Middle Earth for example. That doesnt make the designer of the setting (e.g. me or JRR Tolkien) "kind of a shit DM" unless I require you to do some particular thing. It's hilarious to watch you trying to make yourself a victim when what is really happening is that you're beginning to see the point. The orcs are evil and they have to be killed. You arent required to slit orc baby throats if that makes you "uncomfortable." That's roleplaying. You figure out what you do based upon the facts of the setting youre in. Unfortunately for you, the facts of some campaigns force you to confront evil and have to make a real choice. In the case of the poor little "orc babies" that's a hard thing to do and not everyone is up to it. But, when your character hears about the next orc attack in the area a few years down the line - that might factor into the ongoing debate in his mushy conscience.
Quote from: skofflox;478170Thanks for the info!
Love the Tom Meir minis...:)
EDIT: Could not find any pics. of the Zulu Orcs at "The Lost Minis Wiki" Ral Partha/All American Line so...?!
There's a lot of blank, no picture available slots from what I could see. Still thanks for turning me onto a cool minis archive site. Quite a bit broader than Stuff of Legends.
But as it happens I've got one of the RP Orcs from the All American range and it is indeed a Zulu. I thought it was a pretty cool mini. But I suppose that just shows my inherent racism.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478058JM hints at it but effectively all the comments from "Orcs are irredeemibly Evil", to "Orcs are inferior and brutish", to "it's our moral obligation to eliminate them before they can harm 'real people' ", to "there are no shades of grey there is good and there is evil and this entire race are evil" .... all of them sound just like racist/creedist polemic used by everyone from the Nazis to the KKK to Al-Qaeda.
I don't think I'm hinting. I've said outright that the attributes given to monsters like orcs and the statements made about them have clear parallels to the statements made by racists (using the term in the broadest sense, which includes ethnic and sectarian hatred) against the groups they hate, because the purpose is the same. The purpose is to depict the group as monstrous and worthy of hatred if not destruction. And racists lie, even outrageously so, in order to apply such monstrous traits to all members of the group that they hate in order to make a persuasive reason to fear, hate, or even want to eliminate a group.
But I think the problem with the parallel is not that it's wrong to identify evil for what it is or to hate or want to destroy evil but that the groups they hate are not evil, which is why they invariably lie when making their case for hatred. Why did people make up stories about Jews using the blood of Christian children for Passover wine? Because the reality wouldn't have persuaded people to want to hate and kill them, so they enhanced the argument with lies to make them seem more monstrous.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478058If anything this thread has some to reinforce my beleive that there is inherent racism in the treatment of gobinoids in D&D. Even the occassional half-orc that manages to overcome his racial origins and rise up to live with humans is a reinforcement of the fact that the other can only be controlled and contained by civilisation.
Of course it's racist! The first definition of racism from Merriam-Webster is:
"
[A] belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."
If you remove the "human" for a fantasy game where "race" actually means "species", it's pretty clear that defining certain species as inherently monstrous is, by definition, "racist". But I don't think that the wrong question to be asking. The question is whether such racism is justified in a fantasy setting in a way that it is not in the real world.
To put this another way, suppose that Swedes really were inherently violent and murderous and having one living in your neighborhood was akin to having a tiger living free in your neighborhood and that it would only be a matter of time before people would start turning up dead. Would it be wrong to not want to have a Swede as a next door neighbor? Would it be wrong to want to run them out of town? Would it be wrong to want to kill them if they won't go peacefully before they start killing your family? And if this thought exercise makes you uncomfortable, why is that?
What makes racism indefensible and bad is not that it's mean or hateful but that it's simply not based on the truth. The fact that racists regularly have to lie in order to sow their hatred illustrates how false and irrational their position is. And if you want to argue that's not why racism is bad, then I'd be curious why you do think it is bad because you'd essentially be arguing that speaking the truth is bad.
Now, you could ask why anyone would want to create an environment where racism is justified. Isn't that an awful lot like what RaHoWa does? And I think that misses the point of why monsters are included in the game. The point is not to create justified racism but to populate the setting with monsters. For most people, such monsters are included for the same reason they include demons, zombies, and killer robots in their games, which is to provide a clear enemy to fight and defeat because people often want their escapist fiction to be more simple than reality, with clear-cut bad guys. And for such people, wanting to kill an orc because it's a monster is no more a desire to wallow in justifiable racism than wanting to kill zombies is.
Quote from: Caesar Slaad;478023Orcs are evil->therefore they must be slain
Now I can see how in that over-simplification where the "racism" is. Who says orcs are evil?
(Wow! This thread has grown quick. Someone probably already responded to this. Anyhow...)
The rules (e.g. the Monster Manual) say that orcs are evil. Or, going back to OD&D, orcs are Chaotic. Take your pick.
Quote from: Caesar Slaad;478028This thread reminds me of a DS9 episode:
Probably why you don't get it. D&D ain't Star Trek.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478145That would by definition also be racist.
Apparently this guy is an expert on racism.
Quote from: austinjimm;478223Apparently this guy is an expert on racism.
The fucking question was "If I use racist stereotypes of this group, is that racist?" And the answer is, obviously, Yes (http://xkcd.com/703/).
You don't have to be an expert on a subject to derive a conclusion from the premises. If you presuppose racist treatment of a group, the conclusion had fucking better be that the treatment of the group was racist. Otherwise you fail at logic.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478086If you can't consistently define your absolute good and evil, you don't have an absolute good or an absolute evil. And then you're just a cafeteria christian - picking and choosing the segments of your book you will kill people for and refuse to discuss rationally and ignoring the rest or waving it off as a metaphor. A metaphor for... something... mumble...
What a ridiculous and irrelevant argument. Good/Evil, absolute or otherwise, are whatever your DM says it is at any given time of day.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478224If you presuppose racist treatment of a group, the conclusion had fucking better be that the treatment of the group was racist. Otherwise you fail at logic.
Thanks, Mr. Spock. Now I get it.
:worship:
Quote from: austinjimm;478225What a ridiculous and irrelevant argument. Good/Evil, absolute or otherwise, are whatever your DM says it is at any given time of day.
That is both retarded and empirically untrue.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478227That is both retarded and empirically untrue.
No it's not.
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478210Ho now wait a minute. If in my campaign orcs are irredeemably evil, like they are in... oh let's say Middle Earth for example. That doesnt make the designer of the setting (e.g. me or JRR Tolkien) "kind of a shit DM" unless I require you to do some particular thing.
Protip: Tolkien is not a DM. He is an author. Confusing the two completely distinct roles is another, unrelated sign of a shithead DM, as well as of someone with a tenuous grasp of reality.
Bonus protip: As Frank pointed out, Tolkien didn't consider orcs to be irredeemably evil.
QuoteIt's hilarious to watch you trying to make yourself a victim when what is really happening is that you're beginning to see the point. The orcs are evil and they have to be killed. You arent required to slit orc baby throats if that makes you "uncomfortable." That's roleplaying. You figure out what you do based upon the facts of the setting youre in. Unfortunately for you, the facts of some campaigns force you to confront evil and have to make a real choice. In the case of the poor little "orc babies" that's a hard thing to do and not everyone is up to it. But, when your character hears about the next orc attack in the area a few years down the line - that might factor into the ongoing debate in his mushy conscience.
If you think I am trying to portray myself a victim of something here, you are even stupider than the above comment about Tolkien being a DM makes you appear.
If the DM changes the definition of Good and Evil even once, then the definition of Good and Evil were not at any time absolute. Once you've defined morality relative to something, even relative to the DM, then you have a relative - and thus not absolute - moral system. That is what the fucking word means.
There is another issue, which is that if the moral system in use is subject to the unknowable and changeable whims of someone who isn't the person making moral choices, then neither the moral choice nor the moral system has any meaning. You might as well be spinning the Wheel of Morality at that point.
-Frank
Quote from: austinjimm;478228No it's not.
Dunning-Kruger strikes again!
Quote from: Peregrin;478203Say there was an evil race. And some sort of...crystal...feeding their power. But if you completed a certain quest, you might be able to rid the world of pestilence...hmm... ;)
No. No that would be too ridiculous.
At this point, other than a handful of posters (Frank amongst them), this thread is full retard.
Let's go down the full retard list:
1) Morrow pretending to be a psychologist / moral philosopher rationalising a society of psychopaths, something that has never actually existed
1a) Someone mentions the Arabs / Muslims in relation to this
2) Misuse of the term "moral relativism" as a pejorative against some moral position the writer dislikes despite it actually being a more universal or absolute principle than the writer holds
3) Irrelevant fulminating against LIBRALZM and "white guilt"
4) Consistent confusion of authoritative citation of source material and facts with whims, desires, dreams & half-memories, also what you can find on the first page of Google that seems like it kind of supports what you said
5) A flood of low-post-count posters with indistinguishable and ignorant opinions jackal-wanking one another
6) Laziness, ignorance and stupidity deriving from privilege & the exploitation of the hard work of others are valorised by people too unimaginative to even make up sensible or interesting imitations of the world. The valorisations are used to explain why their laziness, ignorance, and stupidity are wonderful, and actually a sign of discerning taste & skill.
Yeap, it's a full retard thread all right.
Also, it's super-hilarious to see a bunch of Christian posters in here arguing that innately evil people & species need to be killed to be dealt with.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478233Yeap, it's a full retard thread all right.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478234Also, it's super-hilarious to see a bunch of Christian posters in here arguing that innately evil people & species need to be killed to be dealt with.
My irony meter just redlined.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478230If the DM changes the definition of Good and Evil even once, then the definition of Good and Evil were not at any time absolute. Once you've defined morality relative to something, even relative to the DM, then you have a relative - and thus not absolute - moral system. That is what the fucking word means.
There is another issue, which is that if the moral system in use is subject to the unknowable and changeable whims of someone who isn't the person making moral choices, then neither the moral choice nor the moral system has any meaning. You might as well be spinning the Wheel of Morality at that point.
You do understand that Dungeons & Dragons is a *game,* right?
Who is truly the supreme being in any D&D game? Is it the dice? Is it some list of statistics written in your notebook? No. It is the Dungeon Master. The DM possesses the supreme power variously referred to as "DM fiat," "referee's discretion," et. al. In a good D&D game, the DM creates the entire cosmos that his players explore, populates it, and brings its denizens to life. The DM is truly God with a capital "G" within the context of his game. (Remember now, it is a *game.*)
As the DM in my game, I'll let you in on a few key *facts.* In my game orc babies eat people. Orc daddies enslave humans and rape women (of all types). Orc mommies make stew out of human babies.
All of these things take place off-camera, so to speak. However, the orcs don't do these things because they are misunderstood or discrimnated against. They do it because they are fiendish sociopaths from birth to death.
As the DM I choose, for the present, to define these creatures as evil (as do the rules of the game-- remember this is a *game*). It is not their behavior that makes them evil, it is their nature, for that is what the DM decrees.
If my players want some pussy-ass-liberal-star-trek version of D&D they are free to seek it elsewhere. After all-- it's just a game.
The entire premise of Christianity is that everyone is wicked and redemption is available for everyone. That is the entire point of the religion. So any time a Christian says that someone is genetically wicked and thereby excusing doing something final to them, they have already broken the irony meter. Because premise 1 of their religion is that being wicked from birth is the default state of absolutely everyone. Therefore being wicked from birth does not - and cannot - justify treating any person different from any other person.
It would be like executing someone "because he has thumbs". Only more so, because there are actually people who for whatever reason don't have thumbs. But everyone is born sinful. No (non-deity) exceptions.
-Frank
Quote from: austinjimmYou do understand that Dungeons & Dragons is a *game,* right?
Can the DM create a rule he can't override?
Look, the fact that it is a game doesn't allow it to include logical impossibilities. If morality is malleable, it's malleable. That means it
isn't absolute. Because absolute morality
means morality that is
not malleable.
You said that absolute morality didn't stop the DM from changing the definition of Good and Evil at different times of the day. And that's wrong. If the morality is absolute, it
can't change at different times of the day. If morality can be changed over the course of the day, it's not absolute.
Your statement was logically inconsistent with itself. You can have morality that the DM can change
or you can have absolute morality, but you
can't have both. By definition.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478237The entire premise of Christianity is that everyone is wicked and redemption is available for everyone. That is the entire point of the religion.
Dang! Your an expert on Christianity, too!
:rotfl:
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478238Look, the fact that it is a game doesn't allow it to include logical impossibilities.
Yes, it does. (HINT: It's a fantasy game.)
Quote from: austinjimm;478222Probably why you don't get it. D&D ain't Star Trek.
Which is the point of the fucking reference you ignorant twat.
That episode is one of the ones that distinguishes DS9 from it's series peers because it is such an un-Star Trek thing. There's no diplomatic solution, it just wants to fucking kill you.
Which is why it's such a good analogy to the present discussion.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;4782336) Laziness, ignorance and stupidity deriving from privilege & the exploitation of the hard work of others are valorised by people too unimaginative to even make up sensible or interesting imitations of the world. The valorisations are used to explain why their laziness, ignorance, and stupidity are wonderful, and actually a sign of discerning taste & skill.
I think there is far less imagination in insisting everything be an imitation of the world, than daring imagine one beyond it.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478233Yep, it's a full retard thread all right.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478234Also, it's super-hilarious to see a bunch of Christian posters in here arguing that innately evil people & species need to be killed to be dealt with.
Yes, yes it is. With you just vaulting yourself to the top of the list.
Go to the Everglades and firebomb a few snakehandler churches, you'll feel better.
Quote from: J Arcane;478241I think there is far less imagination in insisting everything be an imitation of the world, than daring imagine one beyond it.
When someone has their personality constructed around the denial of an idea, it's near impossible to get them to accept it, even in a theoretical, or in this case, fantastical sense.
Quote from: J Arcane;478241Which is the point of the fucking reference you ignorant twat.
Well, excuse me, Shitnozzle.
Quote from: austinjimm;478239Dang! Your an expert on Christianity, too!
:rotfl:
You don't have to be an expert on Christianity to understand what a salvationist religion is. You also don't have to be an expert on Christianity to know what the core fucking tenets of the world's largest religions are. For fuck's sake, we aren't talking about obscure theological points argued over by Benedictine monks, we're talking about the concept of salvation through Jesus Christ. If you think that it is
funny that someone knows what that is, you must have had no exposure to any Western culture for the last sixteen hundred years or so.
Seriously dude: this is not an obscure concept.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478245Seriously dude: this is not an obscure concept.
No, but it has nothing to do with orc babies.
The funniest thing is, this thread has probably gotten more replies then the OP's entire bloghistory. :D
Insulting everyone (or almost everyone) in the thread with general ad-hominem attacks isn't exactly showing the strength of one's point.
I think a better summary is that different people have different ways of approaching the issue - but the issue of killing orc prisoners and/or babies does bother some people. Adam Dray, quoted in the OP, suggested some ways. John Morrow suggested an alternative that he thought was useful - positing that orcs had an inborn trait of psychopathy. Others have suggested orcs not having women or children at all and/or always attacking to the death (against any principle of self-preservation).
I don't think there's a single right answer, but I'd thank people who gave thoughtful replies.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478247The funniest thing is, this thread has probably gotten more replies then the OP's entire bloghistory. :D
I just wanted to post that I suspect this will be the next thread on these boards to hit 1000 replies.
Quote from: Patrick Y.;478192A similar thing ended up happening to me, once. We were playing Shadowrun, and we were doing a straight up robbery of some tech company. I was the driver, and playing a bit of a nutter with a nasty streak. We broke in and found these two employees who we didn't expect to be there, and one of them ended up trying to scream for help. So, I said my guy was going to club him to death, and the GM decided I should roll it out. It ended up taking forever, with roll after roll after roll, and after a little while the whole thing just became exquisitely uncomfortable. We showed up at the table for some high spirited Pulp Fiction, and the dice turned it into Sympathy For Mr Vengeance.
That is the thing I love the most of the RPG hobby. And that is why I think these things shouldn't be just handwaved.
Quote from: John Morrow;478219The question is whether such racism is justified in a fantasy setting in a way that it is not in the real world.
It will depend on the 'physics laws' of the world, so to speak. If you decide that in your setting there are absolute good and evil, then racism would be justified in that setting. But you will probably find tons of incoherent situations.
QuoteFor most people, such monsters are included for the same reason they include demons, zombies, and killer robots in their games, which is to provide a clear enemy to fight and defeat because people often want their escapist fiction to be more simple than reality, with clear-cut bad guys. And for such people, wanting to kill an orc because it's a monster is no more a desire to wallow in justifiable racism than wanting to kill zombies is.
100% agree. That is why I find the OOP idiotic. And I find perfectly OK and fun to desire that your games work that way.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478230If the DM changes the definition of Good and Evil even once, then the definition of Good and Evil were not at any time absolute. Once you've defined morality relative to something, even relative to the DM, then you have a relative - and thus not absolute - moral system. That is what the fucking word means.
There is another issue, which is that if the moral system in use is subject to the unknowable and changeable whims of someone who isn't the person making moral choices, then neither the moral choice nor the moral system has any meaning. You might as well be spinning the Wheel of Morality at that point.
-Frank
Well put. And this is why alignment are quite useless.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478234Also, it's super-hilarious to see a bunch of Christian posters in here arguing that innately evil people & species need to be killed to be dealt with.
Nothing new, I'm afraid. Every "religion of peace" through history has done and does the same.
Quote from: austinjimm;478236You do understand that Dungeons & Dragons is a *game,* right?
I'd like if people decided if this is or not a valid argument, because it does not seem to be whenever certain other games arise in a thread. In that cases, this argument is not considered a valid defense.
QuoteAll of these things take place off-camera, so to speak. However, the orcs don't do these things because they are misunderstood or discrimnated against. They do it because they are fiendish sociopaths from birth to death.
Well, if you can make it work with internal consistency, then it's OK. So, for you the reason for defining them Evil wouldn't be the actions they do (after all, humans are capable of doing all those things) but their nature?
Quote from: austinjimm;478239Dang! Your an expert on Christianity, too!
:rotfl:
Has he said somethign wrong or false? As far as I can see, his statement is true. And you don't need to be an expert to know that basic tenet of Christianty.
Quote from: J Arcane;478241I think there is far less imagination in insisting everything be an imitation of the world, than daring imagine one beyond it.
While you have a point, the problem for me is not to dare imagining something different, but the breaks in internal consistency it entails.
Quote from: Melan;478249I just wanted to post that I suspect this will be the next thread on these boards to hit 1000 replies.
TheRPGSite, always doing the heavy lifting when it comes to publicize obscure games and blog posts from people no one knows shit about :D
Quote from: austinjimm;478220(Wow! This thread has grown quick. Someone probably already responded to this. Anyhow...)
The rules (e.g. the Monster Manual) say that orcs are evil. Or, going back to OD&D, orcs are Chaotic. Take your pick.
You're new here, so I'm not sure if you are preaching to the choir or are trying to be snarky. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt:
When I said "Who says orcs are evil", I was speaking from the (IMO out of touch) perspective of the quoted post in the OP. In other words, laboring under the belief that what the rulebook said is just some parroted stereotype as views from the perspective of humans in the setting, and not a morally authoritative take on the role of the creature in the world.
EDIT: And I can see reading the rest of the page that you're just a troll and didn't deserve said benefit.
Who the hell are you and what do you want here? A friend of the oop who has you panties in a bunch?
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478232No. No that would be too ridiculous. I'm sorry, but you have pushed the power of the imagination to the absolute limite. An evil race? What are we talking about here? Meaning what? That they are evil? That they can't be reasoned into understanding that destruction is counterproductive? That they cant see that A + B = C. Come on. Just how far do you expect me to take this imagination thing? An evil race? Am I supposed to believe that they actually "enjoy" evil? That there is some "thrill" they get from the feel of tearing something's guts out? That they feel pleasure and freedom when raping someone, a sense of power? Get real. I wouldnt feel that. I dont imagine holding her down (just once) and asserting my control, wiping that smile off her face...uh, uh, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, why would an orc? What is there, some 'Crystal" or something that makes orcs evil? ROLFMAO. Magic? RPGs? Ha ha ha. Everything is magic, and crystals, and vile evils. What a...
Just shoot me when I start writing posts like this. It's as illogical as mine or koltars one liners but it's invested in like John morrow wrote it.
After 100 pages of talking about races being evil, why would you post 14,000 words about not getting the idea. I couldn't finish the longest paragraph so if it turns into something, sorry.
Quote from: jhkim;478248John Morrow suggested an alternative that he thought was useful - positing that orcs had an inborn trait of psychopathy... I don't think there's a single right answer, but I'd thank people who gave thoughtful replies.
Just one damn minute Admiral.
There is always a right answer. If you're a real roleplayer (one of those guys that plays the role of a character according to the campaign he is actually in, instead of dragging his own notions of what should or should not be the case from whatever "superior reality" he is coming from, then you know that the GM has the "right answer.")
If you find yourself balking at the idea that maybe somebody besides you could be defining the truth in a given senario...that doesnt make you more openminded than the rest of the gamers in your neighborhood - it makes you less imaginative and an elitist snob. IE a brickhead.
I dont give a damn what John Morrow suggested when I am running my campaign, because John Morrow is just some guy. It's my campaign. If I want to know what John Morrow suggests, I'll join his campaign, and if I do, I wont be so pretentious as to suggest that I know better than him what is right or wrong or true in his campaign.
On a side note, my super powered 6th level party gleefully obliterated a dozen of my fungus orcs today. The fact that they were a full on evil road block begging for divine intervention was pretty fun for them to run through.
I give my players plenty enough moral dilemmas when they have to decide who to help between neutralish humans. Sometimes it is a lot of fun to blast pure evil.
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478232*snip*
Holy crap dude that was a block of text.
I think you got my reference, but in the case of the The Dark Crystal, the point is that modifying the McGuffin may actually redeem those who are driven by its evil power.
So Evil in that case would be a supernatural force, but the race themselves would merely be a slave to it. The heroes in this case may not only be able to save themselves, but their enemies as well.
Personally, though, I prefer redemption to be an option. Maybe it's not an easy one to achieve, maybe it'll require more sacrifice on the part of the PCs in changing some supernatural or divine elements of the game-world, but I think it's a good option to have. I think it'd be a huge smack to the face of whatever evil gods imbued a race with their chaotic bent if you altered them so that they could join the free peoples rather then forever being slaves to their nature. That'd probably be really high-level play, but I think it'd be interesting.
Quote from: Peregrin;478257Holy crap dude that was a block of text.
I blame Sam Adams Octoberfest brew. This time of year you'll notice I am more tarnacious on the whole.
Look - I respect your view...that everyone and every thing is redeemable. And in your campaign it makes sense. And if I were in your campaign, I would accept the parameters.
I don't agree with your view. Not, at least, as far as roleplaying settings go. In my campaign, where there is supernaturally defined morality, there is absolute evil and absolute good.
Respecting your view is not the same as agreeing with it.
I dont expect your campaigns to be like mine. I dont want your campaigns to be like mine. I dont think it would make sense if they were. That's roleplaying. The roles in your campaign are defined differently than in mine.
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478258I blame Sam Adams Octoberfest brew.
Next try a Guiness Stout before typing.... :D
Quote from: jhkimJohn Morrow suggested an alternative that he thought was useful - positing that orcs had an inborn trait of psychopathy
That's because Morrow has a hardon for psychopaths. Seriously, he brings them up all the fucking time, in most discussions on politics, and on the rare occasions he posts about roleplaying. Even way back in 2006 in a discussion about Pundit's landmarks (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=21821#post21821).
It's D&D, for fuck's sakes. Psychology is irrelevant, notwithstanding the random insanity tables.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;478261That's because Morrow has a hardon for psychopaths. Seriously, he brings them up all the fucking time, in most discussions on politics, and on the rare occasions he posts about roleplaying. Even way back in 2006 in a discussion about Pundit's landmarks (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=21821#post21821).
It's D&D, for fuck's sakes. Psychology is irrelevant, notwithstanding the random insanity tables.
Actually not sure as you could argue that he vast majority of PCs display Psychopathic behaviour (oh and it was me that brought up the Psychos first this time :) )
It's all about taste. If you want a simple hack and slash, efffectively turning D&D into a tactical combat games then fine. Alignmen, morality etc are all irrelevant in that game. And that game has a place.
If you add more depth to the game and make your PCs more rounded then you want to consider how they react to certain things. Like it says in my sig I am a method roleplayer I expect the world to be inhabited by 3 dimensional characters on all sides.
I have no problem with orcs being irredeemibly evil so long as that has some justification (orcs in Tolkien being created by corrupting elves for example) the interesting part comes in how the PCs interact with that evil. I can not except that the GM gets to define good and evil in his world. He can define the Laws of the world, he can define the customs of the world, but the players are bound to bring their own good/evil with them and trying to pretend that isn't the case ends up becoming a semantic arguement of the type you have when you are trying to be edgy when you are 15. Saying 'but in my Aztec world Human sacrific is Good,' is just being dickish. You can say 'Human sacrifice is the way we do things, it is the Law,' doesn't make it good.
So by all means define goblins or giants in a racist way but be aware that you are doing it. Or just play a hack and slash. What I find unsupportable is the game that claims to be using imagination and deeply immersive and far superior to MMOs and CRPGs when the PCs just wade into groups of creatures kill them with no remorse and still claim themselves to be Goodly heroes.
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478258I blame Sam Adams Octoberfest brew. This time of year you'll notice I am more tarnacious on the whole.
Look - I respect your view...that everyone and every thing is redeemable. And in your campaign it makes sense. And if I were in your campaign, I would accept the parameters.
I don't agree with your view. Not, at least, as far as roleplaying settings go. In my campaign, where there is supernaturally defined morality, there is absolute evil and absolute good.
Respecting your view is not the same as agreeing with it.
I dont expect your campaigns to be like mine. I dont want your campaigns to be like mine. I dont think it would make sense if they were. That's roleplaying. The roles in your campaign are defined differently than in mine.
Fair enough.
As for Orcs being irredeemably evil, that's just factually wrong. Over and above whatever diplomancy rules exist in whatever edition you're playing with, the spell atonement has existed since forever. It converts a humanoid from any alignment to any alignment. Period. Orcs can be redeemed for full value: it's in the rules.
Now if you're playing 3rd edition, the game actually has tags to distinguish things that come in multiple alignment flavors and things that don't. Orcs fall squarely in the first category. The Orc Warrior is "Usually Chaotic Evil", Orcs as a species come in every alignment.
So the question of whether Orcs can be redeemed or not has a genuine answer in the rules: yes they can.
-Frank
Quote from: John Morrow;478208"All the people in South Texas I grew up with. So many of them were poor, so many were disenfranchised. I thought: How can we argue for more federal funds or more federal help if we don't know how many they are?"
Yes, that sounds like a vicious Republican ploy to me. :rolleyes:
I didn't say it was 'vicious'. And the GW Bush type Republicans seem to be big promoters of the "We're all La Raza" mythology created by the white Mexican ruling class in the 1920s to deter the Mestizos from allying with the Indians against the elite. I think they know they'll never get more than 40% of the Hispanic vote, even in Texas, but they put big-business interests over party interests. Mexican immigration drives down labour costs and helps enable de-Unionisation. This, combined with outsourcing, hurts long-settled white, black and Hispanic workers and benefits business, shareholders, and to a lesser extent consumers (US business profits are vastly higher now than they used to be, indicating that the consumer benefit is minimal).
Quote from: John Morrow;478219IAnd if you want to argue that's not why racism is bad, then I'd be curious why you do think it is bad because you'd essentially be arguing that speaking the truth is bad.
That's the political orthodoxy here in Europe - speaking the truth is no defense if the potential effects are bad - in various countries non-Muslims can't legally quote violent passages from the Koran if doing so might increase fear of Islam, for instance. I thought the US was pretty similar in terms of social condemnation, if not criminal prosecution.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478237The entire premise of Christianity is that everyone is wicked and redemption is available for everyone. That is the entire point of the religion. So any time a Christian says that someone is genetically wicked and thereby excusing doing something final to them, they have already broken the irony meter. Because premise 1 of their religion is that being wicked from birth is the default state of absolutely everyone. Therefore being wicked from birth does not - and cannot - justify treating any person different from any other person.
And if my
fantasy setting with monsters and magic had a fantasy Jesus who died for the sins of all sentients and could save them by grace rather than a cosmology where one's alignment is determined by their deeds and reincarnation exists, that
might be relevant or ironic. Would you consider an atheist running a setting with deities ironic, too? Do you really have that difficult of a time separating reality and fantasy?
Quote from: J Arcane;478241I think there is far less imagination in insisting everything be an imitation of the world, than daring imagine one beyond it.
And I think there are a lot of people in the role-playing hobby who imagine themselves to be far more imaginative than they really are.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478242Yes, yes it is. With you just vaulting yourself to the top of the list.
I thought it was a pretty good thread until Pseudo posted, actually. He kinda took it into rpgnet sneeredy-cat territory.
Quote from: S'mon;478270I didn't say it was 'vicious'.
Perhaps not, but you stated something as fact which a few minutes with Google showed me wasn't fact. Yet another example of the fact that political quips that sound too good to be true (I was all Nixon's fault) usually are.
Quote from: Peregrin;478257Holy crap dude that was a block of text.
I think you got my reference, but in the case of the The Dark Crystal, the point is that modifying the McGuffin may actually redeem those who are driven by its evil power.
So Evil in that case would be a supernatural force, but the race themselves would merely be a slave to it. The heroes in this case may not only be able to save themselves, but their enemies as well.
Personally, though, I prefer redemption to be an option. Maybe it's not an easy one to achieve, maybe it'll require more sacrifice on the part of the PCs in changing some supernatural or divine elements of the game-world, but I think it's a good option to have. I think it'd be a huge smack to the face of whatever evil gods imbued a race with their chaotic bent if you altered them so that they could join the free peoples rather then forever being slaves to their nature. That'd probably be really high-level play, but I think it'd be interesting.
Yeah, I definitely think it's an interesting idea. Although
The Dark Crystal analogy indicates there might be a very heavy price to pay.
Personally I tend to go with the default D&D Orcs who are Evil but not mindless demons; and can even be quite affable when they're not chewing your legs off. I'm running 4e Forgotten Realms which includes Many Arrows, a relatively peaceful orc kingdom. In this kind of setting orc genocide is morally questionable within our Christianity/Enlightenment-derived RW morality, or within the current D&D Alignment system.
Quote from: John Morrow;478276Perhaps not, but you stated something as fact which a few minutes with Google showed me wasn't fact. Yet another example of the fact that political quips that sound too good to be true (I was all Nixon's fault) usually are.
I didn't mean that Nixon himself personally invented the Hispanic category. I didn't see anything in your quote to disprove what I wrote. The Nixon Presidency created Hispanic/Latino as a political-ethnic category as a wedge against the (mostly white, part black) Democratic base in the Unions.
It's not just the Republicans' fault. Hispanic political activists on the Left - typically white, or nearly all white, in ancestry - eagerly supported this. And the soil had been primed back in Mexico as early as the 1920s, when the white elite there started claiming to be the same 'Cosmic Race' as the mestizo majority; pretending they were all descended from the Aztecs, etc.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478269As for Orcs being irredeemably evil, that's just factually wrong. Over and above whatever diplomancy rules exist in whatever edition you're playing with, the spell atonement has existed since forever. It converts a humanoid from any alignment to any alignment. Period. Orcs can be redeemed for full value: it's in the rules.
I researched this thoroughly before running my D&D 3.5 game. You will note that part of the atonement spell reads:
"
The creature seeking atonement must be truly repentant and desirous of setting right its misdeeds."
The problem with inherently and irredeemably Evil orcs would be finding one that is repentant and desirous of setting right their misdeeds.
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478258Look - I respect your view...that everyone and every thing is redeemable. And in your campaign it makes sense. And if I were in your campaign, I would accept the parameters.
I don't agree with your view. Not, at least, as far as roleplaying settings go. In my campaign, where there is supernaturally defined morality, there is absolute evil and absolute good.
Respecting your view is not the same as agreeing with it.
I dont expect your campaigns to be like mine. I dont want your campaigns to be like mine. I dont think it would make sense if they were. That's roleplaying. The roles in your campaign are defined differently than in mine.
Well, this makes a lot of sense to me. That is why I specified that, although I usually am more of a shades of grey guy, I can have fun in a setting with absolutes.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478264I can not expect that the GM gets to define good and evil in his world. He can define the Laws of the world, he can define the customs of the world, but the players are bound to bring their own good/evil with them and trying to pretend that isn't the case ends up becoming a semantic arguement of the type you have when you are trying to be edgy when you are 15. Saying 'but in my Aztec world Human sacrific is Good,' is just being dickish. You can say 'Human sacrifice is the way we do things, it is the Law,' doesn't make it good.
So by all means define goblins or giants in a racist way but be aware that you are doing it. Or just play a hack and slash. What I find unsupportable is the game that claims to be using imagination and deeply immersive and far superior to MMOs and CRPGs when the PCs just wade into groups of creatures kill them with no remorse and still claim themselves to be Goodly heroes.
I like this.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478264Saying 'but in my Aztec world Human sacrific is Good,' is just being dickish. You can say 'Human sacrifice is the way we do things, it is the Law,' doesn't make it good.
Surely this depends on cultural psychology. For many historical societies human sacrifices were indeed considered good acts, to the point where some members of society would prefer to be a sacrifice rather than die an otherwise ignoble death. Yes, it might have been faced with fear and superstition (it involves death after all) but it doesn't mean it wasn't seen as being 'good'.
Similarly in the very early classical age Slavery was considered an act of goodness, since it allowed you to deal with captured prisoners of war without having to kill them in cold blood. It was only later it was institutionalised as a method of earning wealth and became increasingly brutal. The interesting point here being that cultures practising regular warfare did their best to avoid unnecessary killing.
Our modern preconceptions are extremely limited when it comes to the range of morality expressed by past civilisations.
Quote from: J Arcane;478241I think there is far less imagination in insisting everything be an imitation of the world, than daring imagine one beyond it.
That sounds like something off a desk calendar.
Quote from: S'mon;478274I thought it was a pretty good thread until Pseudo posted, actually. He kinda took it into rpgnet sneeredy-cat territory.
No, it really wasn't a good thread, for all the reasons I pointed out and more. You might imagine something new or interesting was being said here, but you would be mistaken.
Step 1: Mass charm person.
Step 2: Mass atonement.
People are really going to a lot of effort - including using pseudo-scientific reasoning, pseudo-intellectual moralising, and of course tons and tons of angry whinging - to make absolutely sure that not one orc, ever, anywhere, under any conditions, could ever even possibly consider becoming good, so it's all right to kill their children.
That's fucking weird. Morrow, Krueger, you guys seem real desperate to make it OK to kill baby orcs to avoid feeling a dirty conscience, throwing out idea after idea as each one is demolished in turn.
Personally, I've always been fine with "You're at war with the local orcs," and to let PCs do as they please from there. Some will slaughter noncombatants like orc babies and women, some won't. Such is war. If you want to play a flatly heroic game where PCs won't crush the skulls of children, tell them so and then don't put the children of their enemies in the game.
There, this full retard thread has been solved.
Quote from: Pete Nash;478284Surely this depends on cultural psychology. For many historical societies human sacrifices were indeed considered good acts, to the point where some members of society would prefer to be a sacrifice rather than die an otherwise ignoble death. Yes, it might have been faced with fear and superstition (it involves death after all) but it doesn't mean it wasn't seen as being 'good'.
Similarly in the very early classical age Slavery was considered an act of goodness, since it allowed you to deal with captured prisoners of war without having to kill them in cold blood. It was only later it was institutionalised as a method of earning wealth and became increasingly brutal. The interesting point here being that cultures practising regular warfare did their best to avoid unnecessary killing.
Our modern preconceptions are extremely limited when it comes to the range of morality expressed by past civilisations.
You see this is the position I would directly refute becuae I can't hope to know the mind set or cultural position where human sacrifice was okay. Now you have already coloured your examples by stating that the vicitims of sacrifice were willing. Well that changes it. I can accpet that killing yourself for your god is a good act I can't accept that killing someone else is. At best the priest cutting the throats of hte devout is performing a morally neutral act.
Likewise your slavery example has slavery as a way of preserving the lives of captured prisoners (a fact I don't think I have seen any evidence for in any culture by the way) and implies that getting them to work for free in your fields or your arenas or your bed was a later addition.
I can totally accept that slavery can be lawful and culturally accepted but I can't accept it as good. I can accept that it can be morally neutral by the way as if you treat your slaves well and feed them and house them their life relative to the life they might have had would be better but they are still not free and so I can't cast it as good.
Again this is where alignment breaks down to a degree because you are not goign to be able to "take a medieval french stance on alignment" the best you can do is to gvie your interpretationa nd understanding of what that stance woudl be and that is coloured by so many of your own perceptions that it is a moot exercise. If a Nazi though they were good in eliminating the evil Jewish race from Germany they might think they were Good but in fact they were misguided and wrong and their actions were evil actions.
I have created plenty of Societies where these types of attitudes are the norm and the inhabitants believe themselves to be good. I liek to do that and then bring the PCs in to make their own minds up.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478269As for Orcs being irredeemably evil, that's just factually wrong. Over and above whatever diplomancy rules exist in whatever edition you're playing with, the spell atonement has existed since forever. It converts a humanoid from any alignment to any alignment. Period. Orcs can be redeemed for full value: it's in the rules.
I think what matters for the purposes of this argument though is how people use orcs in their own game. If a GM decides orcs are pure evil then killing an orc has different meaning than in a game where orcs are simply more aggressive and warlike.
But I think the main thing is it is just a game. My issue with the post in the OP was that he seemed to be saying there was some real life moral issue with players slaying orcs in a game of D&D.
QuoteSo the question of whether Orcs can be redeemed or not has a genuine answer in the rules: yes they can.
-Frank
And these are fine things to debate in game. I have no problem with an argument between two characters over how to deal with an orc prisoner. Arguments over whether orcs are so evil they have to be destroyed are fine. All these things are food for great character interaction (and I think they come up in a lot of campaigns).
Where people start losing me is when they draw a line between the treatment of orcs in a game and the oppression of people in real life.
The best thing to come out of this thread is the idea of Nixon-faced orcs.
One question, can anyone cite where Tolkien says orcs were redeemable and/or that they became farmers after the events of Lord of the Rings?
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478293I think what matters for the purposes of this argument though is how people use orcs in their own game. If a GM decides orcs are pure evil then killing an orc has different meaning than in a game where orcs are simply more aggressive and warlike.
I guess that is the main obstacle for getting to a universal conclusion. After all, it all boils down to a very subjective and personal decision as it is how the GM wants to portray his world.
QuoteBut I think the main thing is it is just a game. My issue with the post in the OP was that he seemed to be saying there was some real life moral issue with players slaying orcs in a game of D&D.
Yep. I got the same impression, and I think that is stupid.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;478294The best thing to come out of this thread is the idea of Nixon-faced orcs.
One question, can anyone cite where Tolkien says orcs were redeemable and/or that they became farmers after the events of Lord of the Rings?
I seem to recall a dialogue between 2 orcs while Sam is trying to rescue Frodo in Mordor. If I'm not mistaken, they were discussing what would they do after the war, the same way a couple of human soldiers could do. It's the nearest thing I get to that.
I don't remember JRRT saying explicitly one thing or the other. The Orcs were Elves, tortured and brutalized until they became monsters, hating themselves, and hating and fearing the hand that guides them. Probably being victims of such abuses made them into the violent creatures they are, and created a society based on brute force and fear as the means to rule.
I don't see the Orcs being more evil than Humans may be. Orcs are cannibals, but so are some human cultures. They are brutal warriors, but there is no lack of precedents between us. Thing is, there's nothing they may do that hasn't been done over and over through history.
And at the end of the day, it's a cultural matter. If you grow in a culture of cannibals, cannibalism is somethign not-evil for you, and you wouldn't understand someone who got upset at that.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;478294The best thing to come out of this thread is the idea of Nixon-faced orcs.
I thought that was a nice visual as well.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478287Step 1: Mass charm person.
Step 2: Mass atonement.
People are really going to a lot of effort - including using pseudo-scientific reasoning, pseudo-intellectual moralising, and of course tons and tons of angry whinging - to make absolutely sure that not one orc, ever, anywhere, under any conditions, could ever even possibly consider becoming good, so it's all right to kill their children.
That's fucking weird. Morrow, Krueger, you guys seem real desperate to make it OK to kill baby orcs to avoid feeling a dirty conscience, throwing out idea after idea as each one is demolished in turn.
Personally, I've always been fine with "You're at war with the local orcs," and to let PCs do as they please from there. Some will slaughter noncombatants like orc babies and women, some won't. Such is war. If you want to play a flatly heroic game where PCs won't crush the skulls of children, tell them so and then don't put the children of their enemies in the game.
There, this full retard thread has been solved.
But surely you can conceed, as I would, that the orcs may be toally evil. Say they were grown from the ground by evil wizards (like Saruman in the LotR movies). In this case they won't have young at all. That is a choice for the GM to make when he does his world building but they need to be aware of the implications those choices have
Quote from: ImperatorI seem to recall a dialogue between 2 orcs while Sam is trying to rescue Frodo in Mordor. If I'm not mistaken, they were discussing what would they do after the war, the same way a couple of human soldiers could do. It's the nearest thing I get to that.
I don't remember JRRT saying explicitly one thing or the other. The Orcs were Elves, tortured and brutalized until they became monsters, hating themselves, and hating and fearing the hand that guides them. Probably being victims of such abuses made them into the violent creatures they are, and created a society based on brute force and fear as the means to rule.
I don't see the Orcs being more evil than Humans may be. Orcs are cannibals, but so are some human cultures. They are brutal warriors, but there is no lack of precedents between us. Thing is, there's nothing they may do that hasn't been done over and over through history.
And at the end of the day, it's a cultural matter. If you grow in a culture of cannibals, cannibalism is somethign not-evil for you, and you wouldn't understand someone who got upset at that.
I actually remembered this scene and was about to mention it. IIRC, they were waxing nostalgic over the days when they just waylaid travelers and took their stuff (can't remember if they killed their victims or not). Anyway, I think the implication was that they didn't so much like war for its own sake, and preferred the relative freedom and comfort of the old days. So maybe they're selfish dicks, but society has its ways of integrating such people.
Also, weren't the uruk-hai implied to be part hobbit? I vaguely recall that there was this one asshole hobbit in Bree that the Uruk-Hai were said to resemble later.
EDIT: That last bit would imply sex and children, as opposed to from-the-ground birth portrayed in the movie.
Quote from: Melan;478249I just wanted to post that I suspect this will be the next thread on these boards to hit 1000 replies.
I just wanted to post and to do my part to get it there. It certainly has a high internet forum wharrgarbl (http://artfulwriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/dog-whargarbl.jpg)quotient. If it achieves critical mass it could go all the way.
Quote from: beejazz;478300I actually remembered this scene and was about to mention it. IIRC, they were waxing nostalgic over the days when they just waylaid travelers and took their stuff (can't remember if they killed their victims or not). Anyway, I think the implication was that they didn't so much like war for its own sake, and preferred the relative freedom and comfort of the old days. So maybe they're selfish dicks, but society has its ways of integrating such people.
The more I think about the subject, the more I have troubles thinking of the Orcs (as tipically portraited in LotR or D&D and the like) as "evil," or at least more evil than humans. After all, what they do, we have done.
Maybe that is the problem with absolute evil, that we cannot imagine it (because it doesn't exist). After all, evil monsters do things that humans have done, also, as part of their cultures.
QuoteAlso, weren't the uruk-hai implied to be part hobbit? I vaguely recall that there was this one asshole hobbit in Bree that the Uruk-Hai were said to resemble later.
EDIT: That last bit would imply sex and children, as opposed to from-the-ground birth portrayed in the movie.
I can't remember that part, but doesn't ring a bell.
Checking the Lord of the Rings Wiki (which I have difficulty imagining would blatantly misrepresent Tolkien, considering the number of fanboys there):
Quote from: LotR WikiIt is interesting to note that to an extent, Tolkien did not regard Orcs as evil in their own right, but only as tools of Morgoth and Sauron.
-Frank
Quote from: Imperator;478302The more I think about the subject, the more I have troubles thinking of the Orcs (as tipically portraited in LotR or D&D and the like) as "evil," or at least more evil than humans. After all, what they do, we have done.
Maybe that is the problem with absolute evil, that we cannot imagine it (because it doesn't exist). After all, evil monsters do things that humans have done, also, as part of their cultures.
.
I think someone earlier in this thread provided some interesting examples of how a race of creatures could be evil by lacking qualities like empathy. I think the idea was what if things we consider mutations that are part of serious mental illnesses were the dominant trait. I guess it depends on whether free-will is important to your definition of good and evil and whether such a feature eliminates free-will.
For interest and to dsave you all searching on Wikipedia - Tolkien and Orcs
The origin of OrcsThe origin of Orcs is an open question. In Tolkien's writings, evil is not capable of independent creation, making it unlikely that the Vala Morgoth, who was the first to produce them, could create them from nothing.
Unlike the orc-néas ('orc-corpses') of Beowulf, no female Orcs are ever mentioned by Tolkien in any publication. However, in the published Silmarillion it is stated that Orcs "had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar", implying that there are; in The Hobbit the Orc Bolg is the son of one Azog, while Gollum is described as having eaten a young goblin-imp (Goblins being the same as orcs) shortly before he first met Bilbo (which seems to be alluded to in The Lord of the Rings movie when Gollum goes on (with himself) about how unpleasant-tasting orcs are and that sweet hobbit meat would suit Shelob better).
In an unpublished letter, written in 1963 to a Mrs. Munsby (and auctioned in 2002 at Sotheby's), Tolkien confirmed that female Orcs did exist. He wrote:
There must have been orc-women. But in stories that seldom if ever see the Orcs except as soldiers of armies in the service of the evil lords we naturally would not learn much about their lives. Not much was known.[21]
Compare this with Tolkien's more thorough explanation of the existence of Dwarf-women, given in the Appendix. Dwarf-women seldom leave their underground cities, and are not encountered as frontline soldiers in war, but that does not mean they do not exist.
[edit] Made from the earthAccording to the oldest "theory" proposed by J.R.R. Tolkien (found in The Fall of Gondolin, from The Book of Lost Tales, circa 1917 — the first tale of Middle-earth to be written in full), Orcs were made of stone and slime through the sorcery of Morgoth ("bred from the heats and slimes of the earth" — The Book of Lost Tales, Vol. 2).
[edit] East Elves (Avari)The Silmarillion contains a suggestion that Orcs are descended from East Elves captured by Melkor, their minds and bodies distorted and corrupted. There is even evidence of the immortality, or otherwise long life of Orcs. They certainly did live for at the very least hundreds of years, since Bolg was the son of Azog and his death occurred over 140 years after the death of his father. This second theory is consistent with a statement made in the "Myths Transformed" essay of Morgoth's Ring that the orcs had short lifespans in relation to the Númenóreans.
Because this is the explanation presented in the published Silmarillion, it is the version presented by Peter Jackson's live-action film adaptation of the book series.[citation needed]
[edit] Fallen MaiarThere are hints in the History of Middle-earth series of books, (especially in Morgoth's Ring in the section "Myths Transformed"), that some Orc leaders, such as the First Age's Boldog, or the Great Goblin encountered by Bilbo and the Dwarves, may in fact have been fallen Maiar which had taken Orc form:
Some of these things may have been delusions and phantoms but some were no doubt shapes taken by the servants of Melkor, mocking and degrading the very forms of the children. For Melkor had in his service great numbers of Maiar, who had the power, as their Master, of taking visible and tangible shape in Arda.[22]
Boldog (...) is a name that occurs many times in the tales of the War. But it is possible that Boldog was not a personal name, and either a title, or else the name of a kind of creature: the Orc-formed Maiar, only less formidable than the Balrogs [23]
Melkor had corrupted many spirits — some great as Sauron, or less as Balrogs. The least could have been primitive Orcs.[24]
[edit] Corrupted MenWhile Tolkien at some point saw all Orcs as descended from the original corrupted and tortured Elves, later comments of his indicate, according to Christopher Tolkien in Morgoth's Ring ("Myths Transformed, text X"), that he began to feel uncomfortable with this theory. At about the same time he removed the references to the Thrall-Ñoldorin, he also began searching for a new origin for the Orcs. It seems Tolkien wanted to change the origin of the Orcs to make them corrupted and twisted humans. He says of this human origin view of the Orcs :
This view of the origin of the Orcs thus meets with difficulties of chronology. But though Men may take comfort in this, the theory remains nonetheless the most probable. It accords with all that is known of Melkor, and of the nature and behaviour of Orcs - and of Men. Melkor was impotent to produce any living thing, but skilled in the corruption of things that did not proceed from himself, if he could dominate them.[25]
Also in Unfinished Tales there is a passage about the Drúedain which says :
To the unfriendly who, not knowing them well, declared that Morgoth must have bred the Orcs from such a stock the Eldar answered: 'Doubtless Morgoth, since he can make no living thing, bred Orcs from various kinds of Men, but the Drúedain must have escaped his shadow; for their laughter and the laughter of Orcs are as different as the light of Aman from the darkness of Angband.' But some thought, nonetheless, that there had been a remote kinship, which accounted for their special enmity. Orcs and Drûgs each regarded the other as renegades.[26]
Tolkien would have had to change the cosmology and prehistory of Arda, for the awakening of men to happen earlier, for there to have been men for Morgoth or Sauron to corrupt. He did not live long enough to complete this task however.
[edit] Some cross-bred with MenTolkien also "suggested" that Men were cross-bred with Orcs under Morgoth's lieutenant, Sauron (and possibly under Morgoth himself). The Uruk-hai are speculated to be created in this way. The process was later repeated during the War of the Ring by Saruman, enabling him to make his own hybrids.
There is no doubt that long afterwards, in the Third Age, Saruman rediscovered this, or learned of it in lore, and in his lust for mastery committed this, his wickedest deed: the interbreeding of Orcs and Men, producing both Men-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-men treacherous and vile.[27]
[edit] Sentient beastsYet another of Tolkien's theories proposes that Orcs may have begun as animals of vaguely humanoid shapes, empowered by the will of the Dark Lord (first Morgoth, later Sauron):
The Orcs were beasts of humanized shape [...].[28]
It is certain all Orcs were dependent on the Dark Lord in various ways: after their leader was defeated, the Orcs were confused and dismayed, and easily scattered by their enemies. In the millennia after Morgoth's defeat and banishment from Arda, they were without a leader, and degenerated to small, quarrelsome tribes hiding in the Misty Mountains. Only when Sauron returned to power did they begin to reclaim some of their old power. The same happened after Sauron's defeat by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men: only when Sauron returned as the Necromancer of Mirkwood did the Orcs become a real danger for Middle-earth again.
Quote from: John Morrow;478276Perhaps not, but you stated something as fact which a few minutes with Google showed me wasn't fact. Yet another example of the fact that political quips that sound too good to be true (I was all Nixon's fault) usually are.
Next you'll be telling me Nixon didn't really extend LBJ's "school busing" policy! Or work to undermine LBJ's peace efforts & keep the Vietnam War going until after he'd been elected! :D
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;478294The best thing to come out of this thread is the idea of Nixon-faced orcs.
One question, can anyone cite where Tolkien says orcs were redeemable and/or that they became farmers after the events of Lord of the Rings?
I'm pretty sure he actually said they kinda faded away and became the nasty goblins of nursery tales.
Just so we can close the door on the misapplication of Atonement, bolded mine.
Quote from: d20SRDAtonement
Abjuration
Level: Clr 5, Drd 5
Components: V, S, M, F, DF, XP
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: Touch
Target: Living creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes
This spell removes the burden of evil acts or misdeeds from the subject. The creature seeking atonement must be truly repentant and desirous of setting right its misdeeds. If the atoning creature committed the evil act unwittingly or under some form of compulsion, atonement operates normally at no cost to you. However, in the case of a creature atoning for deliberate misdeeds and acts of a knowing and willful nature, you must intercede with your deity (requiring you to expend 500 XP) in order to expunge the subject's burden. Many casters first assign a subject of this sort a quest (see geas/quest) or similar penance to determine whether the creature is truly contrite before casting the atonement spell on its behalf.
Atonement may be cast for one of several purposes, depending on the version selected.
Reverse Magical Alignment Change
If a creature has had its alignment magically changed, atonement returns its alignment to its original status at no cost in experience points.
Restore Class
A paladin who has lost her class features due to committing an evil act may have her paladinhood restored to her by this spell.
Restore Cleric or Druid Spell Powers
A cleric or druid who has lost the ability to cast spells by incurring the anger of his or her deity may regain that ability by seeking atonement from another cleric of the same deity or another druid. If the transgression was intentional, the casting cleric loses 500 XP for his intercession. If the transgression was unintentional, he does not lose XP.
Redemption or Temptation
You may cast this spell upon a creature of an opposing alignment in order to offer it a chance to change its alignment to match yours. The prospective subject must be present for the entire casting process. Upon completion of the spell, the subject freely chooses whether it retains its original alignment or acquiesces to your offer and changes to your alignment. No duress, compulsion, or magical influence can force the subject to take advantage of the opportunity offered if it is unwilling to abandon its old alignment. This use of the spell does not work on outsiders or any creature incapable of changing its alignment naturally.
Though the spell description refers to evil acts, atonement can also be used on any creature that has performed acts against its alignment, whether those acts are evil, good, chaotic, or lawful.
Note: Normally, changing alignment is up to the player. This use of atonement simply offers a believable way for a character to change his or her alignment drastically, suddenly, and definitively.
Material Component
Burning incense.
Focus
In addition to your holy symbol or normal divine focus, you need a set of prayer beads (or other prayer device, such as a prayer wheel or prayer book) worth at least 500 gp.
XP Cost
When cast for the benefit of a creature whose guilt was the result of deliberate acts, the cost to you is 500 XP per casting (see above).
So, you can't get an orc to change its nature, unless it wants to. Which is pretty damn unlikely. Of course, the DM can make exceptions to this.
(Not to mention that this brings up the potential for having intelligent and indecisive creatures become ping-pong balls in a game of perpetual Atonement casting between two mid-level clerics or druids of opposing alignment.)
One more thing...
If you really want kinder, gentler orcs in your game, then I would suggest making them the exception and not the rule. Otherwise they are not significant as being a deviation from the norm.
I would consider the character of Gurgi from Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain to be either an orc or a half-orc that was of this nature.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478269As for Orcs being irredeemably evil, that's just factually wrong. Over and above whatever diplomancy rules exist in whatever edition you're playing with, the spell atonement has existed since forever. It converts a humanoid from any alignment to any alignment. Period. Orcs can be redeemed for full value: it's in the rules.
Now if you're playing 3rd edition...
I'm playing Middle Earth. WoC's jurisdiction ends somewhere outside my campaign, I'm pretty sure. Moreover, my campaign setting, and it's cosmological truths are ultimately up to me as a GM - regardless of the guy I buy my books from.
Same is true for Paragrin. It would be inane for me to quote WoC rules to him in order to validate an argument I was making about how alignment works in his campaign. That's because it is HIS campaign. The schmucks churning out splat book after splat book over at WoC are for the most part hack writers, not Theologians. So quoting them as authority on whether or not orcs are redeemable in anyone's campaign is like quoting Shadowrun writers in an argument about whether a cloned human has a soul.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478285That sounds like something off a desk calendar.
This is not a response to the point.
Quote from: J Arcane;478324This is not a response to the point.
He's not going to respond to the point, because you're right.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478287That's fucking weird. Morrow, Krueger, you guys seem real desperate to make it OK to kill baby orcs to avoid feeling a dirty conscience, throwing out idea after idea as each one is demolished in turn.
Most of the time I've ran D&D, orcs weren't irredeemably evil, but in some settings they were. It just depends on the cosmology of that particular setting. Sometimes orcs reproduce and have young, sometimes they are magic fungus, sometimes they are created by wizards.
I never said the PCs should avoid having a dirty conscience, what the conscience of a character feels is where the roleplaying comes in. There's a difference between killing being easy and killing being necessary, or justified. That's what makes it a hard choice, even a horrible one.
This idea of paladins crushing the cute little green skulls of baby orcs under their bootheels while in the background plays "Onward Christian Soldiers" is in your head, man.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478327Most of the time I've ran D&D, orcs weren't irredeemably evil, but in some settings they were. It just depends on the cosmology of that particular setting. Sometimes orcs reproduce and have young, sometimes they are magic fungus, sometimes they are created by wizards.
I never said the PCs should avoid having a dirty conscience, what the conscience of a character feels is where the roleplaying comes in. There's a difference between killing being easy and killing being necessary, or justified. That's what makes it a hard choice, even a horrible one.
This idea of paladins crushing the cute little skulls of baby orcs under their bootheels while in the background plays "Onward Christian Soldiers" is in your head, man.
I do like the idea though of a bunch of Holy Warriors being given an orc baby to raise and treat like a Squire (Half orcs in AD&D mature faster than Humans so I assume Orcs mature faster still) then the day they all graduate from Holy Warrior boot camp the first thing they have to do is kill their squires.
Now that woudl throw up an interesting moral dilema.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478224The fucking question was "If I use racist stereotypes of this group, is that racist?" And the answer is, obviously, Yes (http://xkcd.com/703/).
LOL Nice twisting of the original question to fit your answer, Frank.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478227Quote from: austinjimm;478225Good/Evil, absolute or otherwise, are whatever your DM says it is at any given time of day.
That is both retarded and empirically untrue.
I disagree. It goes to the core of the problem IMO: that whatever evil and good are is something determined by the cosmology of the campaign, a campaign which may be considering orcs as some other culture and projecting all sorts of weird ideas on the part of the DM onto them, or may be considering them as representative of something else, like concepts of bestiality or barbarism, or absolutes of this or that, or may even not consider them allegorical in nature at all... like a certain individual writing a huge book we all know a few decades ago did.
And that gets lesson-givers all worked up. Because there's no lesson-giving to do when you don't know the particulars of a campaign. It's just hot hair, retarded misreadings and projections, kind of like Frank's doing on this thread. Or like he says ... it's a basic failure of logic, so you'd better camouflage it by refuting this simple truth of RPGs, because then, there's no argument to have about words on paper. It really depends how anyone interprets them. And that gets these fuckers who want to tell us what to play and what to think real angry. It's amusing.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478327This idea of paladins crushing the cute little green skulls of baby orcs under their bootheels while in the background plays "Onward Christian Soldiers" is in your head, man.
Personally I've never encountered this with any paladins. If anything most people I know play paladins as super just and noble. They end up keeping the party from doing things like this or from killing prisoners for convenience sake.
I also think most players I know don't equate the D&D gods or alignment system with christianity in any way.
Quote from: Benoist;478334I disagree. It goes to the core of the problem IMO: that whatever evil and good are is something determined by the cosmology of the campaign, a campaign which may be considering orcs as some other culture and projecting all sorts of weird ideas on the part of the DM onto them, or may be considering them as representative of something else, like concepts of bestiality or barbarism, or absolutes of this or that, or may even not consider them allegorical in nature at all... like a certain individual writing a huge book we all know a few decades ago did.
.
Exactly. How good and evil things are (how morality is defined) is entirely dependant on the campaign and the people in it. These are all scaleable features of a setting.
Personally I don't like doing "all orcs are evil", not because I am worried that nurtures colonialism or racism, but because I jsut find it more believable and interesting to have cultures with texture and variance. I also like settings where morality is a little on the gray side (and I think it is fun when characters in a game get into real disputes over the ethics of a particular action).
But that doesn't mean that people who like black and white morality and evil orcs in their game are somehow misguided. It just means they prefer a different kind of game.
My biggest problem (and I know I've said this a bunch of times already) with this kind of thinking is it plays into the old arguments used against RPGs for decades now (and its the same argument they used against heavy metal or any number of things that made some adults uneasy). This Mazes and Monsters notion that the imaginary realm has a corrupting influence on the real world.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478336Personally I don't like doing "all orcs are evil", not because I am worried that nurtures colonialism or racism, but because I jsut find it more believable and interesting to have cultures with texture and variance. I also like settings where morality is a little on the gray side (and I think it is fun when characters in a game get into real disputes over the ethics of a particular action).
But that doesn't mean that people who like black and white morality and evil orcs in their game are somehow misguided. It just means they prefer a different kind of game.
In the Ptolus game on these boards right now I'm having a blast with a certain orc the players decided to keep alive. From his start as a prisoner, the orc's status is now kind of in doubt: is he becoming a henchman for the group, or is he just waiting for an occasion to backstab/flee/etc.? Which goes straight to the question of whether orcs are redeemable in Praemal (the name of Ptolus's world) or not. The players seem interested in the question, so I see no reason not to play with that. NPCs have their own reactions to it, the situation becomes more complex, and I expect that sooner or later there'll be a trigger or some situation that will resolve this (either because the PCs get tired of it, or something else happens which basically makes the pieces move on the game board, so to speak).
So I'm totally playing on this right now myself, without offering a clear answer as DM to the conundrum.
I'm not going to get out of my way to lecture people how bad and racist they are for going in dungeons to slaughter a bunch of orcs rolling dices, eating cheetos and having a good time around the game table, though. That'd be ridiculously stupid.
Quote from: Benoist;478334I disagree. It goes to the core of the problem IMO: that whatever evil and good are is something determined by the cosmology of the campaign, a campaign which may be considering orcs as some other culture and projecting all sorts of weird ideas on the part of the DM onto them, or may be considering them as representative of something else, like concepts of bestiality or barbarism, or absolutes of this or that, or may even not consider them allegorical in nature at all... like a certain individual writing a huge book we all know a few decades ago did.
And that gets lesson-givers all worked up. Because there's no lesson-giving to do when you don't know the particulars of a campaign. It's just hot hair, retarded misreadings and projections, kind of like Frank's doing on this thread. Or like he says ... it's a basic failure of logic, so you'd better camouflage it by refuting this simple truth of RPGs, because then, there's no argument to have about words on paper. It really depends how anyone interprets them. And that gets these fuckers who want to tell us what to play and what to think real angry. It's amusing.
Sorry Ben, you are wrong on this one.
I tried to explain upthread you can define the laws and cultures of your world but you can't define an objective good and evil.
Let's take a real world example. Jyhadists think its 'good' to blow up plane loads of relatively innocent people. Would we say that yes that was from their perspective a good act?
I certainly wouldn't I would say it might well be a lawful act in their cosmology but not a good one.
So I think there are broad bands of good and evil that most observers would categorise similarly. A GM that goes against that and has Paladins that kill innocents on the basis that it's for the greater good I think would have trouble selling it and that means its an issue (and no its not an issue of imagination its one of internal consistency).
As a bunch of us have been saying if you as the GM treat orcs with a racial stereotype just be aware of it and if you want a richer game try and reflect that in the game world. If you choose not to represent that in the game world becuase you want to run a hack and slash that is fine too but you probably as a GM need to be aware of what you are doing.
The problem only comes when GMs roll stuff out without thinking and ignore the implications but then claim that there are none. A world where women are emancipated and orcs are natural (as per the standard D&D rules) and therefore capable of independent thought and redemption thows up some interesting topics and ones I woudl expect someone in a realised game world to care about.
For the past couple of decades my/our playstyle has been more along the lines of "if they atack us, we attack them/it" in relation to "monsters" of all types. I've negotiated with Beholders and Red Dragons, and let orcs pass unharmed, many times. For the most part, it seems to work.
Not sure how that really relates to the OP but that's just the playstyle of me and my group. Seems to work pretty well.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338Sorry Ben, you are wrong on this one.
No, I'm right. It's just that you're bending yourself out of shape trying to fit cubes into round holes. You are projecting relativist philosophies pertaining to real world situations to a game world. A game world with metaphysics which may or may not be comparable to the philosophies you so desperately want to project onto it. It all depends on the particulars of the campaign.
So what you should really do mate is stop projecting.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338As a bunch of us have been saying if you as the GM treat orcs with a racial stereotype just be aware of it and if you want a richer game try and reflect that in the game world.
"Richer", heh? Because if I use orcs as ultimately evil,
of course what it really is is a racial stereotype. And
of course, if I didn't do that, my game would be so much "richer", so much
better for it.
Man, that's is such a load of short-sighted, moralistic, pretentious bullshit right here.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338Sorry Ben, you are wrong on this one.
I tried to explain upthread you can define the laws and cultures of your world but you can't define an objective good and evil.
I think it is 100% possible to define good and evil in a fictional campaign setting. You don't even need to support your absolute moral system with logic just proclaim it: eating toast is evil because the high god says so. Absolutely your players may disagree and argue. But the whole moral system is built on a fictional cosmology and gods. For example I could make a game world where it is wrong not to kill orc babies and children, and those who don't suffer eternal torment in some kind of hell analogue.
QuoteSo I think there are broad bands of good and evil that most observers would categorise similarly. A GM that goes against that and has Paladins that kill innocents on the basis that it's for the greater good I think would have trouble selling it and that means its an issue (and no its not an issue of imagination its one of internal consistency).
I think the way alignments are described in D&D presently this is generally the case if you are using RAW. A lawfule good paladin wouldn't kill innocent people to promote the greater good (at least not IMO).
But I can see a gameworld where the greater good is the ultimate good. And good characters wipe out whole settlements of orcs. That doesn't mean I personally agree with the actions. I am just accepting the premise of the game setting.
QuoteAs a bunch of us have been saying if you as the GM treat orcs with a racial stereotype just be aware of it and if you want a richer game try and reflect that in the game world. If you choose not to represent that in the game world becuase you want to run a hack and slash that is fine too but you probably as a GM need to be aware of what you are doing.
I think the problem is people appear to be saying orcs always represent some racial minority and therefore mistreatment of them in-game is morally problematic and some indication of racism. It feels like people are on the look-out for hidden forms of racism in a table top RPG, and I just find that a bit odd. There is nothing wrong with using orcs in a more nuanced and realistic way. I just don't see why it has to be an issue if someone runs a game where orcs are evil and need to be stamped out.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338Sorry Ben, you are wrong on this one.
I tried to explain upthread you can define the laws and cultures of your world but you can't define an objective good and evil.
Let's take a real world example. Jyhadists think its 'good' to blow up plane loads of relatively innocent people. Would we say that yes that was from their perspective a good act?
I certainly wouldn't I would say it might well be a lawful act in their cosmology but not a good one.
So I think there are broad bands of good and evil that most observers would categorise similarly. A GM that goes against that and has Paladins that kill innocents on the basis that it's for the greater good I think would have trouble selling it and that means its an issue (and no its not an issue of imagination its one of internal consistency).
As a bunch of us have been saying if you as the GM treat orcs with a racial stereotype just be aware of it and if you want a richer game try and reflect that in the game world. If you choose not to represent that in the game world becuase you want to run a hack and slash that is fine too but you probably as a GM need to be aware of what you are doing.
The problem only comes when GMs roll stuff out without thinking and ignore the implications but then claim that there are none. A world where women are emancipated and orcs are natural (as per the standard D&D rules) and therefore capable of independent thought and redemption thows up some interesting topics and ones I woudl expect someone in a realised game world to care about.
Jibba,
I run one of those games where the orcs are morally ambiguous and is 'richer'. So I get what you are saying, but I think you are underestimating the ability to create a setting where a race may be born evil or chaotic; and while I don't think you are wrong to say it can raise the question, it is certainly not beyond the ability of a GM to get beyond 'laws and cultures' and create cosmologies that can have races that are literally created evil and be morally determined by the fundamental laws of the setting.
And they can set up settings where independent thought does not mean they are redeemable.
I disagree.
This whole thread really reminds me of a campaign five years ago. It was a high level campaign. We were on the fifth layer of the abyss and had just been ambushed by a group of type 5 demons, so in our own self-defense we were forced to slay them (although we did manage to subdue 15 of them without killing them). Then we stumbled upon the type 5 demon babies...
Well, you can imagine the dilemma.
Quote from: Benoist;478341"Richer", heh? Because if I use orcs as ultimately evil, of course what it really is is a racial stereotype. And of course, if I didn't do that, my game would be so much "richer", so much better for it.
Man, that's is such a load of short-sighted, moralistic, pretentious bullshit right here.
Dude, chill. Richer because you are showing that your world is aware of the rest of your world. The people in the cities are aware that orcs are evil or are not evil. The fact that there are people in your world that might have these sorts of conversatiosn is what makes your world richer.
Like I repeated many times I have no problems with all orcs being evil. I just want the GM to have considered the what hows and whys of that and to reflect it in their worlds.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338Sorry Ben, you are wrong on this one.
Actually he's right, you're just misinterpreting him.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338I tried to explain upthread you can define the laws and cultures of your world but you can't define an objective good and evil.
Which he's not doing. What he's doing is defining the cosmology under which his world works, something you have a clear problem with being able to imagine.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338bunch of stuff about slaying of "innocents"
This just proves your logical block, not Ben's. You're incapable of defining a cosmology different from ours.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338As a bunch of us have been saying if you as the GM treat orcs with a racial stereotype just be aware of it and if you want a richer game try and reflect that in the game world. If you choose not to represent that in the game world becuase you want to run a hack and slash that is fine too but you probably as a GM need to be aware of what you are doing.
So we're back to the idiotic idea that treating orcs as objectively Evil due to their spiritual nature as defined under the rules of the cosmology is somehow representative of racist issues in our world. Or the idiotic idea that if you don't deny the possibility of Absolute Good and Evil for things other then planar/created creatures you're running an unsophisticated hack and slash campaign. Nice.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338The problem only comes when GMs roll stuff out without thinking and ignore the implications but then claim that there are none.
Who said there were no implications, repercussions, issues, conflicts? There's lack of thinking alright, however, not where you expect. ;)
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338A world where women are emancipated
Try cutting loose the political baggage for once.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338and orcs are natural (as per the standard D&D rules) and therefore capable of independent thought and redemption
"Natural"? Which version of D&D? Since when does "independent thought" (as opposed to what, hivemind) automatically equal "capable of redemption"? Isn't Orcus capable of independent thought?
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338thows up some interesting topics and ones I woudl expect someone in a realised game world to care about.
And of course defending humanity at the risk of losing yours doesn't bring up any interesting topics in a "realised game world". Jesus.
You know, you might try flexing the imagination a little more. For example. Instead of talking about the oh so supposedly interesting topic of whether some fantasy Aztec analogue sacrificing their own people is good or evil from a cultural perspective, how about addressing it from a cosmological perspective? Heresy I know.
What if the sun does stop rising if they fail to sacrifice their own? What if the only thing keeping the tzitzimine from devouring the world is the constant flow of blood? Does that make those actions Good? I'd say no, but it surely makes for interesting roleplaying.
Back to orcs...
What if a god of darkness created a race of beings to hate, destroy, corrupt, inflict pain, and strive to bring about the end of the world? A race that despite being capable of thought cannot resist their innate nature, cannot be other then what they are? A race whose wretched hatred of self is second only to the hatred they feel for all the world. The very existence of these beings is a horrible tragedy. Any sane human would pity these beings for the horror they experience by simple existence. At the same time, any sane human would also realize these things need to be destroyed wherever they are found. Young, old, male, female, all are (in fact, can never be anything other then) The Enemy. Killing them is not fun, it's not easy, it's not without mental and spiritual cost. However, it is necessary, it is justifiable, and yes, it is Good.
That's not gonna add any interesting depth to the roleplay of characters who have to deal with such things, nah. Someone who comes up with something like that is a racist, misogynist, expansionist, colonialist, hack and slasher who's also a dick GM and likes eating baby squirrels.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478342I think it is 100% possible to define good and evil in a fictional campaign setting. You don't even need to support your absolute moral system with logic just proclaim it: eating toast is evil because the high god says so. Absolutely your players may disagree and argue. But the whole moral system is built on a fictional cosmology and gods. For example I could make a game world where it is wrong not to kill orc babies and children, and those who don't suffer eternal torment in some kind of hell analogue.
I think the problem is people appear to be saying orcs always represent some racial minority and therefore mistreatment of them in-game is morally problematic and some indication of racism. It feels like people are on the look-out for hidden forms of racism in a table top RPG, and I just find that a bit odd. There is nothing wrong with using orcs in a more nuanced and realistic way. I just don't see why it has to be an issue if someone runs a game where orcs are evil and need to be stamped out.
First off we are going to disagree about the limits where you can set the Good/Evil axis. Maybe its because you think Good and evil come from religion and I think religion reflects fundermental human principles about good and evil. You can't make eating Toast Evil. You can make it a heresy, you can make it unlawful, you can make it a shunned activity that means offenders are stoned or whatever, you can't make it evil. If you do them all that has happened is you have purloined the word Evil and changed it's meaning to be 'something that this reglion\culture thinks is wrong' .
So putting that to one side.
I never said that orcs alwasy respresent some racial minority. What I said was that if the GM chooses to have orcs as a sentient race with free will then they can not be inherently evil, violent, brutal and savage yes but not evil, and this is the standard D&D orc. By all means they can be treated that way by the powers in the world and I would expect that to be reflected in the world with conflicting views and positions (shit we have that here and the orcs don't even fucking exist :) ).
If the GM makes the orcs evil for a reason, like they are corrupted elves, or grown from the ground then fine they are irredeemably evil. If the game was a well developed one then I would still expect some opinions about that across the world some nuance to the postion. I would still hold that Good characters shouldn;t go out into the world to eradicate these creatures at least not without some inneral debate.
Take Dr Who in the genesis of the Daleks. He has the option to destroy the entire race but he opts not to becuase it is an evil act. Or take The Serenity movie. The Operative does things for the Alliance that he knows are for the greater good, but he is fully aware that in doing those questional things he himself can no longer be considered good. He reconciles himself to this. This is akin to the internal conversations I would expect PCs to engage in.
I do not care about racism fromt eh game seeping into real life. But I want the racism in the game to be recognised in the game if that makes sense.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478353I just want the GM to have considered the what hows and whys of that and to reflect it in their worlds.
Why do you want that?
I'm not offended by other gaming tables' preference about morals and stuff. I'd prefer a table where suggesting the party spare the life of a few creatures, or even wondering about violence in general, isn't going to make me the pariah player (it's happened before).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478342But I can see a gameworld where the greater good is the ultimate good. And good characters wipe out whole settlements of orcs. That doesn't mean I personally agree with the actions. I am just accepting the premise of the game setting.
That's one of my favorite things about RPGs: making up places and societies that are not necessarily realistic but provide a good backdrop for PCs to explore and reveal themselves. It could be imaginary places and people that are appalling to me personally but create interesting situations at the table.
Redeemable Orcs seem more exciting to me, just because PCs get more options to interact with them, but I'm fine with Orcs being evil incarnate provided there are deeper aspects to the setting somewhere else.
QuoteI think the problem is people appear to be saying orcs always represent some racial minority and therefore mistreatment of them in-game is morally problematic and some indication of racism. It feels like people are on the look-out for hidden forms of racism in a table top RPG, and I just find that a bit odd. There is nothing wrong with using orcs in a more nuanced and realistic way. I just don't see why it has to be an issue if someone runs a game where orcs are evil and need to be stamped out.
I wonder if Adam Dray has any issue with 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars (http://gregorhutton.com/boxninja/threesixteen/index.html). Here is a game where PCs slay dozens and dozens of creatures, maybe not evil ones, but clearly tagged as enemies. Also PCs get better at killing as a reward.
But I think I can anticipate the answer here:
Quote from: Adam DrayFourth, substitute mindless monsters for the tribes and nations of humanoids.
It's the core of the problem. Non-humanoid and/or solitary monsters are not an issue. It's stabbing humanish looking creatures who have families that's an issue.
Some gamers can leave their XXIth century mindset on the coat rack while playing their character, enjoying the view and what not. Others are going to be bothered by it and it could manifest as a suspension of disbelief shot in flames. That's one of the many topics to discuss at session zero of the campaign.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478354Actually he's right, you're just misinterpreting him.
Which he's not doing. What he's doing is defining the cosmology under which his world works, something you have a clear problem with being able to imagine.
This just proves your logical block, not Ben's. You're incapable of defining a cosmology different from ours.
So we're back to the idiotic idea that treating orcs as objectively Evil due to their spiritual nature as defined under the rules of the cosmology is somehow representative of racist issues in our world. Or the idiotic idea that if you don't deny the possibility of Absolute Good and Evil for things other then planar/created creatures you're running an unsophisticated hack and slash campaign. Nice.
Who said there were no implications, repercussions, issues, conflicts? There's lack of thinking alright, however, not where you expect. ;)
Try cutting loose the political baggage for once.
"Natural"? Which version of D&D? Since when does "independent thought" (as opposed to what, hivemind) automatically equal "capable of redemption"? Isn't Orcus capable of independent thought?
And of course defending humanity at the risk of losing yours doesn't bring up any interesting topics in a "realised game world". Jesus.
You know, you might try flexing the imagination a little more. For example. Instead of talking about the oh so supposedly interesting topic of whether some fantasy Aztec analogue sacrificing their own people is good or evil from a cultural perspective, how about addressing it from a cosmological perspective? Heresy I know.
What if the sun does stop rising if they fail to sacrifice their own? What if the only thing keeping the tzitzimine from devouring the world is the constant flow of blood? Does that make those actions Good? I'd say no, but it surely makes for interesting roleplaying.
Back to orcs...
What if a god of darkness created a race of beings to hate, destroy, corrupt, inflict pain, and strive to bring about the end of the world? A race that despite being capable of thought cannot resist their innate nature, cannot be other then what they are? A race whose wretched hatred of self is second only to the hatred they feel for all the world. The very existence of these beings is a horrible tragedy. Any sane human would pity these beings for the horror they experience by simple existence. At the same time, any sane human would also realize these things need to be destroyed wherever they are found. Young, old, male, female, all are (in fact, can never be anything other then) The Enemy. Killing them is not fun, it's not easy, it's not without mental and spiritual cost. However, it is necessary, it is justifiable, and yes, it is Good.
That's not gonna add any interesting depth to the roleplay of characters who have to deal with such things, nah. Someone who comes up with something like that is a racist, misogynist, expansionist, colonialist, hack and slasher who's also a dick GM and likes eating baby squirrels.
You are clearly having an arguement with someone who is not me :)
I have no issues with all the orcs in a campaign being evil I just want the GM to have made that as an active choice.
And I like the roleplay of people who regard themselves as good having to reconcile the actions they take with the greater good. I like the situation where the PCs have to decide if they kill the orc 'babies' and possibly prevent them from killing in the future, but I want them to accept that killing innocents even those with teh potential to do harm can not be taken lightly. Well it can be taken lightly but not by PCs who regard themselves as inherently good.
My problem is where the PCs run round killing everything labelled 'monster' in the rulebook with no qualms, but still insist that they are Good and no one questions anything. And that is not a corner case it is a default play style.
The PCs encounter a black dragon. They kill it and take its stuff. The same PCs encounter an Evil old man they don't kill him until he does something overtly evil. Even though they ran a detect evil on him and they know he is evil. What is the difference? What if the Dragon polymorphed himself into a man?
Quote from: jibbajibba;478360First off we are going to disagree about the limits where you can set the Good/Evil axis. Maybe its because you think Good and evil come from religion and I think religion reflects fundermental human principles about good and evil. You can't make eating Toast Evil. You can make it a heresy, you can make it unlawful, you can make it a shunned activity that means offenders are stoned or whatever, you can't make it evil. If you do them all that has happened is you have purloined the word Evil and changed it's meaning to be 'something that this reglion\culture thinks is wrong' .
I think we are confusing the idea of a fictional setting with its own cosmology and the problem of evil in the real world. In the real world, I agree, "eating toast is evil" would be a somewhat arbitrary religious decree and not something one could point to as objectively evil. But that is because there is a great deal of uncertainty and debate in our world over the existence of god.
In a world where the gods are real and the cosmology is concrete, good and evil can be whatever the designers of that setting want it to be. Good and evil flow from the core cosmology.
In a fictional fantasy setting they don't have the same issues we have when it comes to reality (they can have the same issues but they don't have to). These are settings where (often) gods are real, the will of the gods is known and the place of humanity within that cosmology is clear.
QuoteSo putting that to one side.
I never said that orcs alwasy respresent some racial minority. What I said was that if the GM chooses to have orcs as a sentient race with free will then they can not be inherently evil, violent, brutal and savage yes but not evil, and this is the standard D&D orc. By all means they can be treated that way by the powers in the world and I would expect that to be reflected in the world with conflicting views and positions (shit we have that here and the orcs don't even fucking exist :) ).
I don't mean to suggest you said anything like that. I am this is what the post in the OP was arguing and that some posters appear to be in agreement.
I guess I just disagree with the second part of this paragraph. Personally i think it is more believable to make orcs culturally predisposed towards violence than inherently evil. However I don't think it is impossible to conceive of orcs as a sentient race that is inherently evil (I think the question of their free will is debatable---since this could also just be a matter of degree).
It just sounds like you are saying people are imagining the impossible and that is somehow a problem. I mean this is a world where magic exists, which is impossible. If I want orcs to be both evil and have free will (even if I conceded it is some kind of contradiction) I can still do it.
QuoteIf the GM makes the orcs evil for a reason, like they are corrupted elves, or grown from the ground then fine they are irredeemably evil. If the game was a well developed one then I would still expect some opinions about that across the world some nuance to the postion. I would still hold that Good characters shouldn;t go out into the world to eradicate these creatures at least not without some inneral debate.
But these are all matters of personal preference. Not possible or impossible. You want things clarified and impact measured in a setting. If magic exist, its repercussions must be accounted for. If orcs are evil, then that needs to be fleshed out within the setting. I suspect most people feel this way to varying degrees. But they don't have to. I can just run a game where I declare "orcs are evil" but the rest of the setting mirrors our own world in every way.
Whether the characters should or should not irradicate these creatures is dependant on the morality within the fictional setting (which is clearly different in many cases from our own notions of good and evil).
QuoteTake Dr Who in the genesis of the Daleks. He has the option to destroy the entire race but he opts not to becuase it is an evil act. Or take The Serenity movie. The Operative does things for the Alliance that he knows are for the greater good, but he is fully aware that in doing those questional things he himself can no longer be considered good. He reconciles himself to this. This is akin to the internal conversations I would expect PCs to engage in.
I think most people would expect characters to have inner conflicts like this. But they would expect them to be within the framework of the setting cosmology and morality, not our own.
I will give another example. I am running a Roman campaign (we don't use alignment so it probably isn't the best analogue). But the characters are all Romans living with a Roman mindset from 38 AD. Some of the things they are doing I personally would find appalling. Their attitudes toward women are terribly oppressive. Their views on slavery are awful. But this is the world they live in.
Now take that idea of a a completely different moral framework than our own, and import it into a setting where the cosmology supports it objectively. Where good and evil have been clearly defined by the gods.
QuoteI do not care about racism fromt eh game seeping into real life. But I want the racism in the game to be recognised in the game if that makes sense.
I don't think I follow. If players are being racist in game, obviously that is an issue. If the GM is running a game where he is clearly advancing racist views towards Jews or African Americans, then sure that desperately needs addressing. But if the orcs in my setting wear vaguely eastern clothing, does that mean there is something racist that needs to be addressed or is it just a matter of aesthetics?
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338Sorry Ben, you are wrong on this one.
I tried to explain upthread you can define the laws and cultures of your world but you can't define an objective good and evil.
Let's take a real world example. Jyhadists think its 'good' to blow up plane loads of relatively innocent people. Would we say that yes that was from their perspective a good act?
I certainly wouldn't I would say it might well be a lawful act in their cosmology but not a good one.
You just sound ignorant then. Whether a particular act of blowing up a plane is good in their cosmology is a nuanced question for which their Imans will have an answer. Sometimes particular jihadists commit acts which from what I can tell are sinful by their own lights*, which (depending on the group, but let's say Al Qaeda, who are Salafi) requires an appropriate declaration of war prior to attacking, don't target observant Muslims when possible, etc. But for you to say it can never be good in their cosmology, because
you don't like it, just sounds ridiculous.
*This contributed significantly to the failure of the 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' sub-group. Core Al Qaeda by contrast are a lot more careful to abide by Islamic strictures.
I will say this though JibaJibba. In my games my preference is to have there be moral cloudiness so the players don't neccessarily know what the objective cosmological standards of morality are. I suspect our settings wouldn't be too far apart for that reason. But I just think it is possible to have a believable setting where morality is concrete and obvious to the inhabitants of the setting.
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478364Why do you want that?
Because they might as well be playing WOW.
Quote from: S'mon;478368You just sound ignorant then. Whether a particular act of blowing up a plane is good in their cosmology is a nuanced question for which their Imans will have an answer. Sometimes particular jihadists commit acts which from what I can tell are sinful by their own lights*, which (depending on the group, but let's say Al Qaeda, who are Salafi) requires an appropriate declaration of war prior to attacking, don't target observant Muslims when possible, etc. But for you to say it can never be good in their cosmology, because you don't like it, just sounds ridiculous.
*This contributed significantly to the failure of the 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' sub-group. Core Al Qaeda by contrast are a lot more careful to abide by Islamic strictures.
Hmm... no I am not ignorant. I can toally see that it can be acceptable religiously, did not Mohammed himself slay all the Jews after the battle of Medina etc etc. doesn't make it good. Something is not good because it complies with a certain religious ideology that makes it lawful... and here we are arguing about semantics again.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478370Because they might as well be playing WOW.
And sometimes that is what you want out a game which is suppossed to be fun. If I just want to enjoy the escapism of having my character rescue the captured villagers while slaughtering some orcs, then that is what I do. If I want to sit down to a game based around a moral dilemma of the week, it can still be fun - but it will get boring after awhile and won't allow me to engage in escapism as well.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;478261That's because Morrow has a hardon for psychopaths. Seriously, he brings them up all the fucking time, in most discussions on politics, and on the rare occasions he posts about roleplaying. Even way back in 2006 in a discussion about Pundit's landmarks (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=21821#post21821).
It's D&D, for fuck's sakes. Psychology is irrelevant, notwithstanding the random insanity tables.
I agree, although I do often find what John writes interesting all the same :)
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478233At this point, other than a handful of posters (Frank amongst them), this thread is full retard.
Let's go down the full retard list:
1) Morrow pretending to be a psychologist / moral philosopher rationalising a society of psychopaths, something that has never actually existed
1a) Someone mentions the Arabs / Muslims in relation to this
2) Misuse of the term "moral relativism" as a pejorative against some moral position the writer dislikes despite it actually being a more universal or absolute principle than the writer holds
3) Irrelevant fulminating against LIBRALZM and "white guilt"
4) Consistent confusion of authoritative citation of source material and facts with whims, desires, dreams & half-memories, also what you can find on the first page of Google that seems like it kind of supports what you said
5) A flood of low-post-count posters with indistinguishable and ignorant opinions jackal-wanking one another
6) Laziness, ignorance and stupidity deriving from privilege & the exploitation of the hard work of others are valorised by people too unimaginative to even make up sensible or interesting imitations of the world. The valorisations are used to explain why their laziness, ignorance, and stupidity are wonderful, and actually a sign of discerning taste & skill.
Yeap, it's a full retard thread all right.
Would just like to point out that a society of orcs has never existed either. So, if a society of orcs is imagined to exist, why not a society of irredeemably evil orcs?
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478238Can the DM create a rule he can't override?
Look, the fact that it is a game doesn't allow it to include logical impossibilities. If morality is malleable, it's malleable. That means it isn't absolute. Because absolute morality means morality that is not malleable.
You said that absolute morality didn't stop the DM from changing the definition of Good and Evil at different times of the day. And that's wrong. If the morality is absolute, it can't change at different times of the day. If morality can be changed over the course of the day, it's not absolute.
Your statement was logically inconsistent with itself. You can have morality that the DM can change or you can have absolute morality, but you can't have both. By definition.
-Frank
Flinging balls of flame you form from nothing, changing into animals, and dragons.... all logical impossibilities. There are quite a few games which include logical impossibilities.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478353Dude, chill.
Mate, I consider you an internet buddy. I'm cool with you. I just think what you just said is a load of steaming bullshit is all. :)
Quote from: Imperator;478250Well, if you can make it work with internal consistency, then it's OK. So, for you the reason for defining them Evil wouldn't be the actions they do (after all, humans are capable of doing all those things) but their nature?
If it's ok to define demons, undead, and red dragons as irredeemably evil, why not orcs? After all, I haven't seen anyone go on for page after page arguing over the "morality" of killing dragon babies.
I haven't always agreed with MDBrantingham's method of expression, but I do agree with the idea that each DM is perfectly capable and within their rights to set the parameter's of what's "evil", how, why, and what's acceptable to do about it. Whether you (and not you Imperator, but the collective "you" :) ) like it or not, that fact that D&D is just a game is truth, and it's filled with logical impossibilities and fantasic shit and if anyone wants to tack on one more by making orcs psychopaths is their choice and doesn't automatically equal them being racist in the sense we think of it in the real world. Honestly, if any individuals want to see me that way for doing such a thing, then they are invited to avoid my games. I would hope they don't expect me to lose any sleep over it, and if the OP, or anyone else, were to consider me a "racist" or "dick" DM, or whatever, I'm 100% ok with that. Anyone who actually knows me, and especially the folks I care about, actually know the truth of that issue and what the rest of the world thinks is not even a little bit my concern.
Do ya'all really expect to arrive at some "solution"? I'm not saying we can't discuss the merits or lack thereof of different approaches, but such emotion and vitriol over imaginary morality seems a little unwarranted to me.
In the end, my opinion is the OP would be better spent finding a different hobby of such angst is generated over orcs in an fantasy game. Just seems like a big troll to me.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478264Actually not sure as you could argue that he vast majority of PCs display Psychopathic behaviour (oh and it was me that brought up the Psychos first this time :) )
It's all about taste. If you want a simple hack and slash, efffectively turning D&D into a tactical combat games then fine. Alignmen, morality etc are all irrelevant in that game. And that game has a place.
If you add more depth to the game and make your PCs more rounded then you want to consider how they react to certain things. Like it says in my sig I am a method roleplayer I expect the world to be inhabited by 3 dimensional characters on all sides.
I have no problem with orcs being irredeemibly evil so long as that has some justification (orcs in Tolkien being created by corrupting elves for example) the interesting part comes in how the PCs interact with that evil. I can not except that the GM gets to define good and evil in his world. He can define the Laws of the world, he can define the customs of the world, but the players are bound to bring their own good/evil with them and trying to pretend that isn't the case ends up becoming a semantic arguement of the type you have when you are trying to be edgy when you are 15. Saying 'but in my Aztec world Human sacrific is Good,' is just being dickish. You can say 'Human sacrifice is the way we do things, it is the Law,' doesn't make it good.
So by all means define goblins or giants in a racist way but be aware that you are doing it. Or just play a hack and slash. What I find unsupportable is the game that claims to be using imagination and deeply immersive and far superior to MMOs and CRPGs when the PCs just wade into groups of creatures kill them with no remorse and still claim themselves to be Goodly heroes.
Because that's what they want to do. I get it, you would not find that style of game fun, or feel that engaging in such imaginary acts to be compatible with imaginary "good" heroes, but maybe other folks do. Are you seriously trying to say their's is "badwrongfun" and yours is the right way? None of this shit is real. There are no actual babies, orc or otherwise, being killed. None of this has anything to do with actual morality any more than being entertained by a Conan novel or enjoying watching slasher films has anything to do with actual morality.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478371Hmm... no I am not ignorant. I can toally see that it can be acceptable religiously, did not Mohammed himself slay all the Jews after the battle of Medina etc etc. doesn't make it good. Something is not good because it complies with a certain religious ideology that makes it lawful... and here we are arguing about semantics again.
If the Religion says it's Good, then it's Good in that Religion. It's not just Lawful, it's Good.
Quote from: S'mon;478385If the Religion says it's Good, then it's Good in that Religion. It's not just Lawful, it's Good.
So if Gruumsh says slaying and/or enslaving all other sentient beings is good, is it "Good" as per alignment?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478287Step 1: Mass charm person.
Step 2: Mass atonement.
People are really going to a lot of effort - including using pseudo-scientific reasoning, pseudo-intellectual moralising, and of course tons and tons of angry whinging - to make absolutely sure that not one orc, ever, anywhere, under any conditions, could ever even possibly consider becoming good, so it's all right to kill their children.
That's fucking weird. Morrow, Krueger, you guys seem real desperate to make it OK to kill baby orcs to avoid feeling a dirty conscience, throwing out idea after idea as each one is demolished in turn.
Personally, I've always been fine with "You're at war with the local orcs," and to let PCs do as they please from there. Some will slaughter noncombatants like orc babies and women, some won't. Such is war. If you want to play a flatly heroic game where PCs won't crush the skulls of children, tell them so and then don't put the children of their enemies in the game.
There, this full retard thread has been solved.
Except being charmed is not being willing, it's being magically compelled. As DM I would never let a player get away with that one. See, it's not hard to keep throwing up imaginary counters to these arguments. None of this shit is real. The orcs aren't going to care if we slaughter their babies, they don't exist.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478291You see this is the position I would directly refute becuae I can't hope to know the mind set or cultural position where human sacrifice was okay.
How can you directly refute it if you admit not even being able to understand it? You are judging people whom you have never met and don't know anything about.
Quote from: Imperator;478296I guess that is the main obstacle for getting to a universal conclusion. After all, it all boils down to a very subjective and personal decision as it is how the GM wants to portray his world.
And at the end of the day, it's a cultural matter. If you grow in a culture of cannibals, cannibalism is somethign not-evil for you, and you wouldn't understand someone who got upset at that.
These are two things I completely agree with.
Quote from: S'mon;478385If the Religion says it's Good, then it's Good in that Religion. It's not just Lawful, it's Good.
I
This is our real point of difference. I think religion has fack all to do with good and evil .
But we are now having a purely semantic discussion whivch is futilem
Quote from: jibbajibba;478298But surely you can conceed, as I would, that the orcs may be toally evil. Say they were grown from the ground by evil wizards (like Saruman in the LotR movies). In this case they won't have young at all. That is a choice for the GM to make when he does his world building but they need to be aware of the implications those choices have
There are no actual implications other than whether the game ends up being fun for the players, the stuff is all imaginary.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478393I
This is our real point of difference. I think religion has fack all to do with good and evil .
But we are now having a purely semantic discussion whivch is futilem
and in a world where there may very well be no god, and if there is a god, he chooses not to outwardly reveal himself, this is true.
In a world where the gods are real and outwardly manifest directly and through priests, then religion isn't just an invention of man.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478338Sorry Ben, you are wrong on this one.
I tried to explain upthread you can define the laws and cultures of your world but you can't define an objective good and evil.
Let's take a real world example. Jyhadists think its 'good' to blow up plane loads of relatively innocent people. Would we say that yes that was from their perspective a good act?
I certainly wouldn't I would say it might well be a lawful act in their cosmology but not a good one.
So I think there are broad bands of good and evil that most observers would categorise similarly. A GM that goes against that and has Paladins that kill innocents on the basis that it's for the greater good I think would have trouble selling it and that means its an issue (and no its not an issue of imagination its one of internal consistency).
As a bunch of us have been saying if you as the GM treat orcs with a racial stereotype just be aware of it and if you want a richer game try and reflect that in the game world. If you choose not to represent that in the game world becuase you want to run a hack and slash that is fine too but you probably as a GM need to be aware of what you are doing.
The problem only comes when GMs roll stuff out without thinking and ignore the implications but then claim that there are none. A world where women are emancipated and orcs are natural (as per the standard D&D rules) and therefore capable of independent thought and redemption thows up some interesting topics and ones I woudl expect someone in a realised game world to care about.
I have to disagree. In my imaginary world I can define whatever I want in any way I want, and your disagreement or disbelief can't stop me.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478398and in a world where there may very well be no god, and if there is a god, he chooses not to outwardly reveal himself, this is true.
In a world where the gods are real and outwardly manifest directly and through priests, then religion isn't just an invention of man.
Well, gods in D&D usually aren't all powerful. For the most part, they are nothing more than high level wizards that save all their spells to cast counterspell on their brothers. They are just guys with personalities, and still Ao, the high god in FR doesn't share his opinion on it all.
I'd say the religions in D&D represent nothing more than the tastes of the gods, who are just people. Good and evil can still be separate.
Quote from: Benoist;478387So if Gruumsh says slaying and/or enslaving all other sentient beings is good, is it "Good" as per alignment?
From the imaginary orc's perspective? Probably :D It would be for their own good.
Quote from: Cranewings;478401Well, gods in D&D usually aren't all powerful. For the most part, they are nothing more than high level wizards that save all their spells to cast counterspell on their brothers. They are just guys with personalities, and still Ao, the high god in FR doesn't share his opinion on it all.
I'd say the religions in D&D represent nothing more than the tastes of the gods, who are just people. Good and evil can still be separate.
But good and evil are still part of the cosmology and are detectable (for instance through detect alignment spells). It isn't like the real world where you first have to define good, then apply reason to determine if something is good.
Quote from: Cranewings;478401Well, gods in D&D usually aren't all powerful. For the most part, they are nothing more than high level wizards that save all their spells to cast counterspell on their brothers. They are just guys with personalities, and still Ao, the high god in FR doesn't share his opinion on it all.
I'd say the religions in D&D represent nothing more than the tastes of the gods, who are just people. Good and evil can still be separate.
Depends on how you define good and evil in your imaginary game world. In that sense, JJ is correct and it's semantics, but since none of this shit is real redefining good and evil is ok if the players don't mind.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478393I
This is our real point of difference. I think religion has fack all to do with good and evil .
But we are now having a purely semantic discussion whivch is futilem
Actually I suspect most people here agree with you when talking about real world religion. And if they didn't agree with you, they would concede the difficulty in demonstrating how good is connected with God (because first you have to prove God's existence then prove you know his will).
But why can't there be real good and evil in a fictional setting that flows from the gods or from the universe itself? Why can't these things be objectively true if I imagine them to be in my setting? This has been the assumption behind the D&D alignment system for some time. Few would argue it has any bearing on real world morality.
Quote from: Cranewings;478401Well, gods in D&D usually aren't all powerful. For the most part, they are nothing more than high level wizards that save all their spells to cast counterspell on their brothers. They are just guys with personalities, and still Ao, the high god in FR doesn't share his opinion on it all.
I'd say the religions in D&D represent nothing more than the tastes of the gods, who are just people. Good and evil can still be separate.
One possible interpretation, sure, but not the only one.
Quote from: Sigmund;478405Depends on how you define good and evil in your imaginary game world. In that sense, JJ is correct and it's semantics, but since none of this shit is real redefining good and evil is ok if the players don't mind.
One or two of my players have really warped idea of good and evil. If I was typing them, one or two would probably be lawful evil, but they think their ideas are good. When they try to play good people in an RPG, it opens up a lot of conversation like this because their impersonation of a good person is actually an evil person by my standard.
I used to argue more, but then just tossed alignment all together. We all agreed to define evil, by the detect evil spell, as only possessed by supernatural creatures of evil (at any time) and people (who are about to commit a hostile or deceitful act for a selfish purpose while experiencing joy or entertainment at another person's misfortune). Beyond that, there isn't any alignments and I just let people play their characters.
Quote from: Benoist;478387So if Gruumsh says slaying and/or enslaving all other sentient beings is good, is it "Good" as per alignment?
Well, in D&D Gruumsh says Lawful Evil (1e-2e) or Chaotic Evil (3e-4e) is Good, so you get a weird recursive loop thingy going. :D
Quote from: Cranewings;478412One or two of my players have really warped idea of good and evil. If I was typing them, one or two would probably be lawful evil, but they think their ideas are good. When they try to play good people in an RPG, it opens up a lot of conversation like this because their impersonation of a good person is actually an evil person by my standard.
I used to argue more, but then just tossed alignment all together. We all agreed to define evil, by the detect evil spell, as only possessed by supernatural creatures of evil (at any time) and people (who are about to commit a hostile or deceitful act for a selfish purpose while experiencing joy or entertainment at another person's misfortune). Beyond that, there isn't any alignments and I just let people play their characters.
That's certainly a perfectly valid approach, especially in your type of case where the GM and player(s) don't entirely agree on the definitions of "good" and "evil". Another valid approach is for the GM to clearly define "good" and "evil" before the game begins, giving examples and then making judgement calls based on that. Of course, the players have to then be willing to abide by the GM's ruling... I know I would, but I also know not all players are like that :)
Quote from: Sigmund;478414That's certainly a perfectly valid approach, especially in your type of case where the GM and player(s) don't entirely agree on the definitions of "good" and "evil". Another valid approach is for the GM to clearly define "good" and "evil" before the game begins, giving examples and then making judgement calls based on that. Of course, the players have to then be willing to abide by the GM's ruling... I know I would, but I also know not all players are like that :)
I don't believe I have ever been at a table where everyone could agree on a definition of good and evil. So when alignment needs to be used (and we don't use it in most of our games) it is just easier to let the GM say "this is good and this is evil" so we don't end up arguing. In a setting like Ravenloft we might do this, since you have to have a clear good and evil for powerschecks to be uncontrovertial.
Hey stop agreeing with one another so soon! It's a long way to go until we hit 1000 posts!
Quote from: CRKrueger;478411One possible interpretation, sure, but not the only one.
I had a campaign setting with multiple gods based losely on the Great Chain of Being. So the gods themselves and existence were bound up in the concept of good and evil. This was done so I could run a demon hunting campaign against the backdrop of a vaguely Roman Catholic church.
Quote from: boulet;478416Hey stop agreeing with one another so soon! It's a long way to go until we hit 1000 posts!
I don't know. We have over 500 posts to go before we reach 1,000. That is a long journey.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478415I don't believe I have ever been at a table where everyone could agree on a definition of good and evil. So when alignment needs to be used (and we don't use it in most of our games) it is just easier to let the GM say "this is good and this is evil" so we don't end up arguing. In a setting like Ravenloft we might do this, since you have to have a clear good and evil for powerschecks to be uncontrovertial.
I have actually, at least for the kind of stuff that get's dealt with in a D&D game. There might have been small variations of what everyone's conceptions of good and evil were, but that's one of the DM's jobs after all. I was able to play a decent paladin that the other players appreciated though, but we all talked about it before hand, which is the key to all this stuff.
Quote from: CRKruegerYou know, you might try flexing the imagination a little more. For example. Instead of talking about the oh so supposedly interesting topic of whether some fantasy Aztec analogue sacrificing their own people is good or evil from a cultural perspective, how about addressing it from a cosmological perspective? Heresy I know.
What if the sun does stop rising if they fail to sacrifice their own? What if the only thing keeping the tzitzimine from devouring the world is the constant flow of blood? Does that make those actions Good? I'd say no, but it surely makes for interesting roleplaying.
Nicely phrased and supports into the point I was trying to make earlier. This isn't just about 'fantasy' Aztecs, historical peoples truly
believed in their cosmologies too. For them to fail to propitiate, feed and follow their deities social guidelines was certainly an evil thing. For many societies what is 'culturally accepted'
is 'good'.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478367I will give another example. I am running a Roman campaign (we don't use alignment so it probably isn't the best analogue). But the characters are all Romans living with a Roman mindset from 38 AD. Some of the things they are doing I personally would find appalling. Their attitudes toward women are terribly oppressive. Their views on slavery are awful. But this is the world they live in.
When researching for BRP Rome I was amazed at just how different the moral framework for the Republic was in comparison to my modern sensibilities. It was quite shocking, but since then I've studied many other real world societies and if anything, ancient Rome is a tame beast to some of the extremes out there.
It proved to me that there is no such thing as absolute good and evil. They are always subjective, based on social status, climate, terrain, standard of living, available resources, racial memory, cosmology, diet, predation and a hundred other subtle influences. Humanity can often be very alien.
I personally like roleplaying in morally ambiguous worlds, where actions have consequence. I also consider it an enjoyable challenge (and often fascinating) to play in historical settings with different moral frameworks. Its not everyone's cup of tea however and although I'm against censoring settings and/or scenarios which stray into radically extreme moral regions, I do have my limits as to what I consider 'fun'.
Sometimes it nice just to kill the orcs and loot their bodies...
Quote from: CRKrueger;478411One possible interpretation, sure, but not the only one.
Quote from: Sigmund;478422*snip*
but we all talked about it before hand, which is the key to all this stuff.
Interesting to see everyones thoughts on this.
so many great replies...IMO these sum it all up nicely.
(99.9% of the time this seems to be "the answer")
The game is yours, do with it as you will. If the players show up with enthusiasm and leave having had a good time (including some discussion on the moral ambiguities, if present in the game world, hopefuly in character) then you are doing something "right" and GAME ON BROTHER!!
:o
There is plenty of room for all types of games and groups.
Play and contribute to the ones you enjoy!
Quote from: Sigmund;478383If it's ok to define demons, undead, and red dragons as irredeemably evil, why not orcs? After all, I haven't seen anyone go on for page after page arguing over the "morality" of killing dragon babies.
Sure, go for it. My problem may not be with a GM defining somethign as an absolute, but on how hard is to keep things internally consistent. If you get it to work, go ahead, sure.
QuoteI haven't always agreed with MDBrantingham's method of expression, but I do agree with the idea that each DM is perfectly capable and within their rights to set the parameter's of what's "evil", how, why, and what's acceptable to do about it. Whether you (and not you Imperator, but the collective "you" :) ) like it or not, that fact that D&D is just a game is truth, and it's filled with logical impossibilities and fantasic shit and if anyone wants to tack on one more by making orcs psychopaths is their choice and doesn't automatically equal them being racist in the sense we think of it in the real world.
Absolutely. As Krueger said, you can rule that if there are no blood sacrifices to the Sun, the Sun won't rise. In your world, gods may have that effect.
What is more difficult to categorize and make work is things like alignment, because what is Good and Evil is cultural. Heck, maybe the Aztec priest doesn't love to rip heart out but hell, what are you gonna do. It's that or no Sun and everyone dies. Hardly his fault. In other culture (like ours) that is nauseating. So is the Aztec priest good or bad?
My problem won't be with a setting featuring such strange realities. My problem is with alignments, because you're bound to find inconsistent situations.
QuoteDo ya'all really expect to arrive at some "solution"? I'm not saying we can't discuss the merits or lack thereof of different approaches, but such emotion and vitriol over imaginary morality seems a little unwarranted to me.
Totally. That is why the OOP is idiotic, and the outrage about the OOP equally so.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478415I don't believe I have ever been at a table where everyone could agree on a definition of good and evil.
Same here.
QuoteSo when alignment needs to be used (and we don't use it in most of our games) it is just easier to let the GM say "this is good and this is evil" so we don't end up arguing. In a setting like Ravenloft we might do this, since you have to have a clear good and evil for powerschecks to be uncontrovertial.
The only solution I have found around this topic is to make the spells culture - specific. So you detect people who are good or evil according to the ethics of the culture you belong. Not perfect but well, is that or ditching alignments for me.
Quote from: Pete Nash;478426Nicely phrased and supports into the point I was trying to make earlier. This isn't just about 'fantasy' Aztecs, historical peoples truly believed in their cosmologies too. For them to fail to propitiate, feed and follow their deities social guidelines was certainly an evil thing. For many societies what is 'culturally accepted' is 'good'.
And that is why detect alignment always will produce wonky results.
Again, bashing orcs without further dilemma is 100% OK for me.
Quote from: Pete Nash;478426When researching for BRP Rome I was amazed at just how different the moral framework for the Republic was in comparison to my modern sensibilities. It was quite shocking, but since then I've studied many other real world societies and if anything, ancient Rome is a tame beast to some of the extremes out there.
It proved to me that there is no such thing as absolute good and evil. They are always subjective, based on social status, climate, terrain, standard of living, available resources, racial memory, cosmology, diet, predation and a hundred other subtle influences. Humanity can often be very alien.
I personally like roleplaying in morally ambiguous worlds, where actions have consequence. I also consider it an enjoyable challenge (and often fascinating) to play in historical settings with different moral frameworks. Its not everyone's cup of tea however and although I'm against censoring settings and/or scenarios which stray into radically extreme moral regions, I do have my limits as to what I consider 'fun'.
Sometimes it nice just to kill the orcs and loot their bodies...
Ah. Now that might not be a point of view I entirely agree with (the question of the existence of absolute good and evil, which could be very different from what various cultures and religions make of it in this or that historical, sociological, etc. context), but that is sensible, in a way that leaves room for others to add their cent like I did.
On G+ I wrote:
Basic premise that annoys me: "Using absolute evil orcs in your campaign means that you are using profundly racist colonial stereotypes. I don't think you're doing it on purpose, you just don't know any better. So here's how I fix it in my game so you know how to not validate racist ideologies yourself: I don't use any absolute evil racial stereotypes at all. You shouldn't either."
Basic premise that would NOT annoy me: "Whenever I play a game where there are absolute evil orcs, I can't help but be reminded of some really bad stereotypes that were used against real people. I don't mind if you're not seeing it the same way I do, associate it with completely different themes, or do not worry about such things at all. It's just something I found easier to deal with in my game by not having absolute evil racial stereotypes at all."
I think the entire problem can be summed up by this statement, about 3/4s into the blog post...
Quote from: Adam DrayThe biggest rationalization is "It's fantasy, so I don't need to worry about it." I am at a point in my life where I can't say that anymore.
Then he is at the point in his life that psychiatric evaluation sounds like a good idea.
Worrying about acting politically correct towards imaginary monsters? This is like moralizing over using bombs in a game of Stratego.
Quote from: TristramEvans;478439Then he is at the point in his life that psychiatric evaluation sounds like a good idea.
Worrying about acting politically correct towards imaginary monsters? This is like moralizing over using bombs in a game of Stratego.
You don't get it because you aren't playing the game right: you aren't immersed enough :D
Quote from: jibbajibba;478370Because they might as well be playing WOW.
Actually...WoW is your game. The non-evil minotaurs, the non-evil orcs, the non-evil trolls. Everything is a cultural difference of opinion and everyone is redeemable. Hell even the undead arent inherently evil.
But you misunderstood my question.
Why?
What is it about pseudonymed Jibbajibba guy that makes him worry about whether another GM considers the "hows and whys" of alignment. When pushed, that's what you keep coming back to. You just want to make sure other GMs understand the decision they are making and make it with that full realization. That's all you want. You just want them to be sure they see that.
My question to you is: "Why?"
What is it about you that has you on this crusade of enlightenment?
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478418I don't know. We have over 500 posts to go before we reach 1,000. That is a long journey.
Fuck you! Your post is shit and I won't bother telling you why!
(There. We must have matter for a few more posts with this. ;) )
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478444Actually...WoW is your game. The non-evil minotaurs, the non-evil orcs, the non-evil trolls. Everything is a cultural difference of opinion and everyone is redeemable. Hell even the undead arent inherently evil.
But you misunderstood my question.
Why?
What is it about pseudonymed Jibbajibba guy that makes him worry about whether another GM considers the "hows and whys" of alignment. When pushed, that's what you keep coming back to. You just want to make sure other GMs understand the decision they are making and make it with that full realization. That's all you want. You just want them to be sure they see that.
My question to you is: "Why?"
What is it about you that has you on this crusade of enlightenment?
You obviously misunderstood me I want good and evil and gaps in between
As for why I care , hmmm good question why do you care to question why?
Mostly its because we are on a web site discussing rpgs, outside that I do care. I love rpgs and I want to share that love to help everyone I am just like ben in that regard just coming from a different place.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478446I do care. I love rpgs and I want to share that love to help everyone I am just like ben in that regard just coming from a different place.
And your different place is telling people that they are having badwrongfun?
Quote from: jeff37923;478447And your different place is telling people that they are having badwrongfun?
Yeah that is exactly it ;)
Quote from: jibbajibba;478458Yeah that is exactly it ;)
Ah COME ON. Don't give up, mate. There's still a lot of lesson-giving to do before we reach a thousand posts! :D
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478418I don't know. We have over 500 posts to go before we reach 1,000. That is a long journey.
i HATE THAT JOURNEY.
I still shudder when friends use the phrase, "Rose tinted glasses"
Quote from: jibbajibba;478458Yeah that is exactly it ;)
Damnit, man! :D
People who use absolute evil orcs without realizing they are racist colonial sympathizers are wearing rose-colored glasses and should just grow up to look at D&D for the pile of steaming, prejudiced shit it really is! :D
Quote from: Benoist;478445Fuck you! Your post is shit and I won't bother telling you why!
(There. We must have matter for a few more posts with this. ;) )
Then I will have to infer your objection is based on an oppresive and racist political orientation. How dare you taint the forum with imperialist rhetoric.
Quote from: Pete Nash;478426When researching for BRP Rome I was amazed at just how different the moral framework for the Republic was in comparison to my modern sensibilities.
I had the opposite experience - reading Cicero, he seemed incredibly 'modern', that he'd fit right into London's Inns of Court (heart of our legal profession) today. By contrast the mindset of my Saxon or Celt ancestors a thousand years or so ago does seem pretty alien.
There's actually a sort of schizophrenia going on as far as moral and virtue are going on from our modern Western point of view in ancient Rome. This has to do with the fact that a great many of our current societal constructions have been inspired by the Roman culture, on one hand, and that this Roman culture (for the sake of argument, let's say late Republican to early Imperial Roman culture, though we could talk about this down the entire Roman history, it's a matter of progressive shades and waves back and forth, not an either/or thing), predates the Christian mindset that makes for a lot of our current moral constructs.
So you'll read people like Cicero who bitches at the degradation of morality in his life time and talks about the virtues of the Roman man, some of which are pretty close to our own conceptions on the topic (value of family, friendship, truth, etc.), and on the other hand you'll have a completely different sense of worth and value regarding, say, human life (killing non citizens on the battle field, enslaving people, looking at people killing each other in some arena, etc.), or what it means to kill yourself (suicide), and so on, so forth.
QuoteQuote from: TristramEvans;478439I think the entire problem can be summed up by this statement, about 3/4s into the blog post...
Then he is at the point in his life that psychiatric evaluation sounds like a good idea.
Worrying about acting politically correct towards imaginary monsters? This is like moralizing over using bombs in a game of Stratego.
Quote from: Cranewings;478440You don't get it because you aren't playing the game right: you aren't immersed enough :D
:teehee:
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478444Actually...WoW is your game. The non-evil minotaurs, the non-evil orcs, the non-evil trolls. Everything is a cultural difference of opinion and everyone is redeemable. Hell even the undead arent inherently evil.
But you misunderstood my question.
Why?
What is it about pseudonymed Jibbajibba guy that makes him worry about whether another GM considers the "hows and whys" of alignment. When pushed, that's what you keep coming back to. You just want to make sure other GMs understand the decision they are making and make it with that full realization. That's all you want. You just want them to be sure they see that.
My question to you is: "Why?"
What is it about you that has you on this crusade of enlightenment?
:hmm:
inquiring minds want to know....
I don't get it. A guy mentions that the the concept of it being okay to freely slaughter things because you label them Always Chaotic Evil is abhorrent and he's the one with psychological issues?
Quote from: jibbajibba;478446As for why I care , hmmm good question why do you care to question why?
Just greedy curiosity I guess. I'm designing a setting that has a more or less Judeo-Christian basis to the cosmological structure, with a very strong underlying conflict between capital G Good and capital E Evil. When I see posts from otherwise intelligent people declaring that that means the setting and/or the GM are defacto "hack and slash" or simplistic...I get curious to know why they think that. It strikes me as odd and I'm trying to figure out why.
I believe and have always believed in the redeemability of all people. That's just a basic assumption that I arrived at early on personally. I also believe strongly in cultural relativism. I have since before I hit college and I never really wavered.
I enjoy campaigns where there is no absolute right or wrong. I can really get into it. A few really good campaigns I was in where this was the case were Storyteller, RIfts, and Shadowrun. I loved those campaigns.
I was also in a fantasy campaign that was really good. One of the elements that gripped me was the absolutism of alignments and the cosmological structure. We "hacked and slashed" - sure. But not any more than in other campaigns. In Shadowrun we used shotguns. In Rifts we used plasma and railguns. I dont see what it is about having an absolute alignment structure that drives some players to declare that those campaigns are less "rich" or "textured" or "hack n slash" or any of the rest of it.
To me, the absolutism of the alignment structure was gripping. Culturally relative orcs does not tantalize my cranium like it seems to do for some others. I think all humans are redeemable. Adding orcs to the pile doesnt do anything for me - makes them just like everything else in the real world. But orcs that are truly and irredeemably evil - they serve a part in the apparatus of a monolithic evil struggle and to me it's only a logical extension of a cosmology with real Evil - the powers of evil create pawns to carry out their work. If they made orcs and orcs were prone to periodic redemption, then wouldnt they then give up on orcs and make something else that could follow simple instructions?
Maybe they'd end up using golems. Neutral? Sure, but they always kill what they're told to kill. The best answer in a world where all the evil races keep sliding to neutrality? Automatons!
Something that's Evil is formidible and it's alien to our world. For that reason I (personally) find it more interesting to make orcs Evil.
If orcs are the "noble savage" of a game world, then they are interchangable with human barbarians for all intents and purposes. How is that richer or in any way superior?
I just dont get it.
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478499Something that's Evil is formidible and it's alien to our world. For that reason I (personally) find it more interesting to make orcs Evil.
If orcs are the "noble savage" of a game world, then they are interchangable with human barbarians for all intents and purposes. How is that richer or in any way superior?
I just dont get it.
You don't get how things can be separated by something more nuanced than black-and-white RPG alignment?
Quote from: Darwinism;478500You don't get how things can be separated by something more nuanced than black-and-white RPG alignment?
No. I never learned the word nuance. Please explain.
I like you, MD. :D
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478510No. I never learned the word nuance. Please explain.
It's this crazy idea that things can be more varied than good/evil, you may want to look into it.
Quote from: Darwinism;478513It's this crazy idea that things can be more varied than good/evil, you may want to look into it.
No one is disputing that. A lot of posters here have expressed a preference for more varied and nuanced alignment systems (I personally don't have much use for alignment except in key cases where it makes the game easier to run).
What people object to is this the idea that killing orcs in a fantasy game has racist and oppressive undertones that must be addressed. The implication that people who play this kind of game are simply unaware of their own racist tendancies because they don't connect orcs to real-life minority groups; that they are somehow misguided because they are okay with the concept of black and white morality in a fictional game world.
What I object to specifically is the idea that what goes on in the game has any impact on or says anything about a person's regular life. To me this is the same tripe they were selling back in the 80s when they said RPGs led to satanic worship, violence, and drug use. If the poster in the OP has a problem with killing orcs in game, I don't care. But he seemed to be going beyond stating his own preferences of play and passing judgement on those who do enjoy spending an afternoon slaying orcs and goblins.
Quote from: J Arcane;478324This is not a response to the point.
I don't argue with stationery.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478298But surely you can conceed, as I would, that the orcs may be toally evil. Say they were grown from the ground by evil wizards (like Saruman in the LotR movies). In this case they won't have young at all. That is a choice for the GM to make when he does his world building but they need to be aware of the implications those choices have
Yes, if one gets rid of the need for child-rearing and social cohesion it becomes plausible, if still unlikely, to have a gang of murder-machines. I've already agreed the Orcs from WFRP are an example of how to do just this, though that particular implementation isn't my favourite (due to the soccer hooligan angle, mainly).
In that case though, you're basically dealing with something like zombies. Might as well just use zombies or something similar.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478327Most of the time I've ran D&D, orcs weren't irredeemably evil, but in some settings they were. It just depends on the cosmology of that particular setting. Sometimes orcs reproduce and have young, sometimes they are magic fungus, sometimes they are created by wizards.
I never said the PCs should avoid having a dirty conscience, what the conscience of a character feels is where the roleplaying comes in. There's a difference between killing being easy and killing being necessary, or justified. That's what makes it a hard choice, even a horrible one.
This idea of paladins crushing the cute little green skulls of baby orcs under their bootheels while in the background plays "Onward Christian Soldiers" is in your head, man.
You don't appear to understand my position if your final paragraph is any indication of what you believe it to be.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478517I don't argue with stationery.
He does have a relevant point, seems to me: why would every world of the imagination have to be an imitation of our own world? Isn't that showing a lack of imagination to believe every imagined world has to be an allegory relating to our own?
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478335I also think most players I know don't equate the D&D gods or alignment system with christianity in any way.
It's obviously so when you compare the holy warriors of D&D & modern fantasy more generally to the holy warriors of ancient Greece, who happily smashed open Scaramandrus' skull, raped the Trojan women, enslaved the Trojans they didn't kill out of hand, and stole everything not nailed down.
Or the holy warriors of the Aztecs, who captured their enemies to cut out their hearts in order to save the world, and who killed kids to merge their bodies with the gods.
Or... etc.
In the developed West, most of us live within a Christian or slightly post-Christian moral paradigm (even an atheist like me). The alignment system in D&D reflects that paradigm. Not perfectly and not in every particular, but what we consider to be "good" both OOC and IC almost always lines up much more closely with that paradigm that with any of the many competing ones that have existed over human history.
Quote from: Benoist;478334I disagree. It goes to the core of the problem IMO: that whatever evil and good are is something determined by the cosmology of the campaign, a campaign which may be considering orcs as some other culture and projecting all sorts of weird ideas on the part of the DM onto them, or may be considering them as representative of something else, like concepts of bestiality or barbarism, or absolutes of this or that, or may even not consider them allegorical in nature at all... like a certain individual writing a huge book we all know a few decades ago did.
And that gets lesson-givers all worked up. Because there's no lesson-giving to do when you don't know the particulars of a campaign. It's just hot hair, retarded misreadings and projections, kind of like Frank's doing on this thread. Or like he says ... it's a basic failure of logic, so you'd better camouflage it by refuting this simple truth of RPGs, because then, there's no argument to have about words on paper. It really depends how anyone interprets them. And that gets these fuckers who want to tell us what to play and what to think real angry. It's amusing.
Beno, there's more people to a group than the DM, and calls on things like what acts are right and appropriate, and which are not are by no means absolute. If you played in one of mythusmage's games where kiddie diddling is a sacred pederastic bond between diddler and diddlee, would you describe your paladin fucking kids, or would you voice objections, complain, argue, try to convince the other players, etc. both IC and OOC whenever the subject came up, if not outright abandon the game?
And if mythusmage wasn't a shit DM playing with other pedos, don't you think he would acknowledge that whatever his predilections, he should keep that shit out of his game, and not create a world where kiddie diddling was A-OK?
Quote from: Sigmund;478379Would just like to point out that a society of orcs has never existed either. So, if a society of orcs is imagined to exist, why not a society of irredeemably evil orcs?
Lots of reasons. Child-rearing and reproduction are two big ones.
Don't forget, the term being bandied about is "irredeemably evil" or "intrinsically evil", not merely "evil". I'm cool with a world where a bunch of evil orcs runs around robbing, looting, raping and murdering. Those particular orcs may have no desire to change, and may even, as individuals, be incapable of change due to their neurology. On a narrative level, the DM may simply be uninterested in telling stories about orcs suffering pangs of conscience.
I simply don't see why the additional component of "irredeemable" is so important, except insofar as people are interested in killing orcs who are not an active threat, especially helpless ones of various sorts.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478521In the developed West, most of us live within a Christian or slightly post-Christian moral paradigm (even an atheist like me). The alignment system in D&D reflects that paradigm. Not perfectly and not in every particular, but what we consider to be "good" both OOC and IC almost always lines up much more closely with that paradigm that with any of the many competing ones that have existed over human history.
I agree plenty of our assumptions (many of which are built on christian principles) seep into how good and evil were defined in D&D. But I think the gods themselves are quite varied and I don't see too much of a direct connection to christianity. In fact one of the difficulties I had when I first encountered D&D (having been raised in a pretty religious household) was understanding neutral deities. These just didn't make a great deal of sense to me. I also had difficulty with the idea that there were gods in the setting buy no God.
Quote from: Benoist;478387So if Gruumsh says slaying and/or enslaving all other sentient beings is good, is it "Good" as per alignment?
Ask the Amalekites.
Quote from: Sigmund;478388Except being charmed is not being willing, it's being magically compelled. As DM I would never let a player get away with that one. See, it's not hard to keep throwing up imaginary counters to these arguments. None of this shit is real. The orcs aren't going to care if we slaughter their babies, they don't exist.
In very few editions of the game does it explicitly say one's attitude towards the person ends at the end of the spell. It's simply no longer magically compelled to remain there in the face of common sense.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478526Lots of reasons. Child-rearing and reproduction are two big ones.
I don't see how those preclude a race from being evil in an imaginary setting. I agree they make it harder to explain. And personally I am not a fan of the "all orcs are evil" approach. But if someone wants orcs that are all evil in his game and it is just part of who orcs are, I am sure they can keep coming up with reasons why.
QuoteDon't forget, the term being bandied about is "irredeemably evil" or "intrinsically evil", not merely "evil". I'm cool with a world where a bunch of evil orcs runs around robbing, looting, raping and murdering. Those particular orcs may have no desire to change, and may even, as individuals, be incapable of change due to their neurology. On a narrative level, the DM may simply be uninterested in telling stories about orcs suffering pangs of conscience.
I think this is just a matter of preference. I like my creatures to have free will and the moral landscape to have some ambiguity. But I don't see why it is an issue if someone wants to imagine orcs that are simply incapable of not being evil.
QuoteI simply don't see why the additional component of "irredeemable" is so important, except insofar as people are interested in killing orcs who are not an active threat, especially helpless ones of various sorts.
I would think it makes things like dungeon crawls and hack N slash campaigns work better. I would also think some people just find the idea of an irredeemable orc, cool. Probably lots of reasons.
Quote from: Imperator;478434What is more difficult to categorize and make work is things like alignment, because what is Good and Evil is cultural. Heck, maybe the Aztec priest doesn't love to rip heart out but hell, what are you gonna do. It's that or no Sun and everyone dies. Hardly his fault. In other culture (like ours) that is nauseating. So is the Aztec priest good or bad?
Neither. If the Aztec priest is doing it out of pragmatic necessity and has qualms about killing the innocent, that would make him NEUTRAL according to the d20 3.5 SRD alignment system. If he enjoys watching them squirm and gets a kick out of it, he's Evil. A Good Aztec priest would offer himself up as a sacrifice before sacrificing another.
Personally, I think a broad and healthy Neutral band between Good and Evil, that includes those motivated by pragmatism rather than altruism or cruelty, is critical to making the whole alignment system work. Collapse everything to "Good or Evil" and it does quickly break down.
Quote from: Imperator;478434My problem won't be with a setting featuring such strange realities. My problem is with alignments, because you're bound to find inconsistent situations.
In my experience, the inconsistencies and problems are minor and few so long as I (A) acknowledged that those who act out of pragmatic self-interest are largely Neutral rather than Good or Evil and didn't try to force them into either category and (B) didn't mix up the meaning capital-G Good (which has a specific and objective meaning in the alignment system) with little-g good, in the relative sense. Throughout the whole time I was running D&D 3.5, I never had any trouble applying the alignment definitions to the characters and creatures in the campaign, which took place in a setting included various relative interpretations of the cosmology at various alignment points and across several cultures.
Quote from: Benoist;478520He does have a relevant point, seems to me: why would every world of the imagination have to be an imitation of our own world? Isn't that showing a lack of imagination to believe every imagined world has to be an allegory relating to our own?
Game settings don't have to imitate ours slavishly, or be allegories for it, but if they don't possess some sort of verisimilitude, then what handle do you have for immersion and that whole "world in motion" thing you're so big on?
Consistency and sensibility, especially in the face of extrapolation, are critical for good settings. IMHO, fantasy should only depart from reality when it has a good reason to do so. And I think most people agree in practice even if they might claim otherwise - a game where people didn't act like people would be stupid.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478527I agree plenty of our assumptions (many of which are built on christian principles) seep into how good and evil were defined in D&D. But I think the gods themselves are quite varied and I don't see too much of a direct connection to christianity. In fact one of the difficulties I had when I first encountered D&D (having been raised in a pretty religious household) was understanding neutral deities. These just didn't make a great deal of sense to me. I also had difficulty with the idea that there were gods in the setting buy no God.
The topic of how Christian monotheism has intellectually shaped fantasy's depiction of polytheism and polytheistic societies is well beyond the scope of this thread, though it is an extremely interesting one. We used to have a poster named BlackFlag who is an expert of some sort of Roman polytheism, IIRC who commented extensively in a thread about it somewhere in the archives here.
In brief though, either there is something incongruous about Zeus being a good god who also rapes women or there is not. I tend to think that there is, and I think most gamers do as well, since the vast majority of good gods I see are not out there raping women for their selfish pleasure.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478530And personally I am not a fan of the "all orcs are evil" approach.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478530Something that's Evil is formidible and it's alien to our world. For that reason I (personally) find it more interesting to make orcs Evil.
So you don't like the all orcs are evil approach but orcs are evil.
Oh and the games people play very definitely reflect on who and what you are in real life. Or would you argue that the group that plays Black Tokyo is perfectly balanced in every regard?
I'm not comfortable at all in even pretending to be a genocidal maniac even if the game does tell me they totally deserve it for being born, and people who see nothing wrong with it worry me a bit. Not much, this is just pretend after all, but our characters are always reflections of ourselves in one way or another.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478524Beno, there's more people to a group than the DM, and calls on things like what acts are right and appropriate, and which are not are by no means absolute. If you played in one of mythusmage's games where kiddie diddling is a sacred pederastic bond between diddler and diddlee, would you describe your paladin fucking kids, or would you voice objections, complain, argue, try to convince the other players, etc. both IC and OOC whenever the subject came up, if not outright abandon the game?
And if mythusmage wasn't a shit DM playing with other pedos, don't you think he would acknowledge that whatever his predilections, he should keep that shit out of his game, and not create a world where kiddie diddling was A-OK?
Let me put it this way: I do agree that's something you want to talk about when you have that first session talking about the game with the prospective players, that's for sure, just like boulet mentioned dozens of pages ago on this thread.
From there, if someone's not cool with the idea of having absolute evil orcs and slaughtering baby monsters and their mothers and the like, then that's not going to appear in my game. That's it. It's just the first rule of gaming, the "don't be a dick" rule.
Likewise, if a DM either says he won't to this and then pushes that kind of stuff on people who specifically mentioned they were not comfortable with baby orcs and their mothers, then he's being a douche. If he actually uses the game to push ignoble ideas like racist stuff, pedophilia and so on in a good light, he's likewise being a dou... scratch that, he's scum. Period.
So yeah, I agree with the principle that these sorts of things may happen. They shouldn't IF you know who you're playing with and everyone knows what to expect.
There's a step from this, however, and point-blank saying that if you use absolute evil orcs in your game then you implicitly endorse racist colonial ideas, whether you know it or not. Either you know it and you are a horrible person, or you don't and you're just not "aware". That's bullshit.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478530I don't see how those preclude a race from being evil in an imaginary setting. I agree they make it harder to explain. And personally I am not a fan of the "all orcs are evil" approach. But if someone wants orcs that are all evil in his game and it is just part of who orcs are, I am sure they can keep coming up with reasons why.
It doesn't preclude them from being evil. Don't move the goalposts. They were set at "irredeemably evil" and "absolute evil" (whatever those are supposed to be).
And sure, any amount of sophistry to justify one's stupidity is possible. I think that they ought to take all the bad reasoning about why "irredeemably evil" orcs exist and simply expend that giving the orcs plausible motivations to want to hurt and / or kill the PCs or people they care about.
QuoteI think this is just a matter of preference. I like my creatures to have free will and the moral landscape to have some ambiguity. But I don't see why it is an issue if someone wants to imagine orcs that are simply incapable of not being evil.
It's lazy worldbuilding. I said this back at the start of the thread.
QuoteI would think it makes things like dungeon crawls and hack N slash campaigns work better. I would also think some people just find the idea of an irredeemable orc, cool. Probably lots of reasons.
I think it's totally unnecessary for dungeon crawls and hack n slash campaigns, if not pernicious. It reduces the welter of possible motivations and tactics dependent on those motivations to the simplest and stupidest possible.
Quote from: Benoist;478535There's a step from this, however, and point-blank saying that if you use absolute evil orcs in your game then you implicitly endorse racist colonial ideas, whether you know it or not. Either you know it and you are a horrible person, or you don't and you're just not "aware". That's bullshit.
Technically it's racism towards non-existent creatures, but I don't consider that a highly morally problematic thing except maybe if it were derived from a general mindset or quality of character that, as it was reinforced by fantasy, grew more important in the person's real life. That's fairly unlikely, though. I don't like elves, and if someone wants to call me a racist against elves, I'm fine with being one.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478532Game settings don't have to imitate ours slavishly, or be allegories for it, but if they don't possess some sort of verisimilitude, then what handle do you have for immersion and that whole "world in motion" thing you're so big on?
Verisimilitude is not a synonym of realism. Likewise, it does not presuppose a juxtaposition of the imaginary world with the real worl on a 1:1 basis. Many impossible, unrealistic scenarios may be believable given their own context. The cosmology of the world is no different, and how that trickles down to particulars like what exactly is an orc and whether it has a soul and is "it" redeemable and so on isn't either.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478532Consistency and sensibility, especially in the face of extrapolation, are critical for good settings. IMHO, fantasy should only depart from reality when it has a good reason to do so. And I think most people agree in practice even if they might claim otherwise - a game where people didn't act like people would be stupid.
I disagree. Consistency is part of verisimilitude, or 'the believability of the game milieu'. Like I just said, this does not mean that the imaginary world has to be a carbon copy of the real world. It means that the former must be internally consistent, given its own context, not the real world's. I think you could play alien beings in some imaginary settings who would be radically different from what you and I would define as "people" in our real world, have these beings be internally consistent with the imaginary world's context, and have tons of fun doing so, wouldn't you?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478537Technically it's racism towards non-existent creatures
It's only racism from a real world point of view if these entities or monsters or creatures could be construed as "people", which completely depends on the cosmology of the world and the wider context of the campaign milieu.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478526Lots of reasons. Child-rearing and reproduction are two big ones.
You have a very narrow and superficial understanding of evil and seem to think it precludes showing any restraint out of self-interest. What makes you think that a cruel and sadistic parent can't successfully reproduce, and what kind of "child-rearing" do you think it needs to produce a new generation of cruel and sadistic monsters? Do you ever read the news?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478526I simply don't see why the additional component of "irredeemable" is so important, except insofar as people are interested in killing orcs who are not an active threat, especially helpless ones of various sorts.
That's precisely the reason to want to make them irredeemable, otherwise players who want to play good characters are obliged to take and maintain prisoners according the Geneva Conventions and in games with lots of NPC monsters, that becomes problematic very quickly.
Start watching this film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4aRxax5n_o) (NSFW) starting about 3 minutes in and note, in particular, the interview with George Niland. That's reality and what often happened when there wasn't an easy way to humanely deal with prisoners but a lot of people don't want to play that that sort of game. The only other alternative people seem to be offering is for the GM to spare the players from ever having to deal with such a scenario. As I pointed out in another thread, this is why I think so many role-playing combat systems don't leave wounded or unconscious enemies and why some systems have mook rules. Once the PCs become responsible for helpless enemies, you are dealing with a whole different type of game -- a type of game many players don't want to play.
My question for you is why you find the idea of making it acceptable to kill the helpless monsters so unthinkable an option. As some asked elsewhere in this thread, why aren't people as troubled over killing dragon whelps?
I'm also reminded of this scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1nxaQhsaaw) from Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Quote from: Benoist;478539It's only racism from a real world point of view if these entities or monsters or creatures could be construed as "people", which completely depends on the cosmology of the world and the wider context of the campaign milieu.
They're not people if they're damned savages that I dislike! There's nothing wrong with this viewpoint!
The thing is that in dungeon crawls alignment means fuckall because my party = good and not my party = evil. But when you go into an actual campaign where you're pretending to be crusading good guys, or neutral mercenaries, or evil bent on self-profit, portraying things as Always Chaotic Evil is just a lazy way of giving the party a target that they can feel justified in killing at best. And at worst it's a way of branding an entire race as savages who hate civilization/goodness/AR FREEDOM.
Quote from: Darwinism;478498I don't get it. A guy mentions that the the concept of it being okay to freely slaughter things because you label them Always Chaotic Evil is abhorrent and he's the one with psychological issues?
Yes, when he identified a depreciating ability to separate fantasy from reality. Morally, the argument is tantamount to bitching about how Chess enforces elitist ideals because the Queen gets better moves than the pawns.
Or even less that that, because, as the GM defines the world however they like (and to a certain extent does so by what situations he puts the players in), the fact that he and his group are running around killing orc women and babies is totally his own fault and the fault of his twisted imagination. It has nothing to do with any game I've ever run, nor any published adventure I've ever seen. And now to rationalize the messed up crap he's been indulging in, he's trying to blame D&D itself.
In the real world, if someone is racist against a minority, that basically makes them a bad person. If a person is racist against orcs or Klingons, that just makes them a geek.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;478035That's charmingly naive, but here are the old Ral Partha Orcs:
(http://www.mhorann.demon.co.uk/figpics/ral-partha-orcs.jpg)
Yes, there has been a concerted movement to make them the "Greenskins" that are no longer associated with any human ethnic group. But let's be honest here: in the old days Orcs were Black people and you were supposed to kill their females and young when you found their villages.
And just in case you try to weasel out that you were talking about goblins (even though in AD&D Goblins and Orcs were all the same "giant class" of humanoid), let's look at the old Hobgoblins:
(http://www.otherworld.me.uk/images/Hobgobgrouppaint1_t.jpg)
They were explicitly Orientals. Hell, that hasn't even changed. Even Games Workshop still talks about Hobgobla-Khans.
But detaching Orcs from analogies to real world peoples is part of the (quite commendable) movement to make Dungeons & Dragons less morally reprehensible. So if you get upset at people who want to make the Orcs more complex so there is a reason why you'd kill some and not all (thereby making it less about genocide), why the fuck aren't you upset at your own fucking revisionism where you deny the real-world human racial origins of the fantasy races?
-Frank
Sorry, I never used ral partha minis. I read a lot of tolkien back in the day, and as far as I recall, the orcs there weren't particularly stereotype-african. And I read my share of european folklore, and from what I recall Goblins weren't very asian.
Likewise, the art from the D&D books I read didn't seem to have orcs or goblins looking particularly like those racial stereotypes. It seems to me the problem there had more to do with someone at ral partha than with the concept of humanoids themselves.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478536It's lazy worldbuilding.
So what?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478536And sure, any amount of sophistry to justify one's stupidity is possible. I think that they ought to take all the bad reasoning about why "irredeemably evil" orcs exist and simply expend that giving the orcs plausible motivations to want to hurt and / or kill the PCs or people they care about.
I think "they have no conscience and enjoy causing pain and death to others" is a perfectly plausible motivation for wanting to hurt and/or kill the PCs or people they care about, since there are plenty of real world examples of human beings acting on that motivation with expected results. Or do you mean something more when you say "plausible"?
From the article Psychopaths Among Us (http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html):
"There's still a lot of opposition -- some criminologists, sociologists, and psychologists don't like psychopathy at all," Hare says. "I can spend the entire day going through the literature -- it's overwhelming, and unless you're semi-brain-dead you're stunned by it -- but a lot of people come out of there and say, 'So what? Psychopathy is a mythological construct.' They have political and social agendas: 'People are inherently good,' they say. 'Just give them a hug, a puppy dog, and a musical instrument and they're all going to be okay.' "The reason I keep bringing up psychopaths is that people keep claiming that how they think and behave in the real world is somehow impossible in a fantasy setting.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478536It's lazy worldbuilding. I said this back at the start of the thread.
Given how many people in this thread claim that including such creatures in a setting are all but impossible to do well, if at all, I would argue it's a bigger challenge to try to make them work than just making them funny looking people with understandable human motivations.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478536I think it's totally unnecessary for dungeon crawls and hack n slash campaigns, if not pernicious. It reduces the welter of possible motivations and tactics dependent on those motivations to the simplest and stupidest possible.
So the bar for including anything in a fantasy role-playing setting is that it must be
necessary? Why are any fantasy races
necessary? Why is magic
necessary? Why is a sanitized Medieval setting
necessary?
And I suppose I should add that having no conscience and enjoying the suffering of others does not preclude other motivations and a variety of tactics any more than being altruistic and wanting to help others means that you can think of nothing else and behave in the most obvious way possible.
Quote from: Darwinism;478534So you don't like the all orcs are evil approach but orcs are evil.
That second quote isn't mine. Either I was trying to quote someone and failed. Or someone quoted another poster and accidentally used my handle.
QuoteOh and the games people play very definitely reflect on who and what you are in real life. Or would you argue that the group that plays Black Tokyo is perfectly balanced in every regard?
I don't know Black Tokyo so I can't comment on that one. But I barring a few extreme ends of the spectrum, no games don't reflect anything significant about the people playing them.
QuoteI'm not comfortable at all in even pretending to be a genocidal maniac even if the game does tell me they totally deserve it for being born, and people who see nothing wrong with it worry me a bit. Not much, this is just pretend after all, but our characters are always reflections of ourselves in one way or another.
That is fine. You don't need to be. But some people are fine killing orcs and it doesn't mean they are pro-genocide. Just like I love to play mobster characters. Doesn't mean I am pro-mafia.
I don't think it is reflecting as much as you think it is.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478517Yes, if one gets rid of the need for child-rearing and social cohesion it becomes plausible, if still unlikely, to have a gang of murder-machines.
You really don't read the news, do you?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478536And sure, any amount of sophistry to justify one's stupidity is possible. I think that they ought to take all the bad reasoning about why "irredeemably evil" orcs exist and simply expend that giving the orcs plausible motivations to want to hurt and / or kill the PCs or people they care about.
Why?
QuoteIt's lazy worldbuilding. I said this back at the start of the thread.
I don't think so. I think they are just focused on building a different kind of setting than you are interested in. I've played in campaigns with the inherently evil orcs where the setting was textured, deep and interesting. The orc culture can still be fully explored. The consquences of an inherently evil race still explored. Not my top preference for a game, but I don't regard GMs who take this path as lazy.
QuoteI think it's totally unnecessary for dungeon crawls and hack n slash campaigns, if not pernicious. It reduces the welter of possible motivations and tactics dependent on those motivations to the simplest and stupidest possible.
I don't think it is neccessary either. But some people are interested in facilitating gameplay over RP or setting. Just stamping the orcs "evil and killable" gets around a lot of the stuff we've been discussing here for some groups. And if all they want to do is hack. That is one one to make it easier.
Simple isn't always bad.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478533In brief though, either there is something incongruous about Zeus being a good god who also rapes women or there is not. I tend to think that there is, and I think most gamers do as well, since the vast majority of good gods I see are not out there raping women for their selfish pleasure.
I never suggested Zeus was a good god (But to be fair to the Greeks, they didn't always endorse the behavior of the gods). But the D&D pantheon has gods that span the range of alignments and the domains gods cover is very much a hodgpodge of old Europrean pantheons with a PG-rating IMO. If the only gods in D&D were a lawful good deity and a Chaotic evil one, I could see the christian comparison. But you have gods of war, trickster gods, etc.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478517I don't argue with stationery.
Yes, if one gets rid of the need for child-rearing and social cohesion it becomes plausible,
Do Gnolls rear young? Are they evil?
You're saying that an evil race is iimpossible because an evil race would never be able to rear young. Stunning.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478536It doesn't preclude them from being evil. Don't move the goalposts. They were set at "irredeemably evil" and "absolute evil" (whatever those are supposed to be).
Quote from: RPGPundit;477964That's right. If they were Always Chaotic Evil, THEY'D BE ORCS.
Which is the whole point. I don't think the OP-quote really gives a fuck about "racism" (except maybe in the typical white-guilt sense); what he cares about, what offends his relativist post-modern collapse-of-civilization west-hating sensibilities is the very idea that something can be evil, and should be fought.
That it can be GOOD to fight against evil, to fight for goodness, to oppose something else that is an evil and would be harmful to our civilization. That's what he hates, because he can't believe himself capable of doing that, because he has no values left in him he's willing to fight for.
RPGPundit
The second post I've quoted initially was a ?, but reading through more of the recent posts I can see more evidence that the affirmative team insist that everything has to be shades of grey, because they don't believe in black.
Why stop at nuanced orcs? Lets have some LG reformed mind flayers.
Quote from: Darwinism;478547They're not people if they're damned savages that I dislike! There's nothing wrong with this viewpoint!
Of course, you completely ignore everything I've said about context, verisimilitude, coherence of the campaign milieu etc.
Crawl back to your hole, fuckwit.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478327Most of the time I've ran D&D, orcs weren't irredeemably evil, but in some settings they were. It just depends on the cosmology of that particular setting. Sometimes orcs reproduce and have young, sometimes they are magic fungus, sometimes they are created by wizards.
For the record, in my D&D 3.5 campaign, the Orcs were not irredeemably Evil but simply had a strong tendency to be but the goblinoids and some other monsters were irredeemably evil. I wanted the game to explore both options. The Paladin code from my game reads, in part:
15) Do not attack those who have not attacked you unless you know them to be Evil. Do whatever you can to spare those who are not Evil. Those who have turned to Evil yet still might be redeemed should also be spared. Kill that which is Evil by nature, for only through the Lethe [reincarnation] might they be redeemed.
17) You should accept the surrender of your enemies and they will become your charge. Evil that cannot be redeemed that is in your charge should be dispatched
quickly and without malice. All others in your charge should be treated honorably and humanely.
18) Destroy the undead. Their place is in the grave or as dust upon the wind.
19) Destroy demons and devils. Their place is not in this world and they are the enemy of all you stand for.
Note also that the cosmology included reincarnation as a (difficult but possible) option for the Evil dead rather than eternal damnation.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478327I never said the PCs should avoid having a dirty conscience, what the conscience of a character feels is where the roleplaying comes in. There's a difference between killing being easy and killing being necessary, or justified. That's what makes it a hard choice, even a horrible one.
I have also said the same thing. I've repeatedly pointed out that the slaughter of the goblin den in my D&D 3.5 game, even after the goblin women and children had attacked the party and pushed the fight on them, was one of the grimmest and most horrific scenes in the game. It was not, as you put it, "paladins crushing the cute little green skulls of baby orcs under their bootheels while in the background plays 'Onward Christian Soldiers'". It was an entire party horrified by the carnage, including the Neutral Druid played by an ex-Marine who was generally in a rush to "get to the killing". And there was a lot of emotional depth in that.
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;478561Why stop at nuanced orcs? Lets have some LG reformed mind flayers.
And sexy romantic Good vampires to fall in love with. Oh wait...
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478560You're saying that an evil race is iimpossible because an evil race would never be able to rear young. Stunning.
The Nazis didn't have children, either, because evil people can't have and raise children. They hatched as fully formed and uniformed adults from beer steins.
Quote from: Benoist;478562Of course, you completely ignore everything I've said about context, verisimilitude, coherence of the campaign milieu etc.
Crawl back to your hole, fuckwit.
Except I'm not, I'm summarizing what you've said. Context, verisimilitude, and coherence of campaign milieu are just fancy justifications of lazy worldbuilding.
Crawl back to your thesaurus, fuckwit.
Quote from: Darwinism;478566Except I'm not, I'm summarizing what you've said. Context, verisimilitude, and coherence of campaign milieu are just fancy justifications of lazy worldbuilding.
Nope. Steal a brain somewhere, that one's rotten. Then get yourself an education, acquire a mind of your own, pull out a copy of a dictionary to help you decipher the complicated fancy words, and then maybe you'll have a shot at this.
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;478561The second post I've quoted initially was a ?, but reading through more of the recent posts I can see more evidence that the affirmative team insist that everything has to be shades of grey, because they don't believe in black.
Why stop at nuanced orcs? Lets have some LG reformed mind flayers.
I am extremely curious as to how you became a telepath, especially since your telepathy does not seem particularly accurate?
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478557Why?
I've already explained why near the start of this very thread. Go back and read it.
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478560Do Gnolls rear young? Are they evil?
The second question is already loaded with idiotic presumptions & conceptions.
QuoteYou're saying that an evil race is iimpossible because an evil race would never be able to rear young. Stunning.
I am doubtful about the whole concept of "evil races" except as artificial constructions by external forces in the first place, and then yes, I am willing to assert that a group of unrestrained psychopathic murderer-rapists would not form a self-sustaining society that could perpetuate itself.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478559I never suggested Zeus was a good god (But to be fair to the Greeks, they didn't always endorse the behavior of the gods).
The Greek pantheon is Chaotic Good last I checked. Certainly they were as of AD&D 2e.
QuoteBut the D&D pantheon has gods that span the range of alignments and the domains gods cover is very much a hodgpodge of old Europrean pantheons with a PG-rating IMO. If the only gods in D&D were a lawful good deity and a Chaotic evil one, I could see the christian comparison. But you have gods of war, trickster gods, etc.
It's more complex than that. As I said, it's outside the scope of this thread.
Quote from: Benoist;478538I disagree. Consistency is part of verisimilitude, or 'the believability of the game milieu'. Like I just said, this does not mean that the imaginary world has to be a carbon copy of the real world. It means that the former must be internally consistent, given its own context, not the real world's. I think you could play alien beings in some imaginary settings who would be radically different from what you and I would define as "people" in our real world, have these beings be internally consistent with the imaginary world's context, and have tons of fun doing so, wouldn't you?
Sure, but nothing I've said makes that impossible. In fact, if I'm going to be asked to depict an alien mindset, I want things worked out as consistently, clearly and logically as possible so that it's possible to use my reason and imagination to understand how those creatures think rather than just parroting the appropriate cliche or whatever. I also want to understand the meaning or function of the points of differentiation from ours, which contributes to a better understanding of the whole. "Why does this species think so differently?" had better have a good question if the whole thing is predicated on it.
Similarly, "Why are we killing orcs, and why are the orcs trying to kill us?" are pretty important questions,
especially in dungeoncrawls and hack-and-slash games. In fact, the more the game focuses on killing orcs, the better and more interesting answer(s) it ought to have to that question, rather than just handwaving it away as a tiresome problem.
As I said near the start of the thread, answering these sorts of questions injects variety, meaning, context to encounters, adventures and campaigns when done well. Doing them well means handling them in a way that opens up new possibilities and developments, rather than closing them down. Rigid metaphysical constructions are necessarily more limiting than contingent reasons, and therefore should be used sparingly when at all, and then only for the most common recurring elements of the world.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478571The Greek pantheon is Chaotic Good last I checked. Certainly they were as of AD&D 2e.
Sure but that was during the 2E days when they were making a conscious effort not to offend conservative christian parents. I think most gamers are familiar enough with Zeus to know our modern moral sensibilities don't really apply to him.
QuoteIt's more complex than that. As I said, it's outside the scope of this thread.
I am sure it is more complex than my two sentences there. But I do think there is a strong strain of European mythology influencing the D&D gods. Not denying there isn't Christian influence as well.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478233Let's go down the full retard list:
Am I allowed to find irony in a person complaining about privilege and exploitation casually throwing around the R-word (http://www.r-word.org/)?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;4782331) Morrow pretending to be a psychologist / moral philosopher rationalising a society of psychopaths, something that has never actually existed
You mean like dragons, zombies, and magic missile spells? Yet in point (6), you complain that people are "too unimaginative to even make up sensible or interesting imitations of the world". So which is it? Should I be trying to use real world models to imitate the real world to make a fantasy setting more plausible or not?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;4782334) Consistent confusion of authoritative citation of source material and facts with whims, desires, dreams & half-memories, also what you can find on the first page of Google that seems like it kind of supports what you said
You mean like not reading to the end of the Atonement spell where it specifically precludes being used the way you suggested using it to make your point? And before you try again, the AD&D 1e spell won't work the way you want it to either. And the reason for that is pretty obvious.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478570I've already explained why near the start of this very thread. Go back and read it.
I am having trouble finding the post attributed incorrectly to me. So rather than sift through for yours as well, I'll just concede this point:)
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478575Sure, but nothing I've said makes that impossible. In fact, if I'm going to be asked to depict an alien mindset, I want things worked out as consistently, clearly and logically as possible so that it's possible to use my reason and imagination to understand how those creatures think rather than just parroting the appropriate cliche or whatever. I also want to understand the meaning or function of the points of differentiation from ours, which contributes to a better understanding of the whole. "Why does this species think so differently?" had better have a good question if the whole thing is predicated on it.
Depends on your aim, I guess. For some people having all these things work out is absolutely necessary for them to get the setting. For others, they'll want to know everything they can about every possible NPC since where they were born, who were their parents, who did they lose their virginity to, and so on. I'm not kidding.
Take me for instance. I have something against settings that represent pantheons in ways that break my suspension of disbelief. Like if we're talking Forgotten Realms gods and the way its pantheons actually relate to one another, their relative creation myths (hints: there's a single one), societal myth (hinted that only when we're talking of racial groups or monsters), and so on so forth. I'm a guy who loves the gods of Glorantha. That's my standard of what feels right.
So I'm totally getting that you'd need that kind of detail to relate to an alien being like this.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478575Similarly, "Why are we killing orcs, and why are the orcs trying to kill us?" are pretty important questions, especially in dungeoncrawls and hack-and-slash games. In fact, the more the game focuses on killing orcs, the better and more interesting answer(s) it ought to have to that question, rather than just handwaving it away as a tiresome problem.
In practice, there's almost always a rudimentary answer in the setup of the campaign itself: the orcs are pillaging and attacking caravans around town. The town itself is attacked by hordes of orcs. Orcs have been nesting in the mountains and are stealing children from the farmsteads. I've rarely, if ever, seen a game where there wasn't at least the start of a justification from the PCs point of view to go there and root the orcs (or monsters) out. Likewise for modules. Temple of Elemental Evil? Brigands attacking people on roads in the area -> Moathouse -> Temple. G1-3 idem. S4 idem. Etc.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478575As I said near the start of the thread, answering these sorts of questions injects variety, meaning, context to encounters, adventures and campaigns when done well. Doing them well means handling them in a way that opens up new possibilities and developments, rather than closing them down. Rigid metaphysical constructions are necessarily more limiting than contingent reasons, and therefore should be used sparingly when at all, and then only for the most common recurring elements of the world.
I get that. But variety, meaning and context don't have to be focused on that particular aspect of the setting. You can focus that attention on Gods, plants, geography, history of your dungeon, the maps themselves, etc etc. It's not reasonable to look at this sole factor of a game world's design and automatically conclude that said design was "bad" or "lazy". I disagree.
Beno> It's less the specific area of focus and more the way that the focus is handled, whatever it happens to be.
I have a similar hate for cackling evil overlords who represent Satan (badly) for that matter, and for similar reasons. Morgoth is the only one of those I like, and that's because he's reminiscent of Milton's Satan, and is therefore necessarily not an irredeemable psychopath with magic powers.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478581I have a similar hate for cackling evil overlords who represent Satan (badly) for that matter, and for similar reasons. Morgoth is the only one of those I like, and that's because he's reminiscent of Milton's Satan, and is therefore necessarily not an irredeemable psychopath with magic powers.
On villains I can go either way depending on the tone of the campaign. Sometimes I like an over-the-top, super evil bad guy, but other times I like my villains to have more depth. I say if you are going to make a cackling mastermind, might as well go all out and ham it up.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478570I am doubtful about the whole concept of "evil races" except as artificial constructions by external forces in the first place, and then yes, I am willing to assert that a group of unrestrained psychopathic murderer-rapists would not form a self-sustaining society that could perpetuate itself.
So gnolls are or are not an evil race? I'm getting confused. Cause I'm pretty sure they raise live young to adulthood.
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478584So gnolls are or are not an evil race? I'm getting confused. Cause I'm pretty sure they raise live young to adulthood.
A recent study showed that 65% of Gnolls no longer have the "E" gene, so no, they aren't an evil species.
The whole notion of an "evil race" is conceptually problematic, and something I avoid whenever possible. In the setting of mine that has abundant Gnolls (the Dawnlands), they are violent, predatory pack hunters with a taste for the flesh of sentients, and mostly belong to cults that worships demons. That means that most Gnolls are pretty evil. Intrinsically? No. I see no reason to say that Gnolls are any more evil than the above reasons make them.
Quote from: Benoist;478567Nope. Steal a brain somewhere, that one's rotten. Then get yourself an education, acquire a mind of your own, pull out a copy of a dictionary to help you decipher the complicated fancy words, and then maybe you'll have a shot at this.
Oh, look, another internet pseudo-intellectual that thinks big words make them smart!
You are just
so adorable!
edit: Just a hint for you, because you're so cute. Using big words when they're not appropriate doesn't make you seem smart; it makes you seem like an idiot who wants others to think him smart because he knows
such big words oh man that's super impressive. Only among people with decent vocabularies it's really not impressive; it's needlessly pedantic. Woop-de-fucking-do. You know a fancier word than needs dictate. Guess what? No one cares.
Irredeemable evil is fine in my book, but it has to have a decent motivation. The evil overlord executing his minions while twirling his moustache is yawn-inducing.
EDIT: Who is Darwinism and why is he trolling like it's illegal in Britain (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-11650593)?
Quote from: Darwinism;478587it's needlessly pedantic.
What are you, the kind of guy that wants others to think him smart because he knows big words?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478586The whole notion of an "evil race" is conceptually problematic, and something I avoid whenever possible.
Fair enough. But that's a personal choice on your part, because something about the concept of a race being intrinsically evil doesnt sit right with you. Doesnt apply to someone else that doesnt have that problem.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478555I don't know Black Tokyo so I can't comment on that one.
Imagine a setting/game book based on a white nerd's exposure to Tokyo through hentai and erotic doujin manga.
QuoteBut I barring a few extreme ends of the spectrum, no games don't reflect anything significant about the people playing them.
Somewhat agree, somewhat disagree -- it tends to get complicated with games. I do have to say that thank God Koltar and Sett aren't in this thread, though.
Quote from: John Morrow;478531Neither. If the Aztec priest is doing it out of pragmatic necessity and has qualms about killing the innocent, that would make him NEUTRAL according to the d20 3.5 SRD alignment system. If he enjoys watching them squirm and gets a kick out of it, he's Evil. A Good Aztec priest would offer himself up as a sacrifice before sacrificing another.
Fair enough.
QuotePersonally, I think a broad and healthy Neutral band between Good and Evil, that includes those motivated by pragmatism rather than altruism or cruelty, is critical to making the whole alignment system work. Collapse everything to "Good or Evil" and it does quickly break down.
Certainly.
Maybe the problem is that, for many players, Neutral seems to not be well enough defined to make it interesting, or it looks like a "I can do more or less what suits me better" card. IME, people tends to prefer more clearly defined guidelines to roleplay.
Quote from: Darwinism;478534Oh and the games people play very definitely reflect on who and what you are in real life. Or would you argue that the group that plays Black Tokyo is perfectly balanced in every regard?
Even if Black Tokyo sounds like a dreadful piece of shit of a game, no, it doesn't. I've met several perfectly adjusted persons who like manga and anime like Urotsukidoji or gore-splatter films, and shit like that. And they're perfectly healthy, because they can recognize that those are horrid things should they happen in real life.
QuoteI'm not comfortable at all in even pretending to be a genocidal maniac even if the game does tell me they totally deserve it for being born, and people who see nothing wrong with it worry me a bit. Not much, this is just pretend after all, but our characters are always reflections of ourselves in one way or another.
Our characters are reflections of ourselves in many things, but the propensity to engage in combat is probably not one. Your argument is self-defeating.
Also, if you think that D&D (or your typical FRPG, for that regard, as D&D's influence is huge) is about playing genocidal maniacs, that is the wrongest assumption ever.
Quote from: Peregrin;478594Imagine a setting/game book based on a white nerd's exposure to Tokyo through hentai and erotic doujin manga.
Shit.
QuoteSomewhat agree, somewhat disagree -- it tends to get complicated with games. I do have to say that thank God Koltar and Sett aren't in this thread, though.
It should add the proper note of ignorance and messy unintelligible schizophrenic posts.
Quote from: John Morrow;478565The Nazis didn't have children, either, because evil people can't have and raise children. They hatched as fully formed and uniformed adults from beer steins.
If one of my beer steins hatches into a fully formed hot female Nazi in uniform, I will join the Joy Division. :D
I'd like to throw a conceptual monkey wrench from Orcs of Thar into this discussion.
One of the secrets in the book is that humanoids like orcs are actually the reincarnated souls of those PC races that have been evil. Living as a humanoid is a way for them to learn from their mistake in a prior life and thus come closer to redemption in their next incarnation.
So, how does this affect the whole humanoids are evil arguement?
Quote from: John Morrow;478564And sexy romantic Good vampires to fall in love with. Oh wait...
Well, at some points this thread does bring to mind those comments in the recent torture thread about all vampires and werewolves being objectively evil and thus fit only to be hunted down, regardless of the setting.
Quote from: jeff37923;478613humanoids like orcs are actually the reincarnated souls of those PC races that have been evil. Living as a humanoid is a way for them to learn from their mistake in a prior life and thus come closer to redemption in their next incarnation.
By killing orcs, we offer them the chance to go to their reward and be reincarnated as a more worthy species. Same with cockroaches.
We're doing them a favour, really.
Quote from: jeff37923;478613One of the secrets in the book is that humanoids like orcs are actually the reincarnated souls of those PC races that have been evil. Living as a humanoid is a way for them to learn from their mistake in a prior life and thus come closer to redemption in their next incarnation.
So, how does this affect the whole humanoids are evil arguement?
Well, it's an original idea but I don't see how it affects the debate, frankly.
Also, I don't know much about the orcs of Thar but if they are trying to redeem themselves and are like your typical Orc, they're doing a piss-poor job :D
Quote from: Darwinism;478587Oh, look, another internet pseudo-intellectual that thinks big words make them smart!
You are just so adorable!
edit: Just a hint for you, because you're so cute. Using big words when they're not appropriate doesn't make you seem smart; it makes you seem like an idiot who wants others to think him smart because he knows such big words oh man that's super impressive. Only among people with decent vocabularies it's really not impressive; it's needlessly pedantic. Woop-de-fucking-do. You know a fancier word than needs dictate. Guess what? No one cares.
In the age of Google anyone who actually uses big words without knowing their meaning is a fool, as their meaningly is instantly available for anyone to look. Similiarly anyone who complains about people using big words is also foolish. The only people excluded or intimidated are those too lazy to go to google.
Given the ease of reference one might as well feel fee not to dumb oneself down.
Quote from: GrimGent;478615Well, at some points this thread does bring to mind those comments in the recent torture thread about all vampires and werewolves being objectively evil and thus fit only to be hunted down, regardless of the setting.
For me this stuff is all setting-dependant. I can see a game world where orcs or vampires are just evil and that is all there is to it (with a few minor exceptions). I can also see a setting where things are more cultural with individual orcs and vampires breaking the mold.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478626I can see a game world where orcs or vampires are just evil.
I'm in a campaign like that. Vampires are pure evil - something like a Jerusalem's Lot feel to it. Does that make me an imperialist or a racist or something? I have a hard time following the logic of the (evil orcs) = (anything besides evil orcs) theme.
It's just a matter of definition. In some settings orcs are evil by nature. In some they are no more evil than humans. Ask the GM how things are, and play by the definitions of his campaign. Where's the problem?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478526Lots of reasons. Child-rearing and reproduction are two big ones.
Don't forget, the term being bandied about is "irredeemably evil" or "intrinsically evil", not merely "evil". I'm cool with a world where a bunch of evil orcs runs around robbing, looting, raping and murdering. Those particular orcs may have no desire to change, and may even, as individuals, be incapable of change due to their neurology. On a narrative level, the DM may simply be uninterested in telling stories about orcs suffering pangs of conscience.
I simply don't see why the additional component of "irredeemable" is so important, except insofar as people are interested in killing orcs who are not an active threat, especially helpless ones of various sorts.
Child-rearing and reproduction are irrelevant in all the games I've played for two reasons, first is that in 30 years of RPGing, orcish child-rearing and reproduction has never come up in-game for me. Second, orcs have no reproduction or child-rearing because they are not real, so the idea of child-rearing and reproduction of orcs in my game is whatever I say it is. In my game, if I say orcs are irredeemable, then that's what they are. They won't mind, they're not real. I doubt if you would, but if you really want to think that makes me racist, then have at it. I'm curious though, why is this an issue for orcs, but not dragons? Dragons are even more intelligent than orcs, but I've never once witnessed anyone argue that killing dragon babies is morally wrong.
Quote from: Dog Quixote;478625In the age of Google anyone who actually uses big words without knowing their meaning is a fool, as their meaningly is instantly available for anyone to look. Similiarly anyone who complains about people using big words is also foolish. The only people excluded or intimidated are those too lazy to go to google.
Given the ease of reference one might as well feel fee not to dumb oneself down.
Refreshing! I like that!
Quote from: Vmerc@;478631I'm in a campaign like that. Vampires are pure evil - something like a Jerusalem's Lot feel to it. Does that make me an imperialist or a racist or something? I have a hard time following the logic of the (evil orcs) = (anything besides evil orcs) theme.
It's just a matter of definition. In some settings orcs are evil by nature. In some they are no more evil than humans. Ask the GM how things are, and play by the definitions of his campaign. Where's the problem?
Welcome :)
My issue would just be how the characters in the setting behave towards the evil. And I don't think teh DM should make statements like 'All orcs in my game are evil', I think he should tell players what their PCs have heard about orcs and then when they encounter orcs they will think 'these guys are all evil (or whatever)' and they maybe or they may not be depending on whatever the GM has set up.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478529In very few editions of the game does it explicitly say one's attitude towards the person ends at the end of the spell. It's simply no longer magically compelled to remain there in the face of common sense.
Even if it's not explicitly spelled out, which it is in at least one version of the spell, as DM I would rule that the atonement spell would not work unless the subject was free of any sort of magical compulsion, even if the result of the compulsion is more permanent. Atonement is a divine spell, and the diety would know if the desire to atone was true or not, Plus, if magically forced redemption is possible, why stop at orcs? Even demons and evil undead could be "redeemed", could they not? How about Duergar or drow babies? Mindflayer babies? Dragon babies? Harpy babies? Would there be any valid enemies left?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478536It's lazy worldbuilding. I said this back at the start of the thread.
I just wanted to address this real quick. Let's say it is lazy worldbuilding... so what? Lazy worldbuilding is not the same as irredeemable orcs being an indication of real world racism, and if the players in the game are having a good time, what difference does it make? We can't all be Tolkien.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478635Welcome :)
My issue would just be how the characters in the setting behave towards the evil. And I don't think the DM should...
Think I'm getting the picture.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478570I am doubtful about the whole concept of "evil races" except as artificial constructions by external forces in the first place, and then yes, I am willing to assert that a group of unrestrained psychopathic murderer-rapists would not form a self-sustaining society that could perpetuate itself.
I am doubtful about the whole concept of humans that can cast magical spells, dragons, elves, swords that can talk, small bags that can hold ladders in them, and zombies, but since it's fantasy, I can set aside my disbelief.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478586A recent study showed that 65% of Gnolls no longer have the "E" gene, so no, they aren't an evil species.
The whole notion of an "evil race" is conceptually problematic, and something I avoid whenever possible. In the setting of mine that has abundant Gnolls (the Dawnlands), they are violent, predatory pack hunters with a taste for the flesh of sentients, and mostly belong to cults that worships demons. That means that most Gnolls are pretty evil. Intrinsically? No. I see no reason to say that Gnolls are any more evil than the above reasons make them.
Honestly Pseudo, and you know that I dig your campaign world and would play in your game any time. That said though, your limitations are yours. Other folks don't automatically have those same limitations and can easily imagine things that give you difficulty. There's nothing wrong with that, and it doesn't automatically make them racist... in fact the idea that making orcs irredeemanly evil being a reliable indication of a real world racist is laughable IMO, which is what the OP seems to be saying.
Quote from: Sigmund;478643Honestly Pseudo, and you know that I dig your campaign world and would play in your game any time. That said though, your limitations are yours. Other folks don't automatically have those same limitations and can easily imagine things that give you difficulty. There's nothing wrong with that, and it doesn't automatically make them racist... in fact the idea that making orcs irredeemanly evil being a reliable indication of a real world racist is laughable IMO, which is what the OP seems to be saying.
I agree. Pseudo's pictures of his campaign recently looked awesome, so I am sure his campaign rocks.
I could be wrong but I didn't think Pseudo was saying evil orcs were racist or an indication of racism (I think some others made that argument but I didn't see Pseudo make it), just that he felt it created problems with internal consistency and believability (he seemed to be saying IMO that he had trouble with the concepts of irredemediably evil orcs because he foud the whole concept hard to swallow). I think that is all a matter of personal preference and can conceive of a setting where evil orcs are explained in a believable fashion.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478635Welcome :)
My issue would just be how the characters in the setting behave towards the evil. And I don't think teh DM should make statements like 'All orcs in my game are evil', I think he should tell players what their PCs have heard about orcs and then when they encounter orcs they will think 'these guys are all evil (or whatever)' and they maybe or they may not be depending on whatever the GM has set up.
That might depend on where the characters are getting their info, and what the individual DM wants the players to know about the orcs. If orcs are meant to be some form of demonic manifestation, and the character's diety wants them to fight this menace, it might be appropriate for the characters to know the nature of their enemies. None of this has anything to do with real world racism.
Quote from: Sigmund;478645That might depend on where the characters are getting their info, and what the individual DM wants the players to know about the orcs. If orcs are meant to be some form of demonic manifestation, and the character's diety wants them to fight this menace, it might be appropriate for the characters to know the nature of their enemies. None of this has anything to do with real world racism.
It also just be a matter of convenience. When you run Ravenloft the first time you "show" players the setting, you don't "tell" them about it. But after the 19th time, it can be much easier to just explain stuff like the mists, powerschecks, etc before hand. It just gets the ball rolling so the game can start quickly. I imagine explaining "all orcs are evil" to the players is just another way to feed them the concept so the game can start without the GM slowly revealing his setting to them.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478644I agree. Pseudo's pictures of his campaign recently looked awesome, so I am sure his campaign rocks.
I could be wrong but I didn't think Pseudo was saying evil orcs were racist or an indication of racism (I think some others made that argument but I didn't see Pseudo make it), just that he felt it created problems with internal consistency and believability (he seemed to be saying IMO that he had trouble with the concepts of irredemediably evil orcs because he foud the whole concept hard to swallow). I think that is all a matter of personal preference and can conceive of a setting where evil orcs are explained in a believable fashion.
Oh I'm not saying he did, but that's the topic of the thread. I too prefer more morally grey fantasy settings, but the idea that if I chose to portray orcs as irredeemably evil as being an indication of my real world racism is absolutely ridiculous.
Quote from: Sigmund;478649Oh I'm not saying he did, but that's the topic of the thread. I too prefer more morally grey fantasy settings, but the idea that if I chose to portray orcs as irredeemably evil as being an indication of my real world racism is absolutely ridiculous.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I agree.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478635Welcome :)
My issue would just be how the characters in the setting behave towards the evil. And I don't think teh DM should make statements like 'All orcs in my game are evil', I think he should tell players what their PCs have heard about orcs and then when they encounter orcs they will think 'these guys are all evil (or whatever)' and they maybe or they may not be depending on whatever the GM has set up.
But whatever the PCs then hear through NPCs when the DM doesn't say anything still doesn't mean the orcs can't be, in fact, from a cosmological point of view, irredeemably evil. Would you have a problem if that were the case? (Your last sentence seems to say you'd be OK with it. I just want a confirmation)
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478626For me this stuff is all setting-dependant. I can see a game world where orcs or vampires are just evil and that is all there is to it (with a few minor exceptions). I can also see a setting where things are more cultural with individual orcs and vampires breaking the mold.
Sure. For instance, contrast the diverse attitudes of the Kindred from
Vampire with
Chill in which vampires aren't so much
people as malevolent manifestations of the Unknown.
Me, being a gamer, periodic GM, not a habitual forums-reader, nor an expert poster, just your average joe gamer - having been pointed in the direction of this site by a friend, have a question.
I come to this site, again - at the behest of a friend, speaking highly of it, and having registered go first to the site stickies for info, rules, and such, where I read about Swine gamers. I take this as an underlying premise - an interesting idea - not one I had heard before but makes sense and when I think about it, partially explains why my former pokes into the world of game posting never took.
"Interesting" I tell myself, whereon I proceed to my first non-stickied post - a monstrous ramble of some several thousand views, where the first thing to hit me in the face is some well-informed and supremely confident gamers defining what type of cosmological alignment structures are the "rich and hearty" kind and which are the "puerile hack and slash" kind. Yes...someone actually used the word puerile in his critique of a game.
After a whiff of this familiar scent - I have to ask my natural next thought:
Doesn't the "swine gamer" philosophy factor into the minds of those who are proclaiming that an absolute good/evil cosmological scheme is the mark of a lesser mind?
I ask, because the swine idea seemed to be a hallmark of this site, and in 50 some odd pages of thread I havent noticed a single use of the word "swine."
Quote from: Vmerc@;478660Doesn't the "swine gamer" philosophy factor into the minds of those who are proclaiming that an absolute good/evil cosmological scheme is the mark of a lesser mind?
The "Swine" thing is more the owner's (RPGPundit's) pet theory, if you will. That there are these pretentious gamers out there who are subverting the hobby, people who in fact hate gaming, but are eating the hobby from the inside, like a cancer, if you will.
You'll find that some people on the site have a sympathy or agreement of principle on the idea, but these are far from being the only users of the site. Others will use the term "swine" as a joke, a kind of jab aimed at the Pundit. Others yet don't give a shit about this.
In fact, you'll find that regularly, opponents of this whole "Swine" idea show up on the site to troll and/or engage in various levels of debate on this site. Some of them just post a few times and give up. Some of them stick around, either because they just can't let go and have to shoot at the Pundit's kneecaps whenever possible, or because they start to like some posters around and just fit in, for one reason or another, as strange as it may seem.
We're in fact a very varied bunch around here, much more varied than you'll find on many other RPG gaming message boards out there.
As to whether the whole "holier than thou" attitude towards gamers who'd use absolute cosmological scheme fits Pundit's definition of Swine, only he can confirm, but I'd wager this totally fits the profile.
Quote from: Vmerc@;478660I ask, because the swine idea seemed to be a hallmark of this site, and in 50 some odd pages of thread I havent noticed a single use of the word "swine."
I agree with Benoists description of the forum. I think if you hang out here a while you will get a good feel for the kind of place it is.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478652Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I agree.
Heh, no problem bro :) I just have a hard time taking all this colonial and racism junk seriously in the context of RPG orcs. Does anyone honestly believe orcs were originally meant to be fantasy stand-ins for black people, or any other single real world racial/cultural group? Now a mish-mash of the darkest sides of humans I could believe, but then that's why they're evil and make good enemies, because they can symbolize our conquering of our own dark side. That's the usefulness of including absolute good and evil in RPGs, if one is so inclined. They can act as interactive mythology, allowing us to celebrate what we see as "good" and defeat that which we see as "evil" in a less passive manner than just reading stories.
Quote from: Sigmund;478664Heh, no problem bro :) I just have a hard time taking all this colonial and racism junk seriously in the context of RPG orcs. Does anyone honestly believe orcs were originally meant to be fantasy stand-ins for black people, or any other single real world racial/cultural group? Now a mish-mash of the darkest sides of humans I could believe, but then that's why they're evil and make good enemies, because they can symbolize our conquering of our own dark side. That's the usefulness of including absolute good and evil in RPGs, if one is so inclined. They can act as interactive mythology, allowing us to celebrate what we see as "good" and defeat that which we see as "evil" in a less passive manner than just reading stories.
I personally don't understand why people draw a connection there. I could only speculate as to whether it matters to them if it was the original intention behind orcs or not. My guess is many would argue it was more of a subconscious creation with guys like Tolkein. That their racial assumptions were making it onto the page. But even if this were the case (and I am not convinced it is), clearly gamers aren't making any connection between orcs and minorities. They are monsters in the game.
Quote from: Sigmund;478664Now a mish-mash of the darkest sides of humans I could believe, but then that's why they're evil and make good enemies, because they can symbolize our conquering of our own dark side.
Facing threats in the Underworld may be akin to conquering your own demons down in your subconscious. That's a plausible allegorical alternative. Like slaughtering the dragon and getting its treasure/saving the princess may symbolise a fight against one's dark side to save your conscience and your soul.
What really bothers me about the whole "orcs are stand-ins for minority groups" thing is that it is so damn narrow-minded, as though there could only be that explanation and that's *it*. All other possible explanations, including having no explanation at all,
must be the result of either you making excuses, or you not realizing/caring about how this imagery is horrible and offensive.
That is completely stupid, in the true sense of the word.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478665I personally don't understand why people draw a connection there. I could only speculate as to whether it matters to them if it was the original intention behind orcs or not. My guess is many would argue it was more of a subconscious creation with guys like Tolkein. That their racial assumptions were making it onto the page. But even if this were the case (and I am not convinced it is), clearly gamers aren't making any connection between orcs and minorities. They are monsters in the game.
I don't think anyone is claiming that gamers in general make a connection between orcs and minorities. Even Adam Dray as quoted in the original post of this thread said that it didn't make you racist and most people simply didn't think about it.
On the other hand, it would be equally absurd to make the opposite extreme of claiming that no RPG gamer is ever racist. For example, I know there have been a few threads on the white supremacy website Storm Front like: "Learn all you need to know about race from Dungeons and Dragons". (search on the topic for the original thread)
Quote from: jhkim;478674I don't think anyone is claiming that gamers in general make a connection between orcs and minorities. Even Adam Dray as quoted in the original post of this thread said that it didn't make you racist and most people simply didn't think about it.
That's right: according to Mr. Dray, either you know this is "really" about minorities, in which case you are a racist, or you just don't know or care about it, and that just makes you ignorant or "not thinking that much". Consolation prize!
Quote from: jhkim;478674On the other hand, it would be equally absurd to make the opposite extreme of claiming that no RPG gamer is ever racist. For example, I know there have been a few threads on the white supremacy website Storm Front like:
Pundit no likey the linky to Stormfront! :eek:
Have not fully caught up. A few responses anyway.
Quote from: MDBrantingham;478560Do Gnolls rear young? Are they evil?
You're saying that an evil race is iimpossible because an evil race would never be able to rear young. Stunning.
He's saying the only reason that something otherwise like people would be inherently evil is to justify the killing of innocents. He's still wrong, but you can at least get his position right.
My opinion is that inherent evil by itself slapped onto something otherwise like people is just boring, and not even the best solution for hack and slash.
Zombies, mind-flayers, and demons all have something interesting appended to inherent evil. Zombies have mindlessness and the mob. Mindflayers are inherently parasitic (if it is alive, it has done SO MUCH KILLING to live). Demons have possession, and the dilemma that tempts heroes to kill the innocent because it's necessary.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you want to justify the slaughter of humanoids, just start a damn war and make the other guys the aggressor. No need to carry non-combatants into battle.
Quote from: Bloody Stupid JohnsonThe second post I've quoted initially was a ?, but reading through more of the recent posts I can see more evidence that the affirmative team insist that everything has to be shades of grey, because they don't believe in black.
Why stop at nuanced orcs? Lets have some LG reformed mind flayers.
Huh? As myself and others have said, there are better iterations of inherent evil, and there are better justifications of hack and slash. So neither inherent evil nor hack and slash are the problem.
As for mind flayers, they can be fun to mess with. They're sociopaths, ruled by the iron fist of an elder brain and under the illusion that they'll get to be part of it later. What to you think is the first thing an outcast illithid will do, if not go on a murderous rampage against his kin?
Likewise, if they only kill for food and have no qualms, what happens when one gets detentacled? Killing won't stop him from starving, so he may set his remaining weeks to some hard-to-fathom purpose.
Describing morality in terms of motivations and what they find acceptable, instead of their objective moral stance (even if they have one) can be a useful idea generator.
Quote from: S'mon;478677Pundit no likey the linky to Stormfront! :eek:
I PM'd John about this. You should edit the link out of your quote dude.
Quote from: beejazz;478679Have not fully caught up.
but few responses anyway...He's saying the only reason that something otherwise like people would be inherently evil is to justify the killing of innocents. He's still wrong, but you can
at least get his position right.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478517Yes, if one gets rid of the need for child-rearing and social cohesion it becomes plausible, if still unlikely, to have a gang of murder-machines.
and then some more...
My opinion is...
Quote from: Benoist;478682I PM'd John about this. You should edit the link out of your quote dude.
Good point :o
Quote from: jhkim;478674I don't think anyone is claiming that gamers in general make a connection between orcs and minorities. Even Adam Dray as quoted in the original post of this thread said that it didn't make you racist and most people simply didn't think about it.
On the other hand, it would be equally absurd to make the opposite extreme of claiming that no RPG gamer is ever racist. For example, I know there have been a few threads on the white supremacy website Storm Front like:
The guy in the OP, IMO, was trying to have it both ways. To me it sounded like he was saying "it doesn't make you a racist, but it does make you a racist."
He was also stating that there is a problem which needs to be addressed and its related to the way things like orcs are handled. I just disagree with him strongly. If he wants to be on the look out for hidden forms of oppression and racism in his own game fine, but his post clearly made it a broader issue than just his own game.
No one is claiming gaming is a hobby devoid of racists. Of course there are racist gamers just like there are racists in all walks of life. And I expect that a racist would let his racism into the game somehow. But that doesn't mean the door swings both ways. Just because a racist may use orcs to promote his views on race that doesn't mean killing or mistreating orcs in game have some corrupting influence on players.
Quote from: Sigmund;478664Heh, no problem bro :) I just have a hard time taking all this colonial and racism junk seriously in the context of RPG orcs. Does anyone honestly believe orcs were originally meant to be fantasy stand-ins for black people, or any other single real world racial/cultural group? Now a mish-mash of the darkest sides of humans I could believe, but then that's why they're evil and make good enemies, because they can symbolize our conquering of our own dark side. That's the usefulness of including absolute good and evil in RPGs, if one is so inclined. They can act as interactive mythology, allowing us to celebrate what we see as "good" and defeat that which we see as "evil" in a less passive manner than just reading stories.
I do think there was a tendency to use gobinoids as a way to allow players to run hack and slash games without having to worry about their noble heroes killing real people. Not quite the same thing I know but ...
Quote from: Benoist;478656But whatever the PCs then hear through NPCs when the DM doesn't say anything still doesn't mean the orcs can't be, in fact, from a cosmological point of view, irredeemably evil. Would you have a problem if that were the case? (Your last sentence seems to say you'd be OK with it. I just want a confirmation)
Like I said from the start :) I have no problem with orcs being irredeemibly evil so long as the GM has thought about it and has a reason for it. If that is the case then fine but I want consistency. I would certainly start to get irked if there were loads of irredeemily evil races that all had similar justifications.
In my games creatures with free will and intelligence should be able to choose not to be evil. Someone asked me is Orcus could choose not to be evil and of course the answer is totally yes he could. He
chooses to be evil that is kind of the point of Orcus.
Now I have no issues with orcs being evil because they choose to be evil as that implies they could choose not to be and I have no problem with orcs are evil because they are in thrall to a big glowing crystal or they are bred out of the ground etc etc .
Equally I have no problem with PCs that kill all orcs on site, children at al. I would want them to question that behaviour if they claimed to be good though, just like I would want them to debate what to do with the evil assasin if they catch him and he throws down his sword and surrenders.
OK Jibba. That I'm totally cool with.
Quote from: Peregrin;477848Poison'd doesn't force that content on you, either.
What it does force you to deal with is objectionable moral situations.
I'm not apologizing for Poison'd, I'm saying that some implementations of ideas in D&D can be just as objectionable.
If you want to have monsters, that's fine. But once you give those things families, culture, language, and a functioning social unit? They're no longer monsters. So either treat them as literal fucking monsters of chaos or treat them as a developed race. Trying to do it both ways doesn't work. If they're truly Evil, mindlessly violent creatures, the fact that they can fuck and have kids shouldn't even be important, so why include it?
If you want to deal with situations that involve orc babies and what to do with them, D&D is not the game to do it.
As often as you and I seem to lock horns, this is a red letter day. I wholly agree!
First round is on me!
Quicky follow up:
The human mind works really well with metaphors. Part of why our chimp ancestors were able to start making tools and building Ford Pintos.
For all those that think equating orcs with the peoples traditionally slaughtered by colonials: That's how the brain fucking works, retards. That is why we no longer shit in our hands and fling it at that asshole in the other tree. That is why we aren't sitting around picking bugs out of each other's back hair. That is why we don't sleep in our own filth any more.
Disagree with the premise or the arguments all you want, but stop pretending like the mere association is some kind of alien concept that has never happened in human history until this very point.
Quote from: StormBringer;478715Disagree with the premise or the arguments all you want, but stop pretending like the mere association is some kind of alien concept that has never happened in human history until this very point.
The problem is, I can think of a whole host of metaphors for what Orcs represent without ever once thinking of them in terms of other races. People who think of them in those terms are bringing that to the table themselves. It never even would have occurred to me before I started going online.
The reason for this is pretty simple: orcs were invented by Tolkien (watch, someone will argue that point, but the creatures in Beowulf he took the name from bear no resemblance to Orcs as we know them), who also specifically defined what they were and where they came from. Tolkien defined Evil as being unable to create, merely pervert creations of God; there were no orc women or babies, because orcs were corrupted elves or humans, now only capable of hate and lashing out violently. This is the default, unless a GM creates a world in which it's otherwise.
So, what happens? a bunch of GMs come along, don't bother taking the effort to actually research the fantasy creatures they're dropping into their worlds, give orcs a "culture" or "society" like they are simply a humanoid race, patting themselves on the back for their world-creating skills, and then suddenly, later, have a moral crisis about it and go to lengths to blame the game system they were using for putting themselves in that position.
"Orc" does not equal by default "human minority". It's not simply a faulty conclusion, it's a conclusion one could only come to if one was already engaged in seeing the world in those terms. It's just someone super-imposing their politics into their hobby.
Just like all that Jar Jar Binks crap.
Quote from: TristramEvans;478724The problem is, I can think of a whole host of metaphors for what Orcs represent without ever once thinking of them in terms of other races.
But you can think of them as metaphors.The rest is just details. Perhaps you think of them as metaphors for vector based pathogens. Someone else thinks of them as metaphors for man's struggle against inhumanity. Someone else thinks of them as metaphors for the victims of historical colonialism.
None of those is inherently wrong
simply because it's a metaphor. Yours is no better than someone else's, and they aren't crazy because theirs is different than yours. Stop doing that.
The concept of metaphor, yeah I'm familiar with that one.
The metaphors of orcs=niggers, goblins=spics, ogres=rednecks, hobgoblins=Japs, kobolds=chinks...wait who are the jews again? or since they are all "noble savages" should they all be injuns?...Anyway, that metaphor I must have missed at my White Boy Indoctrination Camp seminars. I was always skipping those classes, too busy playing D&D I guess.
I see where you're coming from Storm, but when you drop an "ist" bomb that always includes with it the sleazy insinuation that if you disagree you must be one.
Quote from: TristramEvans;478724So, what happens? a bunch of GMs come along, don't bother taking the effort to actually research the fantasy creatures they're dropping into their worlds, give orcs a "culture" or "society" like they are simply a humanoid race, patting themselves on the back for their world-creating skills, and then suddenly, later, have a moral crisis about it and go to lengths to blame the game system they were using for putting themselves in that position.
Fucking Gygax. What a hack.
(over half way there!)
Quote from: Vmerc@;478660Me, being a gamer, periodic GM, not a habitual forums-reader, nor an expert poster, just your average joe gamer - having been pointed in the direction of this site by a friend, have a question.
I come to this site, again - at the behest of a friend, speaking highly of it, and having registered go first to the site stickies for info, rules, and such, where I read about Swine gamers. I take this as an underlying premise - an interesting idea - not one I had heard before but makes sense and when I think about it, partially explains why my former pokes into the world of game posting never took.
"Interesting" I tell myself, whereon I proceed to my first non-stickied post - a monstrous ramble of some several thousand views, where the first thing to hit me in the face is some well-informed and supremely confident gamers defining what type of cosmological alignment structures are the "rich and hearty" kind and which are the "puerile hack and slash" kind. Yes...someone actually used the word puerile in his critique of a game.
After a whiff of this familiar scent - I have to ask my natural next thought:
Doesn't the "swine gamer" philosophy factor into the minds of those who are proclaiming that an absolute good/evil cosmological scheme is the mark of a lesser mind?
I ask, because the swine idea seemed to be a hallmark of this site, and in 50 some odd pages of thread I havent noticed a single use of the word "swine."
The people who hold to the depiction you gave in the above post might very well be Swine, yes.
RPGPundit
Quote from: StormBringer;478726None of those is inherently wrong simply because it's a metaphor.
If we ignore author intention, sure.
QuoteYours is no better than someone else's,
Sure they are. Mine are superior to any metaphor that makes a fun game less enjoyable.
Quoteand they aren't crazy because theirs is different than yours. Stop doing that.
The blogger quoted by the OP gave reason to question his mental stability or sanity, but it's nothing to do with having a differing opinion. I don't think someone is "Crazy" for interpreting metaphors one way or another. My point was that ultimately, since the metaphor is something they are
inferring, a person can only blame themselves for a metaphor that they don't like.
What I'm disagreeing on is that orcs
imply racial minorities. They don't; a person interpreting them in that way is, as I said, bringing that to the table themselves.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478696I do think there was a tendency to use gobinoids as a way to allow players to run hack and slash games without having to worry about their noble heroes killing real people. Not quite the same thing I know but ...
This makes no sense. The "noble heroes" aren't real. The "real people" you're referring to aren't real. There's absolutely nothing to worry about either way. This is exactly why I also don't like the misery tourism or the high-minded "experience" some games and players espouse. These are games of imagination. None of the people in the imagined settings are real, the experiences of playing a "real pirate" or "slave" are not real either. There is no possible way to even approximate the experience of being a pirate or slave (or anything else) through these or any other games that are played while sitting around the kitchen table sipping pepsi and eating doritos. The reason for that is because this shit is all imaginary. How is someone going to experience a moral dilemma over killing "orc babies" that don't exist and never will, and aren't even imaginary constructs of things that do really exist? I could have my imaginary character "slaughter" orc babies, puppies, unicorns, faeries, God, and tiny little kittens and not have even a momentary flicker of actual moral conflict, because nothing is actually being slaughtered... nothing is being hurt... nothing is doing the slaughtering... it's all imaginary. I mean really....
Quote from: StormBringer;478726But you can think of them as metaphors.
The rest is just details. Perhaps you think of them as metaphors for vector based pathogens. Someone else thinks of them as metaphors for man's struggle against inhumanity. Someone else thinks of them as metaphors for the victims of historical colonialism.
None of those is inherently wrong simply because it's a metaphor. Yours is no better than someone else's, and they aren't crazy because theirs is different than yours. Stop doing that.
Metaphors don't equal reality. Just because the numbnuts OP sees oppressed minorities in every poor put upon imaginary orc and goblin in someone's imaginary game doesn't mean that's what Tolkien, Gygax, and everyone else on the planet means them to represent everytime they write about them or use them in a game. Plus, Using orcs in a game of D&D can be a metaphor for something, but doesn't automatically have to be. It is what we make it in our heads, and if all that is is convenient targets for our character's shiny new imaginary vorpal sword then that's what it is., no matter how much the OP weeps and tears at his hair over the "moral" horror of it all.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478727The concept of metaphor, yeah I'm familiar with that one.
Sure, I wasn't directing this screed at absolutely everyone in the thread. I am just seeing this trend that using metaphors is just crazy talk. Any individual metaphor could be wildly inaccurate or completely off the wall. But acting like defining a metaphor in some way is stupid in and of itself is kinda dumb.
QuoteThe metaphors of orcs=niggers, goblins=spics, ogres=rednecks, hobgoblins=Japs, kobolds=chinks...wait who are the jews again? or since they are all "noble savages" should they all be injuns?...Anyway, that metaphor I must have missed at my White Boy Indoctrination Camp seminars. I was always skipping those classes, too busy playing D&D I guess.
Yeah, don't think I am supporting this guy's argument whole cloth. It's probably a bit silly, really, but even Tolkien describes them (albeit privately) as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes ... degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types".
Racist today? Yeah, that isn't hard to show. Racist at the time? It was the 40s. China and Japan were already at war, and Japan was fighting Americans in the Pacific. This is probably the
least racist version of Asians, and Japanese in particular, that one was likely to see at the time.
Inherent to the metaphoring of orcs is the idea that you are free to reject his reality and replace it with your own.
QuoteI see where you're coming from Storm, but when you drop an "ist" bomb that always includes with it the sleazy insinuation that if you disagree you must be one.
Sure, no argument there. I hope I didn't appear to support the idea that extending the metaphors one creates to then cite any kind of -ism is valid as well. The metaphor can be made and disputed, made and proved, or made and ridiculed. But the premise can't be negated just because
orcs as a metaphor is crazy-retard Swine storygaming bullshit lol.
Quote from: TristramEvans;478732
The blogger quoted by the OP gave reason to question his mental stability or sanity, but it's nothing to do with having a differing opinion. I don't think someone is "Crazy" for interpreting metaphors one way or another. My point was that ultimately, since the metaphor is something they are [Iinferring[/I], a person can only blame themselves for a metaphor that they don't like.
What I'm disagreeing on is that orcs imply racial minorities. They don't; a person interpreting them in that way is, as I said, bringing that to the table themselves.
Well said... much better than I've been saying it.
Quote from: StormBringer;478739Yeah, don't think I am supporting this guy's argument whole cloth. It's probably a bit silly, really, but even Tolkien describes them (albeit privately) as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes ... degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types".
Racist today? Yeah, that isn't hard to show. Racist at the time? It was the 40s. China and Japan were already at war, and Japan was fighting Americans in the Pacific. This is probably the least racist version of Asians, and Japanese in particular, that one was likely to see at the time.
Honestly, regardless of the physical characteristics they were described as having, I always saw Sauron and Tolkien's orcs as symbolizing the nazi war machine myself, given the times Tolkien lived in.
Quote from: Sigmund;478738Metaphors don't equal reality. Just because the numbnuts OP sees oppressed minorities in every poor put upon imaginary orc and goblin in someone's imaginary game doesn't mean that's what Tolkien, Gygax, and everyone else on the planet means them to represent everytime they write about them or use them in a game. Plus, Using orcs in a game of D&D can be a metaphor for something, but doesn't automatically have to be. It is what we make it in our heads, and if all that is is convenient targets for our character's shiny new imaginary vorpal sword then that's what it is., no matter how much the OP weeps and tears at his hair over the "moral" horror of it all.
Look, you can ridicule the OP's metaphor all you want. I think he is stretching things more than a bit. But no one is holding a gun to your head and making you agree with him. You are continuing the argument that because orcs aren't a metaphor in one game, it's just crazy-stupid for them to be a metaphor anywhere.
And the OP isn't wailing and gnashing his teeth. The post is very liberally peppered with "I think...". He isn't telling
you how to play, he is presenting his recent change of heart about how
he wants to play.
Quote from: Sigmund;478742Honestly, regardless of the physical characteristics they were described as having, I always saw Sauron and Tolkien's orcs as symbolizing the nazi war machine myself, given the times Tolkien lived in.
Likely. I would even go further and say the 'common' orc (and possibly the goblins) could be interpreted as Japanese soldiers, and the Uruk-Hai were the Germans. Were someone inclined to make that association, that is. ;)
Quote from: TristramEvans;478732If we ignore author intention, sure.
Which author?
QuoteSure they are. Mine are superior to any metaphor that makes a fun game less enjoyable.
...
for you. Why is it so fucking difficult not to extrapolate one's own experience to a general axiom?
QuoteThe blogger quoted by the OP gave reason to question his mental stability or sanity, but it's nothing to do with having a differing opinion. I don't think someone is "Crazy" for interpreting metaphors one way or another. My point was that ultimately, since the metaphor is something they are inferring, a person can only blame themselves for a metaphor that they don't like.
No, the OP is not
inferring anything. A metaphor is the association of one symbol for another. "Inferring" is something else altogether, which may be where your confusion arises. The OP simply states that - for him - ruthlessly killing Evil monsters (for example, orcs) has uncomfortable historic parallels.
This entire thread has been an exercise in 'inference', however. Everyone seems to have mystically inferred that the OP is calling everyone a horrible racist.
That didn't happen.
QuoteWhat I'm disagreeing on is that orcs imply racial minorities. They don't; a person interpreting them in that way is, as I said, bringing that to the table themselves.
Then you are disagreeing with a straw-man. The OP didn't say that orcs imply minorities.
Quote from: StormBringer;478748This entire thread has been an exercise in 'inference', however. Everyone seems to have mystically inferred that the OP is calling everyone a horrible racist. That didn't happen.
That's right. He's saying that when you are using absolute evil orcs, you're either racist, or you're not thinking too much about what this means. Hell, I'm so relieved now! I'm not a racist! I'm just not thinking as deeply as this guy is! :rolleyes:
Note that the guy talks about "at this point of my life, I just can't ignore this anymore". So maybe it isn't that I'm just not thinking as deeply as he is, maybe it's because I'm too immature? That's a relief! :rolleyes:
Quote from: StormBringer;478748Then you are disagreeing with a straw-man. The OP didn't say that orcs imply minorities.
I suppose it is a subjective call but my reading is this is exactly what he is saying. Especially when he said this kind of gaming promotes racial stereotyping and that it stunk to high-heaven of colonialism. The guy says a lot of stuff in his post, and he does backtrack a bit toward the end, but this is still my interpretation of his words.
Yeah, sorry SB, but Ben and Bren are right, the boy's preachin'. He's seen the light and the error of his ways and he's here to set us on the straight and narrow.
Quote from: jibbajibba;478635My issue would just be how the characters in the setting behave towards the evil. And I don't think teh DM should make statements like 'All orcs in my game are evil', I think he should tell players what their PCs have heard about orcs and then when they encounter orcs they will think 'these guys are all evil (or whatever)' and they maybe or they may not be depending on whatever the GM has set up.
The D&D game I ran was run in a bit of a kitchen sink setting on purpose because that's what the players asked for. As such, I figured that the main Good religion, which had been around for hundreds of years, would have spent a great deal of time investigating who and what they could or couldn't save and as part of a Paladin's training, they would be told when it's OK to kill with impunity and when they were obliged to detect alignment and otherwise give an opponent and opportunity for redemption. Of course there were also a lot of creatures that they eventually ran into that weren't thoroughly investigated by their religion so they had to figure those creatures out on their own.
In a setting with the ability to detect alignments, compel honesty, scry, read minds, teleport around the globe, travel to the outer planes, cast wish spells, and so on, I felt the basic structure of the world and cosmos wouldn't be a mystery. In the civilized world in my setting, there were no elaborate, quaint, and wrong mythological theories about what happened to souls when they died or why the sun moved across the sky or the seasons changed or things like that because there were enough magic users and clerics over the years who would have been powerful enough to figure it out. Clerics knew exactly what was going to happen to your soul when you died.
The mysteries in the setting revolved around the end game of the cosmos (and whether there should either be one), where one fit into that cosmology, and whether there was anything beyond the outer planes or not, thus making religion largely a matter of faith. Everyone understood, in pretty much the same objective way, where Good, Neutral, and Evil souls went after death and even how they could be reincarnated but the way each interpreted that journey and thought it should all end (if it should end) differed from religion to religion.
The Neutral Druid character, on the other hand, had a different objective and at one point a vision of the Spirit of the World let him know, outright, that he might have to fight against the others in the party who followed the Good religion if they started eliminating too many of the evil creatures in the setting, including the irredeemably Evil goblinoids, because they were an important part of the ecosystem that prevented the expansion of humans into the wilderness. As such, the Druid and his religion didn't care so much about Good, Evil, or redemption but about keeping the world healthy and in balance and defending it from outside invaders.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478644I agree. Pseudo's pictures of his campaign recently looked awesome, so I am sure his campaign rocks.
I could be wrong but I didn't think Pseudo was saying evil orcs were racist or an indication of racism (I think some others made that argument but I didn't see Pseudo make it), just that he felt it created problems with internal consistency and believability (he seemed to be saying IMO that he had trouble with the concepts of irredemediably evil orcs because he foud the whole concept hard to swallow). I think that is all a matter of personal preference and can conceive of a setting where evil orcs are explained in a believable fashion.
This is an accurate summary. While racist beliefs are usually essentialist prejudices about groups, not all essentialist beliefs are racist.
I'd be willing to buy the "personal preference; live and let live" thing more if this were a different audience. Many, though not all, of the posters on this thread calling the OP an idiot have bitched and moaned about games like 4e breaking their immersion because of their gamey elements, and arguing in favour of a style of play that strives to emulate the real world and encourage
PCs interacting with the world in a way that is fundamentally similar to the way a similar person in the real world would interact with the challenge.
That is, they acclaim and laud the same paradigm I advocate (if anything, I am more willing to accept games like 4e than most of them), until it can be shown that within its context, certain ideas about how to build worlds are inferior to others.
In a game that values verisimilitude paying attention to the consequences of particular interactions between your premises are critical.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478777I'd be willing to buy the "personal preference; live and let live" thing more if this were a different audience. Many, though not all, of the posters on this thread calling the OP an idiot have bitched and moaned about games like 4e breaking their immersion because of their gamey elements, and arguing in favour of a style of play that strives to emulate the real world and encourage PCs interacting with the world in a way that is fundamentally similar to the way a similar person in the real world would interact with the challenge.
And I'd be willing to buy that explanation if you weren't telling me that that I couldn't possibly have run the actual campaign that I ran for over a year with the choices that I made and had it work the way it did. I ran the players through the precise scenario that seems to be causing the most angst here, the characters justifiably slaughtering evil humanoid women and children after getting a good look at exactly how their society was structured, and rather than being simplistic and uninteresting, those scenes produces some of the most intense deliberation and pathos among the players in the entire campaign played by players more interested in deep in character role-playing than hack-and-slash. So please excuse me if I think that you are confusing your own opinions with objective fact and confusing the limits of your imagination with the limits of what's possible.
The problem here is not verisimilitude, world building craftsmanship, complexity of interactions, or a failure to pay attention to how choices interact, all issues that I raised in my first two replies to this thread and problems that I never encountered running a campaign in a setting that contained those elements. Instead of addressing that, you'd rather keep beating your straw man.
Admittedly off topic, though the thought's spurs ride on the boots of many in this thread, is my surprise that during my long absence from the politics of forum posting, the use of the word "retard" has emerged from the dungeons of disuse, free of its fetters, bathed now in the bright light of a new millennium and enjoying once again it's place at the table of adult conversation. And here I am, poor rube, struggling as always to remain relevant and abreast of linguistic ebbs and flows and the like.
Quote from: Benoist;478749That's right. He's saying that when you are using absolute evil orcs, you're either racist, or you're not thinking too much about what this means. Hell, I'm so relieved now! I'm not a racist! I'm just not thinking as deeply as this guy is! :rolleyes:
Note that the guy talks about "at this point of my life, I just can't ignore this anymore". So maybe it isn't that I'm just not thinking as deeply as he is, maybe it's because I'm too immature? That's a relief! :rolleyes:
Well, maybe it is because your style of gaming is sacrosanct, and anyone who poses the slightest question is a heretic that must be ridiculed and silenced at all costs.
I mean, the possibilities are endless, really.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478752Yeah, sorry SB, but Ben and Bren are right, the boy's preachin'. He's seen the light and the error of his ways and he's here to set us on the straight and narrow.
Is he at your house right now with a gun? Have you called the police?
C'mon, dude, you are smarter than that. He can rant and rave all he wants, what do you care? Do we really need 550 posts to decide the guy is a bit of a crank and dismiss the crazy parts? I mean, there is still a fairly interesting point about world-building and the role of 'evil', or 'monsters', or 'orcs' in there. Hell, 'evil monsters' or 'evil orcs'. 'Evil orc monsters'.
I mean, does there need to be a full scale panic because J Random Player mentions the tautology that wiping out orc tribes is genocide? When did everyone get so terribly frightened of their own gaming preferences?
I can only remind people so many times. That post is so littered with qualifiers like "I think..." and "In my opinion..." it's almost hard to read. If, after all that, you still think this guy is a fire and brimstone preacher trying to kick your door down, well... Have fun with that, I guess.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478751I suppose it is a subjective call but my reading is this is exactly what he is saying. Especially when he said this kind of gaming promotes racial stereotyping and that it stunk to high-heaven of colonialism. The guy says a lot of stuff in his post, and he does backtrack a bit toward the end, but this is still my interpretation of his words.
Ok, sure.
Does that really affect the game as it is played at your table? I mean, you are certainly free to interpret it that way, but does that interpretation mean you are going to change how you play?
Someone post this on RPG.net.
Quote from: B.T.;478796Someone post this on RPG.net.
Orc babies/genocide was already brought up in their "Evil in games" thread, and it was surprisingly civil.
Also, after having talked some more with a few of my players, I'm not sure anyone is going to reach a consensus on this. The answers were just as varied as those in this thread. Some were like "Whatever, bash orcs, they're not real." Others were mildly weirded out, but not anymore than they've been with other games. Others were completely neutral, or preferred to just decide what to do with orc tribes on a case-by-case basis.
The only thing we could all agree on was that the group should determine before-hand what everyone is comfortable with and nail down the campaign details regarding moral paradigms before-hand so there's no bullshit "What is Good?" arguments down the road. Not that characters can't disagree with one another in-game, but so it doesn't evolve into a meta-discussion about moral/ethical philosophy.
Quote from: B.T.;478796Someone post this on RPG.net.
I'm pretty sure RPGnet would've locked this thread and banned Benoist for reposting a private conversation.
Quote from: StormBringer;478746Likely. I would even go further and say the 'common' orc (and possibly the goblins) could be interpreted as Japanese soldiers, and the Uruk-Hai were the Germans. Were someone inclined to make that association, that is. ;)
Just for the record, Tolkien spent many many years saying that no, LotR is not a metaphor of anything (he hated metaphors) and that the comparisons Sauron = Hitler and the like were preposterous.
Quote from: StormBringer;478790Do we really need 550 posts to decide the guy is a bit of a crank and dismiss the crazy parts?
I'm confident that the thread will reach 1000 posts of absolute insanity.
QuoteI mean, there is still a fairly interesting point about world-building and the role of 'evil', or 'monsters', or 'orcs' in there. Hell, 'evil monsters' or 'evil orcs'. 'Evil orc monsters'.
It is more interesting to cry like like members of BADD because some unknwon in a godforsaken place over Internet said something silly. At least in this place.
QuoteI mean, does there need to be a full scale panic because J Random Player mentions the tautology that wiping out orc tribes is genocide? When did everyone get so terribly frightened of their own gaming preferences?
You may thank you all the pundits over the web and their uncessant and ridiculous doom & gloom chanting about how other people are going to infect the hobby and we won't be able to game anymore. Also, human nature.
Seriously, the first casualty in Internet wars are the brains of the participants.
Quote from: Imperator;478809It is more interesting to cry like like members of BADD because some unknwon in a godforsaken place over Internet said something silly. At least in this place.
You may thank you all the pundits over the web and their uncessant and ridiculous doom & gloom chanting about how other people are going to infect the hobby and we won't be able to game anymore. Also, human nature.
Seriously, the first casualty in Internet wars are the brains of the participants.
You've posted 15 times in this thread.
Quote from: J Arcane;478810You've posted 15 times in this thread.
Yeah, it's fun.
Also, most if not all of my posts have been about how the OOP is irrelevant, how for me it's OK if someone wants Absolute Good / Evil in their games, though I prefer grey areas, and how this is a tempest in a teapot. Fairy coherent, I think.
QuoteOrc babies/genocide was already brought up in their "Evil in games" thread, and it was surprisingly civil.
No, no, the whole "evil white colonialism and you're all secretly racist" thing.
Quote from: StormBringer;478792Ok, sure.
Does that really affect the game as it is played at your table? I mean, you are certainly free to interpret it that way, but does that interpretation mean you are going to change how you play?
No. The guy is free to think what he wants about gaming, race, etc. I am just voicing my disagreement with his conclusions. My primary concern the whole time has been that the argument he is making (which I have seen more and more of lately) to me looks like another variation on the old 1980s D&D hsyteria (it is just coming from another end of the political spectrum, but its raw assumptions sound similar).
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478777This is an accurate summary. While racist beliefs are usually essentialist prejudices about groups, not all essentialist beliefs are racist.
I'd be willing to buy the "personal preference; live and let live" thing more if this were a different audience. Many, though not all, of the posters on this thread calling the OP an idiot have bitched and moaned about games like 4e breaking their immersion because of their gamey elements, and arguing in favour of a style of play that strives to emulate the real world and encourage
PCs interacting with the world in a way that is fundamentally similar to the way a similar person in the real world would interact with the challenge.
That is, they acclaim and laud the same paradigm I advocate (if anything, I am more willing to accept games like 4e than most of them), until it can be shown that within its context, certain ideas about how to build worlds are inferior to others.
In a game that values verisimilitude paying attention to the consequences of particular interactions between your premises are critical.
And that is one reason I tend to shy away from dungeon crawls and hack n slash style campaigns myself. Also why I tend to avoid games like 4E where flavor explanations seem to begin with gameplay considerations.
My biggest issue with the post in the OP is the implication of racism being in games where orcs are pure evil (which I just don't agree with) and the underlying assumption that there is something fundamentally dangerous about our hobby and if we don't walk the line carefully it can bleed into our regular lives.
Quote from: John Morrow;478784And I'd be willing to buy that explanation if you weren't telling me that that I couldn't possibly have run the actual campaign that I ran for over a year with the choices that I made and had it work the way it did. I ran the players through the precise scenario that seems to be causing the most angst here, the characters justifiably slaughtering evil humanoid women and children after getting a good look at exactly how their society was structured, and rather than being simplistic and uninteresting, those scenes produces some of the most intense deliberation and pathos among the players in the entire campaign played by players more interested in deep in character role-playing than hack-and-slash. So please excuse me if I think that you are confusing your own opinions with objective fact and confusing the limits of your imagination with the limits of what's possible.
I'm glad you managed to have fun, but you don't understand morality very well, and your self-described system for it has all sorts of ridiculous characteristics. We've discussed it several times over the years now, as you should recall.
I am not impressed with the creation of fake moral dilemmas by exploiting metaphysics. "Should orc noncombatants be killed?" is as stupid as "Should you travel back in time to kill Hitler?" It's a purposefully constructed puzzle (in the Wittgensteinian sense) of morality trying to disguise itself as an actual moral deliberation.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478821My biggest issue with the post in the OP is the implication of racism being in games where orcs are pure evil (which I just don't agree with) and the underlying assumption that there is something fundamentally dangerous about our hobby and if we don't walk the line carefully it can bleed into our regular lives.
Don't waste my time with telepathy. One of the most tremendously intellectually dishonest things people do around here on a consistent basis is pretend to read other people's minds. "Underlying assumption", nothing. You're describing your fantasy and belief and importing it back onto the author. You're not the worst person in this thread for it, but it remains utterly stupid.
Read the actual text of his post and respond to it.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478824Don't waste my time with telepathy. One of the most tremendously intellectually dishonest things people do around here on a consistent basis is pretend to read other people's minds. "Underlying assumption", nothing. You're describing your fantasy and belief and importing it back onto the author. You're not the worst person in this thread for it, but it remains utterly stupid.
Read the actual text of his post and respond to it.
I read the actual text of his post (several times in fact) and I think the underlying assumption I described was pretty clear. Sure it is a minor leap on my part to get there, but it isn't like it doesn't follow from much of what he is saying. And lets be honest, the viewpoint he advances is one embraced by many across the internet (I really haven't encountered it at an actual RPG session) who do explicitly worry about how things like hidden forms of racism, violence and oppression in RPGs impact our real lives. And my impression from the OP is he clearly shares these concerns. You are free to disagree. But it isn't like I am just drawing it out of thin air or projecting onto his post. I already said he back tracks at times, but to me there is a clear underlying assumption at work in the OPs words.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478826I already said he back tracks at times, but to me there is a clear underlying assumption at work in the OPs words.
Of course there is, otherwise the guy wouldn't have bothered wasting a few hours of his time formulating it.
The amount of hand-wringing this has prompted is hilarious. Divide and conquer baby.
I also have to wonder if Pseudo is actually an Ettin, his head is so far up his own arse.
Quote from: StormBringer;478790Is he at your house right now with a gun? Have you called the police?
Am I at your house right now with a gun?
Quote from: StormBringer;478790C'mon, dude, you are smarter than that. He can rant and rave all he wants, what do you care?
I can post all I want here, why do you care?
Quote from: StormBringer;478790Do we really need 550 posts to decide the guy is a bit of a crank and dismiss the crazy parts? I mean, there is still a fairly interesting point about world-building and the role of 'evil', or 'monsters', or 'orcs' in there. Hell, 'evil monsters' or 'evil orcs'. 'Evil orc monsters'.
We're having a conversation about the role of evil, Evil, orcs=Pawnee, etc. We keep getting sidetracked and drawn back to the OP because someone on your team can't be an idiot.
Quote from: StormBringer;478790I mean, does there need to be a full scale panic because J Random Player mentions the tautology that wiping out orc tribes is genocide? When did everyone get so terribly frightened of their own gaming preferences?
Damn dude, you need to chill. The only "full scale panic" I see here is the one you and Pseudo are having over some idiot on Team Left getting outed as a parrot, Morrow posting to not universal derision, and the "fear" that people are getting dangerously close to even accepting in theory the notion that an Absolute Good or Evil might exist in a fantasy world.
Quote from: StormBringer;478790I can only remind people so many times. That post is so littered with qualifiers like "I think..." and "In my opinion..." it's almost hard to read.
Hmm, lets look at that, shall we?
Quote from: OPTo run an Old School Renaissance (OSR) game, you're basically saying "let's kill a lot of monsters and take the treasure and not really think too hard about what that means." It's one of the core tenants of OSR, even if I can't find it written down anywhere.
Storm, you run an old school site, I bet you didn't know your hobby interest was based on not thinking too hard. Aren't you glad this guy's around?
He spends five or six paragraphs here trying to prove that D&D characters have script immunity and are the center of a D&D game world. Of course 4e characters being special snowflakes says fuck all about OSR-era D&D. Also no game I've ever run had script immunity, so I guess I never played D&D.
Quote from: OPSo we're telling stories about heroes who go into a post-apocalyptic fantasy wilderness, face terrible monsters, kill them, and take their stuff.
Is that what happens at your table, Storm?
Quote from: OPMy problem with the whole setup is that the reason for all the ultraviolence is rarely explored in any depth. Simply put: why do these monsters need to die? Okay, so they're Evil. D&D has an alignment system that categorizes everyone into three, five, or nine (depending on which edition you play) convenient morality boxes like "Lawful" or "Chaotic Evil." We're told that every orc is Evil, and that's sufficient excuse to kill every last one, including their women and children, without guilt. We're also told that they have chieftains, tribes, and settlements. Their "lairs" are described in loving detail, showing how the community lives and eats. But they're all Evil, so leave none alive.
And here's the key flaw to his thinking, that the situation he describes is one without moral quandary, one without conscience, one without guilt, one without discussion and argument from the characters (and sometimes the players). How do you run B2, Storm? Do the players run in and slaughter everything - Rebel Yells, lynching etc. or is there more to it then that? I've had PvP situations arise from the "humanoid family" question.
Quote from: OPSo it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn.
The money shot of idiocy is right here. It goes downhill quick.
Quote from: OPThe biggest rationalization is "It's fantasy, so I don't need to worry about it." I am at a point in my life where I can't say that anymore.
He's no longer a child and must put aside childish things.
Quote from: OPdon't want to create a game world that validates the gross stereotypes and bigotry of the real world.
Here is where Brendan is correct, he brought this to his own table, he didn't find it there.
Quote from: OPNo, it's not okay to believe that every creature of a race that looks different than you is automatically bad, subhuman, worthless, and destined for a quick death. Just because I can make that fact true in the game world doesn't make it less okay.
See what he does here?
"Looks different than you". Apparently we're killing orcs because they have pig faces. Did anyone EVER play a D&D campaign where orcs were slaughtered because their skin was green? Again, he's bringing his own racial baggage to the table, and that's the source of all this crap.
Quote from: OPI would like to think that my friends and I aren't yearning for a world where we can just solve all of our problems with a fireball. I really hope that they don't believe that burning a dozen orcs alive for their treasure doesn't make anyone a hero. On the what-if side, we could tell ourselves that we're exploring what would happen in a universe with a clear right and wrong, where the bad guys were irrevocably evil, and the only possible solution is to kill them all. And somehow not feel like Hutu killing Tutsis. But why would we do that? Why do we need to pretend that? And if we did want to explore that, wouldn't we want to walk away from the table with the same feeling of disgust I get when I watch Hotel Rwanda?
Are we even pretending the guy's talking about the hobby at this point?
Quote from: OPI keep coming to the same conclusion: Running a typical "kill them all and take their stuff" D&D campaign is awful.
Is that the typical D&D campaign? Huh. Guess I'm not typical. Whatever.
Quote from: OPDon't get me wrong. I don't think every D&D player is a horrible person. Generally, we do these things without thinking about them.
I laughed out loud at the "expansionist" quote, here's where I just shake my head in pity as the moral supremacist proceeds to try and re-educate the ignorant.
Quote from: OPKilling hundreds of orcs doesn't make you a real-life killer any more than winning Monopoly makes you a heartless landlord.
Whew, that's a relief. BTW, have to snicker here that the two criminals he chooses here are killer and landlord.
Quote from: OPYes, it's a game, and we don't really think about what it means. But D&D is more than a game because it can be a highly creative art form akin to storytelling, and I think we should think about what it means a lot more.
Lord, here's the whole problem, the guy is a Swine.
Quote from: OPSo what's the fix? Do we just stop playing D&D? I don't think that's necessary.
Whew, again with the relief. My dice were this close to going in the trashcan.
Quote from: OPI think there are few steps everyone can take to avoid genocidal racism in their games.
I'm sorry, is there any possible response to this sentence but laughter? Ok, maybe derision, scorn, ridicule, dismissal. Guess there's a few.
Quote from: OPFirst, get rid of race alignments. If you want, keep alignments for individuals, but forget the idea that every creature can be easily categorized as good or evil based on anything but that individual's personal actions. That means getting rid of the idea that most orcs are evil, too; sorry, no loophole there.
Damn, I was so looking for a loophole to allow me to play out genocide. Oh well, back to
I guess.
Quote from: OPSecond, treat intelligent creatures with the respect they deserve. They have complex communities with goals and most have charismatic leaders that guide the communities in different ways. Some of those ways are great and some are terrible. Lots of the individuals might get on board with the leader and others might follow along to avoid causing trouble and still others might secretly or openly oppose their leaders. This means that you can have tribes of orcs led by terrible, terrible orc chieftains. This means that the individual members of those tribes might be terrible, neutral, decent, or even admirable.
Ah, so all we need to do is get in touch with the Orc Underground and help the honorable Orc Warlords institute Operation Valkyrie. Sweet. Man, this "complex" worldbuilding rocks.
Quote from: OPThis means that players will have to decide if their heroes mow them down or not, and yeah, that might not be as fun of a game as Old School hack-and-slash, but if you just want to kill stuff, then you don't need a world and tribes and history and crap.
Here again is the fatal flaw in his thinking, combined with the re-education part. He wants to make orcs=native americans(or whoever) because then if players mow down orcs, they'll feel bad after. As I mentioned upthread, I never had any problems with PCs not feeling bad about slaying the "families" of Irredeemable Orcs. If the setting had Redeemable Orcs, then the family slaying didn't occur. I'm not seeing KoDT behavior at my table, haven't seen it since high school.
Quote from: OPIf the heroes kill a few orc warriors and let their spouses and children go, don't have the family turn around and betray them first chance they get. They don't have to be grateful, because after all the party did just slay their mommy or daddy, but they shouldn't swear revenge and encourage the players to leave no orc unslain.
Right, because the important thing is training your players to be politically correct. Wouldn't want there to be any really hard moral conundrums there. We wouldn't want to later see a freed orc child grow up to be one of those terrible, terrible orc chieftains either, who now is even better at killing humans because he learned from his experience with the players. God forbid players have consequences to go along with hard choices.
Quote from: OPFourth, substitute mindless monsters for the tribes and nations of humanoids. Maybe not entirely, but to a large extent. I don't think anyone has a problem with the killing of a gelatinous cube or a skeleton. There's a whole class of monsters that are intelligent but solitary--that is, they aren't races of creatures that are born with parents and a culture but rather are spawned or summoned.
I can see my campaign map now. "Jelly Swamp", "Fields of Nothing But Bone", "Solo Monster Mountain".
Quote from: OPA classic example is the undead, which are just dead creatures usurped by terrible evil forces.
Yeah, but that's not the undead's fault, shouldn't you take the terrible evil force to trial and then use necromancy yourself to harness the undead to undo the evil they caused? After all, nothing's really Evil right, so there is only effect. In fact, you could even say the end justifies the means...oh wait, isn't that badthink?
Quote from: OPSimilar are demons and devils, which generally aren't considered a culture or nation.
Ah, ok, so we don't care whether there is absolute or inherent evil, we don't care whether something intelligent is redeemable or not, what we care about is whether we can flag it as a culture or nation, which then qualifies it as "needing protection".
Quote from: OPYeah, there are some ethical problems with slaying animals and animal-like monsters just for the experience and loot, but those are different problems than genocide, and frankly those problems don't bother me as much.
I guess his wife isn't a member of PETA.
Quote from: OPLast, create real reasons for nations to fight, and make it fairly clear what you think the right thing to do is. This is fantasy gaming, so the author gets to bring Right and Wrong to the forefront of the story. Make it clear that slaying everyone who looks different than you is not acceptable behavior.
Here he goes with the "looks different" again. Was this guy raised in Mississippi? So what's a real reason for nations to fight? I personally subscribe to the notion that...Quote from: Ernest Hemingway“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
But I guess as long as the bodies aren't piling up because someone is the wrong culture or race, then war is cool. Good to know.
Quote from: OPHowever, find more acceptable reasons to fight certain groups. This group of orcs keeps attacking the keep. Make them stop. Maybe talking is a good first step but if that doesn't work, some of them might need to die. If your mental picture of fantasy gaming can weather it, you can even say a creature reduced to 0 hit points is apprehended and can be taken to trial.
WHAT? You mean have orcs attacking stuff? Wow, I always just had them living in peace somewhere until the players came to slaughter them.
So, these orcs keep raiding villages and farms in an area. The PCs go and ask them politely to stop and try to arrange some negotiation with the orcs (cribbing notes from TNG), but they don't want to, so you kill some and take some back to the village. The villagers, of course are going to give the orcs a fair trial, and keep them in jail, making sure they are fed and clothed for years. Or the townsfolk are going to kill them all, but at least the PCs were able to say they didn't do it, 'cause you know, that would be genocide and stuff. I'm so glad I'm now playing an "acceptable" campaign.
Quote from: OPThe complex moral issues that arise during play when heroes face a culture of intelligent "humanoids" can be interesting in their own right. There are plenty of terrible, mindless things to destroy if the fighting is what floats your boat.
Ah, so he's bringing complexity and interesting situations, instead of just "the fighting" cause it "floats your boat".
Quote from: OPAnd if all of this makes you groan and roll your eyes and go back to your fantasy world where all orcs need to die, ask yourself why you need that.
Ask myself why I need that, huh? NEED THAT. So some self-analysis is needed if I disagree with his position, standard Groupthink 101 - "Here is my enlightened position, if you disagree, you aren't enlightened, call your psychologist."
So how many "I think's" are in the OP? Something like 12, although in the sections I quoted, even the 5 paragraphs a summarized are like 2 and one of those is "I don't think anyone has a problem with the killing of a gelatinous cube or a skeleton." When he's preaching, there is no "I think" anywhere. Normally I don't peg someone for not putting "I think" in front of every sentence, because that's silly semantics, but you brought it up, so there it is.
Storm, you're right this guy is a crank. He's parroting crap because he's wearing the team jersey. If you really want to discuss this topic, why not make a new thread, and forget this idiot. Your post will be a hundred times better then his was, and won't be deserving of open mocking. Of course, it will probably devolve as you and Morrow go to the mattresses, but you never know. :D
Inherently evil orcs aren't racist.
But they're also pointless.
For hack-and-slash, there are plenty of easier and less squicky (compared with baby-killing) solutions. You can just not have orcs drag babies into battle (seriously, why would even evil orcs that happen to be capable of child-rearing do this*? Is an 8 int that much of a handicap?). You can just not assume your heroes must be good guys, at which point inherent evil isn't necessary to justify orc-killing. You can just start a war, which may or may not be just, but which would probably necessitate PC action.
For actual inherent evil, there are better monsters. Zombies for mindlessness and mob. Mind flayers for cold sociopathy and parasitic nature (they kill to live). Demons for evil incarnate, plus the ability to corrupt those around them. Giants for the big, stupid, brutish archetype (they don't even have to be *inherently* evil... being able to do lots of damage and acting in rational self interest can make them dangerous enough).
And orcs can still be evil or dangerous without being irredeemable. The orc culture is depicted as cannibalistic, having a might-makes-right morality, endorsing raiding (when they are weak), and seeking to wipe out other races (when they are strong). Do they really need to be inherently evil to justify killing? And again, specific manifestations of evil are more interesting and better idea generators than vague ones. Might-makes right means that maybe the orcs will work for a powerful wizard... or that they can be intimidated for working for you (until you piss them off and one of them challenges you, or you fall asleep and one gets hungry).
So is there actually a specific reason why one might prefer inherently evil humanoids, except to drag the paladin into some gratuitous baby-killing?
*I know, I know.. you can also just have the "otherwise functional psychopaths" not bring their kids to work. Either way, I find the baby-killing scenario is one of the main distasteful things in this thread. I would have thought people would have downplayed its likelihood or something, instead of occasionally trying to justify it.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478822I'm glad you managed to have fun, but you don't understand morality very well, and your self-described system for it has all sorts of ridiculous characteristics. We've discussed it several times over the years now, as you should recall.
I am not impressed with the creation of fake moral dilemmas by exploiting metaphysics. "Should orc noncombatants be killed?" is as stupid as "Should you travel back in time to kill Hitler?" It's a purposefully constructed puzzle (in the Wittgensteinian sense) of morality trying to disguise itself as an actual moral deliberation.
Wittgensteinian is it? Well then, imagine he's comforted that you're here to figure all this out for him, being as he is beset by all these imponderables beyond the labors of his small mind.
Things are looking up for you, John.
CRKrueger: that was brilliant and fun to read!
Quote from: boulet;478841CRKrueger: that was brilliant and fun to read!
I concur. CRK wins the thread.
Quote from: beejazz;478836Inherently evil orcs aren't racist. But they're also pointless.
Either that or you, and your ilk, have missed the point.
Plenty of posts in this thread conveying what that point is, going unread, of course, by those who consider that they already know the answers.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478777This is an accurate summary. While racist beliefs are usually essentialist prejudices about groups, not all essentialist beliefs are racist.
I'd be willing to buy the "personal preference; live and let live" thing more if this were a different audience. Many, though not all, of the posters on this thread calling the OP an idiot have bitched and moaned about games like 4e breaking their immersion because of their gamey elements, and arguing in favour of a style of play that strives to emulate the real world and encourage
PCs interacting with the world in a way that is fundamentally similar to the way a similar person in the real world would interact with the challenge.
That is, they acclaim and laud the same paradigm I advocate (if anything, I am more willing to accept games like 4e than most of them), until it can be shown that within its context, certain ideas about how to build worlds are inferior to others.
In a game that values verisimilitude paying attention to the consequences of particular interactions between your premises are critical.
The one type of "accuracy" does not equal the other type of "accuracy". What breaks suspension of disbelief for you, might not for me, and vice-versa. You know this, so why you're attempting to make this argument is beyond me. I can not like 4e's powers, but have no problem with the idea of irredeemably evil orcs. It's the way it is. You can not like that, think it's stupid, hate me for it, jump up and down and scream, whatever. Fact remains that's the way it is, and it works fine for me.
Quote from: StormBringer;478790Is he at your house right now with a gun? Have you called the police?
C'mon, dude, you are smarter than that. He can rant and rave all he wants, what do you care? Do we really need 550 posts to decide the guy is a bit of a crank and dismiss the crazy parts? I mean, there is still a fairly interesting point about world-building and the role of 'evil', or 'monsters', or 'orcs' in there. Hell, 'evil monsters' or 'evil orcs'. 'Evil orc monsters'.
I mean, does there need to be a full scale panic because J Random Player mentions the tautology that wiping out orc tribes is genocide? When did everyone get so terribly frightened of their own gaming preferences?
I can only remind people so many times. That post is so littered with qualifiers like "I think..." and "In my opinion..." it's almost hard to read. If, after all that, you still think this guy is a fire and brimstone preacher trying to kick your door down, well... Have fun with that, I guess.
We're having a discussion about it brother. It's what we do here. You know the drill... if ya don't like the discussion, don't read the thread.
Quote from: Imperator;478809Just for the record, Tolkien spent many many years saying that no, LotR is not a metaphor of anything (he hated metaphors) and that the comparisons Sauron = Hitler and the like were preposterous.
I have read that before, but given what was going on in his world at the time, I'm not sure I entirely believe him. I would believe that the inspiration was not deliberate or even conscious, but I have a hard time believing that WWII had no impact on his story at all.
Quote from: Imperator;478809Just for the record, Tolkien spent many many years saying that no, LotR is not a metaphor of anything (he hated metaphors)
"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of the reader. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."
JRR Tolkien
I'm not sure I believe him either, but he had a good point.
Quote from: Vmerc@;478861I'm not sure I believe him either, but he had a good point.
Still for the record, he also goes on to say:
Quote from: JRRT, Foreword to the LOTR, Second Edition, 1966An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous. It is also false, though naturally attractive, when the lives of an author and critic have overlapped, to suppose that the movements of thought or the events of times common to both were necessarily the most powerful influences. One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead. Or to take a less grievous matter: it has been supposed by some that The Scouring of the Shire reflects the situation in England at the time when I was finishing my tale. It does not. It is an essential part of the plot, foreseen from the outset, though in the event modified by the character of Saruman as developed in the story without, need I say, any allegorical significance or contemporary political reference whatsoever. It has indeed some basis in experience, though slender (for the economic situation was entirely different), and much further back. The country in which I lived in childhood was being shabbily destroyed before I was ten, in days when motor-cars were rare objects (I had never seen one) and men were still building suburban railways. Recently I saw in a paper a picture of the last decrepitude of the once thriving corn-mill beside its pool that long ago seemed to me so important. I never liked the looks of the Young miller, but his father, the Old miller, had a black beard, and he was not named Sandyman.
So it does acknowledge that experience informs creative design, though it does so in mysterious ways which can be unknown to the author of the work itself. The point is that there was no active, conscious intent to build an allegory or convey a deeper message or meaning through the tale than the emotions and thrill the tale itself carries.
Quote from: Foreword to LOTR, Second EditionThe Lord of the Rings has been read by many people since it finally appeared in print; and I should like to say something here with reference to the many opinions or guesses that I have received or have read concerning the motives and meaning of the tale. The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them. As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault. Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer. But even from the points of view of many who have enjoyed my story there is much that fails to please. It is perhaps not possible in a long tale to please everybody at all points, nor to displease everybody at the same points; for I find from the letters that I have received that the passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially approved. The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, minor and major, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review the book or to write it again, he will pass over these in silence, except one that has been noted by others: the book is too short.
Quote from: beejazz;478836Inherently evil orcs aren't racist.
But they're also pointless.
For hack-and-slash, there are plenty of easier and less squicky (compared with baby-killing) solutions. You can just not have orcs drag babies into battle (seriously, why would even evil orcs that happen to be capable of child-rearing do this*? Is an 8 int that much of a handicap?). You can just not assume your heroes must be good guys, at which point inherent evil isn't necessary to justify orc-killing. You can just start a war, which may or may not be just, but which would probably necessitate PC action.
For actual inherent evil, there are better monsters. Zombies for mindlessness and mob. Mind flayers for cold sociopathy and parasitic nature (they kill to live). Demons for evil incarnate, plus the ability to corrupt those around them. Giants for the big, stupid, brutish archetype (they don't even have to be *inherently* evil... being able to do lots of damage and acting in rational self interest can make them dangerous enough).
And orcs can still be evil or dangerous without being irredeemable. The orc culture is depicted as cannibalistic, having a might-makes-right morality, endorsing raiding (when they are weak), and seeking to wipe out other races (when they are strong). Do they really need to be inherently evil to justify killing? And again, specific manifestations of evil are more interesting and better idea generators than vague ones. Might-makes right means that maybe the orcs will work for a powerful wizard... or that they can be intimidated for working for you (until you piss them off and one of them challenges you, or you fall asleep and one gets hungry).
So is there actually a specific reason why one might prefer inherently evil humanoids, except to drag the paladin into some gratuitous baby-killing?
*I know, I know.. you can also just have the "otherwise functional psychopaths" not bring their kids to work. Either way, I find the baby-killing scenario is one of the main distasteful things in this thread. I would have thought people would have downplayed its likelihood or something, instead of occasionally trying to justify it.
You do realize this is all just your opinion right? I'm going to put irredeemably evil orcs in my next game just because now. I think I could do the idea justice, no matter what your opinion is on the matter.
Quote from: Vmerc@;478856Either that or you, and your ilk, have missed the point.
Plenty of posts in this thread conveying what that point is, going unread, of course, by those who consider that they already know the answers.
I've gotten that it "justifies" hack and slash. Which it isn't needed for. For reasons I explained above.
I've gotten that you can do it because personal preference is all the justification you need. Which is one of those dumb arguments that can be used to justify all things. I prefer campaigns where orcs are a regenerating food source that taste like jelly... that doesn't make regenerating jelly orcs less arbitrary.
And some people have portrayed killing baby orcs as an actual dilemma put into the game. Since I was asking "why, if not to justify killing helpless foes?" "To justify killing helpless foes" isn't much of an answer.
I'm not saying its an indication of real world racism. I'm not saying there's anything morally wrong with it. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with people who play with inherently evil orc babies. I'm saying that it creates a situation I'm sure I'm not alone in finding distasteful. And I'm saying there's no good reason to do so.
Quote from: Sigmund;478865You do realize this is all just your opinion right? I'm going to put irredeemably evil orcs in my next game just because now. I think I could do the idea justice, no matter what your opinion is on the matter.
You going to give the orcs a bring your daughter to work day too?
Quote from: Sigmund;478860I have read that before, but given what was going on in his world at the time, I'm not sure I entirely believe him. I would believe that the inspiration was not deliberate or even conscious, but I have a hard time believing that WWII had no impact on his story at all.
It would be true if the author had not actually received letters pointing this very possible influence to him, which he then thought about actively to finally discard wholesale:
Quote from: Foreword to LOTR, Second EditionAs for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit. The crucial chapter, "The Shadow of the Past', is one of the oldest parts of the tale. It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted. Its sources are things long before in mind, or in some cases already written, and little or nothing in the war that began in 1939 or its sequels modified it.
Quote from: Foreword to LOTR, Second EditionThose who had asked for more information about hobbits eventually got it, but they had to wait a long time; for the composition of The Lord of the Rings went on at intervals during the years 1936 to 1949, a period in which I had many duties that I did not neglect, and many other interests as a learner and teacher that often absorbed me. The delay was, of course, also increased by the outbreak of war in 1939, by the end of which year the tale had not yet reached the end of Book One. In spite of the darkness of the next five years I found that the story could not now be wholly abandoned, and I plodded on, mostly by night, till I stood by Balin's tomb in Moria. There I halted for a long while. It was almost a year later when I went on and so came to Lothlórien and the Great River late in 1941. In the next year I wrote the first drafts of the matter that now stands as Book Three, and the beginnings of chapters I and III of Book Five; and there as the beacons flared in Anórien and Théoden came to Harrowdale I stopped. Foresight had failed and there was no time for thought.
It was during 1944 that, leaving the loose ends and perplexities of a war which it was my task to conduct, or at least to report, I forced myself to tackle the journey of Frodo to Mordor. These chapters, eventually to become Book Four, were written and sent out as a serial to my son, Christopher, then in South Africa with the RAF. Nonetheless it took another five years before the tale was brought to its present end; in that time I changed my house, my chair, and my college, and the days though less dark were no less laborious. Then when the 'end' had at last been reached the whole story had to be revised, and indeed largely re-written backwards. And it had to be typed, and re-typed: by me; the cost of professional typing by the ten-fingered was beyond my means.
It is still possible that the man is basically deluding himself, but if he actually contemplated the possibility and decided to discard it has just not the case, I'm personally inclined to believe him, particularly considering the key chapter, the one that really opened Pandora's box as far as the Ring is concerned for JRRT, is "The Shadow of the Past", which was written "long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster".
Quote from: beejazz;478869You going to give the orcs a bring your daughter to work day too?
No, I'm going to say all orcs are toddlers and don't live beyond the age of 4.
Quote from: Sigmund;478874No, I'm going to say all orcs are toddlers and don't live beyond the age of 4.
Well that's different. Toddlers are inherently evil.
Quote from: Benoist;478871It would be true if the author had not actually received letters pointing this very possible influence to him, which he then thought about actively to finally discard wholesale:
It is still possible that the man is basically deluding himself, but if he actually contemplated the possibility and decided to discard it has just not the case, I'm personally inclined to believe him, particularly considering the key chapter, the one that really opened Pandora's box as far as the Ring is concerned for JRRT, is "The Shadow of the Past", which was written "long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster".
Well, you can choose to fully believe him if you want, but I don't. I've read what he's said, and how he had folks asking him and all that, but I still find it hard to believe the war had no effect on his story writing. We'll never know for sure, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter, but still I feel he had to have been influenced in at the very least a small way... just how I see it.
Edit: Now I do believe Tolkien when he said that the story he wrote was not meant to carry any lessons or commentaries on the war, I just feel that his writing was influenced by the experience of living through the war, no matter what he says on that front.
Quote from: Sigmund;478877Edit: Now I do believe Tolkien when he said that the story he wrote was not meant to carry any lessons or commentaries on the war, I just feel that his writing was influenced by the experience of living through the war, no matter what he says on that front.
He actually does agree with you, though you're not thinking of the
right war:
Quote from: JRRT, Foreword to the LOTR, Second Edition, 1966One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.
:)
Quote from: beejazz;478868I've gotten that it "justifies" hack and slash + insults
I've gotten that you can do it because personal preference + slander
I'm not saying its an indication of real world racism. I'm not saying there's anything morally wrong with it. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with people who play with inherently evil orc babies. I'm saying that it creates a situation I'm sure I'm not alone in finding distasteful. And I'm saying there's no good reason to do so.
And what I'm saying, friend, is that just because you don't see the reason for that type of cosmology, doesn't mean one isn't there.
Seeing the predomination of posters that can type faster than they can think or read, not referring to any semblance of the argument of the man to whom they are posting a vociferous and angry response as they ride on the wings of glory, I thought that a simple diagram of opposing views might serve some purpose:
Cosmology A
Orcs and other creatures, none of them evil, all of them with free will and their own individual inclinations, arrived at by the dictates of happenstance and reasonable concerns (where is the watering hole, why do the guys in the fort keep taking all the placer, what do you mean prima nocta, and the conflicts which so arise).
Cosmology B
Orcs (and perhaps some others) designed by the gods or God as evil and sentient, to serve some purpose, known or unknown to the players, not so fortunate as to have free will (or more fortunate if you look at it from another angle) - free will being the special province of a few races and those races dealing with all the issues of the free will present in Cosmology A.
These are two possible cosmological conditions. Both equally valid. Which one offers a wider range of roleplaying? A richer context? Which one is less or more puerile? I dare not say. I say only that these are two valid choices, either of which having been used countless times by masterful GMs to run campaigns of vast imaginative scope and searing intellectual depth - and some of which were fun.
I raise my glass to the cocksuckers that were fun.
Quote from: Benoist;478879He actually does agree with you, though you're not thinking of the right war:
:)
True enough, I should not restrict my view to WWII, but I feel he was influenced by both wars. The difference is that WWI influenced his thoughts before the writing and at the very beginning, while WWII was an influence on him and his writing while actually writing the majority of the series. I mean, how coulld they not really? Once again, keep in mind I'm not saying he wrote the stories because of the wars, only that he was influenced by them. I do feel his portrayal of Sauron and the orcs was inluenced by his experiences, just not on a conscious or deliberate level. Just IMO though.
Quote from: Sigmund;478886True enough, I should not restrict my view to WWII, but I feel he was influenced by both wars. The difference is that WWI influenced his thoughts before the writing and at the very beginning, while WWII was an influence on him and his writing while actually writing the majority of the series. I mean, how coulld they not really? Once again, keep in mind I'm not saying he wrote the stories because of the wars, only that he was influenced by them. I do feel his portrayal of Sauron and the orcs was inluenced by his experiences, just not on a conscious or deliberate level. Just IMO though.
I see what you mean. Outside of what JRRT says about this, there's no way to know what was really going on in his mind. The Chapter "The Shadow of the Past" is important here, though: it's the part where Gandalf asks Frodo to throw the Ring in the fire, tells him about what's written on it, where we hear for the first time about the Ennemy and all that. It's really the breakthrough in the book as far as the whole plot is concerned, with the Council of Elrond basically fleshing out and filling in the blanks left from there. In this chapter alone, you can see the whole basic premise of the tale explained in clear terms. And this chapter was composed long before war with Hitler was on the agenda.
Now the chapter was revised later on with rewrites of the drafts that led to the LOTR we see in print, but we can retrace the actual steps of the composition from the very first drafts from Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-earth series. It seems to me, from this evidence, that the overall plot structure of the LOTR already existed when WW2 broke out.
Quote from: J Arcane;478808I'm pretty sure RPGnet would've locked this thread and banned Benoist for reposting a private conversation.
The question of the privacy of the post didn't even come to my mind until it was mentioned on this thread. This was a post from the author which was then shared via G+ by Levi on some circles, though I did not actually look which. I even directly linked to Levi's post on G+ thinking anyone could see it (see the OP). I honestly have a hard time thinking of spreading posts like this as "private conversations", though you're right: I should have considered it. I will in the future.
Quote from: Benoist;478887I see what you mean. Outside of what JRRT says about this, there's no way to know what was really going on in his mind. The Chapter "The Shadow of the Past" is important here, though: it's the part where Gandalf asks Frodo to throw the Ring in the fire, tells him about what's written on it, where we hear for the first time about the Ennemy and all that. It's really the breakthrough in the book as far as the whole plot is concerned, with the Council of Elrond basically fleshing out and filling in the blanks left from there. In this chapter alone, you can see the whole basic premise of the tale explained in clear terms. And this chapter was composed long before war with Hitler was on the agenda.
Now the chapter was revised later on with rewrites of the drafts that led to the LOTR we see in print, but we can retrace the actual steps of the composition from the very first drafts from Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-earth series. It seems to me, from this evidence, that the overall plot structure of the LOTR already existed when WW2 broke out.
Absolutely, and what I'm saying has nothing to do with why he wrote the story or even what kind of story he wanted to write. I'm referring only to the details.
Edit: Hell, maybe Sauron was influenced more by the Kaiser than the Fuehrer... that would make sense too.
Quote from: Sigmund;478890Absolutely, and what I'm saying has nothing to do with why he wrote the story or even what kind of story he wanted to write. I'm referring only to the details.
Hard to know. Are you thinking of any particular details that struck you especially in this regard?
Quote from: beejazzI've gotten that it "justifies" hack and slash. Which it isn't needed for. For reasons I explained above.
Apparently an insult.
QuoteI've gotten that you can do it because personal preference is all the justification you need. Which is one of those dumb arguments that can be used to justify all things. I prefer campaigns where orcs are a regenerating food source that taste like jelly... that doesn't make regenerating jelly orcs less arbitrary.
Apparently jelly orcs are slander?
QuoteThese are two possible cosmological conditions. Both equally valid. Which one offers a wider range of roleplaying? A richer context? Which one is less or more puerile? I dare not say. I say only that these are two valid choices, either of which having been used countless times by masterful GMs to run campaigns of vast imaginative scope and searing intellectual depth - and some of which were fun.
So... given the description of the cosmology you give, there's magical compulsion. Which may or may not be the same thing as inherent evil depending on how flexible and reversible magic is but whatever. And it sounds like you're going for... what? a tragic tone?
I'm just asking a specific reason for the appeal of the idea.
You can dare not say, and refuse to make a value judgment. But I think it's a topic worth discussing. In fact the topic of what is and isn't tasteful has been on the board's mind lately, with topics on torture, rape and pillage, and what have you on the front page for a while now.
Quote from: boulet;478841CRKrueger: that was brilliant and fun to read!
Quote from: Benoist;478845I concur. CRK wins the thread.
Indeed. That post was a joy to wake up to this morning. Thank you, CRKrueger.
I could go into it. To do it right would require a rather long post and maybe half an hour of my time to get right. That is more time than I am willing to devote to a post that seems insincere. Insincere, first, because you seem extremely intelligent and fully capable of having come across the reasons before, both in theological breakdowns, if not in posts prior in this thread, which you have not included in the dismissive post from which I quoted.
Insincere also because of this comment.
Quote from: beejazz;478893And it sounds like you're going for... what? a tragic tone?
I know when I'm having a conversation and when I'm not.
As far as the "appeal" of the "idea" is concerned. That's covered in Cosmology A vs B.
The general literary consensus I'm familiar with is that Tolkien did not set out to write a specific WWII allegory, and the fact that so many people tried to interpret LotR as one annoyed him so much that he rather overstated the contrary opinion. Certainly it is absurd to think that anyone living and writing through WWII would not have their writing be profoundly affected by the experience.
As for the OP, he lost me the second he used the words "privileged" and "colonialist". Cultural Marxism is bullshit, and I have no time for people who keep that tripe in their brains.
Now all we need is a sculptor willing to do Nixon-faced orcs and we can put this bitch to bed.
Quote from: beejazz;478893I'm just asking a specific reason for the appeal of the idea.
Even if I prefer shades of gray in my games I think I can answer this. The appeal is to have hordes of decently smart enemies working as a team and who aren't prone to betray their evil master.
Quote from: Sigmund;478858We're having a discussion about it brother. It's what we do here. You know the drill... if ya don't like the discussion, don't read the thread.
You have been here long enough to know how much I enjoy discussion. What I have been lately getting quite sick of is the sloppy bullshit that people are starting to think passes for arguments.
"Ha ha! Look at this asshole! He doesn't think slaughtering
by the thousands is fun! What an asshole! And while we are at it, I am going to completely meltdown because some random dude on the internet doesn't approve of my gaming style!"
I mean, fuck. Even on bad days, discussion around here used to be about three orders of magnitude better than that.
Quote from: boulet;478903Even if I prefer shades of gray in my games I think I can answer this. The appeal is to have hordes of decently smart enemies working as a team and who aren't prone to betray their evil master.
But isn't 'betrayal' part of 'evil'?
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;478561Why stop at nuanced orcs? Lets have some LG reformed mind flayers.
Will they sparkle in the sunlight?
Quote from: StormBringer;478904"Ha ha! Look at this asshole! He doesn't think slaughtering by the thousands is fun!
Who's using sloppy bullshit arguments now? That would be you. That's not what the OP said, and quite clearly from a detailed post you're deliberately not responding to, it's not what I objected to.
Quote from: StormBringer;478904I am going to completely meltdown because some random dude on the internet doesn't approve of my gaming style!"
The only person having a meltdown is you.
Quote from: StormBringer;478904I mean, fuck. Even on bad days, discussion around here used to be about three orders of magnitude better than that.
You're the one not discussing in detail the actual words of the OP, you're reacting on some form of political basis I would guess, thinking that just because the idiot we're responding to is espousing leftist ideology then therefore we must be Fox and Friends. *Fuck* you use to have better discrimination than that.
Just make a race of Morrow Orcs in your campaign and slaughter them to the last toddler, you'll feel better.
QuoteWhy stop at nuanced orcs? Lets have some LG reformed mind flayers.
In my idea for a Chaos/Order-based setting, Mind Flayers were actually the "good" guys. The dieties and followers of Order sought to bring PERFECT order to the Universe, which meant, essential, utter stagnation. No change of anything, ever - or in modern cosmological terms essentially the heat-death of the universe. The forces of Chaos understood that change, even erratic or something destructive change, was what kept the universe "alive". Of course, the higher level concepts of the Gods were way beyond the ken of "ground-level" PCs and such. The initial idea was to have them working for the side of Order because, naturally, they appear "good" on the small scale, but as more and more of the actual working of the Gods becomes apparent, they would likely switch sides and start fighting for Chaos.
Note, there is no Good on Evil in the mix - and I like it that way. I think it is more reflective of a) how the world works anyway and b) less artificial than standard alignment issues.
The OP seems to be saying that if we play this scenario, we are douchebags.
Yet, one could point out that he illustrates the scenario in wargames and these sort of games as "side A vs side B" and even notes that we don't know why they are fighting.
If you took time to drum up a narrative, instead of just saying "those orcs have 55gp and are worth 100xp each - sic em" then you might find a little more fulfillment in the scenarios.
And don't try to be so Politically Correct as to neuter every scenario. It's not always that way, and there are lots of cool rp opportunities to be had at the head of an invasion force.
Just so everyone knows: I've never killed orc women and children.
Quote from: Blackhand;478912Just so everyone knows: I've never killed orc women and children.
Of course not, they're worth so much more as labor slaves.
Quote from: Blackhand;478912Just so everyone knows: I've never killed orc women and children.
Isn't it crazy that one would actually feel the need to put that kind of a disclaimer on a gaming board post?
Fuck. That's amazing, to me.
Quote from: Blackhand;478912Just so everyone knows: I've never killed orc women and children.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478915Of course not, they're worth so much more as labor slaves.
And the pig-faced ones taste like bacon when cooked! :D
Quote from: StormBringer;478905But isn't 'betrayal' part of 'evil'?
Absolutely. But this brand of orc isn't supposed to illustrate this aspect of evil.
Personally I'd prefer to follow a model like Stalin's red army. It's not that the troops are evil, it's that they're so (rightfully) scared of their evil master (and the other troop that's going to shoot them in the back if they start retreating) that they follow evil orders.
Nobody has pointed out during all this that orc "women and children" only exist if you want them to?
In fact, Warhammer got rid of such moral ambiguity a long time ago - orcs don't have women or children, and in fact spring up fully grown and ready to fight directly from the ground.
Also, despite the fact that I've (in my head) killed thousands of samurai, knights, elves, dwarfs and various aliens - and pretty much every other sort of life form you can imagine - no one has mentioned the kind of morality tests that involves. Surely some of you here have piles of skulls this high also.
But does it really involve morality? Does it really reflect who you are as a person when you sacrifice a group of ashigaru so your mounted samurai can break the right flank and the slaughter of the enemy can TRULY commence?
Is there really a risk of potential dementia, not just desensitization to the idea of human violence that repeating these scenarios through wargames and roleplay can have on a person over the course of two or more decades?
Roleplay is used as behaviour modification (brainwashing) in some camps, you know. Or have you never heard that?
Why are we talking about orcs if this is the kind of conversation you want to have here?
Quote from: Benoist;478916Isn't it crazy that one would actually feel the need to put that kind of a disclaimer on a gaming board post?
I wonder what he would have said to see me draw my knife across the throat of a halfling girl not five days prior. The only thing I cannot kill are gnoll pups. They look too much like puppies. I leave them live, that I don't forgo my boiled eggs.
Quote from: Vmerc@I could go into it. To do it right would require a rather long post and maybe half an hour of my time to get right. That is more time than I am willing to devote to a post that seems insincere. Insincere, first, because you seem extremely intelligent and fully capable of having come across the reasons before, both in theological breakdowns, if not in posts prior in this thread, which you have not included in the dismissive post from which I quoted.
Theological breakdowns? Really? I need a theological breakdown to know why you would prefer to use irredeemable orcs in your game? Is it really that complicated?
Or is this one of those things you dare not say, but you'll get all pissy at me for actually addressing.
QuoteInsincere also because of this comment.
I know when I'm having a conversation and when I'm not.
As far as the "appeal" of the "idea" is concerned. That's covered in Cosmology A vs B.
You didn't give a direct answer to the question. You just described some things. Not the same.
Also, how am I insincere, when you're stuffing "insult" and "slander" into quotes of my posts? Even when I'm just saying I addressed something upthread (something you've done an awful lot of yourself).
Quote from: bouletEven if I prefer shades of gray in my games I think I can answer this. The appeal is to have hordes of decently smart enemies working as a team and who aren't prone to betray their evil master.
This is what a specific good-faith answer looks like.
Quote from: StormBringerBut isn't 'betrayal' part of 'evil'?
Yes, but 'loyalty' is part of 'magical compulsion.' It'd be silly to create minions who would rise against you.
On that note, I also think its silly to stock your fort with minions not ready for combat. So at this point we get back to "baby orc facehuggers" and saying that baby orcs are also combatants / not helpless / not innocent. Or we go back to a totally irrational take your daughter to work day.
Quote from: bouletAbsolutely. But this brand of orc isn't supposed to illustrate this aspect of evil.
Personally I'd prefer to follow a model like Stalin's red army. It's not that the troops are evil, it's that they're so (rightfully) scared of their evil master (and the other troop that's going to shoot them in the back if they start retreating) that they follow evil orders.
Sorta victimizes them, though, doesn't it? Played well, I think it could be cool, but I'm totally fine with orcs just plain having alien cultural values. So yes they're bullied from above and they bully those below them, but they also just plain don't see anything wrong with an elf sandwich every now and again.
Quote from: beejazz;478939Theological breakdowns? Really? I need a theological breakdown to know why you would prefer to use irredeemable orcs in your game?
This is why I think responding to most of what you say is not worth my time. You type faster than you think or read.
I never claimed a preference. My post is about Cosmology A and Cosmology B being equally valid. Others have expressed preferences. You don't pay any more attention to their reasons than you did to my premise.
You aren't conversing. You're just typing.
Quote from: Vmerc@;478945This is why I think responding to most of what you say is not worth my time. You type faster than you think or read.
I never claimed a preference. My post is about Cosmology A and Cosmology B being equally valid. Others have expressed preferences. You don't pay any more attention to their reasons than you did to my premise.
You aren't conversing. You're just typing.
Opinions and preferences are valid as opinions and preferences. But in anything creative, creative decisions have purpose. Things like villains and viewpoint characters exist, and take specific forms, for specific reasons.
Ozymandias and Bowser are both valid villains, but I don't think anyone would be interested in the two of them swapping places. Mainly because the kinds of stories they are useful for are more or less opposite.
So the validity of more than one thing in theory still says nothing about its utility in context.
Your premise doesn't build to any conclusion, and doesn't answer my question.
Utility in context is too compex a term for my average mind. You must seek your answers elsewhere.
Quote from: Benoist;478892Hard to know. Are you thinking of any particular details that struck you especially in this regard?
Mainly the fact that the evil rises in the east. The villian was a formerly loved leader who turns to evil. The orcs are former good people corrupted by the evil leader. The evil armies come in strength and with powerful tools of war, unprovoked. The evil leader corrupts another formerly good person over to the side of evil, catching the good people in between them. Stuff like that. Not the overarching story, just the way it gets unfolded. As I said, it's just something that stands out to me, and not really that relevant to the current discussion, except to say that I doubt very seriously if Tolkien had black people in mind when writing about orcs.
Quote from: daniel_ream;478900The general literary consensus I'm familiar with is that Tolkien did not set out to write a specific WWII allegory, and the fact that so many people tried to interpret LotR as one annoyed him so much that he rather overstated the contrary opinion. Certainly it is absurd to think that anyone living and writing through WWII would not have their writing be profoundly affected by the experience.
Which is what I'm getting at as well, and the purpose for getting at that was that if Tolkien was gonna villianise any real world culture, it would have been the folks killing his friends and countrymen I'd guess.
Quote from: StormBringer;478904You have been here long enough to know how much I enjoy discussion. What I have been lately getting quite sick of is the sloppy bullshit that people are starting to think passes for arguments.
"Ha ha! Look at this asshole! He doesn't think slaughtering by the thousands is fun! What an asshole! And while we are at it, I am going to completely meltdown because some random dude on the internet doesn't approve of my gaming style!"
I mean, fuck. Even on bad days, discussion around here used to be about three orders of magnitude better than that.
The problem is this particular asshole goes far beyond saying it isn't fun, and in the process tries to underhandedly condemn anyone who disagrees with him. It's absolute bullshit, and what baffles me is how anyone can take the shit seriously.
Quote from: Sigmund;478954Mainly the fact that the evil rises in the east. The villian was a formerly loved leader who turns to evil. The orcs are former good people corrupted by the evil leader. The evil armies come in strength and with powerful tools of war, unprovoked. The evil leader corrupts another formerly good person over to the side of evil, catching the good people in between them. Stuff like that. Not the overarching story, just the way it gets unfolded. As I said, it's just something that stands out to me, and not really that relevant to the current discussion, except to say that I doubt very seriously if Tolkien had black people in mind when writing about orcs.
OK. (we're talking here, I'm not out to "get" you, bro). I think the image of Westernesse, and consequently, the presence of Evil in the East, owes more to mythology than anything. The West is were the departed go, where you find the Valar, where the sun sets.
Quote from: WikipediaIn Chinese Buddhism, the West represents movement toward the Buddha or enlightenment (see Journey to the West). The ancient Aztecs believed that the West was the realm of the great goddess of water, mist, and maize. In Ancient Egypt, the West was considered to be the portal to the netherworld, and is the cardinal direction regarded in connection with death, though not always with a negative connotation. Ancient Egyptians also believed that the Goddess Amunet was a personification of the West.[1] The Celts believed that beyond the western sea off the edges of all maps lay the Otherworld, or Afterlife.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West
Besides, the whole image of Westernesse, Men of the West, Numenor etc. predates the writing of the LOTR by a very, very long shot. It's part of the Silmarillion material.
I don't think this has anything to do with modern politics.
Likewise, the other points you raise strike me more as general images of war. Take the automatisation and "mindlessness" of war for instance, which I see more as being a feature of modern warfare in general, a feature that could be examplified more by the trenches of WW1 than the battlefields of WW2 IMO.
But hey, it's hard to tell. Maybe there's an element of transposition Tolkien wasn't aware of. I don't think there is, though.
Quote from: beejazz;478939On that note, I also think its silly to stock your fort with minions not ready for combat. So at this point we get back to "baby orc facehuggers" and saying that baby orcs are also combatants / not helpless / not innocent. Or we go back to a totally irrational take your daughter to work day.
Sorta victimizes them, though, doesn't it? Played well, I think it could be cool, but I'm totally fine with orcs just plain having alien cultural values. So yes they're bullied from above and they bully those below them, but they also just plain don't see anything wrong with an elf sandwich every now and again.
So you can't conceive of the scenario where orcs invade a local village, heroes track orcs back to their layer where orcs and their daughters are in the process of devouring alive the hapless villagers, tearing off bits as the peasants scream, the heroes proceed to slaughter the villainous orcs and their offspring, and then don't have angst-filled sessions of lamentations for the harsh cruelties of "life" afterward?
Quote from: Vmerc@Utility in context is too compex a term for my average mind. You must seek your answers elsewhere.
Says the poster who claimed to have supported his taste in orcs with a "theological breakdown."
Quote from: SigmundSo you can't conceive of the scenario where orcs invade a local village, heroes track orcs back to their layer where orcs and their daughters are in the process of devouring alive the hapless villagers, tearing off bits as the peasants scream, the heroes proceed to slaughter the villainous orcs and their offspring, and then don't have angst-filled sessions of lamentations for the harsh cruelties of "life" afterward?
I mentioned cannibalism as a cultural thing, not an inherent nature thing, so in that context no.
Illithids, vampires, and ghouls eat people because of their nature, so that makes them fair game. Making the same true for orcs would be similar to fungus-orcs or violent babies. Because at that point the babies are a credible threat.
Otherwise, I don't see building a cosmology to justify killing helpless foes as my thing. Nor do I really see it as necessary, since the same kind of violent fun (minus babykilling) can be justified with non-magic cannibal orcs.
You keep typing and eventually you will find the answers you are looking for, it will just take a lot longer than if you stopped to think and read. Take it from the expert, brother. I don't begrudge a man his inner demons having myself served under their lashes so willingly and long.
Quote from: Sigmund;478956The problem is this particular asshole goes far beyond saying it isn't fun, and in the process tries to underhandedly condemn anyone who disagrees with him. It's absolute bullshit, and what baffles me is how anyone can take the shit seriously.
Is he your father or something? When did everyone here suddenly start craving the approval of every random gamer on the internet?
Ye gods! Some dude named Adam Dray doesn't approve of slaughtering faceless thousands! In fact, he finds it
distasteful! String the fucking heretic up!
Seriously, aren't most of the outraged people here the ones that habitually whinge about 'manufactured outrage', usually on RPG.net? It takes close to 650 posts (currently) to decide he's over-reacting? It takes 650 posts to blow the guy off and move on with your gaming?
There hasn't been this much sand in this many vaginas since the last Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue after-party.
Quote from: boulet;478920Absolutely. But this brand of orc isn't supposed to illustrate this aspect of evil.
Personally I'd prefer to follow a model like Stalin's red army. It's not that the troops are evil, it's that they're so (rightfully) scared of their evil master (and the other troop that's going to shoot them in the back if they start retreating) that they follow evil orders.
Quote from: beejazz;478939Yes, but 'loyalty' is part of 'magical compulsion.' It'd be silly to create minions who would rise against you.
On that note, I also think its silly to stock your fort with minions not ready for combat. So at this point we get back to "baby orc facehuggers" and saying that baby orcs are also combatants / not helpless / not innocent. Or we go back to a totally irrational take your daughter to work day.
Fair enough on both counts.
Quote from: StormBringer;478980Is he your father or something? When did everyone here suddenly start craving the approval of every random gamer on the internet?
Is he
your father? Why are you leaping to his defense?
Quote from: StormBringer;478980Ye gods! Some dude named Adam Dray doesn't approve of slaughtering faceless thousands! In fact, he finds it distasteful! String the fucking heretic up!
Oh he said a bit more then that, as my detailed post shows. (one of the only ones to actually quote the OPs words, none of yours do for example).
Quote from: StormBringer;478980Seriously, aren't most of the outraged people here the ones that habitually whinge about 'manufactured outrage', usually on RPG.net? It takes close to 650 posts (currently) to decide he's over-reacting? It takes 650 posts to blow the guy off and move on with your gaming?
It's the defense of his political leanings at all cost without evaluating the ridiculous stuff he actually did say that's keeping us here.
Quote from: StormBringer;478980There hasn't been this much sand in this many vaginas since the last Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue after-party.
Sexist.
I try not to get too riled up about it. In my campaign, most monstrous humanoids such Goblins, Orcs, and Trolls emerge from the depths of the earth fully grown....and possess a very limited degree of racial memories. A few minutes after birth, they can use tools and crudely speak. They're also argumentatively belligerent, and many of them crave the flesh of sentient beings.
The way that I arrange it is that monstrous humanoids can actually be parleyed with, and even sometimes reasoned with, though their first instinct is to kill. Honestly, my experience is that Orcs are only one of many problems the PCs have to deal with in the campaign...
Quote from: beejazz;478962Says the poster who claimed to have supported his taste in orcs with a "theological breakdown."
I mentioned cannibalism as a cultural thing, not an inherent nature thing, so in that context no.
Illithids, vampires, and ghouls eat people because of their nature, so that makes them fair game. Making the same true for orcs would be similar to fungus-orcs or violent babies. Because at that point the babies are a credible threat.
Otherwise, I don't see building a cosmology to justify killing helpless foes as my thing. Nor do I really see it as necessary, since the same kind of violent fun (minus babykilling) can be justified with non-magic cannibal orcs.
Cannibalism is a cultural thing for humans, but orcs aren't humans (or indeed anything at all outside of what I say they are, at least in my game anyway). Plus, since orcs and humans are not the same thing, would it even be cannibalism if orcs ate humans? Dude, this is all the same no matter what, because orcs aren't real. They are whatever we say they are in our games. I don't even have to build a cosmology to have that be true. All I have to do is say to my group, "In my game, orcs are human-eating monsters that are irredeemably evil" and that's what they are. It has nothing to do with cosmology or morality or any other -y because this is all imaginary. I don't need to construct some elaborate divine hypothesis or cultural speculation to make human eating orcs any more believable than dragons, fairies, elves, or wizards. What is it about orcs that makes them so immune to the same kinds of things you could do with completely home-brewed fantasy races or aliens or any number of other kinds of monsters/antagonists? Orc babies aren't actually babies any more real than lizard man babies or rot grub babies or harpy babies or dragon babies or slaad babies or rakshasa babies or ogre babies or any other kind of fantasy race babies. I'm saying my orcs are evil, human-eating, rotten souled killers that hate all other sentient races with a burning passion, love to watch other races suffer, and make fine cheese. I need no more explanation than that. This does not make me a racist or colonialist. There's nothing more I can say on the subject.
Quote from: StormBringer;478980Is he your father or something? When did everyone here suddenly start craving the approval of every random gamer on the internet?
Ye gods! Some dude named Adam Dray doesn't approve of slaughtering faceless thousands! In fact, he finds it distasteful! String the fucking heretic up!
Seriously, aren't most of the outraged people here the ones that habitually whinge about 'manufactured outrage', usually on RPG.net? It takes close to 650 posts (currently) to decide he's over-reacting? It takes 650 posts to blow the guy off and move on with your gaming?
There hasn't been this much sand in this many vaginas since the last Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue after-party.
Discussion does not equal approval-seeking, so you can keep that strawman. I would advise against bringing it up again though because you're just going to look stupid if you do, especially as many times as you yourself have "raged", as you put it, against a vast array of things around here. If I think he's a fucking pathetic moron, I'm perfectly within my rights to say so. This is a discussion forum, and we're discussing this. If you want to be discussing something else, then start some different threads and stop being a threadcrapping fucking troll. Are you missing Seanchai or something? If I didn't know any better I'd think you were his fucking sock-puppet. You can keep coming at me with this strawman bullshit about how this Dray pussy has done nothing to me (are you actually pulling this "Can't we all just get along" bullshit?), and all you'll do is reveal more about yourself and your lack of relevant input to the thread..
Really? String him up? Have I said string him up? I don't recall ever writing that, but if you can produce the post of mine where I said to string him up, I will stand corrected.
I don't know anything about "manufactured outrage" on RPG.net, I never even read that forum, let alone post on it, and you will almost never find me commenting on anything having to do with RPG.net, so if you are sincerely seeking an answer rather than just trying to "win", you will have to ask someone else.
Just to remind you, the post count for this thread is being increased as much by your posts as they are by mine or anyone else's. Food for thought.
There's only one vagina I'm seeing around here at the moment.
In summary, If I wanna talk about this or any other relevant topic on this forum, I'm damn well gonna for as long as the actual owner of the site allows. Nobody is sitting in your fucking house with a gun making you read this thread, so feel free to find or make threads more to your liking and stop being a whiny bitch in this one.
I don’t use evil races because it makes the whole enterprise of heroism less heroic. And it’s not like my imagination is limited when it comes to conceiving of such races or societies. American slave narratives, the former system of governance in South Africa, the Saddam Regime, ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe and Africa, the current regimes in the Middle east could all be used as inspiration to create functional “evil” societies
As for the evil children commit, we have the child soldiers in Africa, the kid assassins of the South American drug cartels, child pimps of South East Asia, really, if you need to justify killing evil children (and let’s forget the complex reasons behind the phenomena I cited), there’s ample inspiration, if you want to go down this route and base it on a little reality.
Most gamers use evil races as a quick and convenient route to escapism and there’s nothing wrong with that. They don’t go around slaughtering “evil” women and children “noncombatants”. Evil Race normally = “evil males warriors or (females)” of the species. At least that’s how it was when I was running evil races.
I stopped using evil races because my own personal worldview started seeping into my games. I realized that no real world race was irredeemable and within the examples I mentioned there were people fighting against the oppression their societies perpetuated against them or others. And heroism is about bravery, compassion empathy sacrifice all that good stuff that comes with a heavy price. In some cases it’s about helping people redeem themselves and their societies. And this kind of heroism was possible within the confines of our imaginary games. All this seems pretty irrelevant when it comes to irredeemable evil races. Mind you, my players have created some pretty unsavory types throughout a wide range of genres/games. But this definition of heroism held true for all the players I have gamed with over the years regardless of genre/game.
There are plenty of “evil” acts, ideologies etc that my pcs can kick butt against without lumping into the convenient label of “race”. Killing women and children even if they are supposed to be irredeemably evil, was never heroic to my players or their characters when I was using evil races.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478822I'm glad you managed to have fun, but you don't understand morality very well, and your self-described system for it has all sorts of ridiculous characteristics. We've discussed it several times over the years now, as you should recall.
While I will happily acknowledge that my formal knowledge of moral philosophy is lacking and that yours seems to be quite extensive, I think it is not correct to confuse an understanding of moral philosophy and an understanding of morality and how human minds work when making moral decisions. Moral philosophy is an attempt to explain what is, at it's heart, an innate emotional response and attempting to intellectualize and rationalize and moral response is like trying to intellectually and rationally explain why I love my wife. While I could probably take a stab at rationalizing it by explaining, for example, the various things I like about her, it would be unlikely to convince you to love her the way I do.
Similarly, while you could try to explain to me, throwing out the names of philosophers and and philosophies, why it's badwrongfun to allow Good PCs to slaughter helpless orc babies and give me endless utilitarian arguments about how including them in a game is lazy or implausible or problematic, what it all really boils down to is that those who empathize with orc babies and see them as helpless victims are disgusted by the idea that slaughtering them could ever be seen as Good while those who don't empathize with them for a variety of reasons or those for whom the utilitarian arguments for slaughter are stronger than their disgust over killing helpless creatures aren't disgusted by it. We can both try to rationalize those feelings after the fact and wrap them in philosophy to explain why we are right and other people are wrong but it all boils down to trying to change the way someone feels about something.
In the end, in my game, even though I was asked by players to provide them with what we call "killable bad guys", I played up the empathy of the Evil creatures and the players not only let some of them walk free but felt awful about slaughtering the goblin den. And the explanation for that is explained quite clearly by the article Whose Life Would You Save? (http://discovermagazine.com/2004/apr/whose-life-would-you-save). Emotional distance matters. How persuasive a utilitarian argument is matters. The strongest feeling wins.
When looking at the slaughter of goblin babies as a utilitarian problem of weighing the benefits and costs of different solutions, the players were on board with slaughter as the approved solution. When the players playing from an in-character perspective, if not thinking in character, encountered actual even opponents such as goblins role-played to play on their sympathies, begging for their lives, and offering to cut deals with the PCs, the often opted to take the deals and even let them go. And when confronted with goblin babies being driven into them by their mothers, described and role-played for verisimilitude, the empathy became hard to ignore and the result was the emotion of horror. And given how many times over the years I've seen threads by GMs asking how to create horror in their games intentionally, I find it difficult to believe situations that create strong emotions like that should be avoided.
So I understand quite well why the players made the moral choices they made and had the emotional reactions they had to various elements of the campaign and I didn't find it reading Kant, Hume, Sarte, Foucault, and so on. Similarly, I think I understand quite well why Adam Dray had the reaction he had. The problem is that in trying to rationalize his emotions as moral universals, his reaction is not persuading those who do not share a similar emotional reaction or see the similarities he sees. I understand why he reacted the way but don't believe everyone should be expected to react that way.
And despite your repeated claims that things can't happen a certain way or have "ridiculous characteristics", I assure you that the players who walked through the goblin den in my game could have gone through it like a cultural anthropologist and asked me how everything worked (and we did discuss that a bit out of the game) and I could have told them how they reproduced, raised their children, got their food, prepared their food, ventilated their den, got their weapons and armor, built their lair, treated captives, and so on.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478822I am not impressed with the creation of fake moral dilemmas by exploiting metaphysics. "Should orc noncombatants be killed?" is as stupid as "Should you travel back in time to kill Hitler?" It's a purposefully constructed puzzle (in the Wittgensteinian sense) of morality trying to disguise itself as an actual moral deliberation.
Then I think you are something of an oddity because the fantasy and science fiction genres which so dominate the role-playing hobby are fascinated if not obsessed by such problems. In fact, the "Should you travel back in time to kill Hitler?" problem was a major plot point on a recent episode of the long running Doctor Who (episode 218b, "Let's Kill Hitler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Kill_Hitler)"). So while it may not impress or interest you, your preferences are hardly universal or even normal.
As for killing helpless combatants and non-combatants, that problem has frequently been faced by players in games I've played in and run over the years, many of whom play strongly in character, if not thinking in character, and I, too, have seen PCs draw weapons on each other and players, in character, have heated arguments ,over such issues. Such problems are hardly superficial or meaningless in those games.
And in most of the cases I've been in where players faced what you consider a purposefully constructed puzzle rather than an actual moral deliberation, the situation arose organically out of the details of the setting and created what sure looked like "actual moral deliberation" by players arguing in character to me, as much as anything else in a role-playing game is serious or real. The goblin den was in my setting because it was loosely based on Keep on the Borderlands, which has lairs of various creatures in it. It wasn't put there to test the players, who were free in my game to go anywhere they wanted to.
I also find it interesting that nobody has tried to explain why people should be horrified over the idea of justifiably killing orc babies but killing baby dragons is not only given a pass but was pretty much the only sort of dragon you could kill in the Holmes basic set.
Quote from: StormBringer;478980It takes close to 650 posts (currently) to decide he's over-reacting? It takes 650 posts to blow the guy off and move on with your gaming?
Not at all. In my first post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=477743&postcount=24) to this thread I concluded with,
Quote from: Kyle AaronIf you're going to get offended at an imaginary mythology about an imaginary race, at least get it right, you cocksmock. Killing orcs is like killing Nazis: fun and amusing.
I believe that is essentially what you're suggesting, that we should conclude the guy's over-reacting and dismiss him contemptuously.
The rest of my posts have simply be reiterating that point and mocking people. And mockery of pretentious semi-literate cocksmocks
never gets old. So fuck you, Stormy, fuck you with a large pointy d4.
Quote from: StormBringer;478905But isn't 'betrayal' part of 'evil'?
No. It's potentially an aspect of Chaos.
Quote from: John Morrow;479011I also find it interesting that nobody has tried to explain why people should be horrified over the idea of justifiably killing orc babies but killing baby dragons is not only given a pass but was pretty much the only sort of dragon you could kill in the Holmes basic set.
Here you have hit the core. As far as I can understand from the philosophy thrown in waves, the objection stems from the fact that orcs appear close enough to human to set certain minds spinning.
This is a component of the argument made up and clung to by certain of the posters, just like the idea that absolute good/evil in a campaign of that nature can serve no other purpose than to make large scale butchery and xp gain convenient. There is no wordcount capable of detaching the claws from these false attributions. Why they are brought in and clung to - I have no power to say.
Cosmological structures with absolute good/evil creatures exist in many forms and for many reasons. For many it is just a logical extension of the creation of their own universe by a god of absolute good combating a god of absolute evil. That there are angels or other beings at one end without free will, and demons at another end without free will, and pawns to serve them both who lack free will, is not inferior, or less rich, or puerile, or any of the other fierce adjectives that have been splashed about. Perhaps in a monotheistic cosmology, orcs and such creatures serve the same purpose as a Ha-Satan figure, to test the souls of men of good. The possibilities are myriad and I will not test your patience further with my paltry examples. The point is that such a cosmology is merely different and imputes no less complexity of design or social depth.
The fact is that there is potential,
if anything, for more depth, since such a cosmology can also include a myriad of beings with free will who are redeemable, and therefore the designer gets both, where those who shun such a cosmology get only free willed beings and therefore have cosmologies with less variety, or texture, or whatever is the phrase of the day.
Now pity me, for I fear the assassins approach my door, but with my final breath let me say that I prefer neither type of cosmology nor do I value one as more enlightened than the other. They both have value and great potential. So let the arrows fly.
I suppose I should also add that in B2: Keep on the Borderlands there are encounters in a Lizard Man mound (that includes males, females, young, and eggs), a Kobold lair (that includes males, females, and young), an Orc lair (that includes males, females, and young), a Goblin lair (that includes males, females, and young), a Hobgoblin lair (that includes males, female, and young), a Bugbear lair (that includes males, females, and young), and a Gnoll lair (that includes males, females, and young). Thats just about every basic humanoid monster, depicted as reproducing naturally and presented with the expectation that the PCs will attack them in their lair (it helpfully notes, again and again, that the young don't fight and have nothing of value). And I'm supposed to believe that the scenario of a party facing Orc young never happens to people and that only a sadistic GM would face players with such a problem, when that very situation is presented in nearly every part of the sample dungeon included with basic D&D for years?
Quote from: John Morrow;479011a
In fact, the "Should you travel back in time to kill Hitler?" problem was a major plot point on a recent episode of the long running Doctor Who (episode 218b, "Let's Kill Hitler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Kill_Hitler)").
Well, they wanted you to think that, certainly. In actuality it was a red herring for River Song's origin, and Hitler got locked in a closet and forgotten about 10 minutes into the episode.
Quote from: Vmerc@;479021Here you have hit the core. As far as I can understand from the philosophy thrown in waves, the objection stems from the fact that orcs appear close enough to human to set certain minds spinning.
Only if those certain minds are those of racist fucks.
It's fair to assume Adam Dray is imagining Africans and Asians as the colonial/genocide victims, since he says,
"it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint", and it seems, given that the "privileged" bit is almost only ever applied to white Christian Westerners, very unlikely that he's talking about (say) Arab colonialism in Indonesia like the Pontianak Sultanate, or Serb/Croat/Bosniak genocide in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, etc.
So Adam Dray sees orcs as Africans or Asians. Which is racist. Seriously. If you look at these guys -
(http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2001_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring/the_lord_of_the_rings_the_fellowship_of_the_ring_004.jpg)
- and think, say, "Africans!" or "Asians!" - well then
you're the racist fuck, not the nerds sitting around a table rolling dice and eating cheetos. However much you feel guilty about it and write long screeds telling us that in killing orcs we're having badwrongfun, you're still racist.
Orcs are orcs, and monsters. Humans are humans. If you fancy a little grey in your black and white game world, that's okay, some humans are monstrous, and some monsters human. But in the end, if you believe orcs represent some human ethnic or social group, then you really need to face up to some hard truths about the nasty way you see the world, because you're a racist fuck.
This dude is totally black, what you talkin' bout?
(http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG203.jpg)
Quote from: boulet;478841CRKrueger: that was brilliant and fun to read!
Quote from: Benoist;478845I concur. CRK wins the thread.
Totaly :cool:
:hatsoff:
Quote from: Vmerc@;479021*snip*
Now pity me, for I fear the assassins approach my door, but with my final breath let me say that I prefer neither type of cosmology nor do I value one as more enlightened than the other. They both have value and great potential. So let the arrows fly.
I like this sort of thinking....Vmerc@ you seem like a neat and rational person to have a chat with...:)
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;479030So Adam Dray sees orcs as Africans or Asians. Which is racist. Seriously. If you look at these guys and think, say, "Africans!" or "Asians!" - well then you're the racist fuck, not the nerds sitting around a table rolling dice and eating cheetos.
Well now, that deep type thinking strikes me as being similar to saying that the idea that orcs can't be irredeemable and dragons can is racism by definition - defining the potential of a race strictly upon its looks, and I, never having studied the anthropological fields for any impressive amount of time, and lacking social terminology and sophistication of any kind, would feel I was overreaching my status in life to suggest it.
Quote from: skofflox;479038Vmerc@ you seem like a neat and rational person to have a chat with...:)
Sadly, I am not the fine man you take me for.
Quote from: Vmerc@;479042Sadly, I am not the fine man you take me for.
Ahhh...there we have it then.
No need to be saddened by your lot.
I raise my glass in brotherhood...I suspect you would be a hoot to game with!:p
Quote from: TristramEvans;479029Well, they wanted you to think that, certainly. In actuality it was a red herring for River Song's origin, and Hitler got locked in a closet and forgotten about 10 minutes into the episode.
[Spoiler Warning for the past few episodes of Doctor Who if you haven't seen them.]
Actually, there was quite a bit more to it than that. A second set of time travelers also showed up to punish Hitler but showed up too early, implying that they were only authorized to punish him at the end of his life so it wouldn't affect time and undo his crimes. But the more important bit is during the growing up scene, River Song expresses ongoing rage over the fact that bad things happen in history and time traveling The Doctor doesn't do anything to fix it, which is where killing Hitler fits in and directly pushes the issue of whether or not people should travel back in time and kill Hitler. And this is hardly the first time that Doctor Who has dealt with "fake moral dilemmas by exploiting metaphysics" including, let's see, last weeks episode that put the characters in the position of having to essentially erase one version of a person to save another version. Science fiction and fantasy is full of this stuff.
Quote from: Vmerc@;478838Wittgensteinian is it? Well then, imagine he's comforted that you're here to figure all this out for him, being as he is beset by all these imponderables beyond the labors of his small mind.
Things are looking up for you, John.
One day, you may discover that there is this thing called "history". Look it up next time you're flipping through the dictionary trying to pad out your shitty, low-content posts. Morrow and I have had it out many times on the topic of his moral "theory", and it should be well known by now that his understanding of morality and psychology is ill-informed, ill-thought through, and serves mostly as an expression of his own parochial view of how people ought to act rather than something that deserves to be called a "theory".
Quote from: One Horse Town;478827Of course there is, otherwise the guy wouldn't have bothered wasting a few hours of his time formulating it.
The amount of hand-wringing this has prompted is hilarious. Divide and conquer baby.
I also have to wonder if Pseudo is actually an Ettin, his head is so far up his own arse.
I recently invented a time machine to go back and find the last substantive, insightful or valuable comment you made about roleplaying on this forum, but it turns out that the machine won't go to "Never".
Holy shit, this thread brought David R. back. It is has now totally redeemed itsefl in a functional sense, even if the pure fumes of delight preceding him drove a bunch of pretentious shitheads out from under their rocks and into it.
here comes the storm
Quote from: Sigmund;479001In summary, If I wanna talk about this or any other relevant topic on this forum, I'm damn well gonna for as long as the actual owner of the site allows. Nobody is sitting in your fucking house with a gun making you read this thread, so feel free to find or make threads more to your liking and stop being a whiny bitch in this one.
Oh, trust me, you and the other outrage addicts have 'whiny bitch' pretty much covered.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478233At this point, other than a handful of posters (Frank amongst them), this thread is full retard.
Let's go down the full retard list:
1) Morrow pretending to be a psychologist / moral philosopher rationalising a society of psychopaths, something that has never actually existed
1a) Someone mentions the Arabs / Muslims in relation to this
2) Misuse of the term "moral relativism" as a pejorative against some moral position the writer dislikes despite it actually being a more universal or absolute principle than the writer holds
3) Irrelevant fulminating against LIBRALZM and "white guilt"
4) Consistent confusion of authoritative citation of source material and facts with whims, desires, dreams & half-memories, also what you can find on the first page of Google that seems like it kind of supports what you said
5) A flood of low-post-count posters with indistinguishable and ignorant opinions jackal-wanking one another
6) Laziness, ignorance and stupidity deriving from privilege & the exploitation of the hard work of others are valorised by people too unimaginative to even make up sensible or interesting imitations of the world. The valorisations are used to explain why their laziness, ignorance, and stupidity are wonderful, and actually a sign of discerning taste & skill.
Yeap, it's a full retard thread all right.
I probably should have more carefully read this part of the thread, instead of catching the last few bits after I forgot I replied to Peregrin's post on the first page of a 6 page thread. Then I only would have had to post "Agreed" and save myself the time.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;479013Not at all. In my first post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=477743&postcount=24) to this thread I concluded with,
Part of the issue is that I replied to a post on the first page, forgetting the thread had grown to six pages by then. I backtracked a page or so, found people still having the butthurt that some dude scolded them, and were still expressing outrage over the mere existence of the comparison (as much as the OP had to stretch to make it in the first place).
QuoteI believe that is essentially what you're suggesting, that we should conclude the guy's over-reacting and dismiss him contemptuously.
Yeah, that would have been a good deal more efficient. While the topic makes him feel all weirded out, it simply bores me. I am far more in the mood for complexity in my games these days. He does have some other interesting world-building points hidden in there, too, that were being overlooked in the rush to play out the rampant persecution complex.
(caveats: It would bore me to tears for an ongoing campaign. If it was more of a "Hey, let's play through all the B-modules" and that took a half dozen sessions or so with essentially throw away characters, I'm down)
Between this thread and that other one, I had just about had my fill of folks demanding their sloppy bullshit be taken seriously.
QuoteThe rest of my posts have simply be reiterating that point and mocking people. And mockery of pretentious semi-literate cocksmocks never gets old. So fuck you, Stormy, fuck you with a large pointy d4.
You can fuck right off with your d12, because no one like those either.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478835Hmm, lets look at that, shall we?
A bit late, but thumbs up. That was a great post. :hatsoff:
Quote from: StormBringer;479073*snip*
You can fuck right off with your d12, because no one like those either.
now wait a minute buster...I have a whole SYSTEM that uses d.12's with Astro. #'s having special effect if rolled...I like them just fine.
And loves me some longsword vs "L"!
:)
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479054One day, you may discover that there is this thing called "history". Look it up next time you're flipping through the dictionary trying to pad out your shitty, low-content posts. .
Rare is the day I pad my posts with words. Most I can usually summon for the task is straw.
Having turned down academic pursuits as a waste of time, I came to this site to rub shoulders with my betters and I see my luck holds. Though cudgeling a common intellect with your advanced tools of mind is, while fair in a universal sense, still cruel.
I dont question the motives of those with the rod. I'm only thankful when the beatings cease.
QuoteIt should be well known by now that his understanding of morality and psychology is ill-informed, ill-thought through, and serves mostly as an expression of his own parochial view of how people ought to act
I suppose next you'll say he's puerile. Are you talking to him or me in this quote because I have yet to comprehend the term parochial. What small means I have are spent on whiskey. Despite what you have been told, dictionaries are a luxury of which I rarely think.
Quote from: Vmerc@;479042Sadly, I am not the fine man you take me for.
You'll fit right in here. :D
Welcome to the wretched hive of scum and villainy in regards to RPGs.
Quote from: skofflox;479046I raise my glass in brotherhood...I suspect you would be a hoot to game with!:p
Huzzah
Totally agreeing with David R's comments.
Also I totally mentioned killing dragons way back in the thread so don't dare say we didn't cover it :)
I would say Dragons totally have free will and could decide to be good or evil. I think the study of dragons is really more about the corruption of absolute power than about inherent 'evilness'. I woudl put demons and devils int eh same category.
The idea that devils and demons are inherently evil is almost counter intuitive because the whole point of the judeo-christian 'Devil' is that he chose through his own free will to take an "evil path" (although reading the source material he does nothing actually evil just refused to obey without question, then pursuades Eve to disobey in order to gain knowledge, but now we are getting all gnostic and irrelevant) so making him inherently evil is a bit like turning him into a big, barky, dog.
Sigmund's comments which focus on 'it's all make beleive so none of it matters' is a bit odd in a forum where we talk about RPGs and world building and immersion and all that stuff. One wonders why someone with that world view would get emeshed in this thread at all.
Quote from: CRKrueger;478984Oh he said a bit more then that, as my detailed post shows. (one of the only ones to actually quote the OPs words, none of yours do for example).
OK, he said more things. Again, so what?
I'm with Kyle in this. There's not much more to do but say "What a cocksmock" and dismiss the idea.
By the way, what's all the shit between Ben and Stormbringer, and what is the Team Left? Is it the new Swine? Am I a member without knowing it? Inquiring minds want to know!
Quote from: Vmerc@;479079Rare is the day I pad my posts with words. Most I can usually summon for the task is straw.
Having turned down academic pursuits as a waste of time, I came to this site to rub shoulders with my betters and I see my luck holds. Though cudgeling a common intellect with your advanced tools of mind is, while fair in a universal sense, still cruel.
I dont question the motives of those with the rod. I'm only thankful when the beatings cease.
I suppose next you'll say he's puerile. Are you talking to him or me in this quote because I have yet to comprehend the term parochial. What small means I have are spent on whiskey. Despite what you have been told, dictionaries are a luxury of which I rarely think.
I think you are channeling Jack Vance, which is awesome :D
Also, be very welcome to the site. Hope to see you more around here :)
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479055I recently invented a time machine to go back and find the last substantive, insightful or valuable comment you made about roleplaying on this forum, but it turns out that the machine won't go to "Never".
I'm bored of telling people they're wrong.
Quote from: Vmerc@;479079I suppose next you'll say he's puerile. Are you talking to him or me in this quote because I have yet to comprehend the term parochial. What small means I have are spent on whiskey. Despite what you have been told, dictionaries are a luxury of which I rarely think.
Great, you're a bloviating cunt who doesn't even think his attempts at wit through, let alone anything more profound. Welcome to theRPGSite, you'll fit right in.
Quote from: Imperator;479100I think you are channeling Jack Vance, which is awesome :D
Reality check: I think he is simply trolling.
Quote from: Melan;479111Reality check: I think he is simply trolling.
But in style :D
Quote from: jibbajibba;479097Totally agreeing with David R's comments.
Also I totally mentioned killing dragons way back in the thread so don't dare say we didn't cover it :)
I would say Dragons totally have free will and could decide to be good or evil. I think the study of dragons is really more about the corruption of absolute power than about inherent 'evilness'. I woudl put demons and devils int eh same category.
The idea that devils and demons are inherently evil is almost counter intuitive because the whole point of the judeo-christian 'Devil' is that he chose through his own free will to take an "evil path" (although reading the source material he does nothing actually evil just refused to obey without question, then pursuades Eve to disobey in order to gain knowledge, but now we are getting all gnostic and irrelevant) so making him inherently evil is a bit like turning him into a big, barky, dog.
Sigmund's comments which focus on 'it's all make beleive so none of it matters' is a bit odd in a forum where we talk about RPGs and world building and immersion and all that stuff. One wonders why someone with that world view would get emeshed in this thread at all.
For dragons I'm happy to use the standard "colour coded for your convenience" dragons in D&D, though if you wanted to invoke actual biology...psychopath may be the way to go. Vaguely remembering the "triune brain" of mammals theory, humans can be thought of as having basically a 3-part brain system: the reptilian chassis + a system that expands the emotional range and is responsible for mammal family behaviours + the cortex that deals with higher thought and imagination and so on.
So reptiles lack the brain sectors (the limbic system I think?) that generates mammalian emotions. A couple of feelings (e.g. "motor aggression", your basic fear) are in the earlier part of the brain, but functions like "empathy" or "love" aren't really possible.
(I have a lizard, and its never gotten used to being handled and/or given up on hiding when I'm nearby).
On the demons: I think a D&D demon *has* free will, but has actively chosen evil. The 2nd ed. lifecycle for these was: evil bastard dies, their soul goes to the Lower Planes and becomes a 'larva', those that aren't eaten immediately get promoted through the ranks, changing types periodically. Even a "baby" demon was a completely rotten CE bastard in life, and the more advanced ones will have clocked up aeons of time getting more set in their ways.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479054Morrow and I have had it out many times on the topic of his moral "theory", and it should be well known by now that his understanding of morality and psychology is ill-informed, ill-thought through, and serves mostly as an expression of his own parochial view of how people ought to act rather than something that deserves to be called a "theory".
"
Don't waste my time with telepathy. One of the most tremendously intellectually dishonest things people do around here on a consistent basis is pretend to read other people's minds."
Quote from: StormBringer;479065Oh, trust me, you and the other outrage addicts have 'whiny bitch' pretty much covered.
Keep flinging around "outrage" instead of actually addressing my posts. If you can quote actual posts of mine that contain "outrage"... true "outrage", rather than simply my opinion about the OP, then I will stand corrected. Otherwise, you reveal yourself for the pointless whiny bitch you are being. I don't like referring to you that way Storm, because up until now I've usually enjoyed and agreed with what you post. I haven't seen you do this before in a thread I've been involved in. See, whiny bitches complain about what other's in a thread are posting, ignoring the OP and the topic. If you need me to, I can point out where you are doing this. One example would be the post I've quoted above. Like I've said, this surprises me, because the one who used to appear in threads to threadcrap and insult everyone else participating used to be Seanchai, and I thought you hated that as much as everyone else around here, but here you are doing it. A topic was raised, we have all addressed this topic directly, expressing our opinions on the topic and why we hold those opinions. All you have done is come in here whining about how we're all wrong for even talking about this. You have no point here. You have no effective counter-argument. You're only here to troll, which really disappoints me.
What we're talking about in this thread is the quote Benny included in the OP, and in that quote the individual quoted talks about D&D contains racist ideas because orcs are metaphors for minorities. Are you telling me you support this conclusion, or are you just trying to tell us what we are and are not allowed to discuss on this forum? The latter is what Seanchai used to try to do, are you filling his shoes now?
Also, you do realize this thread has nothing to do with politics. I'm pretty left wing on most issues, but the bullshit espoused by this Dray feller has nothing to do with actual politics because orcs aren't real. They don't need defending.
I sincerely hope you can get your head out of your ass soon, I don't like the Storm I'm seeing in this thread. Perhaps you should go back to your Citadel if what we're talking about here disturbs you so much.
Quote from: StormBringer;479067I probably should have more carefully read this part of the thread, instead of catching the last few bits after I forgot I replied to Peregrin's post on the first page of a 6 page thread. Then I only would have had to post "Agreed" and save myself the time.
Are you kidding? I like Pseudo too, but that post is silly. You want outrage, there it is. He's grossly misrepresenting 90% of the posters who don't agree with him and belittling any opinion counter to his own. That's the worst way to argue a point, because he is leaving no room for being convinced. He's expressing his opinion as objective fact and discounting everyone else out of hand. I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't even read most of what's been said by folks.
Look, I agree it's a silly topic, but that doesn't mean we aren't allowed to discuss it, especially when folks like Pseudo seriously try to defend Dray's ridiculous bullshit.
If I thought for one minute that there was actually racism in D&D I'd be right beside Dray in condemning it, but the entire idea is ludicrous. It's an escapist fantasy game, with very little that based in reality. Even it's portrayal of Medieval society and technology is only loosely based on historical fact. It's a game, nothing more. That it can be used by folks with a more sinister agenda (like Dray himself it seems) is sad, but does not speak to the point of the game itself.
Quote from: Vmerc@;479079Rare is the day I pad my posts with words. Most I can usually summon for the task is straw.
Having turned down academic pursuits as a waste of time, I came to this site to rub shoulders with my betters and I see my luck holds. Though cudgeling a common intellect with your advanced tools of mind is, while fair in a universal sense, still cruel.
I dont question the motives of those with the rod. I'm only thankful when the beatings cease.
I suppose next you'll say he's puerile. Are you talking to him or me in this quote because I have yet to comprehend the term parochial. What small means I have are spent on whiskey. Despite what you have been told, dictionaries are a luxury of which I rarely think.
Brilliant. I like you :D
Quote from: jibbajibba;479097Sigmund's comments which focus on 'it's all make beleive so none of it matters' is a bit odd in a forum where we talk about RPGs and world building and immersion and all that stuff. One wonders why someone with that world view would get emeshed in this thread at all.
Because the OP's whole idea is silly. You're correct, I like games that contain the attempt to be taken seriously, and where the writer, or GM or both pay attention to the details. However, this Dray feller is not talking about playing these games, Dray is trying to tell us there's real world racism inherently contained in this imaginary game. He's presenting an argument that at the same time tries to convince us both that his argument is beyond reproach, and that anyone who tries is either racist themselves or ignorant. He's trying to convince us his view is the One True Way. When have we ever shied away from pointing out the folly in that line of argument on this forum?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479110Great, you're a bloviating cunt who doesn't even think his attempts at wit through, let alone anything more profound. Welcome to theRPGSite, you'll fit right in.
Brother, you sure do participate quite a bit for someone with such a low opinion of his fellow posters. Why are you here? do you need us to belittle in order to feel superior, or are you trying to educate us poor, ignorant souls in your infinite benevolence?
What is your stand on the OP again? You support his opinion on the inherent racism of D&D why? Or is this the "ignore the topic and just insult people" portion of the thread?
Quote from: jibbajibba;479097Also I totally mentioned killing dragons way back in the thread so don't dare say we didn't cover it :)
And your feeling about the Holmes Basic D&D expecting players to fight very young or young dragons between the ages of 1 and 15 and offering subdual, where "a dragon can be sold or forced to serve the character or characters who subdued it" (Should we add an endorsement of slavery to the sins of D&D?), as an alternative to killing them? And your feelings about Keep on the Borderlands being full of situations where the PCs are raiding the lair of intelligent humanoids where they will encounter humanoid females and their young?
As for the Judeo-Christian Devil, there are various interpretations of who or what he is, ranging from a servant of God to a dualist anti-God. I personally liked the take on Hell in the movie "Dark Angel: The Ascent" where the demons in Hell actually bowed down before God and weren't actually Evil. Punishing evil souls was simply their job. But is this really relevant to what Devils and Demons are in D&D (where, in 3.5 they have the word "Always" in front of their alignment) or how they are typically played in role-playing games?
Quote from: Imperator;479112But in style :D
I agree. That's the kind of troll I can appreciate.
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;479114For dragons I'm happy to use the standard "colour coded for your convenience" dragons in D&D, though if you wanted to invoke actual biology...psychopath may be the way to go. Vaguely remembering the "triune brain" of mammals theory, humans can be thought of as having basically a 3-part brain system: the reptilian chassis + a system that expands the emotional range and is responsible for mammal family behaviours + the cortex that deals with higher thought and imagination and so on.
So reptiles lack the brain sectors (the limbic system I think?) that generates mammalian emotions. A couple of feelings (e.g. "motor aggression", your basic fear) are in the earlier part of the brain, but functions like "empathy" or "love" aren't really possible.
(I have a lizard, and its never gotten used to being handled and/or given up on hiding when I'm nearby).
On the demons: I think a D&D demon *has* free will, but has actively chosen evil. The 2nd ed. lifecycle for these was: evil bastard dies, their soul goes to the Lower Planes and becomes a 'larva', those that aren't eaten immediately get promoted through the ranks, changing types periodically. Even a "baby" demon was a completely rotten CE bastard in life, and the more advanced ones will have clocked up aeons of time getting more set in their ways.
But the issue is, if we're to believe Dray's defenders, can the "evil" dragons be redeemed? Also, redeemable or not, does the fact they're imaginary reptiles mean that its ok to imaginarily kill their imaginary babies? Are they able to rear their young? Pseudo will want to know.
Quote from: jibbajibba;479097The idea that devils and demons are inherently evil is almost counter intuitive because the whole point of the judeo-christian 'Devil' is that he chose through his own free will to take an "evil path" (although reading the source material he does nothing actually evil just refused to obey without question, then pursuades Eve to disobey in order to gain knowledge, but now we are getting all gnostic and irrelevant) so making him inherently evil is a bit like turning him into a big, barky, dog.
.
I think the issue of evil and free will gets very complicated in real-world theology, but devils and demons are a fictionalized version of the myth (and some of the content is drawn from other traditions IMO) so I don't see any issue with just saying they are created evil (in fact in most games I've played demons and devils are just minions of evil gods anyways....so you don't have the same issue you have in Christianity where the devil started as an angel).
Quote from: Sigmund;478890Edit: Hell, maybe Sauron was influenced more by the Kaiser than the Fuehrer... that would make sense too.
See, that's the thing. When one sees evil in literature and gaming and supposes its sources, they are more or less making associations in their heads based upon their experiences. When someone who lived through 1918 sees evil, violence, and oppression, they associate it with a different figure than one who lived through 1939.
But there's the rub, really. I hold that by-and-large, when we put opposition in the game of this nature, we are doing it to put a face on evil.
Now, a big part of the draw of gaming is kicking butt. The opposition is evil so we feel justified in kicking it's butt, because evil is violent, dangerous, and threatening people who didn't threaten it first. That's pretty much what alignment is really about.
What this is not about is whether orcs are different. I don't slay orcs because they have green skin, pig snouts, live under the ground, listen to gangsta rap, or wear their pants halfway down their ass.
As a side note, I don't think of orcs as "irredeemable"*. I do think that a mass majority of orcs are, in fact, never going to change and diplomacy is probably only going to happen in unusual circumstances, and to try to convert orcs to the good side while they are ready to unleash violence on you is going to result in you getting dead.
The sad fact is, orcs really are a lot like humans in that if they are brought up to believe in violence and oppression, precious little is going to change it. In fact, think of Drizzt Do'urden, a character brought up in the ruling caste of a society that makes Stalinist Russia look egalitarian. I frankly have a hard time taking the Drizzt character seriously because I don't see why he would deviate from what he was taught prior to any exposure to other ways of life.
*- as a side note, in 3e, they aren't. They are "often" evil, meaning that nothing about the nature of the universe makes them evil, like demons or dragons.
Quote from: Blackhand;478925Nobody has pointed out during all this that orc "women and children" only exist if you want them to?
In fact, Warhammer got rid of such moral ambiguity a long time ago - orcs don't have women or children, and in fact spring up fully grown and ready to fight directly from the ground.
Kalamar orcs (or one variant of them) come about this way.
Quote from: Caesar Slaad;479131See, that's the thing. When one sees evil in literature and gaming and supposes its sources, they are more or less making associations in their heads based upon their experiences. When someone who lived through 1918 sees evil, violence, and oppression, they associate it with a different figure than one who lived through 1939.
But there's the rub, really. I hold that by-and-large, when we put opposition in the game of this nature, we are doing it to put a face on evil.
Now, a big part of the draw of gaming is kicking butt. The opposition is evil so we feel justified in kicking it's butt, because evil is violent, dangerous, and threatening people who didn't threaten it first. That's pretty much what alignment is really about.
What this is not about is whether orcs are different. I don't slay orcs because they have green skin, pig snouts, live under the ground, listen to gangsta rap, or wear their pants halfway down their ass.
As a side note, I don't think of orcs as "irredeemable"*. I do think that a mass majority of orcs are, in fact, never going to change and diplomacy is probably only going to happen in unusual circumstances, and to try to convert orcs to the good side while they are ready to unleash violence on you is going to result in you getting dead.
The sad fact is, orcs really are a lot like humans in that if they are brought up to believe in violence and oppression, precious little is going to change it. In fact, think of Drizzt Do'urden, a character brought up in the ruling caste of a society that makes Stalinist Russia look egalitarian. I frankly have a hard time taking the Drizzt character seriously because I don't see why he would deviate from what he was taught prior to any exposure to other ways of life.
*- as a side note, in 3e, they aren't. They are "often" evil, meaning that nothing about the nature of the universe makes them evil, like demons or dragons.
I agree with you. I'm playing a half-orc in Benny's Ptolus thread in fact, and he's certainly not evil. I simply find the whole idea of orcs having been intended to be metaphors for minorities and inherently racist to be ludicrous.
Quote from: Sigmund;479133I agree with you. I'm playing a half-orc in Benny's Ptolus thread in fact, and he's certainly not evil. I simply find the whole idea of orcs having been intended to be metaphors for minorities and inherently racist to be ludicrous.
Where half orcs are technically a minority: you're probaly the only one around in the game ;)
Quote from: Melan;479111Reality check: I think he is simply trolling.
Trolling is the distraction I indulge to fill the time waiting for someone to address the central fucking theme I posted several pages back, which must have slipped the rigors of the highminded critics of these lands. Want me to stop ramblin' - say something of fucking import. And even if your portrait is painted by the great impressionists themselves, feel free, please, to embellish your intellectual pursuits with vulgarity of the lowest type, so's that thugs such as myself can understand your fucking dialect.
Elsewise leave me to my bottle.
Quote from: Vmerc@;479021Here you have hit the core. As far as I can understand from the philosophy thrown in waves, the objection stems from the fact that orcs appear close enough to human to set certain minds spinning.
This is a component of the argument made up and clung to by certain of the posters, just like the idea that absolute good/evil in a campaign of that nature can serve no other purpose than to make large scale butchery and xp gain convenient. There is no wordcount capable of detaching the claws from these false attributions. Why they are brought in and clung to - I have no power to say.
Cosmological structures with absolute good/evil creatures exist in many forms and for many reasons. For many it is just a logical extension of the creation of their own universe by a god of absolute good combating a god of absolute evil. That there are angels or other beings at one end without free will, and demons at another end without free will, and pawns to serve them both who lack free will, is not inferior, or less rich, or puerile, or any of the other fierce adjectives that have been splashed about. Perhaps in a monotheistic cosmology, orcs and such creatures serve the same purpose as a Ha-Satan figure, to test the souls of men of good. The possibilities are myriad and I will not test your patience further with my paltry examples. The point is that such a cosmology is merely different and imputes no less complexity of design or social depth.
The fact is that there is potential, if anything, for more depth, since such a cosmology can also include a myriad of beings with free will who are redeemable, and therefore the designer gets both, where those who shun such a cosmology get only free willed beings and therefore have cosmologies with less variety, or texture, or whatever is the phrase of the day.
Now pity me, for I fear the assassins approach my door, but with my final breath let me say that I prefer neither type of cosmology nor do I value one as more enlightened than the other. They both have value and great potential. So let the arrows fly.
But if you prefer to continue dealing with the loose change of things, let me not be the one to condemn a man for trolling.
Quote from: boulet;479141Where half orcs are technically a minority: you're probaly the only one around in the game ;)
Lol, good point, although I'm actually not. skoflox is playing my brother, Runch. :D
Quote from: Vmerc@;479144Trolling is the distraction I indulge to fill the time waiting for someone to address the central fucking theme I posted several pages back, which must have slipped the rigors of the highminded critics of these lands. Want me to stop ramblin' - say something of fucking import. Elsewise leave me to my bottle.
Quote from: Vmerc@;479144Here you have hit the core. As far as I can understand from the philosophy thrown in waves, the objection stems from the fact that orcs appear close enough to human to set certain minds spinning.
This is a component of the argument made up and clung to by certain of the posters, just like the idea that absolute good/evil in a campaign of that nature can serve no other purpose than to make large scale butchery and xp gain convenient. There is no wordcount capable of detaching the claws from these false attributions. Why they are brought in and clung to - I have no power to say.
Cosmological structures with absolute good/evil creatures exist in many forms and for many reasons. For many it is just a logical extension of the creation of their own universe by a god of absolute good combating a god of absolute evil. That there are angels or other beings at one end without free will, and demons at another end without free will, and pawns to serve them both who lack free will, is not inferior, or less rich, or puerile, or any of the other fierce adjectives that have been splashed about. Perhaps in a monotheistic cosmology, orcs and such creatures serve the same purpose as a Ha-Satan figure, to test the souls of men of good. The possibilities are myriad and I will not test your patience further with my paltry examples. The point is that such a cosmology is merely different and imputes no less complexity of design or social depth.
The fact is that there is potential, if anything, for more depth, since such a cosmology can also include a myriad of beings with free will who are redeemable, and therefore the designer gets both, where those who shun such a cosmology get only free willed beings and therefore have cosmologies with less variety, or texture, or whatever is the phrase of the day.
Now pity me, for I fear the assassins approach my door, but with my final breath let me say that I prefer neither type of cosmology nor do I value one as more enlightened than the other. They both have value and great potential. So let the arrows fly.
I would be happy to address your point of view directly...
I agree.
Quote from: John Morrow;479125And your feeling about the Holmes Basic D&D expecting players to fight very young or young dragons between the ages of 1 and 15 and offering subdual, where "a dragon can be sold or forced to serve the character or characters who subdued it" (Should we add an endorsement of slavery to the sins of D&D?), as an alternative to killing them? And your feelings about Keep on the Borderlands being full of situations where the PCs are raiding the lair of intelligent humanoids where they will encounter humanoid females and their young?
As for the Judeo-Christian Devil, there are various interpretations of who or what he is, ranging from a servant of God to a dualist anti-God. I personally liked the take on Hell in the movie "Dark Angel: The Ascent" where the demons in Hell actually bowed down before God and weren't actually Evil. Punishing evil souls was simply their job. But is this really relevant to what Devils and Demons are in D&D (where, in 3.5 they have the word "Always" in front of their alignment) or how they are typically played in role-playing games?
Again I have no issues with PCs killing whatever they like. Shit I don't mind PCs killing litle human kids. What I mind is PCs killing innocent sentient beings and then treating that as a perfectly acceptable good act.
One of the problems with subduing dragons for example is that they have high to genius level intelligence but you are treating them like a labrador or a pony. So if your PCs are happy subduing hobbits, dwarves and humans I have no qualms with them subduing dragons. Just keep it consistent.
Devils and demons wise I want my hyper intelligent powerful Evil stuff to revel in their evil to sip at it like fine wine to dwell over the minutia of torture and suffering to make a hobby of it. Making them crude beings with no choice about their actions seems to detract from that.
My devils don't line up on the battle grid and use thse special powers or these or whatever, they are like my major NPCs they are woven into the plot they are part of the world. They will call a flag of truce, parley with the PCs see what they desire and then offer it to them at a price.
My demons lead armies of lesser cretures in invasions of the homes of the good folk, they steal little babies from their cribs and leave their gnawed bones for the PCs to fine.
Quote from: Sigmund;479145Lol, good point, although I'm actually not. skoflox is playing my brother, Runch. :D
So how are the half-orcs treated when they find themselves with civilised folks.
Typically in my games where orcs are percieved as evil incarnate (this is not the case in all my settings) there is vast racism at 1/2 breeds. Typically innkeepers won't serve you, they make you sleep in the barn, even they they are loathe incase you eat the horses. Guards always stop you and ask you questions, the wealthy refuse to acknowledge you etc etc.
When a guy in one of my games decided to play a 1/2 Ogre cos he loved the look of the fantastic combat stats he got a rude awakening when in the first town they visited he was arrested stripped and stuck in a cage at a carnival for kids to poke with sticks and folks to thrown rotten vegetables at, "penny a poke, see the monster roar, tuppence for a turnip, thruppence a cabbage, roll up, roll up."
Quote from: Sigmund;478999Cannibalism is a cultural thing for humans, but orcs aren't humans (or indeed anything at all outside of what I say they are, at least in my game anyway). Plus, since orcs and humans are not the same thing, would it even be cannibalism if orcs ate humans? Dude, this is all the same no matter what, because orcs aren't real. They are whatever we say they are in our games. I don't even have to build a cosmology to have that be true. All I have to do is say to my group, "In my game, orcs are human-eating monsters that are irredeemably evil" and that's what they are. It has nothing to do with cosmology or morality or any other -y because this is all imaginary. I don't need to construct some elaborate divine hypothesis or cultural speculation to make human eating orcs any more believable than dragons, fairies, elves, or wizards. What is it about orcs that makes them so immune to the same kinds of things you could do with completely home-brewed fantasy races or aliens or any number of other kinds of monsters/antagonists? Orc babies aren't actually babies any more real than lizard man babies or rot grub babies or harpy babies or dragon babies or slaad babies or rakshasa babies or ogre babies or any other kind of fantasy race babies. I'm saying my orcs are evil, human-eating, rotten souled killers that hate all other sentient races with a burning passion, love to watch other races suffer, and make fine cheese. I need no more explanation than that. This does not make me a racist or colonialist. There's nothing more I can say on the subject.
I'm not telling you you can't do it, or passing moral judgements on what you pretend to do. You can imagine all kinds of shit. Go ahead.
I'm just asking what imagining infanticide brings to the table that not imagining infanticide would not.
Quote from: Vmerc@;479021Here you have hit the core. As far as I can understand from the philosophy thrown in waves, the objection stems from the fact that orcs appear close enough to human to set certain minds spinning.
Or the difference between a dragon and an orc has something to do with diet. Namely, a dragon will eat fucking everything when it grows up, whether malicious or not.
As I've said, evil is not the only way to justify killing. Inherent danger works too. Giant scorpions don't care one way or another, probably aren't hurting you for the sheer joy of it, etc. But you still don't want fifty of them running around your village.
Quote from: jibbajibba;479097Totally agreeing with David R's comments.
Also I totally mentioned killing dragons way back in the thread so don't dare say we didn't cover it :)
I would say Dragons totally have free will and could decide to be good or evil. I think the study of dragons is really more about the corruption of absolute power than about inherent 'evilness'. I woudl put demons and devils int eh same category.
The idea that devils and demons are inherently evil is almost counter intuitive because the whole point of the judeo-christian 'Devil' is that he chose through his own free will to take an "evil path" (although reading the source material he does nothing actually evil just refused to obey without question, then pursuades Eve to disobey in order to gain knowledge, but now we are getting all gnostic and irrelevant) so making him inherently evil is a bit like turning him into a big, barky, dog.
Sigmund's comments which focus on 'it's all make beleive so none of it matters' is a bit odd in a forum where we talk about RPGs and world building and immersion and all that stuff. One wonders why someone with that world view would get emeshed in this thread at all.
I can see I'm not the only one who sees dragons as not inherently evil.
Personally, I see outsiders as sort of without free will. I don't pull my sources from judeo-christian stuff so much, and I see outsiders as made of the stuff of their planes. So demons are made of hellstuff, which is the origin of evil seeping into the world in the same way that elementals are made of fire and exist only to spread the flame everywhere possible.
They only serve free-willed gods for the same reason that gods can warp sympathetic planes around themselves.
Quote from: John MorrowAs for the Judeo-Christian Devil, there are various interpretations of who or what he is, ranging from a servant of God to a dualist anti-God. I personally liked the take on Hell in the movie "Dark Angel: The Ascent" where the demons in Hell actually bowed down before God and weren't actually Evil. Punishing evil souls was simply their job. But is this really relevant to what Devils and Demons are in D&D (where, in 3.5 they have the word "Always" in front of their alignment) or how they are typically played in role-playing games?
I've always kind of liked the idea of the Judeo-Christian devil as an appointed antagonist. Off topic, I know.
Quote from: jibbajibba;479154So how are the half-orcs treated when they find themselves with civilised folks.
Typically in my games where orcs are percieved as evil incarnate (this is not the case in all my settings) there is vast racism at 1/2 breeds. Typically innkeepers won't serve you, they make you sleep in the barn, even they they are loathe incase you eat the horses. Guards always stop you and ask you questions, the wealthy refuse to acknowledge you etc etc.
When a guy in one of my games decided to play a 1/2 Ogre cos he loved the look of the fantastic combat stats he got a rude awakening when in the first town they visited he was arrested stripped and stuck in a cage at a carnival for kids to poke with sticks and folks to thrown rotten vegetables at, "penny a poke, see the monster roar, tuppence for a turnip, thruppence a cabbage, roll up, roll up."
I had a player once that wanted to play the one good drow in a classic undefined D&D world. I gave him the same treatment you are talking about, and on the third game when a guard was telling him to fuck off, he decided he wasn't really chaotic good anymore and cut the guy's head off.
Quote from: Cranewings;479169I had a player once that wanted to play the one good drow in a classic undefined D&D world. I gave him the same treatment you are talking about, and on the third game when a guard was telling him to fuck off, he decided he wasn't really chaotic good anymore and cut the guy's head off.
Exactly and that is why Orcs and Drow are actually evil :)
Quote from: beejazz;479167As I've said, evil is not the only way to justify killing.
Quote...just like the idea that absolute good/evil in a campaign of that nature can serve no other purpose than to make large scale butchery and xp gain convenient. There is no wordcount capable of detaching their claws from these false attributions.
The cycle continues.
Quote from: Sigmund;479120Also, you do realize this thread has nothing to do with politics. I'm pretty left wing on most issues, but the bullshit espoused by this Dray feller has nothing to do with actual politics because orcs aren't real. They don't need defending.
I think he refers to Benoist's use of the term Team Left. Not sure I get the reference, though.
Quote from: Sigmund;479145Lol, good point, although I'm actually not. skoflox is playing my brother, Runch. :D
Couple of intellectuals, if there was ever one :D
Quote from: Vmerc@ said before:Here you have hit the core. As far as I can understand from the philosophy thrown in waves, the objection stems from the fact that orcs appear close enough to human to set certain minds spinning.
This is a component of the argument made up and clung to by certain of the posters, just like the idea that absolute good/evil in a campaign of that nature can serve no other purpose than to make large scale butchery and xp gain convenient. There is no wordcount capable of detaching the claws from these false attributions. Why they are brought in and clung to - I have no power to say.
Cosmological structures with absolute good/evil creatures exist in many forms and for many reasons. For many it is just a logical extension of the creation of their own universe by a god of absolute good combating a god of absolute evil. That there are angels or other beings at one end without free will, and demons at another end without free will, and pawns to serve them both who lack free will, is not inferior, or less rich, or puerile, or any of the other fierce adjectives that have been splashed about. Perhaps in a monotheistic cosmology, orcs and such creatures serve the same purpose as a Ha-Satan figure, to test the souls of men of good. The possibilities are myriad and I will not test your patience further with my paltry examples. The point is that such a cosmology is merely different and imputes no less complexity of design or social depth.
The fact is that there is potential, if anything, for more depth, since such a cosmology can also include a myriad of beings with free will who are redeemable, and therefore the designer gets both, where those who shun such a cosmology get only free willed beings and therefore have cosmologies with less variety, or texture, or whatever is the phrase of the day.
Now pity me, for I fear the assassins approach my door, but with my final breath let me say that I prefer neither type of cosmology nor do I value one as more enlightened than the other. They both have value and great potential. So let the arrows fly.
I agree with you onthat both cosmological visions have potential and value, but I tend to prefer avoiding absolutes because of practical reasons. Spels and effects like detect alignment provide for many many situations in which you can get wonky results, though some of John Morrow's ideas may improve that.
Quote from: jibbajibba;479154So how are the half-orcs treated when they find themselves with civilised folks.
Typically in my games where orcs are percieved as evil incarnate (this is not the case in all my settings) there is vast racism at 1/2 breeds. Typically innkeepers won't serve you, they make you sleep in the barn, even they they are loathe incase you eat the horses. Guards always stop you and ask you questions, the wealthy refuse to acknowledge you etc etc.
When a guy in one of my games decided to play a 1/2 Ogre cos he loved the look of the fantastic combat stats he got a rude awakening when in the first town they visited he was arrested stripped and stuck in a cage at a carnival for kids to poke with sticks and folks to thrown rotten vegetables at, "penny a poke, see the monster roar, tuppence for a turnip, thruppence a cabbage, roll up, roll up."
There is some stigma being RPed, but mostly because we (skofflox and I via our characters) are currently befriending an orc we encountered and the others just want to kill it. It's pretty fun, and I haven't seen so much as a shred of evidence pointing to actual real world racism on the part of anyone involved.
Quote from: beejazz;479167I'm not telling you you can't do it, or passing moral judgements on what you pretend to do. You can imagine all kinds of shit. Go ahead.
I'm just asking what imagining infanticide brings to the table that not imagining infanticide would not.
About as much as imagining my wizard dressed in white robes rather than a linen tunic and leather pants does.
QuoteOr the difference between a dragon and an orc has something to do with diet. Namely, a dragon will eat fucking everything when it grows up, whether malicious or not.
So will my orcs.
QuoteAs I've said, evil is not the only way to justify killing. Inherent danger works too. Giant scorpions don't care one way or another, probably aren't hurting you for the sheer joy of it, etc. But you still don't want fifty of them running around your village.
Of course, but none of this speaks to evil orcs being a manifestation of real world racism.
QuoteI can see I'm not the only one who sees dragons as not inherently evil.
Then why is it "ok" to imaginarily kill dragon babies, but not orc babies? Why does that bring more to the game?
Personally, I see outsiders as sort of without free will. I don't pull my sources from judeo-christian stuff so much, and I see outsiders as made of the stuff of their planes. So demons are made of hellstuff, which is the origin of evil seeping into the world in the same way that elementals are made of fire and exist only to spread the flame everywhere possible.
They only serve free-willed gods for the same reason that gods can warp sympathetic planes around themselves.
I've always kind of liked the idea of the Judeo-Christian devil as an appointed antagonist. Off topic, I know.[/QUOTE]
Indeed. I don't have much to say about demons and devils as they really are kinda outside the topic.
Quote from: Imperator;479175I think he refers to Benoist's use of the term Team Left. Not sure I get the reference, though.
I take "Team Left" to refer to the left wing, or liberal side, of American politics.
Quote from: Sigmund;479185I take "Team Left" to refer to the left wing, or liberal side, of American politics.
I assumed he was referring to left wing in the Canadian/British sense of the term.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;479189I assumed he was referring to left wing in the Canadian/British sense of the term.
What's their angle?
Quote from: Sigmund;479192What's their angle?
I don't really know to be honest. Not big into political discussions myself. I just always think of politics in the US being more conservative than in Canada or England. And I tend to think of the American left being more toward the center than the Canadian left.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;479195I don't really know to be honest. Not big into political discussions myself. I just always think of politics in the US being more conservative than in Canada or England. And I tend to think of the American left being more toward the center than the Canadian left.
The Left wing in Britain were basically Marxists until about 20 years ago when it was obvious that that wasn't going to win may elections.
Those guys still exist but much smaller.
The British generally think that you have one party politics over there as you have a big right of centre party with 2 wings to it.
But we digress and anyway I always think of Marxists as Inherrently Evil as it makes the process of chopping them to peices with my sword much more palatable. :)
Quote from: jibbajibba;479202The Left wing in Britain were basically Marxists until about 20 years ago when it was obvious that that wasn't going to win may elections.
Those guys still exist but much smaller.
The British generally think that you have one party politics over there as you have a big right of centre party with 2 wings to it.
But we digress and anyway I always think of Marxists as Inherrently Evil as it makes the process of chopping them to peices with my sword much more palatable. :)
So the left wing isn't much different between here and there then. At least the perceptions of them anyway.
Quote from: Sigmund;479204So the left wing isn't much different between here and there then. At least the perceptions of them anyway.
Well over here Obama Care would be decried as a destruction of the National Health service and the end of the Welfare state.
Over there its seen as the introduction of a Socialist Welfare State and the end to the ability for a man to choose his own destiny.
so pretty different. :)
Quote from: Vmerc@;479174The cycle continues.
Saying that the other guy's evil is not the only justification for bloodshed is not the same as saying that evil only exists in the game to justify bloodshed.
The positions aren't opposite, but they really have nothing to do with each other.
To clarify:
I did not say that the purpose of evil in game was only to justify killing evil things.
I did say that evil is not the only justification for killing things.
Quote from: SigmundAbout as much as imagining my wizard dressed in white robes rather than a linen tunic and leather pants does.
I get it. It's distasteful for me, and not for you. Stuff like that varies. I'm cool with that.
So your answer is that it doesn't actually matter, then? And that infanticide doesn't contribute anything but infanticide?
QuoteOf course, but none of this speaks to evil orcs being a manifestation of real world racism.
Of course not. Because orcs=minorities is a stupid concept. I dismissed it as such pages ago.
QuoteThen why is it "ok" to imaginarily kill dragon babies, but not orc babies? Why does that bring more to the game?
Honestly? This wouldn't come up at my table for about the same reason PCs don't shit in the dungeon. It's just plain not what I showed up to the game to do. I'm just not into the helpless baby-killing.
But off the top of my head, eggs aren't really sentient yet, and even young dragons are still potentially combat-ready.
QuoteIndeed. I don't have much to say about demons and devils as they really are kinda outside the topic.
The topic has kind of drifted to when "inherent evil" is really an okay distinction to use. Or rather, when we as GMs would be okay with using it (since there isn't really an objective answer on when it's okay to imagine a particular thing).
I am perfectly willing to admit that I am racist against everything that is not human. If another intelligent race developed on Earth, in the real world, I would lead the charge to hunt and kill them off down to every last woman and child. Because there can only be one dominant species on a planet.
We did the same thing to the Neanderthals. And good riddance.
As for "inherent evil"; don't believe in it. Don't even think it makes much sense, as a concept. Evil describes what a person does, it tells you nothing about who they are.
Rabid dogs aren't evil. They still need to be put down.
Quote from: TristramEvans;479221We did the same thing to the Neanderthals. And good riddance.
This question is a bit more debated than you put it here.
QuoteQuote from: jibbajibba;479154So how are the half-orcs treated when they find themselves with civilised folks.
*snip*.
We have been treated good for the most part. Perhaps the prevalent attitudes in Bens version of Ptolus are a bit more forgiving.
I think it helps that Runch is a cleric. Tudd has a high charisma so is able to charm folk by his...naivete and imposing strength?!
A NPC that recently joined the group is a bit more touchy. I've got my eye on him....he is showing some suspicion regarding Runch and Tudd and he is for killing my prisoner Erarht, a cowardly Orc captured in battle.
Some PC's in the party are for wasting the thing as well, others are "Meh".
It has been fun RPing the situation as it adds depth to the game and brings the NPC/PC's more to life.
QuoteQuote from: Imperator;479175*snip*
Couple of intellectuals, if there was ever one :D
*snip*.
Remember that next time you need healing (1/2) Elf boy...:D
Runch has a good Wis. though mediocre Int. Coupled with a low Cha. he is a bit socialy inept.
Tudd has the Cha. and Str...taken as a whole we are a formidable and friendly force!
QuoteQuote from: Sigmund;479181There is some stigma being RPed, but mostly because we (skofflox and I via our characters) are currently befriending an orc we encountered and the others just want to kill it. It's pretty fun, and I haven't seen so much as a shred of evidence pointing to actual real world racism on the part of anyone involved.
Yup!
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;479195I don't really know to be honest. Not big into political discussions myself. I just always think of politics in the US being more conservative than in Canada or England. And I tend to think of the American left being more toward the center than the Canadian left.
They're basically the same, but in Canada anyways, there aren't as many radicals...on either side. American politics has gotten to the point where the conservative and liberal parties are now defined by the radicals, whereas the majority of the populace, as in any civilization, tends more towards the middle.
I have heard it said that the Canadian Right Wing is pretty much comparable to the American Left.
Quote from: jibbajibba;479206Well over here Obama Care would be decried as a destruction of the National Health service and the end of the Welfare state.
Over there its seen as the introduction of a Socialist Welfare State and the end to the ability for a man to choose his own destiny.
so pretty different. :)
Now that the US has officially lost the status of an AAA first world nation, every AAA-rated country in the world now has national health care. I find that very amusing when I read the reactions to "Obama Care" from the Rightwing Americans.
Quote from: boulet;479227This question is a bit more debated than you put it here.
I didn't ask a question.
Quote from: Vmerc@;479079What small means I have are spent on whiskey. Despite what you have been told, dictionaries are a luxury of which I rarely think.
Dude, you're
online. You have access to hundreds of free dictionaries. Just google that shit.
Hey, only 295 posts to go now....:)
Quote from: skofflox;479229Remember that next time you need healing (1/2) Elf boy...:D
Dude, you know Gareth loves everyone :D
QuoteRunch has a good Wis. though mediocre Int. Coupled with a low Cha. he is a bit socialy inept.
Tudd has the Cha. and Str...taken as a whole we are a formidable and friendly force!
Indeed. man, I miss the game.
Quote from: beejazz;479214I get it. It's distasteful for me, and not for you. Stuff like that varies. I'm cool with that.
So your answer is that it doesn't actually matter, then? And that infanticide doesn't contribute anything but infanticide?
No imaginary infanticide of monster babies doesn't contribute anything but imaginary infanticide of monster babies.
QuoteOf course not. Because orcs=minorities is a stupid concept. I dismissed it as such pages ago.
That's kinds the topic though. It's what I've been addressing. What you seem to be referring to is personal preference, and in that case nobody is wrong.
QuoteHonestly? This wouldn't come up at my table for about the same reason PCs don't shit in the dungeon. It's just plain not what I showed up to the game to do. I'm just not into the helpless baby-killing.
I get what you're saying, but orc babies are not helpless in everyone's gameworld. It all depends on how you imagine them in your individual gameworld.
QuoteBut off the top of my head, eggs aren't really sentient yet, and even young dragons are still potentially combat-ready.
I'd guess most people imagine dragon babies to be potentially combat-ready, but not everyone. Actually, if I remember right, the protagonist of the movie Dragonslayer slaughtered some baby dragons that appeared pretty helpless to me, and I don't remember any moral fallout from that.
QuoteThe topic has kind of drifted to when "inherent evil" is really an okay distinction to use. Or rather, when we as GMs would be okay with using it (since there isn't really an objective answer on when it's okay to imagine a particular thing).
For some, it seems it has. That's not really what I am addressing though.
Quote from: Imperator;479238Dude, you know Gareth loves everyone :D
Indeed. man, I miss the game.
Flighty Elvish philosophies....:p
Yup...:(
Quote from: SigmundThat's kinds the topic though. It's what I've been addressing. What you seem to be referring to is personal preference, and in that case nobody is wrong.
There aren't objective right or wrong, but there are right and wrong tools for specific jobs. Bowser isn't an objectively crappy villain, but he'd be the wrong villain to plop into Watchmen.
Which is why I asked what killing helpless foes brings to the table. I tend not to add or nix things for their own sake, unless they are totally inconsequential, like the hair and eye color of every single NPC everywhere just isn't important to me. If I need to set it down it'll be as likely to be one thing as another.
QuoteI get what you're saying, but orc babies are not helpless in everyone's gameworld. It all depends on how you imagine them in your individual gameworld.
Non-helpless orcs are about the same as fungus orcs for the purpose of the argument though. The fungus orcs can be one year old or less. You kill them because they have killed and because they will kill you if you don't kill them.
Likewise non-sentient orcs would be fair game. Like wolves.
If they aren't helpless, harmless, and sentient, most of my problems with it go away.
But when they're helpless, harmless, and sentient, and you just kind of slap the "inherent evil" label on there without a specific reason... it looks like some special effort going in. Which makes it seem less inconsequential than what your wizard is wearing. From where I sit. Which is what prompts me to ask why.
QuoteI'd guess most people imagine dragon babies to be potentially combat-ready, but not everyone. Actually, if I remember right, the protagonist of the movie Dragonslayer slaughtered some baby dragons that appeared pretty helpless to me, and I don't remember any moral fallout from that.
I haven't seen dragonslayer. So I don't know if those were sentient dragons or not.
QuoteFor some, it seems it has. That's not really what I am addressing though.
So why respond to me as if I was the OP? I did not say most of the things you seem to be responding to. I didn't tell you (for example) that it was morally wrong to pretend a particular thing or that orcs were racist analogues.
So why quote me and respond as if I had said any of that?
Quote from: John Morrow;479119"Don't waste my time with telepathy. One of the most tremendously intellectually dishonest things people do around here on a consistent basis is pretend to read other people's minds."
I don't have to read your mind; you've said it in the past, you dishonest troll. You probably don't find it parochial and stupid, but it doesn't require telepathy to characterise your shitty, self-serving, ignorant worldview as such.
You also continue to utter statements that align with it, so I see no reason to believe that you've changed your mind.
Quote from: Sigmund;479121Are you kidding? I like Pseudo too, but that post is silly. You want outrage, there it is. He's grossly misrepresenting 90% of the posters who don't agree with him and belittling any opinion counter to his own. That's the worst way to argue a point, because he is leaving no room for being convinced. He's expressing his opinion as objective fact and discounting everyone else out of hand. I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't even read most of what's been said by folks.
I read everything. Most of the discussion on this thread is low-value echo-chamber bullshit, and the little that isn't that, isn't particularly insightful or valuable either.
QuoteLook, I agree it's a silly topic, but that doesn't mean we aren't allowed to discuss it, especially when folks like Pseudo seriously try to defend Dray's ridiculous bullshit.
If I thought for one minute that there was actually racism in D&D I'd be right beside Dray in condemning it, but the entire idea is ludicrous. It's an escapist fantasy game, with very little that based in reality. Even it's portrayal of Medieval society and technology is only loosely based on historical fact. It's a game, nothing more. That it can be used by folks with a more sinister agenda (like Dray himself it seems) is sad, but does not speak to the point of the game itself.
Mate, you're a nice guy and a chum and everything, but if you think I'm arguing Adam Dray's position that killing orcs is racist, you're losing track of what I've actually said.
Quote from: beejazz;479247There aren't objective right or wrong, but there are right and wrong tools for specific jobs. Bowser isn't an objectively crappy villain, but he'd be the wrong villain to plop into Watchmen.
True, unless that's the kinda Watchmen the individual wants. Hell, might be amusing :)
QuoteWhich is why I asked what killing helpless foes brings to the table. I tend not to add or nix things for their own sake, unless they are totally inconsequential, like the hair and eye color of every single NPC everywhere just isn't important to me. If I need to set it down it'll be as likely to be one thing as another.
It could be nothing, as there are no helpless foes, only imaginary foes. However, if one were to want to introduce a wrinkle such as imagined morality into the game, then this would serve to help in that regard. It all depends on the goals of the players.
QuoteNon-helpless orcs are about the same as fungus orcs for the purpose of the argument though. The fungus orcs can be one year old or less. You kill them because they have killed and because they will kill you if you don't kill them.
Ok.
QuoteLikewise non-sentient orcs would be fair game. Like wolves.
If they aren't helpless, harmless, and sentient, most of my problems with it go away.
Ok, your preferences are your preferences, I gotcha. As long a you're not saying they're objective there's not much I can respond to there anymore.
QuoteBut when they're helpless, harmless, and sentient, and you just kind of slap the "inherent evil" label on there without a specific reason... it looks like some special effort going in. Which makes it seem less inconsequential than what your wizard is wearing. From where I sit. Which is what prompts me to ask why.
Not from where I sit, because none of this is real, and I don't look to RPGs for my lessons on morality.
QuoteI haven't seen dragonslayer. So I don't know if those were sentient dragons or not.
My first reaction here was to ask why sentience makes a difference, but honestly, I don't care. You are certainly entitled to your opinions on this, and as long as we're clear they are just personal preferences, I don't really have much to say about this either.
QuoteSo why respond to me as if I was the OP? I did not say most of the things you seem to be responding to. I didn't tell you (for example) that it was morally wrong to pretend a particular thing or that orcs were racist analogues.
So why quote me and respond as if I had said any of that?
Because I'm still talking about the actual topic of the thread. If you are not, that's not my problem. You seemed to be, but if you actually weren't, then I will stop discussing this with you. What I was getting out of your insistence, basically, that labeling things as "inherently evil" sucks, is that you find it to be a morally wrong. I am freely willing to admit that I am mistaken in getting that out of your posts if that's not what you meant, I was just thinking that you were still attempting to be on-topic. I have no interest in discussing whether "irredeemable evil" or imaginary morality has any worth at his time. You might try starting another thread if that's where you want to go... just a suggestion. At the very least we got to learn about some of each other's game preferences anyway.
Quote from: Sigmund;479124Brother, you sure do participate quite a bit for someone with such a low opinion of his fellow posters. Why are you here? do you need us to belittle in order to feel superior, or are you trying to educate us poor, ignorant souls in your infinite benevolence?
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".
Or in this case "All that is required for idiots to run rampant is for no one to mock and despise them publicly".
QuoteWhat is your stand on the OP again? You support his opinion on the inherent racism of D&D why? Or is this the "ignore the topic and just insult people" portion of the thread?
You're getting angry and not paying attention to the actual comments I've made in this thread. Go do something else, come back when you're not pissed off, read the thread, and pay attention to what I've written.
Quote from: TristramEvans;479234Dude, you're online. You have access to hundreds of free dictionaries. Just google that shit.
He's trolling, not very well. So far he's a solid 4/10.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479253"All that is required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".
Or in this case "All that is required for idiots to run rampant is for no one to mock and despise them publicly".
Really? I normally try to respond to posts in order, but this was a bit too much. Really? You don't honestly think you're over-reacting to the gravity of this shit here?
QuoteYou're getting angry and not paying attention to the actual comments I've made in this thread. Go do something else, come back when you're not pissed off, read the thread, and pay attention to what I've written.
I'm really not angry. Kinda disappointed, and not even that very strongly. It is always possible, however, that I have missed something as I am only human. I will get back to you then, because it sure seems to me like you've been supporting Dray's position to me. That is what this thread is about after all, isn't it? First beejazz and now you are saying you aren't actually talking about the thread topic in this thread? Has the topic of the thread changed when I wasn't looking or something? It has the same title.... I'll check when I get home from work.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479251I read everything. Most of the discussion on this thread is low-value echo-chamber bullshit, and the little that isn't that, isn't particularly insightful or valuable either.
Does it always need to be? We're talking about fantasy roleplaying games here. What about that is high-minded or serious in any way? In fact, that's the whole point, at least from my perspective. This Dray feller is taking this shit WAY too seriously.
QuoteMate, you're a nice guy and a chum and everything, but if you think I'm arguing Adam Dray's position that killing orcs is racist, you're losing track of what I've actually said.
I really do think that, so as I said in my previous response to you, perhaps I have lost track. I'm always willing to admit when I'm wrong. Once again, I'll check when I get home.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479255He's trolling, not very well. So far he's a solid 4/10.
I don't agree, I'd give him at least an 8 just for the creative writing. I'm not the biggest fan of trolling, but if I'm being entertained I'll say so :) He might end up being as good as Aos even. It helps that we're on "the same side". :D
Quote from: beejazz;479214To clarify:
I did not say that the purpose of evil in game was only to justify killing evil things.
I did say that evil is not the only justification for killing things.
Appears I have fucked up once again.
So then you would agree that
Cosmology A with no absolute alignment system
is in no way intrisically superior or inferior to
Cosmology B with an absolute alignment system and irredeemable beings - as well as redeemable, free-willed creatures.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479255He's trolling, not very well. So far he's a solid 4/10.
Right. And you're not. Address my point or join me at the bar of irrelevance. Just dont ask me to sip wine from a thin-rimmed glass.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479253"All that is required for idiots to run rampant is for no one to mock and despise them publicly".
That's the original point of this thread, to mock publicly the idiotic views of Adam Dray expressed in that post.
Quote from: CRKrueger;479265That's the original point of this thread, to mock publicly the idiotic views of Adam Dray expressed in that post.
Hang Dai, fuckin CRK.
Quote from: CRKrueger;479265That's the original point of this thread, to mock publicly the idiotic views of Adam Dray expressed in that post.
Protip: This thread drifted rapidly into other territory.
Quote from: Vmerc@;479260Appears I have fucked up once again.
So then you would agree that
Cosmology A with no absolute alignment system
is in no way intrisically superior or inferior to
Cosmology B with an absolute alignment system and irredeemable beings - as well as redeemable, free-willed creatures.
I do not. Alignment is a really terrible system, one of the great failures of an otherwise interesting and often well-constructed system IMHO. Even saying something like "the Medieval Christian ethos is actually correct" (as vacuous as that is) is better.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479269I do not. Alignment is a really terrible system, one of the great failures of an otherwise interesting and often well-constructed system IMHO. Even saying something like "the Medieval Christian ethos is actually correct" (as vacuous as that is) is better.
Now that is a statement I can fucking respect. Not agree with, but respect.
Now if you'll excuse me I must get back to my trolling and let you get back to dispensing protips to the hoi polloi. (Appears I did find that dictionary after all)
Quote from: Vmerc@;479271Now that is a statement I can fucking respect. Not agree with, but respect.
Alignment does not function well as a rule because it neither constrains nor incentivises PC behaviour. The culture of play around it is to reduce its importance even further than in the core rules, when it simply isn't disregarded out of hand (as I tend to - I let PCs pick alignments because my PCs like to pick alignments, not because I care what their alignments are). That's a sign that a rule is not functioning properly, or usefully.
If you want to make alignment work (as a rule to incentivise and constrain behaviour, not as a coherent system of morality) here's how you do it:
Good characters get 25XP every time they act in line with the Cardinal Virtues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues or the Theological Virtues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_virtues
Evil characters get 25XP every time they do something bad enough that another person objects IC or OOC.
Neither one loses XP for doing an act of the other type, they just are not rewarded for doing so.
I handle it differently in my games, of course, because I do not believe in a binary moral system. So the god Huitzilopotchli, who the PCs are carrying around in a crystal skull in my Emern game at the moment, will give whoever cuts the hearts of Huitzilopotchli's foes out and feeds them into the mouth of his skull-totem 25XP for doing so. He is rewarding his clients & paying his debts. So far, it's led to a half-dozen hearts being sliced out.
As GM I never incentivize behavior nor punish it, and I've about as much use for an alignment system as I do for a history text, as you've so cunningly ferreted out, but that system seems like it would work as well as any I could ever hope to devise.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479273I handle it differently in my games, of course, because I do not believe in a binary moral system. So the god Huitzilopotchli, who the PCs are carrying around in a crystal skull in my Emern game at the moment, will give whoever cuts the hearts of Huitzilopotchli's foes out and feeds them into the mouth of his skull-totem 25XP for doing so. He is rewarding his clients & paying his debts. So far, it's led to a half-dozen hearts being sliced out.
Fuck. That's sick.
I'm using it in my next game.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479269Protip: This thread drifted rapidly into other territory.
Protip: That will happen anytime you and Morrow are in the same thread.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479269Alignment is a really terrible system, one of the great failures of an otherwise interesting and often well-constructed system IMHO. Even saying something like "the Medieval Christian ethos is actually correct" (as vacuous as that is) is better.
Yeah, wasn't really implemented well (spells of detection, bonus against "evil" etc..) and carried with it too many problems.
Quote from: Cranewings;479275Fuck. That's sick.
I'm using it in my next game.
It's worth pointing out that Huitzilopotchli doesn't threaten them with anything for not doing it, nor does he always reward them for doing it. He mentions it just often enough that they keep on doing it.
Quote from: CRKrueger;479279Protip: That will happen anytime you and Morrow are in the same thread.
Morrow and I are occasionally capable of getting along. I've said before that I don't think he's stupid, which makes it all the more frustrating when he simply can't see how some thing he's saying is so utterly shitty and stupid.
QuoteYeah, wasn't really implemented well (spells of detection, bonus against "evil" etc..) and carried with it too many problems.
I treat "Detect Evil" as the ability to detect Negative Energy in the D&D sense of that term, and "Detect Good" as detect Positive Energy, though those are both amoral forces in my world. People call the healing energy "good" and the death energy "bad" through an obvious chain of reasoning.
Quote from: Vmerc@;479274As GM I never incentivize behavior nor punish it
So long as you're handing out gold and XP and other accomplishments for doing things and not for doing other things, you're encouraging and discouraging certain kinds of behaviour. Best way to handle it is to embed it in the world. So it's not the DM just handing out magic candy, but authority figures, or allies, or whatever in the world.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479272Alignment does not function well as a rule because it neither constrains nor incentivises PC behaviour. The culture of play around it is to reduce its importance even further than in the core rules, when it simply isn't disregarded out of hand (as I tend to - I let PCs pick alignments because my PCs like to pick alignments, not because I care what their alignments are). That's a sign that a rule is not functioning properly, or usefully.
If you want to make alignment work (as a rule to incentivise and constrain behaviour, not as a coherent system of morality) here's how you do it:
Good characters get 25XP every time they act in line with the Cardinal Virtues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues or the Theological Virtues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_virtues
Evil characters get 25XP every time they do something bad enough that another person objects IC or OOC.
Neither one loses XP for doing an act of the other type, they just are not rewarded for doing so.
I tend to ignore alignment in D&D and focus more on individual actions (if it is the kind of campaign where cosmic good and evil matter).
The powers checks system from Ravenloft is another way to impact PC behavior. The thing I like about it is it actually lays out each action specifically and assigns a rough percentage chance of the dark powers taking notice. There are still a few on the list that require the subjective ruling of the GM (was the PC aware he desecrated a holy object or did he do it out of ignorance?) others are pretty cut and dry (Routine Torture, Major Betrayal).
I think this is why I keep reading this thread. For every thirty pages of stupid, someone manages a new post that gives me ideas for my current project.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479284Best way to handle it is to embed it in the world. So it's not the DM just handing out magic candy
You seem to be the resident expert on the best way of things. I'll simply agree that you know best, stoop to one knee, and present my back, the more easily for you to mount your griffon.
Quote from: TristramEvans;479221I am perfectly willing to admit that I am racist against everything that is not human. If another intelligent race developed on Earth, in the real world, I would lead the charge to hunt and kill them off down to every last woman and child. Because there can only be one dominant species on a planet.
We did the same thing to the Neanderthals. And good riddance.
Actually, there's no evidence whatsoever that we did that. The Neanderthals seem to have done themselves in, as best as we can tell right now, due to a poorer ability to adapt to changes in their environment.
RPGPundit
Well, I was going to do as I said and look back at the thread to see why I apparently am the only one still addressing the topic, but honestly, by the time I got home I realized I don't give a fuck. I also haven't given two shits about alignment in D&D for awhile now, so I suppose I don't have much more to contribute. I've certainly made my opinion about the OP clear, and I've seen absolutely nothing to convince me to even consider changing my mind. Enjoy the alignment-bashing.
Quote from: RPGPundit;479292Actually, there's no evidence whatsoever that we did that. The Neanderthals seem to have done themselves in, as best as we can tell right now, due to a poorer ability to adapt to changes in their environment.
RPGPundit
And a bit of Neanderthal survives through us. Some of their genes contributed to our immunity system and it gave us an edge as we spread into territories they were well adapted to. But these genes seem to be linked to auto-immune diseases (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/aug/25/neanderthal-denisovan-genes-human-immunity) too.
Quote from: Sigmund;479121Are you kidding? I like Pseudo too, but that post is silly. You want outrage, there it is. He's grossly misrepresenting 90% of the posters who don't agree with him and belittling any opinion counter to his own. That's the worst way to argue a point, because he is leaving no room for being convinced. He's expressing his opinion as objective fact and discounting everyone else out of hand. I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't even read most of what's been said by folks.
Possibly, but it is a more succinct version of what I have been getting at.
QuoteLook, I agree it's a silly topic, but that doesn't mean we aren't allowed to discuss it, especially when folks like Pseudo seriously try to defend Dray's ridiculous bullshit.
I am not complaining about the matter being discussed, just the manner in which it is discussed. 700 posts later, and the general idea still seems to be "How
dare he comment on my preference in gaming!" on a site that regularly discusses various preferences in gaming. And the entire first part of the thread was full of posts where people seemed to be shocked (shocked, I tell you!) at the
very notion that wiping out hundreds of
was akin to genocide.
Is that taking things a bit far? Sure. Is the act of association itself completely invalid? No, of course not. You can say it's wrong, it's brilliant, the guy is a cocksmock or a genius. Or, you can ignore it.
Consider this, however: The OP is almost a textbook example of an op-ed piece. The first part is laying out the problem as the author sees it. The second part is the author's solution to the problem they just described. If you read the first part, generally you agree with the assessment of the problem, and are ready to read about their solution. If you don't agree with the first part, you clearly aren't going to agree with the second part. That's how they are written.
QuoteIf I thought for one minute that there was actually racism in D&D I'd be right beside Dray in condemning it, but the entire idea is ludicrous. It's an escapist fantasy game, with very little that based in reality. Even it's portrayal of Medieval society and technology is only loosely based on historical fact. It's a game, nothing more. That it can be used by folks with a more sinister agenda (like Dray himself it seems) is sad, but does not speak to the point of the game itself.
Absolutely, but it doesn't read like he is saying there is racism in the game. He's saying there is racism in a particular style of play. As he sees it.
As in my previous post, in a long term campaign I would find endless kill-them-and-take-their-stuff dungeon crawls tedious. But I don't think it is unreasonable to make the connection he did, just over the top. And it reveals a far, far more interesting discussion; namely regarding the nature of 'evil' (and 'good' for that matter). But again, if these are not topics of interest, then they can be safely ignored.
Which still doesn't mean you are forbidden to say the guy is a complete douchenozzle, if you are so inclined. I just found the ridiculous arguments and hue and cry more than a bit silly. Especially, as I have mentioned, while there were far more interesting topics to discuss from the post.
Quote from: StormBringer;479300Possibly, but it is a more succinct version of what I have been getting at.
I am not complaining about the matter being discussed, just the manner in which it is discussed. 700 posts later, and the general idea still seems to be "How dare he comment on my preference in gaming!" on a site that regularly discusses various preferences in gaming. And the entire first part of the thread was full of posts where people seemed to be shocked (shocked, I tell you!) at the very notion that wiping out hundreds of was akin to genocide.
Is that taking things a bit far? Sure. Is the act of association itself completely invalid? No, of course not. You can say it's wrong, it's brilliant, the guy is a cocksmock or a genius. Or, you can ignore it.
Consider this, however: The OP is almost a textbook example of an op-ed piece. The first part is laying out the problem as the author sees it. The second part is the author's solution to the problem they just described. If you read the first part, generally you agree with the assessment of the problem, and are ready to read about their solution. If you don't agree with the first part, you clearly aren't going to agree with the second part. That's how they are written.
Absolutely, but it doesn't read like he is saying there is racism in the game. He's saying there is racism in a particular style of play. As he sees it.
As in my previous post, in a long term campaign I would find endless kill-them-and-take-their-stuff dungeon crawls tedious. But I don't think it is unreasonable to make the connection he did, just over the top. And it reveals a far, far more interesting discussion; namely regarding the nature of 'evil' (and 'good' for that matter). But again, if these are not topics of interest, then they can be safely ignored.
Which still doesn't mean you are forbidden to say the guy is a complete douchenozzle, if you are so inclined. I just found the ridiculous arguments and hue and cry more than a bit silly. Especially, as I have mentioned, while there were far more interesting topics to discuss from the post.
The way I read it, he's saying D&D by design is racist. That's what I object to. In the end though, you are right and it really doesn't matter. I have fun with the folks I game with and what Dray thinks is irrelevant. Hey, the upside is we got to swear at each other. I love having opportunities to insult folks that I know aren't gonna take it so personally :D Still, stop channeling Seanchai, you're giving me nightmares ;)
Quote from: RPGPundit;479292Actually, there's no evidence whatsoever that we did that. The Neanderthals seem to have done themselves in, as best as we can tell right now, due to a poorer ability to adapt to changes in their environment.
RPGPundit
I did not know that, and it's interesting. I was actually just going for hyperbolic sarcasm.
Quote from: boulet;479299And a bit of Neanderthal survives through us. Some of their genes contributed to our immunity system and it gave us an edge as we spread into territories they were well adapted to. But these genes seem to be linked to auto-immune diseases (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/aug/25/neanderthal-denisovan-genes-human-immunity) too.
That, also, is interesting.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;479286I tend to ignore alignment in D&D and focus more on individual actions (if it is the kind of campaign where cosmic good and evil matter).
The powers checks system from Ravenloft is another way to impact PC behavior. The thing I like about it is it actually lays out each action specifically and assigns a rough percentage chance of the dark powers taking notice. There are still a few on the list that require the subjective ruling of the GM (was the PC aware he desecrated a holy object or did he do it out of ignorance?) others are pretty cut and dry (Routine Torture, Major Betrayal).
IMO individual actions is how alignment was always meant to work anyway, at least for PCs. The player would play the character any way they want, but certain actions would result in alignment drift. Drift too far and you're getting a new team jersey. The divine and semi-divine (which includes infernal) work differently, being embodiments of certain ideas/ideals. Gah.... I wasn't supposed to care about this topic :D Well, I am human after all:)
Quote from: boulet;479299And a bit of Neanderthal survives through us. Some of their genes contributed to our immunity system and it gave us an edge as we spread into territories they were well adapted to. But these genes seem to be linked to auto-immune diseases (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/aug/25/neanderthal-denisovan-genes-human-immunity) too.
That
is interesting. I love science.
Quote from: boulet;479299And a bit of Neanderthal survives through us. Some of their genes contributed to our immunity system and it gave us an edge as we spread into territories they were well adapted to. But these genes seem to be linked to auto-immune diseases (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/aug/25/neanderthal-denisovan-genes-human-immunity) too.
Well at least now I know which dead people to blame.
Quote from: Peregrin;479315Well at least now I know which dead people to blame.
Ya know what I think is cool? Every one of our ancestors all the way back through time survived long enough to contribute to our existence. I don't blame them for much, cuz without them I wouldn't be here :)
Quote from: Sigmund;479316Ya know what I think is cool? Every one of our ancestors all the way back through time survived long enough to contribute to our existence. I don't blame them for much, cuz without them I wouldn't be here :)
That's true. And diseases like the one I have are relatively rare, so in the long-run it's a net-gain (cue doctors talking about the rise of autoimmune diseases in industrialized nations, blah blah).
My post was just really dry humor.
Anyway, I'm not sure you can get more off-topic than autoimmune diseases, so, yeah. :)
Quote from: Sigmund;479309The way I read it, he's saying D&D by design is racist. That's what I object to. In the end though, you are right and it really doesn't matter. I have fun with the folks I game with and what Dray thinks is irrelevant. Hey, the upside is we got to swear at each other. I love having opportunities to insult folks that I know aren't gonna take it so personally :D Still, stop channeling Seanchai, you're giving me nightmares ;)
Agreed, on all points! :)
Drop me a note next time I am possessed, I will sever the connection or get an exorcism or something before it becomes public. :D
Quote from: boulet;479299And a bit of Neanderthal survives through us. Some of their genes contributed to our immunity system and it gave us an edge as we spread into territories they were well adapted to. But these genes seem to be linked to auto-immune diseases (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/aug/25/neanderthal-denisovan-genes-human-immunity) too.
Hmmm.....This gives me an idea....
Human + Elf = Half-Elf
Human + Orc = Half-Orc
Elf + Orc = Human
Psuedoephedrine's settings are some of the most interesting around. I'm including them with published "professional" settings. I reckon' it's because it's informed by what he has read. Kadish went down pretty well with my crew, a classic (for us) ending, with the last surviving PC realizing too late that the prized box of treausre they had schemed and fought over from the beginning of the campaign was actually an IED, switched by another PC he had just perished. What would you expect from a campaign titled, Land Without Pity.
And Stormbringer, next time brother, don't do the interpreting for dodgy open-ed pieces but rather formulate a post of themes which you think are interesting from the piece. I see hints of an extremely interesting discussion about the nature of good and evil in a setting's context and how this reflects on playstyle in your replies....something you and I have gone a few rounds on before.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Sigmund;479313IMO individual actions is how alignment was always meant to work anyway, at least for PCs. The player would play the character any way they want, but certain actions would result in alignment drift. Drift too far and you're getting a new team jersey. The divine and semi-divine (which includes infernal) work differently, being embodiments of certain ideas/ideals. Gah.... I wasn't supposed to care about this topic :D Well, I am human after all:)
I suppose what I meant was I don't worry about what a character's alignment says on his sheet and I don't pay too much attention to the distinction between LG, CG, etc. For my purposes I rarely need to worry about alignment at all. The only time it comes up is when I run something like Ravenloft where evil and good actions have some kind of significant consequence.
This can be a bit harder to do though if you are using 3E, where alignment comes into play mechanically alot (with some weapons being keyed to specific alignments for example). When I used to run 3E, I just used the alignment system (but with a great amount of leniency) so I didn't have to worry about that stuff when it arose.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479250I don't have to read your mind; you've said it in the past, you dishonest troll. You probably don't find it parochial and stupid, but it doesn't require telepathy to characterise your shitty, self-serving, ignorant worldview as such.
You weren't characterizing my worldview. You were speculating on why I hold it, practicing the same sort of "telepathy" you can't tolerate other people directing at you. Hypocrisy or is this the typical elitist attitude that the rules that you apply to others don't apply to you?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479250You also continue to utter statements that align with it, so I see no reason to believe that you've changed your mind.
I continue to provide the sources for the information informing my opinions. Perhaps if you want to change my mind, you should explain what's wrong with it or why it's not applicable. At the very least, tell me why I should believe that spending years of my time studying philosophers who have spent centuries speculating about how humans make moral decisions and how morality should work yet have never produced any sort of consensus agreement about it will give me a more informed and accurate understanding of how humans make moral decisions than looking at the research of scientists who are performing brain scans and other tests on people making moral decisions to see how human brains actually make moral decisions.
I ask this especially in light of the fact that more than one of those brain scan studies report that the self-reported explanation for those decisions varies significantly from what the brain scans show happening, both in terms of sequence and influence, to the point that some researchers argue that people subconsciously make decisions first and then rationalize them after the fact. I also ask this in light of the game theorists who also try to identify optimal human decisions but who are frequently surprised that real human choices bear little resemblance to the choices they believe people should make and can't understand why the two differ.
Contrary to apparently popular opinion here, mean girl ridicule doesn't change minds. Yeah, it makes the choir that already agrees with you shout "Hallelujah!" and it can feel great to finally be the bully after years of being abused in high school hallways for being a D&D geek, especially since nobody is going to reach through the screen and slap you silly, but it really doesn't change minds, except perhaps the weakest minds looking for approval from the mean girls to be part of the in crowd. And, ultimately, it leaves people here looking no better than the denizens of Tangency, who are only slightly more subtle at bullying those whose opinions they don't like.
The way you get rid of ignorance is to educate, the way you deal with inaccurate ideas to to take the effort to prove them wrong, and the way you get people to pay attention to what you say is to say something useful. You can find evidence of all of that at play in this thread.
Quote from: David R;479328Psuedoephedrine's settings are some of the most interesting around. I'm including them with published "professional" settings. I reckon' it's because it's informed by what he has read.
It's the impression one gets from his own posts. The man draws upon an encyclopedic knowledge of historical, cultural, and linguistic sources. Philosophy also. It's like standing next to the light.
And more impressive to people on my side of the tracks...he can sling vulgarity with the fucking best of us.
Quote from: John Morrow;479336You weren't characterizing my worldview. You were speculating on why I hold it, practicing the same sort of "telepathy" you can't tolerate other people directing at you. Hypocrisy or is this the typical elitist attitude that the rules that you apply to others don't apply to you?
Last night my PCs fought an obsidian space ooze that flailed around less than you are right now, Morrow.
Your post is just demanding things that we've already covered. Your "sources" are ones that it has been shown time and time again, on thread after thread, that you don't actually read. I know this because back when I took what you said seriously, I used to go and read them, and they would almost always mean something radically different than your summary claimed.
You should learn more so that you don't look like a fool when you ramble about it others. I've already wasted enough time taking you seriously and explaining the problems with your asinine beliefs. Unless you're going to start paying me tutor fees, I'm giving you exactly what you deserve: contempt, derision and ridicule. You may not like that, and I won't claim to be a saint, but it's not like this is the first time, and it probably won't be the last. Don't pretend we haven't talked out this shit at great length several times before now.
Quote from: David R;479328Psuedoephedrine's settings are some of the most interesting around. I'm including them with published "professional" settings. I reckon' it's because it's informed by what he has read. Kadish went down pretty well with my crew, a classic (for us) ending, with the last surviving PC realizing too late that the prized box of treausre they had schemed and fought over from the beginning of the campaign was actually an IED, switched by another PC he had just perished. What would you expect from a campaign titled, Land Without Pity.
I am incredibly eager to hear about how the campaign went, and equally glad that you have returned after a long self-imposed exile.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479284So long as you're handing out gold and XP and other accomplishments for doing things and not for doing other things, you're encouraging and discouraging certain kinds of behaviour. Best way to handle it is to embed it in the world. So it's not the DM just handing out magic candy, but authority figures, or allies, or whatever in the world.
Honestly, what my character does or doesn't do is generally not based on gold or XP.
With the notable exception of my D&D campaign (because the players asked for RAW experience points awards as part of the D&D experience), my group normally handed out a standard amount of experience points that vary from session to session, if it varies at all, based on how long and complex the session was, not based on what the players accomplished or didn't accomplish in the game. What the people I've role-played with do (with one notable exception) is simply role-play their characters as if they were real people in their setting. As such, they make all sorts of non-optimal decisions because doing so is what the character would do, regardless of what the mechanics encourage or discourage.
I've had a character die feeding an addiction to magical energy in a game with no mechanics for addiction and no reward for it. Another player in that game played a character with a split-personality, again, with no mechanics to support it. The same game also had Fudge points but the players rarely used them because the players were too busy just playing their characters.
I've had a character experience paranoia as the result of a telepathic rewrite of the character's memory without any mechanics telling me that should happen. Heck, I didn't even understand why the character was paranoid until I gave it some thought out of the game. I simply role-played through it thinking in character and that's how it played out.
In the D&D 3.5 campaign that I played in, my character was Fighter who rarely fought and I basically took my character out of the campaign before I had a chance to ever use the feat cluster I'd been building toward because that's what made sense in character (he essentially betrayed his friends to save them, which is one of the reasons why I have trouble equating betrayal with evil, even though the character would argue that his betrayal was worthy of execution).
I don't need a reward or punishment to make me want to role-play my character in character. It's the whole reason I'm there. It's like offering to pay me to watch a movie I already want to see or eat a food I already want to eat. It's like getting coupons for things I already buy and can afford. If I played a character that worshiped an idol who hungered for the hearts of others, I wouldn't need experience points to make me want to feed that hunger any more than I needed addiction rules to make my character want to feed his addiction.
Do people really need to be bribed to role-play?
Fun is an incentive too, bro. One of the guys in my Emern game (a druid who had all of his skin burnt off when the rocket exploded and then had it replaced with a silver space suit; he's the guy cutting out hearts and talking to the crystal skull) went and talked to some monkeys last session. He got pelted with fruit, and ended up finding the grove of bananas the monkeys had been eating. It didn't give him any XP or gold, but it was a fun scene, and it was certainly an incentive for him to keep doing that stuff, whereas if I'd just shut it down or abbreviated it - truncated the fun - it's less likely he would do it again in future.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479339I've already wasted enough time taking you seriously and explaining the problems with your asinine beliefs. Unless you're going to start paying me tutor fees, I'm giving you exactly what you deserve: contempt, derision and ridicule.
Those are tutor fees I doubt he could afford - poor ignorant wretch that he is. Course I share his lot, not understanding the wisdom of incentives. But at least I am a fool that knows he is one. No need to tire your arm on me.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479339Your "sources" are ones that it has been shown time and time again, on thread after thread, that you don't actually read. I know this because back when I took what you said seriously, I used to go and read them, and they would almost always mean something radically different than your summary claimed.
And I've followed plenty of sources and Googled plenty of information on the basis of comments that people have made here and in reply to me and often have the same reaction. Yes, there are cases where I think people have legitimately pointed out that a link or claim that I've made was not accurate, but I think I've acknowledged when I'm wrong more than many people here who prefer, instead, to simply drop the subject when they are proven wrong, like you did with the Atonement spell in this thread.
In most cases, people respond with a claim that the source is wrong or doesn't say what I claim it says without actually pointing out what the problem is. There are no specifics.
And no doubt a big part of the problem with why people don't find each other's sources persuasive is confirmation bias all around, a point I fully understand but I'm not sure you do.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479339You should learn more so that you don't look like a fool when you ramble about it others. I've already wasted enough time taking you seriously and explaining the problems with your asinine beliefs. Unless you're going to start paying me tutor fees, I'm giving you exactly what you deserve: contempt, derision and ridicule. You may not like that, and I won't claim to be a saint, but it's not like this is the first time, and it probably won't be the last. Don't pretend we haven't talked out this shit at great length several times before now.
While you may think I'm being dishonest or pretending, I find the vast majority of your replies and criticism are precisely like this one is, long on certainty and condemnation but short on details and examples, sometimes being little more than "I'm right and you're wrong." I'm not trying to goad you into more detailed responses to waste your time but because I think you've made good points when you've bothered to make them. I have learned things from you when you've made serious attempts to provide a detailed reply. Your contempt, derision, and ridicule? It reduces you to being a yappy dog to me. Whatever. Feel free to yap.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479345Fun is an incentive too, bro. One of the guys in my Emern game (a druid who had all of his skin burnt off when the rocket exploded and then had it replaced with a silver space suit; he's the guy cutting out hearts and talking to the crystal skull) went and talked to some monkeys last session. He got pelted with fruit, and ended up finding the grove of bananas the monkeys had been eating. It didn't give him any XP or gold, but it was a fun scene, and it was certainly an incentive for him to keep doing that stuff, whereas if I'd just shut it down or abbreviated it - truncated the fun - it's less likely he would do it again in future.
Absolutely, but it doesn't need to be incorporated into the setting or rules as anything other than GMing advice.
Quote from: John Morrow;479350And I've followed plenty of sources and Googled plenty of information on the basis of comments that people have made here and in reply to me and often have the same reaction. Yes, there are cases where I think people have legitimately pointed out that a link or claim that I've made was not accurate, but I think I've acknowledged when I'm wrong more than many people here who prefer, instead, to simply drop the subject when they are proven wrong, like you did with the Atonement spell in this thread.
Yeah, yeah, you don't like me being mean to you. It doesn't take that many words to say it.
The only part of your post that's worth responding to is this.
I didn't drop it, I answered it. I'll flesh out my answer, since it may not have been clear:
Atonement probably won't work if you just say, cast Dominate Monster on an evil monster and then command it to atone. But there are plenty of spells that alter one's attitudes enough that one could truly wish to atone without holding it as a magically-caused belief.
As I said earlier, Charm Person is one. Charm Person makes you temporarily someone's best friend (actually, the spell most of the time that I've seen is worded so that it's unclear if the creature's attitude converts back even at the end of the spell without provocation - the duration of the spell can be considered as the length of time that the amity is magically enforced even in the face of contrary evidence - this is how I adjudicate it at the table, btw).
Now, having a best friend doesn't automatically make you want to repent of your wicked ways (I'm sure even Hitler had a bestie), but I'm sure a suitably high charisma PC who had prepared some good points could cause their new best friend, Ziplo the Raper Orc, to want to change his ways and receive the gift of righteousness, etc. It might not be automatic, but a Diplomacy roll or something like it would certainly be appropriate under the circumstances. That to me would qualify as a truly held belief, even though the attitudes that opened the character's mind to that possibility were magically induced at some point.
Actually, for a psychopathic creature which is normally incapable of feeling this kind of intimacy, friendship is probably an overwhelming feeling it is emotionally unequipped to bracket and restrain. One could imagine it hungering after the feelings of affection and respect like a regular human hungers after the intimacy of sex. Think of it like a human child when they leave the pre-moral stage of early development and begin craving love and affection.
Alternately, one could polymorph the orc into a human, where it is presumably no longer irredeemably evil, rehabilitate it, atone it, and polymorph it back (or just polymorph it into something that is genetically identical to the orc it once was except for whatever neurological or physiological quirk causes it to act in an evil way).
Basically, there's tons of shit you could do here to induce a "truly held" desire to repent.
Quote from: John Morrow;479351Absolutely, but it doesn't need to be incorporated into the setting or rules as anything other than GMing advice.
Sure, but why not provide a concrete incentive, especially if there's decent, readily available explanations in the setting?
Quote from: Sigmund;479185I take "Team Left" to refer to the left wing, or liberal side, of American politics.
Adressing this because to me the nuance is important. By saying Team Left I do not mean merely "left wing". I mean someone who let's his imaginary belonging to a "team" of politics cloud every position he takes, every opinion or POV he can come up with. Being part of the team is more important than truth or fairness. It's about holding the position first.
And yes, there is a Team Right as well.
Quote from: Imperator;479238Dude, you know Gareth loves everyone :D
Indeed. man, I miss the game.
Restarting VERY soon. Next week if some internet issues I've had are solved for good - strong chance of that happening, though I could find myself cut off Sunday. Working it out.
Quote from: CRKrueger;479279Yeah, wasn't really implemented well (spells of detection, bonus against "evil" etc..) and carried with it too many problems.
People keep saying that, but I actually never had alignments issues at an actual game table. Ever. It's typical internet ramblings born out of slanted "I don't like this" POVs and theoretical scenarios, as far as I'm concerned.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479272Alignment does not function well as a rule because it neither constrains nor incentivises PC behaviour.
Meh. I find that removing the pretense for those traits in the alignment system was an absolute improvement in the system.
Quote from: Peregrin;479320That's true. And diseases like the one I have are relatively rare, so in the long-run it's a net-gain (cue doctors talking about the rise of autoimmune diseases in industrialized nations, blah blah).
My post was just really dry humor.
Anyway, I'm not sure you can get more off-topic than autoimmune diseases, so, yeah. :)
That's ok, I don't think anyone else is discussing the topic anymore either.
Quote from: Caesar Slaad;479380Meh. I find that removing the pretense for those traits in the alignment system was an absolute improvement in the system.
I simply removed it as a meaningful rule in any way at all. As I said earlier, the PCs declare alignments, which I then ignore, and they then speculate about the alignments of things around them, which I neither interfere with nor encourage. But if you are going to keep it as a rule, you ought to have some way of making it tie into the rest of the rules meaningfully and intelligibly. The old "alignment change penalties" were about as close as it got, and they were too crude and ambiguous for my taste. Positive incentives beat negative incentives beat punishment for encouraging or discouraging behaviours.
Quote from: Benoist;479369Adressing this because to me the nuance is important. By saying Team Left I do not mean merely "left wing". I mean someone who let's his imaginary belonging to a "team" of politics cloud every position he takes, every opinion or POV he can come up with. Being part of the team is more important than truth or fairness. It's about holding the position first.
And yes, there is a Team Right as well.
My father belongs to that one.
Quote from: Benoist;479376People keep saying that, but I actually never had alignments issues at an actual game table. Ever. It's typical internet ramblings born out of slanted "I don't like this" POVs and theoretical scenarios, as far as I'm concerned.
I leave again and we get back into this?
ALignment is a setting-level rule. It works well in settings with cosmologies with cemented polar truths; it does not work well in settings without them.
like all pieces of rulesets (rules), it is good for some games and not others. It is not a good rule or a bad rule.
Quote from: LordVreeg;479403I leave again and we get back into this?
ALignment is a setting-level rule. It works well in settings with cosmologies with cemented polar truths; it does not work well in settings without them.
like all pieces of rulesets (rules), it is good for some games and not others. It is not a good rule or a bad rule.
It's next to meaningless in settings without them.
Quote from: LordVreeg;479403I leave again and we get back into this?
ALignment is a setting-level rule. It works well in settings with cosmologies with cemented polar truths; it does not work well in settings without them.
like all pieces of rulesets (rules), it is good for some games and not others. It is not a good rule or a bad rule.
It's a bad rule because it's unclear what its effects are on PC behaviour even in contexts that support its existence. It's not even very clear whether it's prescriptive or descriptive.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479412It's a bad rule because it's unclear what its effects are on PC behaviour even in contexts that support its existence. It's not even very clear whether it's prescriptive or descriptive.
I find that, while not a rule I use or personally like anymore, it is a rule best suited to a very skilled GM. For a rule that has been around since the beginning of time, it is open to abuse and misuse from mediocre of bad GMs. But it is a rule that can add a lot to certain games with a skilled GM.
It's a cooking spice oft misused or paired with the wrong food, but in the hands of a great chef, it can create foods that would be worse without it.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479355Yeah, yeah, you don't like me being mean to you. It doesn't take that many words to say it.
If I had a real problem with you or anyone else here being mean to me, I wouldn't bother posting here. My problem is that when you are being mean, you aren't being informative or interesting and you are generally too dry and serious to be funny when you are being mean, unlike Kyle or RPGPundit.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479355Basically, there's tons of shit you could do here to induce a "truly held" desire to repent.
Instead of arguing over what is or isn't possible or should and shouldn't be possible at a mechanical or philosophical level and whether intelligence requires free will and the possibility of redemption or not, I'll cut to the chase with the problem I have with a game setting being structured like that at a practical and pragmatic level.
The problem is that if you give Good the magical means to turn any other creature Good or at least away from Evil, then the obvious and primary objective of Good characters would be to use those means to do so and to avoid to whatever extent possible slaying anyone, no matter how horrible their past actions are. While there wouldn't be anything inherently wrong with such a game, I don't think most role-players are looking for something like Jehovah's Witnesses: The Saving and it undermines the point that monsters serve in most games, as mentioned earlier in this thread, which is to personify Evil into a creature so you can metaphorically kick its butt. Forced redemption also raises all sorts of other issues with free will and justice such as those raised in the
Babylon 5 episode Passing Through Gethsemane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_Through_Gethsemane) as well as by the Confessors in
Legend of the Seeker/
The Sword of Truth.
And because of that, I think there is some value in giving players prone to want to play good heroes (as several people that I game with do) some opponents whose butts they can kick without angst and having to worry about saving them more than slaughtering them.
And while people have offered up things like zombies as an alternative, if redemption and fixing evil is always on the table, I could make an argument very much like the one that you've made to thwart the clear intention of the Atonement spell to allow forced alignment changes to argue that some combination of spells could be used to thwart the clear intention of the Raise Dead spell and permit the restoration of zombies. And, ultimately, tagging a living monster as irredeemably Evil serves the same purpose as saying that you can't raise the undead and fix them.
Why is an irredeemable evil sentient monster interesting? The same reason the Terminator was interesting, back to the Terminator quote that Kyle paraphrased earlier in the thread:
"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."
I agree it would be boring if every Evil character and creature in a game was so inflexible and single-minded, but I think such creatures certainly have a place in role-playing games, especially if butt-kicking opportunities are an objective of the game.
As for why one would want to justify killing helpless babies, I wanted a naturalistic setting (Glorantha does nothing for me) and modeled the early part of my game on Keep on the Borderlands so I considered it a given that Evil monsters would have offspring and that at some point the players would have to deal with them. I had two choices. One was to declare them just as irredeemably Evil as their parents and the other to make them innocent until they've done Evil. The latter choice not only would oblige good characters to spare the babies but to keep them from harm. My players weren't interested in playing Romper Room: The Field Trip. Even if they were, it simply punts the problem down the road when they reach the point where the Evil kicks in and they have to be either confined or killed, hence my questions earlier about what to do with them (e.g., interment camps?, reservations?, imprisonment?). The only way I see out of that trap is to not have irredeemable monsters in the first place or make them unnatural, which I presume is one of your points, but that simply creates a different set of problems for the players and doesn't entirely eliminate the problem of how to deal with babies even simply likely to grow up into brutal killers who are going to eat innocent people or even simply leaving the babies behind to fend for themselves in an environment where they are likely to be killed without adults to defend and care for them. In any event, the goal was not to say that killing babies was Good but to give Good characters the ability to exterminate Evil even in baby form, which would be part of a naturalistic setting. And if I were to do it again, I'd probably make a different choice about how to handle it.
Worms gotta eat, same as the buzzards.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;479360Sure, but why not provide a concrete incentive, especially if there's decent, readily available explanations in the setting?
The short answer is that I don't need an incentive to play my character the way I enjoy playing my character and if you start trying to give me incentives to play my character a certain way, you are unlikely to improve my experience and quality of play and stand a decent chance of making my experience and quality of play worse. It's like turning the key in the ignition of a car when the engine is already running smoothly. It's not going to make the engine run better and it will probably make a nasty noise when the starting motor tries to engage with an already running engine.
Quote from: Benoist;479376People keep saying that, but I actually never had alignments issues at an actual game table. Ever. It's typical internet ramblings born out of slanted "I don't like this" POVs and theoretical scenarios, as far as I'm concerned.
Well, as a system of defining behavior, it was ok, it gave you a nice big bucket to toss things in.
However, there were always edge cases. Take someone who doesn't give a crap what the "Law" is, yet follows his own ethical code without deviation, even to the point that if his enemies know his code they can use it against him? Is that "Chaotic"? You can have discussions into the wee hours of the night about every single alignment (and back in the day, I did).
Most players I actually gamed for long periods of time "got" alignments and role-played them. For people that didn't stay long at the table, it was a never-ending hassle.
I ended up having alignment really only matter if someone was "aligned", ie some class that got some divine powers, and had detect spells, and anti-alignment powers only work against the Aligned.
If I went back to my old Greyhawk campaign, I'd use alignments because, as Vreeg said, they are part of the cosmology there. It's a base assumption of the setting.
Quote from: John Morrow;479435If I had a real problem with you...
...I'd probably make a different choice about how to handle it.
Can remember when I had the patience for a post like this. All I want now is to hit the donate button. Well done.
Quote from: CRKrueger;479457However, there were always edge cases. Take someone who doesn't give a crap what the "Law" is, yet follows his own ethical code without deviation, even to the point that if his enemies know his code they can use it against him? Is that "Chaotic"?
Neutral. That band between Good and Evil, Law and Chaos where pragmatism and self-interest rules.
I think a big part of the problem comes from the labels. Try these:
Good to Evil -> Benevolence, Self-Interest, Malevolence
Law to Chaos -> Order, Pragmatism, Liberty
As an added bonus, treat the first axis as an end and the second axis as a means, except when you are dealing with Self-Interested Order and Self-Interested Liberty, at which point the means become an end.
778 posts so soon? Let's aim for 1500 with this bad boy! :cool:
Quote from: jeff37923;479325Hmmm.....This gives me an idea....
Human + Elf = Half-Elf
Human + Orc = Half-Orc
Elf + Orc = Human
This is fantastic. Plain gold. Consider it swept for the next time I run a D&D-esque setting.
Quote from: Benoist;479376People keep saying that, but I actually never had alignments issues at an actual game table. Ever. It's typical internet ramblings born out of slanted "I don't like this" POVs and theoretical scenarios, as far as I'm concerned.
Well, I've had this kind of situations crop up A LOT in my own games, which ended leading me to adopt a solution similar to Pseudo's: you can detect certain energies, and that's that. More examples later, if you need or care about them.
Quote from: Benoist;479376People keep saying that, but I actually never had alignments issues at an actual game table. Ever. It's typical internet ramblings born out of slanted "I don't like this" POVs and theoretical scenarios, as far as I'm concerned.
This is an important distinction. Disagreeing with alignment because you can't get passed your own point of view versus disagreeing with it (as lordvreeg points out) because it doesn't fit your setting concept or preference.
Quote from: LordVreeg;479403ALignment is a setting-level rule. It works well in settings with cosmologies with cemented polar truths; it does not work well in settings without them.
like all pieces of rulesets (rules), it is good for some games and not others. It is not a good rule or a bad rule.
Right, that's where I'm at. Are you tainted? Is your maiden virtuous enough to ride the unicorn? Can Galahad find the holy grail? Is there a disturbing presence in the sleepy little town? These are the sorts of things alignment is really meant to resolve.
Quote from: LordVreeg;479417I find that, while not a rule I use or personally like anymore, it is a rule best suited to a very skilled GM. For a rule that has been around since the beginning of time, it is open to abuse and misuse from mediocre of bad GMs. But it is a rule that can add a lot to certain games with a skilled GM.
It's a cooking spice oft misused or paired with the wrong food, but in the hands of a great chef, it can create foods that would be worse without it.
Word.
I prefer it for games I want it in, don't want it in games that I don't want it in.
Quote from: jeff37923;479325Hmmm.....This gives me an idea....
Human + Elf = Half-Elf
Human + Orc = Half-Orc
Elf + Orc = Human
I hadn't noticed that post! Thanks Ramon. Yes. That idea is gold. There could be all sorts of really cool elements of cosmology and history trickling down from this. I'd use that too!
Quote from: Imperator;479471Well, I've had this kind of situations crop up A LOT in my own games, which ended leading me to adopt a solution similar to Pseudo's: you can detect certain energies, and that's that. More examples later, if you need or care about them.
Sure. I'm always interested in good workable ideas. :)
Quote from: David R;479328And Stormbringer, next time brother, don't do the interpreting for dodgy open-ed pieces but rather formulate a post of themes which you think are interesting from the piece. I see hints of an extremely interesting discussion about the nature of good and evil in a setting's context and how this reflects on playstyle in your replies....something you and I have gone a few rounds on before.
Regards,
David R
I will not argue with your suggestion. :) And gods willing, I will have that post formulated soon and we can go a few more rounds on it!
This thread is quite the trainwreck...
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;479828This thread is quite the trainwreck...
RPGPundit
Well sure. Get some piece of shit all-knowing "I am mature now and here's how all you guys are horrible racist, genocidal or deeply ignorant people (but I'm nice: you can take your pick)" adolescent comment about the "true meaning" of D&D, mix in some Team Left politics for good measure, and then just let the conversation unfold from there.
So, it's all about politics when there isn't a unanimous rallying to the cause now?
I sort of spaced out the last couple hundred ranting messages, but I don't recall any actual leftists especially mentioning politics. Once again, in his never ending crusade to fight off the imaginary hoards of "Team Left" from overrunning all conversation with discussions of politics, Benoist has flipped out and turned the conversation to an us vs. them of politics.
-Frank
Quote from: skofflox;479229We have been treated good for the most part. Perhaps the prevalent attitudes in Bens version of Ptolus are a bit more forgiving.
That then generates a question for Ben.
I am guessing that orcs in your game are not irredeemibly evil.
I am also guessing that there is integration of orcs as a demi-human species pretty widely.
So the question would be if your orcs were an irredeemible evil would you allow these 2 half orc PCs? And if you did then how would the world treat them if all other orcs are snarling monsters?
Oh and for skofflox are the 2 PCs twins? If they aren't then how did their parentage work out? Was dad a tired old orc who hung up his cleaving axe and settled down with a chubby human lass or did mum just happen to live on the borders of the Orcish lands and was just really bad at hiding when the orc raiders came to town? Or perhaps she was an orcish pleasure slave dragged behind the Human army and used as a punishment for the enlisted men?
Just curious....
Quote from: jibbajibba;480085That then generates a question for Ben.
I am guessing that orcs in your game are not irredeemibly evil.
I am also guessing that there is integration of orcs as a demi-human species pretty widely.
So the question would be if your orcs were an irredeemible evil would you allow these 2 half orc PCs? And if you did then how would the world treat them if all other orcs are snarling monsters?
Oh and for skofflox are the 2 PCs twins? If they aren't then how did their parentage work out? Was dad a tired old orc who hung up his cleaving axe and settled down with a chubby human lass or did mum just happen to live on the borders of the Orcish lands and was just really bad at hiding when the orc raiders came to town? Or perhaps she was an orcish pleasure slave dragged behind the Human army and used as a punishment for the enlisted men?
Just curious....
We are not twins though very close in age.
Don't know for sure. The story is we were left on the doorstep of a Charlathan monastic community. Runch imagines she was a slave that managed to escape before giving birth to Tudd, the younger of the two, with Runch at the breast. After getting to Ptolus she left us due to shame/guilt or to give us a chance for a better life via the Charlathan brotherhood. I (Runch :D) prefer to think it the latter.
:idunno:
This could all be heresay as well. Spoon fed to us by the Brothers to avoid the ugly truth...?!
Part of Runch's drive is to eventualy find out more about his mother/father though he doesn't hold out much hope at this point.
The backstory has not been developed much and I am not sure it will or is even important. Depends on the length/focus of the game.
Not everyone has been friendly towards us.
Maybe Runch wants to save Erarht so he can believe there is hope that, if he ever finds his father, he to can be "saved" or maybe Erarht represents Runch/Tudds own Orcish nature that I want to come to terms with...Runch is very religious and Charlathan is a Trickster type given to change/chaos (in a nut shell) so who knows...:hmm:
I based the Character off the horribly mutated warrior "Runch", a minor character, from the "Erthring Cycle" by Wayland Drew.
Runch is an unforgiving warrior who shows tenderness to his lover (a mutant though she was once an agent for the purestrains) and concern for his folk who are persecuted and hunted by the Yggdrasilian Humans. Some of my favorite Post Apoc. fiction... :)
Good times!
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480084I sort of spaced out the last couple hundred ranting messages, but I don't recall any actual leftists especially mentioning politics. Once again, in his never ending crusade to fight off the imaginary hoards of "Team Left" from overrunning all conversation with discussions of politics, Benoist has flipped out and turned the conversation to an us vs. them of politics.
-Frank
I hate to agree with a Lefty, but I thought Frank's posts on this thread (the several dozen I've read) were pretty civilised overall, and if anything the Lefties were actually more sinned against than sinning here. Maybe baggage from other threads makes it look different to rpgsite regulars, I only pop in here occasionally.
Given the culture that they are indoctrinated in, I think it takes a lot of self restraint for the Leftists (technically: adherents of New Left dialectic) to act in a civilised manner in threads like this, and the opposing team (who are mostly all Libertarians not Traditionalists here, from what I can tell) ought to give them some credit.
What have the lefties to do with anything? Apart from the simple fact that if you don't like killing orcs you must be a commie mutant traitor, I mean.
Some of you political types are like a sexual fetishist, seeing qualities in a thing it doesn't have. An rpg session is not inherently a political act, any more than a shoe is inherently a sexual object. Just because you decide to leave a small puddle of sexual secretions there doesn't make the D&D DMG a political tract.
Now! shut the fuck up and roll the dice, you freaks. Adam Gray, this game session is about killing orcs. Morrow, the orcs are conservative, but they're going to die anyway, sorry. GameDaddy, some NPCs may be gay. Vmerc, you can play a girl if you want, nobody cares. Benoist, stop searching on your laptop for stupid shit to show us and distract from the game session. Just roll the fucking dice, and someone pass me the cheetos.
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you lot? Roll the dice.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;480100Some of you political types are like a sexual fetishist, seeing qualities in a thing it doesn't have. An rpg session is not inherently a political act, any more than a shoe is inherently a sexual object.
Yeah, but... in that New Left diaelectic "The Personal is Political" and
everything is a political act. We don't have to agree, but it's worth understanding that they've been indoctrinated in this stuff - they were the guys actually paying attention in the compulsory Citizenship/Civics class, in the Diversity Training seminars and all the other places where the Left-Leitkultur is disseminated.
Edit: At the game table I do of course shut the fuck up and roll the dice, just as you advocate. :D
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;480100*snip*
Some of you political types are like a sexual fetishist, seeing qualities in a thing it doesn't have. An rpg session is not inherently a political act, any more than a shoe is inherently a sexual object. Just because you decide to leave a small puddle of sexual secretions there doesn't make the D&D DMG a political tract.
Now! shut the fuck up and roll the dice, you freaks. Adam Gray, this game session is about killing orcs. Morrow, the orcs are conservative, but they're going to die anyway, sorry. GameDaddy, some NPCs may be gay. Vmerc, you can play a girl if you want, nobody cares. Benoist, stop searching on your laptop for stupid shit to show us and distract from the game session. Just roll the fucking dice, and someone pass me the cheetos.
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you lot? Roll the dice.
:eek:...:rotfl:
Quote from: jibbajibba;480085That then generates a question for Ben.
I am guessing that orcs in your game are not irredeemibly evil.
I am also guessing that there is integration of orcs as a demi-human species pretty widely.
So the question would be if your orcs were an irredeemible evil would you allow these 2 half orc PCs? And if you did then how would the world treat them if all other orcs are snarling monsters?
Oh and for skofflox are the 2 PCs twins? If they aren't then how did their parentage work out? Was dad a tired old orc who hung up his cleaving axe and settled down with a chubby human lass or did mum just happen to live on the borders of the Orcish lands and was just really bad at hiding when the orc raiders came to town? Or perhaps she was an orcish pleasure slave dragged behind the Human army and used as a punishment for the enlisted men?
Just curious....
Tudd doesn't know or much care. Runch is his family. If folks are mean to someone Tudd cares about, Tudd gets mean back, and he's pretty good at getting mean. He's a simple feller.
Quote from: S'mon;480105Yeah, but... in that New Left diaelectic "The Personal is Political" and everything is a political act. We don't have to agree, but it's worth understanding that they've been indoctrinated in this stuff - they were the guys actually paying attention in the compulsory Citizenship/Civics class, in the Diversity Training seminars and all the other places where the Left-Leitkultur is disseminated.
Edit: At the game table I do of course shut the fuck up and roll the dice, just as you advocate. :D
So what you're saying is that you're willing to agree to disagree so long as everyone understands that you're right in all things and all your oponents are indoctrinated robots.
How fucking magnanimous of you.
Quote from: Vmerc@Appears I have fucked up once again.
So then you would agree that
Cosmology A with no absolute alignment system
is in no way intrisically superior or inferior to
Cosmology B with an absolute alignment system and irredeemable beings - as well as redeemable, free-willed creatures.
I don't think imagining one thing is better than imagining another.
Until we get talking about specific goals. That's why I asked why you would do one thing or another. And why basically saying you could do both didn't answer the question.
Sorry if I sounded hostile or something. Thing is, I just don't get why you would go with one of those two yet.
Quote from: PseudoephedrineI do not. Alignment is a really terrible system, one of the great failures of an otherwise interesting and often well-constructed system IMHO. Even saying something like "the Medieval Christian ethos is actually correct" (as vacuous as that is) is better.
Personally, I'm fine with alignment as it applies to supernatural creatures with subtypes and things. Otherwise I don't use it in games I run. Mainly 'cause I don't buy it enough that I could make it work.
Quote from: Vmerc@Those are tutor fees I doubt he could afford - poor ignorant wretch that he is. Course I share his lot, not understanding the wisdom of incentives. But at least I am a fool that knows he is one. No need to tire your arm on me.
You know you can still just google that shit.
If it helps, it means you get stuff (or lose stuff, or good or bad stuff happens) as a result of stuff you do in game. Because it would be kind of boring if you did something and nothing happened, or if what happened didn't matter to anybody.
From earlier, it's why people usually just forget about alignment. You act good or bad, and more or less nothing happens.
Quote from: John MorrowWhy is an irredeemable evil sentient monster interesting? The same reason the Terminator was interesting, back to the Terminator quote that Kyle paraphrased earlier in the thread:
"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."
I agree it would be boring if every Evil character and creature in a game was so inflexible and single-minded, but I think such creatures certainly have a place in role-playing games, especially if butt-kicking opportunities are an objective of the game.
As for why one would want to justify killing helpless babies, I wanted a naturalistic setting (Glorantha does nothing for me) and modeled the early part of my game on Keep on the Borderlands so I considered it a given that Evil monsters would have offspring and that at some point the players would have to deal with them. I had two choices. One was to declare them just as irredeemably Evil as their parents and the other to make them innocent until they've done Evil. The latter choice not only would oblige good characters to spare the babies but to keep them from harm. My players weren't interested in playing Romper Room: The Field Trip. Even if they were, it simply punts the problem down the road when they reach the point where the Evil kicks in and they have to be either confined or killed, hence my questions earlier about what to do with them (e.g., interment camps?, reservations?, imprisonment?). The only way I see out of that trap is to not have irredeemable monsters in the first place or make them unnatural, which I presume is one of your points, but that simply creates a different set of problems for the players and doesn't entirely eliminate the problem of how to deal with babies even simply likely to grow up into brutal killers who are going to eat innocent people or even simply leaving the babies behind to fend for themselves in an environment where they are likely to be killed without adults to defend and care for them. In any event, the goal was not to say that killing babies was Good but to give Good characters the ability to exterminate Evil even in baby form, which would be part of a naturalistic setting. And if I were to do it again, I'd probably make a different choice about how to handle it.
This is more or less the answer I was looking for. I can't see myself wanting to play in a game like this, but I can at least see why you would do this, and not use zombies or demons or what have you.
So did your setting not have artificial or unnaturally produced monsters? Or just not sentient ones that could fill that terminator role?
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;477704I think the guy is taking his game too seriously and overestimating its impact on the himself and the world.
Media should always be taken seriously. And if I want a mindless diversion, I'll raid in WoW.
And, colonialism is bullshit, I salute the OP for taking his gaming a bit more seriously. In settings like Glorantha, you can broach these issues and still have fun. It's not hard.
Kyle! You fucking lame partypooper, we're getting close to the 1000 posts mark. Don't you dare extinguish this fire!
Quote from: AxiomaticSo what you're saying is that you're willing to agree to disagree so long as everyone understands that you're right in all things and all your oponents are indoctrinated robots.
How fucking magnanimous of you.
This topic drifts in the weirdest ways. So you know, "indoctrination" has negative connotations in our culture, but if some ideas are better or worse than each other, you can still be indoctrinated with good ideas.
Kind of like how AIDS PSAs are still propaganda of a sort. They probably only call them PSAs because propaganda has become a dirty word.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;480100Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you lot? Roll the dice.
Stop dodging the responsibility bullet. Every piece of media,
everything is political and a statement of values. Gaming can't help but represent what *we* are, it comes from us.
Next time I run fantasy gaming, I might have the PCs be all from an Orc tribe. That would be fun to explore.
Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;480131Media should always be taken seriously. And if I want a mindless diversion, I'll raid in WoW.
I think we simply disagree. Too many people take media way too seriously in my view these days. Especially when you start looking for hidden forms of various "-isms" I think it is very similar to when people were searching for satanism or suicide instructions in heavy metal. If you look hard enough you'll find something to complain about. Doesn't mean it is significant or has a real impact on anyone.
RPGs aren't mindless. I think everyone here agrees they are an intellectually challenging and fun past-time.
QuoteAnd, colonialism is bullshit, I salute the OP for taking his gaming a bit more seriously. In settings like Glorantha, you can broach these issues and still have fun. It's not hard.
Again, I don't think anyone here is endorsing colonialism. They are just making the point that killing evil orcs in-game doesn't mean your group endorses racism or colonialism. If he wants to apply a literary criticism lens to his game, he is more than welcome to do so. The issue I took with his post was the implication that others aren't as advanced if they don't follow suit, and the underlying assumption that is rooted in the same kind of BS we saw back in the 80s when church groups attacked D&D for encouraging devil-worship and drug use.
Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;480135Stop dodging the responsibility bullet. Every piece of media, everything is political and a statement of values. Gaming can't help but represent what *we* are, it comes from us.
.
Dude, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Quote from: S'mon;480105Yeah, but... in that New Left diaelectic "The Personal is Political" and everything is a political act. We don't have to agree, but it's worth understanding that they've been indoctrinated in this stuff - they were the guys actually paying attention in the compulsory Citizenship/Civics class, in the Diversity Training seminars and all the other places where the Left-Leitkultur is disseminated.
To an extent. But the general wickedness of biological determinism and eugenic genocide is not really a Left vs. Right thing. The Eugenic movement had proponents of every stripe. We mostly hear about a particular right wing group because people like to Godwin arguments, but leftists like Bertrand Russel and largely a-political horror writers like H.P.Lovecraft were dyed in the wool eugenicists. As the supreme court justice (and progressive hero) Oliver Wendell Holmes put it:
Quote from: Oliver Wendell HolmesWe have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the state for these lesser sacrifices. . . . It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that stains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.
We condemn these positions because they are wicked. Not because they are left wing or right wing, but because experience has shown beyond reasonable doubt that such reasoning leads to atrocities the likes of which cannot be condoned by any man. It's a compelling sounding argument, and it persuaded a lot of people of every political conviction in the early parts of the twentieth century. But it's wrong. It's wrong to make that argument, and if you make that argument
you are in the wrong.
If there is anything in all the world that is truly Evil, it is that. Which is why it's pretty weird to have people condemning the condemnation of it as some sort of leftist conspiracy. It's one of the things that those of moral clarity can agree upon unreservedly, whether their sympathies lie with Karl Marx or Karl Rove.
-Frank
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480137Dude, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
But on the other hand, even if the person who put the cigar there declares that it is just a cigar and has absolutely no other connotations whatsoever, that doesn't make it so.
Quote from: Axiomatic;480141But on the other hand, even if the person who put the cigar there declares that it is just a cigar and has absolutely no other connotations whatsoever, that doesn't make it so.
But then all you are doing is projecting onto the cigar. This can go endlessly in circles. And my issue with this kind of reasoning is it just becomes an inquisition after a time. Almost a game of gotcha. You will always be able to find negatives in things, even if there were no negative intentions. I guess for me my cut off point is intent with things like this (not that it needs to be stated, but you should at least be able to infer it).
Quote from: jibbajibba;480085That then generates a question for Ben.
I am guessing that orcs in your game are not irredeemibly evil.Part of the interest of the situation the PCs are in is that they do not know the answer to that question. Orcs in Ptolus have a particular history and origins, and Erarht himself has a history and origins, which both influence the situation at play. Sorry I can't be more specific.
I am also guessing that there is integration of orcs as a demi-human species pretty widely. No, not "pretty widely". Half-orcs are not that common beyond Palastan and the Ptolus area. Orcs are particularly present around the area because of its history, most recently because of the actions of Ghul, the Skull King, who tried to dominate the world from his headquarters up and around the Spire (this is known history). In our AD&D campaign Ptolus is in a different time frame and position in its development than the published setting is. The presence of an enormous "dungeon" under the settlement and hoards of riches to be found have started to slip out, and as a result, many people, mercenaries, excentrics, even demi-humans seldom seen in other parts of the Empire, such as half-orcs, are coming to Ptolus to strike it rich. The city is literally surrounded by camps of such people who are digging their own holes and trying to find entrances to the dungeon, some with success, others not.
(http://enrill.net/images/play-by-posts/maps/Spire-area-E800.jpg)
The town itself is spreading around the fortress of Dalenguard (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=420695&postcount=3) which was built by Dwarves (mostly) to prevent Ghul's evil from ever returning to haunt the region. It is under the command of a Commissar (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=420702&postcount=6) acting in the Empire's stead, with the support of the Church of Lothian. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=420712&postcount=10) The Church in particular does not look too kindly on the treasure-hunting activities taking place in and around the place.
As a result, there is, on some people's parts at least, some resentment against half-orcs, while others, motivated by different beliefs, or concerns (such as coin) will not look too far beyond the size of a size of an individual's purse, ethics, what have you. The world isn't black-and-white (which does
not mean there could be no such thing as ultimate good and evil). It's made of people with different personalities, allegiances, opinions, needs and wants, etc.
To answer your question more directly, it'd be actually counteproductive for me as GM to say "here's how metaphysics work in the world and that's *it*". I prefer the players to experience the world through their characters. From there, they can decide for themselves what they choose to believe as far as the Gods, good and evil, etc are concerned.
So the question would be if your orcs were an irredeemible evil would you allow these 2 half orc PCs? And if you did then how would the world treat them if all other orcs are snarling monsters?Hope my previous paragraphs answer your question.
Quote from: skofflox;480092This could all be heresay as well. Spoon fed to us by the Brothers to avoid the ugly truth...?!
Could be. If you give me the green light to imagine the shit out of this, I will.
Quote from: Benoist;480150I am guessing that orcs in your game are not irredeemibly evil.
Part of the interest of the situation the PCs are in is that they do not know the answer to that question. Orcs in Ptolus have a particular history and origins, and Erarht himself has a history and origins, which both influence the situation at play. Sorry I can't be more specific.
As a result, there is, on some people's parts at least, some resentment against half-orcs, while others, motivated by different beliefs, or concerns (such as coin) will not look too far beyond the size of a size of an individual's purse, ethics, what have you. The world isn't black-and-white (which does not mean there could be no such thing as ultimate good and evil). It's made of people with different personalities, allegiances, opinions, needs and wants, etc.
To answer your question more directly, it'd be actually counteproductive for me as GM to say "here's how metaphysics work in the world and that's *it*". I prefer the players to experience the world through their characters. From there, they can decide for themselves what they choose to believe as far as the Gods, good and evil, etc are concerned.
So the question would be if your orcs were an irredeemible evil would you allow these 2 half orc PCs? And if you did then how would the world treat them if all other orcs are snarling monsters?
Hope my previous paragraphs answer your question.
Understand its hard to coment on a game in progress :)
Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;480131Media should always be taken seriously. And if I want a mindless diversion, I'll raid in WoW.
And, colonialism is bullshit, I salute the OP for taking his gaming a bit more seriously. In settings like Glorantha, you can broach these issues and still have fun. It's not hard.
Sure you can, but you don't have to. Also, taking the game seriously as a game is fine, but trying to say the game reflects serious real world attitudes inherently is what's bullshit. In your game you can broach whatever subjects you want, but that doesn't make your game "better" in any way than someone's game that's designed just to imaginarily kill things and take their stuff, whether it be orcs or anything else.
Oh, and if I don't wan to take "media" or anything else seriously all the time, that's my choice, and I'll decide what I should or shouldn't do at any given moment for myself. It's nice that you don't want your RPGing to be a mindless diversion, but maybe I do. I can't stand raiding in WoW.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480154Understand its hard to coment on a game in progress :)
Yes. Now that I think about it, I don't think I ever go out during the brainstorm session with the players (where you talk about the game, what they want out of it, what characters they want to play etc) and tell them positive, OOC stuff like "this is how the world actually works". Or at least I try to avoid this kind of statements. I instead tell them a lot of "you've heard stories" and "some say" while "others say" and so on. I describe the world from the world's perspective, not from my notes.
Of course, later, if the players play a few years in that setting, they'll come to know some stuff, and it'll inform their choices and future characters and whatnot. I have no problem whatsoever with that. It's something they've earned by being part of the world for so many months/years, right? It's cool, because they become more and more aware of what's going on.
Quote from: Axiomatic;480141But on the other hand, even if the person who put the cigar there declares that it is just a cigar and has absolutely no other connotations whatsoever, that doesn't make it so.
Neither does your assertion that it does have more meaning than that. We could go on this way all week. Either provide a more compelling argument than "you're wrong", or get comfortable being ignored.
Quote from: Sigmund;480162Neither does your assertion that it does have more meaning than that. We could go on this way all week. Either provide a more compelling argument than "you're wrong", or get comfortable being ignored.
I think with this situation there are two important measures: intent and effect. Either way, I don't think either of these have been demonstrated with RPGs. The games obviously don't encourage racism, violence, colonialism, etc. It isn't part of what they are designed to do, and it isn't a product of what they do.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480167I think with this situation there are two important measures: intent and effect. Either way, I don't think either of these have been demonstrated with RPGs. The games obviously don't encourage racism, violence, colonialism, etc. It isn't part of what they are designed to do, and it isn't a product of what they do.
I agree yet again.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480167I think with this situation there are two important measures: intent and effect. Either way, I don't think either of these have been demonstrated with RPGs. The games obviously don't encourage racism, violence, colonialism, etc. It isn't part of what they are designed to do, and it isn't a product of what they do.
And yet: Stormfront RPG groups
exist (no link to spare Pundit hair pulling). So it is
part of what RPGs do, whether intentionally or not.
You can say "People don't use these books to promote a racist message!" but what you're really saying is that to the best of your knowledge
you don't use D&D books to spread a racist message. Because the reality that there
are people who
do use D&D to spread a racist message is rather inescapable. It's a nasty part of our world and the internet, but they really do exist. You can go to Stormfront or any of a number of other "White Pride" sites with RPG conversation on them and have a discussion about how exterminating evil races psyches you up to get rid of undesirables in the real world. They also find and exalt the racist messages hidden in Vampire, and other games.
You may not play RPGs that way. Heck, I'm pretty sure you don't.
I don't play RPGs that way. I don't find that the fact that those people are out there hinders me from playing enjoying RPGs. But it is plumb ignorant to say that RPGs
aren't used to spread a racist message, because there are people right now in the real world who are using RPGs to spread a racist message.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480172And yet: Stormfront RPG groups exist (no link to spare Pundit hair pulling). So it is part of what RPGs do, whether intentionally or not.
You will need to explain what this is to me, as I missed the link and haven't heard of it before. If it is what I think it is, then it has nothing to do with the nature of RPGs. It simply reflects some fringe users beliefs. Just like skinhead punk rock and other hate music says nothing about punk rock, music or punk rock.
QuoteYou can say "People don't use these books to promote a racist message!" but what you're really saying is that to the best of your knowledge you don't use D&D books to spread a racist message. Because the reality that there are people who do use D&D to spread a racist message is rather inescapable.
Except that isn't what I am saying. Every medium can be used to advance an agenda. No one is denying that. What we deny is that your typical gaming group using evil orcs or what have you are in any way contributing to racism. When I say it isn't a product of what rpgs do, I mean it isn't a natural byproduct of playing RPGs. It isn't something that stems as a natural outgrowth of typical fantasy settings with evil orcs, demons, etc.
QuoteIt's a nasty part of our world and the internet, but they really do exist. You can go to Stormfront or any of a number of other "White Pride" sites with RPG conversation on them and have a discussion about how exterminating evil races psyches you up to get rid of undesirables in the real world. They also find and exalt the racist messages hidden in Vampire, and other games.
Look I care about racism and have followed hate groups for a long time (both because of my personal background and where I lived as a kid and because I am in an interacial marriage). But just because a bunch of racists are finding hidden racist messages in orcs, vampires, etc, doesn't mean those messages are there or anyone else cares about them.
QuoteYou may not play RPGs that way. Heck, I'm pretty sure you don't. I don't play RPGs that way. I don't find that the fact that those people are out there hinders me from playing enjoying RPGs. But it is plumb ignorant to say that RPGs aren't used to spread a racist message, because there are people right now in the real world who are using RPGs to spread a racist message.
-Frank
And once again, that isn't what I am trying to say. Of course there are people out there using every medium imaginable to advance racism. But regular gamers aren't behind that effort and the kind of stuff the OP was talking about (just innocently including evil orcs in your game, etc) isn't contributing to that problem. Just because some loser skinhead equates orcs with black people or asians, that doesn't mean I can't have evil orcs in my game free of such associations. And I also question the efficacy of using RPGs to advance racist agendas. These people where they exist are a problem, but they are thankfully in an extreme minority.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480172And yet: Stormfront RPG groups exist (no link to spare Pundit hair pulling). So it is part of what RPGs do, whether intentionally or not.
You can say "People don't use these books to promote a racist message!" but what you're really saying is that to the best of your knowledge you don't use D&D books to spread a racist message. Because the reality that there are people who do use D&D to spread a racist message is rather inescapable. It's a nasty part of our world and the internet, but they really do exist. You can go to Stormfront or any of a number of other "White Pride" sites with RPG conversation on them and have a discussion about how exterminating evil races psyches you up to get rid of undesirables in the real world. They also find and exalt the racist messages hidden in Vampire, and other games.
You may not play RPGs that way. Heck, I'm pretty sure you don't. I don't play RPGs that way. I don't find that the fact that those people are out there hinders me from playing enjoying RPGs. But it is plumb ignorant to say that RPGs aren't used to spread a racist message, because there are people right now in the real world who are using RPGs to spread a racist message.
-Frank
Patricia Pulling logic, replace racism with satanism and it reads like something straight out of The Pulling Report (http://www.rpgstudies.net/stackpole/pulling_report.html).
Pulling logic indeed. I cannot stand this nonsense.
Quote from: jeff37923;480176Patricia Pulling logic, replace racism with satanism and it reads like something straight out of The Pulling Report (http://www.rpgstudies.net/stackpole/pulling_report.html).
Major difference: the vast network of satanist terrorists were fictional. The human sacrifices they supposedly engaged in on a regular basis did not, in fact, occur. Militant hate groups are, however, real (http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map).
Getting concerned because someone is making statements that sound suspiciously like an entirely fictional group of cartoonish villains is silly. Getting concerned because someone is making statements that sound like an entirely real domestic terrorist organization that kills real human beings every month is... less silly.
-Frank
Quote from: jeff37923;480176Patricia Pulling logic, replace racism with satanism and it reads like something straight out of The Pulling Report (http://www.rpgstudies.net/stackpole/pulling_report.html).
Indeed. Guilt by association is an ugly thing.
There are douchebags projecting their stuff onto the RPG games they play, and therefore RPGs spread racist messages? Give me a FUCKING break. That is total shortcut bullshit. Go fuck yourself with a sledgehammer, Frank.
I'm not sure which is more deliciously ironic: Complaining about racism while using guilt by association as your argument, or using the very racists one claims to condemn as support for one's position.
Troll-man strikes again.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480180Major difference: the vast network of satanist terrorists were fictional. The human sacrifices they supposedly engaged in on a regular basis did not, in fact, occur. Militant hate groups are, however, real (http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map).
Satanists exist. I certainly knew kids who played with the idea in middle and highschool. I think in both cases the association between hate groups/satanists and rpgs is vastly overblown. Causation is pretty much nil. Edit: agree the conspiracy was fictional but it is the same kind of argument.
I would agree that hategroups are more widespread and more of an actual problem. I just don't see how that relates to the OPs worry about standard campaigns, racism and colonialism.
-
I'm going to ignore pretty much everything that's been posted so far, because damn.
In general I don't have much use for alignments, but I have run campaigns where "absolute" morality was part of the metaphysics. in one, the setting was a low-magic pseudo-11c.-Europe where God and the Devil existed and while remote, were influencing things that went on. So it wasn't so much "Detect Good" or "Detect Evil" as much as "Detect Holiness" and "Detect Satanic Influence", but those things did exist and were measurable.
The other campaign was one based on Zoroastrianism, where the universe is evenly split between the influence of Ahura Mazda (god of light) and Ahrimanes (god of darkness). In that setting, "Detect Good" and "Detect Evil" were "detect beings/actions/places that move the balance towards a particular end of the spectrum".
In both of these campaigns, irredeemably evil beings did exist; pseudo-Europe had no Orcs, but there were gnolls in Zoroaster-land. They had females, and young, but slaughtering them en masse was still the Right Thing to Do, because their very existence in the world was tipping the balance towards Ahrimanes, and as creatures of the darkness they were evil right down to the pups, who were quite capable of savaging and eating things smaller than themselves, like babies and small children.
at the base level, it's the same as complaining about any game that might seem like it suck, merely because the players or GM sucked.
it ain't the game, it's the players.
Quote from: Sigmund;480162Neither does your assertion that it does have more meaning than that. We could go on this way all week. Either provide a more compelling argument than "you're wrong", or get comfortable being ignored.
Absolutely, meaning can be
imputed onto anything, really. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, that is why our lizard hindbrains aren't in charge anymore; we developed the larger part that is capable of all kinds of wonder and horror. Sometimes simultaneously.
However, the person that placed the cigar and the person that declares the most outlandish interpretation should be the ones whose motives are most suspect, and without rock solid evidence to the contrary, whose motives should never be taken at face value.
On the one hand, you have the artist, who innocently claims "It's just a cigar", albeit a large pink cigar with a bulbous end and oddly pendulous pouch on the other end. This is the critical function of art in a society; not painting portraits or still life, but showing the less savoury side of human nature. Does this mean the OP is some kind of artist? No, not just because of that. RPGs have a set of guidelines that are more rigid or less, like any other form. Novels have expected forms, as do paintings or sculpture. Great art has been created within those expectations, but occasionally even greater art has been created by expanding or ignoring those strictures. 'Rejecting complacency' could be one of the core principles in truly great art.
On the other hand, you have the hair-trigger outrage junkie. Like the artist, by sheer force of the law of averages, they are going to be 'right' or 'prophetic' once in a while. But also like the artist, there is a lot of pure shit to slog through getting there. It does serve as a proper balance for the artist, however; sometimes, a crucifix in a jar of piss is just a crucifix in a jar of piss. While the artist may feel they made some profound statement or meaningful commentary, the habitual critic reminds them that they should probably stop trying so damn hard all the time.
In both hands, we have a group of people who feel their eyes truly have no scales, while everyone else is still shrouded by the veil of their own ignorance. Which is why both of these cases must be approached with the highest level of suspicion.
What does that have to do with the OP dude? Not much, really. I have a feeling someone is taking their first Ethnic Studies class or something, and wanted to be a bit provocative on the web (someone phone the newspaper with
that scoop!). As I have mentioned, that rant is a bog-standard op-ed format. If you don't agree with the delineation of the problem, it should be no surprise that you won't agree with the conclusion or the solution. Conversely, if you don't agree with the premise, the authour isn't really talking to you anyway. You can still vocally disagree; that is how we learn about ourselves and each other.
Speaking of which, when are we going to pick up the Amber game again? Threads like these keep pushing it down on the 'longest thread' list, and I need to bulk up the post count on that one. You need to find a half-dozen jackholes like yourself to take over abandoned characters. See to it, my standing depends on your actions! :)
Quote from: daniel_ream;480186In general I don't have much use for alignments, but I have run campaigns where "absolute" morality was part of the metaphysics. in one, the setting was a low-magic pseudo-11c.-Europe where God and the Devil existed and while remote, were influencing things that went on.
Don't go anywhere! I am still formulating an idea for a new post, and I need someone with a background on 11th-13th century Europe! :)
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480172And yet: Stormfront RPG groups exist (no link to spare Pundit hair pulling). So it is part of what RPGs do, whether intentionally or not.
Part of what the RPGs
do? You're saying that RPGs create these groups of people? Because, if not, what's the difference between inserting the words "books", "eggs", "Monopoly", "stamp-collecting" into that statement? Racist people play RPGs? Of course, no one here is going to dispute that. They also drive cars and use toilet paper. There's no connection between these items or activities and the people themselves, though. No one has
ever become a racist because of the strong influence of the "orc" metaphor.
QuoteYou can say "People don't use these books to promote a racist message!" but what you're really saying is that to the best of your knowledge you don't use D&D books to spread a racist message.
I think what people are saying is that the books don't promote a racist message. People can use them to do that
if they so chose, but the implication of the blogger in the OP is that this behaviour is in someway encouraged by the game itself.
QuoteBecause the reality that there are people who do use D&D to spread a racist message is rather inescapable. It's a nasty part of our world and the internet, but they really do exist. You can go to Stormfront or any of a number of other "White Pride" sites with RPG conversation on them and have a discussion about how exterminating evil races psyches you up to get rid of undesirables in the real world.
I'm not sure 'inescapable' is the word I'd use...perhaps "uninteresting" or "inapplicable".
QuoteThey also find and exalt the racist messages hidden in Vampire, and other games.
Hidden racist messages in all our RPGs? Starting to doubt your sanity point total.
QuoteYou may not play RPGs that way. Heck, I'm pretty sure you don't. I don't play RPGs that way. I don't find that the fact that those people are out there hinders me from playing enjoying RPGs. But it is plumb ignorant to say that RPGs aren't used to spread a racist message, because there are people right now in the real world who are using RPGs to spread a racist message.
-Frank
Um...ok. I guess I missed someone in this thread saying anything about that at any point, but I suppose I agree...there are racists out there playing rpgs in very racist ways.
Just, WTH does it have to do with any of us?
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480185Satanists exist. I certainly knew kids who played with the idea in middle and highschool. I think in both cases the association between hate groups/satanists and rpgs is vastly overblown. Causation is pretty much nil. Edit: agree the conspiracy was fictional but it is the same kind of argument.
Satanists exist, yes. As certain as there are teenagers and cheap paperback copies of LaVey, but the phenomenon that the poster was talking about was something a bit different, having to do with the false "repressed memories" scare of the early 80s and the idea that an actual worldwide connected organization of Satanists existed, who spent most of their time apparently making toys and games for kids to indoctrinate them into the occult, in between abusing their children in secret suburban neighborhood orgies.
There was a "Satanic panic" in the early 80s that led to more than a few media witchhunts, and false arrests. It's actually all quite interesting, and worth reading up on, though grognards who had to live through that at a time when D&D was prime target number one may find less amusement in it.
Quote from: TristramEvans;480206Satanists exist, yes. As certain as there are teenagers and cheap paperback copies of LaVey, but the phenomenon that the poster was talking about was something a bit different, having to do with the false "repressed memories" scare of the early 80s and the idea that an actual worldwide connected organization of Satanists existed, who spent most of their time apparently making toys and games for kids to indoctrinate them into the occult, in between abusing their children in secret suburban neighborhood orgies.
There was a "Satanic panic" in the early 80s that led to more than a few media witchhunts, and false arrests. It's actually all quite interesting, and worth reading up on, though grognards who had to live through that at a time when D&D was prime target number one may find less amusement in it.
I realize thise--where i lived as a kid was swept up in some of tge hysteria just as i was getting into gaming. I see there is a difference but i think the argument and mentality are very much the same: they imbue d&d with a mystical power to corrupt people in some pet way. At least the op isnt against all d&d but imo he treads very close to tge same kind of reasoning that resulted the 80s hysteria. It is just like people who see communism everywhere or like people looking for hidden forms of anything they deem bad.
Oh for fuck's sake. No one is using guilt by association. No one is accusing you of being a Nazi. The specific quote being responded to is this:
QuoteIt isn't part of what they are designed to do, and it isn't a product of what they do.
If there is even one racist gaming circle
anywhere in the world, then racism is
a product of gaming. Not the biggest one, not a major one, not even necessarily an important one. But it is
a product. It's there.
Stop flying off the handle. Someone made the statement that racist gaming does not exist. And it does. It's there. It's a thing. And saying it doesn't exist isn't helpful. You can point out that we aren't all like that - and we're not. You can point out that those groups are a weird and hated fringe - and they are. But they exist. They are a product of our culture. We can talk about it or we can ignore it and hope it goes away. Those are both valid options.
But outright saying it doesn't exist isn't in any way helpful. You can give the lie to that in like 20 seconds with a Google search. Again, we aren't providing links because Pundit wants us to not link to those assholes. But they are real. They are
a product of gaming, like it or not. I don't like it, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
-Frank
So now we're hypothesizing some sort of "racist panic" in which completely innocent people's actions are misinterpreted as the acts of a wide-spanning racist organization that exists only to commit racism? Is that where we are?
Quote from: Axiomatic;480214So now we're hypothesizing some sort of "racist panic" in which completely innocent people's actions are misinterpreted as the acts of a wide-spanning racist organization that exists only to commit racism? Is that where we are?
I thought we were there back in the 70s.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480213Oh for fuck's sake. No one is using guilt by association. No one is accusing you of being a Nazi. The specific quote being responded to is this:
"It isn't part of what they are designed to do, and it isn't a product of what they do. "
If there is even one racist gaming circle anywhere in the world, then racism is a product of gaming. Not the biggest one, not a major one, not even necessarily an important one. But it is a product. It's there.
And I clarified what I meant by that post. I wasn't saying there are no racist gamers, I was saying that racism isn't a natural outcome of gaming.
QuoteStop flying off the handle. Someone made the statement that racist gaming does not exist.
I made clear that this wasn't what I was saying, and as far as I can tell no one has been arguing this at all.
QuoteAnd it does. It's there. It's a thing. And saying it doesn't exist isn't helpful. You can point out that we aren't all like that - and we're not. You can point out that those groups are a weird and hated fringe - and they are. But they exist. They are a product of our culture. We can talk about it or we can ignore it and hope it goes away. Those are both valid options.
This is just a strawman frank. no one is seriously suggestiing there aren't racist gamers out there who play the game in a racist way. But they have little to nothing to do with the whole debate from the OP. If you want to talk about these fringe groups and how bad they are, I think we are all on board there. But they aren't a byproduct of the fantasy genre, they aren't a byproduct of dungeons and dragons, they aren't a byproduct of orcs being evil, etc.
QuoteBut outright saying it doesn't exist isn't in any way helpful. You can give the lie to that in like 20 seconds with a Google search. Again, we aren't providing links because Pundit wants us to not link to those assholes. But they are real. They are a product of gaming, like it or not. I don't like it, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
I think we are vacilating on the term "product" here. In my original post I meant as a direct and natural outcome (i.e. his decision to commit a hatecrime was a product of years of indoctrination into white supremacist culture). These racist gaming groups are product of their own racism, not a product of D&D. They would still be racist whether D&D existed or not. To argue any kind of direct causation here is just pure sophistry in my opinion.
Quote from: Axiomatic;480214So now we're hypothesizing some sort of "racist panic" in which completely innocent people's actions are misinterpreted as the acts of a wide-spanning racist organization that exists only to commit racism? Is that where we are?
That isn't what I am saying. My point is that the arguments being made during the 80s hysteria are the same kind being employed by the OP. I think he represents a small fraction of the gaming community. Someone you mostly see online but not in real life. So I am not worried about a wide-spread hysteria over racism in gaming.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480172And yet: Stormfront RPG groups exist (no link to spare Pundit hair pulling). So it is part of what RPGs do, whether intentionally or not.
You can say "People don't use these books to promote a racist message!" but what you're really saying is that to the best of your knowledge you don't use D&D books to spread a racist message. Because the reality that there are people who do use D&D to spread a racist message is rather inescapable. It's a nasty part of our world and the internet, but they really do exist. You can go to Stormfront or any of a number of other "White Pride" sites with RPG conversation on them and have a discussion about how exterminating evil races psyches you up to get rid of undesirables in the real world. They also find and exalt the racist messages hidden in Vampire, and other games.
You may not play RPGs that way. Heck, I'm pretty sure you don't. I don't play RPGs that way. I don't find that the fact that those people are out there hinders me from playing enjoying RPGs. But it is plumb ignorant to say that RPGs aren't used to spread a racist message, because there are people right now in the real world who are using RPGs to spread a racist message.
-Frank
If Stormfront members eat Frosted Flakes, does that mean Kelloggs is a racist company? What if they say Frosted Flakes taste good because the frosting is white? Is Kelloggs racist then?
Quote from: StormBringer;480188Absolutely, meaning can be imputed onto anything, really. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, that is why our lizard hindbrains aren't in charge anymore; we developed the larger part that is capable of all kinds of wonder and horror. Sometimes simultaneously.
However, the person that placed the cigar and the person that declares the most outlandish interpretation should be the ones whose motives are most suspect, and without rock solid evidence to the contrary, whose motives should never be taken at face value.
On the one hand, you have the artist, who innocently claims "It's just a cigar", albeit a large pink cigar with a bulbous end and oddly pendulous pouch on the other end. This is the critical function of art in a society; not painting portraits or still life, but showing the less savoury side of human nature. Does this mean the OP is some kind of artist? No, not just because of that. RPGs have a set of guidelines that are more rigid or less, like any other form. Novels have expected forms, as do paintings or sculpture. Great art has been created within those expectations, but occasionally even greater art has been created by expanding or ignoring those strictures. 'Rejecting complacency' could be one of the core principles in truly great art.
On the other hand, you have the hair-trigger outrage junkie. Like the artist, by sheer force of the law of averages, they are going to be 'right' or 'prophetic' once in a while. But also like the artist, there is a lot of pure shit to slog through getting there. It does serve as a proper balance for the artist, however; sometimes, a crucifix in a jar of piss is just a crucifix in a jar of piss. While the artist may feel they made some profound statement or meaningful commentary, the habitual critic reminds them that they should probably stop trying so damn hard all the time.
In both hands, we have a group of people who feel their eyes truly have no scales, while everyone else is still shrouded by the veil of their own ignorance. Which is why both of these cases must be approached with the highest level of suspicion.
What does that have to do with the OP dude? Not much, really. I have a feeling someone is taking their first Ethnic Studies class or something, and wanted to be a bit provocative on the web (someone phone the newspaper with that scoop!). As I have mentioned, that rant is a bog-standard op-ed format. If you don't agree with the delineation of the problem, it should be no surprise that you won't agree with the conclusion or the solution. Conversely, if you don't agree with the premise, the authour isn't really talking to you anyway. You can still vocally disagree; that is how we learn about ourselves and each other.
Speaking of which, when are we going to pick up the Amber game again? Threads like these keep pushing it down on the 'longest thread' list, and I need to bulk up the post count on that one. You need to find a half-dozen jackholes like yourself to take over abandoned characters. See to it, my standing depends on your actions! :)
Hey, you're the head honcho of that thread brother, get to work!
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480213Oh for fuck's sake. No one is using guilt by association. No one is accusing you of being a Nazi. The specific quote being responded to is this:
If there is even one racist gaming circle anywhere in the world, then racism is a product of gaming. Not the biggest one, not a major one, not even necessarily an important one. But it is a product. It's there.
Stop flying off the handle. Someone made the statement that racist gaming does not exist. And it does. It's there. It's a thing. And saying it doesn't exist isn't helpful. You can point out that we aren't all like that - and we're not. You can point out that those groups are a weird and hated fringe - and they are. But they exist. They are a product of our culture. We can talk about it or we can ignore it and hope it goes away. Those are both valid options.
But outright saying it doesn't exist isn't in any way helpful. You can give the lie to that in like 20 seconds with a Google search. Again, we aren't providing links because Pundit wants us to not link to those assholes. But they are real. They are a product of gaming, like it or not. I don't like it, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
-Frank
I don't agree. The racism would not be a product of their gaming. Racist game sessions would be a product of their gaming. The difference is, the game is all that's brought by the game, the racism is entirely brought by the players.
Edit: Honestly, didn't Kyle point this out, like PAGES ago? It's still true, nothing's changed in this regard.
Quote from: Axiomatic;480214So now we're hypothesizing some sort of "racist panic" in which completely innocent people's actions are misinterpreted as the acts of a wide-spanning racist organization that exists only to commit racism? Is that where we are?
Only if you are incapable of reading and comprehending the actual posts in this thread. Nobody involved in this thread, except you, have even mentioned the possibility. Your troll is a failure.
Quote from: Benoist;480152Could be. If you give me the green light to imagine the shit out of this, I will.
This could lead to some interesting situations...if you feel it would add to the play then by all means!
I was thinking about this some last night...some creepy possibilities, some more benign...:D
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480138To an extent. But the general wickedness of biological determinism and eugenic genocide is not really a Left vs. Right thing. The Eugenic movement had proponents of every stripe. We mostly hear about a particular right wing group because people like to Godwin arguments, but leftists like Bertrand Russel and largely a-political horror writers like H.P.Lovecraft were dyed in the wool eugenicists. As the supreme court justice (and progressive hero) Oliver Wendell Holmes put it:
We condemn these positions because they are wicked. Not because they are left wing or right wing, but because experience has shown beyond reasonable doubt that such reasoning leads to atrocities the likes of which cannot be condoned by any man. It's a compelling sounding argument, and it persuaded a lot of people of every political conviction in the early parts of the twentieth century. But it's wrong. It's wrong to make that argument, and if you make that argument you are in the wrong.
If there is anything in all the world that is truly Evil, it is that. Which is why it's pretty weird to have people condemning the condemnation of it as some sort of leftist conspiracy. It's one of the things that those of moral clarity can agree upon unreservedly, whether their sympathies lie with Karl Marx or Karl Rove.
-Frank
Like I said, pretty civilised. :D
Most Righties class the Nazis along with their felllow Eugenicists as Left-wing BTW, as I expect you knew. Actual Right-wing conservative traditionalists tend to be more into Catholic-style "great chain of being", everyone has their place - and should know their place. But the US has almost no conservative-traditionalist tradition, so instead "right wing" covers a spectrum from Maddison Grant Aryan-fanboi-ism to GW Bush & his 'invade the world/invite the world' neocons.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480172And yet: Stormfront RPG groups exist (no link to spare Pundit hair pulling). So it is part of what RPGs do, whether intentionally or not.
You can say "People don't use these books to promote a racist message!" but what you're really saying is that to the best of your knowledge you don't use D&D books to spread a racist message. Because the reality that there are people who do use D&D to spread a racist message is rather inescapable. It's a nasty part of our world and the internet, but they really do exist. You can go to Stormfront or any of a number of other "White Pride" sites with RPG conversation on them and have a discussion about how exterminating evil races psyches you up to get rid of undesirables in the real world. They also find and exalt the racist messages hidden in Vampire, and other games.
You may not play RPGs that way. Heck, I'm pretty sure you don't. I don't play RPGs that way. I don't find that the fact that those people are out there hinders me from playing enjoying RPGs. But it is plumb ignorant to say that RPGs aren't used to spread a racist message, because there are people right now in the real world who are using RPGs to spread a racist message.
-Frank
I suspect they were racist before they discovered RPGs, Frank. But yes, there's lots in D&D, or Tolkien, for Stormfronters to get their teeth into.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480180Major difference: the vast network of satanist terrorists were fictional. The human sacrifices they supposedly engaged in on a regular basis did not, in fact, occur. Militant hate groups are, however, real (http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map).
The SPLC isn't very reliable though - they class all kinds of people as Hate, from actual Haters (Aryan Nation, Nation of Islam) to, well, people who clearly aren't. The most fanatical anti-racist I've encountered on the Internet was a member of the League of the South. If he hated anyone, it was racists. The League of the South have a strong anti-racist statement on their own website. Yet SPLC class the League of the South as a 'Hate' group purely on their being a Southern-Secessionist organisation. There are other examples, but that was the most obviously egregious I've come across.
Edit: "Kills real human beings every month"? Really? Who does that?
Quote from: TristramEvans;480201Part of what the RPGs do? You're saying that RPGs create these groups of people? Because, if not, what's the difference between inserting the words "books", "eggs", "Monopoly", "stamp-collecting" into that statement? Racist people play RPGs? Of course, no one here is going to dispute that. They also drive cars and use toilet paper. There's no connection between these items or activities and the people themselves, though. No one has ever become a racist because of the strong influence of the "orc" metaphor.
This doesn't seem to match the case, though. The white supremacist topic cited was "Learn all you need to know about race from Dungeons and Dragons." That isn't simply incidental usage - it is someone directly connecting principles about race from D&D to real-world races. Of course this isn't what most people do, but it's also not parallel to a white supremacist who happens to drive a Ford - unless you can find me a white supremacist saying that they learned about race from Ford cars.
As I understand it, your standard is that unless something - by itself - makes complete non-racists into complete racists, then it is completely irrelevant and any suggestion of connection is ridiculous. That seems like a very high bar to apply.
I think in that a lot of things have potential effects, and we have to judge the good against the bad. In particular, a lot of old movies, television, and books have racist themes - sometimes explicitly but sometimes just by minor bits or lack of inclusion. Personally, I don't approve of editing the originals to remove such prejudice, but conversely I also don't think that it is all perfectly harmless. Growing up and/or living on a diet of prejudiced stories can desensitize one. As a father, I try to explicitly point out prejudice in old stories and talk about it with my son.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480172exalt the racist messages hidden in Vampire,
I find the White Nationalists who exalt the Vampire, traditional symbol of corruption, sin and death, as a fine of example of Aryan Manhood, to be particularly strange.
Even if they do sparkle.
Quote from: jhkim;480239This doesn't seem to match the case, though. The white supremacist topic cited was "Learn all you need to know about race from Dungeons and Dragons." That isn't simply incidental usage - it is someone directly connecting principles about race from D&D to real-world races. Of course this isn't what most people do, but it's also not parallel to a white supremacist who happens to drive a Ford - unless you can find me a white supremacist saying that they learned about race from Ford cars.
Sure, but it is just as nonsensical. Just because these people can find analogies for their racist world view in a fantasy setting, that doesn't in any way mean the setting is to blame.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480242Sure, but it is just as nonsensical. Just because these people can find analogies for their racist world view in a fantasy setting, that doesn't in any way mean the setting is to blame.
But jhkim's point is more subtle. The fact is that racists can make those points from D&D. They can't make those points from many games.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480243But jhkim's point is more subtle. The fact is that racists can make those points from D&D. They can't make those points from many games.
I suppose it depends on the game, but they shouldn't have a hard time finding places for racist comparison if its any kind of interesting setting. Any fantasy game that has races and or countries with positive and negative qualities should serve their purposes just fine. And the mere fact that they can interpret D&D that way, doesn't make D&D inherently racist nor does it mean D&D encourages racism. It just means these racists have figured out how to make a reflecting pool for their own values.
Oh my god, I just looked back in on this thread and it's still going at 85 pages, and someone's earnestly mentioning the SPLC?
This hobby sucks and deserves death.
Since I'm saving my effort for Stormbringer's thread, I'll just say this. All this is rather silly. A role playing game is perhaps the best way to transmit or reinforce dodgy vile ideas within a social context. Add to this the cathartic elements of the game and a manipulative GM/Group, the potential to warp impressionable minds is great. Better than any other artistic medium. Most agenda driven games are basically didactic exercises.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480242Sure, but it is just as nonsensical. Just because these people can find analogies for their racist world view in a fantasy setting, that doesn't in any way mean the setting is to blame.
Trying to dismiss people out of hand and using faulty analogies doesn't make your case, though.
In many fantasy games, there are different groups of intelligent, humanoid creatures that are called "races". In many interpretations of the background, it is a tenet of the good alignment to kill off every member of the evil races because they are inherently, irredeemably evil. Indeed, a bunch of people here in this thread have argued in favor of irredeemably evil orcs.
However, what that means is that in such worlds it is good to cut the throats of orc women, children, and prisoners. I personally am uncomfortable role-playing that, and I would want real arguments why that is not problematic, rather than just name-calling that I'm stupid if I have a problem with it.
Quote from: jhkim;480248However, what that means is that in such worlds it is good to cut the throats of orc women, children, and prisoners. I personally am uncomfortable role-playing that, and I would want real arguments why that is not problematic...
They have pig-snouts?
Quote from: jhkim;480248Trying to dismiss people out of hand and using faulty analogies doesn't make your case, though.
In many fantasy games, there are different groups of intelligent, humanoid creatures that are called "races". In many interpretations of the background, it is a tenet of the good alignment to kill off every member of the evil races because they are inherently, irredeemably evil. Indeed, a bunch of people here in this thread have argued in favor of irredeemably evil orcs.
We've already gone over this numerous times. Just because there are evil races in a game setting, that doesn't mean there is any connection between those and realworld races.
Fantasy settings are replete with thiings we'd find objectionable in the real world: monarchies, bloodshed, greed and powergrabbing.
While I don't care personally for hack N slash games, having participated in such gaming groups over the years I don't consider "kill the orcs" the least bit problematic.
QuoteHowever, what that means is that in such worlds it is good to cut the throats of orc women, children, and prisoners. I personally am uncomfortable role-playing that, and I would want real arguments why that is not problematic, rather than just name-calling that I'm stupid if I have a problem with it.
Because it is just a game. I love mob movies and I love playing gangsters in RPGs. Just because I routinely arrange to whack my comrades in the game doesn't mean it bleeds into my real life. If you are uncomfortable playing such a game, that is fine. Everyone has their own threshhold for violence and mahem in entertainment.
Quote from: David R;480246Since I'm saving my effort for Stormbringer's thread, I'll just say this. All this is rather silly. A role playing game is perhaps the best way to transmit or reinforce dodgy vile ideas within a social context. Add to this the cathartic elements of the game and a manipulative GM/Group, the potential to warp impressionable minds is great. Better than any other artistic medium. Most agenda driven games are basically didactic exercises.
Regards,
David R
I don't think anyone here is denying the power of all mediums to be used as tools of manipulation and propoganda. However I honestly think RPGs are the least effictive method of promoting an agenda for a number of reasons. In my experience music and film are much more powerful ways to stir people to action. When Wilson said about Birth of a Nation "its like writing history with lightning", I think he was right. A visual image is much harder to dislodge than something you imagine on your own. I mean I am a big advocate of the power of imagination, but it takes way more work than passively sitting in a theater absorbing whatever is placed before you. And just look at the power of music to shape culture and motivate. Role playing games don't compare in my view. Sure they could be used by white supremacists as one additional tool for indoctrination. But I think their hate music, flyers and movies are going to get them way more recruits than games of racist D&D.
But the point being rejected by the posters here is the one made by the OP poster: that there is something inherently problematic about D&D's default setting assumptions.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480252But the point being rejected by the posters here is the one made by the OP poster: that there is something inherently problematic about D&D's default setting assumptions.
I realize that and I rejected the OP's premise in my first post here. I disagree with your point that it's the least effective medium (and I don't have much time at this moment to tell you why) but I think it's not very effective in the sense that not many people are interested in it.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: jibbajibba;480243But jhkim's point is more subtle. The fact is that racists can make those points from D&D. They can't make those points from many games.
You can make racist points out of literally
anything. That does not make that
thing racist.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480251Because it is just a game. I love mob movies and I love playing gangsters in RPGs. Just because I routinely arrange to whack my comrades in the game doesn't mean it bleeds into my real life. If you are uncomfortable playing such a game, that is fine. Everyone has their own threshhold for violence and mahem in entertainment.
True, but everyone also tends to have a threshold for what is OK in
other people's entertainment. i.e.
It's fine to enjoy genocide, but those who enjoy Poison'd are sick and/or fucked in the head. I think "It's just a game" is no more or less an out than "It's just a movie" or "It's just a comic". Obviously fiction isn't the same thing as reality, but it still has meaning. I personally would have a problem if there was a scene in the Lord of the Rings movies where the heroes went through butchering up orc women and children and told themselves with authority that it was the good thing to do. Can you honestly say that you would be fine with it?
Quote from: jhkim;480256I think "It's just a game" is no more or less an out than "It's just a movie" or "It's just a comic". Obviously fiction isn't the same thing as reality, but it still has meaning. I personally would have a problem if there was a scene in the Lord of the Rings movies where the heroes went through butchering up orc women and children and told themselves with authority that it was the good thing to do. Can you honestly say that you would be fine with it?
I would have a problem with it for the same reason I would have a problem with it in most of my own fantasy games, the characters are supposed to be heroic and good, and butchering the women and children goes against that. However if it was a zany film like Evil Dead 3 and they were doing that, I'd probably have less of an issue (just like I have no issue with gallows humor and violence in mob movies).
However, I think a game is different than a movie. And while I haven't cared much for wasting orcs since I was in highschool, I am not really bothered if people chose to waste orcs in their own games. I think killing orc women and children is a bit too far for my tastes, but if the game world assumes inherently evil orcs I can see where those games are coming from. I don't view it as sinister, just knights of the dinner table style gaming.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480243But jhkim's point is more subtle. The fact is that racists can make those points from D&D. They can't make those points from many games.
Racist's can make points from all kinds of things, just like anybody else. This does not mean there are racist messages or ideas inherent in these things, including fantasy. The point might be more subtle, but it's still wrong.
I'm sure you can build a racist theory out of Monopoly. The way the properties are scattered across the board, the probabilities of the game, whatnot. You can either prove that Monopoly is the racist's dream, or that it is a piece of trash undermench propaganda. Take your pick.
Could do the same thing with the colors of the rainbow, apples, briefs or boxers, doggy style v. missionary, etc etc. I mean come on. Have you guys ever actually talked to these numbnuts before? They have a fucking warped vision of reality, man. That doesn't make the freaking rainbow, apples, briefs, boxers, and sexual positions racist. You guys should take a step back, get off the soapbox and breathe.
Quote from: jhkim;480248Trying to dismiss people out of hand and using faulty analogies doesn't make your case, though.
In many fantasy games, there are different groups of intelligent, humanoid creatures that are called "races". In many interpretations of the background, it is a tenet of the good alignment to kill off every member of the evil races because they are inherently, irredeemably evil. Indeed, a bunch of people here in this thread have argued in favor of irredeemably evil orcs.
However, what that means is that in such worlds it is good to cut the throats of orc women, children, and prisoners. I personally am uncomfortable role-playing that, and I would want real arguments why that is not problematic, rather than just name-calling that I'm stupid if I have a problem with it.
That's because orcs aren't any more real than dragons, faeries, zombies or demons. Why am I having to explain this? It's fantasy. Grendel was evil, frost giants are evil, harpies are evil, and fomorians are evil. Why? Because we say so, and there are no real Grendels, frost giants, harpies, or fomorians to take offense. Same with orcs. Does anyone really think positing irredeemably evil orcs is morally wrong? Boring I can buy, but morally wrong? Signs of real world racism? Bullshit. No more than anything else in mythology or any other kind of fantastic medium.
Just because you and apparently others have hang-ups about what kind of imaginary things you do in a fantasy game, doesn't mean there's something wrong with those who don't have the same hang-ups.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480257I would have a problem with it for the same reason I would have a problem with it in most of my own fantasy games, the characters are supposed to be heroic and good, and butchering the women and children goes against that. However if it was a zany film like Evil Dead 3 and they were doing that, I'd probably have less of an issue (just like I have no issue with gallows humor and violence in mob movies).
So let's be clear here - you say that you would potentially have a problem with it depending on exactly how it was presented in the movie. You wouldn't casually dismiss any orc baby-killing as "It's just a movie" - but rather you would have to assess whether it was done in a zany context.
I probably would judge similarly. If a movie was not-so-subtly mocking its own genre, I might have greater tolerance for such violence - though it could still go too far.
Personally, I would judge games in a very similar way. If the heroes are not expected to be good and/or if the game was mocking its own genre, then I'd have less of a problem with such violence.
Quote from: jhkim;480256True, but everyone also tends to have a threshold for what is OK in other people's entertainment. i.e. It's fine to enjoy genocide, but those who enjoy Poison'd are sick and/or fucked in the head.
I think "It's just a game" is no more or less an out than "It's just a movie" or "It's just a comic". Obviously fiction isn't the same thing as reality, but it still has meaning. I personally would have a problem if there was a scene in the Lord of the Rings movies where the heroes went through butchering up orc women and children and told themselves with authority that it was the good thing to do. Can you honestly say that you would be fine with it?
Apples and oranges. In all my 30 years RPGing, not once has our group of PCs set out to wipe out the orc (or any other) race. The "genocide" the OP is positing is his own twisted view of what's happening if an orc tribe is defeated, and I'd bet dollars to donuts the reason the tribe was "wiped out" (very loosely speaking, since it's all imaginary, and nothing is being killed, or wiped out, or hurt in any way) was because they were raiding or attacking and killing the "good" people. I get it, some folks wouldn't want to think about "killing" pretend orc babies, but since they're not real, never have been real, and never will be real, some people do not have the same hang-ups. Either way, I'd be willing to bet in the vast majority of games, not even pretend genocide is the goal. In Poison'd, apparently, describing actions that in the real world will be shocking, disgusting, and/or morally reprehensible is at least part of the point, since everyone knows how evil pirates were and apparently some folks are entertained by being verbally disgusting. In short, in the one morally shocking things are not the point. In the other, morally shocking things are the point, at least in part. Two different things.
Plus, I don't recall many people saying Poison'd is racist, or anything even of that nature, and I also don't recall too many folks saying people shouldn't play it if they really want to. We might say it's fucking stupid, or that we would hate it. Just opinions, nothing wrong with that either.
Quote from: jhkim;480261So let's be clear here - you say that you would potentially have a problem with it depending on exactly how it was presented in the movie. You wouldn't casually dismiss any orc baby-killing as "It's just a movie" - but rather you would have to assess whether it was done in a zany context.
While I might object to it aesthetically (on the grounds it violates the spirit of Lord of the Rings) I wouldn't see it as an endorsement of domestic violence or racism either. I would probably just say it was poor taste and leave it at that. If some of my friends liked it I wouldn't take issue with their enjoyment of the film or feel a need for people to hash out how the orc baby killing was "problematic".
QuoteI probably would judge similarly. If a movie was not-so-subtly mocking its own genre, I might have greater tolerance for such violence - though it could still go too far.
I have a pretty high tolerance of violence in film. However I have my limits as well. There are some scenes I just can't take watching. But I have to admit I am a fan of violent action movies.
QuotePersonally, I would judge games in a very similar way. If the heroes are not expected to be good and/or if the game was mocking its own genre, then I'd have less of a problem with such violence.
In my experience, most orc killing games are a little tongue in cheek. Sure, if someone is relishing the gory details of killing an orc baby, that is going to unerve people.
Quote from: Sigmund;480260That's because orcs aren't any more real than dragons, faeries, zombies or demons. Why am I having to explain this? It's fantasy.
Can you answer the same question honestly? i.e. In the Lord of the Rings movies, would you have no problem with a scene of the good heroes butchering up a bunch of helpless orc women and young? If you want more specifics, perhaps picture it when the Ents along with Merry and Pippin were attacking Isengard. No gore is shown, just some ugly little orc young trying to get away - and we see the Ents crushing them while Merry and Pippin try to help out, pointing out ones that are being missed.
Sure, it's just fantasy, but I still would have a problem with it.
We still identify with characters and situations in fantasy in exactly the same way that we do in other fiction. Framing things as fantasy makes things more distant, but it doesn't become abstract notions divorced from any meaning.
As an alternative: Do you think that any meaning behind James Cameron's
Avatar can be excused because it is just fantasy?
Quote from: jhkim;480239This doesn't seem to match the case, though. The white supremacist topic cited was "Learn all you need to know about race from Dungeons and Dragons." That isn't simply incidental usage - it is someone directly connecting principles about race from D&D to real-world races.
Only in the same way that insane people find "connections" in things that only exist because they want to see them. Pariedolia, and the like. You seem to be suggesting that the racist elements are there, just waiting to be discoverexd. In which case we disagree on a fundamental level; whatever connection any given person might find in D&D to their half-baked political agendas are, IMO, completely and utterly of their own making.
QuoteOf course this isn't what most people do, but it's also not parallel to a white supremacist who happens to drive a Ford - unless you can find me a white supremacist saying that they learned about race from Ford cars.
I've never come across a white supremacist that said they learned about race from a roleplaying game. Such a person obviously would have to have extreme mental deficiencies above and beyond racial intolerance. so, yeah, I think the Ford analogy still stands.
QuoteAs I understand it, your standard is that unless something - by itself - makes complete non-racists into complete racists, then it is completely irrelevant and any suggestion of connection is ridiculous. That seems like a very high bar to apply.
It is a high bar because anything less is meaningless. There is always great concern among certain people that other people are constantly at the risk of being "influenced" (bordering on an accusation of post-hypnotic suggestion) by the things they read, games they play, music they listen to. The thing is, that belief is at odds with reality. It's the Pat Pulling "find a scapegoat" approach to pop psychology. Roleplaying games do not influence the behaviour of the people playing them. The infinitesimally small percentage of roleplayers that might actually be an exception to this rule are those who already, independently, have a loose grasp on reality.
This issue becomes even more confused as the claim is not "D&D presents racist ideas", rather "D&D employs imaginary creations in a way that some people might view as analogous to real world racial concerns...if one is willing to squint really hard".
I flat out don't buy the accusation at all, and have yet to see a scrap of evidence beyond some half-baked philosophizing.
Once again, "It's just a stupid game"
QuoteI think in that a lot of things have potential effects, and we have to judge the good against the bad. In particular, a lot of old movies, television, and books have racist themes - sometimes explicitly but sometimes just by minor bits or lack of inclusion. Personally, I don't approve of editing the originals to remove such prejudice, but conversely I also don't think that it is all perfectly harmless. Growing up and/or living on a diet of prejudiced stories can desensitize one. As a father, I try to explicitly point out prejudice in old stories and talk about it with my son.
That's all nice and good, but not really anything to do with the situation at hand. Explaining actual examples of racism in media to a kid is not comparable to what amounts to, for some, a suspicious analogy.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480263While I might object to it aesthetically (on the grounds it violates the spirit of Lord of the Rings) I wouldn't see it as an endorsement of domestic violence or racism either. I would probably just say it was poor taste and leave it at that.
I just want to repeat this, because it's really summing up the whole thing exactly.
Pretend killing imaginary orc babies would definitely be in poor taste, but inherently racist? Colonialism? Really? Come on now.
Quote from: jhkim;480264As an alternative: Do you think that any meaning behind James Cameron's Avatar can be excused because it is just fantasy?
This movie never troubled me. I was there for a good ride and enjoyed it for the visuals and the setting (didn't really care about the message since I always find Cameron way too heavy handed in that respect). Generally when I watch a movie I ignore the message because in all honestly I am not interested in having my political/social views informed by a film-maker.
Quote from: jhkim;480256I think "It's just a game" is no more or less an out than "It's just a movie" or "It's just a comic". Obviously fiction isn't the same thing as reality, but it still has meaning. I personally would have a problem if there was a scene in the Lord of the Rings movies where the heroes went through butchering up orc women and children and told themselves with authority that it was the good thing to do. Can you honestly say that you would be fine with it?
I'd honestly be as fine with the heroes in a movie doing that so long as they were defined as irredeemable creatures of Evil and the heroes treated it like a grim necessity rather than a good time. I see it as little different than killing zombies (which have not only been depicted as babies and children but also as having sentience -- e.g., the zombies in The Return of the Living Dead, that included one that requests more paramedics from the radio dispatcher so he could eat their brains).
On the other hand, I was troubled by James Bond, in Goldeneye, shooting Russian police officers who were just doing their job in order to escape a police station.
Quote from: jhkim;480264Can you answer the same question honestly? i.e. In the Lord of the Rings movies, would you have no problem with a scene of the good heroes butchering up a bunch of helpless orc women and young?
Yes, because there are no orc women and young, and Jackson took enough smegging liberties as it was.
Would I object to that same scene in Game of Thrones (not having read the books first)? No, not at all.
QuoteIf you want more specifics, perhaps picture it when the Ents along with Merry and Pippin were attacking Isengard. No gore is shown, just some ugly little orc young trying to get away - and we see the Ents crushing them while Merry and Pippin try to help out, pointing out ones that are being missed.
Sure, it's just fantasy, but I still would have a problem with it.
Why?
QuoteWe still identify with characters and situations in fantasy in exactly the same way that we do in other fiction. Framing things as fantasy makes things more distant, but it doesn't become abstract notions divorced from any meaning.
Well, I usually identify with protagonists, not so much undead anglo-saxon bogeymen. I identified with Ripley, not really with the Aliens for example.
QuoteAs an alternative: Do you think that any meaning behind James Cameron's Avatar can be excused because it is just fantasy?
What about Ferngully 2's plot needs "excusing"?
Quote from: jhkim;480264Can you answer the same question honestly? i.e. In the Lord of the Rings movies, would you have no problem with a scene of the good heroes butchering up a bunch of helpless orc women and young? If you want more specifics, perhaps picture it when the Ents along with Merry and Pippin were attacking Isengard. No gore is shown, just some ugly little orc young trying to get away - and we see the Ents crushing them while Merry and Pippin try to help out, pointing out ones that are being missed.
Sure, it's just fantasy, but I still would have a problem with it.
We still identify with characters and situations in fantasy in exactly the same way that we do in other fiction. Framing things as fantasy makes things more distant, but it doesn't become abstract notions divorced from any meaning.
As an alternative: Do you think that any meaning behind James Cameron's Avatar can be excused because it is just fantasy?
See above. It may be in poor taste, but it's not an indication of inherent racism in the product.
You toss around hypothetical movie scenes for the next year, it won't make the premise of the OP any more sound. No, I would have no moral problem with any LotR movie that displayed "orc children" being stomped by ents. It would be irritating because it would be too big a deviation from the books, but morally wrong? Not really.
I fail to see what Avatar has to do with whether D&D contains racist ideas simply because it makes orcs an evil race. The OP is trying to convince us that orcs = black people. Let me ask you, do you believe D&D orcs = black people? Do you believe that if a DM describes, in his or her campaign, orcs that are evil and that are attacked on sight by the "good" races, they are promoting a real world racist agenda and glorifying colonialism?
Quote from: jhkim;480264Can you answer the same question honestly? i.e. In the Lord of the Rings movies, would you have no problem with a scene of the good heroes butchering up a bunch of helpless orc women and young? If you want more specifics, perhaps picture it when the Ents along with Merry and Pippin were attacking Isengard. No gore is shown, just some ugly little orc young trying to get away - and we see the Ents crushing them while Merry and Pippin try to help out, pointing out ones that are being missed.
And if they were zombie children, sentient enough like the zombies in The Return of the Living Dead that they could carry out a conversation with you, who had an irresistible urge to
eat your brains (which they could tell you, clearly and distinctly), would you be troubled by the Ents stomping them and Merry and Pippin pointing them out?
Quote from: S'mon;480238The SPLC isn't very reliable though - they class all kinds of people as Hate, from actual Haters (Aryan Nation, Nation of Islam) to, well, people who clearly aren't.
You do not know what you are talking about. The SPLC is an excellent organisation that has perhaps the most comprehensive knowledge of hate groups, their organisation, methods and operation in America short of the FBI.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480243But jhkim's point is more subtle. The fact is that racists can make those points from D&D. They can't make those points from many games.
I was thinking along those lines myself. I am sure someone can imagine the darkies building their houses and hotels in Monopoly, but I hardly think that would be the same level of investment.
Quote from: David R;480246Since I'm saving my effort for Stormbringer's thread, I'll just say this. All this is rather silly. A role playing game is perhaps the best way to transmit or reinforce dodgy vile ideas within a social context. Add to this the cathartic elements of the game and a manipulative GM/Group, the potential to warp impressionable minds is great. Better than any other artistic medium. Most agenda driven games are basically didactic exercises.
Regards,
David R
Excellent points.
Quote from: StormBringer;480278I was thinking along those lines myself. I am sure someone can imagine the darkies building their houses and hotels in Monopoly, but I hardly think that would be the same level of investment.
I don't see how someone could read racism out of monopoly? - though there
is a racist version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettopoly
I could totally see Chess being misconstrued as racist, though. If "white" and "black" are ideological rather than racial tags, you should be able to convert captured pawns to your colour, rather than killing them. And White gets an unfair advantage.
Why does White start? Because White is better. That's it. Chess = subliminal racism.
Quote from: S'mon;480105Yeah, but... in that New Left diaelectic "The Personal is Political" and everything is a political act.
Same for the rightists. I mean, you don't get more personal than what you do with your genitals for fun, but "conservatives" are usually very, very worried about that. For them, the personal is extremely political.
Fuck 'em.
Quote from: S'monWe don't have to agree, but it's worth understanding that they've been indoctrinated in this stuff - they were the guys actually paying attention in the compulsory Citizenship/Civics class, in the Diversity Training seminars and all the other places where the Left-Leitkultur is disseminated.
I think it was Aos or Jeff who said, "the internet: where freshman year at university never has to end."
It's over now, for most of us. Get over it. Not every act is imbued with greater meaning.
Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;480131Media should always be taken seriously.
Should it? Why?
Quote from: Kaiu KeiichiAnd if I want a mindless diversion, I'll raid in WoW.
Fallacy of false dichotomy. Between "mindless diversion" and "my game world is a metaphor for these real-world political issues dear to my heart" is a wide and sane middle ground where we can have rpg campaigns with interesting themes which aren't all preachy.
Quote from: Kaiu KeiichiAnd, colonialism is bullshit
If colonialism is bullshit, then we
definitely have to hate and kill orcs, since as I already described, they have a god who tells them to conquer and enslave the whole world. Gruumsh is like the Cecil Rhodes of the D&D world.
Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;480135Stop dodging the responsibility bullet. Every piece of media, everything is political and a statement of values. Gaming can't help but represent what *we* are, it comes from us.
Sure. But like everything else, it's an expression of
part of me, not the totality of me. That I have sex with my wife from time to time does not mean I am nothing but a sex maniac. That I train PT clients each day does not mean I am nothing but a trainer. That I like sunsets does not mean I want to sit and watch one every single day.
Likewise, that I enjoy having a fighter butcher orcs horribly does not mean that I wish I could do it in real life.
Quote from: Kaiu KeiichiNext time I run fantasy gaming, I might have the PCs be all from an Orc tribe. That would be fun to explore.
So you're going to explore colonialism from the point of view of the colonists? Interesting.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480172And yet: Stormfront RPG groups exist (no link to spare Pundit hair pulling). So it is part of what RPGs do, whether intentionally or not.
Intentions matter. It's like saying that a tomato sauce bottle is inherently sexual because someone stuck one up his jacksie once. It's not a sexual object by intention. And most rpgs aren't racist by intention. It's not the tomato sauce bottle maker's fault. "But they made it sort of cylinder shaped, and a penis is basically a cylinder - I should sue them for my internal injuries." No, if you stick a sauce bottle up your jacksie, it's your fault you're a pervert.
Likewise if you use rpgs to express your racist/classist/etc views. So for example GamerDude has told us he has no homosexual characters in his game worlds. Obviously he doesn't like them, and wishes they didn't exist. Since he is too lazy to go out in small gangs of shaven-headed unemployed bums beating gays up, he just waves his hand and they don't exist in his game setting. His fantasy world is one where gays don't exist. So he's using his rpg sessions to express his bigoted views. This makes him a cocksmock. But it's not the fault of whoever wrote GamerDaddy's favourite rpg that GamerDude is a homophobic cocksmock.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;480274You do not know what you are talking about. The SPLC is an excellent organisation that has perhaps the most comprehensive knowledge of hate groups, their organisation, methods and operation in America short of the FBI.
King of the Hate Business (http://www.creators.com/opinion/alexander-cockburn/king-of-the-hate-business.html) by Alexander Cockburn (Also published in The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/article/king-hate-business) behind a paywall):
QuoteWhat is the arch-salesman of hate mongering, Mr. Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center, going to do now? Ever since 1971, U.S. Postal Service mailbags have bulged with his fundraising letters, scaring dollars out of the pockets of trembling liberals aghast at his lurid depictions of hate-sodden America, in dire need of legal confrontation by the SPLC. Nine years ago, Ken Silverstein wrote a devastating commentary on Dees and the SPLC in Harper's, dissecting a typical swatch of Dees' solicitations. At that time, as Silverstein pointed out, the SPLC was "the wealthiest civil rights group in America," with $120 million in assets.
[...]
But where are the haters? That hardy old standby, the KKK, despite the SPLC's predictable howls about an uptick in its chapters, is a moth-eaten and depleted troupe, at least 10 percent of them on the government payroll as informants for the FBI. As Noel Ignatiev once remarked in his book "Race Traitor," there isn't a public school in any county in the U.S.A. that doesn't represent a menace to blacks a thousand times more potent than that offered by the KKK, just as there aren't many such schools that probably haven't been propositioned by Dees to buy one of the SPLC's "tolerance" programs.
What school is going to go on record rejecting Dees-sponsored tolerance?
Dees and his hate-seekers scour the landscape for hate like the arms manufacturers inventing new threats and for the same reason: It's their staple.
The SPLC's latest "Year in Hate" report claims that in 2008 the number of hate groups rose to 926, up 4 percent from 2007, and 54 percent since 2000. The SPLC doesn't measure the number of members in the groups, meaning they probably missed me. Change that total to 927. I'm a hate group, meaning in Dees-speak, "one with beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people," starting with Dick Cheney. I love to dream of him being waterboarded, subjected to loops of Schonberg played at top volume, locked up naked in a meat locker. But the nation's haters are mostly like me, enjoying their (increasingly circumscribed) constitutionally guaranteed right to hate, solitary, disorganized, prone to sickening relapses into love, or at least the sort of amiable tolerance for All Mankind experienced when looking at photos of Carla Bruni and Princess Letizia of Spain kissing.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480243But jhkim's point is more subtle. The fact is that racists can make those points from D&D. They can't make those points from many games.
They can make that point from any game that includes a racial or species modifier to anything. I guess WEG Star Wars is racist then because Wookies get a bonus to strength.
Chess is a good metaphor for white supremacy too, see there are these pawns, which are really niggers... it's idiotic.
The strength of a role-playing game is its imaginative power. It's a tool, nothing more. I care what RPG Stormfront uses to spread their filth about as much as I care about what paper they use when they print their newsletters.
Quote from: jhkim;480256It's fine to enjoy genocide
Oh god, we're back to this useless strawman again. Oh yeah that's right, backdoor defense of Poison'd, of course the strawmen have to fly.
Completely killing all the orcs in the Caves of Chaos that have been raiding the areas around the Keep on the Borderlands is not genocide.
Show me one module, adventure, what have you where the de facto assumption is to have players actively seek out and destroy orcs wherever they are found in the world, or even country...
.
That's not what happens. Even the fucking Dwarves don't do that. Orcs are everywhere, you'll never kill them all, they probably outnumber every demi-human race combined. What happens in the vast majority of D&D situations is, a particular group of orcs is encroaching on civilization and must be killed because if not, then they will destroy the humans there. If you don't completely root them out and kill them where they have taken hold close to civilization, they will return.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480220And I clarified what I meant by that post. I wasn't saying there are no racist gamers, I was saying that racism isn't a natural outcome of gaming.
And that point is
still wrong. There is nothing unnatural about the Stormfronters using D&D as a recruiting tool, because they don't have to change a single thing about the game itself when they pervert it into a recruiting tool. All of the elements that they stress are elements that exist in the game as written.
They make much over the fact that some races are better than others and some races are good and others evil. That is basically their whole argument, so what makes D&D an "unnatural" thing for them to use?
Or to put it another way: when they made a racist version of Doom where you shot ethnic minorities, they had to change a considerable amount of code. When they make games of Dungeons and Dragons to promote racial separation and the murder of other races, what
exactly do they have to change?
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480291Or to put it another way: when they made a racist version of Doom where you shot ethnic minorities, they had to change a considerable amount of code. When they make games of Dungeons and Dragons to promote racial separation and the murder of other races, what exactly do they have to change?
-Frank
So changing some sprites to make demons into jews or blacks and changing pentagrams on the walls to swastikas is "considerable amount of code", huh? It's nothing more then a new paint job, pretty much exactly what they would do to D&D, or Space Hulk, or Magic: The Gathering.
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;480280I don't see how someone could read racism out of monopoly? - though there is a racist version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettopoly
Of course, this is what JibbaJabba alluded to, and David R outright stated. While it is
possible for a group of people to imagine running over
with the car, or stomping on 's heads with the shoe, I can hardly imagine that would have the same 'catharsis'. And it requires a lot more work for about the same result of just sitting around drinking beer and telling racist jokes.
In many ways, treating ethnicity as a 'race' is an historical artefact more than anything particularly 'logical'. In that sense, actual 'racism' is merely in the minds of those who hold such a view; there is no 'reality' on which to hang such notions. Imperator, David R and myself are no more different 'races' than we are different genders.
Conversely, RPGs really have all the tools set up already, especially fantasy games. I would have been highly incredulous, in fact, if no one had made the connection in the entire history of gaming. Goblinoids and demi-humans are very specifically a different race. More or less savage, depending on the whims of your DM, perhaps, but clearly and unarguably 'not human'. And for those so inclined, the s are not human, either.
Again, yes, the players are bringing these things to the table. But the table isn't exactly a tabula rasa where the only responsible parties are clearly the players.
QuoteI could totally see Chess being misconstrued as racist, though. If "white" and "black" are ideological rather than racial tags, you should be able to convert captured pawns to your colour, rather than killing them. And White gets an unfair advantage.
I believe you are thinking of the ancient Chinese game of Go. :)
As always, Trollman speaks from his extensive experience of fantasy gaming.
Another virgin talking about sex. Sad.
Stormbringer, if you truly believe that D&D has inherently "ist" properties, and the default assumptions of the game actually lend themselves easily to perversion by Stormfront, to the point where we can say that those assumptions are actually coded in the game itself, then two simple questions...
1. Why do you run a site devoted to "Vintage Gaming" which includes a whole roster of these types of games.
2. Why when I do a search of Citadel of Chaos for "racist", "racism", "colonialism", "colonialist" and "genocide" do I get not a single post? You'd think if there were such a problem with D&D it would have arisen by now.
Maybe the search function isn't working properly, or maybe you don't actually have too much of a problem with D&D and you're pushing the point here because of the underlying political content.
Most of the people arguing in this thread (including Storm) have claimed that there are problems with the original post, yet we're closing in on 900 posts, still arguing whether or not killing orcs is genocide.
Racism, colonialism, genocide, rape, murder, torture all exist in great quantities in the real world perpetuated by every race and culture that's ever existed. Human beings bring this shit with us, and use it to infect everything we do. The underlying flaw lies in people themselves.
However, I could torture someone with a kitchen knife, yet it would not be accurate to call a kitchen knife inherently a tool of torture, whereas an Iron Maiden has no other purpose. D&D can be used as a tool to promote racism, however that is not its intent, RaHoWa on the other hand, has no other purpose.
The OP drew inference where none was implied, which is the core flaw behind the majority of arguments in this thread.
And yes, JHKim, sorry, but anyone who is talking about D&D and actually says
Quote from: Adam DraySo it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn.
Deserves nothing but an out of hand dismissal and ridicule.
Quote2. Why when I do a search of the entire site for "racist", "racism", "colonialism", "colonialist" and "genocide" do I get not a single post? You'd think if there were such a problem with D&D it would have arisen by now.
Because the search function sucks. This thread is hundreds of pages long and uses those words dozens of times. Hell, your own post just used all those words. If the search function isn't turning up a single post, it is the search function that is at fault: there should at the very least be the posts in this thread. QED.
That it doesn't turn up even those means that it cannot be used to verify one way or another how often or how many times these issues have been discussed.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480304Because the search function sucks. This thread is hundreds of pages long and uses those words dozens of times. Hell, your own post just used all those words. If the search function isn't turning up a single post, it is the search function that is at fault: there should at the very least be the posts in this thread. QED.
That it doesn't turn up even those means that it cannot be used to verify one way or another how often or how many times these issues have been discussed.
-Frank
Those words all turn up all over the place on this site when I search, I was referring to Citadel of Chaos. Post has been edited to make that more clear.
Morrow and Pseudo are gonna push this bitch to 1000 by themselves now that they have the SPLC to argue about. Jesus Wept.
Useless post: CRK just posted 6 times on one page.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480301Stormbringer, if you truly believe that D&D has inherently "ist" properties, and the default assumptions of the game actually lend themselves easily to perversion by Stormfront, to the point where we can say that those assumptions are actually coded in the game itself, then two simple questions...
Except you already know I don't believe that.
Quote from: Cranewings;480308Useless post: CRK just posted 6 times on one page.
Hey there were a lot of posts I missed, had to catch up. :D A bunch of posts people can reply to individually is probably better then a multi-quoted mega-post that takes up half the page.
Quote from: StormBringer;480309Except you already know I don't believe that.
But you do say...
Quote from: StormBringer;480309Conversely, RPGs really have all the tools set up already, especially fantasy games.
Quote from: StormBringer;480309Again, yes, the players are bringing these things to the table. But the table isn't exactly a tabula rasa where the only responsible parties are clearly the players.
Which implies that if the players are not the only responsible parties, then the game itself is one of the responsible parties, yes?
So is D&D partly responsible for Stormfront using it as a racist tool or not, and if so, how?
Also, if so, how does D&D differ in this regard from WEG Star Wars, Star Frontiers, GURPS or Runequest?
Guess I'm the only one here that thinks that orcs should just be slaughtered to the last one.
Genocide? Yes.
Orcs are worthless, fanged, pig-nosed, evil creatures.
Kill em all.
Quote from: Vmerc@;480312Guess I'm the only one here that thinks that orcs should just be slaughtered to the last one.
Genocide? Yes.
Orcs are worthless, fanged, pig-nosed, evil creatures.
Kill em all.
Porcist.
And if they tasted good I'd eat them too.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480311Which implies that if the players are not the only responsible parties, then the game itself is one of the responsible parties, yes?
So, you are arguing the converse, then? The games cannot possibly have anything to do with it?
QuoteSo is D&D partly responsible for Stormfront using it as a racist tool or not, and if so, how?
I guess the better question is, if the game cannot possibly be connected in any way, why aren't they using Chess, or Monopoly, or Candyland?
QuoteAlso, if so, how does D&D differ in this regard from WEG Star Wars, Star Frontiers, GURPS or Runequest?
Primarily? Popularity. I mean, that is pretty obvious, isn't it? Besides, what cultural stereotype would you say Vrusk could be associated with? How about Rodians? I think the difficulties using those games is pretty self evident.
By a wonderful coincidence, one of my old gaming friends has returned to Melbourne after years in the gaming wilderness known as Singapore. He pointed out that Saturday the 1st of October is Arneson Memorial Day. And so you communist dogs have inspired me to run a game.
The game session may involve our drinking alcohol. Some of the characters may be a different gender to the players, some might even be gay, if the player wants. The only thing which is non-negotiable is that there must be horrible butchery of orcs, females and young optional but not frowned upon.
The email invite said,
In our last adventure
several stalwart and sneaky adventurers
were hired by the new Count Pfaff von Pfaffenberg
to rid Castle Hightop of its orcish inhabitants
that was done with much bloodshed and winning of treasure
and having no further concerns, the group sought adventure in the West
now the Count's scouts have located the source of orcish raids
and has called once more for adventurous volunteers
to butcher them horribly.
While you lot masturbate furiously over your copies of the collected works of Ayn Rand, Thomas Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Sartre and Andrea Dworkin, desperately claiming some connection between the contemporaneous dialectic of the dominant paradigm and halberd rules, we'll be gaming on, motherfuckers.
Quote from: StormBringer;480315So, you are arguing the converse, then? The games cannot possibly have anything to do with it?
Correct. The game has absolutely nothing to do with it. The game is as responsible for racism as the science of genetics is. No one claims the science of genetics is in and of itself racist, because when actually used, it disproves most racist theories, it's when the science is purposely
misrepresented through outright
lies that it is used for racist purposes. RPGs are perverted in the same way, the racism is not inherent in their design, unless you're going to claim that since most RPGs are created by White Male Westerners they are inherently racist.
Quote from: StormBringer;480315I guess the better question is, if the game cannot possibly be connected in any way, why aren't they using Chess, or Monopoly, or Candyland?
Chess, Monopoly or Candyland do not stimulate the power of imagination the same way a RPG can. They are not meant to create an imaginative world which can carry whatever nobility or perversion
we choose to bring to it. However, the sheer power of a tool does not in and of itself devise intent. The nuclear weapon has no more inherent racism then does a sword.
Quote from: StormBringer;480315Primarily? Popularity. I mean, that is pretty obvious, isn't it?
So D&D is a more inherently racist RPG because more people play it? Seriously? So then the AR platform is the most racist form of rifle because if a redneck shoots a black guy with a rifle, it will most likely be an AR derivative?
Quote from: StormBringer;480315Besides, what cultural stereotype would you say Vrusk could be associated with?
Extremely logical creatures, centered around commercial ventures, their identity is strongly bound to the company they work for to the point where they give their company first before their own name? A racist would probably try to go "Japanese", not realizing in his stupidity that Japanese is not a race. But that's the problem with everything Stormfront does, it's idiocy and perverted misapplication of ideas.
Quote from: StormBringer;480315How about Rodians? I think the difficulties using those games is pretty self evident.
So a green-skinned long-snouted Rodian is obviously a different species where racism cannot apply, but a green-skinned
pig-faced orc can easily stand in for
?
The entire Stormfront D&D argument rests on one item only - half-orcs. Stormfront uses half-orcs, which have a penalty to intelligence to claim that D&D thus proves that idea that black people can be overall less intelligent then whites even though there are smart black people. In other words, a half-orc with max intelligence is still real smart, just not an 18, the same as black people.
The claim that this defines D&D as an inherently racist tool is about as logical as the Stormfront argument itself.
If a human being was capable of reproducing with an australopithecine, then due to genetics, you could probably expect the offspring to be stronger and less smart then the human norm. The key lie that Stormfront is basing the comparison on and that for some reason a whole lot of otherwise intelligent people in this thread are missing is:
Black people are not Australopithecines!
As a result, using genetics to claim that black people are less intelligent based on an analogy of the genetics of Australopithecines is false.
People seem to having a problem with this so let me make another false analogy clear.
Black people are not Orcs!
As a result, using D&D to claim that black people are less intelligent based on an analogy of the racial stats of Half-Orcs is false.
If a Stormfront member was smart enough to actually construct a false argument about racism using the book Beloved would that make Toni Morrison a racist, or the period piece novel an inherently racist tool? Ummm, NO.
I want to try summarizing a bit again.
Lots of works have minor bits of prejudice in them. For example, Breakfast at Tiffany's is a great film, and it is not at all a racist tract like Birth of a Nation. However, Mickey Rooney as the buck-toothed near-sighted Japanese guy makes me cringe, because I think it is racist. Is this a reason to ban or edit Breakfast at Tiffany's? Hell, no, in my opinion. Likewise, I have no objections to playing games set in the worlds of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, or Edgar Rice Burroughs, even though all of them were blatantly racist and often included such themes in their stories.
I don't think that games with racial themes necessarily have to be "fixed" any more than books and movies have to be edited or banned. However, I also don't want to say that there are no problematic themes whatsoever in fantasy races - or especially, that if something is fantasy that therefore it can't possibly be racist.
Quote from: John Morrow;480268I'd honestly be as fine with the heroes in a movie doing that so long as they were defined as irredeemable creatures of Evil and the heroes treated it like a grim necessity rather than a good time. I see it as little different than killing zombies (which have not only been depicted as babies and children but also as having sentience -- e.g., the zombies in The Return of the Living Dead, that included one that requests more paramedics from the radio dispatcher so he could eat their brains).
On the other hand, I was troubled by James Bond, in Goldeneye, shooting Russian police officers who were just doing their job in order to escape a police station.
I think there is a sliding scale of how human the characters seem, and thus how problematic it is to moralize and/or glorify killing them. One can feel sympathy even for non-sentient creatures like dogs, and have moral arguments that killing a dog - even a dangerous one - is to be avoided morally. Sadly, as you note, simply putting uniforms on people makes some people consider them less human and more justifiable targets for killing. Zombies for the most part come across as non-sentient - and are unable to reproduce or create, it seems. Even among zombies, though, there is room for sympathy. Romero's Land of the Dead was centered on zombie sentience and the evil of people exploiting them, and some of his earlier films hinted at that as well. In Dawn of the Dead, the raiders who took joy in chopping up zombies in the mall came across as quite unsympathetic. Orcs have societies, can carry on conversations, reproduce, and even interbreed with humans. Thus, I think they are closer on the sliding scale towards "problematic to slaughter".
Quote from: CRKrueger;480289They can make that point from any game that includes a racial or species modifier to anything. I guess WEG Star Wars is racist then because Wookies get a bonus to strength.
Chess is a good metaphor for white supremacy too, see there are these pawns, which are really niggers... it's idiotic.
The strength of a role-playing game is its imaginative power. It's a tool, nothing more. I care what RPG Stormfront uses to spread their filth about as much as I care about what paper they use when they print their newsletters.
Do you really want to argue that it is complete crazy talk to even associate Star Wars with racism? I think there is a fair argument that there can be racist ideas, even in Star Wars.
(http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQD8BpZT_ct3Rjw8uNLfM6ROYpkAolq38XMvyqDX-DVwgSSBEPZ)
Quote from: CRKrueger;480324Correct. The game has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Ok...
QuoteChess, Monopoly or Candyland do not stimulate the power of imagination the same way a RPG can. They are not meant to create an imaginative world which can carry whatever nobility or perversion we choose to bring to it.
Wait, you just said the game has absolutely nothing to do with it.
QuoteSo D&D is a more inherently racist RPG because more people play it? Seriously?
Aside from you bringing it up repeatedly, who here has said D&D is
inherently racist?
QuoteSo a green-skinned long-snouted Rodian is obviously a different species where racism cannot apply, but a green-skinned pig-faced orc can easily stand in for ?
"squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc#Description) with wide mouths and slant eyes... ...degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types"
"Sallow" is not a synonym for "green".
Or are you saying that Rodians are every bit as close to appearing human as Orcs? I mean, you do realize that Rodians share absolutely no characteristics with pretty much any living creature on Earth, whereas orcs are depicted as
porcine. You know, 'pig-like'. As in filthy, smelly, disgusting, etc. Like these guys:
(http://i.somethingawful.com/u/sumner/earlyorcs.gif)
They are pretty much humans with boar's heads. Aside from the long snout, in fact, there is absolutely nothing else about Orcs that is pig-like.
Rodians, on the other hand:
(http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/c/c6/Greedo.jpg)
Your whole argument isn't predicated on just the green skin thing, right? Because it is almost like you hadn't noticed that Rodians have gigantic purple eyes and ear stalks on top of their heads.
QuoteThe entire Stormfront D&D argument rests on one item only - half-orcs.
Wait, what...?
QuoteThe claim that this defines D&D as an inherently racist tool is...
...really only being harped on by you, at this point. No one is claiming an
inherent racism, just that the tools are more readily available than in something like, say, Candyland.
Quote from: CRKruegerChess, Monopoly or Candyland do not stimulate the power of imagination the same way a RPG can.
See? Even CRKreuger understands RPGs are used instead of board games for a reason.
QuoteThe key lie that Stormfront is basing the comparison on and that for some reason a whole lot of otherwise intelligent people in this thread are missing is:
Black people are not Australopithecines!
As a result, using genetics to claim that black people are less intelligent based on an analogy of the genetics of Australopithecines is false.
Because there is one and only one Australopithecus species.
Oh, wait, there isn't. (http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/australopithecus-africanus) Oh, and look at that, it means "southern ape of Africa". It's almost as if they didn't just pick that out at random or something. As though they weren't talking about Australopithecus in general, but A. africanus for very, very specific reasons.
QuoteBlack people are not Orcs!
You have a keen grasp of the obvious. Why does Stormfront use them in that manner, then? Why don't they use Derro, or Vegepygmys, or Meazels? Or any one of several dozen other humanoids?
See, you can sit here and knock down 'inherent racism' strawmen all day, if you like. But you won't be making too many inroads as to how or why these associations are made. Which means you are depriving yourself of the tools to effectively combat the problem.
Quote from: StormBringer;480330Why does Stormfront use them in that manner, then? Why don't they use Derro, or Vegepygmys, or Meazels? Or any one of several dozen other humanoids?
Because they're racist, and not very well-read. They want a symbol of something they hate, and want to use something everything will recognise. So they pick something in popular culture. Orcs.*
Just because Stormfront uses orcs to represent black people does not say anything about D&D any more than the Nazis' using rats to represent Jews says something about rodents.
If we see a race as some vile thing, whether a real thing or an imaginary one, it's because we're racist, not because of anything inherent in that thing or that race. If Adam Dray sees orcs as black people, then he is racist. Lots of us have our prejudices, most of us keep them to ourselves, though.
Now you're being stupid, Stormbringer. You should fold the Citadel of Chaos into story-games.com. You are NOT invited to
Pfaffenberg's Folly. * I'm assuming that it is in fact true that stormfront does actually use D&D to recruit skinheads. It sounds like bullshit to me, since most of them are semi-literate unemployed bums who are too lazy to read rulebooks, but I'm not going to their website to check.
Quote from: Vmerc@;480314And if they tasted good I'd eat them too.
The pig-snouted ones taste like bacon....
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480291And that point is still wrong. There is nothing unnatural about the Stormfronters using D&D as a recruiting tool, because they don't have to change a single thing about the game itself when they pervert it into a recruiting tool. All of the elements that they stress are elements that exist in the game as written.
They make much over the fact that some races are better than others and some races are good and others evil. That is basically their whole argument, so what makes D&D an "unnatural" thing for them to use?
-Frank
So, by this same logic, your cyberpunk fantasy heartbreaker has inherently racist elements in it. So, what racial stereotypes are represented in this game you lovingly devote multiple posts to on this forum?
Quote from: CRKrueger;4803012. Why when I do a search of Citadel of Chaos for "racist", "racism", "colonialism", "colonialist" and "genocide" do I get not a single post? You'd think if there were such a problem with D&D it would have arisen by now.
Wait... did we become so politically correct that we have to talk about racism every single place where we talk about every single thing that has racist elements? That's... a new interpretation.
AD&D had "Pygmies" in it as late as the 2nd edition Monstrous Compendium. That entry was stupid and racist. I
hope we can all agree on that point. Whether or not any particular discussion discussed that or even whether any particular website felt the need to discuss that doesn't obviate that fact.
There are parts of our history that are embarrassing. The treatment of Pygmies in monster entries is certainly amongst them. Many people choose to act as if that hadn't happened, and that's a fine response. But claiming that it didn't happen is an outright lie. And citing people
not talking about it as evidence that it didn't happen is just fucking bizarre. It's right there. Open the damn book and look at it if you don't believe me.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480334AD&D had "Pygmies" in it as late as the 2nd edition Monstrous Compendium.
-Frank
It had leprechauns too. I took offense to that as an irish person.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;480331Because they're racist, and not very well-read. They want a symbol of something they hate, and want to use something everything will recognise. So they pick something in popular culture. Orcs.*
Exactly. Because there aren't those elements in Candyland. Therefore...
QuoteJust because Stormfront uses orcs to represent black people does not say anything about D&D
...it's only possible in the first place because of the nature of RPGs.
But you will continue to notice that no one is supporting the idea that racism is inherent to D&D. I mean, you can give a serial murderer a knife, or you can give them a whiffle bat. Either way, they are going to find a way to murder someone. But the one with the knife will get there first.
Quote* I'm assuming that it is in fact true that stormfront does actually use D&D to recruit skinheads. It sounds like bullshit to me, since most of them are semi-literate unemployed bums who are too lazy to read rulebooks, but I'm not going to their website to check.
[/SIZE]I skimmed a post or two. Stormfront appears to be the sophisticated bigot's hangout on the web. They actually seemed to have a pretty good handle on rules balance with... AD&D? 3.x? 4e? I wasn't honestly 100% sure what rules they were referring to in the link provided earlier.
This is hilarious with the picture of pig-men in this guy's post as proof of racism. It's like a Letterman skit. I wish someone would post the earth elemental pic out of MM1, we're really missing some culturally relevant metaphors here. And the brownie with his goofy hat...damn the Welsh. Don't leave out the berserker pic portraying the Norse as crazed evil killers and the hill giant is an obvious stab at Kentucky. He's right, every damn page.
Quote from: StormBringer;480330Ok...Wait, you just said the game has absolutely nothing to do with it.
How can you miss the phrase bolded and underlined "
we choose to bring to it"? Oh yeah, because it wouldn't fit your soundbite driveby reply.
Quote from: StormBringer;480330Aside from you bringing it up repeatedly, who here has said D&D is inherently racist?
Ah, ok, so I guess D&D according to you is not inherently racist, it just has something about it, compared to other RPG systems that makes it easy for Stormfront to use as a tool for racist propaganda? How convenient that this position lets you say the OP is a crank, yet still carry his banner as to the original point. You're way better at sophistry then the Stormfront guys, I'll give you that. ;)
Quote from: StormBringer;480330squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc#Description) with wide mouths and slant eyes... ...degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types" "Sallow" is not a synonym for "green".
No, but the term green is in fact the term green or even green with "bluish-tinge". Oh yeah, that's right, you weren't quoting an actual old school D&D book, as again, that fact doesn't suit your argument.
Quote from: StormBringer;480330Or are you saying that Rodians are every bit as close to appearing human as Orcs? I mean, you do realize that Rodians share absolutely no characteristics with pretty much any living creature on Earth
Wow, eyes, ears, snout, antennae, arms, legs, hands (with weird fingers granted). Man, how fucking alien, I'm amazed I could even recognize it as a life form. Seriously, non-human is non-human.
Quote from: StormBringer;480330See? Even CRKreuger understands RPGs are used instead of board games for a reason.
Restating someone's opinion to alternate purpose, man, you really have become pathetic haven't you? Genetics is a better science for Stormfront to
misapply and generate
lies with then, say Botany. Is Genetics racist? RPGs are no different.
Quote from: StormBringer;480330See, you can sit here and knock down 'inherent racism' strawmen all day, if you like.
The fact that you're relying on pathetic, bad-faith arguments to try and win the point is proof enough that it's not a strawman. Unless you've descended to Glenn Beck level and are simply on about it because I had the temerity to question an idiot wearing the team jersey.
Quote from: StormBringer;480330But you won't be making too many inroads as to how or why these associations are made.
Aha, so there are inroads to be made, eh? Apparently some analysis is needed to determine why orcs are the bad guys in D&D? Maybe some examination of our white, western colonial past is in order? Didn't you call the OP a crank, or was that just to get the heat off your back after a ton of people in the thread agreed with me in that post you still haven't and are never going to answer?
Quote from: StormBringer;480330Which means you are depriving yourself of the tools to effectively combat the problem.
The only tool I need is logic, which tells me that RPGs are as much of a problem as genetics is. Educating people so they aren't subject to easily disproved lies and propaganda is the solution.
Storm, racism, sexism, nationalism, fascism, hatred, intolerance all exist and in America we have a larger helping of it then a lot of other countries. I think if you and I compiled a list of the top-ten people America would be better off without, then a large number of those people would be the same.
However, when it comes to discussion, I never thought the end justifies the means. If someone's making a flawed argument, I've never jumped to someone's aid simply because they shared my leanings in any respect. I try very hard not to construct "gotcha" arguments or drive-by soundbites. I consider those the tools of the enemy, those who would obscure truth to gain advantage (and those people exist on both side of any aisle).
Simply put, you're using those tools now, which causes me to think less of you. Sorry bro, that's just the way it is.
Are Vegepygmies racial stereotypes for vegans?
Simple questions.
Is the description of orcs in D&D racist?
Were they constructed to consciously or unconsciously represent non-whites?
Yes or no?
Quote from: Vmerc@;480314And if they tasted good I'd eat them too.
That reminds me of an ethical question that occured to me a while back.
If we ever meet an alien species how intelligent will they have to be for us not to eat them? IQ of a dog? A Pig? a Chip? A Whale? An American?
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;480316By a wonderful coincidence, one of my old gaming friends has returned to Melbourne after years in the gaming wilderness known as Singapore. He pointed out that Saturday the 1st of October is Arneson Memorial Day. And so you communist dogs have inspired me to run a game.
....
While you lot masturbate furiously over your copies of the collected works of Ayn Rand, Thomas Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Sartre and Andrea Dworkin, desperately claiming some connection between the contemporaneous dialectic of the dominant paradigm and halberd rules, we'll be gaming on, motherfuckers.
Preach it! :D [edit]In fact, I am adopting this into my sig,
right now.[/edit]
The best part about this is that the only fantasy race I think was truly designed as a "racial" stereotype was hobbits.
If i can just interject in a semi-official manner briefly...
While personally, i think this thread was a bust from the start, there are obviously some of you who seem rather personally invested in it. So much so, that you're reporting peoples' posts for being mean to you or your views.
Sorry, but that sort of stuff has never flown here. Defend yourself in the thread if you must, but you'll not see any sanctions from the staff here unless someone is posting something potentially illegal or if a feud is starting to disrupt multiple threads for no good reason over a length of time.
Quote from: One Horse Town;480354So much so, that you're reporting peoples' posts for being mean to you or your views.
Sorry, but that sort of stuff has never flown here. Defend yourself in the thread if you must, but you'll not see any sanctions from the staff here unless someone is posting something potentially illegal or if a feud is starting to disrupt multiple threads for no good reason over a length of time.
Who are these people ? The only posters who are in the thick of it are Stormbringer, John Kim, CK, Frank Trollman, John Morrow, jibba2 and Sigmund. None of them strike me as the kind who would report posts esp knowing how this site works.
Edit: And is it any wonder I think kyle is probably one of the coolest motherfuckers on this site.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: One Horse Town;480354you're reporting peoples' posts for being mean to you or your views.
(http://media.dvdtown.com/images/displayimage.php?id=4871)
Who said that? Who the fuck reported posts for being mean to him? Who's the slimy little communist shit, twinkle-toed cocksucker down here who just signed his own death warrant? Nobody, huh? The fairy fucking godmother said it. Out-fucking-standing! I will DM you all until you fucking die! I'll DM you until your assholes are sucking buttermilk!
If you ladies leave my game session, if you survive character generation, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life in Greyhawk. You are not even human fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit! You will not like me. But the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders from Gygax are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to play in my beloved milieu. Do you maggots understand that?
Oh wow, you managed to find a hatchet job online, Morrow.
Did you actually read it this time?
Quote from: FrankTrollman;480291And that point is still wrong. There is nothing unnatural about the Stormfronters using D&D as a recruiting tool, because they don't have to change a single thing about the game itself when they pervert it into a recruiting tool. All of the elements that they stress are elements that exist in the game as written.
I never said it was unatural. I said their use of the game doesn't naturally follow from it. Big difference. There is nothing inherently racist about D&D. These guys are just projecting their own ideology onto the setting.
QuoteThey make much over the fact that some races are better than others and some races are good and others evil. That is basically their whole argument, so what makes D&D an "unnatural" thing for them to use?
Because as others pointed out they could just as easily have made an argument for white supremacy using chess. Their interpretation of the game is wildly innacurate and rooted in their own distorted view of reality, not in the game itself.
QuoteOr to put it another way: when they made a racist version of Doom where you shot ethnic minorities, they had to change a considerable amount of code. When they make games of Dungeons and Dragons to promote racial separation and the murder of other races, what exactly do they have to change?
-Frank
Not having played in their games I don't know what they would have changed. I am still unclear whether they are playing a version of D&D where orcs are explicitly linked to black people somehow or if they play D&D and say "look it is just like we've been talking about". Either way the racism isn't embedded in the game. These people are interpreting the game that way.
Quote from: David R;480355Who are these people ? The only posters who are in the thick of it are Stormbringer, John Kim, CK, Frank Trollman, John Morrow, jibba2 and Sigmund. None of them strike me as the kind who would report posts esp knowing how this site works.
Edit: And is it any wonder I think kyle is probably one of the coolest motherfuckers on this site.
Regards,
David R
It was probably someone who quit the thread pages ago or something.
Quote from: David R;480355Edit: And is it any wonder I think kyle is probably one of the coolest motherfuckers on this site.
Regards,
David R
Kyle has totally owned the thread, indeed.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480359It was probably someone who quit the thread pages ago or something.
Maybe.
(I still I owe you a reply. Maybe I'll start a thread or wait for Storm's thread. I haven't forgotten but why prolong a clusterfuck with another diversion)
Regards,
David R
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480358I never said it was unatural. I said their use of the game doesn't naturally follow from it. Big difference. There is nothing inherently racist about D&D. These guys are just projecting their own ideology onto the setting.
Because as others pointed out they could just as easily have made an argument for white supremacy using chess. Their interpretation of the game is wildly innacurate and rooted in their own distorted view of reality, not in the game itself.
Not having played in their games I don't know what they would have changed. I am still unclear whether they are playing a version of D&D where orcs are explicitly linked to black people somehow or if they play D&D and say "look it is just like we've been talking about". Either way the racism isn't embedded in the game. These people are interpreting the game that way.
Really why do the White pieces always win when you play?
Their view of the game is not inaccurate. You yourself have claimed that in your games orcs might be irredeemibly evil and its okay to kill them because they are evil.
They don't need to interpret that they just need to say Orcs are like black people in America.
So whilst they are using the game for their own purposes and whilst they are adding a layer of mapping to teh real world that doesn't exist they are not adding anything to the game that does not exist in the game.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480372Really why do the White pieces always win when you play?
No but most people I play with go with the "white goes first rule".
QuoteTheir view of the game is not inaccurate. You yourself have claimed that in your games orcs might be irredeemibly evil and its okay to kill them because they are evil.
No I didn't say that is how my games are run. I said I've played in such games before and have no moral problem with games being run this way. The issue of innacuracy isn't their belief that D&D can be played with irredeemably evil orcs who need to be killed. The innacuracy is drawing any connection between that and white supremacy/christian identity BS. Just because D&D supports settings where evil needs to be destroyed that doesn't naturally lead one to racist conclusions. You have to bring those into the room yourself and then draw the lines connecting that belief system to the D&D cosmology.
QuoteThey don't need to interpret that they just need to say Orcs are like black people in America.
Yes it is. They are directly tying orcs to black people and minorities, which is no where present in the PHB or Monster Manual. The books simply don't align with their racist views.
QuoteSo whilst they are using the game for their own purposes and whilst they are adding a layer of mapping to teh real world that doesn't exist they are not adding anything to the game that does not exist in the game.
Not having seen their games, and still being unclear on whether they simply use it as a model to say "look it is similar to what we believe" or inject settings with blatantly racist characteristics, I can't say whether this is the case or not. But even if all they are doing is interpreting D&D canon in their own racist ways, that doesn't mean the problem here is D&D and its core assumptions. There are going to be lots of books, movies, settings, etc that they can use to support their beliefs. That doesn't mean those things naturally lead one to racist conclusions. Nor does it mean those things are problematic. Especially when your average D&D player can probably show this idiots where their anologies fall apart.
If you play D&D and it makes you a racist, you are doing it wrong. This is probably one of the few genuine examples of badwrongfun.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480375No but most people I play with go with the "white goes first rule".
No I didn't say that is how my games are run. I said I've played in such games before and have no moral problem with games being run this way. The issue of innacuracy isn't their belief that D&D can be played with irredeemably evil orcs who need to be killed. The innacuracy is drawing any connection between that and white supremacy/christian identity BS. Just because D&D supports settings where evil needs to be destroyed that doesn't naturally lead one to racist conclusions. You have to bring those into the room yourself and then draw the lines connecting that belief system to the D&D cosmology.
Yes it is. They are directly tying orcs to black people and minorities, which is no where present in the PHB or Monster Manual. The books simply don't align with their racist views.
Not having seen their games, and still being unclear on whether they simply use it as a model to say "look it is similar to what we believe" or inject settings with blatantly racist characteristics, I can't say whether this is the case or not. But even if all they are doing is interpreting D&D canon in their own racist ways, that doesn't mean the problem here is D&D and its core assumptions. There are going to be lots of books, movies, settings, etc that they can use to support their beliefs. That doesn't mean those things naturally lead one to racist conclusions. Nor does it mean those things are problematic. Especially when your average D&D player can probably show this idiots where their anologies fall apart.
If you play D&D and it makes you a racist, you are doing it wrong. This is probably one of the few genuine examples of badwrongfun.
That is one of the reasons when I proposed that if you make orcs intelligent and gave them free will then you probably can't make them evil by default without a lot of thought about the why.
The TRUTH is that there is a break between the game and real life. But if your game has racial inferiority or Racial Purity or any number of themes that are pretty common in fantasy and Scifi then it's easy to co-opt for other purposes.
I can't say that playing D&D with those sorts of themes makes it badwrongfun because you guys have just spent a 1000 posts saying playing D&D with some of those tropes is absolutely fine.
I can say that choosing to co-opt the game for that purpose is wrong however. On this we would agree.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480381The TRUTH is that there is a break between the game and real life. But if your game has racial inferiority or Racial Purity or any number of themes that are pretty common in fantasy and Scifi then it's easy to co-opt for other purposes.
Except the doesn't have quite the same meaning here, an orc is a monster, not a proper PC race in most versions of D&D. And I really don't think racial inferiority and purity are accurate descriptions of such settings. And Race as it is used in gaming is not the same thing as race in reality.
QuoteI can't say that playing D&D with those sorts of themes makes it badwrongfun because you guys have just spent a 1000 posts saying playing D&D with some of those tropes is absolutely fine.
No we didn't. We never said playing D&D with explictly racist themes was fine. We said playing D&D with inherently evil orcs (a species that doesn't exist in reality) is fine. If someone wants to use that as an analogy for their own warped views of race, or if they want to make orcs the black people, I would have a serious problem with that.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480384Except the doesn't have quite the same meaning here, an orc is a monster, not a proper PC race in most versions of D&D. And I really don't think racial inferiority and purity are accurate descriptions of such settings. And Race as it is used in gaming is not the same thing as race in reality.
No we didn't. We never said playing D&D with explictly racist themes was fine. We said playing D&D with inherently evil orcs (a species that doesn't exist in reality) is fine. If someone wants to use that as an analogy for their own warped views of race, or if they want to make orcs the black people, I would have a serious problem with that.
You are missing the Racist logical step.
Purity is a real issue as If Orcs are elves that were corrupted then they are impure by definition.
If you build a setting were some races are inherrently evil, or inferior or whatever then you are drawing a line that says in this game races are different and their race determines a number of features about them. Orcs are brutish and not very bright. They are evil and will attack you if given a chance. Hobbits are lazy and eat too much, but they are pretty reasonable and liek a natter, etc etc ....
That is stuff we all do. It is not playing D&D with explictly racist themes. It is not mapping D&D races to real world races. it does not make you a racist (except againt orcs obviously). Whist these are actually species not races this is exactly what racists do in the real world. They draw generalisations about different races and then use them to characterise that race in a negative way.
Now the racist guy can make the step from that to impose their own mapping to the real world. They don't have to warp the game world or play in a racist way or do anything except that mapping piece.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480389You are missing the Racist logical step.
If you build a setting were some races are inherrently evil, or inferior or whatever then you are drawing a line that says in this game races are different and their race determines a number of features about them. Orcs are brutish and not very bright. They are evil and will attack you if given a chance. Hobbits are lazy and eat too much, but they are pretty reasonable and liek a natter, etc etc ....
Except these aren't proper races. That is one prolem with the logic. The other is, even if we treat them as such, just because the settings include fictional races with physical and mental differences from one another, that doesn't automatically lead to the conclusion that such distinctions exist between people of different races in the real world. What you are basically saying is, because people who are already racist, choose to see something of their own world view in the default D&D setting material, this material is therefore problematic. Yes, people can use these things to make terrible arguments if they want to. That doesn't mean their arguments are correct or that we should stop playing games with evil orcs.
QuoteThat is stuff we all do. It is not playing D&D with explictly racist themes. It is not mapping D&D races to real world races. it does not make you a racist (except againt orcs obviously). Whist these are actually species not races this is exactly what racists do in the real world. They draw generalisations about different races and then use them to characterise that race in a negative way.
I am sorry, but making generalizations about fictional races is hardly problematic in my view. There is plenty of real world racism to worry about out there. However people being prejudiced against Orcs isn't a real genuine concern. If you feel it leads people down the dark path fine, don't use it in your game. But I've never seen this result in someone deciding to hate black people or making broad generalizations about asians.
QuoteNow the racist guy can make the step from that to impose their own mapping to the real world. They don't have to warp the game world or play in a racist way or do anything except that mapping piece.
You mean, they can make an analogy between D&D and their racist views? okay. Why should that concern me?
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480392Except these aren't proper races. That is one prolem with the logic. The other is, even if we treat them as such, just because the settings include fictional races with physical and mental differences from one another, that doesn't automatically lead to the conclusion that such distinctions exist between people of different races in the real world. What you are basically saying is, because people who are already racist, choose to see something of their own world view in the default D&D setting material, this material is therefore problematic. Yes, people can use these things to make terrible arguments if they want to. That doesn't mean their arguments are correct or that we should stop playing games with evil orcs.
I am sorry, but making generalizations about fictional races is hardly problematic in my view. There is plenty of real world racism to worry about out there. However people being prejudiced against Orcs isn't a real genuine concern. If you feel it leads people down the dark path fine, don't use it in your game. But I've never seen this result in someone deciding to hate black people or making broad generalizations about asians.
You mean, they can make an analogy between D&D and their racist views? okay. Why should that concern me?
Um ... I never said that the setting material was problematic just that it contains tropes that could easily be mapped to real world racist ideology.
Likewise I didn't say you should be concerned by it, just indicating that you can't claim that racists are adding a load of stuff to D&D that isn't in the source material or equate D&D to Chess in this regard.
The stuff is in the source material and its being co-opted by racists.
That is all I am saying.
Oh and technically 'race' is a pretty slippery term. A black guy in New York might have a closer genetic mapping to a Chinese American that lives in New York than he does to a black guy in Somalia. Skin colour is only one genetic marker.
So really Race in our world isn't a real term (you could call it a socio-political construct if you were being pretensious). You know what they say .... There's No one as Irish as Barry O'bama no one as Irish as Barry O'B.....
Quote from: StormBringer;480315So, you are arguing the converse, then? The games cannot possibly have anything to do with it?
Of course not, the games are inanimate, unthinking objects. The real question you're asking is, do we think EGG was racist or reflecting racist attitudes from fiction authors, and my answer is no.
QuoteI guess the better question is, if the game cannot possibly be connected in any way, why aren't they using Chess, or Monopoly, or Candyland?
As has been shown, they are.
And who the fuck is reporting posts? That's fucking bullshit. Pussy.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480394Um ... I never said that the setting material was problematic just that it contains tropes that could easily be mapped to real world racist ideology.
I don't know about easily. But sure, no one here is arguing these themes and characteristics can't be used toward those ends. I think we are just saying that isn't the natural outcome of them. Just as it isn't the natural outcome of a game of dragonlance for people to embrace a morality centered around evil or neutrality because those alignments are legitimated by the setting.
QuoteLikewise I didn't say you should be concerned by it, just indicating that you can't claim that racists are adding a load of stuff to D&D that isn't in the source material or equate D&D to Chess in this regard.
I think what they are doing with D&D is honestly the same as drawing an analogy between chess and race wars. They are definitely putting their own assumptions into the game. The kind of ideology these people trade in isn't embedded in the game any more than demon worship or idol worship is embedded in the game. You can point to some lose comparisons. You can say well D&D has many gods so its only natural for polytheists to use it as a tool of indocrination, but I don't think that is the case.
QuoteThe stuff is in the source material and its being co-opted by racists.
That is all I am saying.
Okay. I don't think this tactic is yielding them much success. And I think them trying to put a racist spin on D&D cosmology is simply faulty logic on their part.
QuoteOh and technically 'race' is a pretty slippery term. A black guy in New York might have a closer genetic mapping to a Chinese American that lives in New York than he does to a black guy in Somalia. Skin colour is only one genetic marker.
Yes, I know about this debate as well. I understand it. But we are talking about the term race as its used in everyday speech and how it is used by white supremacists. The last thing we need is to start debating the merits of Race as a real category on this thread.
QuoteSo really Race in our world isn't a real term (you could call it a socio-political construct if you were being pretensious). You know what they say .... There's No one as Irish as Barry O'bama no one as Irish as Barry O'B.....
It is a term, and one whose meaning has changed over time and seems to vary from discipline to discpline. It is still broadly in use. But again, I think getting into this issue would just take us even further away from RPGs (and we are already getting pretty far from that topic).
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;480316While you lot masturbate furiously over your copies of the collected works of Ayn Rand, Thomas Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Sartre and Andrea Dworkin, desperately claiming some connection between the contemporaneous dialectic of the dominant paradigm and halberd rules, we'll be gaming on, motherfuckers.
Kyle, are you really such a moron that you need to drag out this stupid argument again? Here's a fucking clue: I can post on the Internet, play RPGs, and even masturbate without them being mutually exclusive. I'm in two regular gaming groups and one irregular one, as well as attending many conventions and other gamer gatherings.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480342Simple questions.
Is the description of orcs in D&D racist?
Were they constructed to consciously or unconsciously represent non-whites?
Yes or no?
In Tolkien, I would say the hobbits, elves, and men are unconsciously representative of Western Europeans - while the orcs and dark races are unconsciously representative Eastern Europeans and Near Easterners - "Mongol types" (their opponents in WWI and WWII). D&D did not copy some of the specific cues that Tolkien gives, but orcs still have those associations.
Are they racist? I think you're trying for a simple binary here, when what I'm saying is that things have different degrees of racist influences. Yes, orcs are slightly racist in the same sense that Breakfast at Tiffany's is racist.
Quote from: StormBringer;480330Aside from you bringing it up repeatedly, who here has said D&D is inherently racist?
In the article in the OP, Dray says, "So it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn. "
The context of that quote is that the way the xp rewards are designed combined with the alignment system that justifies "killing" orc tribes is what is being referred to.
Quote from: StormBringer;480338Exactly. Because there aren't those elements in Candyland. Therefore...
...it's only possible in the first place because of the nature of RPGs.
But you will continue to notice that no one is supporting the idea that racism is inherent to D&D. I mean, you can give a serial murderer a knife, or you can give them a whiffle bat. Either way, they are going to find a way to murder someone. But the one with the knife will get there first.
I skimmed a post or two. Stormfront appears to be the sophisticated bigot's hangout on the web. They actually seemed to have a pretty good handle on rules balance with... AD&D? 3.x? 4e? I wasn't honestly 100% sure what rules they were referring to in the link provided earlier.
I don't agree. It would be possible in any game that contains orcs, RPG or not.
Well, there's so much good and bad on here with the last few posts it's kind of pointless to quote left and right. I'm just flabbergasted that some people - some gamers! - would use guilt by association like this.
You may say it isn't, but it is: if a dimwit project racist ideas on D&D, that's because D&D is enabling the racists in the first place. Pig-faced orcs are obviously racist baits, while Rodians obviously aren't. Etc. I bet you're the kind of guys who are reading the LOTR and find racist, Freudian slips and all these sorts of things too - or maybe you will in a few weeks by extrapolation on this shit here.
That's pretty much the same level of garbage anyway.
And who the fuck reports posts on this thread? Can't take the heat? Then move on. Making appeals of "boo hoo hoo people are mean to me?" That's RPGnet turf right there. It's bullshit. Grow a pair.
Quote from: jhkim;480402Are they racist? I think you're trying for a simple binary here, when what I'm saying is that things have different degrees of racist influences. Yes, orcs are slightly racist in the same sense that Breakfast at Tiffany's is racist.
Yellowface is blatantly offensive to most asians these days. Orcs are not obviously offensive to most people. I can see the argument that orcs are kind of racist (though I don't agree with it). But I don't believe they rise anywhere near yellow or black face.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480394Um ... I never said that the setting material was problematic just that it contains tropes that could easily be mapped to real world racist ideology.
Likewise I didn't say you should be concerned by it, just indicating that you can't claim that racists are adding a load of stuff to D&D that isn't in the source material or equate D&D to Chess in this regard.
The stuff is in the source material and its being co-opted by racists.
That is all I am saying.
Oh and technically 'race' is a pretty slippery term. A black guy in New York might have a closer genetic mapping to a Chinese American that lives in New York than he does to a black guy in Somalia. Skin colour is only one genetic marker.
So really Race in our world isn't a real term (you could call it a socio-political construct if you were being pretensious). You know what they say .... There's No one as Irish as Barry O'bama no one as Irish as Barry O'B.....
Whether or not they are adding "a load of stuff" is a strawman. All they have to add is their own racism and a bit of imagination. The game has loads of stuff already in it, but what it doesn't have is a racist point of view. That is brought entirely by the player. This is shown by the vast number of people who have played the game for decades without any problems of racism or moral difficulty, myself among them.
Edit: It's also shown by the fact you can just look at the game and see the lack of racism. It's imaginary, it doesn't even call attention to any one monster, orcs included, as being any more heinous than any other. Plus the fact that we can all choose to include orcs in our individual games that are "good", redeemable, fully involved in "civilised" societies, etc. shows that the game's components can be reworked and twisted all sorts of ways without the game itself presenting such notions. The fact is, it's Dray himself who brought all his racist baggage to the table, and he has only himself to blame for his angst. He would be better served by stopping his quest to find things to blame outside himself, and deal with his own racist shortcomings directly.
My chess set is mahogany vs. white oak. I guess i'm a cowboy supremacist?
We oughta stop playing Eurogames, too, because they're racist (http://butterflyblue2004.blogspot.com/2004/08/politically-incorrect-board-games.html). I mean, shit, that boring-as-fuck spreadsheet-on-a-board Puerto Rico uses BROWN worker tokens!
People will read whatever they want into anything they come across. Maybe it's a case of too much reading and not enough playing.
Quote from: jhkim;480402Kyle, are you really such a moron that you need to drag out this stupid argument again? Here's a fucking clue: I can post on the Internet, play RPGs, and even masturbate without them being mutually exclusive. I'm in two regular gaming groups and one irregular one, as well as attending many conventions and other gamer gatherings.
In Tolkien, I would say the hobbits, elves, and men are unconsciously representative of Western Europeans - while the orcs and dark races are unconsciously representative Eastern Europeans and Near Easterners - "Mongol types" (their opponents in WWI and WWII). D&D did not copy some of the specific cues that Tolkien gives, but orcs still have those associations.
Are they racist? I think you're trying for a simple binary here, when what I'm saying is that things have different degrees of racist influences. Yes, orcs are slightly racist in the same sense that Breakfast at Tiffany's is racist.
I think you're framing it this way to try to "win". I think Tolkien's orcs were written with cultural influences. Would I call that "racist"? No, I wouldn't. Cultural influences are used to give our imaginary cultures consistency and identity, and I bet even you do that in your games, it's a great device, why not. However, I do not believe cultural influences = racist influences, even for the bad guys.
Quote from: Vmerc@;480412My chess set is mahogany vs. white oak. I guess i'm a cowboy supremacist?
Was there any doubt?
Quote from: Benoist;480408Well, there's so much good and bad on here with the last few posts it's kind of pointless to quote left and right. I'm just flabbergasted that some people - some gamers! - would use guilt by association like this.
.
Maybe I am an optimist, but my reading is that people are mostly just arguing over the finer meaning of specific statements rather than embracing the OPs original statement. For example, when I said that this kind of stuff isn't a product of gaming. A few people took issue with my literal statement (which I clarified later) but also added they didn't agree with the OP. So I think there is a lot of arguing for arguments sake here, but that doesn't mean everyone on the other side is saying we need to get rid of these tropes from D&D because it is somehow polluting us. I think a few have just been arguing in favor of their prefered approach to alignment and races, and didn't intend to endorse the OPs position (in the same way that D&D doesn't endorse racism :))
Quote from: Sigmund;480414I think you're framing it this way to try to "win". I think Tolkien's orcs were written with cultural influences. Would I call that "racist"? No, I wouldn't. Cultural influences are used to give our imaginary cultures consistency and identity, and I bet even you do that in your games, it's a great device, why not. However, I do not believe cultural influences = racist influences, even for the bad guys.
I think this is an important distiction. Drawing on these like real world history for flavor doesn't mean the writer is advancing racism. He may be drawing on the theme of eastern invaders, because that is a theme in the history of the west. It is something that clicks in peoples' heads. That doesn't mean he is making a comment on mongol culture or eastern european culture.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480418I think this is an important distiction. Drawing on these like real world history for flavor doesn't mean the writer is advancing racism. He may be drawing on the theme of eastern invaders, because that is a theme in the history of the west. It is something that clicks in peoples' heads. That doesn't mean he is making a comment on mongol culture or eastern european culture.
It also might have something to do with the fact that decades' worth of world-building had kind of dictated how the story would play out geographically. M-E maps were in existence in at least sketchy (at times VERY sketchy) form since the late 'teens/early '20s of the 20th century.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480416So I think there is a lot of arguing for arguments sake here, but that doesn't mean everyone on the other side is saying we need to get rid of these tropes from D&D because it is somehow polluting us. I think a few have just been arguing in favor of their prefered approach to alignment and races, and didn't intend to endorse the OPs position (in the same way that D&D doesn't endorse racism :))
Always start like this though: it begins with "you know, I don't do that in my game". Then it transits to "if you're doing it, you are either a bad person, or you just don't realize what you're doing". Then it ends up with "we redesigned the game so there's no doubt we do not support this behavior".
Once upon a time, you could see this:
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/15/article-0-0A096455000005DC-202_468x383.jpg)
But now, you see that:
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/15/article-0-0A096455000005DC-945_468x394.jpg)
A cigar airbrushed away to use the picture on the front of the Britain At War Exhibition in Tooley Street, Central London.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480416Maybe I am an optimist, but my reading is that people are mostly just arguing over the finer meaning of specific statements rather than embracing the OPs original statement. For example, when I said that this kind of stuff isn't a product of gaming. A few people took issue with my literal statement (which I clarified later) but also added they didn't agree with the OP. So I think there is a lot of arguing for arguments sake here, but that doesn't mean everyone on the other side is saying we need to get rid of these tropes from D&D because it is somehow polluting us. I think a few have just been arguing in favor of their prefered approach to alignment and races, and didn't intend to endorse the OPs position (in the same way that D&D doesn't endorse racism :))
!!!!
From the start I have been oe of those willing to accept that elements of D&D have parallels with racism.
My solution as I have been saying from the beinging is to do the opposite of what most people here argue. I bring the racism to the fore. If you choose to play a 1/2 ogre you will elicit a racist response.
It is entirely likely in my games that orcs will be villified as a race. It is also likely that this villification is a contributory factor in how they act.
I choose to examine possible racism because I think that makes the world more interesting but also I think it prevents others from co-opting it. No one can say that we should treat like you treat because I can point to teh goodly cleric that offers them mercy and understanding or the fact that they are only treated that way by the evil tyrant you are trying to over throw.
Quote from: Benoist;480421Always start like this though: it begins with "you know, I don't do that in my game". Then it transits to "if you're doing it, you are either a bad person, or you just don't realize what you're doing". Then it ends up with "we redesigned the game so there's no doubt we do not support this behavior".
A cigar airbrushed away to use the picture on the front of the Britain At War Exhibition in Tooley Street, Central London.
Funny you use a photograph of a racist guy that believed in white man's burden and thought we should gas the Kurds on a thread where you are arguing that there is no taint of racism in your favoured hobby :)
Oh the irony
Quote from: Benoist;480421Always start like this though: it begins with "you know, I don't do that in my game". Then it transits to "if you're doing it, you are either a bad person, or you just don't realize what you're doing". Then it ends up with "we redesigned the game so there's no doubt we do not support this behavior".
And that is why I find the whole search for potentially "problematic" things in the game stifling.
Also to comment on the airbrushing thing, I think that whole approach of sheltering viewers from bad habits doesn't work in practice. My father was a pretty ardent pacifist. I wasn't allowed to view violent or R-rated movies growing up, and I wasn't allowed to have any kind of militant toys (including GI Joe). I was also told violence is bad etc. Yet I became a huge fan of action films, shows like 24, and I got into boxing. It is a little like the "just say no" thing. All the kids in my grade grew up on Just Say No, and most of them ended experimenting with drugs (largely because drugs turned out to be less icky and sinister than they were led to believe by the just say no campaign). In short, it oversimplified the issue. It almost generates a backlash.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480424Funny you use a photograph of a racist guy that believed in white man's burden and thought we should gas the Kurds on a thread where you are arguing that there is no taint of racism in your favoured hobby :)
Oh the irony
Dude, you go ahead on your sidetrek about whether or not Winston Churchill was a commendable person on your own. I guess we find irony where we can.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480425And that is why I find the whole search for potentially "problematic" things in the game stifling.
Also to comment on the airbrushing thing, I think that whole approach of sheltering viewers from bad habits doesn't work in practice. My father was a pretty ardent pacifist. I wasn't allowed to view violent or R-rated movies growing up, and I wasn't allowed to have any kind of militant toys (including GI Joe). I was also told violence is bad etc. Yet I became a huge fan of action films, shows like 24, and I got into boxing. It is a little like the "just say no" thing. All the kids in my grade grew up on Just Say No, and most of them ended experimenting with drugs (largely because drugs turned out to be less icky and sinister than they were led to believe by the just say no campaign). In short, it oversimplified the issue. It almost generates a backlash.
I completely agree.
Quote from: Benoist;480426Dude, you go ahead on your sidetrek about whether or not Winston Churchill was a commendable person on your own. I guess we find irony where we can.
Oh come on you have to see the irony in that surely ?
So sweet Churchill stuff for yah .....
"Someone once asked Churchill if he had seen the film Carmen Jones, which starred Dorothy Dandridge. Winston replied that he didn't like blackamoors and had walked out early in the proceedings."
"When he was told that there was a very high mortality among Negroes from measels he growled 'Well there are plenty left. They've a high rate of production'".
"Churchill was irritated by Harold Macmillan's 1960 'Wind of Change' speech. 'Harold should not have gone to Africa encouraging the black men.'" lovely chap :) no harm done, product of his age :) My house-master use to roger me silly never did me any harm : ) etc etc etc ....
Quote from: jibbajibba;480423From the start I have been oe of those willing to accept that elements of D&D have parallels with racism.
My solution as I have been saying from the beinging is to do the opposite of what most people here argue. I bring the racism to the fore. If you choose to play a 1/2 ogre you will elicit a racist response.
It is entirely likely in my games that orcs will be villified as a race. It is also likely that this villification is a contributory factor in how they act.
I choose to examine possible racism because I think that makes the world more interesting but also I think it prevents others from co-opting it. No one can say that we should treat like you treat because I can point to teh goodly cleric that offers them mercy and understanding or the fact that they are only treated that way by the evil tyrant you are trying to over throw.
Where you see orcs as a race, I see orcs as monsters. Maybe in your campaigns orcs are hated because they are not human. In my campaign, orcs are hated and feared because they routinely maim and kill people, with little to no provocation. Your townsfolk would villify a half-ogre because it is a half-ogre and "unclean". My townsfolk would villify half-ogre because they would be afraid the half-ogre would attack and try to eat them and their families... because that's what ogres do. Can you not see the difference in approaches? Our fantasy games posit the existence of actual monsters... not just bad people, but actual monsters. Orcs are one of those monsters in many people's campaigns. Monsters are not people, they are not a "race" any more than mountain gorillas are a race in the real world, they are a species. That they can impregnate humans is meant to be monstrous, not an indication that they are a type of humans, unless that's what the DM wants them to be. I mean, elves can impregnate humans too, but that doesn't mean elves are meant to be a type of human either. This shit is taken from myth, and if played closer to myth, elves could be more as much or more monstrous as orcs. In the raw D&D, much like in Tolkien, orcs are meant to be the counter-point to elves, so they are given similar traits. I see nothing that indicates to me that orcs were meant to be a RPG way of denigrating a real world race or culture. What Adam Dray sees is what Adam Dray wants to see, and that is brought to the game entirely by Adam Dray.
What I know is that this man and a handful of others played a pivotal role in me not speaking German as a native language today. For that, I am very thankful indeed.
You know? It's kinda cool this irony thing. I see it now. I ought to do that more often.
Quote from: Sigmund;480430Where you see orcs as a race, I see orcs as monsters. Maybe in your campaigns orcs are hated because they are not human. In my campaign, orcs are hated and feared because they routinely maim and kill people, with little to no provocation. Your townsfolk would villify a half-ogre because it is a half-ogre and "unclean". My townsfolk would villify half-ogre because they would be afraid the half-ogre would attack and try to eat them and their families... because that's what ogres do. Can you not see the difference in approaches? Our fantasy games posit the existence of actual monsters... not just bad people, but actual monsters. Orcs are one of those monsters in many people's campaigns. Monsters are not people, they are not a "race" any more than mountain gorillas are a race in the real world, they are a species. That they can impregnate humans is meant to be monstrous, not an indication that they are a type of humans, unless that's what the DM wants them to be.
No I totally understand what a monster is but don't get me wrong my people are just liek your people they will villify a half-ogre because they think he will eat them, but the key is in the work
Think right.
Most people in my worlds have no fucking idea about how orcs breed or if they have young or if they are intelligent the same is true of ogres and hobgoblins and everyone else. They live in towns surrounded by other people just like them so they fear that which they do not understand. that is why I like to highlight the fact that that which is different to us is not always evil and monstrous and trying to eat us.
Now I never said you can't do it that way. I just said that you need to spare it a thought when you are building your world and don't be suprised if someone you don't like, with views you disagree with, takes that monstrousness and co-opts it for their own ends.
Quote from: Benoist;480431What I know is that this man and a handful of others played a pivotal role in me not speaking German as a native language today. For that, I am very thankful indeed.
You know? It's kinda cool this irony thing. I see it now. I ought to do that more often.
Now I think that was sarcasm :D
Quote from: jibbajibba;480436Now I think that was sarcasm :D
Oh you do know about that one too? Darn. :D
Quote from: jibbajibba;480434No I totally understand what a monster is but don't get me wrong my people are just liek your people they will villify a half-ogre because they think he will eat them, but the key is in the work Think right.
Most people in my worlds have no fucking idea about how orcs breed or if they have young or if they are intelligent the same is true of ogres and hobgoblins and everyone else. They live in towns surrounded by other people just like them so they fear that which they do not understand. that is why I like to highlight the fact that that which is different to us is not always evil and monstrous and trying to eat us.
Now I never said you can't do it that way. I just said that you need to spare it a thought when you are building your world and don't be suprised if someone you don't like, with views you disagree with, takes that monstrousness and co-opts it for their own ends.
Ok. I am reluctant to say anyone "needs" to do what you're saying here, as they can make that choice for themselves. Otherwise, yeah I can see how someone could take something and twist it to try to make it illustrate a point it isn't designed to... it's what Dray has done after all.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480434No I totally understand what a monster is but don't get me wrong my people are just liek your people they will villify a half-ogre because they think he will eat them, but the key is in the work Think right.
Most people in my worlds have no fucking idea about how orcs breed or if they have young or if they are intelligent the same is true of ogres and hobgoblins and everyone else. They live in towns surrounded by other people just like them so they fear that which they do not understand. that is why I like to highlight the fact that that which is different to us is not always evil and monstrous and trying to eat us.
Now I never said you can't do it that way. I just said that you need to spare it a thought when you are building your world and don't be suprised if someone you don't like, with views you disagree with, takes that monstrousness and co-opts it for their own ends.
The way you design settings souds perfectly reasonable and I am sure your campaigns are great fun. But why should Sigmund have to worry about someone co-opting his campaign material? Even if he decides to publish it, why is it his responsibility if some jerks decide to imbue his setting with racist meanings that he never intended? Even though your settings more closely resemble our own world, I am sure someone could find a way to mine them for racist indoctrination if they really wanted to. I think if you go down this road, you will find yourself constantly editing the material to guard against any potential misuse or misreading.
Have you eliminated every shred of racial distinction in your game? Do the core races have any ability modifiers?
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480425And that is why I find the whole search for potentially "problematic" things in the game stifling.
Also to comment on the airbrushing thing, I think that whole approach of sheltering viewers from bad habits doesn't work in practice. My father was a pretty ardent pacifist. I wasn't allowed to view violent or R-rated movies growing up, and I wasn't allowed to have any kind of militant toys (including GI Joe). I was also told violence is bad etc. Yet I became a huge fan of action films, shows like 24, and I got into boxing. It is a little like the "just say no" thing. All the kids in my grade grew up on Just Say No, and most of them ended experimenting with drugs (largely because drugs turned out to be less icky and sinister than they were led to believe by the just say no campaign). In short, it oversimplified the issue. It almost generates a backlash.
I think this is very much in line with exactly what I said. In mentioning Breakfast at Tiffany's, I was talking about racism rather than violence, but the same things apply. Personally, I let my son watch whatever violent movies he is comfortable with. However, what I don't do is to tell him "This violence is purely good! There is nothing wrong with it!" I also love violent movies, but when I talk to him I'll tell him exactly what I feel - that while I can ignore it in suspension of disbelief, action movie heroes often do things I would be strongly against in real life.
Regarding oversimplifying the issue - I think it is far more oversimplifying to say "Orcs have nothing whatsoever to do with racism and that's that."
Quote from: One Horse Town;480354If i can just interject in a semi-official manner briefly...
While personally, i think this thread was a bust from the start, there are obviously some of you who seem rather personally invested in it. So much so, that you're reporting peoples' posts for being mean to you or your views.
Sorry, but that sort of stuff has never flown here. Defend yourself in the thread if you must, but you'll not see any sanctions from the staff here unless someone is posting something potentially illegal or if a feud is starting to disrupt multiple threads for no good reason over a length of time.
Quote from: David R;480355Who are these people ? The only posters who are in the thick of it are Stormbringer, John Kim, CK, Frank Trollman, John Morrow, jibba2 and Sigmund. None of them strike me as the kind who would report posts esp knowing how this site works.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;480356(http://media.dvdtown.com/images/displayimage.php?id=4871)
Who said that? Who the fuck reported posts for being mean to him? Who's the slimy little communist shit, twinkle-toed cocksucker down here who just signed his own death warrant? Nobody, huh? The fairy fucking godmother said it. Out-fucking-standing! I will DM you all until you fucking die! I'll DM you until your assholes are sucking buttermilk!
If you ladies leave my game session, if you survive character generation, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life in Greyhawk. You are not even human fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit! You will not like me. But the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders from Gygax are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to play in my beloved milieu. Do you maggots understand that?
Quote from: Sigmund;480399And who the fuck is reporting posts? That's fucking bullshit. Pussy.
Quote from: Benoist;480408And who the fuck reports posts on this thread? Can't take the heat? Then move on. Making appeals of "boo hoo hoo people are mean to me?" That's RPGnet turf right there. It's bullshit. Grow a pair.
Just wanted to add to the chorus of only a pussy who cannot successfully defend their ideas, reports posts.
EDIT: Oh, and Kyle wins this thread. I will not be able to read his posts now without hearing the voice of R. Lee Ermy.
Quote from: jhkim;480440I think this is very much in line with exactly what I said. In mentioning Breakfast at Tiffany's, I was talking about racism rather than violence, but the same things apply. Personally, I let my son watch whatever violent movies he is comfortable with. However, what I don't do is to tell him "This violence is purely good! There is nothing wrong with it!" I also love violent movies, but when I talk to him I'll tell him exactly what I feel - that while I can ignore it in suspension of disbelief, action movie heroes often do things I would be strongly against in real life.
I think this perfectly reasonable.
QuoteRegarding oversimplifying the issue - I think it is far more oversimplifying to say "Orcs have nothing whatsoever to do with racism and that's that."
I just don't think racism is embedded in the orc concept. Especially as they are pertain to modern D&D and gaming. And I don't believe people using orcs as an evil race contributes to racism. Like I said, if someone wants to draw racist lessons from D&D's cosmology I would have a problem. But I would also believe they are drawing the wrong conlcusions. It is a fantasy game.
You tell me; what do orcs have to do with Racism in your opinion?
Quote from: jhkim;480440I think this is very much in line with exactly what I said. In mentioning Breakfast at Tiffany's, I was talking about racism rather than violence, but the same things apply. Personally, I let my son watch whatever violent movies he is comfortable with. However, what I don't do is to tell him "This violence is purely good! There is nothing wrong with it!" I also love violent movies, but when I talk to him I'll tell him exactly what I feel - that while I can ignore it in suspension of disbelief, action movie heroes often do things I would be strongly against in real life.
Regarding oversimplifying the issue - I think it is far more oversimplifying to say "Orcs have nothing whatsoever to do with racism and that's that."
I think you're wrong. I say there is nothing inherent in D&D's idea of orcs, or any other monster, that is racist in their presentation. Or, for that matter, in D&D's xp system.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480439The way you design settings souds perfectly reasonable and I am sure your campaigns are great fun. But why should Sigmund have to worry about someone co-opting his campaign material? Even if he decides to publish it, why is it his responsibility if some jerks decide to imbue his setting with racist meanings that he never intended? Even though your settings more closely resemble our own world, I am sure someone could find a way to mine them for racist indoctrination if they really wanted to. I think if you go down this road, you will find yourself constantly editing the material to guard against any potential misuse or misreading.
Have you eliminated every shred of racial distinction in your game? Do the core races have any ability modifiers?
No you misunderstand me :)
My setting rife with racism I just acknowledge it in the setting and expose it.
And again Sigmund is fine to have his evil orcs and all that and as he says he doesn't mind if some lilly-livered, commie sympathiser twists it to make a point about how D&D is an expression of Collonial Imperialism that even Winston Churchill would blush at :)
Quote from: Sigmund;480414I think you're framing it this way to try to "win". I think Tolkien's orcs were written with cultural influences. Would I call that "racist"? No, I wouldn't. Cultural influences are used to give our imaginary cultures consistency and identity, and I bet even you do that in your games, it's a great device, why not. However, I do not believe cultural influences = racist influences, even for the bad guys.
I certainly do use cultural influences. What I don't do is pretend that the cultural influences and/or myths that I use are completely free of prejudice. Historical myths and archetypes from medieval and ancient times are rife with racist ideas - as well as plenty of other historical values that I don't necessarily share. Drawing from most fictional, mythic, and/or cultural sources from prior to 1950 - and quite a few later ones as well - is likely to include some racism.
What I will do is often shake things up by putting new twists or mixings of the myths that don't quite fit with the original. So, for example, I ran my Vinland campaign for a while that used a mix of Icelandic myths along with a few Algonquian and Iroquoian myths - along with some colonial American myths like the Headless Horseman and the New Jersey Devil.
When I last ran a Tolkien based game, it shook up the events of the story by an alternate plotline that also changed views of where the real danger lay - cf.
All Shall Love Me and Despair... (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/lordoftherings/allshalllove/).
Quote from: jibbajibba;480455No you misunderstand me :)
My setting rife with racism I just acknowledge it in the setting and expose it.
And again Sigmund is fine to have his evil orcs and all that and as he says he doesn't mind if some lilly-livered, commie sympathiser twists it to make a point about how D&D is an expression of Collonial Imperialism that even Winston Churchill would blush at :)
People re gonna do what they're gonna do, I have no control over that, and I consequently have no responsibility for it either. What other folks do is on them.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480455No you misunderstand me :)
My setting rife with racism I just acknowledge it in the setting and expose it.
I get what you are saying. But my point is that someone could argue (though I wouldn't) that acting out actual racism between the groups in your setting is just as "problematic". I guess I am not sure what "Exposing" the racism of your own setting achieves.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;480356(http://media.dvdtown.com/images/displayimage.php?id=4871)
Who said that? Who the fuck reported posts for being mean to him? Who's the slimy little communist shit, twinkle-toed cocksucker down here who just signed his own death warrant? Nobody, huh? The fairy fucking godmother said it. Out-fucking-standing! I will DM you all until you fucking die! I'll DM you until your assholes are sucking buttermilk!
If you ladies leave my game session, if you survive character generation, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life in Greyhawk. You are not even human fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit! You will not like me. But the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders from Gygax are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to play in my beloved milieu. Do you maggots understand that?
This is pretty much the only other post this thread needs.
Quote from: jhkim;480456I certainly do use cultural influences. What I don't do is pretend that the cultural influences and/or myths that I use are completely free of prejudice. Historical myths and archetypes from medieval and ancient times are rife with racist ideas - as well as plenty of other historical values that I don't necessarily share. Drawing from most fictional, mythic, and/or cultural sources from prior to 1950 - and quite a few later ones as well - is likely to include some racism.
What I will do is often shake things up by putting new twists or mixings of the myths that don't quite fit with the original. So, for example, I ran my Vinland campaign for a while that used a mix of Icelandic myths along with a few Algonquian and Iroquoian myths - along with some colonial American myths like the Headless Horseman and the New Jersey Devil.
When I last ran a Tolkien based game, it shook up the events of the story by an alternate plotline that also changed views of where the real danger lay - cf. All Shall Love Me and Despair... (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/lordoftherings/allshalllove/).
Well what you're doing is on you. I'm not pretending I'm not being racist.. I'm actually not being racist. When I fight orcs in D&D, I'm not thinking of them as black people and engaging in pretend genocide or colonialism. When I borrow real world cultural trappings it's not with the goal of illustrating that real world culture's inferiority or evilness. If you are, that's not D&D's fault. Some advice, don't try to say that if someone says or thinks they are not being racist, they are pretending. It makes you you seem like an elitist dick, and I don't think you are. You don't know me nearly well enough to have any insight as to whether I'm pretending or not. I take you at your word, I'd like the same courtesy.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480465I get what you are saying. But my point is that someone could argue (though I wouldn't) that acting out actual racism between the groups in your setting is just as "problematic". I guess I am not sure what "Exposing" the racism of your own setting achieves.
It's been my experience that people find it very difficult to co-opt what is front and centre and dealt with in plain sight.
I am one of those annoying people who will step in front of a racist abusing an indian family at a bus station and give him a mothful or face down a gang of racists looking for trouble (and I admit a bit of my just lieks a good scrap). We are all racist (as one of my professors used to remind me). We all make judgements about people based on racial and cultural stereo-types. It's all about recognising it and dealing with it.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480472We are all racist (as one of my professors used to remind me). We all make judgements about people based on racial and cultural stereo-types. It's all about recognising it and dealing with it.
So, you're a racist, but since you acknowledge your racism, then it is OK?
That is some elitist crap right there.
Quote from: jhkim;480456So, for example, I ran my Vinland campaign for a while that used a mix of Icelandic myths along with a few Algonquian and Iroquoian myths - along with some colonial American myths like the Headless Horseman and the New Jersey Devil.[/url].
Wow, that's really relevant to my setting creation process right now. Would you have notes about this campaign somewhere on the web?
Quote from: jibbajibba;480472We are all racist (as one of my professors used to remind me). We all make judgements about people based on racial and cultural stereo-types. It's all about recognising it and dealing with it.
Racism is doctrinal. Your professor was wrong.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480472It's been my experience that people find it very difficult to co-opt what is front and centre and dealt with in plain sight.
Not really. I would think a game where racism is actually played out would be quite easy to co-opt. THough to be honest I have never had any personal experience with someone trying to co-opt my D&D game toward racist ends. It just isn't something I've ever encountered.
QuoteI am one of those annoying people who will step in front of a racist abusing an indian family at a bus station and give him a mothful or face down a gang of racists looking for trouble (and I admit a bit of my just lieks a good scrap).
I would expect any decent person to challenge racism when it is so explicitly displayed and it is not insanely dangerous to do so. So I won't give you any commendations for this announcement. That is just the right thing to do.
The whole part of challinging a gang of racists is just stupidity. If the racist gangs where you live are anything like the ones where I live, facing them down would be a pretty fatal (or at least life altering) decision. And this is coming from someone who likes a good fight as much as the next guy.
In my experience though, these kinds of obvious racist events are pretty rare to actually witness. Most of the racism I see is much more subtle than that and a lot harder to pin down. Like I said, my wife is asian and I've been with her for over 8 years. There was only one instance when someone was blatanlty racist toward her that we can recall (and the woman who did it was like 75 years old).
QuoteWe are all racist (as one of my professors used to remind me). We all make judgements about people based on racial and cultural stereo-types. It's all about recognising it and dealing with it.
See I disagree with this. I think racism, as most people use the term, is much more severe and intense than just walking around with a few stereotypes and generalizations. And I think the whole "everyone is racism" thing actually diminishes the significance of the term. So when true and hurtful racism does emerge and people try to draw attention to it, they are often ignored (i.e. oh, he is just being PC, etc).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480477See I disagree with this. I think racism, as most people use the term, is much more severe and intense than just walking around with a few stereotypes and generalizations. And I think the whole "everyone is racism" thing actually diminishes the significance of the term. So when true and hurtful racism does emerge and people try to draw attention to it, they are often ignored (i.e. oh, he is just being PC, etc).
This statement is wisdom. White guilt does nothing to help the issue.
I can't refuse Gunnery Sgt. Ermey, Kyle. So enough with the politically charged crap, back to gaming. We know at this point where everyone stands I think.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480482I can't refuse Gunnery Sgt. Ermey, Kyle. So enough with the politically charged crap, back to gaming. We know at this point where everyone stands I think.
I think we do, but at the same time I'm genuinely surprised to see who stands where, sometimes. I think that laying those things bare for everyone to see is actually useful, because the alternative is to just let it foster and grow like a huge ugly weed that bears poisonous fruit. That was my point with the Churchill poster. So turning away and game, sure, I'm all for that, but just doing that allows the bullshit to go on and on and on until RPGs are remade to conform to the standards of a bunch of fringe lunatics who can't deal with their own projections on the game. That sucks.
Quote from: Benoist;480484...until RPGs are remade to conform to the standards of a bunch of fringe lunatics who can't deal with their own projections on the game. That sucks.
(Only 22 posts! Come on we can do it!)
Quote from: Benoist;480484I think we do, but at the same time I'm genuinely surprised to see who stands where, sometimes. I think that laying those things bare for everyone to see is actually useful, because the alternative is to just let it foster and grow like a huge ugly weed that bears poisonous fruit. That was my point with the Churchill poster. So turning away and game, sure, I'm all for that, but just doing that allows the bullshit to go on and on and on until RPGs are remade to conform to the standards of a bunch of fringe lunatics who can't deal with their own projections on the game. That sucks.
Yeah, I can understand holding the line against bullshit, but are we gonna take this to 1500 posts? 2000?
Quote from: CRKrueger;480487Yeah, I can understand holding the line against bullshit, but are we gonna take this to 1500 posts? 2000?
I have no idea.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480487Yeah, I can understand holding the line against bullshit, but are we gonna take this to 1500 posts? 2000?
You called me a porcist. You're the one keeping this going.
Quote from: jhkimI certainly do use cultural influences. What I don't do is pretend that the cultural influences and/or myths that I use are completely free of prejudice.
Quote from: Sigmund;480471I'm not pretending I'm not being racist.. I'm actually not being racist. When I fight orcs in D&D, I'm not thinking of them as black people and engaging in pretend genocide or colonialism. When I borrow real world cultural trappings it's not with the goal of illustrating that real world culture's inferiority or evilness. If you are, that's not D&D's fault. Some advice, don't try to say that if someone says or thinks they are not being racist, they are pretending.
I apologize in that I did not mean to imply anything about your intent. However, I am claiming that there are clear racist themes in the original Teutonic and Norse myths as well as fantasy such as Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs - and more moderate but still racist themes in Tolkien. If you claim that those are not there, then I say that you are wrong - although I am not saying that you are lying or pretending. Again, sorry about the lying/pretending implication.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480477I think racism, as most people use the term, is much more severe and intense than just walking around with a few stereotypes and generalizations. And I think the whole "everyone is racism" thing actually diminishes the significance of the term. So when true and hurtful racism does emerge and people try to draw attention to it, they are often ignored (i.e. oh, he is just being PC, etc).
I think I agree with you that this is an issue. There should be a stronger term for the beliefs of the Nazis and the KKK. However, I don't want to label anything less than Nazis and the KKK as "non-racist" and therefore perfectly OK.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480447I just don't think racism is embedded in the orc concept. Especially as they are pertain to modern D&D and gaming. And I don't believe people using orcs as an evil race contributes to racism. Like I said, if someone wants to draw racist lessons from D&D's cosmology I would have a problem. But I would also believe they are drawing the wrong conlcusions. It is a fantasy game.
You tell me; what do orcs have to do with Racism in your opinion?
There are many different versions of orcs - especially when you get into how they are implemented in different people's games. I would start with Tolkien since that is where D&D's orcs come from. Like I said, hobbits, dwarves, elves, and men were identified with Western and Northern Europeans - while orcs were identified with Eastern Europeans and Near Easterners - mongol types. I think Tolkien was on the level when he said he didn't intend any symbolism, but I think that some things subconsciously shine through quite clearly. His mythic clash was a war between races with exaggerated traits, not a war between rival kings or political powers. That is not specific racial hatred, but it does glorify a worldview of seeing some people and races as inherently superior or inferior to others. Fantasies like this don't make people into KKK members any more than playing Cowboys and Indians makes people into genocidal anti-natives, but it isn't a purely good influence.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480340How can you miss the phrase bolded and underlined "we choose to bring to it"? Oh yeah, because it wouldn't fit your soundbite driveby reply.
No, it's because no one is arguing how it gets there except you. You have done a marvellous job of knocking that strawman down repeatedly, but no one here has proposed that RPGs in general or D&D specifically is inherently racist.
QuoteAh, ok, so I guess D&D according to you is not inherently racist, it just has something about it, compared to other RPG systems that makes it easy for Stormfront to use as a tool for racist propaganda? How convenient that this position lets you say the OP is a crank, yet still carry his banner as to the original point. You're way better at sophistry then the Stormfront guys, I'll give you that. ;)
Speaking of sophistry, I will give you ten points to find the quote where I or anyone but you has been arguing about D&D exclusively. Alternately, you could respond to the point you have been dancing around: If RPGs are no easier than boardgames for indroducing or expressing these concepts, why does Stormfront use RPGs rather than boardgames?
In more general terms, are you making the argument that every day situations/attitudes/incidents are just as easy to incorporate into boardgames as RPGs?
QuoteNo, but the term green is in fact the term green or even green with "bluish-tinge". Oh yeah, that's right, you weren't quoting an actual old school D&D book, as again, that fact doesn't suit your argument.
The fact is, it doesn't actually suit your argument. The drift from Tolkien's original imagining is more than a little noticeable. At this point, it seems like your whole argument is something about anything with green colouration is no different than anything else with green colouration. Again, I ask, you aren't hanging your whole argument on orcs having green skin, right?
QuoteWow, eyes, ears, snout, antennae, arms, legs, hands (with weird fingers granted). Man, how fucking alien, I'm amazed I could even recognize it as a life form. Seriously, non-human is non-human.
In that vein, then, pointy eared Elves are indistinguishable from Rodians also? I mean, non-human is non-human.
QuoteRestating someone's opinion to alternate purpose, man, you really have become pathetic haven't you? Genetics is a better science for Stormfront to misapply and generate lies with then, say Botany. Is Genetics racist? RPGs are no different.
And yet, in neither case is anyone here arguing that racism is inherent to the fields.
QuoteThe fact that you're relying on pathetic, bad-faith arguments to try and win the point is proof enough that it's not a strawman. Unless you've descended to Glenn Beck level and are simply on about it because I had the temerity to question an idiot wearing the team jersey.
Ah, so it's back to left vs right again because the actual points are a bit to difficult to address? Excellent. At least I know you aren't arguing this based on any kind of real interest in the topic.
QuoteAha, so there are inroads to be made, eh? Apparently some analysis is needed to determine why orcs are the bad guys in D&D? Maybe some examination of our white, western colonial past is in order? Didn't you call the OP a crank, or was that just to get the heat off your back after a ton of people in the thread agreed with me in that post you still haven't and are never going to answer?
You're right, I am not going to answer it. It may not have occurred to you yet, but
I'm not Adam Dray. I'm really not even a good proxy for him. If you want to address his points specifically, you should take it up with him. If you want to address my points, then explain again where I said D&D is inherently racist. I'm a bit slow these days, but we can start with that one.
QuoteThe only tool I need is logic, which tells me that RPGs are as much of a problem as genetics is. Educating people so they aren't subject to easily disproved lies and propaganda is the solution.
Which lie is that? The lie that RPGs aren't used to promote racist ideas?
QuoteHowever, when it comes to discussion, I never thought the end justifies the means. If someone's making a flawed argument, I've never jumped to someone's aid simply because they shared my leanings in any respect. I try very hard not to construct "gotcha" arguments or drive-by soundbites. I consider those the tools of the enemy, those who would obscure truth to gain advantage (and those people exist on both side of any aisle).
Except, you have been carefully making a counter argument for something no one has proposed or defended. You have been insisting that everyone is trying to say that D&D is inherently racist, and as I have mentioned several times, you are the only person on this thread that has brought up that possibility. I mean, you very thoroughly went through the original post, but you entirely missed the part where he was condemning the OSR's narrow focus on hack 'n slash as the problem?
QuoteSimply put, you're using those tools now, which causes me to think less of you. Sorry bro, that's just the way it is.
Honestly, I don't care what you think of me. I would like you to address some of the arguments that have been actually raised, though, instead of the ones you made up.
Quote from: jhkim;480494There are many different versions of orcs - especially when you get into how they are implemented in different people's games. I would start with Tolkien since that is where D&D's orcs come from. Like I said, hobbits, dwarves, elves, and men were identified with Western and Northern Europeans - while orcs were identified with Eastern Europeans and Near Easterners - mongol types. I think Tolkien was on the level when he said he didn't intend any symbolism, but I think that some things subconsciously shine through quite clearly. His mythic clash was a war between races with exaggerated traits, not a war between rival kings or political powers. That is not specific racial hatred, but it does glorify a worldview of seeing some people and races as inherently superior or inferior to others. Fantasies like this don't make people into KKK members any more than playing Cowboys and Indians makes people into genocidal anti-natives, but it isn't a purely good influence.
When it gets to the point where you are dealing with hidden or subconscious elements, I don't really get concerned. Sure I can accept that Tolkein was drawing on things in his environment and time that influenced the final imagery. I don't think we can so that means his orcs are inherently racist symbols or "problematic". However had he engaged in the kind of clear racism you find in the writings of say Lovecraft, then I agree that part of it needs to be weeded out. But growing up in the 80s as I did, reading Tolkein, race was the furthest thing from my mind when I got to the part about orcs.
Again with the whole clash of good and evil thing, I just don't see how that is problematic. Especially since I think most people would see it as a spiritual struggle, and not something to be interpreted through the lens of race. I really don't see Middle Earth as glorifying a racial worldview. I see it as a fictional setting where good and evil are real and therefore you have monstrous races that are inherently bad. To me it is just a product of the kind of setting he was going for, with a global good v. evil conflict.
Quote from: jhkim;480494I think I agree with you that this is an issue. There should be a stronger term for the beliefs of the Nazis and the KKK. However, I don't want to label anything less than Nazis and the KKK as "non-racist" and therefore perfectly OK.
.
I am not suggesting anything less than Nazis be okay. But we also shouldn't tilt at windmills and look for racism everywhere (especially D&D). That is precisely the kind of thing I am referring to when I say it weakens the meaning of real racism. Do you honestly believe the argument we are having now is a productive one that will lead to less racism in the world? If anything it would be much more productive and a better use of our time to collectively reject the racist stormtrooper (or whatever it was called) D&D game site. Rather than muse about the hidden racial assumptions of orcs. It just feels like we are engaged in endless hairsplitting and semantics.
Quote from: boulet;480474Quote from: jhkimSo, for example, I ran my Vinland campaign for a while that used a mix of Icelandic myths along with a few Algonquian and Iroquoian myths - along with some colonial American myths like the Headless Horseman and the New Jersey Devil.
Wow, that's really relevant to my setting creation process right now. Would you have notes about this campaign somewhere on the web?
Sure, they're all set up here:
http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/vinland/
Not the best organization, but there is at least a lot of material there.
Quote from: jhkim;480502Sure, they're all set up here:
http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/vinland/
Not the best organization, but there is at least a lot of material there.
That is pretty cool.
What is Darkshire.net?
Quote from: StormBringer;480497Which lie is that? The lie that RPGs aren't used to promote racist ideas?
Ba dum bum. Are you here all week?
So Stormfront uses a perversion of RPGs to promote racist ideas, and...what, exactly? What's your point, simply that they do so?
So Stormfront uses misrepresentation of the science of genetics to promote racist ideas, so...what exactly? What's your point, simply that they do so?
What arguments are you trying to make about RPGs then if I am missing what you are trying to say?
Quote from: jhkim;480502Sure, they're all set up here:
http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/vinland/
Not the best organization, but there is at least a lot of material there.
Thanks! Much appreciated.
Here, that's the sort of thing that comes out of these kind of arguments about D&D being [take your pick of offensive stuff here] perpetuating the Crazy ad nauseam :
Quote from: TSR Code of EthicsTSR, Inc., as a publisher of books, games, and game related products, recognizes the social responsibilities that a company such as TSR must assume. TSR has developed this CODE OF ETHICS for use in maintaining good taste, while providing beneficial products within all of its publishing and licensing endeavors.
In developing each of its products, TSR strives to achieve peak entertainment value by providing consumers with a tool for developing social interaction skills and problem-solving capabilities by fostering group cooperation and the desire to learn. Every TSR product is designed to be enjoyed and is not intended to present a style of living for the players of TSR games.
To this end, the company has pledged itself to conscientiously adhere to the following principles:
1: GOOD VERSUS EVIL
Evil shall never be portrayed in an attractive light and shall be used only as a foe to illustrate a moral issue. All product shall focus on the struggle of good versus injustice and evil, casting the protagonist as an agent of right. Archetypes (heroes, villains, etc.) shall be used only to illustrate a moral issue. Satanic symbology, rituals, and phrases shall not appear in TSR products.
2: NOT FOR DUPLICATION
TSR products are intended to be fictional entertainment, and shall not present explicit details and methods of crime, weapon construction, drug use, magic, science, or technologies that could be reasonably duplicated and misused in real life situations. These categories are only to be described for story drama and effect/results in the game or story.
3: AGENTS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
Agents of law enforcement (constables, policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions) should not be depicted in such a way as to create disrespect for current established authorities/social values. When such an agent is depicted as corrupt, the example must be expressed as an exception and the culprit should ultimately be brought to justice.
4: CRIME AND CRIMINALS
Crimes shall not be presented in such ways as to promote distrust of law enforcement agents/agencies or to inspire others with the desire to imitate criminals. Crime should be depicted as a sordid and unpleasant activity. Criminals should not be presented in glamorous circumstances. Player character thieves are constantly encouraged to act towards the common good.
5: MONSTERS
Monsters in TSR's game systems can have good or evil goals. As foes of the protagonists, evil monsters should be able to be clearly defeated in some fashion. TSR recognizes the ability of an evil creature to change its ways and become beneficial, and does not exclude this possibility in the writing of this code.
6: PROFANITY
Profanity, obscenity, smut, and vulgarity will not be used.
7: DRAMA AND HORROR
The use of drama or horror is acceptable in product development. However, the detailing of sordid vices or excessive gore shall be avoided. Horror, defined as the presence of uncertainty and fear in the tale, shall be permitted and should be implied, rather than graphically detailed.
8: VIOLENCE AND GORE
All lurid scenes of excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, filth, sadism, or masochism, presented in text or graphically, are unacceptable. Scenes of unnecessary violence, extreme brutality, physical agony, and gore, including but not limited to extreme graphic or descriptive scenes presenting cannibalism, decapitation, evisceration, amputation, or other gory injuries, should be avoided.
9: SEXUAL THEMES
Sexual themes of all types should be avoided. Rape and graphic lust should never be portrayed or discussed. Explicit sexual activity should not be portrayed. The concept of love or affection for another is not considered part of this definition.
10: NUDITY
Nudity is only acceptable, graphically, when done in a manner that complies with good taste and social standards. Degrading or salacious depiction is unacceptable. Graphic display of reproductive organs, or any facsimiles will not be permitted.
11: AFFLICTION
Disparaging graphic or textual references to physical afflictions, handicaps and deformities are unacceptable. Reference to actual afflictions or handicaps is acceptable only when portrayed or depicted in a manner that favorably educates the consumer on the affliction and in no way promotes disrespect.
12: MATTERS OF RACE
Human and other non-monster character races and nationalities should not be depicted as inferior to other races. All races and nationalities shall be fairly portrayed.
13: SLAVERY
Slavery is not to be depicted in a favorable light; it should only be represented as a cruel and inhuman institution to be abolished.
14: RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY
The use of religion in TSR products is to assist in clarifying the struggle between good and evil. Actual current religions are not to be depicted, ridiculed, or attacked in any way that promotes disrespect. Ancient or mythological religions, such as those prevalent in ancient Grecian, Roman and Norse societies, may be portrayed in their historic roles (in compliance with this Code of Ethics.) Any depiction of any fantasy religion is not intended as a presentation of an alternative form of worship.
15: MAGIC, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY
Fantasy literature is distinguished by the presence of magic, super-science or artificial technology that exceeds natural law. The devices are to be portrayed as fictional and used for dramatic effect. They should not appear to be drawn from reality. Actual rituals (spells, incantations, sacrifices, etc.), weapon designs, illegal devices, and other activities of criminal or distasteful nature shall not be presented or provided as reference.
16: NARCOTICS AND ALCOHOL
Narcotic and alcohol abuse shall not be presented, except as dangerous habits. Such abuse should be dealt with by focusing on the harmful aspects.
17: THE CONCEPT OF SELF IN ROLE PLAYING GAMES
The distinction between players and player characters shall be strictly observed.
It is standard TSR policy to not use 'you' in its advertising or role playing games to suggest that the users of the game systems are actually taking part in the adventure. It should always be clear that the player's imaginary character is taking part in whatever imaginary action happens during game play. For example, 'you' don't attack the orcs--'your character' Hrothgar attacks the orcs.
18: LIVE ACTION ROLE-PLAYING
It is TSR policy to not support any live action role-playing game system, no matter how nonviolent the style of gaming is said to be. TSR recognizes the physical dangers of live action role-playing that promotes its participants to do more than simply imagine in their minds what their characters are doing, and does not wish any game to be harmful.
19: HISTORICAL PRESENTATIONS
While TSR may depict certain historical situations, institutions, or attitudes in a game product, it should not be construed that TSR condones these practices.
Thanks Ben.
This should keep me busy for a while. I take exception in a nearly catagoric fashion.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480500I am not suggesting anything less than Nazis be okay. But we also shouldn't tilt at windmills and look for racism everywhere (especially D&D). That is precisely the kind of thing I am referring to when I say it weakens the meaning of real racism. Do you honestly believe the argument we are having now is a productive one that will lead to less racism in the world? If anything it would be much more productive and a better use of our time to collectively reject the racist stormtrooper (or whatever it was called) D&D game site. Rather than muse about the hidden racial assumptions of orcs. It just feels like we are engaged in endless hairsplitting and semantics.
Don't forget the psychic powers.
I love how one can apparently make assumptions about what a man who's been dead for 40 years was thinking. Apparently doing this sort of thing to someone who's in front of you is rude, but raising necromantic divinations about him after he's dead is perfectly kosher.
Quote from: Benoist;480517Here, that's the sort of thing that comes out of these kind of arguments about D&D being [take your pick of offensive stuff here] perpetuating the Crazy ad nauseam :
Interesting the relevant bit is :
12: MATTERS OF RACE
Human and other non-monster character races and nationalities should not be depicted as inferior to other races. All races and nationalities shall be fairly portrayed.hehehe how do they think the poor kender feel about being labelled kleptomaniacs. Or how do you think the halflings felt about not being allowed to use magic because they weren't sophisticated enough....
I must ensure my next setting breaks all of these rules.
Going back to my earlier post. I also always treated my prof's comments with a degree of disdain but now as I reflect on things I think he had a point. He is basically just saying that you need to be honest with yourself. He was of course a strongly left wing, tree hugging commie type, I mean I was doing a joint anthropology-geography degree at UCL with additional course at SOAS and you don't get much more right on and PC than that anywhere on the planet.
I do think that by exposing racism even the small stuff, and examining your own prejudices you emerge enlightened if not improved.
And I come from a soft nancy southern town in the UK so our racist gangs are rubbish :) but I will face em down none the less. Tyrany , flourish , do nothing etc ... :D
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480500I am not suggesting anything less than Nazis be okay. But we also shouldn't tilt at windmills and look for racism everywhere (especially D&D). That is precisely the kind of thing I am referring to when I say it weakens the meaning of real racism. Do you honestly believe the argument we are having now is a productive one that will lead to less racism in the world? If anything it would be much more productive and a better use of our time to collectively reject the racist stormtrooper (or whatever it was called) D&D game site. Rather than muse about the hidden racial assumptions of orcs. It just feels like we are engaged in endless hairsplitting and semantics.
I'm not sure about this conversation in particular, but I think that acknowledging the racism in fantasy can potentially lead to people considering new possibilities for fantasy. Basically, I feel like an awful lot of RPG fantasy is Tolkien-derivative to the point where the attempted innovation is about switching out elves for a similar good race and switching out orcs for a similar evil race. There is a rut here, and I think questioning the typical assumptions about race - including Adam Dray's ideas - is a good thing.
I would like to see more fantasy worlds that don't put race at the forefront in a Tolkien-esque manner - or at least mix up how they view race. I think that seeing more of these could help some people think more broadly about race.
I talked about this some in an LJ post I had,
Race in RPGs and the Alternatives (http://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/76095.html). A concrete example of the sort of things I would like to see is would be
What I Would Do With the Drow (http://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/56165.html).
Quote from: jibbajibba;480533I do think that by exposing racism even the small stuff, and examining your own prejudices you emerge enlightened if not improved.
The problem for me arises when you are looking so hard you are uncovering it where it isn't really there. I also think you can believe yourself to be enlightened but actually just hypersensitive. If I was constantly policing myself for racial sensitivity, I don't know that me and my wife could have an honest conversation.
QuoteAnd I come from a soft nancy southern town in the UK so our racist gangs are rubbish :) but I will face em down none the less. Tyrany , flourish , do nothing etc ... :D
This is a lot less foolhardy than I imagined from your initial post (if "soft nancy" carries the same meaning in the UK as the US). I was picturing aryan nation or something.
Quote from: jhkim;480535I'm not sure about this conversation in particular, but I think that acknowledging the racism in fantasy can potentially lead to people considering new possibilities for fantasy. Basically, I feel like an awful lot of RPG fantasy is Tolkien-derivative to the point where the attempted innovation is about switching out elves for a similar good race and switching out orcs for a similar evil race. There is a rut here, and I think questioning the typical assumptions about race - including Adam Dray's ideas - is a good thing.
I would agree fantasy tends toward stagnation at times. But I am honestly not interested in fantasy with a message. For the same reason I don't care what James Cameron thinks or Frank Miller think about politics and society, I don't care what my fantasy writers think.
Am totally fine with questioning core assumptions to produce more interesting and varied fantasy settings. I just don't want to see that produce a string of novels aimed at "educating" me. Also there are writers out there that took issue with Tolkein and Lewis and spun off that (The Golden Compass was basically a repudiation of Narnia). However I find in those cases the polical/philosphical/social message detracts from my enjoyment of the book as a reader-----not because I agree or disagree with the writer; because that isn't what I am interested in getting out of novels.
But you will get no argument from me that fantasy writers could stretch the genre a bit more.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480538Am totally fine with questioning core assumptions to produce more interesting and varied fantasy settings. I just don't want to see that produce a string of novels aimed at "educating" me. Also there are writers out there that took issue with Tolkein and Lewis and spun off that (The Golden Compass was basically a repudiation of Narnia). However I find in those cases the polical/philosphical/social message detracts from my enjoyment of the book as a reader-----not because I agree or disagree with the writer; because that isn't what I am interested in getting out of novels.
But you will get no argument from me that fantasy writers could stretch the genre a bit more.
I don't think baving a message correlates much with being heavy-handed. Some writers are just plain better than others. While Tolkien was opposed to allegory, I think C.S. Lewis was at least as interested in message as Phillip Pullman. I'm not very fond of Pullman either - but I liked Charles Saunders' Imaro novels, most of Ursula Le Guin, and a lot of Tamora Pierce and Neil Gaiman - all of whom reacted against many fantasy tropes of their time, and are interested in the message sent.
Quote from: jhkim;480541I don't think baving a message correlates much with being heavy-handed. Some writers are just plain better than others. While Tolkien was opposed to allegory, I think C.S. Lewis was at least as interested in message as Phillip Pullman. I'm not very fond of Pullman either - but I liked Charles Saunders' Imaro novels, most of Ursula Le Guin, and a lot of Tamora Pierce and Neil Gaiman - all of whom reacted against many fantasy tropes of their time, and are interested in the message sent.
I realize my preference is probably in the minority, but I just don't read books for the message. Usually the message is clear to me, but not something I am interested in. Same with movies. I guess I am just biased against novelists and film-makers as a source of moral inspiration. I feel like it is kind of a cheap way to make a point.
EDIT: I agree both Pullman and Lewis were equally interested in making a point. In both cases, for me, it detracted from the story. I've also never been much of a Le Guin or Gaiman fan. Mind you, since most writers seem to have an underlying point, I won't let that stand in my way of enjoying a good book.
Quote from: jhkim;480535I would like to see more fantasy worlds that don't put race at the forefront in a Tolkien-esque manner - or at least mix up how they view race.
The problem is, you're bringing your own viewpoints about race to discuss ME. Tolkien's Elf/Orc structure has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with Good/Evil. Tolkien may or not have been racist, but the thematic structure of his works comes consciously and unconsciously from him being a card-carrying catholic, a topic he discussed at great length.
Quote from: jhkim;480535I think that seeing more of these could help some people think more broadly about race.
So you want to be the anti-Stormfront. Good intentions, but you're merely putting a tool to use, just like they are. The good things that come from your result says good things about you, not about your tool.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480546The problem is, you're bringing your own viewpoints about race to discuss ME. Tolkien's Elf/Orc structure has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with Good/Evil. Tolkien may or not have been racist, but the thematic structure of his works comes consciously and unconsciously from him being a card-carrying catholic, a topic he discussed at great length.
I think I would just leave this as agree-to-disagree. There are endless discussions of Tolkien and his works. In my opinion, he did not write his stories as intentional allegory of race, war, or Catholicism, but I think that his subconscious feelings about all of these worked their way in.
Quote from: jhkim;480547I think I would just leave this as agree-to-disagree. There are endless discussions of Tolkien and his works. In my opinion, he did not write his stories as intentional allegory of race, war, or Catholicism, but I think that his subconscious feelings about all of these worked their way in.
Explain to me how in hell you know what Tolkien was "subconsciously" thinking?
Bonus points for doing so without employing the biographical fallacy.
Quote from: jhkim;480547I think I would just leave this as agree-to-disagree. There are endless discussions of Tolkien and his works. In my opinion, he did not write his stories as intentional allegory of race, war, or Catholicism, but I think that his subconscious feelings about all of these worked their way in.
As far as the Catholicism goes, Tolkien was pretty much of the opinion that his religion at first unconsciously informed his work and then consciously informed it (confirmed through letters).
As far as the rest goes, suggesting that someone else is influenced by racism even if they don't acknowledge it or realize it is pretty much the SOP for someone who sees racism in things, isn't it? :D
Quote from: J Arcane;480550Explain to me how in hell you know what Tolkien was "subconsciously" thinking?
Bonus points for doing so without employing the biographical fallacy.
My two points here are:
1) I know the stories the he published well.
2) I know he claimed that he did not consciously engage in symbolism or allegory.
I am choosing to take #2 as a truthful statement. If that is true, the symbolism and allegory in his works must have been subconscious. I will allow that there is also the option that he lied about consciously engaging in symbolism.
Quote from: jhkim;480555My two points here are:
1) I know the stories the he published well.
2) I know he claimed that he did not consciously engage in symbolism or allegory.
I am choosing to take #2 as a truthful statement. If that is true, the symbolism and allegory in his works must have been subconscious. I will allow that there is also the option that he lied about consciously engaging in symbolism.
So it's easier to assume you have psychic powers than it is to admit you might just be reading into it things that weren't there.
Gotcha.
Seriously? Is this some kind of pansy-ass "Oh, no! We can't possibly say anything bad about anyone, because calling anyone anything bad is too cruel for words!"
Fuck that.
I will call someone an asshole if I think they are an asshole. I will call someone a racist if I think they are a racist. It doesn't matter to me if they are living or dead. You can cry all you want about how nasty I am.
Quote from: jhkim;480558Seriously? Is this some kind of pansy-ass "Oh, no! We can't possibly say anything bad about anyone, because calling anyone anything bad is too cruel for words!"
Fuck that.
I will call someone an asshole if I think they are an asshole. I will call someone a racist if I think they are a racist. It doesn't matter to me if they are living or dead. You can cry all you want about how nasty I am.
That is so far from the point you can't even see it with the Hubble.
Quote from: jhkim;480558I will call someone an asshole if I think they are an asshole.
You mean like saying Mr. Gray is a teenage douchebag who needs to work out his insecurities about race instead of projecting his brainfarts on the D&D game?
That's fine by me.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480505Ba dum bum. Are you here all week?
So Stormfront uses a perversion of RPGs to promote racist ideas, and...what, exactly? What's your point, simply that they do so?
So Stormfront uses misrepresentation of the science of genetics to promote racist ideas, so...what exactly? What's your point, simply that they do so?
What arguments are you trying to make about RPGs then if I am missing what you are trying to say?
I am not making any arguments
about RPGs. I am pointing out that elements exist in RPGs that allow certain real world ideas to be expressed more easily than other types of games.
Which somehow gets translated into "All RPGs are inherently racist". Talk about sophistry. And in order for the message and messenger to be truly and utterly discredited, you yourself engage in the guilt by association that has been almost at the center of this whole manufactured outrage less than a dozen posts ago.
QuoteHowever, when it comes to discussion, I never thought the end justifies the means. If someone's making a flawed argument, I've never jumped to someone's aid simply because they shared my leanings in any respect. I try very hard not to construct "gotcha" arguments or drive-by soundbites. I consider those the tools of the enemy, those who would obscure truth to gain advantage (and those people exist on both side of any aisle).
Simply put, you're using those tools now, which causes me to think less of you. Sorry bro, that's just the way it is.
So, I am discussing something people appear to be highly uncomfortable with, and I am marked as 'the enemy' now? All manner of arguments have been invented whole cloth and attributed to me because...? That's the part I don't get, really. It's controversial now to point out that certain aspects of RPGs more easily lend themselves to analogues from reality than boardgames?
I understand Sigmund's point, the guy makes pretty broad strokes with his little 'discovery', and that is where he goes completely off the rails. But to crucify people for suggesting there are elements of RPGs that facilitate any number of correlations is just bizarre. To categorically deny these things could ever possibly exist even moreso.
Benoist likes to make hay with the original post, and the TSR guidelines thing up there, but furiously demanding that any real world attitudes are solely and entirely brought to the table by the participants because there is absolutely nothing about RPGs that could ever ease the transition is just a purity test from another angle.
But clearly I stepped into the Two Minutes of Hate instead.
Quote from: jhkim;4805552) I know he claimed that he did not consciously engage in symbolism or allegory.
and creating an Absolute Good and Absolute Evil in his stories is neither.
Quote from: jhkim;480555I will allow that there is also the option that he lied about consciously engaging in symbolism.
You also might want to allow for the option that you're wrong and being a snarky fuck when anyone suggests as much.
Quote from: jhkim;480558Seriously? Is this some kind of pansy-ass "Oh, no! We can't possibly say anything bad about anyone, because calling anyone anything bad is too cruel for words!"
No, it's more like you being called on being full of shit when you pull the usual crap of believing that because you read racism into something it must be there, and the original author is fooling himself if he doesn't think that's why he wrote something.
Quote from: jhkim;480558Fuck that.
Nah, more like fuck you.
Quote from: jhkim;480558I will call someone a racist if I think they are a racist. It doesn't matter to me if they are living or dead.
Apparently it also doesn't matter whether or not they are a racist. Oh yeah, because anyone who doesn't admit they are a racist is automatically one, right?
Quote from: jhkim;480558You can cry all you want about how nasty I am.
More like laugh at how pathetically stereotypical.
Quote from: StormBringer;480563I am not making any arguments about RPGs. I am pointing out that elements exist in RPGs that allow certain real world ideas to be expressed more easily than other types of games.
So a medium that allows you to create fantasy races and cultures could be used by racists to create racist fantasy races and cultures...and that's it? That's your whole point?
(http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSkqfSnzV2X_djYzu43LamNQTKhzZBemsjOsbotTieYzb8c4-T2AS5Gok99-A)
In other news...
"The sky is blue, water is wet, women have secrets...Who gives a fuck?"
OK, I'm satisfied we're at the agree to disagree stage regarding Tolkien.
Out of curiousity, does anyone agree with me that Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs were racists? Or do people think that I'm also just crazy reading racism into their writing as well?
Quote from: jhkim;480568OK, I'm satisfied we're at the agree to disagree stage regarding Tolkien.
Out of curiousity, does anyone agree with me that Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs were racists? Or do people think that I'm also just crazy reading racism into their writing as well?
I only really read Lovecraft out of that group. I think he definitely had a lot of racist assumptions in his writing, but I also think he was very much a product of his time. It has been many years since I've read Lovecraft extensively, so I would certainly be open to revising my position if it turns out my memory doesn't match what he actually wrote.
With the kind of stuff Lovecraft wrote though it is, as I remember it, much more explicit and clear than what we were discussing ealier.
Quote from: jhkim;480568OK, I'm satisfied we're at the agree to disagree stage regarding Tolkien.
Out of curiousity, does anyone agree with me that Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs were racists? Or do people think that I'm also just crazy reading racism into their writing as well?
Robert E. Howard is about as racist as you can possibly expect for 1930's middle-of-nowhere Texas, which is to say, ridiculously so. HP Lovecraft isn't as bad, but definitely racist. Burroughs I have no clue about, I've never read any of his collected letters, as I have with the others.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480570Robert E. Howard is about as racist as you can possibly expect for 1930's middle-of-nowhere Texas, which is to say, ridiculously so. HP Lovecraft isn't as bad, but definitely racist. Burroughs I have no clue about, I've never read any of his collected letters, as I have with the others.
I think it is the other way. I'm not comfortable with the racism in howard, but I think it is mostly minor enough that you can over look it. There are a few shining examples of racism, like the african guards that held him prisoner. There was some on the Queen of the Black Coast, but you can take it as a sign of the times.
Lovecraft on the other hand wrote a whole story where the terrifying conclusion was finding out about how the girl had a black ancestor or something. There was also the poem he wrote called, N______.
Quote from: Cranewings;480572Lovecraft on the other hand wrote a whole story where the terrifying conclusion was finding out about how the girl had a black ancestor or something. There was also the poem he wrote called, N______.
I didn't know about that poem (always avoided reading poems by lovecraft because I heard they were terrible).
Quote from: CRKrueger;480567So a medium that allows you to create fantasy races and cultures could be used by racists to create racist fantasy races and cultures...and that's it? That's your whole point?
Ok, hold on. You just spent a considerable number of posts claiming that was absolutely impossible.
This part, right here:
"So a medium that
allows you to create fantasy races and culture..."
You just spent a good deal of time an effort to debunk that exact notion. That it was utterly and completely something the players brought to the table. That there is absolutely nothing in RPGs that could facilitate it. It is just as easy to introduce racist elements to a game of Monopoly.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480324Correct. The game has absolutely nothing to do with it.
So, which is it?
Then again, I suspect it was just to bring up the strawman you wanted to defeat:
Quote from: CRKrueger;480324The game is as responsible for racism as the science of genetics is.
I think I see the problem. This is an argument exactly no one was making.
Quote from: StormBringer;480578I think I see the problem. This is an argument exactly no one was making.
Yeah, except that's totally what the OP is actually saying:
Quote from: Mr. GrayAs I designed my setting for Hinterlands, I struggled with a key problem regarding all the typical genocidal bullshit in fantasy gaming. Here I am, building a setting and populating it with stuff for characters to kill. It's very difficult to get around that in a D&D setting, because fantasy gaming is so tightly integrated with the killing.
(…)
My problem with the whole setup is that the reason for all the ultraviolence is rarely explored in any depth. Simply put: why do these monsters need to die? Okay, so they're Evil. D&D has an alignment system that categorizes everyone into three, five, or nine (depending on which edition you play) convenient morality boxes like "Lawful" or "Chaotic Evil." We're told that every orc is Evil, and that's sufficient excuse to kill every last one, including their women and children, without guilt. We're also told that they have chieftains, tribes, and settlements. Their "lairs" are described in loving detail, showing how the community lives and eats. But they're all Evil, so leave none alive.
So it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn. And I've played this way for decades and mostly just looked the other way or found various rationalizations and justifications for it.
"So
it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn."
What is "it" here? The setup of the game. The "mindless killing" and the alignment setup and the "orcs are Evil". The way the game describes monsters. The game itself.
Have you even read this? Put on some glasses for fuck's sakes.
Quote from: Benoist;480582Yeah, except that's totally what the OP is actually saying:
Then maybe you should take that up with him.
Quote"So it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn."
What is "it" here? The setup of the game. The "mindless killing" and the alignment setup and the "orcs are Evil". The way the game describes monsters. The game itself.
Have you even read this? Put on some glasses for fuck's sakes.
Have you seen anyone else make this argument? And how is that saying that D&D is responsible for racism? Put some glasses on for fuck's sake.
Also, wasn't the primary complaint that the original guy was reading too much into things?
"So it all stinks
to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn."
When did "to me" come to mean "a general statement that applies to every single person on the planet without recourse"?
Quote from: jhkim;480568OK, I'm satisfied we're at the agree to disagree stage regarding Tolkien.
Out of curiousity, does anyone agree with me that Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs were racists? Or do people think that I'm also just crazy reading racism into their writing as well?
Did they, while writing in the first-person, non-fiction personal form, say something racist?
Then yes. You can.
Otherwise, you're committing the biographical fallacy I've explained earlier.
Quote from: J Arcane;480589Did they, while writing in the first-person, non-fiction personal form, say something racist?
Then yes. You can.
Otherwise, you're committing the biographical fallacy I've explained earlier.
Fine. If you want to get all technical, then even a first-person, non-fiction personal writing doesn't need to express a person's true inner feelings. People can lie, joke, exaggerate, etc. Here, I'll say the following:
I, John Kim, claim that all white people are stupid and furthermore can't dance.
But for purposes of this discussion, I don't really care if an author had some secret reason other than being racist for writing stories with racist themes. What I care about is the stories themselves, and the qualities of creations like orcs, Green Martians, etc. So I will revise my question to "Would you agree that the writings of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs frequently contain racist themes?"
Quote from: StormBringer;480586Then maybe you should take that up with him.
I did, actually. But thanks of the tip, I guess.
QuoteHave you seen anyone else make this argument?
You guys by defending this idiot. What the fuck is wrong with you, mate?
QuoteAlso, wasn't the primary complaint that the original guy was reading too much into things?
"So it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn."
When did "to me" come to mean "a general statement that applies to every single person on the planet without recourse"?
Stop being a hypocrite trying to move the goalposts every five seconds. "It's just my opinion" has never, ever been an excuse to say something stupid. You know that, I know that. That's just your latest attempt at a smoke screen, and it stinks. Just give that up.
You said that "nobody said that D&D was racist". Well YES, SOMEONE DID: the fucking OP. Now are you going to own up to the fact you're presently defending a fucking idiot, and thereby are making yourself look like one, or are we going for another round of goalposts shifting?
Quote from: Benoist;480603You guys by defending this idiot. What the fuck is wrong with you, mate?
Where am I defending his ideas?
QuoteStop being a hypocrite trying to move the goalposts every five seconds. "It's just my opinion" has never, ever been an excuse to say something stupid. You know that, I know that. That's just your latest attempt at a smoke screen, and it stinks. Just give that up.
It gets kind of tiring to have a pile of fallacy names thrown at a wall to see which one sticks. Any examples?
QuoteYou said that "nobody said that D&D was racist". Well YES, SOMEONE DID: the fucking OP. Now are you going to own up to the fact you're presently defending a fucking idiot, and thereby are making yourself look like one, or are we going for another round of goalposts shifting?
And again, if the OP made that claim, then you should probably take it up with him. Did anyone who is present on the thread make those claims? You know, the people you would actually be having a discussion with, not the random blog on the internet you copied this from so they would be unable to respond?
Your whole contribution to this thread has been to simply repeat
ad nauseum that everyone else is wrong, but you have not shown any basis as to why that is. I can't, by definition, move goalposts with you, because you have again utterly failed to raise any points that could be considered or discussed.
So, does anyone feel like taking on the actual discussion here, or is it easier to make up strawmen and argue about what the OP did or didn't mean when they aren't here to clarify anything? Didn't J Arcane just mention something or another about being psychic?
Quote from: StormBringer;480578Ok, hold on. You just spent a considerable number of posts claiming that was absolutely impossible.
Fail, figured you'd try and slip crap like this by, as you have nothing else.
Quote from: StormBringer;480578That it was utterly and completely something the players brought to the table. That there is absolutely nothing in RPGs that could facilitate it. It is just as easy to introduce racist elements to a game of Monopoly.
Fail. Do you think this Freshman Year bullshit is going to fly here? Slipping in your pathetic additions in an attempt to frame the argument isn't going to work, people here tend to have some brains, something you apparently have forgotten. Where have you been anyway, were you forced to stay in Texas because of work? Something turned you into a raving maniac.
Racism is something that is completely brought to the table by the players. The ability to create fantasy cultures and races can lead to interesting and detailed races and cultures in RPGs that make you feel all warm, fuzzy and educational, or it can lead to Stormfront shit. Similar to the situation in which a gun can be used to kill you whether or not the guy is shooting you because of your race or just because he wants your watch, or you could use it to defend your loved ones. The gun is just a tool, the intent and racial baggage belongs solely to the user.
Awaiting the next pathetic driveby soundbite...
Quote from: J Arcane;480589Did they, while writing in the first-person, non-fiction personal form, say something racist?
Then yes. You can.
From Gary Romeo's article Southern Discomfort: Was Howard A Racist? (http://www.rehupa.com/romeo_southern.htm):
Quote from: Gary RomeoHoward's attitude toward violence inflicted on non-whites is visible in some of his letters. In a letter to H. P. Lovecraft, Howard talks about a rancher who was investigated for the murder of a Mexican. "[...] just why so much trouble was taken about a Mexican I cannot understand." [ i] In reference to a trial in Honolulu where native Hawaiians were accused of rape, Howard wrote, "I know what would have happened to them in Texas. I don't know whether an Oriental smells any different than a n****r when he's roasting, but I'm willing to bet the aroma of scorching hide would have the same chastening effect on his surviving tribesman." [ii] There is also a conversation between Howard and Novalyne Price that is remembered in her memoir on Howard. Howard tells Novalyne, "[...] I guess you know if a Negro is found on the streets after dark in Coleman, Santa Anna, and several other towns around here, they run him out of town. Chances are they might tar and feather him." When Novalyne reacted negatively, Howard returned, "Let me tell you something, girl, that you don't seem to know. Those people come from a different line. They have different blood - " [iii][/i]
Or how about, "
This is based on his experience in New Orleans where he encountered a man of Chinese and Negro heritage. Howard, in a letter, describes the man as an "it.""
That Novalyne Price reacted negatively to Howard's comments demonstrates that despite the prevalent racism of the day, one wasn't obliged to go along with it.
Does that meet your criteria?
Quote from: jhkim;480594So I will revise my question to "Would you agree that the writings of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs frequently contain racist themes?"
As far as Howard goes, if you're talking about his published writings, I'd say very little, but when it's there, it's THERE. The majority of his best stories, however, and all of his poetry that I've read don't contain a lot of racist stuff, no.
With Lovecraft I would argue, the racism is more prevalent in his stories, but it is less of a personal racism and more of a clueless cultural racism.
Quote from: John Morrow;480608From Gary Romeo's article Southern Discomfort: Was Howard A Racist? (http://www.rehupa.com/romeo_southern.htm):
Or how about, "This is based on his experience in New Orleans where he encountered a man of Chinese and Negro heritage. Howard, in a letter, describes the man as an "it.""
That Novalyne Price reacted negatively to Howard's comments demonstrates that despite the prevalent racism of the day, one wasn't obliged to go along with it.
Does that meet your criteria?
Sure.
I get the impression you're trying to score points against me somehow by pointing this out, but I didn't deny one way or the other that they were, only that one needed to decide such based on what they actually said, not what one has assumed from their fictions.
The former is reasonable. The latter is a fallacious assumption. Thus far, however, I have seen only the latter as respects Tolkien.
Quote from: StormBringer;480606blah blah blah, blah blah. Blah blah blah blah.
You've chosen the second option I see. *shakes head*
Quote from: beejazz;480130This is more or less the answer I was looking for. I can't see myself wanting to play in a game like this, but I can at least see why you would do this, and not use zombies or demons or what have you.
So did your setting not have artificial or unnaturally produced monsters? Or just not sentient ones that could fill that terminator role?
Not really, unless you count undead, and I didn't want the entire game to be about that. I don't think one has to eliminate all of the other possibilities before choosing the one that I chose.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480607Fail, figured you'd try and slip crap like this by, as you have nothing else.
So, you won't be addressing the self-contradiction then. Unsurprising.
QuoteThe gun is just a tool, the intent and racial baggage belongs solely to the user.
But is the gun more or less efficient than a knife, or a whiffle bat?
QuoteAwaiting the next pathetic driveby soundbite...
You probably shouldn't. I mean, your only goal here is to make sure it is absolutely clear that RPGs cannot possibly be used for such purposes by anyone with a shred of sanity.
Besides, why would you care? It's not like you were trying to argue against my points anyway. It was much easier to make up a wholly different argument, defeat that, then try to make it sound like it was my argument.
Quote from: Benoist;480616You've chosen the second option I see. *shakes head*
So, still not going to address anything in this thread, then? Is this the new MO we can expect around here? Copy pasta some vaguely controversial blog and wait to see which way the wind is blowing before jumping off the fence.
At least you didn't waste everyone's time constructing an argument and then defending it. It is much faster to read through posts that just say "You're wrong".
Quote from: J Arcane;480613I get the impression you're trying to score points against me somehow by pointing this out, but I didn't deny one way or the other that they were, only that one needed to decide such based on what they actually said, not what one has assumed from their fictions.
I was primarily trying to point out that the quotes exist that meet your criteria, though you seemed to be skeptical that such evidence existed. The point about Novalyne Price's reaction was because Howard fans frequently apply the "he was a product of his times" defense to excuse his comments. There is a point to which I the "he was a product of his times" is a reasonable excuse for ignorant and non-malicious racist comments, but I think Howard's comments fall well past that point.
Quote from: StormBringer;480626So, still not going to address anything in this thread, then? Is this the new MO we can expect around here? Copy pasta some vaguely controversial blog and wait to see which way the wind is blowing before jumping off the fence.
At least you didn't waste everyone's time constructing an argument and then defending it. It is much faster to read through posts that just say "You're wrong".
(1) I created the thread. I'm on topic here. The one who's completely ignoring the OP is you, champ.
(2) I don't have time to waste writing paragraph after paragraph trying to convince you while you are so blatantly dishonest as to pretend to argue a position and then pretend it's actually not your position, make excuses and rewrite the retarded posts of the latest dickwad that strikes your fancy, or play the Team Left playbook to then pretend we're just hatemongers or Tea Party activists or whatever piece of bullshit you are going to come up with next. Like answering whether guns kill people to just change the subject to ask which is more lethal than the other. The premise is that they're all lethal, dick. Answer the fucking question. But nope. Let's just play it by shifting the topic. By the fucking book. Hope your proud of yourself.
Quote from: StormBringer;480626So, still not going to address anything in this thread, then? Is this the new MO we can expect around here? Copy pasta some vaguely controversial blog and wait to see which way the wind is blowing before jumping off the fence.
Not even a blog, a private Google+ post.
Quote from: John Morrow;480629I was primarily trying to point out that the quotes exist that meet your criteria, though you seemed to be skeptical that such evidence existed. The point about Novalyne Price's reaction was because Howard fans frequently apply the "he was a product of his times" defense to excuse his comments. There is a point to which I the "he was a product of his times" is a reasonable excuse for ignorant and non-malicious racist comments, but I think Howard's comments fall well past that point.
If I gave the impression I was skeptical regarding the three figures (Howard, Lovecraft, Burroughs), I apologize. To be honest, I just flat don't know, and was only trying to encourage intellectual honesty as to answering the question.
Of the three, I have only read Lovecraft sparingly, and none of his personal writings. I have heard rumors about various figures from that time, but as this thread most adequately demonstrates, people often tend to conflate personal interpretation with biographical speech.
In Tolkien's case, the actual biographical speech suggests that in reality he expressed some disgust with the black segregation of his native South Africa.
To then go and read one's own preconceptions into the text of his fictional works and assume he was racist, shows exactly why the biographical fallacy is to be avoided.
We cannot assume anything about an author's personal views or experiences based solely on what they account in a fictional work.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480477See I disagree with this. I think racism, as most people use the term, is much more severe and intense than just walking around with a few stereotypes and generalizations. And I think the whole "everyone is racism" thing actually diminishes the significance of the term. So when true and hurtful racism does emerge and people try to draw attention to it, they are often ignored (i.e. oh, he is just being PC, etc).
Absolutely. It's almost impossible to criticize anything but the most overt racism on right-leaning message boards without the criticism being dismissed as a PC overreaction and the net effect has been to create a safer haven for racists to spread propaganda. When everything is racism, nothing is, and when everyone is a racist, nobody is.
As for stereotypes, the problem is not simply stereotyping. There is ample research that most people generally hold reasonably accurate stereotypes and use them responsibly (see this chapter (http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/%7Ejussim/jussim%20et%20al,%20unbearable%20stereotpes,%20handbook%2010-12-06.doc) from the Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination (http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Prejudice-Stereotyping-Discrimination-Nelson/dp/0805859527/) for details about the research). Racism operates in the realm of inaccurate (and primarily negative) stereotypes and in an unwillingness to switch from a stereotype to individuating information when it becomes unavailable, which is what normal people do. Racists have to lie to make the groups they hate appear monstrous and inhuman. The solution is not declare anything that could possibly be used toward a racist end, be it IQ tests or role-playing games with monstrous races, off limits but to explain how the racists incorrectly misuse those things to promote lies. Declaring certain topics and information off limits so it can't be misused by racists simply feeds into their narrative that the politically correct powers-that-be are hiding the truth from people.
Quote from: J Arcane;480633Not even a blog, a private Google+ post.
Good point, I stand corrected.
Quote from: jhkim;480456When I last ran a Tolkien based game, it shook up the events of the story by an alternate plotline that also changed views of where the real danger lay - cf. All Shall Love Me and Despair... (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/lordoftherings/allshalllove/).
Quote from: jhkim;480502Sure, they're all set up here:
http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/vinland/
Not the best organization, but there is at least a lot of material there.
As the saying goes, it's an ill wind indeed that blows no good. This thread may be several zillion pages of self-indulgent first year university masturbation, but at least it (a) inspired me to run a game again Sunday week, and (2) drew our attention to your interesting and fun campaign settings.
Quote from: jhkim;480568does anyone agree with me that Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs were racists? Or do people think that I'm also just crazy reading racism into their writing as well?
They were totally racist motherfuckers.
But I mean, when Howard said that blacks were inherently more barbaric, he thought that was a
good thing. Howard was unemployed and living at home with his parents in his 30s, and killed himself because his mother was going to die and he'd have to do his own laundry. He was basically a loser, if he were born eighty years later he'd be in the basement with copies of
Soldier of Fortune magazine, playing WoW and Magic cards, and arguing on the internet about how GURPS doesn't model the difference between 45 and 9mm properly.
So he was bound to have some silly ideas. But they were at least
entertaining silly ideas.
Quote from: Benoist;480631(1) I created the thread.
We will never forget this, Benoist. Never.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480472We are all racist (as one of my professors used to remind me). We all make judgements about people based on racial and cultural stereo-types. It's all about recognising it and dealing with it.
Your professor was a small-minded twat. People like to project their weaknesses on to others to make them feel more a part of a group and not having to face individual weakness.
Lots of people are not racist. Christ, you sound like Somethingelse over on RPGnet, whining about "privilege" and how all white middle class males are responsible for hundreds of deaths every day and every time a women stubs her toe.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;480643We will never forget this, Benoist. Never.
If you're having a blast on Sunday you sure as hell shouldn't.
I think Pundit should put badges on the signatures for people that start threads that go over 1000.
Quote from: jhkim;480494There are many different versions of orcs - especially when you get into how they are implemented in different people's games. I would start with Tolkien since that is where D&D's orcs come from. Like I said, hobbits, dwarves, elves, and men were identified with Western and Northern Europeans - while orcs were identified with Eastern Europeans and Near Easterners - mongol types. I think Tolkien was on the level when he said he didn't intend any symbolism, but I think that some things subconsciously shine through quite clearly. His mythic clash was a war between races with exaggerated traits, not a war between rival kings or political powers. That is not specific racial hatred, but it does glorify a worldview of seeing some people and races as inherently superior or inferior to others.
I'm afraid your interpretation there is way off. In fact, I find it very hard to believe who has
actually read (*and comprehended) Lord of the Rings could come to that conclusion. You do realize there were eastern european/near easteners actually in Lord of the Rings? Mongol
people , not orcs? Of whom Samwise, speaking for Tollers, had this to say:
Quote from: J.R.R. TolkienIt was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace.
Quote from: Tolkien FAQa few people have mistaken the symbolic conflict between "darkness" and "light" in the books for a conflict between "black" and "white", which they then interpret racially (which is already a stretch). They seem to overlook the ghastly white corpse-light of Minas Morgul, the White Hand of Saruman, and Isildur's black Stone of Erech, to name a few exceptions.
As for specific claims that Tolkien linked skin color to good and evil, there are simply too many exceptions for that to hold up. Light skinned characters who did evil things include Saruman, Grima, Gollum, Boromir, Denethor, and the Numenoreans as mentioned above. And it is notable that Tolkien described Forlong's people of Gondor and even the men of Bree as "swarthy", the same term he used for example of the Southrons who were ambushed by Faramir (though to be fair, he may have imagined different degrees of "swarthiness" for those groups). For that matter, Sam's flash of empathy for the fallen Southron he saw during the ambush indicates that many of Sauron's soldiers were likely unwilling slaves, not evil at heart.
Tolkien's mythic battle was drawn upon a very deeply ingrained part of his culture and beliefs, but it had jack all to do with war between grossly exaggerated races. The "reason" orcs are created rather than born was not an afterthought, for Tolkien. Nothing in those books were just "casual details": everything had a very specific purpose, every turn of phrase Tolkien laboured over. It is because Tolkien genuinely believed that no person (meaning no human being of any race, indeed no sentient creature) was born evil. Evil cannot create, it can only corrupt. This isn't a magical prohibition, it is the very nature of how Tolkien defined Evil. Orcs arten't one people, even the Nazis...they are anyone, of any race, who has become so tainted that they delight in mindless cruelty and savagrey. Orcs are the Manson girls, and the cops at Tinnamon Square; orcs are any soldier, from the Nazis to U.S. Blackwater troops, who engage in mindless slaughter and make war into a nihilistic game.
Orcs aren't "born", except in the same way that Ted Bundy or Josef Mengele were "born". They were
corrupted.
In other words, Orcs don't represent any human race or culture, orcs represent a
side of humanity.
Quote from: J.R.R. TolkienI should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.
Quote from: TristramEvans;480658In other words, Orcs don't represent any human race or culture, orcs represent a side of humanity.
See, that's a perfectly valid interpretation for a D&D game as well. So why is it that some people here just can't get past that one projection that orcs would been black people or jews? Why is it that the responsibility, or part thereof, for this kind of retarded reading has to be put on the game's design itself?
Quote from: jhkim;480547but I think that his subconscious feelings about all of these worked their way in.
(http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln93soz9at1qgzn6g.gif)
Of all the narcissistic pop-psychology bullshit...
Quote from: Benoist;480660See, that's a perfectly valid interpretation for a D&D game as well. So why is it that some people here just can't get past that one projection that orcs would been black people or jews? Why is it that the responsibility, or part thereof, for this kind of retarded reading has to be put on the game's design itself?
It's like those people who get obsessed with the number 23. It's not that the number 23 has any significance or is more common than any other number or combination of numbers, it's just that they are ignoring all numbers/information except specifically what they are
looking for.
Quote from: TristramEvans;480665It's like those people who get obsessed with the number 23. It's not that the number 23 has any significance or is more common than any other number or combination of numbers, it's just that they are ignoring all numbers/information except specifically what they are looking for.
http://summauniversalia.org/wiki/images/7/70/PrincipiaDiscordia_pg00016.png
Can't make it an image. Fills the whole page.
Quote from: StormBringer;480624So, you won't be addressing the self-contradiction then. Unsurprising.
See below.
Quote from: StormBringer;480624But is the gun more or less efficient than a knife, or a whiffle bat?
As I said earlier, power of the tool does not create intent in the tool. The tool is the what,
the user brings the why. If I wanted to exterminate all of Africa, using a nuclear weapon would be easier then using a tennis racket, however, I can use a tennis racket to beat a man to death because of his color, and I can drop a nuke for reasons that have nothing to do with race. Are you really this stupid?
Quote from: StormBringer;480624RPGs cannot possibly be used for such purposes by anyone with a shred of sanity.
*Yawn*, freshman exaggeration technique again. Stormfront can use it for whatever purposes they want, it says nothing about the tool, only about them.
Quote from: StormBringer;480624It's not like you were trying to argue against my points anyway.
From what I can tell, you have no actual point, other than...
"An imagined construct that contains races can be used by racists." As I said...
(http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSkqfSnzV2X_djYzu43LamNQTKhzZBemsjOsbotTieYzb8c4-T2AS5Gok99-A)
In other news:
Books can be used for propaganda.
Plays may have an ulterior motive.
Movies can put forward political viewpoints - of all types! *gasp*.
Songs can be about religious intolerance.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480695As I said earlier, power of the tool does not create intent in the tool.
Congratulations! No one else is saying that either. I mean...
QuoteAre you really this stupid?
Regardless of how many times I point out that you have created a virtual army of strawmen, you keep cranking them out. For most people, it would behove them to cut back on those a little at that point. Instead, you take the bold stance of doubling down on them! Kudos!
Quote*Yawn*, freshman exaggeration technique again. Stormfront can use it for whatever purposes they want, it says nothing about the tool, only about them.
So, we are back to the original question. Why aren't they using Monopoly, Backgammon or Arkham Horror instead?
Except, you then provide the answer (again):
Quote"An imagined construct that contains races can be used by racists."
Yeah, weird thing about that is that you claimed earlier that there was no element or aspect unique to RPGs that would facilitate that. According to you, every single element that could be used for racism was brought to the table and only existed in the players and had nothing to do with anything in the nature of RPGs.
So, we have a quandry. Either board games and RPGs have a common theme of "An imagined construct that contains races" and Stormfront (and RaHoWa, and whoever else out there)
all randomly picked RPGs over some other form of game to express racist ideas
in the most unlikely co-incidence in the universe, or you are disingenuously dancing around the issue and moving the goalposts (you know, suddenly adding 'intent' to the argument?) in a frantic effort to save face. Wait, sorry, there is one more option: "An imagined construct that contains races can be used by racists" is the aspect of RPGs that make them easier to adapt for that purpose; the aspect that is missing from boardgames and leading to the complete dearth of "Black-ham Whorer".
By the way, Benoist completely loses his shit when the goalposts are moved. I would expect him to be in here to bitch you out over that soon.
Quote from: StormBringer;480697Regardless of how many times I point out that you have created a virtual army of strawmen, you keep cranking them out.
You're making yourself look absurd.
Quote from: Sigmund;480399Of course not, the games are inanimate, unthinking objects. The real question you're asking is, do we think EGG was racist or reflecting racist attitudes from fiction authors, and my answer is no.
And I wholly agree with that.
QuoteAs has been shown, they are.
Wait, what? I think I missed something. I was saying that they use RPGs over boardgames for a reason, but your response seems to indicate they are using boardgames as well. Am I reading that correctly, and if so, did I miss a link somewhere?
Quote from: Sigmund;480405I don't agree. It would be possible in any game that contains orcs, RPG or not.
Did you mean something like HeroScape, Warhammer, or even WoW?
Stormy - You are aware that Stormfront and other racist organizations use a variety of indoctrination tools, right? Video games, boardgames, card games, children's books all repurposed to spreading their message.
If you weren't such a useless troll trying to vaguely score a semantic point where none exists to be scored, you'd have the balls to actually say what your point really is.
Since RPGs contain races and can thus be used for racist purposes.....then what?
If that's actually your whole point then, umm...well done? Stormfront does indeed pervert D&D for racist purposes, in case you can't figure that out, that's actually a requirement for them to do what I said, bringing racism to the game themselves. That doesn't contradict the fact that whatever they bring comes from them, again what I've said for god knows how many posts now.
Oh yeah, then there's the useless trolling part trying to get back at me for repeatedly demonstrating you as being full of shit by claiming contradiction when there wasn't one. Please continue demonstrating either your dwindling troll powers or how stupid or petty you actually are.
(http://rlv.zcache.com/i_kill_orcs_tshirt-p2357298732491775723dti_400.jpg)
May be purchased here (http://www.zazzle.com.au/i_kill_orcs_tshirt-235729873249177572).
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;480709(http://rlv.zcache.com/i_kill_orcs_tshirt-p2357298732491775723dti_400.jpg)
May be purchased here (http://www.zazzle.com.au/i_kill_orcs_tshirt-235729873249177572).
Goddamn it, Kyle keeps dragging me back to gaming. I broke my Ermey promise, I must atone. Fine. I guess when even fucking Swearengen complains of too much talking, there's something to it.
Storm, PM me when you want to talk about something other then what I didn't say, or the stunning revelation that ideas can be put to evil use. The weak declaration of victory you'll eventually post is just assumed.
My balls are dry and my palm is chapped, I must leave the circle jerk.
I'll get back to work on trying to map out the Border Kingdoms for my MRQII Conan campaign using CC3.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480706If you weren't such a useless troll trying to vaguely score a semantic point where none exists to be scored, you'd have the balls to actually say what your point really is.
I've said it a number of times. But for clarity's sake:
You are all a bunch of pussies, not only for posting some random,
private G+ rant from a person that isn't even here to defend their own points, but mostly because of the vehement denials that there is a darker side to the hobby. A darker side that is quite a bit easier to express with RPGs.
QuoteSince RPGs contain races and can thus be used for racist purposes.....then what?
I'm actually getting kind of tired having to fucking explain this one, so it has to be wilful ignorance on your part now.
QuoteIf that's actually your whole point then, umm...well done? Stormfront does indeed pervert D&D for racist purposes, in case you can't figure that out, that's actually a requirement for them to do what I said, bringing racism to the game themselves. That doesn't contradict the fact that whatever they bring comes from them, again what I've said for god knows how many posts now.
A point absolutely no one has contested. Not one fucking person participating on this thread has made the claim you think they did, that racism is inherent to RPGs. You brought that in entirely on your own, and now you are breaking your arm to pat yourself on the back for disproving the notion.
QuoteOh yeah, then there's the useless trolling part trying to get back at me for repeatedly demonstrating you as being full of shit by claiming contradiction when there wasn't one. Please continue demonstrating either your dwindling troll powers or how stupid or petty you actually are.
Ok, sure, if you think dancing around the points that have actually been raised (not the ones you made up) and shifting the goalposts by adding 'intent' or 'inherent racism' is a repeated demonstration... Well, you just get down with your bad self. You are a modern day Plato for making up arguments and then refuting them like that. Congratulations.
So, I'm waiting to hear what your point is. There is a "darker side" to the hobby. What is that supposed to mean? Because it sounds so ominous but at the same time really doesn't mean anything. If he does mean something, stand up and define what it is. You waited til CRK logged off, but I'm your huckleberry.
I wrote an article for Knockspell Issue 6 that offers a quick and easy randomizer to make encounters with "generic brute monsters" more interesting.
The issue also has lots of other cool stuff.
BTW, if your gaming group or just yourself as GM, has an issue with the mass slaughter of orcs and goblins, then switch them out for humans instead and let the ethical issues of killing become an aspect of game play IF that is what you and the players want.
But you won't, because once you define it, it can be logically debunked, this nebulous, nameless, and/or non-existant "darkside" of yours.
Define it. Come on. Skin that smokewagon and see what happens. Or are you just going to stand there and bleed?
Quote from: jhkim;480568Or do people think that I'm also just crazy?
This.
Quote from: CRKrueger;480711I'll get back to work on trying to map out the Border Kingdoms for my MRQII Conan campaign using CC3.
Link with pictures and musings, please.
The following picture captures the essence of a good D&D campaign.
(http://therumpus.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/conan-1.jpg)
Quote from: Spinachcat;480719BTW, if your gaming group or just yourself as GM, has an issue with the mass slaughter of orcs and goblins, then switch them out for humans instead and let the ethical issues of killing become an aspect of game play IF that is what you and the players want.
Now that is a great idea. Swap the orcs for human bandits and see if that changes the dynamic.
Quote from: Vmerc@;480698You're making yourself look absurd.
Quote from: Vmerc@;480718So, I'm waiting to hear what your point is. There is a "darker side" to the hobby. What is that supposed to mean? Because it sounds so ominous but at the same time really doesn't mean anything. If he does mean something, stand up and define what it is. You waited til CRK logged off, but I'm your huckleberry.
You sure he waited till CK logged off ? If he's mean to you are you going to start another thread about how we should all get along and engage in civil discussion or are you going to just ignore him because he makes you feel crappy.
Just to get back to one of the themes I keep seeing whenever I read topics like these. I think all this boils down to is whether we view evil as irredeemable or not and how we define heroism. I think it's only natural that if we view evil as irredeemable then some gamers will have no problem about slaughtering irredeemabley evil creatures and their progeny (their definition of heroism presumabley unaffected by such a proposition). Others like myself take a different view.
Regards,
David R
Nope. Not going to work. No sidetracking this one. He didnt say "evil" or anything else yet. He said "dark side." Define the term.
My mistake. "DARKER SIDE" was the phrase.
Quote from: Vmerc@;480749My mistake. "DARKER SIDE" was the phrase.
I think this is where I was getting hung up as well. I don't believe anyone is arguing that D&D can't be used by racists to promote their ideology, or that the inclusion of racial concepts are an obvious path for them to utilize. But guys like storm seem to be saying the problem is something of a natural outgrowth of the game. Whereas we are saying all mediums can be abused by racists one way or another. And just because racists are grabbing onto something present in D&D it doesn't make that something "dark". Nor does the existence of racists who game (or use the game as a promotional tool) mean the hobby has a "dark side".
Quote from: Vmerc@;480748Nope. Not going to work. No sidetracking this one. He didnt say "evil" or anything else yet. He said "dark side." Define the term.
I was not trying to side trek anything. I just think you're a hypocrite. Read what I wrote and respond to the point I raised if you want to. Storm didn't bring up "evil", I did.
Regards,
David R
Call me what you want. I'm not taking the bait. You want a response to the other stuff, start a different thread. It's not happening here. Waiting to find out what "darker side" has a hold on my hobby.
Quote from: David R;480757I was not trying to side trek anything. I just think you're a hypocrite. Read what I wrote and respond to the point I raised if you want to. Storm didn't bring up "evil", I did.
R
I think a lot of us (myself included) are just arguing past one another at this stage, because it is getting a little tricky keeping track of each posters position.
I think that anytime irredeemably enemies are present in a setting en masse, whose primary purpose is to be remorselessly killed by the heroes, there is a "darker element". Exploring that with any depth almost inevitably reveals some unsavoury elements either in one's culture and unexamined assumptions or in human nature--like, for instance, why is it so satisfying to imagine remorselessly killing an endless stream of nameless enemies? It's also easy to be careless about it and insert a racist undertone to the enemies without meaning to. At the very least it reveals a bit of imaginative laziness to make enemies irredeemably evil so that they may be cut down without moral consequence.
There are couple of easy responses to this. For one, as long as enough thought is invested to avoid the worst transgressions (such as supplying your enemy horde with a culture or appearance inspired by real world culture or race) I don't think this is necessarily so bad. Getting a fun emotional release from the visceral thrill of imagining a lot of killing isn't exactly nice, I suppose, but it does not equate with being a bad person or wanting to actually harm anyone. I've done this in the past and will likely do so in the future, and a lot of my favorite fiction is guilty of this, including almost anything that dresses the villains like Nazis.
Second, with a little thought and the willingness to invest a little thematic meaning into the killing, the unsavoury undertone can be at least mitigated. Tolkiens orcs have been brought up and they are a good example. It's clear he did put some good thought into their creation and role in Middle Earth. I think it's important to note, though, that Sauron and his orcs were ultimately defeated by Sam and Frodo, and hence by bravery, brotherly love, mercy, and a kind of guile. They were not and could not be defeated by force of arms, which would rather have missed the point.
Quote from: StormBringer;480697So, we are back to the original question. Why aren't they using Monopoly, Backgammon or Arkham Horror instead?
What exactly tells you they are not? I can totally imagine a fucked-up SFer playing Chess with his kid and pointing out this is a great game because it recognizes that the White should go First.
EDIT
Quote from: CRKrueger;480706Stormy - You are aware that Stormfront and other racist organizations use a variety of indoctrination tools, right? Video games, boardgames, card games, children's books all repurposed to spreading their message.
See the same point's been brought up already.
Nevermind
Regards,
David R
Quote from: two_fishes;480761why is it so satisfying to imagine remorselessly killing an endless stream of nameless enemies?
I think answers will vary with psychological makeups. From what I've seen with various players, at the base of these kinds of feelings there is the possibility of a form realization of a form of control in the make-believe you can't get in real life without a lot of strings attached to it - and NO, I don't mean killing people for real. I mean getting in a position of a responsibility where you're owned at your job, you get fucked by your boss or underlings or whatnot, you don't get to express your creativity and your potential in your life how you want to, and in a way the make-believe of the game allows you to get that frustration out by playing somebody completely unrelated in a position of control, facing clear-cut problems and enemies, to then attempt and survive to live another day.
Quote from: Benoist;480785I think answers will vary with psychological makeups. From what I've seen with various players, at the base of these kinds of feelings there is the possibility of a form realization of a form of control in the make-believe you can't get in real life without a lot of strings attached to it - and NO, I don't mean killing people for real. I mean getting in a position of a responsibility where you're owned at your job, you get fucked by your boss or underlings or whatnot, you don't get to express your creativity and your potential in your life how you want to, and in a way the make-believe of the game allows you to get that frustration out by playing somebody completely unrelated in a position of control, facing clear-cut problems and enemies, to then attempt and survive to live another day.
Maybe. But I think (when it comes to evil creatures at least) it's more like being able to
do something then just merely
wishing to be able to do something when faced with images or stories of evil acts/people in real life. It's about buttkicking the slavers, the tyrants, the remorseless killers, mass murderers etc. That's the carthatic element I was refering to. It's the desire to stand up for the weaker/downtrodden party. All that heroic stuff.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;480790Maybe. But I think (when it comes to evil creatures at least) it's more like being able to do something then just merely wishing to be able to do something when faced with images or stories of evil acts/people in real life. It's about buttkicking the slavers, the tyrants, the remorseless killers, mass murderers etc. That's the carthatic element I was refering to. It's the desire to stand up for the weaker/downtrodden party. All that heroic stuff.
Regards,
David R
Not just the heroic stuff. For instance at my all-female table all the players were teachers by trade (primary and high school). The pressures on the profession are tremendous: you're supposed to behave a certain way, to teach a certain way, to treat children a certain way, to interact with your colleagues and parents a certain way, to find solutions to behavioral problems in certain ways, etc. Which they do.
Once in the game, they can place themselves through their characters in different situations where they can deal with problems in different ways - not all of them diplomatic or honorable. It's cathartic in this way, and helps you release the pressure to get back to your life with renewed energy and dedication. A bit like kicking the crap out of a soccer ball after job hours.
EDIT - note that I'm not talking about escapism stricto sensu here.
Nevermind is right. I have watched CRK and Ben work to pin this guy down for pages and page and pages, while he uses the most intellectually dishonest tactics to evade. I can't believe the patience they have. I certainly don't. But as anyone who is following the conversation can see, as soon as Storm uttered the syllables "darker side" he stepped into check mate. He knows it, I know it, and CRK and Ben both certainly know it. I'm just waiting for him to tip over the king by defining the what "darker side" means. It doesn't matter what his answer is, that's why he's in check mate. All he has to do is state a definition, which he won't do, and it's over.
Quote from: Benoist;480792Not just the heroic stuff. For instance at my all-female table all the players were teachers by trade (primary and high school). The pressures on the profession are tremendous: you're supposed to behave a certain way, to teach a certain way, to treat children a certain way, to interact with your colleagues and parents a certain way, to find solutions to behavioral problems in certain ways, etc. Which they do.
Once in the game, they can place themselves through their characters in different situations where they can deal with problems in different ways - not all of them diplomatic or honorable. It's cathartic in this way, and helps you release the pressure to get back to your life with renewed energy and dedication. A bit like kicking the crap out of a soccer ball after job hours.
I agree it doesn't have to be heroic. I personally find it a kind of release valve to play a mobster on the rampage or play an outlaw cowboy going out guns blazing. The soccer ball is a good comparison.
Quote from: Benoist;480775See the same point's been brought up already.
Rule 6 here.
Do not reply to anything over 5 pages ago. It's been done.
Quote from: David R;480790Maybe. But I think (when it comes to evil creatures at least) it's more like being able to do something then just merely wishing to be able to do something when faced with images or stories of evil acts/people in real life. It's about buttkicking the slavers, the tyrants, the remorseless killers, mass murderers etc. That's the carthatic element I was refering to. It's the desire to stand up for the weaker/downtrodden party. All that heroic stuff.
Regards,
David R
I think this is also part of it. I know for me, the joy of watching Inglorious Basterds was seeing hitler and the nazis get their due for once in a movie (it was strangley carthartic and empowering because in most other films you know the history and how it ends, so aren't expecting that big moment of revenge and there isn't much you can do to change it). In the same way, wasting a bunch of evil orcs gives people the feeling of standing against evil.
But, as in my other post, I think for the mostpart, the draw for me to violence in RPGs is purely carthartic in terms of blowing some steam, regardless of what it is directed at.
Quote from: Benoist;480792Not just the heroic stuff.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480794I agree it doesn't have to be heroic.
Very true, I meant heroic when it came to killing (evil) creatures as to two_fishes point. Playing roles other then the ones you find yourself playing in real life is another interesting aspect.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480798But, as in my other post, I think for the mostpart, the draw for me to violence in RPGs is purely carthartic in terms of blowing some steam, regardless of what it is directed at.
I think this is where we may differ. I and the crews I have gamed with are pretty conscious of where the violence is directed and why.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;480801I think this is where we may differ. I and the crews I have gamed with are pretty conscious of where the violence is directed and why.
Regards,
David R
That may be where indeed. Do you hav examples you can share of other motivations you and your crews have witnessed?
As far as I see it, with the wide array of players I gamed with, and the wide array of games we played over the years, with different genders, ages, cultural/ethnic backgrounds, what-have-you, I've witnessed in overwhelming quantities people who (1) had fun for its pure situational value, that is, enjoying the moment itself with your friends, (2) had fun with the Cathartic aspect of the game, where you basically realize fantasies in a safe imaginary environment, with the fantasies themselves overwhelmingly
not in direct correlation with their real-world equivalent (i.e. killing a bad guy in a game doesn't mean you want to kill people pissing you off in real life, though it may be indicative of control issues you want to vent through the game), and (3) had fun working out problems in the game like you can playing a wargame, solving Sudoku puzzles, crosswords, theoretical diplomatic scenarios, mathematical problems such as optimizing a character, and so on, and finally (4) had fun experimenting being someone else, not for escapism or cathartic effect, but to actually imagine "what if I was ..." types of scenarios. Curiosity.
Quote from: Benoist;480804That may be where indeed. Do you hav examples you can share of other motivations you and your crews have witnessed?
I don't think you get it Benoist. Have I met misogynistic, racist or homophobic gamers ? Yes, I have. Are their attitudes reflected in their games. Yes, it is. But the majority of gamers I have met in real life or online, have been cool.
The difference I was talking about is the attitude towards the use of violence in games. How probably Bren and I define "heroic" in different ways. Our differing attitude (maybe) on the question of evil in games and how violence is used to deal with it. Perhaps how the cultures we come from inform the choices we make in our games.
Edit: And these differences make interesting discussions, IMO.
Regards,
David R
You're right David. I don't think I get it.
How do you and your buddies use violence in a game in a way that is different from what Bren describes? Examples would go a long way to make me understand what is it you are talking about. Please.
I have given you an example in this very thread. I don't use evil races in my games. I don't think it's heroic to kill baby or female orcs in their lairs even if they are irredeemabley evil. Mind you, I don't know if Bren uses evil races in his game or considers it heroic to kill unarmed evil noncombatants (is this the term we are using), but it's there in my first post in.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;480801I think this is where we may differ. I and the crews I have gamed with are pretty conscious of where the violence is directed and why.
Regards,
David R
It is all a matter of taste I suppose. For us it depends on what we are doing. If we are playing a game the campagn flavor is resevoir dogs or the sopranos, it is totally in character to direct the violence to be directed at any number of potential targets. It isn't usually completely mindless killing. But killing enters into it and people don't usually flinch much because this is a genre everyone is comfortable with.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480812It is all a matter of taste I suppose. For us it depends on what we are doing. If we are playing a game the campagn flavor is resevoir dogs or the sopranos, it is totally in character to direct the violence to be directed at any number of potential targets. It isn't usually completely mindless killing. But killing enters into it and people don't usually flinch much because this is a genre everyone is comfortable with.
Of course. In my spy and crime games, though, "civilians" - those not in the "game" or "life" are never targetted.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;480813Of course. In my spy and crime games, though, "civilians" - those not in the "game" or "life" are never targetted.
Regards,
David R
But what about when you play bad guys?
I have had serial Killer PCs, terrorist PCs, irredeemibly evil orc PCs.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480816But what about when you play bad guys?
I have had serial Killer PCs, terrorist PCs, irredeemibly evil orc PCs.
We don't play irredeemabely bad guys. For us there would be no point playing them. For us.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;480811I have given you an example in this very thread. I don't use evil races in my games. I don't think it's heroic to kill baby or female orcs in their lairs even if they are irredeemabley evil. Mind you, I don't know if Bren uses evil races in his game or considers it heroic to kill unarmed evil noncombatants (is this the term we are using), but it's there in my first post in.
Regards,
David R
I have probably not been clear on my own gaming style because I have been arguing a lot of theoretical situations here. Just as a starting point, I don't run many fantasy games anymore (though every once in a while I still do). When I do run fantasy I am not that interested in killing orcs, dungeons crawls, or hack campaigns. I am much more interested in investigation, intrigue, maybe some action on the front lines of a war, etc. When I play historical games (which I like) I tend to focus on the same things.
But I do run a lot of modern games. Usually these are counter-terrorism, mafia or horror. These tend to be investigation based as well but considerably more violence and character-driven. So my mafia sessions start out with a general backdrop scenario (the PCs are part of the Bartoli family and a war is breaking out with rival street gangs over the cocaine trade), but from there it is up to the players to get rich and rise to the top. It varies from game to game, but many of our sessions culminate in the PCs in violence against any number of possible targets (rivals, allies, other PCs, random people who get in the way, law enforcement, etc). But I am not structuring these campaigns to make us better people or instill lessons (everyone in the group has their own personal ideas about these things and that isn't my job), we do it to capture the feel of a great crime film or what have you.
As a specific example, to illustrate what kind of violence I deem acceptable. The PCs were fending off incursions into Boston from a resurgent Irish mob. The leader was tough to track and once they found him, he had a habit of taking his daughter with him wherever he went (to make it harder for people to target him for hits). When the PCs showed up at his house to kill him, waiting for him to get in his car to leave for a meeting or something, I told them he left the house hand-in-hand with his daughter (figuring this would probably throw a wrench in their plan). They went ahead as scheduled. Not only did they gun him down right in front of his daughter. But they killed him by blasting his groin and letting him bleed to death (as a message to anyone that would follow his lead).
Now I didn't expect the groin shot or them to go ahead with the hit with the daughter there. But they were playing cold-blooded hitmen.
I guess in my opinion, my players are removed enough from their characters that I don't worry about them when they decide to do these kinds of things. They are all very decent guys and view this as taking on a role (just like Anthony Hopkins isn't morally responsible for what his character did in Silence of the Lambs).
I've done the all-evil monster party in a sandbox, where basically the PCs formed a clan of non-humans bent on building a settlement and pillage the surrounding area. Everything was up to us: select the site(s), build infrastructure, forge alliances with neighbouring tribes and monsters, get resources, etc. It was loads of fun.
Quote from: Benoist;480820I've done the all-evil monster party in a sandbox, where basically the PCs formed a clan of non-humans bent on building a settlement and pillage the surrounding area. Everything was up to us: select the site(s), build infrastructure, forge alliances with neighbouring tribes and monsters, get resources, etc. It was loads of fun.
This is totally fine in my opinion. I don't see this being any more of an issue than the characters being vampires or werewolves.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480819But I am not structuring these campaigns to make us better people or instill lessons (everyone in the group has their own personal ideas about these things and that isn't my job), we do it to capture the feel of a great crime film or what have you.
Neither do I. If I have any themes to explore it's always in the form of throwing out questions and discovering how the PCs answer them.
Thanks for the example.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;480822Neither do I. If I have any themes to explore it's always in the form of throwing out questions and discovering how the PCs answer them.
Thanks for the example.
Regards,
David R
That is fair. I guess my only question is why you don't do the evil campaigns (with non-heroic violence, etc). Is it that you just don't enjoy it, you find it distasteful, or find it morally objectionable.
Just curious, not looking for another 1000 page debate or anything.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480816terrorist PCs.
This is one thing I probably wouldn't allow in my campaigns, if only because it would likely lead to all kinds of political arguments and I do know players who were personally impacted by terrorism in some way. I realize it is a little inconsistent for me to on the one hand be fine with mobsters but not okay with terrorists in a game, but I've just found the former doesn't lead to problems and the later does (at least in the games i've run).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480827That is fair. I guess my only question is why you don't do the evil campaigns (with non-heroic violence, etc). Is it that you just don't enjoy it, you find it distasteful, or find it morally objectionable.
Just curious, not looking for another 1000 page debate or anything.
Bren, most of my campaigns are what most would consider morally ambiguous. There is plenty of violence in my games. It's just that my players have never had an interest in playing iredeemabley evil characters. Their characters may not be "good" but they do live by a code. However when they are playing heroic characters, they tend to act in accordance with their own personal beliefs of what is heroic and I guess most would consider that prosaic.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;480833Bren, most of my campaigns are what most would consider morally ambiguos. There is plenty of violence in my games. It's just that my players have never had an interest in playing iredeemabely evil characters. Their characters may not be "good" but they do live by a code. However when they are playing heroic characters, they tend to act in accordance with their own personal belief of what is heroic and I guess most would consider that prosaic.
Regards,
David R
Okay, I think I missed the "iredeemably" part. Sounds like you listen to your players preferences on these matters which I can't argue with.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480831This is one thing I probably wouldn't allow in my campaigns [terrorist PCs]
If we're talking ex-terrorist bomber who ends up Assamite in a Vampire game, I'm fine with it, because it's a background, it's not the focus of the game. If we're talking a sort of ultra-realist war scenario and the point is to show us how "terrorists are people like us" then I'm going to be a lot more weary - I might not play at all, as a matter of fact. James Bond games types I'm completely fine with. Getting into the modern warfare gaming with a political morale attached to it... no, thanks.
Quote from: Benoist;480835If we're talking ex-terrorist bomber who ends up Assamite in a Vampire game, I'm fine with it, because it's a background, it's not the focus of the game. If we're talking a sort of ultra-realist war scenario and the point is to show us how "terrorists are people like us" then I'm going to be a lot more weary - I might not play at all, as a matter of fact. James Bond games types I'm completely fine with. Getting into the modern warfare gaming with a political morale attached to it... no, thanks.
I think the example you gave wouldn't be an issue in my game. The second example (the realistic one) would be. So i think we are pretty much on the same page.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480750I think this is where I was getting hung up as well. I don't believe anyone is arguing that D&D can't be used by racists to promote their ideology, or that the inclusion of racial concepts are an obvious path for them to utilize. But guys like storm seem to be saying the problem is something of a natural outgrowth of the game. Whereas we are saying all mediums can be abused by racists one way or another. And just because racists are grabbing onto something present in D&D it doesn't make that something "dark". Nor does the existence of racists who game (or use the game as a promotional tool) mean the hobby has a "dark side".
Let me switch up your wording, not as a trick, but to clarify.
You say "natural outgrowth", which means (to me) "it follows logically" or "most people would make the connection". For example, cars are a "natural outgrowth" of horse drawn carriages. The form was already there, people just needed to add a self-contained engine. Dozens of companies were doing it in the early days. In that sense, I don't think adding any
specific world-views is precisely a "natural outgrowth" of RPGs. Some people have interests others don't, obviously, so what is "natural" for me may be utterly foreign for you. For instance, there have been plenty of posts around here detailing inclusion of this movie or that book into an RPG. There have been rather fewer posts about making your game fit some polynomial curve. For most people, the former is a "natural outgrowth" of using the system; adding in characters or events from other media is fairly logical. For some, puzzling out how a game would unfold if it followed a polynomial curve is a "natural outgrowth" of using the system; events or stories can be broadly thought of in quantitative terms, and could be graphed in such a manner. But in essence, the
process of including those things brings me to my point.
Rather, I would say "the outgrowth is natural", as in, the hooks or connecting points are already there, it's just a matter of using them. So, as you mentioned, racists will use them to express racism. An English Major will use them to express literary themes. A military historian will use them to express their views on war. And so on. In our case, the OP saw those same hooks, and was commenting on how he saw them being used. And if his commentary was on how stupid it is for English Majors using them to express literary themes, he would have been, by turns, applauded as sophisticated and condemned as a Swine here.
What would
not have happened is a thousand posts expressing shock, disdain and/or outrage that he had the temerity to simply point out one particular usage of these hooks, and his interpretation or opinion thereof. Hardly a capital crime around these parts.
So, largely, this hasn't been a discussion about his points, which can be argued as good or bad. It's been a panic about
exactly how illegitimate it is to so much as comment on one particular use of this process that people are uncomfortable with. In that light, everyone seems to be trying to make absolutely sure that these elements are not used for "bad" things, and when they are, it's because these hooks didn't actually exist in the first place. In other words, they aren't
using D&D to express their ideology, they are
mis-using D&D to express their ideology. Usually this is in the same breath as "it's just an inanimate tool". Unless people are doing things with it they don't approve of.
Anyway, I'm not trying to draw you into this, but since you asked rather politely, I thought I would respond. You don't have to agree, and I my intention is not to convince you. If we agree to disagree, so be it; no discontent from me.
Quote from: StormBringer;480843Rather, I would say "the outgrowth is natural", as in, the hooks or connecting points are already there, it's just a matter of using them. So, as you mentioned, racists will use them to express racism. An English Major will use them to express literary themes. A military historian will use them to express their views on war. And so on. In our case, the OP saw those same hooks, and was commenting on how he saw them being used. And if his commentary was on how stupid it is for English Majors using them to express literary themes, he would have been, by turns, applauded as sophisticated and condemned as a Swine here.
What would not have happened is a thousand posts expressing shock, disdain and/or outrage that he had the temerity to simply point out one particular usage of these hooks, and his interpretation or opinion thereof. Hardly a capital crime around these parts.
.
I think part of the issue is we simply disagree on what the OP was saying (which is fine, because he did say a lot and there was certainly room for different interpretations).
I don't generally engage in debates about "swine", etc because that has no impact on my gaming and I am all for people playing the game the way they want. But the OP was veering into the territory of saying people shouldn't game this way becuase it is somekind of endorsement of racist colonialism. the reason I reacted strongly to the OPs post is I take exception to his observations. It felt like a moral lecture to me.
As I said, I don't care what this guy does in his game. But I think the anger you saw expressed was because gamers are seeing more and more of the OPs ideas being put forward (though I think it is still pretty limited to the internet) and they disagree strongly with his connclusions. Add to that the fact that similar kinds of arguments have been made in past to get the hobby banned, I think it is natural people would bristle a bit. Do I think this guy's reasoning will gain traction? Probably not. If anything I can see it gaining currency in certain circles. But I can see game companies going back to something like the TSR design guidelines we saw (only this time to avoid offending guys like the OP) if a small but loud minority of gamers echo the OP's sentiments.
Quote from: StormBringer;480843So, largely, this hasn't been a discussion about his points, which can be argued as good or bad. It's been a panic about exactly how illegitimate it is to so much as comment on one particular use of this process that people are uncomfortable with. In that light, everyone seems to be trying to make absolutely sure that these elements are not used for "bad" things, and when they are, it's because these hooks didn't actually exist in the first place. In other words, they aren't using D&D to express their ideology, they are mis-using D&D to express their ideology. Usually this is in the same breath as "it's just an inanimate tool". Unless people are doing things with it they don't approve of.
You are completely misreading what's been said. Mr. Gray's point was that the setup, the structure of D&D itself is layered with a "kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint" that he is grown mature enough, "at that stage of his life", to no longer ignore, unlike those who (1) play on these themes willingly, or (2) ignore those themes altogether because they don't know any better.
This is this particular point that is raising outrage. And rightfully so.
The part where you are right is that the likes of me think racists are indeed
mis-using the structure and themes of D&D to project their agendas onto them, and that these agenda are not part of the game itself.
Quote from: StormBringer;480843Let me switch up your wording, not as a trick, but to clarify.
You say "natural outgrowth", which means (to me) "it follows logically" or "most people would make the connection". For example, cars are a "natural outgrowth" of horse drawn carriages. The form was already there, people just needed to add a self-contained engine. Dozens of companies were doing it in the early days. In that sense, I don't think adding any specific world-views is precisely a "natural outgrowth" of RPGs. Some people have interests others don't, obviously, so what is "natural" for me may be utterly foreign for you. For instance, there have been plenty of posts around here detailing inclusion of this movie or that book into an RPG. There have been rather fewer posts about making your game fit some polynomial curve. For most people, the former is a "natural outgrowth" of using the system; adding in characters or events from other media is fairly logical. For some, puzzling out how a game would unfold if it followed a polynomial curve is a "natural outgrowth" of using the system; events or stories can be broadly thought of in quantitative terms, and could be graphed in such a manner. But in essence, the process of including those things brings me to my point.
.
Honestly we've all been saying a lot and I probably would have to review my own posts at this stage to recall exactly where I was going.
But when I said a natural outgrowth, I meant a causal and logiccal link. That the existence of races that are evil in the game, means the obvious interpretation is "RAHOWA". I don't think the connection between D&D's setting and these peoples' racist worldview is at all obvious, and I don't think their arguments (from what I understand of them) logically follow from the settings. Sure there are countless lenses out there these days, and theoretically you could find features within D&D that line up pretty well with the pet concerns of any given lens. I would also be very hesitant to put white supremacist racists on the same level as a military historian or english major. While I would probably think it silly for a literary person to plumb through D&D for meaning and trying to advance some kind of critical argument from it, I wouldn't regard it as destructive and morally wrong. But a racist exploiting D&D to advance his agenda is a much different story. However in both cases I don't think their links naturally flow from the game. They are both imposing meaning on it IMO.
Quote from: Benoist;480847You are completely misreading what's been said. Mr. Gray's point was that the setup, the structure of D&D itself is layered with a "kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint" that he is grown mature enough, "at that stage of his life", to no longer ignore, unlike those who (1) play on these themes willingly, or (2) ignore those themes altogether because they don't know any better.
This is this particular point that is raising outrage. And rightfully so.
The part where you are right is that the likes of me think racists are indeed mis-using the structure and themes of D&D to project their agendas onto them, and that these agenda are not part of the game itself.
This is my take as well.
Quote from: Benoist;480847You are completely misreading what's been said. Mr. Gray's point was that the setup, the structure of D&D itself is layered with a "kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint" that he is grown mature enough, "at that stage of his life", to no longer ignore, unlike those who (1) play on these themes willingly, or (2) ignore those themes altogether because they don't know any better.
This is this particular point that is raising outrage. And rightfully so.
The part where you are right is that the likes of me think racists are indeed mis-using the structure and themes of D&D to project their agendas onto them, and that these agenda are not part of the game itself.
I'm coming at it from this standpoint, too.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480831This is one thing I probably wouldn't allow in my campaigns, if only because it would likely lead to all kinds of political arguments and I do know players who were personally impacted by terrorism in some way. I realize it is a little inconsistent for me to on the one hand be fine with mobsters but not okay with terrorists in a game, but I've just found the former doesn't lead to problems and the later does (at least in the games i've run).
Bajoran terrorists fighting the Cardassians? Human terrorists fighting the Cylons?
American terrorists fighting the Invading Red Army?
Quote from: jibbajibba;480876Bajoran terrorists fighting the Cardassians? Human terrorists fighting the Cylons?
American terrorists fighting the Invading Red Army?
No that wasn't the kind of terrorist I was thinking of. Though I would still approach it cautiously depending on my players as I think some might take issue with engaging in the tactic itself (unless they are, as Benoist mentioned, larger than life James Bond-type terrorists).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480848But when I said a natural outgrowth, I meant a causal and logiccal link. That the existence of races that are evil in the game, means the obvious interpretation is "RAHOWA". I don't think the connection between D&D's setting and these peoples' racist worldview is at all obvious, and I don't think their arguments (from what I understand of them) logically follow from the settings.
Did you read the Storm Front thread that was referenced?
The original poster in that thread said that learning D&D as a child guided his understanding of real-world races. He said that he had been confronted by arguments claiming that the existence of smart black people disproved the idea that blacks were mentally less capable overall. However, he found that D&D helped him understand how that argument was flawed, by the idea of a bell-curve distribution for attributes and modifiers to it.
Now, he is correct that that particular argument for racial equality is flawed - but his overall view that real-world races have differences similar to D&D races is false.
His association that real-world races differ similarly to D&D races is a misapplication - but I can easily see how it could happen in a young child who isn't taught better. For better or worse, I learned a lot of things from RPGs as a child. Much of my interest in physics (which I eventually got a PhD in) came from early play with Traveller - which has some excellent and correct science in it. On the other hand, I also got some stuff wrong that I learned through RPGs - like what medieval armor & weapons were like and how they worked.
RPGs shouldn't be held responsible for real-world education - but conversely we shouldn't be surprised if young kids learn things, right or wrong, from RPG play.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480846I think part of the issue is we simply disagree on what the OP was saying (which is fine, because he did say a lot and there was certainly room for different interpretations).
I don't generally engage in debates about "swine", etc because that has no impact on my gaming and I am all for people playing the game the way they want. But the OP was veering into the territory of saying people shouldn't game this way becuase it is somekind of endorsement of racist colonialism. the reason I reacted strongly to the OPs post is I take exception to his observations. It felt like a moral lecture to me.
As I said, I don't care what this guy does in his game. But I think the anger you saw expressed was because gamers are seeing more and more of the OPs ideas being put forward (though I think it is still pretty limited to the internet) and they disagree strongly with his connclusions. Add to that the fact that similar kinds of arguments have been made in past to get the hobby banned, I think it is natural people would bristle a bit. Do I think this guy's reasoning will gain traction? Probably not. If anything I can see it gaining currency in certain circles. But I can see game companies going back to something like the TSR design guidelines we saw (only this time to avoid offending guys like the OP) if a small but loud minority of gamers echo the OP's sentiments.
I don't think the absent Mr Gray is saying don't game it's Terrible, after all he is still gaming. He is saying he finds elements of the traditional D&D set up difficult to deal with because he sees parallels with racism and colonialism. It's not so very different to David R saying his group doesn't play evil charaters or people not wanting to play terrorists.
Perhaps he goes a step further to suggest that these things are inherent in the system but he certainly doesn't try to make everyone in the world stop playing D&D and I suspect, and some of you may think I cut him too much slack here, that if he were here he would probably argue his case and then say but if you guys want to do x or y then its your game...
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480879No that wasn't the kind of terrorist I was thinking of. Though I would still approach it cautiously depending on my players as I think some might take issue with engaging in the tactic itself (unless they are, as Benoist mentioned, larger than life James Bond-type terrorists).
So you'll only play good terrorists :)
Cool, sorted
Quote from: jibbajibba;480881[Mr. Gray] is saying he finds elements of the traditional D&D set up difficult to deal with because he sees parallels with racism and colonialism.
It's not just that he sees "parallels", no. When he's saying "So it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn", with "it" in "it all stinks" being "the D&D setup and design". It means that this setup and design are stinking of this priviledged, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint he despises.
Read the OP again. Come on. Stop trying to make what he's saying sound nicer than it really is.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480881It's not so very different to David R saying his group doesn't play evil charaters or people not wanting to play terrorists.
Perhaps he goes a step further to suggest that these things are inherent in the system but (...)
"But but but." Whatever with your 'but'. That's
precisely what's making the whole difference!
"Your D&D stinks of privileged, colonial, genocidal, expansionist stuff that makes my stomach turn, but that's okay! You guys don't really know what you're doing, and even though I've outgrown that stage in my life and am now mature enough to put aside those nasty things, you can keep on playing like the simpletons you are. Or join me. Whichever way, I'm cool with it. Honest."
Right.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480883So you'll only play good terrorists :)
Cool, sorted
No. That isn't what I wasn't what I was saying. The examples you gave were all fictional and or larger than life. One is from a science fiction setting, the other is along the lines of Red Dawn. Those are separated enough from the real world that I don't think it would bring trouble to my gaming table. Same with James Bond villains, they are terrorists many of them but cartoonishly evil. This is just a practical issue for me. While I can get a bunch of people with strongly divergent political views to play counter terrorism agents without a problem, it would be very challenging for me to run a campaign where they play actual terrorists without things devolving into debate and argument in a hurry. Have to admit though, I would also find playing real world terrorists distasteful in my own game as well. I did say it is somewhat inconsistent with my acceptance of mobsters.
Quote from: Benoist;480847*snip*
The part where you are right is that the likes of me think racists are indeed mis-using the structure and themes of D&D to project their agendas onto them, and that these agenda are not part of the game itself.
Racists are using the structure/tropes of various RPG's to project their "agendas". Of this there is no doubt.
To claim this is /was an integral part of (any) game design ie. intended by Gygax for instance...well, we may never know
for sure but I think it is a stretch to say the least.
If something snuck into the design process via the subcon. well, what can one do about that (editors beware!) except look closely at our creations and see for ourselves. To look at anothers expression and claim to see it there is a bit more tricky as projection is likely to be a factor.
If something doesn't sit well with you or your group change it, simple as that or play a game that doesn't trigger these feelings for you, unless you enjoy the introspection and conversations that may arise.
To claim racism is present in anothers play is assinine (unless they openly say it is) without having sat at their table and looked into ones own heart (thought process/habits) as well.
If I was participating in a game that showed a racist trend on anyones part that was not an integral aspect of the miliue/Chargen expressed at the forming of the group I would have to look closely at what I was getting out of it before deciding to continue participating. I would most likely quit the group. I do not tolerate racist attitudes well.
Depends on the setting and goals of play. Hopefully all this is aired from the get-go.
I am glad that Mr. Dray is looking more closely at his gaming...I hope he finds the answers he is looking for. Focusing attention on ones habits is the wellspring of "enlightenment". Unfortunately some stop short as new defensive habits crop up which one can cling to tenaciously no matter how irrational. We see this everyday. To claim that one has uncovered or realized something regarding racism in a game design one had better be sure as it can have an effect on other folk. Using RPG's to find the answers to "life" is most likely not the most direct method but whatever works...
In the context of RPG if ultimate evil is the take in your game, neat...others may find a different approach more satisfying. We all game for varying reasons both concious and subcon.
Niether approach is more worthy than the other as we are all having fun hopefully.
If one reads the AD&D2ed. "Monstrous Compendium" description of "Orcs" it seems they (the Orcs) have lots of colonial/racists attitudes, so whatever. We can ignore whatever part of the "official" game we choose in our own play and hopefully present a rational face for the non-gaming public to see.
At certain points of life we may very well have a natural suspicion of folk that look other than what we see on a daily basis, ie our parents/immediate faminly etc. This is a stage very early in life that, if not reinforced by culture (family, religion etc.) as one gets older, may very well fade into the "subconcious". At one point I am sure it served us well otherwise it would not be so hard-wired in the low/middle brain centers. It is less a factor of survival in most situations nowadays. Most people would say this is a good trend.
It is very easy to use entertainment mediums to advance agendas and it is a good idea to be aware of these influences so they can be exposed less they influence us and our loved ones overmuch.
Look to your own gaming first.
This has all been said many times in this thread.
Just felt like throwing in my two cents...:D
Quote from: jhkim;480880Did you read the Storm Front thread that was referenced?
The original poster in that thread said that learning D&D as a child guided his understanding of real-world races. He said that he had been confronted by arguments claiming that the existence of smart black people disproved the idea that blacks were mentally less capable overall. However, he found that D&D helped him understand how that argument was flawed, by the idea of a bell-curve distribution for attributes and modifiers to it.
Now, he is correct that that particular argument for racial equality is flawed - but his overall view that real-world races have differences similar to D&D races is false.
His association that real-world races differ similarly to D&D races is a misapplication - but I can easily see how it could happen in a young child who isn't taught better. For better or worse, I learned a lot of things from RPGs as a child. Much of my interest in physics (which I eventually got a PhD in) came from early play with Traveller - which has some excellent and correct science in it. On the other hand, I also got some stuff wrong that I learned through RPGs - like what medieval armor & weapons were like and how they worked.
RPGs shouldn't be held responsible for real-world education - but conversely we shouldn't be surprised if young kids learn things, right or wrong, from RPG play.
I didn't follow the link (missed it when it first came up, and don't want to risk getting malware or anything).
I don't think anyone is arguing what you say can't happen. I am saying it isn't a logical outcome of the game setting. Basically what you said, he reached a very wrong conclusion. I've known tons of gamers and I have never met one who reached the conclusions this guy did. In fact most of the racists I've met were that way for one of two reasons: They were tought that at home, or they were deeply insecure about something and compensating. I just don't think the path to true, bonifide racism begins with the PHB.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480885No. That isn't what I wasn't what I was saying. The examples you gave were all fictional and or larger than life. One is from a science fiction setting, the other is along the lines of Red Dawn. Those are separated enough from the real world that I don't think it would bring trouble to my gaming table. Same with James Bond villains, they are terrorists many of them but cartoonishly evil. This is just a practical issue for me. While I can get a bunch of people with strongly divergent political views to play counter terrorism agents without a problem, it would be very challenging for me to run a campaign where they play actual terrorists without things devolving into debate and argument in a hurry. Have to admit though, I would also find playing real world terrorists distasteful in my own game as well. I did say it is somewhat inconsistent with my acceptance of mobsters.
Whilst Red Dawn is larger than life it tried to establish a possible scenario where the tables were reversed.
Both my other examples were deliberate attempts by their creators to examine how and why otherwise normal folks might turn to terrorism. So to dismiss them as larger than life or just Scifi is actually missing the fucking point entirely :)
And I know you get that and you can see the of the situation.
just saying ....
Quote from: jibbajibba;480897Whilst Red Dawn is larger than life it tried to establish a possible scenario where the tables were reversed.
Both my other examples were deliberate attempts by their creators to examine how and why otherwise normal folks might turn to terrorism. So to dismiss them as larger than life or just Scifi is actually missing the fucking point entirely :)
But it is still Red Dawn and still a larger than life 80s flick. I file it under the same folder as Rocky IV. Both movies are a blast to watch and can be mined for a range of meanings, but ultimately they still star Sylvester Stalone and Patrick Swayze :) I once read a student paper that was a critical analysis of Rocky IV. It made some interesting points...however as interesting as they were they had nothing to do with my enjoyment of the Rocky series.
The theme of how a normal person could turn to terrorism isn't something I'd be interested in exploring in my games personally.
Quote from: Benoist;480884"But but but." Whatever with your 'but'. That's precisely what's making the whole difference!
"Your D&D stinks of privileged, colonial, genocidal, expansionist stuff that makes my stomach turn, but that's okay! You guys don't really know what you're doing, and even though I've outgrown that stage in my life and am now mature enough to put aside those nasty things, you can keep on playing like the simpletons you are. Or join me. Whichever way, I'm cool with it. Honest."
Right.
That makes no sense the but bit is where I go on to say he doesn't ask you agree with him. Now you could have called me out on the perhaps :)
Ben you started this thread. Have you posted to him asking his opinion?
I feel bad that people are ascribing him intent and he can't stand up for himself. Feels somewhat libelous to me and the more it goes on the more likely I will feel someone has to represent him and become his advocate and then of course I put words in his mouth and am totllay likely to misrepresent him.
Quote from: skofflox;480888Racists are using the structure/tropes of various RPG's to project their "agendas". Of this there is no doubt.
This has all been said many times in this thread.
Just felt like throwing in my two cents...:D
Good post
One could get rid of the hosts of Evil, and I suppose the Good should follow by the same logic. I suspect, though, that such a desire tends to reflect a misunderstanding of or tone deafness to the mythic roots of the kind of fantasy involved.
I think of the difference between the original Star Wars movie and the "prequels". The former worked well as fantasy, reflecting fruitfully Lucas's reading of Joseph Cambell, while the latter (at least to me) seemed merely shabby sci-fi. E.E. 'Doc' Smith's History of Civilization (a.ka. the 'Lensman' series) much more ably created a mythic structure with science-fictional elements.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480900That makes no sense the but bit is where I go on to say he doesn't ask you agree with him. Now you could have called me out on the perhaps :)
Ben you started this thread. Have you posted to him asking his opinion?
Ben didn't so much ask, as screech obscenities at Adam until he gave up on the conversation.
So Ben posted here in hopes of a better echo chamber, but instead gets John Kim slandering Tolkien as a racist and suggesting D&D promotes young people becoming neo-Nazis, you going on about "everyone's a little bit racist", and Stormbringer stating the obvious in the most inflammatory way possible.
Not the best plan, all told.
Quote from: jibbajibba[Mr. Gray] is saying he finds elements of the traditional D&D set up difficult to deal with because he sees parallels with racism and colonialism.
Quote from: Benoist;480884It's not just that he sees "parallels", no. When he's saying "So it all stinks to me of a kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint that makes my stomach turn", with "it" in "it all stinks" being "the D&D setup and design". It means that this setup and design are stinking of this priviledged, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint he despises.
These sound just more controversial phrasing of the same thing to me. "Stinks of" means "is similar to" or "is parallel to" - not "is exactly the same thing as". Of course, "stinks" also clearly has a negative association.
I don't have exactly the same associations as the quote in the OP, but as I stated before, killing orc prisoners and/or killing orc women and children can be uncomfortable for me - in particular if done in the name of being good. Even if we say that orcs are irredeemably evil, I still associate it with killing human prisoners, women, and children. If I wanted to phrase it more controversially, I might say "Killing orc prisoners stinks of killing human prisoners" - but the meaning is basically the same. In my mind, they are associated closely enough for me to be at least a little uncomfortable playing it in a game.
Now, if other people kill their orc prisoners, does this mean that they are morally wrong? No, it doesn't. But that also doesn't mean that my association is some kind of baseless, crazy baggage that is personal to me. I think there is a very logical connection between killing orc prisoners and killing human prisoners.
Discomfort is not a logical position.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480900Ben you started this thread. Have you posted to him asking his opinion?
I did have an exchange with the guy yes. It didn't end very well. I wasn't exactly diplomatic, and he told me to fuck off and enjoy my mindless braindead hack and slah or something. Don't really remember. I blocked him soon after.
Quote from: J Arcane;480906Ben didn't so much ask, as screech obscenities at Adam until he gave up on the conversation.
So Ben posted here in hopes of a better echo chamber, but instead gets John Kim slandering Tolkien as a racist and suggesting D&D promotes young people becoming neo-Nazis, you going on about "everyone's a little bit racist", and Stormbringer stating the obvious in the most inflammatory way possible.
Not the best plan, all told.
The link to the original thread the OP came from didn't work when I followed it.
Still going strong I see. I will be reading on, but I feel like I've contributed all I can, plus some, to this and so I will most likely not be posting more unless asked a question or I feel I have something new to add.
Great post skofflox, although I don't see the same racist colonial stuff in AD&D orcs, unless you mean it's the orcs being racists/colonial.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480915The link to the original thread the OP came from didn't work when I followed it.
That's because I thought it was public, but it wasn't. I made a mistake.
Quote from: Benoist;480917That's because I thought it was public, but it wasn't. I made a mistake.
No worries, I figured something like that was the case. Is it a forum you need to be a member of to view?
I take it you and the OP are no longer on speaking terms?
Did he clarify where he was going with the OP later in the thread?
Quote from: J Arcane;480909Discomfort is not a logical position.
This is a semantic quibble, but doesn't address the main point.
What exactly are you trying to argue? Are you saying that players should logically never be uncomfortable doing any kind of act in character? If not, then what?
Quote from: jhkim;480919This is a semantic quibble, but doesn't address the main point.
What exactly are you trying to argue? Are you saying that players should logically never be uncomfortable doing any kind of act in character? If not, then what?
It's not a "semantic quibble," it's a definitional error.
You called it logic, but it isn't, it's your emotive response based on your own preconceptions.
I'm just arguing for some intellectual honesty around here, and repeatedly being especially surprised by the kinds of nonsense you have spouted here when you seem otherwise to be a reasonable, academically minded and intelligent individual.
I'm not sure why you've decided that your personal intuitions are so much more important than reason here, but your unwillingness to acknowledge the difference is frustrating and makes you look more foolish than I know you to be.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480918No worries, I figured something like that was the case. Is it a forum you need to be a member of to view?
It's Google Plus. So you've got people in different circles, and when you post something you can release it to a circle in particular, all your circles, extended circles, or make it public. My assumption was that the post of Levi (who had "shared" the original post) was public but apparently it wasn't. That was my mistake.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480918I take it you and the OP are no longer on speaking terms?
That's an understatement. I was really, really not diplomatic, even by the RPG Site's standards.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480918Did he clarify where he was going with the OP later in the thread?
I honestly do not remember beyond him telling me to fuck off at the end.
Quote from: Benoist;480923That's an understatement. I was really, really not diplomatic, even by the RPG Site's standards.
Hey, it's the internet, everyone blows some steam once in a while. Hope it didn't cause too much blowback for you on google +.
QuoteI honestly do not remember beyond him telling me to fuck off at the end.
Must have been one heck of a flamewar.
Quote from: Benoist;480914I did have an exchange with the guy yes. It didn't end very well. I wasn't exactly diplomatic, and he told me to me to fuck off and enjoy my mindless braindead hack and slah or something. Don't really remember. I blocked him soon after.
Any reason why you decided to be so um.... well rude I guess ?
And did you indeed go back to your mindless hack and slash ? :D
Quote from: J Arcane;480922I'm not sure why you've decided that your personal intuitions are so much more important than reason here, but your unwillingness to acknowledge the difference is frustrating and makes you look more foolish than I know you to be.
Look - I'm getting more short-tempered in all this, which probably has more to do with new job stuff than anything else. I'm sure I have made all sorts of errors in what I said.
For example, I never meant to say anything about Tolkien personally. I did mean to say something about his stories.
I did mean to say that playing out killing prisoners and/or children - even as fantasy fiction - is something that many people are liable to feel uncomfortable with. I don't think that is a unique personal hang-up of mine, but rather a broader trend - and the causes of that trend follow patterns that can be rationally analyzed and identified.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480927Any reason why you decided to be so um.... well rude I guess ?
Because his argument is dimwitted, mostly. This kind of argument coming from idiots who don't know the first thing about TRPGs? Fine. From a gamer? No fucking way.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480927And did you indeed go back to your mindless hack and slash ? :D
About to restart it, actually. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=20947) :D
Quote from: Benoist;480935Because his argument is dimwitted, mostly. This kind of argument coming from idiots who don't know the first thing about TRPGs? Fine. From a gamer? No fucking way.
But surely you have really just reinforced his opinion. He lays out some arguements about D&D which stem from his own real world experience and belief. Rather than coming in with a nuanced argument, which I think you have tried to do here and we is now up to close to 1200 posts, you didn't engage him seriously. Now he can say look what these racist coloninal RPGers don't like it up em do they.....
QuoteAbout to restart it, actually. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=20947) :D
Hope it's great fun. :)
PS. I am off to Nice tomorrow for a wedding know any decent restaurants?
Quote from: jibbajibba;480941But surely you have really just reinforced his opinion. He lays out some arguements about D&D which stem from his own real world experience and belief. Rather than coming in with a nuanced argument, which I think you have tried to do here and we is now up to close to 1200 posts, you didn't engage him seriously. Now he can say look what these racist coloninal RPGers don't like it up em do they...
I didn't want to convince
him of anything, though. It was more like a fuck you for the principle of it. To him I'm just lambda guy on the internet, and to get so far down the rabbit all of bullshit PC you've got to have been going at it for quite some time. I wouldn't have changed his mind in any case. What surprises me is that others who should
definitely know better, like Stormy (nevermind Trollman and his
extensive knowledge of real gaming), are sympathetic to this kind of rhetoric. That genuinely surprises me.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480941Hope it's great fun. :)
It's been so far and I'm pretty sure we'll keep up with that. You can join us if you feel like it.
Quote from: jibbajibba;480941PS. I am off to Nice tomorrow for a wedding know any decent restaurants?
I don't know much about the Nice area I'm afraid. Ask me about areas like Eastern France, Southern Bretagne, I might be able to help, but the Mediterranean coast, I'm not so knowledgeable about it.
Quote from: Benoist;480945What surprises me is that others who should definitely know better, like Stormy (nevermind Trollman and his extensive knowledge of real gaming), are sympathetic to this kind of rhetoric. That genuinely surprises me.
Really? Still trying to slip this one through?
It's weird, because just recently I was reading this post where a guy was roundly condemned for making derogatory statements about people who don't share his views.
Quote from: jhkim;480934I did mean to say that playing out killing prisoners and/or children - even as fantasy fiction - is something that many people are liable to feel uncomfortable with. I don't think that is a unique personal hang-up of mine, but rather a broader trend - and the causes of that trend follow patterns that can be rationally analyzed and identified.
I don't think it's a unique reaction, either. My group reacted that way to the reality of it. And an emotion by which moral outrage is conveyed in the human mind is disgust, which is why people tend to feel disgust toward people who advance a moral position they don't agree world. But what a lot of people seem to be saying is that they find the whole idea so disgusting that they don't want to accept any context in which doing so would make logical utilitarian sense, to the point where people have said that any GM that puts their players in that situation is a sadist.
(As an aside, after years of seeing threads where people ask how to create real horror in role-playing games, I think putting the players into a situation where they have to kill mothers and babies or else they'll have an even more horrific situation on their hands might just do the trick for a lot of groups.)
The article I keep referencing about how moral decisions are made (http://discovermagazine.com/2004/apr/whose-life-would-you-save) argues that moral decisions are made by the brain comparing how it morally feels about an act versus the strength of the rational argument in favor of the act and the strongest urge wins. The people who humanize monsters and think of them like people are likely to have strong feelings of disgust at the thought of exterminating them when they are helpless, no matter how strong the utilitarian argument might be in favor of doing so might be, and may even see analogies between hatred and violence directed at those monsters and human victims of such hatred and violence. The people who don't humanize the monsters and think of them more like animals or robots are likely to experience little to no disgust at the thought of exterminating them while they are helpless, especially when there is a strong utilitarian argument in favor of killing them.
But before you argue in favor of empathy always winning out over utility, consider that people in the modern Western world are largely insulated from having to kill for any reason and thus have the luxury of favoring empathy over utility. Earlier in this thread, you made an argument against killing even a dangerous dog. Do you eat meat? Do you wear leather? Many, if not most, people in the modern Western world would likely experience a lot of disgust if they had to slaughter their own cow to eat a hamburger or slaughter their own cow to make a pair of leather shoes, yet have no problem eating meat or wearing leather because they never have to see a cow get killed to make the hamburger or leather. On several television shows, I've watched people cry over chickens killed to make dinner, not only on reality shows like Survivor but a show about a family living in rural Africa, because they treated the chickens like pets. And if you have a problem with the idea of killing helpless dogs, you should never take a serious look at what goes on in most animal shelters or around the world (on the other hand, if you want a good cry, read this (http://www.all-creatures.org/aip/nl-30apr2001-sam.html) -- even if it takes liberties with the truth, it reflects the reality in many shelters).
Of course what people see in the other direction (and this is the point I make about psychopaths) is that if one has no emotional connect to real people, then one can justify all sorts of atrocities against people that should cause moral outrage. The trick is balancing the emotional distance of a moral problem such that one neither becomes falsely sentimental or unjustly heartless. One can certainly err on the side of being heartless, but can also err on the side of being too sentimental. A reluctance to identify evil and squash it brutally, if necessary, is one of those areas where I think people can get too sentimental.
What I personally think of whenever I think of the orc baby scenario is that a few years ago, my back yard was infested with field mice. There were so many that they were leaving trails through the grass and were getting into the house. Knowing that it was part of the problem, I decided to dig out an old pile of cut grass from the previous owner. In doing so, I uncovered a mouse nest. I noticed a mother mouse frantically grabbing her young to carry them off to safety. Rather than dispatching the mice quickly with the shovel, which I think was the logical thing to do and was more or less what an exterminator or traps or poison would have done for me, I let the mother mouse carry her babies away because I felt sorry for her. Was that the right thing to do and a good thing to do or was I simply letting false sentimentality and an overactive anthropomorphization of vermin get the best of me? And would I have cared if an exterminator did it for me instead of me having to do it myself?
So while I understand the reluctance and even disgust people have expressed over the idea of slaughtering helpless monsters and can even understand why people see parallels to real world racism and colonialism in it, I think that when it persists even when the GM states as objective fact that the monsters are inherently evil and there is no good that can come out of sparing them that it's the same sort of false sentimentality that made me squeamish about killing some mice and even reluctant to kill bugs (when possible, I catch them and put them outside). And as such, I think a warrior charged with fighting evil could not be so squeamish about the grim necessity of killing evil. Further, there are a variety of reasons why a role-player who is not so sensitive or squeamish, not so emotionally involved in the idea of all sentient creatures being just like people, or simply not even all that emotionally invested in the monsters and game at all would have no problem slaughtering monsters without pause, with it having nothing to do with repressed racism or any analogy with real world racism or violent atrocities at all.
But were the mice evil?
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;480969But were the mice evil?
You have no idea.
(http://www.chud.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/nimh.gif)
Quote from: StormBringer;480970You have no idea.
(http://www.chud.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/nimh.gif)
NIMH !
Quote from: jhkim;480880The original poster in that thread said that learning D&D as a child guided his understanding of real-world races. He said that he had been confronted by arguments claiming that the existence of smart black people disproved the idea that blacks were mentally less capable overall. However, he found that D&D helped him understand how that argument was flawed, by the idea of a bell-curve distribution for attributes and modifiers to it.
I didn't read the thread, but I'll address your characterization of it. If he was being "confronted by arguments claiming that the existence of smart black people disproved the idea that blacks were mentally less capable overall", then that suggests that he was already forwarding the argument "that blacks were mentally less capable overall" and was encountering people who were arguing against him, suggesting that his racist attitudes already existed and he was in search for a justification to keep them. The problem here is not that D&D led him to racist thoughts or helped him figure out that the argument being used to refute his racism was bogus but that he was already thinking like a racist and the argument was bogus in the first place. It's not that hard to blow away the argument that blacks (or other racial or ethnic groups) are mentally less capable overall because a racist believes their poor performance on things like IQ tests is caused by some inherent mental deficiency.
Quote from: jhkim;480880Now, he is correct that that particular argument for racial equality is flawed - but his overall view that real-world races have differences similar to D&D races is false.
Then the solution is to explain why it's false, clearly and effectively, not to declare things like IQ tests and D&D inherently evil because they can be used by racists to make racist arguments. If you try to conceal things from people and prohibit certain lines of inquiry and discussion, even with the most noble of intentions, they are going to wonder what you are trying to hide from them. If their use of such things is wrong, then explain why it's wrong. If can't effectively refute racist arguments on the basis of their flaws, then I think you've got a much bigger problem on your hands.
Quote from: jhkim;480880His association that real-world races differ similarly to D&D races is a misapplication - but I can easily see how it could happen in a young child who isn't taught better. For better or worse, I learned a lot of things from RPGs as a child. Much of my interest in physics (which I eventually got a PhD in) came from early play with Traveller - which has some excellent and correct science in it. On the other hand, I also got some stuff wrong that I learned through RPGs - like what medieval armor & weapons were like and how they worked.
As a child, did you ever see the monsters in D&D as analogous to real world human races and did someone have to tell you that you shouldn't?
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;480969But were the mice evil?
Would me being a good person, if I had killed the mice, be dependent on that answer?
The groundhogs, on the other hand, are totally evil.
Quote from: Benoist;480847You are completely misreading what's been said. Mr. Gray's point was that the setup, the structure of D&D itself is layered with a "kind of privileged, colonial, expansionist, genocidal viewpoint" that he is grown mature enough, "at that stage of his life", to no longer ignore, unlike those who (1) play on these themes willingly, or (2) ignore those themes altogether because they don't know any better.
This is this particular point that is raising outrage. And rightfully so.
The part where you are right is that the likes of me think racists are indeed mis-using the structure and themes of D&D to project their agendas onto them, and that these agenda are not part of the game itself.
well put.
Quote from: John Morrow;480975Would me being a good person, if I had killed the mice, be dependent on that answer?
Yes, I think it would. Of course, if you think the mice were evil, I'd want to know how they got categorized as such. But if they weren't evil, and letting them live while cleaning up your yard was just as effective at stopping the infestation, then I don't think it would be good to kill them.
Edit
Quote from: Vmerc@;480993Have we found out what the "darker side of our hobby" is yet?
Yes - certain 'Indie" or 'storygames', These are often referred to as Swine Games by the guy who runs this forum.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Sigmund;480916Still going strong I see. I will be reading on, but I feel like I've contributed all I can, plus some, to this and so I will most likely not be posting more unless asked a question or I feel I have something new to add.
Great post skofflox, although I don't see the same racist colonial stuff in AD&D orcs, unless you mean it's the orcs being racists/colonial.
yup on both counts...:D
Quote from: jhkimNow, he is correct that that particular argument for racial equality is flawed - but his overall view that real-world races have differences similar to D&D races is false.
Quote from: John Morrow;480974Then the solution is to explain why it's false, clearly and effectively, not to declare things like IQ tests and D&D inherently evil because they can be used by racists to make racist arguments. If you try to conceal things from people and prohibit certain lines of inquiry and discussion, even with the most noble of intentions, they are going to wonder what you are trying to hide from them.
This would makes some sense
if I stated I was trying to prohibit certain lines of inquiry or conceal things from people. But... I'm not. The problem here is that your assumption that
(1) any hint of racism means => (2) inherently evil means => (3) must be prohibited and/or concealed
My attitude is that there is bad stuff in many things I like - including racism, sexism, and other prejudice. I love H.P. Lovecraft, and I love Robert E. Howard. They are both great writers, and I am willing to admit that they were extremely racist - and this racism was a part of their stories. I can like their writing while still acknowledging the racism in it. Some people act as if it is shocking and slanderous to accuse someone of being racist in the 1930s or 1940s, which I find just bizarre. Racism was completely standard at the time, and many good, decent people who hated both the Nazis and the KKK still held openly racist views.
I feel like many people feel like they can't admit to enjoying anything with even the faintest hint of racism (or presumably any other prejudice), which seems like an extreme stretch to me.
Quote from: John Morrow;480974As a child, did you ever see the monsters in D&D as analogous to real world human races and did someone have to tell you that you shouldn't?
I'm not sure. I don't remember my early D&D play clearly. It's not like I automatically rejected racism as a child. The standard elementary schoolyard chant in my area (1970s small-town New York) was "A fight! A fight! A nigger and a white!
is the nigger and is the white!" At the time, I didn't think it remarkable at all. It wasn't until much later that I remembered it and recognized it as racist. Also, I vaguely remember a discussion with a friend whom I played D&D with about blacks swimming in the local pool. He was opposed - I was non-committal.
Quote from: Vmerc@;480993Have we found out what the "darker side of our hobby" is yet?
Catpiss Men?
Quote from: John Morrow;480967But what a lot of people seem to be saying is that they find the whole idea so disgusting that they don't want to accept any context in which doing so would make logical utilitarian sense, to the point where people have said that any GM that puts their players in that situation is a sadist.
You may be bringing in arguments put forward in other threads or boards because I don't recall anyone making such claims here. However since you brought it up, I would think that any GM who puts his players in this position is if not a sadist, someone who enjoys pushing the buttons of his players in the most extreme of manner just to get an emotional rise. I see this in some story games and I have very little affection for this technique or those who do use it. It's also a bit of a cheat if you ask me. I would argue killing irredeamabely evil babies provides an emotional safety net as opposed to killing babies in order to further a utilitarian "good" like those done in the thought experiements in the article you keep refering to.
Edit: And it's not as if GMs over the years have not put forward (again refering to the article) Kantian/Utilitarian moral conflicts, the best kinds of dramantic moments IMO arise from them but personally I'm not persuaded by the utilitarian arguments put forward by those who advocate this kind of play....not that most GMs who use evil races need to because as I said killing evil babies etc is not part of their games.
Quote(As an aside, after years of seeing threads where people ask how to create real horror in role-playing games, I think putting the players into a situation where they have to kill mothers and babies or else they'll have an even more horrific situation on their hands might just do the trick for a lot of groups.)
I disagree I have managed very well to create moments of pure horror without resorting to something like this. I don't think horror means disgust or self loathing.....although I do concede that if you want to elicit an extreme response this would do it for some groups.
QuoteA reluctance to identify evil and squash it brutally, if necessary, is one of those areas where I think people can get too sentimental.
And here again we get back to how one views evil, irredeemable or not. Like I said how we deal with evil is important to some folks and this is reflected in our games. It's also a question of how we define heroism.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: John Morrow;480967I don't think it's a unique reaction, either. My group reacted that way to the reality of it. And an emotion by which moral outrage is conveyed in the human mind is disgust, which is why people tend to feel disgust toward people who advance a moral position they don't agree world. But what a lot of people seem to be saying is that they find the whole idea so disgusting that they don't want to accept any context in which doing so would make logical utilitarian sense, to the point where people have said that any GM that puts their players in that situation is a sadist.
(As an aside, after years of seeing threads where people ask how to create real horror in role-playing games, I think putting the players into a situation where they have to kill mothers and babies or else they'll have an even more horrific situation on their hands might just do the trick for a lot of groups.)
The article I keep referencing about how moral decisions are made (http://discovermagazine.com/2004/apr/whose-life-would-you-save) argues that moral decisions are made by the brain comparing how it morally feels about an act versus the strength of the rational argument in favor of the act and the strongest urge wins. The people who humanize monsters and think of them like people are likely to have strong feelings of disgust at the thought of exterminating them when they are helpless, no matter how strong the utilitarian argument might be in favor of doing so might be, and may even see analogies between hatred and violence directed at those monsters and human victims of such hatred and violence. The people who don't humanize the monsters and think of them more like animals or robots are likely to experience little to no disgust at the thought of exterminating them while they are helpless, especially when there is a strong utilitarian argument in favor of killing them.
But before you argue in favor of empathy always winning out over utility, consider that people in the modern Western world are largely insulated from having to kill for any reason and thus have the luxury of favoring empathy over utility. Earlier in this thread, you made an argument against killing even a dangerous dog. Do you eat meat? Do you wear leather? Many, if not most, people in the modern Western world would likely experience a lot of disgust if they had to slaughter their own cow to eat a hamburger or slaughter their own cow to make a pair of leather shoes, yet have no problem eating meat or wearing leather because they never have to see a cow get killed to make the hamburger or leather. On several television shows, I've watched people cry over chickens killed to make dinner, not only on reality shows like Survivor but a show about a family living in rural Africa, because they treated the chickens like pets. And if you have a problem with the idea of killing helpless dogs, you should never take a serious look at what goes on in most animal shelters or around the world (on the other hand, if you want a good cry, read this (http://www.all-creatures.org/aip/nl-30apr2001-sam.html) -- even if it takes liberties with the truth, it reflects the reality in many shelters).
Of course what people see in the other direction (and this is the point I make about psychopaths) is that if one has no emotional connect to real people, then one can justify all sorts of atrocities against people that should cause moral outrage. The trick is balancing the emotional distance of a moral problem such that one neither becomes falsely sentimental or unjustly heartless. One can certainly err on the side of being heartless, but can also err on the side of being too sentimental. A reluctance to identify evil and squash it brutally, if necessary, is one of those areas where I think people can get too sentimental.
What I personally think of whenever I think of the orc baby scenario is that a few years ago, my back yard was infested with field mice. There were so many that they were leaving trails through the grass and were getting into the house. Knowing that it was part of the problem, I decided to dig out an old pile of cut grass from the previous owner. In doing so, I uncovered a mouse nest. I noticed a mother mouse frantically grabbing her young to carry them off to safety. Rather than dispatching the mice quickly with the shovel, which I think was the logical thing to do and was more or less what an exterminator or traps or poison would have done for me, I let the mother mouse carry her babies away because I felt sorry for her. Was that the right thing to do and a good thing to do or was I simply letting false sentimentality and an overactive anthropomorphization of vermin get the best of me? And would I have cared if an exterminator did it for me instead of me having to do it myself?
So while I understand the reluctance and even disgust people have expressed over the idea of slaughtering helpless monsters and can even understand why people see parallels to real world racism and colonialism in it, I think that when it persists even when the GM states as objective fact that the monsters are inherently evil and there is no good that can come out of sparing them that it's the same sort of false sentimentality that made me squeamish about killing some mice and even reluctant to kill bugs (when possible, I catch them and put them outside). And as such, I think a warrior charged with fighting evil could not be so squeamish about the grim necessity of killing evil. Further, there are a variety of reasons why a role-player who is not so sensitive or squeamish, not so emotionally involved in the idea of all sentient creatures being just like people, or simply not even all that emotionally invested in the monsters and game at all would have no problem slaughtering monsters without pause, with it having nothing to do with repressed racism or any analogy with real world racism or violent atrocities at all.
Something that interests me though is that justifible genocide is no where in the source material. Gandalf doesn't set out to eradicate all goblins and orcs, galahad doesn't kill folks hither and yon. In the source material the good folks always offer mercy above violence always allow room for redemption . So what is really inspiring this mode of play? It seems to be a totally gamist thing. We kill them to get gold and experience then we look to justify it when someone claims its racist.....
Take a specific. A party find a guy they detect evil he is evil. But he explains that he is trying to change do they kill him? Answer no not until he commits an evil act. Why can't he just be put down like an orc? That to me carries the taint of racism you see.
Now io would avoid it quite the opposite I'll hi-light it in game. I will have npcs saying just burn them out they are only orcs if we don't do it now they will just breed. And the same guy will claim the human deserves a change it's not like he is orcish scum. I will see how far the PCs will follow that logical course.
Conclusion: If you fudge rolls, you're basically a racist.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;480992Yes, I think it would. Of course, if you think the mice were evil, I'd want to know how they got categorized as such. But if they weren't evil, and letting them live while cleaning up your yard was just as effective at stopping the infestation, then I don't think it would be good to kill them.
So one cannot be truly good and eat meat or wear leather because other options exist, or is it OK to enjoy the fruits of the unnecessary killing of animals so long as you outsource the actual killing to someone out of sight? A good person can't work as a mouse exterminator or at an animal shelter putting excess cats and dogs to sleep?
Quote from: jhkim;480997I feel like many people feel like they can't admit to enjoying anything with even the faintest hint of racism (or presumably any other prejudice), which seems like an extreme stretch to me.
And I don't think that's the argument, either. I think the problem is with the idea that they are essentially engaging in racism if they go along with slaughtering sentient monsters (and perhaps their offspring) without sufficient angst and acknowledgement that doing so is racist. I can see where people find the parallels impossible to ignore but I can also see why others see no parallels at all, and a lot of it boils down to whether they think of the monsters as people or not. As Kyle pointed out in another thread, PETA refers to the slaughter of chickens as "The Chicken Holocaust". Do you think that anyone who enjoys a Chicken McNugget at McDonalds should be admitting the hints of genocide in what they are doing? I think that's the sort of thing that's going on here. People see a parallel with a moral issue that they feel strongly about and can't accept that others simply don't.
Quote from: jhkim;480997I'm not sure. I don't remember my early D&D play clearly. It's not like I automatically rejected racism as a child.
That wasn't the question. The question was whether you saw D&D as supporting racist ideas or added racist ideas that weren't there.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481036Something that interests me though is that justifible genocide is no where in the source material.
It depends on what you consider the "source material". You can certainly find it in science fiction and fantasy (e.g., Doctor Who has been flirting with it since it restarted, not only with respect to the Time Lords and Daleks but with others, and the Torchwood episode with the Cyberwoman certain touched upon all of the inherent evilness and sentience buttons that are being talked about here). It comes up in a lot of alien invasion movies, including Independence Day. I'm sure that better-read people than me can give examples in fantasy literature.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481036So what is really inspiring this mode of play? It seems to be a totally gamist thing. We kill them to get gold and experience then we look to justify it when someone claims its racist.....
For me, it's about a desire to be able to blow up the Death Star without having to worry about how many innocent contractors and janitors my character killed in the process (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht-Fa7P6AsY). And one can see the effect the obligatory angst that people have over shooting a defenseless bad guy in George Lucas' insistence in editing Star Wars so that Han Solo does not shoot first because Lucan believes he would be evil if he shot a thug on cold blood by surprise. To a point, such discussions can add depth to a game but they can also paralyze it.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481036Take a specific. A party find a guy they detect evil he is evil. But he explains that he is trying to change do they kill him? Answer no not until he commits an evil act. Why can't he just be put down like an orc? That to me carries the taint of racism you see.
In my D&D game, there were humans that you could put down like monsters and monsters that you couldn't simply put down because they were redeemable and there would be clues in their auras about who was who when a Detect Evil was done. So at least in my game, that wasn't it.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481036Now io would avoid it quite the opposite I'll hi-light it in game. I will have npcs saying just burn them out they are only orcs if we don't do it now they will just breed. And the same guy will claim the human deserves a change it's not like he is orcish scum. I will see how far the PCs will follow that logical course.
Well, I think you are left having to reconcile how to deal with monstrous humanoids that are depicted as primarily Evil in the game. That games like D&D are filled with mostly or always Evil humanoids with hit points and combat stats and have thick chapters on combat and precious little on social work and redemption, there is an expectation that the way to solve problems like evil monsters is through violence.
Quote from: John Morrow;481053So one cannot be truly good and eat meat or wear leather because other options exist, or is it OK to enjoy the fruits of the unnecessary killing of animals so long as you outsource the actual killing to someone out of sight? A good person can't work as a mouse exterminator or at an animal shelter putting excess cats and dogs to sleep?
Uh, no. You'll have to not put words in my mouth if we are going to get anywhere (even if that leads to a useful disagreement). Did I say that eating meat, etc. were unnecessary? Think about why it might be unnecessary to kill every mouse you see.
The interesting cases are the ones I left out in the evil/not-evil/necessary/unnecessary matrix.
Quote from: skofflox;480995yup on both counts...:D
Well, that I see, but then it's ok for orcs to be racist as they're evil, as long as the players arent'. :D
Quote from: jibbajibba;481036Something that interests me though is that justifible genocide is no where in the source material. Gandalf doesn't set out to eradicate all goblins and orcs, galahad doesn't kill folks hither and yon. In the source material the good folks always offer mercy above violence always allow room for redemption . So what is really inspiring this mode of play? It seems to be a totally gamist thing. We kill them to get gold and experience then we look to justify it when someone claims its racist.....
Take a specific. A party find a guy they detect evil he is evil. But he explains that he is trying to change do they kill him? Answer no not until he commits an evil act. Why can't he just be put down like an orc? That to me carries the taint of racism you see.
Now io would avoid it quite the opposite I'll hi-light it in game. I will have npcs saying just burn them out they are only orcs if we don't do it now they will just breed. And the same guy will claim the human deserves a change it's not like he is orcish scum. I will see how far the PCs will follow that logical course.
This I think I can answer. The way I see it, absolute good and evil would be more of a mythic thing... I didn't see anywhere that referred to Perseus contemplating whether Medusa was redeemable. She was just evil, so he killed her for her head :) Dualistic alignments, IMO, create more of a mythic feel to a game. The alignments as a spectrum are what allow for more latitude in redeemability and shades of gray. It all depends on the feel a DM wants in the game. There's as much a place for mythic-style good vs. evil struggles as there is for ambiguous, gritty, shades of gray style games IMO. For me, postulating absolutely evil monsters (including orcs) is fine in a game striving for more of a mythic feel. There is no One True Way.
Quote from: Age of Fable;481043Conclusion: If you fudge rolls, you're basically a racist.
But...but...some of my best friends roll in the open!
Quote from: Sigmund;481071This I think I can answer. The way I see it, absolute good and evil would be more of a mythic thing... I didn't see anywhere that referred to Perseus contemplating whether Medusa was redeemable. She was just evil, so he killed her for her head :) Dualistic alignments, IMO, create more of a mythic feel to a game. The alignments as a spectrum are what allow for more latitude in redeemability and shades of gray. It all depends on the feel a DM wants in the game. There's as much a place for mythic-style good vs. evil struggles as there is for ambiguous, gritty, shades of gray style games IMO. For me, postulating absolutely evil monsters (including orcs) is fine in a game striving for more of a mythic feel. There is no One True Way.
But take your examle if perseus arrives at the medusa's cave and she comes out being al reasonable then I don't think he kills her he stays with her til she comitts an evil act
Also the medusa is a single evil creature who has done evil not a race of creatures.
As for doctor who plenty of angst there and a massive desire not to kill if possible
Quote from: jibbajibba;481087But take your examle if perseus arrives at the medusa's cave and she comes out being al reasonable then I don't think he kills her he stays with her til she comitts an evil act
Also the medusa is a single evil creature who has done evil not a race of creatures.
As for doctor who plenty of angst there and a massive desire not to kill if possible
I don't have any desire to examine "what if's" in relation to Perseus and Medusa at this time, thanks. I'm simply sharing with you that, from the way I see it, using absolute good and evil in a game stems from, and contributes to the feel of, myths and legends and was not meant to comment on anything relating to pretend "genocide" or pretend "racism". Also, you asked a question, and I answered it according to how I see it. Take it or leave it, I'm no longer invested in which.
Don't watch Dr. Who, never have, so I have no opinion or response to that either way.
Y'know we are blind to the pink elephant in the room. Midnight where I don't know which is worse, that I'm cheering for the impending Elvish genocide or where I'm planning an Orchish one.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;481096Y'know we are blind to the pink elephant in the room. Midnight where I don't know which is worse, that I'm cheering for the impending Elvish genocide or where I'm planning an Orchish one.
Regards,
David R
Midnight offends your sensibilities?
I think it's pretty lame myself, but I'm not especially bothered by its existence.
Quote from: David R;481096Y'know we are blind to the pink elephant in the room. Midnight where I don't know which is worse, that I'm cheering for the impending Elvish genocide or where I'm planning an Orchish one.
Regards,
David R
While I know what Midnight is, I have never read or played in it, so I am not so much blind to it as I am really not giving a shit about it.
Quote from: Benoist;481097Midnight offends your sensibilities?
I think it's pretty lame myself, but I'm not especially bothered by its existence.
Offends ? I kinda of like it. But that could be just because the elves get it pretty rough there.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;481099Offends ? I kinda of like it. But that could be just because the elves get it pretty rough there.
Regards,
David R
So your post was sarcastic in fact? Sorry I thought you were being serious.
Quote from: John Morrow;481055And I don't think that's the argument, either. I think the problem is with the idea that they are essentially engaging in racism if they go along with slaughtering sentient monsters (and perhaps their offspring) without sufficient angst and acknowledgement that doing so is racist. I can see where people find the parallels impossible to ignore but I can also see why others see no parallels at all, and a lot of it boils down to whether they think of the monsters as people or not. As Kyle pointed out in another thread, PETA refers to the slaughter of chickens as "The Chicken Holocaust".
One of the disconnects here is that you often inject other ideas onto what I say about racism. Earlier was the implication that anything with racism should be hidden or banned. In this case, you imply that I advocate "sufficient angst". I don't think any angst is necessary.
Again, here's the short form: Most stuff created prior to 1950, and quite a bit after it, has some racism in it. Racism has been the mainstream view throughout history, with scattered exceptions. I have no intention of filling myself with angst for all the old stuff I love. I also acknowledge that most of it is, among other things, racist - but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it.
What I'm saying is that the parallels are truly there. It is possible to ignore them for the sake of the game and just enjoy some good Conan-esque action, or other fantasy genre action. It doesn't make you an evil person to do so - I've run my own games of the
Conan RPG (http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/brawnythews/). But that doesn't mean that outside the game I'm going to go around making excuses and claiming that Robert E. Howard was not a racist, because he was.
(I'm citing Howard here because I think there is general agreement that he was racist, and I'm trying to explain my general approach to racism without the specific disagreements we have about Tolkien.)
Quote from: Sigmund;481071The way I see it, absolute good and evil would be more of a mythic thing... I didn't see anywhere that referred to Perseus contemplating whether Medusa was redeemable. She was just evil, so he killed her for her head :) Dualistic alignments, IMO, create more of a mythic feel to a game. The alignments as a spectrum are what allow for more latitude in redeemability and shades of gray. It all depends on the feel a DM wants in the game. There's as much a place for mythic-style good vs. evil struggles as there is for ambiguous, gritty, shades of gray style games IMO. For me, postulating absolutely evil monsters (including orcs) is fine in a game striving for more of a mythic feel. There is no One True Way.
I agree there is no One True Way, and it's fine to use myths. But I think there should be acknowledgment of what myths are. Historical myths are based on historical views of the world, and tend to have themes that are based on those views. While medusa is a near-unique creature, a mythic race like the centaurs represents an ancient Greek view of other races. I'm sure now people will jump down my throat for my hideous slander against ancient Greeks for claiming them to be racist, and I'm wild crazy politically correct for inventing such a crazy notion that ancient Greeks were racist, but oh well...
Quote from: jhkim;481103a mythic race like the centaurs represents an ancient Greek view of other races.
Sure, yeah. Racism in ancient Greece meant thinking other races were half horse. That certainly makes a lot of sense.
So, basically every fantasy race ever created
MUST to be an analogy for a real-world race.
Quoteand I'm trying to explain my general approach to racism
Here's my general approach to racism;
I'm not racist to anybody.
I'm suspicious of approaches more complicated than that.
Quote from: jhkim;481103I agree there is no One True Way, and it's fine to use myths. But I think there should be acknowledgment of what myths are. Historical myths are based on historical views of the world, and tend to have themes that are based on those views. While medusa is a near-unique creature, a mythic race like the centaurs represents an ancient Greek view of other races. I'm sure now people will jump down my throat for my hideous slander against ancient Greeks for claiming them to be racist, and I'm wild crazy politically correct for inventing such a crazy notion that ancient Greeks were racist, but oh well...
Honestly, I don't much care anymore as it's obvious to me that you and I will never agree on this issue. However, I am becoming curious... in your view is there anyone anywhere in any time period that isn't racist? Do you distinguish between racism and culturalism/nationalism? No matter what individual or culture anyone has mentioned in this thread, you have taken the time to point out how racist they all were/are. Also, as I pointed out to JJ, the Perseus vs. Medusa comment was more directed at redeemablity vs. irredeemability, not genocide or racism. Medusa had once been human after all.
Edit: Response to jhkim's characterization of Greeks as racist...
http://www.anistor.gr/english/enback/AGRacism.pdf
Short form:
Speaking of "racism" as meaning our modern concept of it in relation to ancient Greece is inaccurate.
Quote from: Sigmund;481106Honestly, I don't much care anymore as it's obvious to me that you and I will never agree on this issue. However, I am becoming curious... in your view is there anyone anywhere in any time period that isn't racist? Do you distinguish between racism and culturalism/nationalism? No matter what individual or culture anyone has mentioned in this thread, you have taken the time to point out how racist they all were/are. Also, as I pointed out to JJ, the Perseus vs. Medusa comment was more directed at redeemablity vs. irredeemability, not genocide or racism. Medusa had once been human after all.
Yes, I think that racism was the norm for almost all historical cultures and time periods. The opposite - the idea of the equality of races - is largely a modern idea along with universal suffrage democracy, abolition of slavery, and equal rights for men and women. There are exceptions, but they are uncommon.
Yes, I personally distinguish between racism and culturalism/nationalism. However, historical cultures generally conflated the two, since they had no concept of genetics.
Quote from: jhkim;481103Again, here's the short form: Most stuff created prior to 1950, and quite a bit after it, has some racism in it. Racism has been the mainstream view throughout history, with scattered exceptions.
The term was only really developed in the 20th century to describe the ideology of Nazi Germany. It can be applied fairly easily to some 19th century ideas, but go back any further and the concept becomes increasingly nonsensical. Most people throughout history were not 'racist', had no concept of racism, and would think you very strange.
Quote from: Sigmund;481106Edit: Response to jhkim's characterization of Greeks as racist...
http://www.anistor.gr/english/enback/AGRacism.pdf
Short form:
Speaking of "racism" as meaning our modern concept of it in relation to ancient Greece is inaccurate.
Of course the racism in ancient Greek isn't going to be the same as the racism found in modern-day. Neither of these are going to be the same as the racism in Shakespeare's day, or Chaucer's. The abstract doesn't claim that the ancient Greeks were non-racist, but that their racism was different than typical modern-day racism. From the abstract:
"
However, we will see that, following ancient Greek racial thought, the interpretive model of modern racism could successfully be applied to ancient Greece. In other words, we make use of the Weberian "idealtypus" of modern racism. However, one has to cut it loose from the connotations of modern-day racism and analyse ancient Greek racism within the framework of the cultural, religious and political conditions of Antiquity."
Note that they still call the ancient Greek racism as, well, racism.
Is this part of that "everything is racist, but if we acknowledge it then it is OK" meme that keeps popping up? Because, you know, that's really annoying.
Quote from: jhkim;481103I agree there is no One True Way, and it's fine to use myths. But I think there should be acknowledgment of what myths are. Historical myths are based on historical views of the world, and tend to have themes that are based on those views. While medusa is a near-unique creature, a mythic race like the centaurs represents an ancient Greek view of other races. I'm sure now people will jump down my throat for my hideous slander against ancient Greeks for claiming them to be racist, and I'm wild crazy politically correct for inventing such a crazy notion that ancient Greeks were racist, but oh well...
Personally I don't care what you say about the ancient greeks (and I personally have no idea where the idea for centaur came from, butyour explanation sounds as reasonable as many others I've heard). I just don't understand why we have to care if the centaurs we use today in a game were originallly the product of how the greeks viewed other peoples.
Quote from: jhkim;481116Of course the racism in ancient Greek isn't going to be the same as the racism found in modern-day. Neither of these are going to be the same as the racism in Shakespeare's day, or Chaucer's. The abstract doesn't claim that the ancient Greeks were non-racist, but that their racism was different than typical modern-day racism. From the abstract:
"However, we will see that, following ancient Greek racial thought, the interpretive model of modern racism could successfully be applied to ancient Greece. In other words, we make use of the Weberian "idealtypus" of modern racism. However, one has to cut it loose from the connotations of modern-day racism and analyse ancient Greek racism within the framework of the cultural, religious and political conditions of Antiquity."
Note that they still call the ancient Greek racism as, well, racism.
Just trying to be clear that much of Ancient Greek "racism" had little to do with the color of a person's skin. Not that has anything to do with the OP or anything.
Quote from: jhkim;481111Yes, I think that racism was the norm for almost all historical cultures and time periods. The opposite - the idea of the equality of races - is largely a modern idea along with universal suffrage democracy, abolition of slavery, and equal rights for men and women. There are exceptions, but they are uncommon.
Yes, I personally distinguish between racism and culturalism/nationalism. However, historical cultures generally conflated the two, since they had no concept of genetics.
So in other words, speaking of "racism" is kinda pointless because in your view it is/was the normal view that everyone held... in other words, everyone was equally racist so the only odd attitudes would be our modern ones, and drawing inspiration from any kind of historical source must contain racism as you view it, whether the author wants it to or not. So, when speaking of Tolkien's "racist" inclusions it could very well be just influences from his historical cultural inspirations and not something he consciously included in his work. Ditto for EGG, in which case no matter what fantasy game based even loosely on historical time periods or cultures Dray tries to play, he is going to find "racist" influences and ideas, and so he's either going to have to accept that as a natural by-product of drawing on real world influences, or stop playing the vast majority of fantasy games completely.
So you don't think pre-modern people had any idea that "race" and "culture" could mean different things despite the fact that even without the knowledge of genetics, it's rather obvious that, frex, a pale, blond Scandinavian or German looks nothing like a dark skinned and haired Ethiopian or Arabian or Egyptian?
Quote from: jhkim;481116Note that they still call the ancient Greek racism as, well, racism.
Of course they do, because that's the idea that precipitated the study, but what they describe has more to do with culture than race. Note they even include some other Greek tribes in who they consider "barbarians". They viewed people in terms of Hellenistic vs. non-Hellenistic cultures. As the paper says, what Greeks would have meant when using the term "racism" has little to do with how we use the term today. Equating the two is a mistake, plain and simple.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481123Personally I don't care what you say about the ancient greeks (and I personally have no idea where the idea for centaur came from, butyour explanation sounds as reasonable as many others I've heard). I just don't understand why we have to care if the centaurs we use today in a game were originallly the product of how the greeks viewed other peoples.
We don't. There are just some pretentious folks who are trying and failing to convince us that if we don't we're somehow wrong or inferior. The entire idea is silly. As others have said, Kyle has won the thread, as he has had the wisdom to simply dismiss the entire idea with the derision it deserves. You and I and Jeff and S'mon and Tristam are being silly by even engaging the troll in a serious manner it's starting to seem to me. I don't see any sign of anyone arguing the merit of Dray's lament being even remotely willing to consider our points as valid, which is why I'm attempting to disengage. I'll succeed here soon too, as the whole thing's getting boring to me now.
So, apparently, we're back to guilt by association.
This kind of discourse is so largely wide-spread. If you don't think in terms of guilt by association yourself, you might as well declare your "bigoted racism" and be done with it.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481123Personally I don't care what you say about the ancient greeks (and I personally have no idea where the idea for centaur came from, butyour explanation sounds as reasonable as many others I've heard). I just don't understand why we have to care if the centaurs we use today in a game were originallly the product of how the greeks viewed other peoples.
I think this is a very good question that I would like to ask many of the people arguing against me. I have been expressing the view that one should simply note that something is racist and move on. However, many people here seem very angry at this - and are arguing that it is wrong to label ancient Greeks as racist in a manner that implies it is very important I not do this.
Generally speaking, modern books and films that portray Greek myth tend to edit and change the original stories to fit more closely to the modern viewpoint. Likewise, our medieval fantasy tends to express values very different than real medieval values. People edit out support of slavery, for example, or the treatment of women as property. If you want to do this deliberately, then you might care about what the meanings of the original myths were.
Quote from: S'mon;481115The term was only really developed in the 20th century to describe the ideology of Nazi Germany. It can be applied fairly easily to some 19th century ideas, but go back any further and the concept becomes increasingly nonsensical. Most people throughout history were not 'racist', had no concept of racism, and would think you very strange.
It's true that older historical values were different than Nazi values, absolutely. However, I think it is even more nonsensical to identify historical values with modern-day non-racist values. Your argument suggests we should call 19th century slavers racist, but call 18th century slavers non-racist. That Nazis were racist, but the Jewish pogroms of the Renaissance were non-racist. That seems equally strange to me. I think it's better to say that historical racism was different than Nazi racism. For that matter, racism in different parts of the world are also different. 19th century Korean racism isn't the same as 19th century American racism.
Regardless of the racism label, though, the point is that myths and stories from history often express values that clash with our modern-day values. If you are basing your game on myths, then what you are using are constructs used to express those historical values. It is blatantly revisionist to say that the "good" and "evil" expressed by historical myths is the same thing that we would consider "good" and "evil" today. There is overlap, but they are not the same thing.
QuoteI think this is a very good question that I would like to ask many of the people arguing against me. I have been expressing the view that one should simply note that something is racist and move on. However, many people here seem very angry at this - and are arguing that it is wrong to label ancient Greeks as racist in a manner that implies it is very important I not do this.
Your problem is that "racism" is a very serious charge to most people, and a very specific one to most people.
"Everyone's a little bit racist" is a dogma that most people do not subscribe to, and one that trivializes "racism" as a word on a host of grounds.
I think, and the way I was raised to know those words, that there is a difference between simple prejudice and outright racism, and I suspect many people view it as the same. The former is an unfortunate flaw many of us share, the latter is a serious charge of conscious hostility that carries a large payload.
Quote from: jhkim;481146I think this is a very good question that I would like to ask many of the people arguing against me. I have been expressing the view that one should simply note that something is racist and move on. However, many people here seem very angry at this - and are arguing that it is wrong to label ancient Greeks as racist in a manner that implies it is very important I not do this.
I am not angry, I just don't think I understand your position. I am wondering where your "should" is coming from with the centaur. Lets concede that it originally stemmed from greek racism (something I think is debatable but not an unreasonable suggestion); why "should" we have to make note of that? What relevance does it have if the centaur has lost any connotation of racism?
QuoteGenerally speaking, modern books and films that portray Greek myth tend to edit and change the original stories to fit more closely to the modern viewpoint. Likewise, our medieval fantasy tends to express values very different than real medieval values. People edit out support of slavery, for example, or the treatment of women as property. If you want to do this deliberately, then you might care about what the meanings of the original myths were.
.
I think it has been a while since we've edited those things out. Most history books make note of the role of things like slavery in the ancient I have a book on Roman Social relations I am leafing through right now. It was written by Ramsay MacMullen in 1970 and he basically lays bare all the social inequalities in Roman society.
Even films and TV are a lot more comfortable dwelling on these sorts of things now. It isn't like the 1950s when historical films were scrubbed for modern viewers.
I am not denying that exploring the meanings behind the Centaur could be interesting (especially if I was making a movie or book about ancient greeks ). In fact you could probably get a good thread out of it here. But I just don't see gamers who are simply including a centaur encounter need to care about that.
Quote from: J Arcane;481148I think, and the way I was raised to know those words, that there is a difference between simple prejudice and outright racism, and I suspect many people view it as the same. The former is an unfortunate flaw many of us share, the latter is a serious charge of conscious hostility that carries a large payload.
That's where I'm coming from as well.
Quote from: J Arcane;481148Your problem is that "racism" is a very serious charge to most people, and a very specific one to most people.
"Everyone's a little bit racist" is a dogma that most people do not subscribe to, and one that trivializes "racism" as a word on a host of grounds.
I'm not saying "everyone's a little bit racist". I'm saying that people who like me who chanted "A fight! A fight! A n***** and a white!" on a schoolyard are a little bit racist (or at least were so at the time). I'm saying that people like Aristotle who openly advocate that other races are inferior and more fit for slavery are a little bit racist. For definitions, here are some I browsed:
Wikipedia:
Racism is the belief that there are inherent differences in people's traits and capacities that are entirely due to their race, however defined, and that, as a consequence, racial discrimination (i.e. different treatment of those people, both socially and legally) is justified.Free Online Dictionary:
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others. 2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.My definition is more or less in line with these.
Quote from: J Arcane;481148I think, and the way I was raised to know those words, that there is a difference between simple prejudice and outright racism, and I suspect many people view it as the same. The former is an unfortunate flaw many of us share, the latter is a serious charge of conscious hostility that carries a large payload.
Look, we have different definitions. It happens. However, it should have been obvious for a long time that I'm not going by the same definition. The definitions I quoted say nothing about hostility, for example, and have no qualifier about conscious or unconscious.
This line about orcs seems to me to come from the same nuthouse as the cultural relativism that sees no evil other than the evolution of the 'cultures' whose preservation it holds more important than a living person's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Some years ago, I was astounded to find a classroom of college students overwhelmingly defending child abuse (the cutting off of girls' clitorises) because "it's their religion".
I am afraid that the business of 'humanizing' mythological monsters lends itself very neatly to demonizing real human beings. Considering the martial tenor of most fantasy games, what realistic rationale for the killing is likely when behavior is considered irrelevant? Why, the usual one: "They have the wrong opinion on a question of politics or theology!"
Ideology takes the place of morality, and we are likely to end up with 'orcs' by another (more "politically correct") appelation -- monsters that really do represent real people.
In the real world, we seek to eradicate the blood-sucking breeding of mama mosquitos as a means to the end of denying the right to life of unborn malarial microbes.
If we lived in a world plagued with orcs, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, etc., should we treat them any differently? Is the superficial anthropomorphism of a demon really so much more important than the personhood and lives of free-willed sentient beings of any species?
Disease or demon, its role is the same. It is a predator or parasite that no rhetoric is going to dissuade from its pursuit of survival and reproduction at the expense of the well-being of its victims.
If one really wants human beings, to explore temporal social issues, then wherefore the fantasy reduced to mere cosmetics?
The end is science-fictional. The kind of fantasy whence these monsters arose treats timeless things, archetypes from the dreaming depths. It's an escape from social realism and so on.
In a game such as Traveller, consequences of violence get a little more realistic treatment than in D&D. That should be no problem for someone who seriously means to explore racism, imperialism, etc..
Someone who just wants to talk self-righteous baloney at the rest of us while indulging in his preferred brand of virtual mayhem might just be a hypocrite.
Quote from: Phillip;481160The end is science-fictional.
This I agree with 100%. I've made the same point in another conversation on roughly the same topic, and I'm glad to see someone else come to it independently. However, the literal-mindedness that leads to it is found both among the "critics" and some of the defenders.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481060Uh, no. You'll have to not put words in my mouth if we are going to get anywhere (even if that leads to a useful disagreement). Did I say that eating meat, etc. were unnecessary? Think about why it might be unnecessary to kill every mouse you see.
The analogy was with killing monstrous mothers and children, not genocide.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481087As for doctor who plenty of angst there and a massive desire not to kill if possible
Sure, and how did that work out, taking the show at face value? How are the Daleks and Time Lords faring in the current time line?
Quote from: jhkim;481103Again, here's the short form: Most stuff created prior to 1950, and quite a bit after it, has some racism in it. Racism has been the mainstream view throughout history, with scattered exceptions. I have no intention of filling myself with angst for all the old stuff I love. I also acknowledge that most of it is, among other things, racist - but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it.
Frankly, if I find something truly heinous in a work of art, I find it difficult to ignore. At the very least, it reduces one's enjoyment, does it not?
Quote from: jhkim;481103What I'm saying is that the parallels are truly there.
As I've said, I think the parallels in many works of fantasy are less a matter of an intentional or unintentional, conscious or unconscious inclusion of racist views in the work but on the fact that racists depict those they hate as monsters with monstrous traits and thus it's not surprising that such characterizations would have parallels with fantasy monsters with monstrous traits because monstrous traits are designed to play on the same feelings of fear and loathing. One can find pyramid-like structures in Egypt and the New World. They have parallels because the architects were dealing with similar problems, but one did not influence the other.
Quote from: jhkim;481103(I'm citing Howard here because I think there is general agreement that he was racist, and I'm trying to explain my general approach to racism without the specific disagreements we have about Tolkien.)
And that's because I think you can make a causal link in the case of Howard and find actual examples of situations in his stories that sure look racist but not with Tolkien. The main evidence that there is racism in Tolkien seems to be the assumption that there must inevitably be racism in Tolkien and some real stretches related to how certain people looked. And that's why there will be a lot of pushback if you try to insist that people acknowledge the racism in Tolkien.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481166This I agree with 100%. I've made the same point in another conversation on roughly the same topic, and I'm glad to see someone else come to it independently. However, the literal-mindedness that leads to it is found both among the "critics" and some of the defenders.
I prefer my fantasy to be more "science-fictional" than mythological, thus the naturalistic nature of monsters in my D&D campaign. But claiming that something is mythical doesn't really escape the problem if the myth is propaganda in service of malicious ideas, which still brings us back to considering why the mythical elements are there.
My games are mythic, and that myth is the fucking Iliad, wherein the Trojans and Achaians are neither absolutely good nor evil. I dunno where this "absolute good and evil are mythic" stuff comes from. If you're dealing with pre-Christian Western myth, "good" and "evil" relate to one another and to people in radically different ways than afterwards (as well as the standards of what is what changing radically in that time).
Quote from: John Morrow;481182The analogy was with killing monstrous mothers and children, not genocide.
I didn't want to make any assumptions but I think I'm going to have to.
You say you were cleaning up a grass pile that was sheltering mice, when you saw a mother mouse scurrying away with her babies. You didn't kill them, and you get points in my book for that. Especially because I don't think that killing the mice was necessary, and mice aren't evil.
I don't think any animal or plant is evil, first of all. But they can be noxious and on those grounds it may be necessary to kill them, overriding the good which I think is inherent not harming life or causing pain. Some living things--let's say the smallpox virus is alive, or if not, how about bubonic plague--have very little inherent value, cause a lot of harm, and I don't think we should have any compunction about eradicating them. Maybe someday it'll bite us in the ass when it turns out we've interfered with the circle of life and caused some sort of chaotic chain reaction, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.
However, most of the time, plants & animals only become weeds, pests, threats, or vermin because we disturb their environment, or move them into a new environment (invasive species). As much as any alligator would like to eat me (or more likely, my pets), they're not "bad" unless they're actually nearby. I like alligators. I respect nature. IMO it's immoral to wantonly destroy nature, and even in cases where there would be some utility to reducing their population (say, the desirability of having more houses in Florida), I think that has to be weighed against their inherent value as living creatures and part of the environment. Ergo, I favor preserving some parkland where the lack of human habitation means there's pretty much no reason to kill gators there. If they leave the park and present a threat, then it's reasonable to trap them and move them back, or kill them if necessary.
With mice, once you remove the immediate environmental factors that fostered the infestation, I don't think you necessarily have to kill them. Seal up your house, secure food sources, remove rubbish and hiding places--those may suffice. At least, if you don't do those things, if you kill a bunch of mice, they'll probably just be replaced.
Quote from: John Morrow;481190Frankly, if I find something truly heinous in a work of art, I find it difficult to ignore. At the very least, it reduces one's enjoyment, does it not?
All things being equal, yeah, it reduces enjoyment some. I still strongly prefer unedited works, though, rather than ones where the supposedly heinous stuff has been excised.
Quote from: John Morrow;481190And that's because I think you can make a causal link in the case of Howard and find actual examples of situations in his stories that sure look racist but not with Tolkien. The main evidence that there is racism in Tolkien seems to be the assumption that there must inevitably be racism in Tolkien and some real stretches related to how certain people looked. And that's why there will be a lot of pushback if you try to insist that people acknowledge the racism in Tolkien.
Like I said before, I'm not going to argue about Tolkien any more. It seems like too much of a hot-button issue for people.
But acknowledging the racism in Robert Howard brings us to the key point about the whole thing. I'll bring up a bunch of possible opinions for purposes of discussion, though I'd be interested in hearing more. (1) Are people who play straight-up Conan-style sword & sorcery morally wrong and should we urge them to change their ways? (2) Should they instead try to disprove any connection between Howard's racial ideas and the fantasy they are enjoying? Or (3) Should they admit that the fantasy is at least somewhat colored by Howard's racism, and still enjoy it as a game - without letting it guide their real-life views?
I'm in favor mainly of (3). However, anyone personally bothered by Howard's racism should totally feel free to change or de-emphasize the racist parts. That doesn't make them elitist - it's just a difference in taste.
QuoteLike I said before, I'm not going to argue about Tolkien any more. It seems like too much of a hot-button issue for people.
What a clever way of describing a factual error, while absolving yourself of responsibility.
Quote from: jhkim;481206All things being equal, yeah, it reduces enjoyment some. I still strongly prefer unedited works, though, rather than ones where the supposedly heinous stuff has been excised.
Like I said before, I'm not going to argue about Tolkien any more. It seems like too much of a hot-button issue for people.
But acknowledging the racism in Robert Howard brings us to the key point about the whole thing. I'll bring up a bunch of possible opinions for purposes of discussion, though I'd be interested in hearing more. (1) Are people who play straight-up Conan-style sword & sorcery morally wrong and should we urge them to change their ways? (2) Should they instead try to disprove any connection between Howard's racial ideas and the fantasy they are enjoying? Or (3) Should they admit that the fantasy is at least somewhat colored by Howard's racism, and still enjoy it as a game - without letting it guide their real-life views?
I'm in favor mainly of (3). However, anyone personally bothered by Howard's racism should totally feel free to change or de-emphasize the racist parts. That doesn't make them elitist - it's just a difference in taste.
I don't think Conan is racist, even if REH was. Conan kills everybody in a completely unbiased fashion.
But seriously, both him and Solomon Kane had black allies (and lovers, in Conan's case). The PCs might have prejudices typical for the time and I think I'd excuse it on the grounds of setting emulation, as long as it doesn't make people uncomfortable - I would expect a historical or pseudohistorical character to have biases in some regard.
I wouldn't play in a S&S game where it appears the world itself has been specifically constructed to demonize some group, or it appears that way (the Horseclans with its evil pederastic Greek people vs. noble Aryan rapist-barbarians, for instance).
However, I think this is moving away from the original point of the thread (which incidentally looks like its now the the third-longest in RPGSite history, with still nothing really resolved).
Quote from: jhkim;481146I think this is a very good question that I would like to ask many of the people arguing against me. I have been expressing the view that one should simply note that something is racist and move on. However, many people here seem very angry at this - and are arguing that it is wrong to label ancient Greeks as racist in a manner that implies it is very important I not do this.
I think people should stop ascribing their own racist ideas to things outside themselves, but nobody seems to be doing what I think they should either. Funny how that works isn't it.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481152I am not angry, I just don't think I understand your position. I am wondering where your "should" is coming from with the centaur. Lets concede that it originally stemmed from greek racism (something I think is debatable but not an unreasonable suggestion); why "should" we have to make note of that? What relevance does it have if the centaur has lost any connotation of racism?
I think it has been a while since we've edited those things out. Most history books make note of the role of things like slavery in the ancient I have a book on Roman Social relations I am leafing through right now. It was written by Ramsay MacMullen in 1970 and he basically lays bare all the social inequalities in Roman society.
Even films and TV are a lot more comfortable dwelling on these sorts of things now. It isn't like the 1950s when historical films were scrubbed for modern viewers.
I am not denying that exploring the meanings behind the Centaur could be interesting (especially if I was making a movie or book about ancient greeks ). In fact you could probably get a good thread out of it here. But I just don't see gamers who are simply including a centaur encounter need to care about that.
"Angry" is the way someone without a supportable position characterizes their opponents in order to attempt to trivialize the opposing position by dismissing it as emotional and not reasonable. You're better off ignoring that bullshit.
Quote from: jhkim;481157I'm not saying "everyone's a little bit racist". I'm saying that people who like me who chanted "A fight! A fight! A n***** and a white!" on a schoolyard are a little bit racist (or at least were so at the time).
"People like me" does not equal everyone. I know this because I never did or said anything even remotely like that at any age. My friends included quite a few different ethnic backgrounds as a kid, and also while I was in high school and again when in the US Army. I've never even heard that chant before.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;481201My games are mythic, and that myth is the fucking Iliad, wherein the Trojans and Achaians are neither absolutely good nor evil. I dunno where this "absolute good and evil are mythic" stuff comes from. If you're dealing with pre-Christian Western myth, "good" and "evil" relate to one another and to people in radically different ways than afterwards (as well as the standards of what is what changing radically in that time).
First, I didn't get anything like a feeling of The Iliad from playing in your game. It came across as much more gritty and down-to-earth to me. I did not see anyone PC or NPC that came across to me as being anything like Achilles, for example. If your campaign world is mythic, it's only in the write-up as far as I can tell. Plus, I'm not sure I would lump The Iliad and The Odyssey in with the same kind of mythic as the myths of Perseus, Theseus, Hercules, Beowulf, etc.. In those myths, the good and the evil are pretty clear, and not debated very much. The heroes are super-heroes, but still "human". The enemies are monstrous and terrifying. "Absolute good and evil are mythic" comes from me, because I've been reading mythology since I was a small child. I have never, not once, read a myth where the protagonist agonizes over whether their enemy can be "redeemed". They go in, kick it's ass, and move the fuck on.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481204You say you were cleaning up a grass pile that was sheltering mice, when you saw a mother mouse scurrying away with her babies. You didn't kill them, and you get points in my book for that. Especially because I don't think that killing the mice was necessary, and mice aren't evil.
What went through my mind was that there were several pragmatic reasons why I should have killed the mice (not only due to the infestation, but also, for example, because I didn't know if I'd injured them or not, since I didn't know they'd be where they were) but that was swept aside because of empathy with the mother mouse. But had I hired an exterminator, I doubt they would have shown such sentimentality had they come upon a mouse nest or would have set traps that kill mice in far more gruesome ways (e.g., glue traps are pretty nasty, and so is rat poison). They couldn't work as exterminators if they showed the same sentimentality that I did. In some ways, I see the heavily armed and combat trained characters created in D&D games like an exterminator. As such, I don't think a Paladin could function if they were expected to show and did show maximal empathy for their opponents unless Evil was a very weak and mild threat in a setting, much as the mice weren't much of a threat to me.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481204With mice, once you remove the immediate environmental factors that fostered the infestation, I don't think you necessarily have to kill them. Seal up your house, secure food sources, remove rubbish and hiding places--those may suffice. At least, if you don't do those things, if you kill a bunch of mice, they'll probably just be replaced.
Well, I've asked what the alternative is for inherently and irredeemably Evil orcs and don't think I got an answer to that (maybe I missed it). Should they be put into internment camps? Reservations? Drive them away and make them someone else's problem? Should the people who coexist with them have to tolerate the occasional random slaughter because the authorities will only act against them once they are guilty of an actual crime? What's the "good" solution here and how much misery does that pass along to either the monsters themselves or those that they will inevitably hurt or kill?
Quote from: jhkim;481206But acknowledging the racism in Robert Howard brings us to the key point about the whole thing. I'll bring up a bunch of possible opinions for purposes of discussion, though I'd be interested in hearing more. (1) Are people who play straight-up Conan-style sword & sorcery morally wrong and should we urge them to change their ways? (2) Should they instead try to disprove any connection between Howard's racial ideas and the fantasy they are enjoying? Or (3) Should they admit that the fantasy is at least somewhat colored by Howard's racism, and still enjoy it as a game - without letting it guide their real-life views?
I think that when most people adapt sword and sorcery for role-playing, they excise the truly racist elements that they notice and essentially sanitize it. I doubt you'll find many people or published adventures based around a premise such as saving a white princess from the evil clutches of black tribesmen, for example, or treating those people as subhuman monsters. While there may be some merit to your point for people who are specifically adapting Howard's work or writing a licensed game based on Conan, so they understand what they are bringing in or leaving out, I think the fantasy and sword and sorcery influences that appear in most role-playing games have already been significantly, if not totally, sanitized for modern audiences.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481204With mice, once you remove the immediate environmental factors that fostered the infestation, I don't think you necessarily have to kill them. Seal up your house, secure food sources, remove rubbish and hiding places--those may suffice. At least, if you don't do those things, if you kill a bunch of mice, they'll probably just be replaced.
In a lot of cases this works, and at home my wife would never let me hire an exterminator for this sort of thing, but I wouldn't take issue (at least I wouldn't equate it with genocide or anything like that) with someone who does in order to keep their house free of rodents or instects. Happens all the time. When they put those poison pellets and spray down, it impacts the babies as much as the adults.
Quote from: John Morrow;481276Well, I've asked what the alternative is for inherently and irredeemably Evil orcs and don't think I got an answer to that (maybe I missed it). Should they be put into internment camps? Reservations? Should the people who coexist with them have to tolerate the occasional random slaughter because the authorities will only act against them once they are guilty of an actual crime? What's the "good" solution here and how much misery does that pass along to either the monsters themselves or those that they will inevitably hurt or kill?
I don't know if this is aimed at me but I'll give it a shot anyway. Like I said upthread somewhere most gamers who use irredeemably evil orcs or races don't find themselves in this situation because their games don't deal with the implications of having evil races in the setting beyond just battling “evil”. If a GM is determined to explore these issues than I think the answers could be (1) a concerted effort to exterminate the evil race down to the last male, female and infant (which personally I don't think would make a heroic game) or (2) an effort to coexist with the evil creatures defending and retaliating when attacked all the while holding on to whatever principles that would stop them from doing (1) (heroic but grim). I realize it’s not a perfect answer Morrow but I think these would be the options that my group would come up with. (Which I suppose goes back to your Kantian/Utilitarian divide from the article you're so fond of)
Regards,
David R
Quote from: J Arcane;481208What a clever way of describing a factual error, while absolving yourself of responsibility.
That's typical of jhkim's disingenuous style of argument. After all these years, I've come to expect it from him in any thread in which he participates.
Quote from: John Morrow;481280I think that when most people adapt sword and sorcery for role-playing, they excise the truly racist elements that they notice and essentially sanitize it. I doubt you'll find many people or published adventures based around a premise such as saving a white princess from the evil clutches of black tribesmen, for example, or treating those people as subhuman monsters. While there may be some merit to your point for people who are specifically adapting Howard's work or writing a licensed game based on Conan, so they understand what they are bringing in or leaving out, I think the fantasy and sword and sorcery influences that appear in most role-playing games have already been significantly, if not totally, sanitized for modern audiences.
For most people, I'd agree with significantly sanitized - though I wouldn't agree totally.
However, what about someone who claims they don't sanitize their Conan game and don't have to, because they claim Conan isn't racist (regardless of what REH thought about real-world race)?
Quote from: Sigmund;481255"Angry" is the way someone without a supportable position characterizes their opponents in order to attempt to trivialize the opposing position by dismissing it as emotional and not reasonable. You're better off ignoring that bullshit.
J Arcane +1'd this.
Quote from: jhkim;481146It's true that older historical values were different than Nazi values, absolutely. However, I think it is even more nonsensical to identify historical values with modern-day non-racist values. Your argument suggests we should call 19th century slavers racist, but call 18th century slavers non-racist. That Nazis were racist, but the Jewish pogroms of the Renaissance were non-racist. That seems equally strange to me. I think it's better to say that historical racism was different than Nazi racism. For that matter, racism in different parts of the world are also different. 19th century Korean racism isn't the same as 19th century American racism.
Regardless of the racism label, though, the point is that myths and stories from history often express values that clash with our modern-day values. If you are basing your game on myths, then what you are using are constructs used to express those historical values. It is blatantly revisionist to say that the "good" and "evil" expressed by historical myths is the same thing that we would consider "good" and "evil" today. There is overlap, but they are not the same thing.
I certainly agree with your 2nd paragraph - concepts of 'good and 'evil' very much do change over time.
"nonsensical to identify historical values with modern-day non-racist values."
I don't do that. If I were being kind, I would call your 'modern day values' "anti-racist", not "non-racist". If I were being harsh I'd call your 'modern day values' "New Left cultural-Marxist anti-white Deconstructionism" or something like that, and probably refer favourably to William S Lind. :D
Going on: 19th century American slavers were racist; whether slavers in the various parts of the rest of the world where slavery was endemic were racist would take a lot of analysis - at a guess I'd say Arab slavers were pretty racist, but added in more religious bigotry to the mix; African slavers weren't particularly racist except in a 'my tribe is stronger than yours, ergo better' sort of way, Brazilian slavers were racist but not as rigid as Americans, etc etc.
18th century - Were early 18th century black slave owners racist against black slaves? I suspect not? AIR modern American racism really emerged in the late 17th & early 18th century with first the ban on black ownership of white slaves in the American colonies, then the ban on white slavery. By several decades before the American Revolution/War of Independence the racial slavery system we're familiar with was in place.
The Jewish pogroms of the Renaissance were definitely more overtly sectarian/religious than racist; Christians of Jewish ancestry were often not identified as alien and tended not to be targeted. Persecuting people 'to save their souls' may be reprehensible but is very different from Nazi or Rwandan style genocide (I'm not sure how the Turks regarded Armenian Muslim converts - I suspect the Armenian genocide was about 80% religious, 20% racial/ethnic).
Quote from: J Arcane;481148Your problem is that "racism" is a very serious charge to most people, and a very specific one to most people.
Yes, for the vast majority of Western people, "racist" indicates "alike unto the Nazis", with all that implies in terms of genocidal inclinations.
Quote from: jhkim;481157Wikipedia: Racism is the belief that there are inherent differences in people's traits and capacities that are entirely due to their race, however defined, and that, as a consequence, racial discrimination (i.e. different treatment of those people, both socially and legally) is justified.
Obviously wikipedia is edited mostly by cultural Marxists like yourself. :D If we leave out the "as a consequence... " bit then yes, most people throughout history, and today, meet the wikipedia definition of racist. Since identifiable races do by definition have identifiably different "traits"*, that would seem to be inevitable.
*Americans typically claim that 'race' is about 'skin colour', but from what I've seen (& I've looked at this a fair bit), American black vs white racial categorisation is not dependent on skin tone, but on nose shape. In the US system you can have brown skin and be "white", but if you have white skin and a 'black' nose, then you're 'black'.
Quote from: Phillip;481158Some years ago, I was astounded to find a classroom of college students overwhelmingly defending child abuse (the cutting off of girls' clitorises) because "it's their religion".
Tell me about it. I know a bunch of academic feminists who put the 'r' in 'radical', but they somehow got the mistaken impression that FGM was Koranically mandated, so they won't dare criticise it.
Quote from: John Morrow;481190And that's because I think you can make a causal link in the case of Howard and find actual examples of situations in his stories that sure look racist but not with Tolkien. The main evidence that there is racism in Tolkien seems to be the assumption that there must inevitably be racism in Tolkien and some real stretches related to how certain people looked. And that's why there will be a lot of pushback if you try to insist that people acknowledge the racism in Tolkien.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. Taken as a whole REH's work comes across to me as pretty nuanced, but some of the stories taken alone certainly can look racist/sexist/etc. Whereas Americans trying to impute American-style racism onto Tolkien I think just show a huge misunderstanding of the author. British Marxists (like the young Moorcock) who criticise him for 'classism' and other 'sins' of high-Toryism are on much firmer ground - they know enough to know where he's coming from.
Quote from: S'mon;481335I certainly agree with your 2nd paragraph - concepts of 'good and 'evil' very much do change over time.
I'm not so sure. Joseph Campbell had a way to classify certain aspects of myth. For instance, he talked about the
natural myth, which is the constant or parallel aspects of myth you can find back all throughout human history, which relate to human nature, the stages of development of our bodies and identities, how we relate to the cosmos around us, etc., and the
societal myth, which is basically a series of dogma or laws on how to behave in society and fit in with the culture we are part of.
The part that evolves over time is the societal myth, while the natural myth is endlessly reinterpreted and retold through various stories, songs, dances, with patterns or archetypes which remain constant.
I believe that good and evil as values are constant. Their existence transcends the field of human experience. There are things that are "right" and fit in the plan, or design, of what you are and who you are and how you relate to others and the world and beyond, and things that are "wrong", which you should not do because that affects your soul, your being, how you relate to others, yourself, the world and beyond.
What changes is each society's interpretation of what, exactly, that means on a societal level, what exactly is a crime, and related punishment, what harms others, and what is okay. It's the societal interpretation that is different.
Quote from: jhkim;481206I'm in favor mainly of (3). However, anyone personally bothered by Howard's racism should totally feel free to change or de-emphasize the racist parts. That doesn't make them elitist - it's just a difference in taste.
I, eh... I find 95% of Howard's work to be non-racist. I tend to ignore the other 5% for game purposes - "What do you mean you don't want to massacre the village of your black allies? There's a white woman needs saving!" just hasn't come up in my Conan games. :D
Quote from: Benoist;481342I'm not so sure. Joseph Campbell had a way to classify certain aspects of myth. For instance, he talked about the natural myth, which is the constant or parallel aspects of myth you can find back all throughout human history, which relate to human nature, the stages of development of our bodies and identities, how we relate to the cosmos around us, etc., and the societal myth, which is basically a series of dogma or laws on how to behave in society and fit in with the culture we are part of.
The part that evolves over time is the societal myth, while the natural myth is endlessly reinterpreted and retold through various stories, songs, dances, with patterns or archetypes which remain constant.
I believe that good and evil as values are constant. Their existence transcends the field of human experience. There are things that are "right" and fit in the plan, or design, of what you are and who you are and how you relate to others and the world and beyond, and things that are "wrong", which you should not do because that affects your soul, your being, how you relate to others, yourself, the world and beyond.
What changes is each society's interpretation of what, exactly, that means on a societal level, what exactly is a crime, and related punishment, what harms others, and what is okay. It's the societal interpretation that is different.
I don't disagree. Violating Taboos is always Bad; but what constitutes a Taboo changes over time. Who can kiss who; whether it's Good or Bad to object to that kiss, etc. We had a very big shift in the UK in a few years under New Labour recently - it went from homosexual kissing being taboo, to objecting to homosexual kissing being officially taboo, in about 5 years, 1997-2002.
Quote from: S'mon;481345I don't disagree. Violating Taboos is always Bad; but what constitutes a Taboo changes over time. Who can kiss who; whether it's Good or Bad to object to that kiss, etc. We had a very big shift in the UK in a few years under New Labour recently - it went from homosexual kissing being taboo, to objecting to homosexual kissing being officially taboo, in about 5 years, 1997-2002.
That's right. That's what I'm talking about.
Quote from: S'mon;481339Obviously wikipedia is edited mostly by cultural Marxists like yourself. :D If we leave out the "as a consequence... " bit then yes, most people throughout history, and today, meet the wikipedia definition of racist. Since identifiable races do by definition have identifiably different "traits"*, that would seem to be inevitable.
*Americans typically claim that 'race' is about 'skin colour', but from what I've seen (& I've looked at this a fair bit), American black vs white racial categorisation is not dependent on skin tone, but on nose shape. In the US system you can have brown skin and be "white", but if you have white skin and a 'black' nose, then you're 'black'.
I dont think it is quite that simple in the us. We tend to use skin color as a starting point, but also rely on other indicators. Also because of our history the white/black distinction is an important one. I believe i mentioned this on another thread but my grandfathers old boxing card from the 40s had a place for "complexion"--he was listed as medium.
Quote from: Sigmund;481261First, I didn't get anything like a feeling of The Iliad from playing in your game. It came across as much more gritty and down-to-earth to me. I did not see anyone PC or NPC that came across to me as being anything like Achilles, for example. If your campaign world is mythic, it's only in the write-up as far as I can tell.
That's cuz I'm sneaky-pete about this stuff in actual play. ;) If you remember the four Geornlings you fought and how that fight developed and ended, I structured it intentionally on the kind of dipylon fighting that the Iliad presents, with a champion (Borvr) and some shieldmen supporting him.
More formally, the naming of enemies and the presentation and development of them is a well-known feature of the poem that I try to bring over into my games whenever possible: Everyone who dies is named, and often even given a epithet and explanation, and their deaths are tragic but inevitable outcomes of their participation of the agone of combat. These features are also present in the Icelandic sagas, another major "mythic" source for my games. I find the pre-Christian heroic ethos that develops in and from Greece tremendously interesting and useful in roleplaying games.
QuotePlus, I'm not sure I would lump The Iliad and The Odyssey in with the same kind of mythic as the myths of Perseus, Theseus, Hercules, Beowulf, etc.. In those myths, the good and the evil are pretty clear, and not debated very much. The heroes are super-heroes, but still "human". The enemies are monstrous and terrifying. "Absolute good and evil are mythic" comes from me, because I've been reading mythology since I was a small child. I have never, not once, read a myth where the protagonist agonizes over whether their enemy can be "redeemed". They go in, kick it's ass, and move the fuck on.
That's because "redemption" is a Christian and post-Christian concept. They're not interested in redeeming their foes because their foes aren't fundamentally evil. Even creatures like the Medusa and Minotaur, while loathsome, are ultimately vicious and dangerous entities like particularly powerful rabid dogs, rather than "evil". Perseus and Theseus aren't killing them because they're evil, but because to do so is a challenge that will demonstrate their virtues (mainly arete) to win the favour of the gods, as well as glory from their fellow men and women.
That to me, as I said earlier, is fundamentally different than "Orcs are evil, so we're merely being proactive in taking them out when they're helpless". In fact, slaying the helpless and weak is particularly contemptible in the heroic ethos because they are not a challenge, not a "fit" opponent to strive against. Neoptolemus demonstrates no virtue at all by killing Astyanax, and it's one of the great crimes hanging over the Greeks' sack, despite its sensibility from a geopolitical / piratical asshole viewpoint (Astyanax would be obligated to avenge his father's death and dishonour on Neoptolemus once he became an adult).
Quote from: S'mon;481335Going on: 19th century American slavers were racist; whether slavers in the various parts of the rest of the world where slavery was endemic were racist would take a lot of analysis - at a guess I'd say Arab slavers were pretty racist, but added in more religious bigotry to the mix; African slavers weren't particularly racist except in a 'my tribe is stronger than yours, ergo better' sort of way, Brazilian slavers were racist but not as rigid as Americans, etc etc.
18th century - Were early 18th century black slave owners racist against black slaves? I suspect not? AIR modern American racism really emerged in the late 17th & early 18th century with first the ban on black ownership of white slaves in the American colonies, then the ban on white slavery. By several decades before the American Revolution/War of Independence the racial slavery system we're familiar with was in place.
You're not answering the general question, by specifying only a black slave-owner being racist against blacks, or whether people have "modern American racism". I completely agree that early racism is going to have differences from modern racism. Obviously a black slave owner is unlikely to be racist "against" all black-skinned people, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't discriminate towards any race.
However, the question is - do you think it is more accurate to say that most people were "non-racist" or "not racist" in history - as opposed to saying that they were racist in different ways than modern racists?
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481350I dont think it is quite that simple in the us. We tend to use skin color as a starting point, but also rely on other indicators. Also because of our history the white/black distinction is an important one. I believe i mentioned this on another thread but my grandfathers old boxing card from the 40s had a place for "complexion"--he was listed as medium.
Black/white is done by the noses. Trust me, I'm married to a Southerner. :D
I think skin tone did use to be more important - it was especially important among upper-middle-class mixed-race black Americans, with the 'paper bag test' for social acceptibility. But whites also cared about complexion; fair WASP & Scandinavian complexions being seen as superior to darker Mediterranean tones, such as typical for Italian-Americans of Sicilian origin. That strong emphasis on skin tone among whites seems to have been a Yankee thing from what I can tell, and prompted by the late 19c immigration waves. Among white Southerners you could be dark like Johnny Cash, and as long as you had a straight nose & straight hair you were 'white', and (typically) not ranked inferior to someone with pale white skin. (There might be talk of your 'Cherokee ancestry' - occasionally even real!)
Whereas in all parts of the US if you have a 'black' nose you were and are black, the one-drop rule applied and applies. So Henry Louis Gates is 'black' despite being paler than the average Italian-American.
Quote from: S'mon;481362Black/white is done by the noses. Trust me, I'm married to a Southerner. :D
I think skin tone did use to be more important - it was especially important among upper-middle-class mixed-race black Americans, with the 'paper bag test' for social acceptibility. But whites also cared about complexion; fair WASP & Scandinavian complexions being seen as superior to darker Mediterranean tones, such as typical for Italian-Americans of Sicilian origin. That strong emphasis on skin tone among whites seems to have been a Yankee thing from what I can tell, and prompted by the late 19c immigration waves. Among white Southerners you could be dark like Johnny Cash, and as long as you had a straight nose & straight hair you were 'white', and (typically) not ranked inferior to someone with pale white skin. (There might be talk of your 'Cherokee ancestry' - occasionally even real!)
Whereas in all parts of the US if you have a 'black' nose you were and are black, the one-drop rule applied and applies. So Henry Louis Gates is 'black' despite being paler than the average Italian-American.
I am not from the south, so your wife might have a point about southern united states. But here in the north east I think we usually begin with skin tone followed by other general features (though to be honest the nose has never been a strong indicator for me personally). I've never heard of a nose rule before.
Quote from: jhkim;481358However, the question is - do you think it is more accurate to say that most people were "non-racist" or "not racist" in history - as opposed to saying that they were racist in different ways than modern racists?
I think that by your definition, almost everyone in history was racist, as you say.
In the "like the Nazis" definition which is at very least the undercurrent in all uses of the word, I'd say no, before the Enlightenment it's a meaningless concept. The roots of American 'racism' lay in the Enlightenment view of Human Rights (Christian in origin, but secularised). If everyone has Human Rights, but we still want to enslave those guys, then they can't be fully Human. This applied to a lesser extent to European colonialism in general, I think.
Then the Nazi ideology combined 19th century ideas of race-superiority with Rousseauean romanticism into a Total Race War ethos, a lot like the Communist Total Class War, and from very similar roots.
Modern Racists - people who would actually call themselves Racists - always refer to the Nazi model of race-hate and genocide.
Kim, you're a smart guy, stop wasting your time explaining racism to a wanker who uses the term "cultural Marxism" semi-seriously.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481364I am not from the south, so your wife might have a point about southern united states. But here in the north east I think we usually begin with skin tone followed by other general features (though to be honest the nose has never been a strong indicator for me personally). I've never heard of a nose rule before.
It may not be conscious with you, but it's remarkably consistent. IME people with African noses are always classed as 'black' in the US, even if their skin is lighter than that of most whites. If you look at a bunch of the black intellectuals & politicos around Obama (like Gates, or formerly Rev Wright), you might see what I mean. Many of them are lighter-skinned than the average Sicilian.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;481368Kim, you're a smart guy, stop wasting your time explaining racism to a wanker who uses the term "cultural Marxism" semi-seriously.
That always really bugs the scum, for some reason. On rpgnet they even start vomiting.
Quote from: S'mon;481339Obviously wikipedia is edited mostly by cultural Marxists like yourself. :D If we leave out the "as a consequence... " bit then yes, most people throughout history, and today, meet the wikipedia definition of racist. Since identifiable races do by definition have identifiably different "traits"*, that would seem to be inevitable.
Quote from: S'mon;481366I think that by your definition, almost everyone in history was racist, as you say.
In the "like the Nazis" definition which is at very least the undercurrent in all uses of the word, I'd say no, before the Enlightenment it's a meaningless concept.
OK, sure, the Wikipedia entry was phrased badly - but that's ignoring the other source I gave. In fact, all the dictionaries that I've browsed have minor variations of the same theme - discrimination and belief in superiority based on race. If you have a source for the "Nazis-only" definition of racism, I'd love to see it.
In any case, I can see this as a clear source of discrepancy. For example, Tolkien sent a reply to potential German publishers where he said, "
But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people." Now, this clearly establishes Tolkien as not a Nazi - he hated them. However, in doing so he refers to Jews as "that gifted people" - which doesn't reject the idea of racial superiority/inferiority in general.
Quote from: jhkim;481379In any case, I can see this as a clear source of discrepancy. For example, Tolkien sent a reply to potential German publishers where he said, "But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people." Now, this clearly establishes Tolkien as not a Nazi - he hated them. However, in doing so he refers to Jews as "that gifted people" - which doesn't reject the idea of racial superiority/inferiority in general.
I don't think most people would categorize Tolkein's description of Jews as "that gifted people" as racism. It also needn't have been a statement about race. He could simply have been refering to Jewish culture.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481382I don't think most people would categorize Tolkein's description of Jews as "that gifted people" as racism. It also needn't have been a statement about race. He could simply have been refering to Jewish culture.
Remarking on an actual extant culture is merely reality...I am Scottish, does someone's noting my paleness count as racism? I think not....
Quote from: LordVreeg;481393Remarking on an actual extant culture is merely reality...I am Scottish, does someone's noting my paleness count as racism? I think not....
Also if I understand the context of the statement made by Tolkein correctly, it sounds more like a rebuff against German hatred of the Jews than any kind of endorsement for the idea of racial superiority.
Quote from: S'mon;481339*Americans typically claim that 'race' is about 'skin colour', but from what I've seen (& I've looked at this a fair bit), American black vs white racial categorisation is not dependent on skin tone, but on nose shape. In the US system you can have brown skin and be "white", but if you have white skin and a 'black' nose, then you're 'black'.
As someone who has been on the receiving end, I can say without much hesitation that it's skin tone and not noses. Certainly looking brown but having a white nose didn't help at all.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;481397As someone who has been on the receiving end, I can say without much hesitation that it's skin tone and not noses. Certainly looking brown but having a white nose didn't help at all.
Regards,
David R
I always thought of it as pretty comprehensive, but starting with skin tone. When I lived in North County (where racism was a lot more widespread than in Mass), kids used to tease me saying I had a "black nose" but no one seriously thought I was black. Most of them just mistook me for mexican.
Quote from: S'mon;481366Modern Racists - people who would actually call themselves Racists - always refer to the Nazi model of race-hate and genocide.
Not at all. Most I have seen subscribe to the separate but "equal" policy. The Nazi caricature is convenient because it takes away from the less obvious but in the long run more insidious racist out there.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481399I always thought of it as pretty comprehensive, but starting with skin tone. When I lived in North County (where racism was a lot more widespread than in Mass), kids used to tease me saying I had a "black nose" but no one seriously thought I was black. Most of them just mistook me for mexican.
Well I'm a Pakistani when in London.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;481403Well I'm a Pakistani when in London.
Regards,
David R
I imagine British attitudes toward race are pretty different than US attitudes.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481404I imagine British attitudes toward race are pretty different than US attitudes.
Sure, but I was just commenting on how colour is the focus. I mean it's the first thing you notice.
Regards,
David R
Haven't read the thread much past the posts from which these quotes are drawn, so apologies if I'm duplicating or cross-posting. This begins with the mice in John Morrow's yard.
Quote from: John Morrow;481276[...][Professional exterminators] couldn't work as exterminators if they showed the same sentimentality that I did. In some ways, I see the heavily armed and combat trained characters created in D&D games like an exterminator. As such, I don't think a Paladin could function if they were expected to show and did show maximal empathy for their opponents unless Evil was a very weak and mild threat in a setting, much as the mice weren't much of a threat to me.
Well, I've asked what the alternative is for inherently and irredeemably Evil orcs and don't think I got an answer to that (maybe I missed it). Should they be put into internment camps? Reservations? Drive them away and make them someone else's problem? Should the people who coexist with them have to tolerate the occasional random slaughter because the authorities will only act against them once they are guilty of an actual crime? What's the "good" solution here and how much misery does that pass along to either the monsters themselves or those that they will inevitably hurt or kill?
To begin with, the mice are only a starting point. To an extent I suppose I'm just pointing out the inadequacy of the mice as an analogy for fantasy orcs. At the same time, I recognize that exterminators have a job to do, it's not an evil job per se, and often it requires killing animals. At the same time, I think the threshold for cruelty and killing of animals is lower than it ought to be, worldwide. A lot of it is unthinking, or weighs convenience more highly against the well-being of animals than ought to be done. Recognizing how common this, I often don't think badly of the people involved, but as I said before, you get bonus points for going the extra mile, or even for showing a little mercy by not acting. (Why only "often"? Well, to give one example, I've come across discussions on a rabbit breeding forum where people talked about the best way to euthanize rabbits that didn't have the desired breed characteristics. As far as I'm concerned, these animals were bred for pure vanity, and will now be discarded for the same reason, and some of the participants advocated suffocation in a blanket as a cheap, convenient, no-mess method of disposing of the undesirables. This is both inhumane and a shirking of responsibility.)
As for your second question, if you are treating the fantasy world in a naturalistic fashion, how exactly are you defining inherently and irredeemably evil? In the real world,
Yersinia pestis is the closest thing I can think of to "irredeemably evil", alongside the HIV virus, the hemorrhagic fever viruses, smallpox, etc. There's a bit of human-chauvinism there (to the natural world, human diseases might be good since they help keep us under control), but I can live with that, especially as I'm willing to put a premium on sentient life. For human-like creatures, I've tried very hard to think of a way a species could be
congenitally evil. The closest I can think of would be something like chimpanzees (
Pan troglodytes), which although cute as babies, and capable of a form of culture, are very strong and prone to violence. They've been known to kill each other, kill humans, even engaging in infanticide (of their own species and ours). I don't think they're evil, at all, but to use the term I introduced in an earlier post, they would be "noxious" if they lived among us indiscriminately.
So let's say we're talking about creatures which are a bit like smart chimps. I'm willing to entertain the notion of humanoids which can talk, use tools, reason, etc., but which are also congenitally aggressive, violent, impulsive, rapacious (much more than humans). Let's say they even enjoy killing things and being generally destructive.
Were they always this way? If not, why couldn't they change back? If they've always been so destructive, why didn't they die out after depleting their native environment? If they formerly lived in balance with their environment, was there some recent event that brought them into contact with humanity?
To make a long story short, I think the in-depth analysis of why it's okay to kill orc females & young is an overly-literal interpretation of a few cues from the texts, possibly combined with assumptions brought in from outside of the game (such as familiarity with Tolkien). And it isn't matched with consistently in-depth analysis of the sense in which orcs are "evil" in the first place, yet portrayed as creatures of the natural world.
AD&D 1e does say that orcs are "lawful evil". It does suggest that they're congenitally violent. It doesn't say that orcs have always been "evil" or that they always will be. IMO, AD&D, while designed with an absolute morality, isn't intended to be turned into a mathematically perfect, universally applicable philosophy. Like Newtonian physics, it provides a local truth which breaks down under extreme conditions. One of those is speculating on the "necessity" of wiping out orcs due to the speculative future harm that would be caused by allowing them to live. In practical terms, I think the best approach in the sense of how the DM handles the game would indeed be to just let the "good guys" run them off. Or, if the PCs kill the young, does that mean there won't be any more trouble with orcs in the game?
Quote from: David R;481405Sure, but I was just commenting on how colour is the focus. I mean it's the first thing you notice.
Regards,
David R
And I was agreeing. I think the focus is the color.
By the way, I'm wondering what this business is about centaurs being connected to ancient Greek racism.
I've heard the theory, which I think is plausible, that the myth of centaurs came from the earliest contact of non-horse-riding people with horse-riders. (Note that in the Mediterranean world, horse-riding, at least in a military context, was preceded by the use of chariots.) The idea is that people saw men riding horses (or heard reports about them) and thought they were a single creature.
How this translates into "racism", particularly in the sense of asserting superiority or justifying discrimination, I'm not sure.
I do agree, again on the basis of plausibility than any real proof, that the idea of entire "races" of humanoids (elves, goblins, etc.) in myth is probably a dim culturally-transmitted memory of encounters with "others". However, I think the mythological use of these themes often lost its connection to the original relationships.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481414By the way, I'm wondering what this business is about centaurs being connected to ancient Greek racism.
I've heard the theory, which I think is plausible, that the myth of centaurs came from the earliest contact of non-horse-riding people with horse-riders. (Note that in the Mediterranean world, horse-riding, at least in a military context, was preceded by the use of chariots.) The idea is that people saw men riding horses (or heard reports about them) and thought they were a single creature.
I've heard this explanation too. Don't know how much weight it actually carries. It sounds to me like one of those explanations that makes sense when you hear it, but falls apart under more scrutiny. But I honestly have no idea.
QuoteHow this translates into "racism", particularly in the sense of asserting superiority or justifying discrimination, I'm not sure.
This is where I am pretty fuzzy too. It sounds like an honest misunderstanding if the explanation is correct. But even if it were a product of greek intolerance of other peoples, I don't see why it is all that relevant to us today; why we would need to acknowledge it if we plan to use centaurs in our game.
QuoteI do agree, again on the basis of plausibility than any real proof, that the idea of entire "races" of humanoids (elves, goblins, etc.) in myth is probably a dim culturally-transmitted memory of encounters with "others". However, I think the mythological use of these themes often lost its connection to the original relationships.
For me this is the key thing. Whatever racist connotations these things may have carried has long since evaporated.
Quote from: jhkim;481206Like I said before, I'm not going to argue about Tolkien any more. It seems like too much of a hot-button issue for people.
In other words you got
schooled, but aren't man enough to admit it.
QuoteBut acknowledging the racism in Robert Howard brings us to the key point about the whole thing. I'll bring up a bunch of possible opinions for purposes of discussion, though I'd be interested in hearing more. (1) Are people who play straight-up Conan-style sword & sorcery morally wrong and should we urge them to change their ways? (2) Should they instead try to disprove any connection between Howard's racial ideas and the fantasy they are enjoying? Or (3) Should they admit that the fantasy is at least somewhat colored by Howard's racism, and still enjoy it as a game - without letting it guide their real-life views?
I'm in favor mainly of (3). However, anyone personally bothered by Howard's racism should totally feel free to change or de-emphasize the racist parts. That doesn't make them elitist - it's just a difference in taste.
The definitions of racism you posted said, very plainly, it was a belief. Only people can hold beliefs, not inanimate objects, or stories, or games. Hence, no inanimate object is racist. The fact that Howard was possibly racist is inconsequential, because a game based on his works is, by definition, not racist.
To put another way, you can try to rephrase your "guilt by association" premise all you want, but it's still a logical fallacy.
Quote from: TristramEvans;481417The definitions of racism you posted said, very plainly, it was a belief. Only people can hold beliefs, not inanimate objects, or stories, or games. Hence, no inanimate object is racist. The fact that Howard was possibly racist is inconsequential, because a game based on his works is, by definition, not racist.
Well a game based on the works of a writer may or may not contain racists ideas if the designers of said game do or do not subscribe to the racist beliefs of the writer in question.
Regards,
David R
I wonder what you guys would make of this review of Space 1889?
http://www.space1889.org/sp1889rev.html
Quote from: S'mon;481372That always really bugs the scum, for some reason. On rpgnet they even start vomiting.
Cool story bro.
Quote from: David R;481289I don't know if this is aimed at me but I'll give it a shot anyway.
It was aimed at anyone who wants to answer it, so by all means give it a shot. I'm interested in how people answer it.
Quote from: David R;481289Like I said upthread somewhere most gamers who use irredeemably evil orcs or races don't find themselves in this situation because their games don't deal with the implications of having evil races in the setting beyond just battling "evil".
Sure, just like a lot of games assume that any bad guy that goes down in combat is instantly dead so that the question of what to do with wounded or captured bad guys never comes up, either. And that's all that is certainly a way to deal with things, too, though it can cause some verisimilitude issues.
Quote from: David R;481289If a GM is determined to explore these issues than I think the answers could be (1) a concerted effort to exterminate the evil race down to the last male, female and infant (which personally I don't think would make a heroic game) or (2) an effort to coexist with the evil creatures defending and retaliating when attacked all the while holding on to whatever principles that would stop them from doing (1) (heroic but grim). I realize it's not a perfect answer Morrow but I think these would be the options that my group would come up with. (Which I suppose goes back to your Kantian/Utilitarian divide from the article you're so fond of)
I agree, it does come back to question of Kant vs. Mill as presented in the article I'm so fond of (//discovermagazine.com/2004/apr/whose-life-would-you-save). And there is a quote in that article that you could certainly throw back at me:
QuoteThe puzzle of moral judgments grabbed Greene's attention when he was a philosophy major at Harvard University. Most modern theories of moral reasoning, he learned, were powerfully shaped by one of two great philosophers: Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. Kant believed that pure reason alone could lead us to moral truths. Based on his own pure reasoning, for instance, he declared that it was wrong to use someone for your own ends and that it was right to act only according to principles that everyone could follow.
John Stuart Mill, by contrast, argued that the rules of right and wrong should above all else achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people, even though particular individuals might be worse off as a result. (This approach became known as utilitarianism, based on the "utility" of a moral rule.) "Kant puts what's right before what's good," says Greene. "Mill puts what's good before what's right."
In that sense, you are basically arguing that heroes should do what's good rather than doing what's right, and I think there is a fair argument to be made there. I personally wouldn't mind playing in such a game, but I think your assessment that it can be grim is correct, and it can be just as grim even with normal human opponents, just as military service in Iraq or Afghanistan can be grim.
But I'm also still left with doubts that people would object as strongly to such killings if a game that revolved around exterminating zombies, regardless of whether they look like babies, retrain sentience and can reason and talk to you (as they do in several zombie movies), or are helpless or unaware when they are killed. Am I wrong? Do you find things like zombie hunting, if the zombies have some intelligence, and classic vampire slaying, which can include staking them in their coffins while they sleep, also unheroic and not good? Does it change anything if the zombies or vampires are in the form of children?
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481407At the same time, I think the threshold for cruelty and killing of animals is lower than it ought to be, worldwide. A lot of it is unthinking, or weighs convenience more highly against the well-being of animals than ought to be done. Recognizing how common this, I often don't think badly of the people involved, but as I said before, you get bonus points for going the extra mile, or even for showing a little mercy by not acting.
I understand that there is more cruelty against animals than their needs to be and I would not personally set a glue trap for mice or rats and would not want an exterminator that relied on them. And please note that I'm not advocating a party of heroes using orc babies for sword practice like the Japanese did with Chinese babies at Nanking. In fact, the Paladin code in my D&D game specifically stated, "Evil that cannot be redeemed that is in your charge should be dispatched quickly and without malice," to specify that any such killing should be done humanely and not be driven by hatred.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481407As for your second question, if you are treating the fantasy world in a naturalistic fashion, how exactly are you defining inherently and irredeemably evil? [...] For human-like creatures, I've tried very hard to think of a way a species could be congenitally evil.
I've been over this several times here in great detail, including the sources that informed my opinions, and I'll assume you missed that. The short answer is that violent psychopaths and chimpanzees provide a pretty good model for how a sentient and rational creature could be compulsively cruel and murderous and be unwilling and unable to change. Remove their conscience (psychopaths lack a conscience). Add enjoyment of cruelty and murder. Perhaps suppress self-restraint. Make it the natural mental state of the creature that they are born with. If you are honestly interested in the details, let me know and I'll send you some links via PM, since I think I've bored a lot of people to death here with them.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481407In practical terms, I think the best approach in the sense of how the DM handles the game would indeed be to just let the "good guys" run them off.
I don't think that eliminates the moral problem, nor do I think it's a great solution of they are not irredeemably evil. If the setting is a dangerous place, leaving the young (and perhaps their mothers) alone and letting them run off would often simply mean that they die off camera at some near-future date, the victims of nature or other monsters in the setting. You've killed their warriors and hunters and now expect them to survive on their own?
Quote from: jhkim;481318For most people, I'd agree with significantly sanitized - though I wouldn't agree totally.
And I think that's going to depend on your definition of racism. I think most people consciously or unconsciously sanitize their own games and settings of racism as a reality of the setting or built in to the expectation of how heroes will behave. If you still find racism there and the person responsible isn't clearly a racist, you can either accept that they honestly have a different definition than you do or you argue why their definition is wrong, but any racism that you find will either be unintentional or what you imagine to be there, not any sort of overt or deliberate racism.
Quote from: jhkim;481318However, what about someone who claims they don't sanitize their Conan game and don't have to, because they claim Conan isn't racist (regardless of what REH thought about real-world race)?
Then I think the problem is with that individual rather than a blanket concern and I think it would be useful to point out to them why the unsanitized elements are problematic. At the very least, their reaction could help you determine if they are simply being naive, have a reasonable or unreasonable difference of opinion with you, or if they are truly racist themselves. When I say that I believe Howard was a racist, I have evidence that I believe supports that claim. I don't toss it around lightly. If you think someone is incorporating racist elements into their setting or game, then call them on it and explain why you think it's racist.
Quote from: S'mon;48133518th century - Were early 18th century black slave owners racist against black slaves? I suspect not? AIR modern American racism really emerged in the late 17th & early 18th century with first the ban on black ownership of white slaves in the American colonies, then the ban on white slavery. By several decades before the American Revolution/War of Independence the racial slavery system we're familiar with was in place.
According to my Colonial History professor in college, the shift was related to the change from indentured servitude of both whites and blacks to chattel slavery of blacks only. He said that before that shift, court records show both black and white landowners siding against black and white indentured servants, with class mattering more than race.
Quote from: jhkim;481379For example, Tolkien sent a reply to potential German publishers where he said, "But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people." Now, this clearly establishes Tolkien as not a Nazi - he hated them. However, in doing so he refers to Jews as "that gifted people" - which doesn't reject the idea of racial superiority/inferiority in general.
Has it completely escaped you that maybe Tolkien was offended by the question and just being a smartass with his answer?
Quote from: John Morrow;481446But I'm also still left with doubts that people would object as strongly to such killings if a game that revolved around exterminating zombies, regardless of whether they look like babies, retrain sentience and can reason and talk to you (as they do in several zombie movies), or are helpless or unaware when they are killed. Am I wrong? Do you find things like zombie hunting, if the zombies have some intelligence, and classic vampire slaying, which can include staking them in their coffins while they sleep, also unheroic and not good? Does it change anything if the zombies or vampires are in the form of children?
Well here's the thing, when someone/thing is attacking you with deadly force (and let's not quibble as to what constitues "deadly" - I'm assuming a zombie is going to keep attacking you until there's nothing left of it or you) then you respond likewise. So even if it's zombie babies or children even though they retain some sentience (however rudimentary) then it's a killed or be killed situation. I suppose some would consider slaying a vampire when the vampire is asleep unheroic but I would argue since (we are talking about gaming here) even getting close to said vampire while evading his minions is in a sense heroic. I fully support the notion that pragmatism has a place in heroism.
Like I said upthread, it's not that I can't think of a situation in which a child could be killed, I listed a few real world examples which could be used as fodder to rationalize killing an evil child, it's just that I think a campaign where such events occur are unheroic and something which I and maybe some others don't really enjoy.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Machinegun Blue;481424I wonder what you guys would make of this review of Space 1889?
http://www.space1889.org/sp1889rev.html
The authour appears to be a commie mutant traitor.
Quote from: John Morrow;481447I don't think that eliminates the moral problem, nor do I think it's a great solution of they are not irredeemably evil. If the setting is a dangerous place, leaving the young (and perhaps their mothers) alone and letting them run off would often simply mean that they die off camera at some near-future date, the victims of nature or other monsters in the setting. You've killed their warriors and hunters and now expect them to survive on their own?
I think this illustrates the problem pretty well. It's also why I don't use irredeemably evil creatures. I'm sure there's a reason (ok maybe I'm not sure) why the heroes are confronted with young ones and their mothers but in a campaign where the default is not irredeemably evil (who am I kidding, even if it is my crew would probably do this), then the heroes can take steps to ensure that the survivors of their raid is taken care of and as the GM I am sure I would be able to come up with an in game rationale. If the heroes don't have the time to care - escort them some place etc -then they could return for them when they have finished whatever errand they are on. I know, I know, pretty dodgy ( I guess I need specifics) but think of it like real world soldiers escorting villagers after confronting enemy fighters.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;481459I think this illustrates the problem pretty well. It's also why I don't use irredeemably evil creatures. I'm sure there's a reason (ok maybe I'm not sure) why the heroes are confronted with young ones and their mothers but in a campaign where the default is not irredeemably evil (who am I kidding, even if it is my crew would probably do this), then the heroes can take steps to ensure that the survivors of their raid is taken care of and as the GM I am sure I would be able to come up with an in game rationale. If the heroes don't have the time to care - escort them some place etc -then they could return for them when they have finished whatever errand they are on. I know, I know, pretty dodgy ( I guess I need specifics) but think of it like real world soldiers escorting villagers after confronting enemy fighters.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, B2 Keep on the Borderlands contains many dungeon rooms filled with females and young of various humanoid species. I'm curious if anyone has ever seen the players take that sort of approach to those encounters rather than simply slaughtering them or leaving them there without a second thought.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481415I've heard this explanation too. Don't know how much weight it actually carries. It sounds to me like one of those explanations that makes sense when you hear it, but falls apart under more scrutiny. But I honestly have no idea.
It's part of a common trend in ancient Greek thought that views any non-Greek culture as less human than Greeks. Centaurs, satyrs, and the like were uncultured, unlearned, had no control over their appetites, and drank unmixed wine, traits which were frequently applied to non-Greek peoples.
QuoteThis is where I am pretty fuzzy too. It sounds like an honest misunderstanding if the explanation is correct. But even if it were a product of greek intolerance of other peoples, I don't see why it is all that relevant to us today; why we would need to acknowledge it if we plan to use centaurs in our game.
I think it's relevant if you're at all interested in examining the real-world associations and parallels that can be drawn from your gaming. Discovering the origins and original assumptions that behind the tropes you use is a place to start. And if a centaur doesn't mean the same thing to me as it did to an ancient Greek, then what does it mean?
I think the same thing goes for other D&D tropes. It's often been pointed out that the implied story in D&D, of taming and civilizing a wilderness taps into American tropes of taming and colonising the West. You can enjoy playing it without examining the real-world parallels and the implications of those parallels, and it's fun. But if you do examine the parallels, the association to colonisation is easy to make, and that brings in a lot of other really ugly associations that go along with real-world colonisation, the foremost being genocide. If you bring those associations back into the game, it makes th presence of orcs, as a race to be exterminated, pretty distasteful. Once you've made that association, it's hard to unmake, and you're probably going to want ways to remove or mitigate the association between orcs and colonised natives and make them into metaphors of another kind. John associates them with psychopaths and vermin, but I'm not sure this really fixes the problem. It's possible he also intentionally structures his game-world so that it doesn't implicitly parallel real-world colonialism. Tolkien made orcs a metaphor for universal human problems: greed, anger, envy, etc. Which I personally find more satisfying. But he also didn't really have the problem D&D has of being so easily linked to colonial expansion.
Quote from: John Morrow;481494As I mentioned earlier in the thread, B2 Keep on the Borderlands contains many dungeon rooms filled with females and young of various humanoid species. I'm curious if anyone has ever seen the players take that sort of approach to those encounters rather than simply slaughtering them or leaving them there without a second thought.
Yeah I was wondering about that. Maybe the policy changed but I don't recall many adventures that had females and young humanoids as potential targets. I''m talking about later day adventures and the stuff that came out in
Dungeon. Maybe the policy changed but concede I'm no expert when it comes to policy matters concerning
D&D.
A question. In that campaign you ran, how did it play out, when the child orcs and females were put to the sword ? Was there screaming and pleading for life or did events happen offscreen ?
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;481455Well here's the thing, when someone/thing is attacking you with deadly force (and let's not quibble as to what constitues "deadly" - I'm assuming a zombie is going to keep attacking you until there's nothing left of it or you) then you respond likewise. So even if it's zombie babies or children even though they retain some sentience (however rudimentary) then it's a killed or be killed situation.
And if the young of Evil sentient creatures are similarly violent and dangerous, does that change things?
Quote from: David R;481455I suppose some would consider slaying a vampire when the vampire is asleep unheroic but I would argue since (we are talking about gaming here) even getting close to said vampire while evading his minions is in a sense heroic. I fully support the notion that pragmatism has a place in heroism.
I have seen plenty of vampire movies where the heroes did not have to fight minions to get to the sleeping vampire. They simply had to figure out where they were hiding.
Quote from: David R;481455Like I said upthread, it's not that I can't think of a situation in which a child could be killed, I listed a few real world examples which could be used as fodder to rationalize killing an evil child, it's just that I think a campaign where such events occur are unheroic and something which I and maybe some others don't really enjoy.
In practice, in my D&D campaign, it happened once and the players certainly didn't find it enjoyable, so I wouldn't want a campaign to revolve around it. But a key concern driving my decision was what the boundaries of Good behavior were in the setting I was running, since alignment shifts have repercussions in D&D, and I believe that pragmatism also has a place in being Good when being compassionate will not only not be fruitful but will lead to later misery or death for others. I think a Good character can make the case that no good and much harm can come form leaving an Evil creature alive because it is currently helpless. I see some parallels with the ending of Old Yeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Yeller_(1957_film)).
Quote from: two_fishes;481495It's part of a common trend in ancient Greek thought that views any non-Greek culture as less human than Greeks. Centaurs, satyrs, and the like were uncultured, unlearned, had no control over their appetites, and drank unmixed wine, traits which were frequently applied to non-Greek peoples.
I understand the greeks looked down on non-greeks, I just am not sure how I see you can make the jump from that to "satyrs are a product of that tendancy". It certainly could be, but it seems like it is in there with a number of equally plausible theories.
QuoteI think it's relevant if you're at all interested in examining the real-world associations and parallels that can be drawn from your gaming. Discovering the origins and original assumptions that behind the tropes you use is a place to start. And if a centaur doesn't mean the same thing to me as it did to an ancient Greek, then what does it mean?
I think the same thing goes for other D&D tropes. It's often been pointed out that the implied story in D&D, of taming and civilizing a wilderness taps into American tropes of taming and colonising the West. You can enjoy playing it without examining the real-world parallels and the implications of those parallels, and it's fun. But if you do examine the parallels, the association to colonisation is easy to make, and that brings in a lot of other really ugly associations that go along with real-world colonisation, the foremost being genocide. If you bring those associations back into the game, it makes th presence of orcs, as a race to be exterminated, pretty distasteful. Once you've made that association, it's hard to unmake, and you're probably going to want ways to remove or mitigate the association between orcs and colonised natives and make them into metaphors of another kind. John associates them with psychopaths and vermin, but I'm not sure this really fixes the problem. It's possible he also intentionally structures his game-world so that it doesn't implicitly parallel real-world colonialism. Tolkien made orcs a metaphor for universal human problems: greed, anger, envy, etc. Which I personally find more satisfying. But he also didn't really have the problem D&D has of being so easily linked to colonial expansion.
I guess I just don't see this myself.
Quote from: David R;481497A question. In that campaign you ran, how did it play out, when the child orcs and females were put to the sword ? Was there screaming and pleading for life or did events happen offscreen ?
It happened very much on screen, which is why it was grim. The players infiltrated the goblin den with stealth to rescue some captives. There, they dealt with a goblin guard who made a deal to betray his fellows and give the party information if the Paladin would promise to spare his life, which they did. On the way out, they wound up engaging the males in the den. I don't remember if they were spotted or decided to engage on their own after witnessing the goblins brutalizing each other. After the males were killed in battle, the females, who were essentially trapped down a tunnel, drove their children into the party in an attempt to escape, and then the stronger females drove out the weaker females, and so on. The carnage and how brutal it was was quite clear to all involved because the combat was played out. When they finally went back to that part of the den, they caught the two strongest females who were hiding. If I remember correctly, they begged for their lives and tried to make deals but were still killed. I think that wasn't very controversial, not only because they were irredeemably Evil but out of disgust over what they'd done to survive that long (sacrificing the lives of their own children, sisters, and so on).
Quote from: John Morrow;481499And if the young of Evil sentient creatures are similarly violent and dangerous, does that change things?
Like I said, if the heroes are being attacked then they have to defend themselves. I mentioned real world child soldiers and cartel assasins for a reason. Like I said, killing evil children is not the problem, it's just not very heroic.
QuoteI have seen plenty of vampire movies where the heroes did not have to fight minions to get to the sleeping vampire. They simply had to figure out where they were hiding.
But it's differnet in games or at least the ones I run. But if you don't think my "pragmatism has a place in heroism" goes far enough, ok maybe slaughtering a vampire in his sleep is not very heroic.
QuoteI think a Good character can make the case that no good and much harm can come form leaving an Evil creature alive because it is currently helpless. I see some parallels with the ending of Old Yeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Yeller_(1957_film)).
I think a Good character can make such a case only if you define evil as irredeemable.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: two_fishes;481495I think the same thing goes for other D&D tropes. It's often been pointed out that the implied story in D&D, of taming and civilizing a wilderness taps into American tropes of taming and colonising the West. You can enjoy playing it without examining the real-world parallels and the implications of those parallels, and it's fun. But if you do examine the parallels, the association to colonisation is easy to make, and that brings in a lot of other really ugly associations that go along with real-world colonisation, the foremost being genocide. If you bring those associations back into the game, it makes th presence of orcs, as a race to be exterminated, pretty distasteful. Once you've made that association, it's hard to unmake, and you're probably going to want ways to remove or mitigate the association between orcs and colonised natives and make them into metaphors of another kind. John associates them with psychopaths and vermin, but I'm not sure this really fixes the problem. It's possible he also intentionally structures his game-world so that it doesn't implicitly parallel real-world colonialism.
The humans weren't particularly expansive in my game, so I don't really see a colonialism metaphor, and it's not uncommon for orcs to be depicted as invaders rather than indigenous aboriginals being wiped out by invading hoards of humans.
But if you want a metaphor for European expansion into the Americas, I would say that the Spaniards attacking the Aztecs would be closer. While you can certainly question the greed for gold on the part of the Spaniards, the neighbors of the Aztecs helped them because the Aztecs were quite brutal and nasty and, frankly, I think the world is a better place not having pyramids coated in human blood just like I think the world is a better place without Nazi death camps or Khmer Rouge killing fields.
Quote from: David R;481502I think a Good character can make such a case only if you define evil as irredeemable.
And that's exactly what I did with certain creatures. I get your point about heroic and non-heroic and agree with it to at least some degree. But my concern was what Good characters were permitted to do more than whether what they are permitted to do is heroic or not.
Quote from: John Morrow;481501It happened very much on screen, which is why it was grim. The players infiltrated the goblin den with stealth to rescue some captives. There, they dealt with a goblin guard who made a deal to betray his fellows and give the party information if the Paladin would promise to spare his life, which they did. On the way out, they wound up engaging the males in the den. I don't remember if they were spotted or decided to engage on their own after witnessing the goblins brutalizing each other. After the males were killed in battle, the females, who were essentially trapped down a tunnel, drove their children into the party in an attempt to escape, and then the stronger females drove out the weaker females, and so on. The carnage and how brutal it was was quite clear to all involved because the combat was played out. When they finally went back to that part of the den, they caught the two strongest females who were hiding. If I remember correctly, they begged for their lives and tried to make deals but were still killed. I think that wasn't very controversial, not only because they were irredeemably Evil but out of disgust over what they'd done to survive that long (sacrificing the lives of their own children, sisters, and so on).
Ah, I see what you mean. The depiction of evil does seem to me over the top and grand guignol-ish. It's not something which I or the people I game would find interesting but I understand better where you are coming from.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: John Morrow;481503The humans weren't particularly expansive in my game, so I don't really see a colonialism metaphor, and it's not uncommon for orcs to be depicted as invaders rather than indigenous aboriginals being wiped out by invading hoards of humans.
That makes sense. It also seems clear that you use evil monsters as a tool to explore the ramifications of a utilitarian definition of good and its demands on good people, right? That also seems like an effective way to disassociate orcs from parallels to real-world peoples.
QuoteBut if you want a metaphor for European expansion into the Americas, I would say that the Spaniards attacking the Aztecs would be closer. While you can certainly question the greed for gold on the part of the Spaniards, the neighbors of the Aztecs helped them because the Aztecs were quite brutal and nasty and, frankly, I think the world is a better place not having pyramids coated in human blood just like I think the world is a better place without Nazi death camps or Khmer Rouge killing fields.
Do you think that the Spanish conquest of the Americas is a more likely influence on D&D tropes than the US colonisation of the West? Given Gary Gygax's time and place, I find this unlikely.
/
Quote from: two_fishes;481507Do you think that the Spanish conquest of the Americas is a more likely influence on D&D tropes than the US colonisation of the West? Given Gary Gygax's time and place, I find this unlikely.
/
If I had to draw any kind of parallel it wouldn't be between orcs and native americans, it would be between orcs and nomadic invaders in Europe and the Mediterranean. I can see orcs and other such monsters filling the roll of the mountain and hill invaders against settled peoples. But even with that historical association, it need not involve any kind of racial connotation. You are really talking about ways of life and roles.
John, reading my reply to your example of play, I come off sounding condescending not to mention a right twit. I hope you understand that was not my intention. I have one last question.
Quote from: John Morrow;481504But my concern was what Good characters were permitted to do more than whether what they are permitted to do is heroic or not.
Do you think this is more easily achieved without the inclusion of irredeemabley evil races?
Regards,
David R
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481500I understand the greeks looked down on non-greeks, I just am not sure how I see you can make the jump from that to "satyrs are a product of that tendancy". It certainly could be, but it seems like it is in there with a number of equally plausible theories.
well I see two sides to the question/comparison. On the one hand is the question of whether centaurs and satyrs were initially inspired by Greek views of non-Greeks. To that, who knows? On the other hand there's the tendency of many Greek writers to attribute to non-Greeks the same character traits as were commonly attributed to satyrs and centaurs and to infer from that that the Greeks saw non-Greeks as more bestial and less-than-human. That inference may then give a little more credence to the theory of the origin of those creatures.
QuoteI guess I just don't see this myself.
Oh well.
Quote from: two_fishes;481511well I see two sides to the question/comparison. On the one hand is the question of whether centaurs and satyrs were initially inspired by Greek views of non-Greeks. To that, who knows? On the other hand there's the tendency of many Greek writers to attribute to non-Greeks the same character traits as were commonly attributed to satyrs and centaurs and to infer from that that the Greeks saw non-Greeks as more bestial and less-than-human. That inference may then give a little more credence to the theory of the origin of those creatures.
Oh well.
I don't see how it does. They could just as easily been drawing on established myths to make that comparison, without those myths originating from greek racism. The germans were able to compare rats to jews without the concept of rat originating from initial contact between germans and jews.
There was a similar thread on RPG.net in which the middle-class white folks got really upset because the RPG hobby is built upon racism. It ended after some poster named Ace was permabanned for statements such as the following:
QuoteWhite men did build the nation, did most of the important work and laid the foundations of most everything we use today, they built most of the foundations of modern world in fact .
QuoteHeck with a few exceptions, taking economic migrants or refugees is plum stupid. Doing that puts those folks before your own poor and is a recipe for disaster and social unrest.
QuoteLook at the world around you and look at patents and inventions and designs and all that . Until recently almost all of it was done by White Men. The rest of the world is contributing in more recent years but its still true. Modernity was designed built largely by White Men and while other groups participated if they had not, it would not have mattered a huge deal.
QuoteAs for issues of Whites being treated better, well they are not all racism based, granted some is but some is derived from facts.
Fed stats via Wikiepdia from 1974-2004
Black committed 50% of murders and made up about 13% of the population and Whites committed about 45% of homicides and make up about 3/4 . This means Black people committed nearly 6x as many homicides per capita.
QuoteNervousness about the other is natural for many people, probably cannot be educated away in scale in most cases and when diversity is pushed it leads to a weaker society.And yes it applies across racial lines.
Pat Buchanan trolls RPG.net now.
Quote from: B.T.;481545There was a similar thread on RPG.net in which the middle-class white folks got really upset because the RPG hobby is built upon racism. It ended after some poster named Ace was permabanned for statements such as the following:
I was the one who reported Ace in that thread, actually.
BTB, who are the "middle class white folks"? The only one who identified themselves as white and middle class in that thread was SomethingElse, Rpg.net's hardcore self-hating version of jhkim.
Quote from: TristramEvans;481555The only one who identified themselves as white and middle class in that thread was SomethingElse, Rpg.net's hardcore self-hating version of jhkim.
I disagree, jhkim is a flake of the Highest Order, but he is a plebian when compared to the nuttiness that is Something Else. If I had to choose between the two, I would choose jhkim to have on a forum any day of the week.
Quote from: David R;481509John, reading my reply to your example of play, I come off sounding condescending not to mention a right twit. I hope you understand that was not my intention.
I took it as an honest statement of your play preference.
Quote from: David R;481509Do you think this is more easily achieved without the inclusion of irredeemabley evil races?
The objective was to permit Good characters to slay at least some classes of Evil opponents without pause so that Paladins would spend more time delivering righteous smack-downs than being a social worker trying to redeem the souls of the fallen. I think that's easier with irredeemable Evil, because once evil characters can achieve redemption, I think Good characters have an obligation to provide the opportunity for it. It can make it very difficult to maintain a tone of butt-kicking combat when the characters are obliged to humanely care for every bad guy who falls but does not die in combat or who surrenders and for the offspring and/or widow of every bad guy killed by the PCs.
By the way, an example I thought of that I think captures what I was looking for was Ripley, at the end of
Aliens, threatening and ultimately killing baby Aliens in their nest and pretty much doing her best to annihilate the species. Do you think that was not good and/or not heroic?
(ADDED: I noticed, after posting this, that TristramEvans brought up Ripley and the Aliens earlier in this thread.)
Quote from: B.T.;481545There was a similar thread on RPG.net in which the middle-class white folks got really upset because the RPG hobby is built upon racism. It ended after some poster named Ace was permabanned for statements such as the following:
Are there genuine racists online? Absolutely. Are there some disgruntled white people who buy into parts of the racist argument but are not necessarily full-blown racists? Absolutely. Does that mean that racism is running rampant among middle-class white folks? Of course not. One poster does not a majority make. And, frankly, the narrative that anyone who doesn't acknowledge being a racist is, in fact, a racist, not only convinces a lot of people that charges of racism are bogus but it makes the racists look more reasonable and sane. Please don't do that. It's not improving race relations and it's not reducing racism.
More grist for the mill from the KORPG blog here:
Racism in D&D – it’s time to stop the madness (http://www.korpg.com/blog/racism-in-dd-its-time-to-stop-the-madness/)
Quote from: KORPG BlogBefore we get started, the racism I’m referring to in D&D isn’t the racism of the real world. The racism I’m discussing is the apparent need to create rules to make the fantasy races in D&D interesting choices for players. So if you’re looking for the other kind, you’ve come to the wrong place. – KO
[...]
But something remained that should have headed down memory lane with the sexism; namely the racism. But racial choice should have no impact on character concept, capability or choice but should lead to interesting decisions in the game. As a result, race should go the way of gender in our game design.
From a bit of a historical perspective, looking back at AD&D, I’ve recently begin to realize that the inclusion of Racial Bonuses and Racial Limitations was the worst sort of uninteresting decision imposition the game could have ever included. In my own time as a player, I’ve witnessed these concepts lead to such behind-the-scenes questions such as…
- What’s the difference between a party of dwarven Fighters and a party of human Fighters? Devoid of any other information, or in an all dwarven environment, not a single thing.
- Why do dwarves have a -2 penalty to their initial charisma? What, I can’t have an awesomely charismatic short person? Also, I can’t have a savant Half-Orc?
- Why can’t you have a hale elf (elves initially receive a -2 penalty to constitution) if they live so long? Does that make any sense?
- Why can’t halflings ever be Magic-users? Aren’t they related to other fae creatures somewhat? At least as much as humans? Am I the only one who ever watched the movie Willow?
- Who, in their right mind would ever choose to play a human when a half-elf gains the benefits of both an elf and a human combined? Nobody, that’s who.
… which ultimately led to discussions like why elves, who spend little time underground, have infravision but not far-sight like those in Tolkein if that’s where the concept of them as race originated. Or how many generations removed of elven heritage a character had to be before those elven bonuses went away? Or what happens if a half orc mates with a half elf? Does the character get some benefit and drawback from both “races” even though they’re parentage technically are hybrid races themselves…
Man the logic a player can bring to the table when they smell a bonus and a means of arguing away the penalty.
Basically, the solution being presented here is to eliminate all mechanical racial differences in the game so that the choice of race doesn't matter mechanically.
You know, the general stereotype is that roleplayers are an intelligent, if socially awkward, bunch of nerds. Yet so often I seem to encounter people who don't seem to realize that the word "race" as its used in real life and in fantasy RPG "races" are not the same thing.
I blame Star Trek.
Quote from: John Morrow;481565Basically, the solution being presented here is to eliminate all mechanical racial differences in the game so that the choice of race doesn't matter mechanically.
GURPS 4e actually does this. They're just a package of Advantages, Disadvantages, and Stats that can all be bought independantly for the same cost.
This is much better than the 1-3e bit where you could get stats at the cost break point with a significant savings.
Quote from: TristramEvans;481555I was the one who reported Ace in that thread, actually.
So were you the slimy little communist shit, twinkle-toed cocksucker who was hitting the report button here on therpgsite? Did we hurt your fucking feelings?
Quote from: John Morrow;481560I took it as an honest statement of your play preference.
Thanks. I appreciate that.
QuoteThe objective was to permit Good characters to slay at least some classes of Evil opponents without pause so that Paladins would spend more time delivering righteous smack-downs than being a social worker trying to redeem the souls of the fallen. I think that's easier with irredeemable Evil, because once evil characters can achieve redemption, I think Good characters have an obligation to provide the opportunity for it. It can make it very difficult to maintain a tone of butt-kicking combat when the characters are obliged to humanely care for every bad guy who falls but does not die in combat or who surrenders and for the offspring and/or widow of every bad guy killed by the PCs.
I can understand this.
Another reason I eliminated evil races from my setting was to demonstrate to Good Characters and Paladins that their social worker motivations had as much influence in the setting as their butt kicking heroics. I base evil in my campaigns on real world events/acts personified in game by groups or individuals. Evil characters may love their children and willingly sacrifice themselves for their offsprings (much like in real life) which should not detract from the evil they have committed. Evil and how it could manifest is complex, something which I feel I lose if I were to use irredeamably evil races. But this is just how I roll.
I am reminded of a scene in
Criminal Minds where Hotch is interrogating the serial killer, Vincent Perotta.
Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner: You were just responding to what you learned Vincent. When you grow up in an environment like that, an extremely abusive and violent household...it's not surprising that some people grow up to become killers.
Vincent Perotta: Some people?
Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner: What's that?
Vincent Perotta: You said some people grow up to become killers.
Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner: ...And some people grow up to catch them.By doing this I think I add depth to the setting and allow for a wider scope of PC influence. Combat is normaly to the death although this too is determined by context. Sometimes opponents are allowed to live esp if they are just hired swords, for example.
QuoteBy the way, an example I thought of that I think captures what I was looking for was Ripley, at the end of Aliens, threatening and ultimately killing baby Aliens in their nest and pretty much doing her best to annihilate the species. Do you think that was not good and/or not heroic?
(ADDED: I noticed, after posting this, that TristramEvans brought up Ripley and the Aliens earlier in this thread.)
Well I think when she went back for Newt she was being heroic, much like how the grunts walked in to the hive and then being relieved of their pulse rifles. I think her attempt to annihilate the xenomorphs was pragmatic. Not that I think they were evil or anything. We can dream up of races and motivations beyond our ken who would be very hostile to humanity or any other race, without ever having to confine ourselves to good/evil.
I know I have created such races, which my players (perhaps wrongly) refer to as “anathema races”. And I think
Alien(s) is a pretty good example of this.
The first three
Alien movies to me has always been a reflection of humanity with good and evil being played out in the human race and not in the
Alien race . Ripley makes an astute observation when she say’s
“You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage” which goes nicely with Ash’s cold comfort description in
Alien “
I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality” all the while knowing that the Company sent them in to bring back a specimen.
Games can be about different things. You can have a game about heroism where character actions are easily identified as such or you could move into murkier waters. Hopefully I have given you an idea of where I’m coming from.
Regards,
David R
The "beauty" of irredeemable evil is that you can have both black/white and shades of grey, it's not a binary decision. If you deny irredeemable evil, however, you eliminate any situations that could arise from it, and are left with only shades of grey.
Having one irredeemably evil sentient species doesn't mean you can't have another 4 dozen threatening species that aren't irredeemably evil. The inference that the representation of one monster in a setting is somehow indicative of campaign playstyle is, well, not looking at the whole picture.
Quote from: CRKrueger;481577The inference that the representation of one monster in a setting is somehow indicative of campaign playstyle is, well, not looking at the whole picture.
I don't believe I made such an inference. If you could point me to something specific I said.....(
running a bit late, will respond later)
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;481578I don't believe I made such an inference.
It's just that...
Quote from: David R;481578The depiction of evil does seem to me over the top and grand guignol-ish. It's not something which I or the people I game would find interesting but I understand better where you are coming from.
...sounds like what you're saying that this example of orcs is representative of the depiction of evil in Morrow's campaign, when in actuality, it could be the case only with goblins, and in other cases, a different depiction of evil, one which you would find interesting, is used. You already said that didn't come out quite the way you intended, so maybe that's not what you in particular were saying, but there are other posts that are in a similar vein.
I'm just saying the existence of "EVIL" doesn't preclude the existence of "evil", if you get my meaning.
Quote from: John Morrow;481565Basically, the solution being presented here is to eliminate all mechanical racial differences in the game so that the choice of race doesn't matter mechanically.
The blogger is calling for a solution for player behavior, ie. not the game's job.
Quote from: CRKrueger;481580It's just that...
...sounds like what you're saying that this example of orcs is representative of the depiction of evil in Morrow's campaign, when in actuality, it could be the case only with goblins, and in other cases, a different depiction of evil, one which you would find interesting, is used. You already said that didn't come out quite the way you intended, so maybe that's not what you in particular were saying, but there are other posts that are in a similar vein.
I'm just saying the existence of "EVIL" doesn't preclude the existence of "evil", if you get my meaning.
Sure I get what you're saying. In fact if I'm not mistaken, John subsequently says that some evil races in his campaign were irredeemable while others were not. So there is a variety of depictions "evil" in his games.
But even then I was in error as one of my old crew member who lurks around here reminded me, grand guignol and over the top in action and emotion was exactly what an old
Hunter campaign was. It had moments of subtlety but on the whole.....
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;481574So were you the slimy little communist shit, twinkle-toed cocksucker who was hitting the report button here on therpgsite? Did we hurt your fucking feelings?
No. Your reading comprehension seems to have failed you dumbass.
I reported someone spouting obviously racist white power propaganda on
rpg.net's forums. Because, despite arguing very much against the people looking so hard for racism in rpgs, that doesn't mean actual racism isn't a repugnant thing.
Quote from: TristramEvans;481555I was the one who reported Ace in that thread, actually.
Wow, you suck. Everything he said was true and he got permabanned because facts and reality are inconvenient truths for egalitarians. All praise be to the liberal hivemind.
QuoteBTB, who are the "middle class white folks"? The only one who identified themselves as white and middle class in that thread was SomethingElse, Rpg.net's hardcore self-hating version of jhkim.
I guarantee that the majority of posters on Tangency are middle class white suburbanites because those are the only people afflicted with such a degree of white guilt.
QuoteI reported someone spouting obviously racist white power propaganda on rpg.net's forums. Because, despite arguing very much against the people looking so hard for racism in rpgs, that doesn't mean actual racism isn't a repugnant thing.
Non-whites taking pride in their ethnic heritage = a positive, uplifting experience that should be encouraged by society and the government. Whites discussing their ethnic heritage in a way that isn't self-flagellating Marxist hogwash = OBVIOUS RACISM BAN HIM NOW.
I don't know who this B.T. is and before I start something, can someone tell me if this is some kind of new act around here ?
Regards,
David R
Quote from: B.T.;481655Wow, you suck. Everything he said was true and he got permabanned because facts and reality are inconvenient truths for egalitarians. All praise be to the liberal hivemind.
Everything eh said was true huh? So, you believe on black people live in africa and they have much better lives becauyse there's no mixing of races there?
You're a fucking moron.
QuoteI guarantee that the majority of posters on Tangency are middle class white suburbanites because those are the only people afflicted with such a degree of white guilt.
I wouldn't know. I don't go to Tangency. That thread was moved there from Open. And you're argument makes absolutely no sense. It's pretty obvious now you didn't actually read the thread, you're just spouting off nonsense.
QuoteNon-whites taking pride in their ethnic heritage = a positive, uplifting experience that should be encouraged by society and the government. Whites discussing their ethnic heritage in a way that isn't self-flagellating Marxist hogwash = OBVIOUS RACISM BAN HIM NOW.
(http://anyworld.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/fail3.jpg)
Quote from: David R;481656I don't know who this B.T. is and before I start something, can someone tell me if this is some kind of new act around here ?
I can't say much. He seems to have decided Pundit-style bullshit needed to be kicked up a notch.
Quote from: David R;481656I don't know who this B.T. is and before I start something, can someone tell me if this is some kind of new act around here ?
Regards,
David R
The place has been overrun with people spouting right-wing echo chamber bullshit lately.
I find myself agreeing with much of David R's games examples and the like.
Somethign that occurs to me about evil is that is you remove the choice then is it realy evil?
Is a being that is irredeemibly evil ie is incapable of not doign evil really evil. The examples of the Aliens is a great one. The Aliens are not evil but like a virus they kill what they meet as part of their basic instint and life-cycle.
They are not evil because they are not making a conscious choice to do 'evil' they simply follow their instinct. If you stick a polar bear in a room full of kids it will probably kill all the little kids, does that make it evil? If you stick a man with a big knife in the room and he kills all the little kids is he morally equivalent to the bear ? (clue no of course not :) )
So if you make a whole culture irremedibly evil are they actually evil at all?
For me creatures that choose to be evil are far more interesting and to be honest, if they can't choose I find it hard to class them as evil.
Quote from: David R;481656I don't know who this B.T. is and before I start something, can someone tell me if this is some kind of new act around here ?
As Pseudo says, we've had a few right-wing cocksmocks drag their flabby booze-and-smoke weakened carcasses into the place lately. Girls have cooties, no gays in my game, what about White Pride, don't call me a teabagger even though I do ZOMG that's just like calling them niggers, us poor oppressed middle class white christian males, and all this sort of shit.
It's simply one of the unintended consequences of presenting therpgsite as a refuge from rpg.net. On rpg.net, leftwing cocksmocks are nurtured, and rightwing cocksmocks driven out. So where else are they going to go?
The genuinely racist fruitloops do eventually get banned here, along with the paedophiles. But simply being a run-of-the-mill cocksmock of whatever political persuasion, you're given all the rhetorical rope you need to hang yourself with.
So let 'er rip, David. I wouldn't bother with any sophisticated arguments or rhetoric, though, it'd too far above these guys. Mix some plain old mockery and abuse in there, it's more than they deserve but there you go. Of course up to you.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481665I find myself agreeing with much of David R's games examples and the like.
Somethign that occurs to me about evil is that is you remove the choice then is it realy evil?
Is a being that is irredeemibly evil ie is incapable of not doign evil really evil. The examples of the Aliens is a great one. The Aliens are not evil but like a virus they kill what they meet as part of their basic instint and life-cycle.
They are not evil because they are not making a conscious choice to do 'evil' they simply follow their instinct. If you stick a polar bear in a room full of kids it will probably kill all the little kids, does that make it evil? If you stick a man with a big knife in the room and he kills all the little kids is he morally equivalent to the bear ? (clue no of course not :) )
So if you make a whole culture irremedibly evil are they actually evil at all?
For me creatures that choose to be evil are far more interesting and to be honest, if they can't choose I find it hard to class them as evil.
You're welcome to wring your hands all you want about whether they're "really evil" or whatever the fuck.
I'm going to go get the flamethrower and prevent them from laying eggs in my face.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481665So if you make a whole culture irremedibly evil are they actually evil at all?
Not really. But from the point of view of adventurers it's the same, because you still have to kill every last motherfucking one of them.
When you start saying, "they're not
truly evil because they have no choice," that's where trouble comes in, because then you start giving people orders to bring samples back to the lab for study, then they escape on the ship and make it crash-land on a prison planet where the thing goes on to butcher everyone horribly. Or something.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481665Somethign that occurs to me about evil is that is you remove the choice then is it realy evil?
In my opinion, yes. The Alien is evil, the polar bear is evil, and the guy who put the polar bear in the room is really evil. I consider anything which causes suffering to be an evil. Adding an element of choice to it makes it into a worse evil, since the creation of suffering might have been a chosen from an offering that included no or less suffering. The action to the bear and to the man with a knife would be about the same: remove them from the situation and make sure they cannot continue their activity.
Quote from: David R;481656before I start something,
Ah, go ahead, let him have it.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481665Is a being that is irredeemibly evil ie is incapable of not doign evil really evil.
If it has no intelligence and just kills for survival, then no. If it kills when it doesn't have to, or enjoys murder, rape, torture, then yeah it's evil, even if it's just following its nature and there is no real choice. Pity it if you have to, but kill it nonetheless.
Quote from: B.T.;481655Wow, you suck. Everything he said was true and he got permabanned because facts and reality are inconvenient truths for egalitarians. All praise be to the liberal hivemind.
I guarantee that the majority of posters on Tangency are middle class white suburbanites because those are the only people afflicted with such a degree of white guilt.
Non-whites taking pride in their ethnic heritage = a positive, uplifting experience that should be encouraged by society and the government. Whites discussing their ethnic heritage in a way that isn't self-flagellating Marxist hogwash = OBVIOUS RACISM BAN HIM NOW.
I am no fan of tangency, but the guy's remarks seemed pretty racist to me.
Quote from: J Arcane;481668You're welcome to wring your hands all you want about whether they're "really evil" or whatever the fuck.
I'm going to go get the flamethrower and prevent them from laying eggs in my face.
Techically I think they lay their eggs in your esophagus :)
Quotebut the guy's remarks seemed pretty racist to me.
That is because you have been systematically manipulated by the managerial state into perceiving reality as offensive.
Quote from: two_fishes;481670In my opinion, yes. The Alien is evil, the polar bear is evil, and the guy who put the polar bear in the room is really evil. I consider anything which causes suffering to be an evil. Adding an element of choice to it makes it into a worse evil, since the creation of suffering might have been a chosen from an offering that included no or less suffering. The action to the bear and to the man with a knife would be about the same: remove them from the situation and make sure they cannot continue their activity.
The converse argument I expected to see was that you would eliminate something that mindlessly set out to kill you, a virus, an angry polar bear or a race of parasitic aliens.
Is killing a virus evil?
Whilst killing the polar bear while it attacks you is fine, would hunting down all the polars becuase they might hurt decent folks be evil?
Is wiping out the aliens evil ? Can we judge an alien race as so similar to a virus that killing them has no moral consequence.
Reminds me of my earlier post when I pointed out Dr Who's reluctance to commit geocide and kill the Daleks even though it would prevent billions of innocent deaths.
I find the argument that you need irredeemily evil races so the paladins can charge around killing stuff without having to worry about morality really quite strange by the way. If you want to run round killing stuff with no moral compunction there are literally hundreds of options. Surely the POINT of playing a paladin is that you are trying to uphold your morality in the face of various temptations and the temptation to wreak furious vengeance is just one of those and in fact in a game where greed, lust, and the rest are very intangible surely the reluctance to give in to that desire, the only one that is actually palpable to the Player as well as the PC (in as much as the player wanting to roll some dice and lay down some law and order is much more real than the PC being tempted by a comely female or a heafty bribe) is kind of a key to the class....
Quote from: B.T.;481678That is because you have been systematically manipulated by the managerial state into perceiving reality as offensive.
So you're the political Ron Edwards?
"If people agree with me, they are right and sensible, and this proves I am correct; if people disagree with me, their brains have been damaged by their experiences, they are wrong and stupid, and this proves I am correct."
That kind of argument works on Stormfront, the Forge or Tangency, not here.
Quote from: B.T.;481678That is because you have been systematically manipulated by the managerial state into perceiving reality as offensive.
Nope
Quote from: B.T.;481678That is because you have been systematically manipulated by the managerial state into perceiving reality as offensive.
Not really you stupid racist fuck. The reality you refer to is confined to what glows of your computer screen in the basement of your mother's house while you type with one hand. Let be me very clear. Every thread you start, every thread you participate in, I'll be there to remind everyone that you are a stupid racist fuck. I'll scan threads which I have absolutely no interest in just to see if you posted and if I find one, I remind people that you are a stupid racist fuck.
QuoteLook at the world around you and look at patents and inventions and designs and all that . Until recently almost all of it was done by White Men. The rest of the world is contributing in more recent years but its still true. Modernity was designed built largely by White Men and while other groups participated if they had not, it would not have mattered a huge deal.
0/10
This zero brought to you by Araby.
Quote from: J Arcane;481668You're welcome to wring your hands all you want about whether they're "really evil" or whatever the fuck.
Well, I mean there was no hand wringing on my part. I thought I'd just elaborate a bit on why I think you can kill stuff and not worry about them being evil or your actions heroic instead of pragmatic.
Back when I was a kid we sometimes discussed Robert Graves around the dinner table. My mum's favourite was this bit -
“Kill if you must, but never hate: Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight”.
I said, see mum, even Graves says killing is good. I got a lot of "oh, dear(s)" when I was growing up.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;4816840/10
This zero brought to you by Araby.
Indeed.
Take away the Japanese, the Koreans, and the Chinese, and the last 50 years of technology disappears.
Take away the Indians, and half the science and maths and tech students currently disappear.
Take away Arabia in the Middle Ages, and we don't even HAVE science and maths.
The present situation in the Middle East with the rise of Wahhabism and other radical, fundamentalists Muslims isn't sad because they're somehow inferior, its sad because they were once, and still are in some places, a Mecca not just for religion, but for science, mathematics, literature, art.
We white people spend a good percentage of the last 2000 years being too busy taking turns oppressing each other, killing each other, and dying of plagues to really advance much of anything societally. Oh sure, we had Greece and Rome, but after that, we spent hundreds of years destroying ourselves before we finally pulled our heads out of our ass.
White people ain't any better than anyone else when it comes to advancement, taken on historical balance.
Quote from: B.T.;481678That is because you have been systematically manipulated by the managerial state into perceiving reality as offensive.
Using their space-nazi hypno-rays and anti-creationism subliminal messages I suppose.
QuoteNot really you stupid racist fuck. The reality you refer to is confined to what glows of your computer screen in the basement of your mother's house while you type with one hand. Let be me very clear. Every thread you start, every thread you participate in, I'll be there to remind everyone that you are a stupid racist fuck. I'll scan threads which I have absolutely no interest in just to see if you posted and if I find one, I remind people that you are a stupid racist fuck.
I don't know who you are. I don't know why you're screaming at me. But what I do know is that you are very, very buttmad.
QuoteUsing their space-nazi hypno-rays and anti-creationism subliminal messages I suppose.
Nah, the managerial state is far subtler than that.
Notice that the rightwing cocksmocks and leftwing cocksmocks all post under pseudonyms. Posting under something resembling your real name, as you do if you're not a cowardly pussy, tends to make you moderate your expressed opinions somewhat. Your opinions might be extreme, but they at least won't be fucking batshit crazy.
You're so brave. :rolleyes:
Fallacy of false dichotomy. Just because I'm not a coward doesn't make me brave.
It is not brave to have your own name by your words.
But it is cowardly not to.
I was being a smartass, not making a logical argument.
I may get back to John but jibbajibba's recent post and the replies are related to what I'm driving at. It doesn't matter if something is "evil" because it might or might not have free will; it's "good" to do what's necessary to prevent harm by things that are "noxious". But "noxious" is contextual. You shoot a wild animal in the middle of the village if you have to; you leave them alone if they're out in the forest. If you want to move into the forest yourself, then you'll be responsible for creating the conditions that lead to conflict with the animals.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;481692Notice that the rightwing cocksmocks and leftwing cocksmocks all post under pseudonyms. Posting under something resembling your real name, as you do if you're not a cowardly pussy, tends to make you moderate your expressed opinions somewhat. Your opinions might be extreme, but they at least won't be fucking batshit crazy.
I've seen you bring this up before, Kyle. Do you have an issue with everyone who uses pseudonyms in forums, or is this a "not all rectangles are squares" thing, whereby you're merely pointing out a pattern that assclowns, in particular, tend to use pseudonyms?
Quote from: J Arcane;481687We white people spend a good percentage of the last 2000 years being too busy taking turns oppressing each other, killing each other, and dying of plagues to really advance much of anything societally.
The part that really amazes me about this whole argument is that a race doesn't do things. Individuals do. And what a lot of racists try to do is claim greatness by virtue of race even though there is nothing great and often quite a bit pathetic about them individually. It's like Paris Hilton playing off the Hilton name and money. If your only claim to any value on this planet is your race, that's pretty sad.
You've got it, VectorSigma.
All online cocksmocks use pseudonyms. Not all people using pseudonyms are cocksmocks.
I mean, just look at guys like Doc Rotwang. An excellent and useful poster, when he's around. On the other hand, he is not exactly secretive, if you asked him his real name he'd probably tell you.
Speaking just of forums, here - David Icke's open with his identity, but he's still a fruit loop.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481679Reminds me of my earlier post when I pointed out Dr Who's reluctance to commit geocide and kill the Daleks even though it would prevent billions of innocent deaths.
I've asked how the Daleks and Time Lords are faring in the current Doctor Who timeline. I'm seriously interested in your take on that.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481679I find the argument that you need irredeemily evil races so the paladins can charge around killing stuff without having to worry about morality really quite strange by the way. If you want to run round killing stuff with no moral compunction there are literally hundreds of options. Surely the POINT of playing a paladin is that you are trying to uphold your morality in the face of various temptations and the temptation to wreak furious vengeance is just one of those and in fact in a game where greed, lust, and the rest are very intangible surely the reluctance to give in to that desire, the only one that is actually palpable to the Player as well as the PC (in as much as the player wanting to roll some dice and lay down some law and order is much more real than the PC being tempted by a comely female or a heafty bribe) is kind of a key to the class....
The Paladin in my D&D game fell because of an illicit romance and even though he'd been told which species were inherently Evil in the setting, he still took great care to test alignment auras and verify who was redeemable and who wouldn't, looking for even the slightest possibility of redemption.
I think that what the player was looking for when asking for killable bad guys was an occasional break from that stress. The people I've role-played with the most play their characters as if they were real people and do this either by thinking in character or closely identifying with their character and because of that, it's easy for a game where the PCs are under a lot of stress to get unpleasantly intense if there is no relief from it during the game.
I know of enough genuinely horrible people who use their real names in real life and still don't have any problem being horrible cocksmocks to suggest your premise has far deeper flaws than a handful of exceptions. Let alone the ones I know or know of online.
There are whole websites devoted to cataloging the horrible things that people will do openly on Facebook without any apparent qualms about it.
Including, incidentally to the thread, genocidal racism. Go read up on some of the shit people posted after the Japan earthquake. If that doesn't disabuse you of the notion that a real name and online cocksmockery cannot come hand in hand, then it's clear your position has less to do with evidence and more to do with your own personal ego issues.
Quote from: J Arcane;481703I know of enough genuinely horrible people who use their real names in real life and still don't have any problem being horrible cocksmocks to suggest your premise has far deeper flaws than a handful of exceptions. Let alone the ones I know or know of online.
There are whole websites devoted to cataloging the horrible things that people will do openly on Facebook without any apparent qualms about it.
Including, incidentally to the thread, genocidal racism. Go read up on some of the shit people posted after the Japan earthquake. If that doesn't disabuse you of the notion that a real name and online cocksmockery cannot come hand in hand, then it's clear your position has less to do with evidence and more to do with your own personal ego issues.
I think what Kyle is saying is anonymity gives an otherwise polite person cover to behave in a way they normally wouldn't. Personally I think there may be something to people being much less inhibited online, and even more less inhibited if they know others don't know their identity. But I also see the value in keeping your identity secret. I mean it is rare, but someone could take a flame war too far and show up at a person's house (if they had enough info on them---and a name+location is a good start).
Quote from: John Morrow;481276Well, I've asked what the alternative is for inherently and irredeemably Evil orcs and don't think I got an answer to that (maybe I missed it). Should they be put into internment camps? Reservations? Drive them away and make them someone else's problem? Should the people who coexist with them have to tolerate the occasional random slaughter because the authorities will only act against them once they are guilty of an actual crime? What's the "good" solution here and how much misery does that pass along to either the monsters themselves or those that they will inevitably hurt or kill?
John, there's more to Good than murdering the wicked. Paladins can't spend all their time slaying orcs, they also have to make time for the other good things in life. At a certain point a Paladin may decide that it's time to put aside the +5 sword of greater orc bane.
Paladins would fight Evil orcs, (or an army True Neutral druids and True Neutral bears) but after winning they'd take a break to relax and have fun Paladin style: kneeling in prayer on a cold stone floor, scowling at perky people, and mumbling holy texts.
Paladins would stop short of genociding the orc threat and not feel bad about it in the same way that modern doctors try (and fail) to erradicate certain diseases. Oh sure, they'd feel great if they killed that horrible organism for good, but as long as there's not an epidemic in here-and-now-ville they can and should enjoy the relative peace and safety they've won for themselves and their worlds.
But what about the psychopaths?From what I understand, some psychopaths do bad things. But other psychopaths do good things even though they don't have good feelings and empathy while doing them. I don't care. I'm not the thought police. As long as they do good and not evil, I don't care what their thoughts are. But if they're doing good deeds for evil ends then they're guilty just like anyone else.
But what about the evil orcs?If they're as evil as you say, they should burn in hell for all eternity. But I don't have the foreknowledge to predict if an evil person would have done something unpredictable if I had not killed them, so I try to err on the side of caution and kill as few as is absolutely nessisary. Hypotheticaly, I'd kill evil orcs and True Neutral human Druids in self defense, defense of my family and neighbors, and (if I was a king or something) to protect my subjects.
Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;481705Paladins would fight Evil orcs, (or an army True Neutral druids and True Neutral bears) but after winning they'd take a break to relax and have fun Paladin style: kneeling in prayer on a cold stone floor, scowling at perky people, and mumbling holy texts.
This RPG summed it up the best:
http://kuoi.org/~kamikaze/Nuelow/nl1_fairies.html#crusaders (http://kuoi.org/%7Ekamikaze/Nuelow/nl1_fairies.html#crusaders)
"Crusaders, when not scouring the Magic Forest for fairies, can be found in their austere stone fortresses. Here, they pray to their gods, flog themselves, conduct subdued gatherings, masses, and evening meals, flog themselves some more, procreate while wearing their armor, look at books with dirty illuminations, and, finally, flog themselves."
Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;481705Paladins would fight Evil orcs, (or an army True Neutral druids and True Neutral bears) but after winning they'd take a break to relax and have fun Paladin style: kneeling in prayer on a cold stone floor, scowling at perky people, and mumbling holy texts.
Emphasis mine, because it seems that you are suggesting that Paladins cannot be perky. I find that this plays into a stereotype of militant ecclesiastics that is quite offensive and contemptable. Paladins can be just as perky as your average glee club member - except they are a perky glee club member for GOD.
:D
Quote from: David R;481576I am reminded of a scene in Criminal Minds where Hotch is interrogating the serial killer, Vincent Perotta.
Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner: You were just responding to what you learned Vincent. When you grow up in an environment like that, an extremely abusive and violent household...it's not surprising that some people grow up to become killers.
I think that the idea that the evil can always be found in how a person is raised or that there is always an understandable reason behind the evil is as mistaken as believing that autism is caused by cold parents or homosexuality is caused by strong mothers and weak fathers.
The problem is that most people assume that other people think the same way they do and value the same things they do. They project their own mindset onto others. And what that means is that when a decent person with a function conscience tries to imagine why another person might be evil, they assume that the other person has a conscience, must have some motivation to overcome that conscience to do evil, and that their conscience can be appealed to to redeem them and bring them back to being a good person. In the case of psychopaths, all of those assumptions can be wrong, and that's important because "In a typical prison population, about 20 percent of the inmates satisfy the [Dr. Robert] Hare definition of a psychopath, but they are responsible for over half of all violent crime." (http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html) And if you try to treat a psychopath with a program that assumes that they have a conscience that can be appealed to and assume they have a desire to change,
it can make things worse. "[P]sychopaths who underwent social-skills and anger-management training before release had an 82 percent reconviction rate. Psychopaths who didn't take the program had a 59 percent reconviction rate. Conventional psychotherapy starts with the assumption that a patient wants to change, but psychopaths are usually perfectly happy as they are." (http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html)
Not to put too much of a point on it, but Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold avoided prosecution for a robbery by going through a "diversionary program" that, for example, asked them to write an apology letter to their victim, assuming it might help them understand the moral implications of hurting someone else. Eric Harris wrote a lovely letter where he told the victim how he understood what he felt and how the robbery hurt him while, at the same time, writing in his own journal what an idiot the victim was and how he was entitled to take his stuff. (http://www.slate.com/id/2099203/)
If you really want to understand bad people and evil to add verisimilitude to your games, I really do encourage you to research violent psychopaths. Law enforcement sites also have a very interesting take on them.
Quote from: David R;481576Well I think when she went back for Newt she was being heroic, much like how the grunts walked in to the hive and then being relieved of their pulse rifles. I think her attempt to annihilate the xenomorphs was pragmatic.
I feel like I'm dealing with a shifting landscape here. What I'm trying to get to the bottom of is whether you think a good hero can engage in pragmatic genocide and still remain good and heroic? Did the pragmatic (or even spiteful) decision to annihilate the Aliens undermine her status as a hero and a good person?
Earlier in this thread, I described feeling unease watching James Bond gunning down Russian police officers while escaping a police station in Goldeneye because they were just doing their job. Do you feel any sort of unease that Ripley was deliberately and ruthlessly trying to commit genocide against an intelligent alien species?
Quote from: David R;481576Not that I think they were evil or anything. We can dream up of races and motivations beyond our ken who would be very hostile to humanity or any other race, without ever having to confine ourselves to good/evil.
What do you think evil is? Do you believe it exists?
Quote from: David R;481576The first three Alien movies to me has always been a reflection of humanity with good and evil being played out in the human race and not in the Alien race . Ripley makes an astute observation when she say’s “You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage” which goes nicely with Ash’s cold comfort description in Alien “I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality” all the while knowing that the Company sent them in to bring back a specimen.
I'm not seeing it. Ash wasn't human and Burke is largely a straw man to be knocked down rather than a plausible example of human evil. At best, he was depicted as a corporate psychopath (you can find plenty of articles on those, too). I think all of the stories were, like the early Terminator movies, ultimately tales of survival against a smart opponent that you can't negotiate with who wants to slaughter you.
Added: One of the people in my gaming group is an Alien fanatic and what he seems to focus on is the movie as a story of what people can do to survive against the odds.
Quote from: David R;481576Games can be about different things. You can have a game about heroism where character actions are easily identified as such or you could move into murkier waters. Hopefully I have given you an idea of where I’m coming from.
My problem is not that games can be about different things (I'm fine with you telling me that your group wouldn't find the kind of game I'm describing much fun) but with the idea that games that take place in "murkier [moral] waters" are superior and a sign of better worldbuilding and that those with simpler moral landscapes are lazy, if not worthy of contempt.
Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;481705John, there's more to Good than murdering the wicked. Paladins can't spend all their time slaying orcs, they also have to make time for the other good things in life. At a certain point a Paladin may decide that it's time to put aside the +5 sword of greater orc bane.
Have I ever said otherwise? I feel I'm now being asked to defend a straw man.
Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;481705Paladins would stop short of genociding the orc threat and not feel bad about it in the same way that modern doctors try (and fail) to erradicate certain diseases. Oh sure, they'd feel great if they killed that horrible organism for good, but as long as there's not an epidemic in here-and-now-ville they can and should enjoy the relative peace and safety they've won for themselves and their worlds.
Again, have I said that Paladins should be scouring the world for every last evil creature and not rest until they are all dead? What we were talking about specifically was the killing of helpless evil creatures, be they prisoners or the female and child evil monsters inhabiting a lair. Care to address that issue? And if the answer isn't to kill them, then what is the proper good course of action?
Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;481705But what about the psychopaths?
From what I understand, some psychopaths do bad things. But other psychopaths do good things even though they don't have good feelings and empathy while doing them. I don't care. I'm not the thought police. As long as they do good and not evil, I don't care what their thoughts are. But if they're doing good deeds for evil ends then they're guilty just like anyone else.
I've said it several times before and I'll say it again. Being a psychopath, alone, does not make one a violent killer. The majority of psychopaths are not violent killers and I do not endorse any sort of genocide against psychopaths. But once a psychopath develops an inclination toward violence, they are notoriously difficult to treat or change because they don't want to change.
As for being the thought police, in a game where Paladins and/or Clerics and compel the truth and read alignment and magic users can read thoughts, one has the tools to be the thought police in a way that's not possible in the real world. On the other hand, I do think there is some merit to the idea that being Evil in D&D should correspond to something that has actually been done such that an Evil aura signifies actual guilt of having done something wrong.
Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;481705But what about the evil orcs?
If they're as evil as you say, they should burn in hell for all eternity. But I don't have the foreknowledge to predict if an evil person would have done something unpredictable if I had not killed them, so I try to err on the side of caution and kill as few as is absolutely nessisary. Hypotheticaly, I'd kill evil orcs and True Neutral human Druids in self defense, defense of my family and neighbors, and (if I was a king or something) to protect my subjects.
Do you believe that psychopathic sex offenders who show no remorse for their crimes should be released after they've served their time for whatever crime they've been caught and convicted of because you don't have the foreknowledge to predict what they'll do if released? Would you want such a person living next door to you and only be concerned that they might be a threat if you actually caught them in the act of sexually assaulting a neighbor or someone in your family? Would you be entirely untroubled if they avoided your family, friends, and subjects and went on to sexually assault a string of people in another country?
Quote from: jibbajibba;481665Is a being that is irredeemibly evil ie is incapable of not doign evil really evil. The examples of the Aliens is a great one. The Aliens are not evil but like a virus they kill what they meet as part of their basic instint and life-cycle.
I believe they are really evil and I think most normal people do, too. From the article How Psychopaths Threaten Moral Rationalism, or Is it Irrational to Be Amoral? (http://www.hum.utah.edu/philosophy/faculty/nichols/Papers/PsychopathsFinal.htm):
QuoteThe standard Conceptual Rationalist response to this problem is to maintain that sociopaths or psychopaths do not "really make moral judgments at all" (Smith 1994, p. 67). When psychopaths say that it's wrong to hurt people, they are not expressing the same thing that normals do with the same sentence, since psychopaths are not motivated in the right way and thus their words mean something else. Rather, psychopaths use moral terms in an "inverted-commas" sense (Hare 1952). [...]
[...] Hence, an important initial question is, what do people think about moral judgment in psychopaths? Since both Conceptual Rationalists and their opponents are heavily invested in the debate, we should be wary of relying on their intuitions about what people think about psychopathic moral judgment. A less loaded alternative is to simply ask people who haven't been trained in the debate. In light of this, I carried out a preliminary study in which I presented philosophically unsophisticated undergraduates with questions about whether a given person really understands moral claims. Subjects were given the following probes:
John is a psychopathic criminal. He is an adult of normal intelligence, but he has no emotional reaction to hurting other people. John has hurt and indeed killed other people when he has wanted to steal their money. He says that he knows that hurting others is wrong, but that he just doesn't care if he does things that are wrong. Does John really understand that hurting others is morally wrong?
Bill is a mathematician. He is an adult of normal intelligence, but he has no emotional reaction to hurting other people. Nonetheless, Bill never hurts other people simply because he thinks that it is irrational to hurt others. He thinks that any rational person would be like him and not hurt other people. Does Bill really understand that hurting others is morally wrong?
The responses to these questions were striking – and they ran in exactly the opposite pattern that Conceptual Rationalism would suggest. Most subjects (nearly 85%) maintained that the psychopath did really understand that hurting others is morally wrong, despite the absence of motivation. Neither was this due to an insipid reluctance to deny genuine moral judgment, for, surprisingly, a majority of subjects denied that the mathematician really understood that hurting others is morally wrong. These responses suggest that, at least in some populations, the common conception of psychopaths is precisely that they really know the difference between right and wrong, but they don't care about doing what's right.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481665They are not evil because they are not making a conscious choice to do 'evil' they simply follow their instinct. If you stick a polar bear in a room full of kids it will probably kill all the little kids, does that make it evil? If you stick a man with a big knife in the room and he kills all the little kids is he morally equivalent to the bear ? (clue no of course not :) )
If they guy has no conscience, doesn't feel there is anything wrong with murdering little kids, and enjoys killing them, then why isn't he the equivalent of the bear?
Quote from: jibbajibba;481665So if you make a whole culture irremedibly evil are they actually evil at all?
I believe they are. I think philosophers who have attempted to rationalize morality have argued that to be evil requires various things, including free will and an understanding that what they are doing is evil. I do not think that's how normal people who have not been influenced by philosophical theories telling them otherwise naturally assess wether a person or creature is good or evil on the basis of what it does rather than why it does it.
I have no background in philosophy, but I was raised Christian, and the whole conflict of Good and Evil as presented in the Bible hinges on Good and Evil being choices made by free-thinking individuals who are aware of the difference (Tree of Knowledge, anyone?).
In fact Good and Evil are uniquely tied to humans and angels, and not something attributed to beings without free-will or a knowledge of the divide between the two forces.
Quote from: Peregrin;481716I have no background in philosophy, but I was raised Christian, and the whole conflict of Good and Evil as presented in the Bible hinges on Good and Evil being choices made by free-thinking individuals.
So what was your church's take on Original Sin, Concupiscence, and being saved by Grace vs. Works? Different churches do have different takes on this but there are plenty that believe that humans have an inherent sinful nature as a result of the Fall and it is thus impossible for a human to live a sin-free life.
In what way is this thread related to rpgs? Shouldn't it be in some other forum?
I was raised Catholic, but eventually switched to a more non-denominational type church in my teens, before getting out of religion entirely. It varied.
My point was that the Bible was written with the assumption that all humans had a conscience and free-will. Even if we're drawn to sin, we still know when we're sinning. When you add in people who function on a fundamentally different level than the average person, it changes things. Psychopaths and fantasy species that function similarly are more like forces of nature than something that can be contained within the whole Good/Evil paradigm. I would use the term "sub-human", but since we're comparing orcs to psychopaths, I really don't feel comfortable calling another person that, even if their mind functions without normal human emotions.
That's not entirely true. There are certain sects of Christianity that believe that God hates those who aren't elect and has thus created them to be cast into Hell in order to show the glory of God to the predestined. Free will thus does not truly exist. Since it involves words written a long time ago in foreign languages, there are multiple interpretations of various verses and a lack of clarity overall.
QuoteThat's not entirely true. There are certain sects of Christianity that believe that God hates those who aren't elect and has thus created them to be cast into Hell in order to show the glory of God to the predestined. Free will thus does not truly exist. Since it involves words written a long time ago in foreign languages, there are multiple interpretations of various verses and a lack of clarity overall.
QuoteI was raised Catholic, but eventually switched to a more non-denominational type church in my teens, before getting out of religion entirely. It varied.
My point was that the Bible was written with the assumption that all humans had a conscience and free-will. Even if we're drawn to sin, we still know when we're sinning. When you add in people who function on a fundamentally different level than the average person, it changes things. Psychopaths and fantasy species that function similarly are more like forces of nature than something that can be contained within the whole Good/Evil paradigm. I would use the term "sub-human", but since we're comparing orcs to psychopaths, I really don't feel comfortable calling another person that, even if their mind functions without normal human emotions.
QuoteSo what was your church's take on Original Sin, Concupiscence, and being saved by Grace vs. Works? Different churches do have different takes on this but there are plenty that believe that humans have an inherent sinful nature as a result of the Fall and it is thus impossible for a human to live a sin-free life.
What the HELL does any of the aforementioned RELIGIOUS CRAP have anything to do with a FRIGGIN RPG and ORCS????
Moderators, please shut this topic off. It has run its course now.
Quote from: B.T.;481721That's not entirely true. There are certain sects of Christianity that believe that God hates those who aren't elect and has thus created them to be cast into Hell in order to show the glory of God to the predestined. Free will thus does not truly exist. Since it involves words written a long time ago in foreign languages, there are multiple interpretations of various verses and a lack of clarity overall.
Sure, if you try to logically deconstruct Christianity in the same way people are trying to do to D&D and examine all the paradoxes, you end up with Pre-destination.
I guess that sort of makes Calvanists like the "unimaginative" folk who can't work within D&D's alignment system.
Quote from: Ancientgamer1970;481722What the HELL does any of the aforementioned RELIGIOUS CRAP have anything to do with a FRIGGIN RPG and ORCS????.
About as much last several pages of trying to address "what is evil?"
Predestination is specifically sanctioned in the Bible. How predestination comes about is where various sects of Christianity differ.
Anyway. Back to orcs.
Quote from: John Morrow;481708I think that the idea that the evil can always be found in how a person is raised or that there is always an understandable reason behind the evil is as mistaken as believing that autism is caused by cold parents or homosexuality is caused by strong mothers and weak fathers.
I think you missed the point of that. The point was that good can come from an evil environment. It relates to theme of redemption that seems to run through my posts here concerning evil.
QuoteThe problem is that most people assume that other people think the same way they do and value the same things they do. They project their own mindset onto others. And what that means is that when a decent person with a function conscience tries to imagine why another person might be evil, they assume that the other person has a conscience, must have some motivation to overcome that conscience to do evil, and that their conscience can be appealed to to redeem them and bring them back to being a good person. In the case of psychopaths, all of those assumptions can be wrong, and that's important because
I think the problem here is that you only relate evil to psychopaths or at the very least seem to think of it as the only example of evil. Your example of play with the goblins is a good example of psychopaths in play but by no means is it the only conception of evil. In the real world evil takes many forms and you do not need to be a psychopath to carry out evil acts or for evil acts to become an excepted part of your culture and thinking. I mentioned numerous examples of real world evil such as slavery, ethnic cleansing, mass murder for political reason, murder for profit, torture, systemic racism all of which have at one time or another been a part of various cultures or carry on to be.
A torturer who maims people for an evil dictator can go home and be a loving parent to his children all because he’s afraid to rebel against a system which may put his own family in peril. Is his acts not evil? Yes. Is he always a psychopath ? No
QuoteIf you really want to understand bad people and evil to add verisimilitude to your games, I really do encourage you to research violent psychopaths. Law enforcement sites also have a very interesting take on them.
No doubt if my perception of evil was limited only to psychopaths and such creatures made up the sum evil in my games, I’ll take your advice. As it is, the scope of evil and how people are both perpetrators and victims can be found in the history or narratives of various real world cultures.
QuoteI feel like I'm dealing with a shifting landscape here. What I'm trying to get to the bottom of is whether you think a good hero can engage in pragmatic genocide and still remain good and heroic? Did the pragmatic (or even spiteful) decision to annihilate the Aliens undermine her status as a hero and a good person?
I don’t see how I can be any clearer. Ripley’s act of going back for Newt was heroic. Her act of (not spiteful but rather rage filled – understandable since the people who had worked with her and in
Aliens fought with her and given up their lives in some instances, were killed by them ) genocide was pragmatic.
I don’t think a person who commits genocide against a species which is not evil but which is a threat to her kind is a hero. I fully concede that my conception of “hero” is limited in scope. Please refer to the options I gave you about living with a race of irredeamble evil creatures or wiping them out from existence.
I fully understand the implications (and utilitarian arguments) for holding on to altruistic principles but I’m not invested in the concept of “hero” to widen the scope to justify actions that I don’t consider heroic. I am willing to say that a protagonist is capable of both heroic and pragmatic acts. No doubt some would find my heroic fantasy campaigns prosaic but I don’t think they are.
QuoteEarlier in this thread, I described feeling unease watching James Bond gunning down Russian police officers while escaping a police station in Goldeneye because they were just doing their job. Do you feel any sort of unease that Ripley was deliberately and ruthlessly trying to commit genocide against an intelligent alien species?
I felt unease that the soldiers were sent to their deaths by a mendacious corporation. I felt unease that the settlers were unaware on what they were building their lives on. I understood, why Ripley did what she did. Look at it this way. Here were two mothers facing off, with the lives of their offsprings in the balance. And yes these intelligent alien life forms are a threat to humanity….well they would not be if that damn corporation did not send people to them….
QuoteWhat do you think evil is? Do you believe it exists?
I believe evil exists. As to what I think it is, I could point you to numerous acts . But my thinking of evil esp in games and I suppose in real life is, to quote David Rossi from
Criminal Minds – “
Our jobs is to stop evil not discover where it came from”. (I suppose now we are going to get into a whole discussion about the nature of evil all the while conflating a whole range of issues)
QuoteI'm not seeing it. Ash wasn't human and Burke is largely a straw man to be knocked down rather than a plausible example of human evil. At best, he was depicted as a corporate psychopath (you can find plenty of articles on those, too). I think all of the stories were, like the early Terminator movies, ultimately tales of survival against a smart opponent that you can't negotiate with who wants to slaughter you.
Ash isn’t supposed to represent humanity. He supposed to represent the human face of the Corporation. His actions were not supposed to demonstrate evil but rather how the corporation is like the Alien –
“A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality”. Burke was hardly a stawman. Burke may seem like a corporate stooge but he was more than that. He too was trying to survive. His aim was to cover up the gross act he had done by sending the colonist there. He wanted to make a profit from his failure. The fact that he was an unlikely early ally (even though he had ulterior motives) to Ripley further demonstrates the complex faces that man paints on as opposed to the pure state of the Aliens.
Edit to add: Also look at the protrayal of the "killing machines" in the movies. The diverse bunch who were the marines as oppossed to the hiveminded aliens. Gorman redeemed himself and was willing to sacrifce himself for Vasquez. Hudson rediscovered his balls and the foolhardiness that comes with it. Spunkmeyer died without changing his name. My point is that humans were protrayed as capable of changing while the aliens could not operating on instinct and survival.
QuoteAdded: One of the people in my gaming group is an Alien fanatic and what he seems to focus on is the movie as a story of what people can do to survive against the odds.
Sure. That’s one way of looking at it.
QuoteMy problem is not that games can be about different things (I'm fine with you telling me that your group wouldn't find the kind of game I'm describing much fun) but with the idea that games that take place in "murkier [moral] waters" are superior and a sign of better worldbuilding and that those with simpler moral landscapes are lazy, if not worthy of contempt.
Ok. Where did I say this ? I am curious, did I imply this somewhere. It was not my intention and if you point to a post where I said or implied this, I will retract it or apologize or explain what I meant. As for "murkier waters" I don't see how you could see this as a slight on your games. I was merely commenting on the difference of tone.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: John Morrow;481713Have I ever said otherwise? I feel I'm now being asked to defend a straw man.
It wasn't meant to be devisive statement. I sincerely hope that everyone can find common ground in the statement that good people generaly have gooder things to do than kill wicked people.
QuoteAgain, have I said that Paladins should be scouring the world for every last evil creature and not rest until they are all dead? What we were talking about specifically was the killing of helpless evil creatures, be they prisoners or the female and child evil monsters inhabiting a lair. Care to address that issue? And if the answer isn't to kill them, then what is the proper good course of action?
Given that they're irevocably evil, kill them is acceptable. Just as modern doctors kill pathogens. That includes killing women gems, baby germs and the women germs pregnant with germ twins. If sufficient resources are available, it's better to capturing them so they can't do harm but can be useful later on. (More on correctly Diagnosing irrevocable evil later).
QuoteI've said it several times before and I'll say it again. Being a psychopath, alone, does not make one a violent killer. The majority of psychopaths are not violent killers and I do not endorse any sort of genocide against psychopaths. But once a psychopath develops an inclination toward violence, they are notoriously difficult to treat or change because they don't want to change.
As for being the thought police, in a game where Paladins and/or Clerics and compel the truth and read alignment and magic users can read thoughts, one has the tools to be the thought police in a way that's not possible in the real world. On the other hand, I do think there is some merit to the idea that being Evil in D&D should correspond to something that has actually been done such that an Evil aura signifies actual guilt of having done something wrong.
There's lots of ways to run it, and sometimes it changes mid campaign. But as long as Paladins arn't 100% sure, they should avoid breaking their vows (such as murdering helpless and innocent people with a rough childhood and a difficult genetic heritage, and who became orphans exactly 1 round ago).
QuoteDo you believe that psychopathic sex offenders who show no remorse for their crimes should be released after they've served their time for whatever crime they've been caught and convicted of because you don't have the foreknowledge to predict what they'll do if released?
How about this for foreknowledge: "they show no remorse." That's a big clue right there.
QuoteWould you want such a person living next door to you and only be concerned that they might be a threat if you actually caught them in the act of sexually assaulting a neighbor or someone in your family?
Depends on how secure I am in my knowlege of them. If I knew they were falsely accused, I wouldn't mind. If I knew they would reoffend I'd be terrified and outraged. If my certainty was somewhere between those two extremes it would be a mix.
QuoteWould you be entirely untroubled if they avoided your family, friends, and subjects and went on to sexually assault a string of people in another country?
If it happened far away I'd recieve the report with less certainty and therefore my mind would be troubled by a correspondingly diminished amount. (I.e. If some cop from some 3rd world country says something through an interpreter, I'd say "what? Not MY friend, there must be some mistake!" But if my wife or kids told me I'd skip the denial stage and go streight to murderous wrath.)
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;481719In what way is this thread related to rpgs? Shouldn't it be in some other forum?
Orc = Psychopath.
Quote from: jeff37923;481707Emphasis mine, because it seems that you are suggesting that Paladins cannot be perky. I find that this plays into a stereotype of militant ecclesiastics that is quite offensive and contemptable. Paladins can be just as perky as your average glee club member - except they are a perky glee club member for GOD.
:D
Oh yeah you haven't lived till you've been in a room of perky Paladins that scowl at perky Paladins. Particularly since scowling makes them even more perky.
Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;481737Orc = Psychopath.
Very good Bradford. Yes, Tolkien was forever playing with phonetics and pulling new words out of old.
Psychopath -> psycORCpath -> Orc
Genocidal Colonialism -> GenORCcidal -> Orc
Quote from: Peregrin;481724Sure, if you try to logically deconstruct Christianity in the same way people are trying to do to D&D and examine all the paradoxes, you end up with Pre-destination.
I guess that sort of makes Calvanists like the "unimaginative" folk who can't work within D&D's alignment system.
that works, BTW. +1.
One thing we've established here is that Criminal Minds kicks ass.
Before the thread gets shitcanned, I would like to know what Stormy thinks the "darker side to our hobby" is. :D
Quote from: CRKrueger;481775One thing we've established here is that Criminal Minds kicks ass.
Before the thread gets shitcanned, I would like to know what Stormy thinks the "darker side to our hobby" is. :D
I am relatively sure "dark" is a standard English adjective, and the comparative form is no less common.
So that's a no, big surprise.
1400 fucking posts later...
{head in hands sobbing}
But it's just a fucking game!
Quote from: CRKrueger;481779So that's a no, big surprise.
It's more of a "No, I am not going to play your game of wilful ignorance any longer, go back and try that 'reading comprehension' all the kids are talking about."
Quote from: StormBringer;481827It's more of a "No, I am not going to play your game of wilful ignorance any longer, go back and try that 'reading comprehension' all the kids are talking about."
It's more like "No, you're not going to man up to what you let slip when you were pissed instead of the usual failed attempt at deflection."
What is my "willful ignorance" about, anyway? The apparently self-evident "dark side to the hobby" that you're too much of a coward to define according to what you really believe?
All the flippant non-arguments you can (and of course will) toss out won't change the fact that you fucked up.
If there is a darkness to the hobby it either...
1. What I contended and you argued against - Is brought to the hobby by humans, like we bring darkness to books, plays, movies, songs, painting and everything else we touch that can communicate an idea.
or
2. You think there is something about the hobby (or specifically D&D) that is dark. This is supposedly the strawman you say you don't believe in, even though you were the one who mentioned the "dark side to the hobby" when pissed and were probably typing the truth for the first time this thread.
So which is it? Am I right that the darkness comes solely from humans or am I right in that you believe otherwise?
Quote from: CRKrueger;481828It's more like "No, you're not going to man up to what you let slip when you were pissed instead of the usual failed attempt at deflection."
What is my "willful ignorance" about, anyway? The apparently self-evident "dark side to the hobby" that you're too much of a coward to define according to what you really believe?
All the flippant non-arguments you can (and of course will) toss out won't change the fact that you fucked up.
If there is a darkness to the hobby it either...
1. What I contended and you argued against - Is brought to the hobby by humans, like we bring darkness to books, plays, movies, songs, painting and everything else we touch that can communicate an idea.
or
2. You think there is something about the hobby (or specifically D&D) that is dark. This is supposedly the strawman you say you don't believe in, even though you were the one who mentioned the "dark side to the hobby" when pissed and were probably typing the truth for the first time this thread.
So which is it? Am I right that the darkness comes solely from humans or am I right in that you believe otherwise?
Since Stormy seems to be tongue tied i will help him out.
There is indeed a darker side to the hobby. We are basically playing a range of games in which the most common answer to any sort of question or threat is physical violence.
The vast majority of RPGs take this stance. One of the affects of this preponderance of violence is that the following things become default settings in order to make the violence more fun
- There are seldom consequences to violent acts. Murders go unpunished or punishement is to go a touring holiday of the montainous region to the NE and bring back a trinket
- The game world becomes populated with irredeemibly evil creatures who are only there so the players can kill them and take their stuff. This may create the misunderstanding in some suggestible players that the real World may follow a similar rules.
- Social solutions in which people talk through their issues to come to a means of compromise are usually deemed so pathetic that there are seldom rules to cover them in most game books.
- Within the game world the 'murderous hobo' play style where PCs move from place to place killing things and taking their stuff is often deemed to be Good or righeous behaviour, this is usually justified by the inclusion of 'bad guys' to kill (see above) and one presumes that when you kill 'bad guys' it's fine to root through their pockets and take anything you find. In fact often its okay to chop off their body parties to use as trophies or in magic spells. This might well lead to behaviours seen in various warzones where enemy soldiers are treated as inferior denied basic rights under the geneva convention and have their ears used to make necklaces, in some suggestible players (who go on to become combatants in war zones).
- As a result of these standard and accepted tropes the game attracts a fringe of radicals of various stripes that manipulate the games constructs and rules to put across a range of racist, sexist or bigoted views.
- Because the game is absorbing and sedentary it can become obsessive to some people who then don't get enough exercise, or obey an acceptable personal hygine regime. Instead they stay up late at night posting bollocks on web message forums which can have negative social effects.
How's that for a starting list?
I can add more if you like?
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832There is indeed a darker side to the hobby. We are basically playing a range of games in which the most common answer to any sort of question or threat is physical violence.
How does this differ from the same charge you could levy against, say, comic books?
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832The vast majority of RPGs take this stance.
Could you quote me the relevant sections of the book where the RPGs "take the stance" that things should be solved always with violence? I guess I missed the cliff notes.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832One of the affects of this preponderance of violence is that the following things become default settings in order to make the violence more fun
These all actually happen in your campaigns, huh?
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832There are seldom consequences to violent acts. Murders go unpunished or punishement is to go a touring holiday of the montainous region to the NE and bring back a trinket
Mine don't have this problem, bad GMing does not equal a "dark side to the hobby".
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832The game world becomes populated with irredeemibly evil creatures who are only there so the players can kill them and take their stuff.
That's the only reason huh? Bad GMing with lazy cosmology design does not equal a "dark side to the hobby".
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832This may create the misunderstanding in some suggestible players that the real World may follow a similar rules.
Ah, and kids who jump off buildings expecting to fly is the fault of Superman, right? Didn't we decide that was bullshit 40 years ago?
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832Social solutions in which people talk through their issues to come to a means of compromise are usually deemed so pathetic that there are seldom rules to cover them in most game books.
and here I thought we were talking about roleplaying games. There are lots of storygames that fulfill your criteria if you need the metagame. Players and GMs unable to roleplay social situations does not equal a "dark side to the hobby".
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832Within the game world the 'murderous hobo' play style where PCs move from place to place killing things and taking their stuff is often deemed to be Good or righeous behaviour, this is usually justified by the inclusion of 'bad guys' to kill (see above) and one presumes that when you kill 'bad guys' it's fine to root through their pockets and take anything you find. In fact often its okay to chop off their body parties to use as trophies or in magic spells.
Run a lot of "murderous hobo" campaigns do you? I don't. Feel free to quote from any actual D&D game source anything that remotely supports the above paragraph as the default or normal playstyle.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832This might well lead to behaviours seen in various warzones where enemy soldiers are treated as inferior denied basic rights under the geneva convention and have their ears used to make necklaces, in some suggestible players (who go on to become combatants in war zones).
are you still talking about RPGs or do you even know at this point?
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832As a result of these standard and accepted tropes the game attracts a fringe of radicals of various stripes that manipulate the games constructs and rules to put across a range of racist, sexist or bigoted views.
RPGs can communicate ideas. Name me one method of idea communication that hasn't been manipulated by a fringe group somewhere for foul ends. Any dark ideas communicated in RPGs are from one source - the humans playing them.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832Because the game is absorbing and sedentary it can become obsessive to some people who then don't get enough exercise, or obey an acceptable personal hygine regime. Instead they stay up late at night posting bollocks on web message forums which can have negative social effects.
Ok, that's "one", but again, nothing particular to the hobby itself as lots of hobbies are sedentary and there's always Kyle as a role-model of geek fitness.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832How's that for a starting list?
So far except for the sedentary part, it's a big wall of fail. :D
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832I can add more if you like?
Please do.
Quote from: David R;481729I think you missed the point of that. The point was that good can come from an evil environment. It relates to theme of redemption that seems to run through my posts here concerning evil.
Good can come from an evil environment so long as the individual has the capacity to be good. And the flip side of that is that evil can come from a good environment if the individual does not have the capacity to be good.
As for redemption, I have repeatedly said that my D&D game included both redeemable and irredeemable evil. I understand the theme of redemption and certainly believe that there are bad people in the world who can be redeemed. But there are also bad people who are not going to be redeemed short of a miracle because they lack empathy for their victims, lack a conscience that might make them feel bad about doing bad things, and because they like being the way they are.
Richard Pryor told the following joke as part of his stand-up routine:
"
I always said the black man had been screwed over since the Revolution. 'We're nice people. We just got a bad break.' But I was [visiting a prison for] six weeks and I talked to some of the brothers there. Thank God we got jails."
"
I said to one, 'Why'd you kill everybody in the house?'"
"
He said, 'They was home.'"
The reason why a person without empathy or a conscience might do horrible things to others can be as simple as they were there or the killer wanted to, and the reason Pryor could make it a punch line is that people don't expect that sort of blunt answer.
Quote from: David R;481729I think the problem here is that you only relate evil to psychopaths or at the very least seem to think of it as the only example of evil.
I'm not sure how you can draw that conclusion given that I've repeatedly said that my D&D game included a variety of types of evil, both redeemable and irredeemable, and the quote claiming that 50% of violent criminals in prison are psychopaths also means that 50% arent. And the article about the Columbine killers that I linked to basically says that one was a psychopath and the other wasn't. My focus on psychopaths is to explain how a species of creatures might be sentiend and rational yet also be be inherently and irredeemably evil, not to explain the only way a person can be evil. It's to explain how a remorseless yet rational mindset actually works.
Quote from: David R;481729A torturer who maims people for an evil dictator can go home and be a loving parent to his children all because he's afraid to rebel against a system which may put his own family in peril. Is his acts not evil? Yes. Is he always a psychopath ? No
Is he redeemable? I would think so. That means he's not the type of evil I'm talking about when I talk about violent psychopaths. I'm specifically addressing the plausiblity and reasoning being inherently and irredeemably evil creatures for those who believe such a thing is impossible ot imagine or would only be included in a game for morally or creatively contempable reasons.
Quote from: David R;481729No doubt if my perception of evil was limited only to psychopaths and such creatures made up the sum evil in my games, I'll take your advice. As it is, the scope of evil and how people are both perpetrators and victims can be found in the history or narratives of various real world cultures.
I'm not asking you to limit your perception of evil only to psychopaths. I'm suggesting you to consider not basing your perception of evil primarily on folklore and fiction and to consider not limiting your perception of evil to
exclude something that not only actually exists but plays a disproportionately large role in the evil that's actually committed in the real world. I'm not saying that you should only have psychopathic evil in your game. I'm saying that maybe your game shouldn't be sanitized of it if your goal is to reflect the full range of real human behavior. If you want to sanitize psychopaths out of your games because of personal preference or taste, that's no different than sanitizing a game of rape, slavery, or other horrible things because of personal preference or taste, and I'm fine with that. But then please don't claim that doing so adds more depth to a game because I don't think less is more.
Quote from: David R;481729I don't see how I can be any clearer. Ripley's act of going back for Newt was heroic. Her act of (not spiteful but rather rage filled - understandable since the people who had worked with her and in Aliens fought with her and given up their lives in some instances, were killed by them ) genocide was pragmatic.
What I'm looking for is your "all things considered" final assessment at the end of the movie. Overall, at the end of the movie, is Ripley a hero or not? Is she a good person or not? Can a hero or good person commit genocide and still be a hero or good person? Ripley tried to kill all of the Aliens, including Alien children. In Stargate SG-1, the SG-1 team attempted or actually carried out genocide more than once (off the top of my head they tried to wipe out the Replicators, likely wiped out the Eurondans (who were genocidal racists, themselves), attempted genocide of the Goa'uld, and wiped out the Ori). In Independence Day, they wipe out not only the attack ships but also the mother ship of the invaders. Star Trek contains examples of genocide, both in terms of last-of-their-kind creatures and at least one entire species in Operation Annihilate! [exclamation point in episode title]
Quote from: David R;481729I felt unease that the soldiers were sent to their deaths by a mendacious corporation. I felt unease that the settlers were unaware on what they were building their lives on.
That's not what I'm talking about. That's how you were supposed to feel and the corporation was not the good guy. What I'm talking about is when the protagonist, portrayed as the good guy, does something that makes you feel that maybe they aren't the good guy. I doubt very much the writers and makers of Goldeneye decided to show James Bond mowing down Russian police officers to make the audience think he was the bad guy. Specifically, with respect to role-playing, this is about the claim that the players shouldn't feel like they are playing good heroes if their characters engage in certain behavior. I'm trying to figure out when people think role-playing characters lose their status as good heroes.
Quote from: David R;481729I understood, why Ripley did what she did. Look at it this way. Here were two mothers facing off, with the lives of their offsprings in the balance. And yes these intelligent alien life forms are a threat to humanity....well they would not be if that damn corporation did not send people to them....
And if the corporation didn't send people to them and nobody ever landed on that planet again, they'd still be eggs locked in statis for eternity, which is preferable to or morally different from genocide how, exactly?
Quote from: David R;481729I believe evil exists. As to what I think it is, I could point you to numerous acts . But my thinking of evil esp in games and I suppose in real life is, to quote David Rossi from Criminal Minds - "Our jobs is to stop evil not discover where it came from". (I suppose now we are going to get into a whole discussion about the nature of evil all the while conflating a whole range of issues)
On the one hand, early in this thread, people were claiming that it was lazy worldbuilding to not think these issues through and now I'm being told that it's not my job as a worldbuilder to think these things through. So which is right?
Quote from: David R;481729Ash isn't supposed to represent humanity. He supposed to represent the human face of the Corporation. His actions were not supposed to demonstrate evil but rather how the corporation is like the Alien - "A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality". Burke was hardly a stawman. Burke may seem like a corporate stooge but he was more than that. He too was trying to survive. His aim was to cover up the gross act he had done by sending the colonist there. He wanted to make a profit from his failure. The fact that he was an unlikely early ally (even though he had ulterior motives) to Ripley further demonstrates the complex faces that man paints on as opposed to the pure state of the Aliens.
And accepting that assessment for the sake of argument, I think that a setting can have room for both Burkes and Aliens and including the Aliens does not make the setting inferior to or more shallow than a setting that includes only Burkes.
Quote from: David R;481729Edit to add: Also look at the protrayal of the "killing machines" in the movies. The diverse bunch who were the marines as oppossed to the hiveminded aliens. Gorman redeemed himself and was willing to sacrifce himself for Vasquez. Hudson rediscovered his balls and the foolhardiness that comes with it. Spunkmeyer died without changing his name. My point is that humans were protrayed as capable of changing while the aliens could not operating on instinct and survival.
I don't think any of the humans in Aliens really changed their core nature. Burke certainly didn't get a chance for redemption. Gorman wasn't a coward so much as he was green and in over his head. Hudson's backstory was that he was a few weeks away from retirement, not that he was chicken. There were no Darth Vader picking up the Emperor and throwing him into a chasm or Jules deciding he was done being a hit man that I can see.
Quote from: David R;481729Ok. Where did I say this ? I am curious, did I imply this somewhere. It was not my intention and if you point to a post where I said or implied this, I will retract it or apologize or explain what I meant. As for "murkier waters" I don't see how you could see this as a slight on your games. I was merely commenting on the difference of tone.
When you talk about certain choices adding depth or being more interesting, the implication is that other choices lack depth or are less interesting. The more explicit comments about lazy worldbuilding and so on came from others earlier in the thread. If you don't think the choice to have inherently and irredeemably monsters in a game is a bad or inferior choice, then are we disagreeing about anything here other than play preference?
Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;481733There's lots of ways to run it, and sometimes it changes mid campaign. But as long as Paladins arn't 100% sure, they should avoid breaking their vows (such as murdering helpless and innocent people with a rough childhood and a difficult genetic heritage, and who became orphans exactly 1 round ago).
For the most part, I agree with that. The things people seem to be questioning are (1) whether the Paladin can ever be 100% sure and (2) whether an a Paladin could be certain about an entire type of monster because of their nature. I am not saying that either of these is required. What I am saying is that the answer to both, in a fantasy setting with magic and monsters, can (not "must" or "should" but "can") be "yes" and that there are reasons other than crypto-racism or laziness why a person might want to do that in their game.
Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;481733How about this for foreknowledge: "they show no remorse." That's a big clue right there.
Absolutely. And if an entire species of creature is incapable of feeling remorse because their brains lack the capacity to?
Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;481733Depends on how secure I am in my knowlege of them. If I knew they were falsely accused, I wouldn't mind. If I knew they would reoffend I'd be terrified and outraged. If my certainty was somewhere between those two extremes it would be a mix.
And if you knew for certain that they were guilty of past crimes, knew for certain that they enjoyed committing those crimes, and knew for certain that they were incapable of feeling remorse for what they did or really caring about their victims, where would your views of them be on that spectrum?
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832- The game world becomes populated with irredeemibly evil creatures who are only there so the players can kill them and take their stuff. This may create the misunderstanding in some suggestible players that the real World may follow a similar rules.
Wow, Patricia fucking Pulling back from the dead and here to save impressionable youth from the occult evils of Heavy Metal and The Smurfs.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832- The game world becomes populated with irredeemibly evil creatures who are only there so the players can kill them and take their stuff. This may create the misunderstanding in some suggestible players that the real World may follow a similar rules.
- Within the game world the 'murderous hobo' play style where PCs move from place to place killing things and taking their stuff is often deemed to be Good or righeous behaviour, this is usually justified by the inclusion of 'bad guys' to kill (see above) and one presumes that when you kill 'bad guys' it's fine to root through their pockets and take anything you find. In fact often its okay to chop off their body parties to use as trophies or in magic spells. This might well lead to behaviours seen in various warzones where enemy soldiers are treated as inferior denied basic rights under the geneva convention and have their ears used to make necklaces, in some suggestible players (who go on to become combatants in war zones).
- As a result of these standard and accepted tropes the game attracts a fringe of radicals of various stripes that manipulate the games constructs and rules to put across a range of racist, sexist or bigoted views.
How does this differ from the typical complaints of concerned parent groups about role-playing games, heavy metal music, rap music, video games, comic books, pulp fiction, and so on? Do you have any evidence that role-playing games are driving players to racism or to commit war crimes who would not otherwise be inclined to think or behave that way? Don't you think this sounds at least a little like a Jack Chick tract?
(http://www.escapeplan.org/chick/D&D/5.gif)
It's the "irredeemably" part that I most object to, among both the antis and the pros. Not because I'm a pacifist, far from it, but it seems to go way too far--in the name of making violence 100% "justified", it creates an even more offensive (sorry John, that's how I see it) and set of premises.
EDIT: offensive because I'm not convinced that they can really hold without undermining the verisimilitude of the setting, so trying harder and harder to keep them puts their implications into more and more stark relief.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481853It's the "irredeemably" part that I most object to, among both the antis and the pros. Not because I'm a pacifist, far from it, but it seems to go way too far--in the name of making violence 100% "justified", it creates an even more offensive (sorry John, that's how I see it) and set of premises.
EDIT: offensive because I'm not convinced that they can really hold without undermining the verisimilitude of the setting, so trying harder and harder to keep them puts their implications into more and more stark relief.
Elliot is restating what I said but more nicely.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481832Since Stormy seems to be tongue tied i will help him out.
Not really tongue tied, just tired of answering the same question fifteen or twenty fucking times.
QuoteThere is indeed a darker side to the hobby. We are basically playing a range of games in which the most common answer to any sort of question or threat is physical violence.
If you are meaning to say that a certain percentage of players go to the extreme of using violence for any situation, I would agree that is a less than savoury aspect. I hadn't been thinking specifically along those lines, but it does fit in.
QuoteThe vast majority of RPGs take this stance. One of the affects of this preponderance of violence is that the following things become default settings in order to make the violence more fun
- There are seldom consequences to violent acts. Murders go unpunished or punishement is to go a touring holiday of the montainous region to the NE and bring back a trinket
- The game world becomes populated with irredeemibly evil creatures who are only there so the players can kill them and take their stuff. This may create the misunderstanding in some suggestible players that the real World may follow a similar rules.
- Social solutions in which people talk through their issues to come to a means of compromise are usually deemed so pathetic that there are seldom rules to cover them in most game books.
- Within the game world the 'murderous hobo' play style where PCs move from place to place killing things and taking their stuff is often deemed to be Good or righeous behaviour, this is usually justified by the inclusion of 'bad guys' to kill (see above) and one presumes that when you kill 'bad guys' it's fine to root through their pockets and take anything you find. In fact often its okay to chop off their body parties to use as trophies or in magic spells. This might well lead to behaviours seen in various warzones where enemy soldiers are treated as inferior denied basic rights under the geneva convention and have their ears used to make necklaces, in some suggestible players (who go on to become combatants in war zones).
- As a result of these standard and accepted tropes the game attracts a fringe of radicals of various stripes that manipulate the games constructs and rules to put across a range of racist, sexist or bigoted views.
- Because the game is absorbing and sedentary it can become obsessive to some people who then don't get enough exercise, or obey an acceptable personal hygine regime. Instead they stay up late at night posting bollocks on web message forums which can have negative social effects.
How's that for a starting list?
I can add more if you like?
Those are some interesting points in an of themselves. I am really not particularly worried about people being 'corrupted' from playing, at least not in substantial enough numbers to consider it a problem.
Overall, there are specific instructions on how to adjudicate violence of the type you describe in an RPG that simply isn't present in poker or Monopoly. Similarly, neither of those games have mechanics for determining which 'race' is better than another one. These are the tools inherent to RPGs that make them much, much better tools for expressing real world prejudices than boardgames. Which is why Stormfront has dozens of RPG posts and threads with rules for incorporating their racist views, and about two boardgame posts, neither of which describe how the black pawns in chess are inferior.
Much like the film making industry, in fact. You can make films or enjoy watching them, but denying there is a seamier side (some of the more vile pornography, for example) just makes one look foolish. Continually demanding someone point it out for the twentieth time even more so. It doesn't mean cinematography should be banned, or that everyone who watches movies is also a paedophile. That would be an equally stupid assumption, only surpassed by attempting to paint another as making that argument.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481704But I also see the value in keeping your identity secret. I mean it is rare, but someone could take a flame war too far and show up at a person's house (if they had enough info on them---and a name+location is a good start).
The thing is that if you post regularly on one or more forums under the same pseudonym, go to chat rooms, and have facebook or the like, at some point you'll have mentioned your location, and/or your job (even if not actual place of employment), your family and so on. With all that it's only a matter of at most a few hours of effort for someone to track you down.
If you want to be anonymous online, you basically have to not post on forums at all. Or if you do it, have an email address to register with which you only use for registering on that forum, and have a different email and different pseudonym for each forum... and carefully avoid saying anything describing where you live or what you do. And certainly do NOT have facebook, or a blog, or google+ or anything like that.
A determined person could still track you down, but they'd have to be
smart and determined, and the sorts of people who get angry at complete strangers online and want to drive off to meet them and punch them out tend not to be the sharpest tools in the shed.
And even if they did come for you, they probably wouldn't be much threat. You don't get super-strong and l33t martial arts skillzorz sitting at your keyboard arguing with strangers on the internet.
Quote from: John Morrow;481848How does this differ from the typical complaints of concerned parent groups about role-playing games, heavy metal music, rap music, video games, comic books, pulp fiction, and so on? Do you have any evidence that role-playing games are driving players to racism or to commit war crimes who would not otherwise be inclined to think or behave that way? Don't you think this sounds at least a little like a Jack Chick tract?
Allow me a moment to interject. The critical part of what JibbaJabba said in that last bullet point was:
"As a result of these standard and accepted tropes the game attracts a
fringe of radicals of various stripes that manipulate the games constructs and rules to put across a range of racist, sexist or bigoted views."
The highlighted part is what I have never denied. They are a very fringe element,
but they exist. The first part, about the "standard and accepted tropes" explains why they choose RPGs over boardgames.
In that regard, Jack Chick tried to portray
every single gamer as a potential Satanist, while Jibba's point (that I agree with) is that there is only a smallish number of radicals that use RPGs as their means to spread the message. I certainly don't think there is anything about RPGs that makes players in general more susceptible to influence from themes of racism, sexual violence, or genocide; I suspect JibbaJabba does not either.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481853EDIT: offensive because I'm not convinced that they can really hold without undermining the verisimilitude of the setting, so trying harder and harder to keep them puts their implications into more and more stark relief.
And I think the verisimilitude problem reflects a problem you have with the idea rather than an objective problem with it. People keep claiming that irredeemably evil creatures are unbelievable and and unrealistic despite the fact that there are real people who exhibit the characteristics in question without having the problems that people assume that they'd have. You might want to consider why you are claiming to be
offended by a verisimilitude problem. Are you also offended by the verisimilitude issues created by flying dragons, giant insect, and time travel in games that have those features? Since when is verisimilitude a moral issue?
1) A psychopath is very different from a species of psychopaths, as has been pointed out many times. Psychopaths are parasitic on ordinary morality, not a replacement for it.
2) Something can be offensive for aesthetic reasons - the term "offensive" is descriptive of the emotion(s) provoked, not a description of the process by which that emotion arises, and can therefore be equivocal. The smell of shit is offensive. The music of Britney Spears is offensive. Advocating the racial inferiority of non-whites is offensive.
Quote from: John Morrow;481860People keep claiming that irredeemably evil creatures are unbelievable and and unrealistic...
I just wanted to address this part really quickly; no one is saying an irredeemably evil
creature is unbelievable. Demons, unique creatures from mythology (I believe Medusa was mentioned), certain undead, etc aren't the problem. What's wholly unrealistic is that there are entire
species that are irredeemably evil. No
could ever possibly be so much as True Neutral, they are all EVIL.
I mean, hell, I am sure there were Nazis that signed up in a fervour of patriotism who later changed their minds and went AWOL because of the whole genocide thing. Saying every last one of them was pure evil to the core is misguided, to say the least.
Quote from: StormBringer;481859The highlighted part is what I have never denied. They are a very fringe element, but they exist. The first part, about the "standard and accepted tropes" explains why they choose RPGs over boardgames.
Yes, and there is a fringe element of dark heavy metal fans who have burned down churches in Norway. And there is a fringe element of rap music fans who are really gang bangers. Anders Behring Breivik claims he trained for his attack using the video game Modern Warfare 2. And so on. There are fringe elements in every hobby and crazy people can turn anything into an unhealthy obsession.
Quote from: StormBringer;481859In that regard, Jack Chick tried to portray every single gamer as a potential Satanist, while Jibba's point (that I agree with) is that there is only a smallish number of radicals that use RPGs as their means to spread the message. I certainly don't think there is anything about RPGs that makes players in general more susceptible to influence from themes of racism, sexual violence, or genocide; I suspect JibbaJabba does not either.
That's not all he was saying. He was saying that role-playing games could drive "susceptible" people to believe it's OK to kill people and take their stuff or commit actual war crimes if they later join the military. Do you believe that?
The same argument has been used for decades to justify banning pulps, comic books, role-playing games, video games, heavy metal music, rap music, and so on. While Jack Chick is an extreme example, the argument is always that the thing in question can turn good people bad. The reality is that normal people can tell the difference between fantasy and reality and the people who can't can turn anything they feel intensely about into a hobby or cause, including things like environmentalism (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38957020/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/police-kill-discovery-building-gunman/#.ToFSs3Pv0sE).
Quote from: John Morrow;481844Good can come from an evil environment so long as the individual has the capacity to be good. And the flip side of that is that evil can come from a good environment if the individual does not have the capacity to be good.
As for redemption, I have repeatedly said that my D&D game included both redeemable and irredeemable evil. I understand the theme of redemption and certainly believe that there are bad people in the world who can be redeemed. But there are also bad people who are not going to be redeemed short of a miracle because they lack empathy for their victims, lack a conscience that might make them feel bad about doing bad things, and because they like being the way they are.
Agreed and this is exactly what the
Criminal Minds bit I quoted implies, the whole quote mind you. But what you did was slash the quote and use it as a springboard to launch into your preoccupations with psychopaths.
QuoteI'm not sure how you can draw that conclusion given that I've repeatedly said that my D&D game included a variety of types of evil, both redeemable and irredeemable, and the quote claiming that 50% of violent criminals in prison are psychopaths also means that 50% arent. And the article about the Columbine killers that I linked to basically says that one was a psychopath and the other wasn't. My focus on psychopaths is to explain how a species of creatures might be sentiend and rational yet also be be inherently and irredeemably evil, not to explain the only way a person can be evil. It's to explain how a remorseless yet rational mindset actually works.
I draw that conclusion because even though I said that your games include a variety of types of evil – see my respone to CK – you continue cherry picking qotes of mine (like you did with my
Crimnial Minds quote) and holding forth on psychopaths without providing examples as to the other types of evil in your games.
You seem more interested in reinforcing the fact that they can be a logical reason for the kind of irredeambale evil in your games even though I have not disputed this. In fact, on this very thread I posted that my
Hunter game was similar to your Goblin example. Either you are not reading what I wrote or prefer to build strawmen hoping to catch me in some sort of rhetorical trap.
QuoteIs he redeemable? I would think so. That means he's not the type of evil I'm talking about when I talk about violent psychopaths. I'm specifically addressing the plausiblity and reasoning being inherently and irredeemably evil creatures for those who believe such a thing is impossible ot imagine or would only be included in a game for morally or creatively contempable reasons.
This is what I mean. My example of the torturer was in response to your “advice” about doing research about “bad people” and "evil” with regards to psychopathy. The torturer example was about how bad or evil people were not always psychopaths but the only reason I brought it up was because you had started on abut psychopaths….again.
QuoteI'm not asking you to limit your perception of evil only to psychopaths. I'm suggesting you to consider not basing your perception of evil primarily on folklore and fiction and to consider not limiting your perception of evil to exclude something that not only actually exists but plays a disproportionately large role in the evil that's actually committed in the real world.
First off, my references for real life evil is not based primarily on fiction or folklore. It’s based on histories, testimonies (both victim and perpetrator), archival material, articles, research papers etc. I assume this is just a cheap shot because I make references to a TV show. Fair enough. Here's another one from
Criminal Minds.
Derek Morgan: Rossi, don't tell me you believe in evil.
David Rossi: Don't tell me you do this job and you don't.
Derek Morgan: I believe there are evil acts, but those are choices - brain chemistry. What do you think, Hotch?
Aaron 'Hotch' Hotchner: I think, deep down, we're all capable of unspeakable things. Where it starts or what you call it, I don't know. Second, I do not exclude psychopaths from my games. I exclude races based on the concept of psychopaths because they do not jibe with my concept of heroic fantasy and because I model evil on real life and I have yet to encounter a race of psychopaths. However my imagination is quite capable of accpeting a race of pyschopaths but I don't think I could pull it off.
There may be no irredeambley evil races in my games but there are irredeamably evil individuals. As I said I base the evil in my games based on real world acts (psychopaths included) personified in individuals or groups in the game. Please respond to what I write and and not to what others write.
QuoteI'm not saying that you should only have psychopathic evil in your game. I'm saying that maybe your game shouldn't be sanitized of it if your goal is to reflect the full range of real human behavior. If you want to sanitize psychopaths out of your games because of personal preference or taste, that's no different than sanitizing a game of rape, slavery, or other horrible things because of personal preference or taste, and I'm fine with that. But thenplease don't claim that doing so adds more depth to a game because I don't think less is more.
I never said I want to sanitize my games. I did say my conception of heroism is limited and that I would reject certain acts that I don’t consider heroic. The question of depth was not a response to sanitization but rather the question of why I don’t use irredeemable evil races in MY games.
The answer was because I think it brings more depth to MY games when the players see that their social workers motivations have as much influence as their butt kicking heroics. I never meant to imply (and I don't think I did) it adds more depth to A game,( your game, CK games whoevers) . Depth here had nothing to with personal preference or taste but rather how I (and my players) view the setting and their role in it.
Again you seem to be implying that if a game does not have psychopaths it’s sanitized. Nonsense. In fact I would argue that evil committed by people who are not psychopaths is more horrific because they are not fucked in the head. As I said in my first post in, some people use evil races without the horrible implications of having evil races and that’s ok.
QuoteWhat I'm looking for is your "all things considered" final assessment at the end of the movie. Overall, at the end of the movie, is Ripley a hero or not? Is she a good person or not? Can a hero or good person commit genocide and still be a hero or good person? Ripley tried to kill all of the Aliens, including Alien children
I believe I answered that but in case you missed it, here it is again:
I don’t see how I can be any clearer. Ripley’s act of going back for Newt was heroic. Her act of (not spiteful but rather rage filled – understandable since the people who had worked with her and in Aliens fought with her and given up their lives in some instances, were killed by them ) genocide was pragmatic.
I don’t think a person who commits genocide against a species which is not evil but which is a threat to her kind is a hero. I fully concede that my conception of “hero” is limited in scope.QuoteWhat I'm talking about is when the protagonist, portrayed as the good guy, does something that makes you feel that maybe they aren't the good guy. I doubt very much the writers and makers of Goldeneye decided to show James Bond mowing down Russian police officers to make the audience think he was the bad guy
Well in the James Bond example it's the casual demonizing of the other, in this case evil Russians. The Good guy is allowed to get away with such actions well, because the "others" are the 'bad guys'. But I get what you’re saying. Read my response above for what I think of Ripley.
QuoteSpecifically, with respect to role-playing, this is about the claim that the players shouldn't feel like they are playing good heroes if their characters engage in certain behavior. I'm trying to figure out when people think role-playing characters lose their status as good heroes.
The criteria varies between groups I suppose. I think I have given you examples of what I think is unheroic. Genocide for one, regardless of whether a race is evil or not.
QuoteAnd if the corporation didn't send people to them and nobody ever landed on that planet again, they'd still be eggs locked in statis for eternity, which is preferable to or morally different from genocide how, exactly?
Um, we would not be the ones doing the genociding ? What’s your point ?
QuoteOn the one hand, early in this thread, people were claiming that it was lazy worldbuilding to not think these issues through and now I'm being told that it's not my job as a worldbuilder to think these things through. So which is right?
You know something Morrow, this is getting tedious. I never once said it was lazy world building to not think these issue through. My response was to your question of how I define evil. Don’t use me as a stand in for arguments or discussion that you had or are having with other posters.
QuoteAnd accepting that assessment for the sake of argument, I think that a setting can have room for both Burkes and Aliens and including the Aliens does not make the setting inferior to or more shallow than a setting that includes only Burkes.
See, I never claimed otherwise. Y’know I can keep saying this but you are going to carry on making these ridiculous strawmen instead of addressing what I actually wrote.
QuoteI don't think any of the humans in Aliens really changed their core nature. Burke certainly didn't get a chance for redemption. Gorman wasn't a coward so much as he was green and in over his head. Hudson's backstory was that he was a few weeks away from retirement, not that he was chicken. There were no Darth Vader picking up the Emperor and throwing him into a chasm or Jules deciding he was done being a hit man that I can see.
Fair enough. My view is that it’s not neccesarry for every character to have a shot of redemption. As for Gorman it was just another example of the difference between the “warrior structures” of the humans and aliens. The former plagued by politics or whatever. The fact is that his greenness got people killed something he realized and he took steps to correct it even if it meant his own death.
I think there a little bit of chicken in Hudson - "
game over, man”, “let Bishop, go” - and the knife scene between him, Bishop and Drake. Anyway, for me it showed change, not the big kind like you mentioned but in the context of the film, enough to highlight difference between the aliens and them.
QuoteWhen you talk about certain choices adding depth or being more interesting, the implication is that other choices lack depth or are less interesting. The more explicit comments about lazy worldbuilding and so on came from others earlier in the thread.
Not at all. Maybe the online discourse has got so bad that whenever we talk about the choices we make in our games it automatically means that the other choices are less interesting or inferior. What works for me may not work for you. I have treid to answer your question honestly and not disparage any other preferences.
I think I have been pretty clear of what I find interesting and what I don’t, without disparaging your preference and if I thought I did I was quick to make it clear when I was wrong or behaving like a dick.
QuoteIf you don't think the choice to have inherently and irredeemably monsters in a game is a bad or inferior choice, then are we disagreeing about anything here other than play preference?
I think part of this discussion is you building strawmen and wondering why I'm burning them down. Another part of this discussion is about my definition of heroism and how it differs from yours.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;4818611) A psychopath is very different from a species of psychopaths, as has been pointed out many times. Psychopaths are parasitic on ordinary morality, not a replacement for it.
It has been claimed but not supported. An assertion is not a proof.
Yes, you can argue that psychopaths are parasitic on ordinary people but what makes you think an entire species of monsters cannot be parasitic on ordinary humans? I'm not suggesting creating a world inhabited only by monsters, am I? This objection is like claiming that you can't have a society of vampires because they are parasitic and need the blood of others to live on. That's only a problem if you imagine a world with insufficient humans for them to feed on (see Daybreakers).
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;4818612) Something can be offensive for aesthetic reasons - the term "offensive" is descriptive of the emotion(s) provoked, not a description of the process by which that emotion arises, and can therefore be equivocal. The smell of shit is offensive. The music of Britney Spears is offensive. Advocating the racial inferiority of non-whites is offensive.
The emotion provoked is disgust and once an aesthetic choice produces that emotional response, it carries the weight of a moral decision such that the person feeling the emotion often not only believes that the aesthetic in question disgusts them personally but should disgust every other decent person or else there is something wrong with them.
ADDED: And, I'm sorry if it offends you, but I actually like Toxic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SMCs1J48sw).
Quote from: John Morrow;481845For the most part, I agree with that. The things people seem to be questioning are (1) whether the Paladin can ever be 100% sure and (2) whether an a Paladin could be certain about an entire type of monster because of their nature. I am not saying that either of these is required. What I am saying is that the answer to both, in a fantasy setting with magic and monsters, can (not "must" or "should" but "can") be "yes" and that there are reasons other than crypto-racism or laziness why a person might want to do that in their game.
Edit: Yes, that seems right to me although my personal preference is trending toward simplicity. So there's less sword fights with Satan and more knife fights with a dog.
QuoteAbsolutely. And if an entire species of creature is incapable of feeling remorse because their brains lack the capacity to?
Then they'd keep on doing what they do, unless theres some sort of non-remorse reason for them to change their behavior. (Such as when the Tarrarasque goes back to sleep. Or when a demilich makes his final voyage beyond prime material plane to places unknown.)
QuoteAnd if you knew for certain that they were guilty of past crimes, knew for certain that they enjoyed committing those crimes, and knew for certain that they were incapable of feeling remorse for what they did or really caring about their victims, where would your views of them be on that spectrum?
I'd be at 100% terror and 0% outrage. I don't see how I could be outraged at something that has no choice in the matter. It's like being angry at a 'naughty' toaster or a 'mischievious' cliff. I don't anthropomorphise inanimate objects -- they hate it!
137 pages about whether or not Orcs are evil based on a so-so article?
Holy crap.
- Ed C.
Quote from: StormBringer;481862I just wanted to address this part really quickly; no one is saying an irredeemably evil creature is unbelievable. Demons, unique creatures from mythology (I believe Medusa was mentioned), certain undead, etc aren't the problem. What's wholly unrealistic is that there are entire species that are irredeemably evil. No could ever possibly be so much as True Neutral, they are all EVIL.
Why? Do you believe that normal human behavior exists independently of innate mental capabilities and instincts such that changing those mental capabilities and instincts as a matter of normal development would have no bearing on behavior? Do you not believe in disorders like autism, psychopathy, and various inheritable behavioral disorders? Or do you simply believe it impossible that a whole species could share what amounts to mental disorders in humans as their normal state of mind?
Quote from: StormBringer;481862I mean, hell, I am sure there were Nazis that signed up in a fervour of patriotism who later changed their minds and went AWOL because of the whole genocide thing. Saying every last one of them was pure evil to the core is misguided, to say the least.
I'm not talking about normal human beings. I'm not even talking about all psychopaths. Are you claiming that if it is impossible for normal human beings mean it is utterly impossible?
Quote from: David R;481865You know something Morrow, this is getting tedious.
I agree. I think we've reached the point where we are talking past each other for a variety of reasons and we are starting to go around in circles. If you're done, then I'll give you the last word on this line of discussion.
Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;481870I'd be at 100% terror and 0% outrage. I don't see how I could be outraged at something that has no choice in the matter. It's like being angry at a 'naughty' toaster or a 'mischievious' cliff. I don't anthropomorphise inanimate objects -- they hate it!
I really don't care whether you are outraged or not. What I care about is how you think a good person should be permitted to deal with the threat.
Quote from: John Morrow;481879I agree. I think we've reached the point where we are talking past each other for a variety of reasons and we are starting to go around in circles. If you're done, then I'll give you the last word on this line of discussion.
I'm don't spend time here to get the last word. If you have the time or interest, please just summarize your position and where you think we differ. This would be constructive last words to our discussion.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;481883I'm don't spend time here to get the last word. If you have the time or interest, please just summarize your position and where you think we differ. This would be constructive last words to our discussion.
OK. I'll reply to the bits that might still be constructive.
Quote from: John Morrow;481881I really don't care whether you are outraged or not. What I care about is how you think a good person should be permitted to deal with the threat.
Against a single irredemable monster a person should make the monster his slave, failing that make the monster his prisoner, failing that kill the monster, failing that live in an unending stalemate with the monster, failing that run away, and failing that fail.
It's the same thing for an entire species of monsters, except that then you get into efficiency of scale. They team up, or deputizing a few good Paladins so everyone else can get back to their lives with the least amount of wasted time and resources.
In the case of the guarenteed-dangerous pedophile living legaly in my neighborhood, that's a failure of society. In such a failed society I can't call the Paladin or assemble the neighborhood watch. I have to individualy defend my children, just like every other family in the neighborhood has to individualy defend themselves.
Quote from: David R;481865Agreed and this is exactly what the Criminal Minds bit I quoted implies, the whole quote mind you. But what you did was slash the quote and use it as a springboard to launch into your preoccupations with psychopaths.
Frankly, then I don't understand the point of the quote. The problem is that I don't watch Criminal Minds and don't know the characters so it all just looks like random schmucks blathering about how each one has their own philosophy of life to me.
Quote from: David R;481865I draw that conclusion because even though I said that your games include a variety of types of evil – see my respone to CK – you continue cherry picking qotes of mine (like you did with my Crimnial Minds quote) and holding forth on psychopaths without providing examples as to the other types of evil in your games.
I'm not providing examples of the other types of evil in my games because they are not controversial. What kind of example do you want?
Quote from: David R;481865This is what I mean. My example of the torturer was in response to your “advice” about doing research about “bad people” and "evil” with regards to psychopathy. The torturer example was about how bad or evil people were not always psychopaths but the only reason I brought it up was because you had started on abut psychopaths….again.
You complain that I'm not listening to you and I feel you are not listening to me, either. I have repeatedly said that I understand that evil people are not always psychopaths. In fact, I have said that not all psychopaths are evil. So what are we disagreeing about here, then?
Quote from: David R;481865First off, my references for real life evil is not based primarily on fiction or folklore. It’s based on histories, testimonies (both victim and perpetrator), archival material, articles, research papers etc. I assume this is just a cheap shot because I make references to a TV show.
I replied that way because I think fiction is a poor way to understand how the world works and, yes, you are using a fictional TV show to support your points.
Quote from: David R;481865Fair enough. Here's another one from Criminal Minds.
Derek Morgan: Rossi, don't tell me you believe in evil.
David Rossi: Don't tell me you do this job and you don't.
Derek Morgan: I believe there are evil acts, but those are choices - brain chemistry. What do you think, Hotch?
Aaron 'Hotch' Hotchner: I think, deep down, we're all capable of unspeakable things. Where it starts or what you call it, I don't know.
So what, exactly, am I supposed to get out of that quote other than everyone has an opinion? None of them really give me any reason to think it's a better opinion than any of the others. If any of those characters were actually presenting an argument or example in defense of a position, it might have more value.
Quote from: David R;481865There may be no irredeambley evil races in my games but there are irredeamably evil individuals. As I said I base the evil in my games based on real world acts (psychopaths included) personified in individuals or groups in the game. Please respond to what I write and and not to what others write.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what we are arguing about anymore.
As for responding to you alone, we are having this discussion in an open thread rather than via private message. As such, I consider everyone who may be reading the thread when I reply, and that means that I take opinions expressed by others into account.
Quote from: David R;481865Depth here had nothing to with personal preference or taste but rather how I (and my players) view the setting and their role in it.
Saying that a choice has or lacks depth implies a value judgement to me. Maybe you didn't intend it that way, but I don't think it's unusual to read it as an objective value judgement.
Quote from: David R;481865I believe I answered that but in case you missed it, here it is again:
I don’t see how I can be any clearer. Ripley’s act of going back for Newt was heroic. Her act of (not spiteful but rather rage filled – understandable since the people who had worked with her and in Aliens fought with her and given up their lives in some instances, were killed by them ) genocide was pragmatic.
I don’t think a person who commits genocide against a species which is not evil but which is a threat to her kind is a hero. I fully concede that my conception of “hero” is limited in scope.
I'm still not getting what I'm looking for out of that answer.
Let me try putting this in a game context with respect to the particular question I had to deal with in my D&D game and see if that makes what I'm asking more clear:
A Paladin rushes into a monster's lair to save a small girl. I think we both believe that's heroic and good. In order to get out of the lair, the Paladin lights the whole place up, killing not only the mother monster threatening him but all of her children, which may be the last of her species. Does the Paladin still have a Good alignment or have the sacrificed their Paladinhood?
Is Ripley a good person and a hero at the end of the movie or did her pragmatic decision to kill off the Aliens (an option she endorsed before they kidnapped Newt -- "Take off and nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." -- not to mention the "We Endanger Species" logo on the side of the lander) make her a bad person?
Quote from: David R;481865Well in the James Bond example it's the casual demonizing of the other, in this case evil Russians. The Good guy is allowed to get away with such actions well, because the "others" are the 'bad guys'. But I get what you’re saying. Read my response above for what I think of Ripley.
If Ripley's endorsement of Alien genocide bothered you as much as James Bond's wanton slaughter of Russian police officers bothered me, then you would think the writers made a mistake by having their hero commit Alien genocide. I don't simply think he was making a pragmatic choice. I think he was making a bad and immoral choice and that tainted the character for me and impaired my enjoyment of the movie. Is that the case for you and Aliens?
Quote from: David R;481865The criteria varies between groups I suppose. I think I have given you examples of what I think is unheroic. Genocide for one, regardless of whether a race is evil or not.
Simply "unheroic" or bad, if not evil? I don't consider an exterminator who kills termites and mice heroic. I also don't consider them bad or evil. Your focus on heroism rather than moral judgement makes it difficult for me to understand what you are really trying to say here.
Quote from: David R;481865Um, we would not be the ones doing the genociding ? What’s your point ?
If you make sure the planet isn't visited, you are actively controlling what happens either way. What's the difference? This goes back to my point about concentration camps, reservations, and prisons, all of which have a historical reputation that if not equivalent to genocide isn't a whole lot better.
John, by continuing to rest your argument on psychopaths you're creating an enormous distraction. I know others have said so as well but I'll restate:
1. I certainly don't deny there are bad people, and some of those individuals are "irredeemable". Meaning, they'll keep doing bad things if they aren't forcibly prevented by e.g. locking them up, or executing them.
2. I find the idea of a naturalistically-portrayed, irredeemably evil species of humanoids difficult to accept. An irredeemable species means that they're born evil, or with the seeds of evil in their genes. (I.e., even if they're cute & harmless when young, they're genetically programmed to become noxious as they age.)
3. Noxious is partly contextual. A species that's harmful when it comes in contact with humanity isn't inherently noxious. To be inherently noxious the species has to, essentially, require harm for its own survival. (In this sense, smallpox, measles or filariasis are worse than the plague bacterium, since plague doesn't require human hosts to propagate the species.) By definition, this means that stopping the harm caused by the species is equivalent to starving it to death or otherwise wiping it out.
(Incidentally this is a sufficient argument for why the aliens in the Aliens series were inherently noxious, since they can't reproduce without harming humans, other sentient lifeforms, or at least dogs. And dogs are worth protecting.)
4. A naturalistically-portrayed species of humanoids that need to harm humans in order live must necessarily have appeared after humans already existed. And from that time on, they must necessarily have been harming humans, always at the edge of human settlements. If they could live entirely apart from humans then they aren't inherently noxious. (I suppose that some could live close to humans and trade the necessary "products"--slaves or whatever--to those who live farther away. But the species as a whole requires human contact.)
To me this suggests that the humanoids are either far less "human" than would be suggested by e.g. the Monster Manual, or that their appearance on the scene is a very recent and unstable phenomenon. Rather like a disease, the amount of harm they need to cause in order to reproduce would be inversely proportional to their ability to sustain themselves. (If they wipe out all humans in an area, they can't live there any more.) The more Alien-like they might be, the less "human" but also the more plausibly noxious. A species of goblins that can only reproduce by laying eggs in living human hosts is (a) horrific and (b) a pretty radical departure. (Yet even this could be a hard case for evil, particularly from a utilitarian standpoint. Consider: what if the goblin-aliens agree to build and maintain hospitals that would benefit humanity at large, in exchange for a small quota of victims, chosen by lottery?)
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481896John, by continuing to rest your argument on psychopaths you're creating an enormous distraction.
He has a fascination with psychopaths. He's probably one of those guys who has a whole bookshelf dedicated to True Crime books. That's creepy stuff.
Quote from: John Morrow;481892I replied that way because I think fiction is a poor way to understand how the world works and, yes, you are using a fictional TV show to support your points.
I mentioned real world evils like slavery, ethnic cleansing, murder for profit or political gain, genocide, child soldiers etc in my first post in this thread. Later I mentioned the sources of information I use to research these phenomenons much like how you mentioned law enforcement agencies/books for your research on psychopaths. In no way would anyone think I was using a fictional TV show to understand the way how the world works. I was using fiction to underscore points much like how you used a comedian and movies.
Edit to add: For example when you asked me what I thought evil was and did I believe it exist. My response was that I could point you to real world evil acts and my thinking was that of Rossi's from Criminal Minds - "
Our jobs is to stop evil not discover where it came from". The latter merely means I'm uninterested in where evil comes from - philisophical, religious or scientific ideas - and more interested in confronting it. It's rather simple really and since I don't think you are dumb, I'll go with dishonest.
I see no point in answering your questions because if I did, no doubt you will just cherrypick my answers to go off on another tangent, attribute arguments to me which I never made (but others did, simply because we are on public message board) and then claim I'm not listening.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: CRKrueger;481842How does this differ from the same charge you could levy against, say, comic books?
No its much the same but Comics I say would have a darker side still. Remember comics are more popular with Japanese adults than they are with American kids and don;t get me started on the Italian and french stuff, RPGs may be dark but Liberatore's RanXerox is constantly shagging his 13 year old girlfriend and kills anything that walks or crawls on the earth.
So I am not saying that comic books, rap music, etc don't have dark sides, they do, I am just saying that denying the dark side of RPGs is at best blinkered. Poison'd does exist and is an RPG, you may not like that but ....
QuoteCould you quote me the relevant sections of the book where the RPGs "take the stance" that things should be solved always with violence? I guess I missed the cliff notes.
When the major flagship RPG has specifically set out to ensure that all classes can contribute equally to combat and when the rule book for said game is 80% about combat the implication is that combat is pretty central. May games give XP for killing things and taking their stuff, some even state that 'content avoidance' ie sneaking round the monsters and not killing them gets you less XP (this reaches itszenith in MMOs).
QuoteThese all actually happen in your campaigns, huh?
Mine don't have this problem, bad GMing does not equal a "dark side to the hobby".
They don't have to happen in my games they have to happen in the hobby. If you attend a typical RPG at a con or a one off in a store you will see these tropes laid out plain as can be to deny it is frankly bizaare.
QuoteThat's the only reason huh? Bad GMing with lazy cosmology design does not equal a "dark side to the hobby".
If you had been reading my threads I have explicitly been saying that irredeemily evil creatures are often a feature of lazy world building and a lack of imagination. As I have also stated I always avoid it. For me you have to choose to be evil or you aren't really evil.
The fact that these tropes are clearly features of many many games and the fact that they are features of many many published adventures is surely evidence that this aspect of the hobby exists ?
QuoteAh, and kids who jump off buildings expecting to fly is the fault of Superman, right? Didn't we decide that was bullshit 40 years ago?
Yeah right that is exactly the same thing. We all know that desensitizing people to violence and demonizing the enemy have no effect on people's ability or desire to commit violence that is why the Marines stopped doing it years ago and instead they explain how all people are inherently the same and that every Jyhadist or Commie is someone's son or daughter with their own wishes and aspirations. ;)
Quoteand here I thought we were talking about roleplaying games. There are lots of storygames that fulfill your criteria if you need the metagame. Players and GMs unable to roleplay social situations does not equal a "dark side to the hobby".
Again I am not sure if you are being deliberatley obtuse or if there is a real failure of understanding here. The fact that it happens even in a small minority of cases is sufficient for it to be a dark side to the hobby. I am not saying all RPG players are Nazi psychopaths, I am merely saying that certain aspects of common game play are when analysed clinically as a real behaviour pattern somewhat 'dark'.
QuoteRun a lot of "murderous hobo" campaigns do you? I don't. Feel free to quote from any actual D&D game source anything that remotely supports the above paragraph as the default or normal playstyle.
Okay I can quote away. I played a Cleric Assasin for a long time. He worshiped a god of Chaos and when he met strangers on the road he would roll a dice, a sacred dice his holy symbol, if it came up 1 he woudl attack the person and sacrifice them to his god. Eventually it got him killed.
Reasonably dark?
I played in a Cthulu campaign once and bodies starting popping up and we started tracing the murders rather than the cultists, turned out one of our PCs was a serial killer. Dark?
When I was a kid and we played D&D for 2 hours a day every day it was common for PCs to kill each other steal all their belongings.
If you don't think the murderous hobo play style exists again I am only assume you are playing in a vaccum and you were never 12.
People in this very thread have stated that one of the main reasons to have irredeemibly evil bad guys is so that the Good PCs can kill them without angst. It's only a game they aren't real.
QuoteRPGs can communicate ideas. Name me one method of idea communication that hasn't been manipulated by a fringe group somewhere for foul ends. Any dark ideas communicated in RPGs are from one source - the humans playing them.
I can't think of any but again that isn't the point. You seem to be saying that RPGs are immune to this sort of manipulation somehow sacrosanct.
All ideas by the way from anywhere come from people dark, bright, shallow, malignant or redemptive, they all come from people.
QuoteOk, that's "one", but again, nothing particular to the hobby itself as lots of hobbies are sedentary and there's always Kyle as a role-model of geek fitness.
So far except for the sedentary part, it's a big wall of fail. :D
That is your opinion of course, as you can see I have taken exception to many of your points and I suspect even if we are a minority in this discussion there would be some others that agree with me, at least in part.
Now even if it was only me and my play group and the guys playing poison'd or whatever that still constitutes a side...
If you really think that kids don't pick up RPGs make up characters then kill each other then sorry I don't think it's worth me answering any of your future posts because you obviously are not prepared to engage in an adult debate.
Quote from: David R;481901Edit to add: For example when you asked me what I thought evil was and did I believe it exist. My response was that I could point you to real world evil acts and my thinking was that of Rossi's from Criminal Minds - "Our jobs is to stop evil not discover where it came from". The latter merely means I'm uninterested in where evil comes from - philisophical, religious or scientific ideas - and more interested in confronting it. It's rather simple really and since I don't think you are dumb, I'll go with dishonest.
I was willing to give you the last word and went back for another round of replies because you weren't happy with that because I'm... dishonest?
I honestly really don't understand what we are arguing about at this point or what you are looking for.
Quote from: David R;481901I see no point in answering your questions because if I did, no doubt you will just cherrypick my answers to go off on another tangent, attribute arguments to me which I never made (but others did, simply because we are on public message board) and then claim I'm not listening.
I didn't expect to get an answer, which would actually be somewhat relevant to the concerns of the campaign I ran and the issues going back to the original message of the thread, which is why I tried simply ending the discussion rather than speculating on why you aren't answering it.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481907I can't think of any but again that isn't the point.
Actually that is the point, stick with me.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481907You seem to be saying that RPGs are immune to this sort of manipulation somehow sacrosanct.
Nope, I never said that RPGs are immune to manipulation. What I am saying is that all methods of communicating ideas are subject to manipulation. "RPGs" as a medium of communication are no different, and have no darker a side, then "novels", or "movies" or whatever.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481907All ideas by the way from anywhere come from people dark, bright, shallow, malignant or redemptive, they all come from people.
EXACTLY.
There is nothing "ist" about books that doesn't come from people.
There is nothing "ist" about movies that doesn't come from people.
There is nothing "ist" about plays that doesn't come from people.
There is nothing "ist" about RPGs that doesn't come from people.
If you're claiming that RPGs are somehow capable of being more "dark" or more "ist" then books, movies, plays, whatever, then we're back to the OP, and there being something inherent about RPGs, specifically D&D that makes it "dark".
Either RPGs
are different then books, plays, and movies as a communicator of ideas or they
are not. WHICH IS IT?
If they are, then there must be something in RPGs themselves, these supposedly default and standardized tropes that get mentioned. You say violence, Adam Dray says racist and colonialist, Stormy, who knows, he doesn't have the courage specify his own other then say "me too" to you and Dray out of one side of his mouth while denying it with the other.
I'm not denying that RPGs can be used and in fact are used for foulness, I'm saying SO WHAT? What's the next point that follows? Is there one? Because otherwise you're telling me that something that communicates ideas can communicate bad ideas and sorry, but that's not really a terribly astute observation. It sounds like you're saying there is more to it then that. If so, lay it out, brother.
Of course all those idiotic playstyles you referred to exist, RaHoWa was published, after all. However when is that last time your campaign was like that? Been a while, right? You think you're the only one? Your arguments carry with them a kind of "unwashed masses" inference. You've risen above some primitive playstyle you claim is the baseline and assume everyone else is still wallowing in the gutter you've risen above.
News Flash: The uneducated adults don't play like 12 year olds anymore either. :D
BTW, a sidetrack, but assuming the existence of an irredeemably evil intelligent race doesn't point to lazy worldbuilding, it just points to your lack of imagination, hamstrung by your inability to conceive of an absolute good or evil. You just have a blind spot there, no worries, we all have them.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481896John, by continuing to rest your argument on psychopaths you're creating an enormous distraction. I know others have said so as well but I'll restate:
1. I certainly don't deny there are bad people, and some of those individuals are "irredeemable". Meaning, they'll keep doing bad things if they aren't forcibly prevented by e.g. locking them up, or executing them.
2. I find the idea of a naturalistically-portrayed, irredeemably evil species of humanoids difficult to accept. An irredeemable species means that they're born evil, or with the seeds of evil in their genes. (I.e., even if they're cute & harmless when young, they're genetically programmed to become noxious as they age.)
3. Noxious is partly contextual. A species that's harmful when it comes in contact with humanity isn't inherently noxious. To be inherently noxious the species has to, essentially, require harm for its own survival. (In this sense, smallpox, measles or filariasis are worse than the plague bacterium, since plague doesn't require human hosts to propagate the species.) By definition, this means that stopping the harm caused by the species is equivalent to starving it to death or otherwise wiping it out.
(Incidentally this is a sufficient argument for why the aliens in the Aliens series were inherently noxious, since they can't reproduce without harming humans, other sentient lifeforms, or at least dogs. And dogs are worth protecting.)
4. A naturalistically-portrayed species of humanoids that need to harm humans in order live must necessarily have appeared after humans already existed. And from that time on, they must necessarily have been harming humans, always at the edge of human settlements. If they could live entirely apart from humans then they aren't inherently noxious. (I suppose that some could live close to humans and trade the necessary "products"--slaves or whatever--to those who live farther away. But the species as a whole requires human contact.)
To me this suggests that the humanoids are either far less "human" than would be suggested by e.g. the Monster Manual, or that their appearance on the scene is a very recent and unstable phenomenon. Rather like a disease, the amount of harm they need to cause in order to reproduce would be inversely proportional to their ability to sustain themselves. (If they wipe out all humans in an area, they can't live there any more.) The more Alien-like they might be, the less "human" but also the more plausibly noxious. A species of goblins that can only reproduce by laying eggs in living human hosts is (a) horrific and (b) a pretty radical departure. (Yet even this could be a hard case for evil, particularly from a utilitarian standpoint. Consider: what if the goblin-aliens agree to build and maintain hospitals that would benefit humanity at large, in exchange for a small quota of victims, chosen by lottery?)
Frankly, requiring this much "realism" in the context of a fantasy game is what I find hard to believe. I have no idea what you base any of these "facts" on, since there are no other species of humanoids, so they can not, by definition, be "naturalistically-portrayed". I continue to fail to understand how any of ya'all can postulate a world where these species of humanoids can be created by evil deities, where the evil deities are demonstrably real and actively involved in the lives of their creations, and yet have some kind of problem with them being irredeemably evil. How about this... "I'm evil because my God and Creator told me to be." Or perhaps, "I'm evil because my God and Creator designed me to be, out of hatred for all the other people." Is that not enough justification for you in a world where dragons exist, and can even fly... wizards can fling fireballs out of thin air.... druids can turn into animals.... where the dead walk around and try to swell their ranks? This over-analysis and purported need for "realism" comes across to me as being excessively silly. It makes it difficult for me to believe these arguments are serious.
Oh, and what part of the description of orcs in the Monster Manual makes you think they are like humans? Sure, they have 2 arms, 2 legs, facial features, etc. So do gorillas. So do racoons. Fuck, orcs are not humans. They're not even real.
Oh, and Aliens in the Alien series were inherently evil because it said so in the fucking script.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481907If you had been reading my threads I have explicitly been saying that irredeemily evil creatures are often a feature of lazy world building and a lack of imagination. As I have also stated I always avoid it. For me you have to choose to be evil or you aren't really evil.
The fact that these tropes are clearly features of many many games and the fact that they are features of many many published adventures is surely evidence that this aspect of the hobby exists ?
The problem I see with this is that I have absolutely no reason to accept you as some kind of authority or expert on world-building or GMing. I see no reason to believe this assertion. I reject it, in fact, as I have personally encountered evidence to the contrary. Instead, I believe that your difficulty accepting the idea of irredeemably evil orcs (or anything the GM wants to so designate) is much more a possible sign of your lack of imagination, or perhaps your arrogance in assuming what you believe is universal.
Honestly, if any of ya'all are having such a hard time with D&D's morality, or this perceived "dark side" to the fucking hobby... there are many other hobbies in the world. Rather than join with Dray in arrogantly condemning vast swathes of people, most of whom you've never met and know nothing about, as racists, you can take up stamp collecting or knitting. There's very little moral controversy in those hobbies as far as I can tell.
Quote from: Sigmund;481947The problem I see with this is that I have absolutely no reason to accept you as some kind of authority or expert on world-building or GMing. I see no reason to believe this assertion. I reject it, in fact, as I have personally encountered evidence to the contrary. Instead, I believe that your difficulty accepting the idea of irredeemably evil orcs (or anything the GM wants to so designate) is much more a possible sign of your lack of imagination, or perhaps your arrogance in assuming what you believe is universal.
Honestly, if any of ya'all are having such a hard time with D&D's morality, or this perceived "dark side" to the fucking hobby... there are many other hobbies in the world. Rather than join with Dray in arrogantly condemning vast swathes of people, most of whom you've never met and know nothing about, as racists, you can take up stamp collecting or knitting. There's very little moral controversy in those hobbies as far as I can tell.
First off I never said I was an expert of any description.
I have also stated that I have no issue with irredeemibly evil creatures so long as some thought has been put into it. My main concern was that using a default because who gives a shit it's just a game was a bit lazy and lacked imagination.
And I have absolutely no issue with there being lots of dark sides to the hobby. I have no issue with D&D's morality and I have never condemned anyone for playing D&D. I have no issue with D&D cahracters going round killing human children, or even little baby puppies. I think that if you do that and claim your PC is 'LAWFUL GOOD' then you need to consider that position. I think ingoring stuff in D&D cos you don't like it and so you pretend it doesn't exist is a bit daft.
I did state that my professor at Uni once said that every one holds some racist views and that I can see his perspective but I also understand that what you might call prejudice and he might call racist are just matters of semantics so i never pursued that discussion.
So what exactly are you saying ?
Actually, I do have a problem with evil gods, at least if they are presumed to be omnipotent (or nearly so), self-conscious of their "evil", and highly active in the world. Even Melkor-who-is-called-Morgoth is only one and a half of those three, and he's more than enough to build an entire set of campaigns around fighting.
Quote from: jibbajibba;481949First off I never said I was an expert of any description.
I have also stated that I have no issue with irredeemibly evil creatures so long as some thought has been put into it. My main concern was that using a default because who gives a shit it's just a game was a bit lazy and lacked imagination.
What you said specifically was, "If you had been reading my threads I have explicitly been saying that irredeemily evil creatures are often a feature of lazy world building and a lack of imagination." This indicates to me that you are asserting this as a universal truth, not an opinion. You say, "irredeemily evil creatures
are often a feature". Not "may be" or "could be". I'm sure you'll say you didn't mean it that way... that of course it's just your opinion. I'm saying if that's the case then say it that way, otherwise I going to read what you are specifically writing, not what I can guess you might mean. If you think it's not just your opinion, then the problem with that is, you have no way of knowing or measuring how often or even if ever the postulating of irredeemably evil orcs is the feature of lazy world building and/or lack of imagination you say it is.
QuoteAnd I have absolutely no issue with there being lots of dark sides to the hobby. I have no issue with D&D's morality and I have never condemned anyone for playing D&D. I have no issue with D&D cahracters going round killing human children, or even little baby puppies. I think that if you do that and claim your PC is 'LAWFUL GOOD' then you need to consider that position. I think ingoring stuff in D&D cos you don't like it and so you pretend it doesn't exist is a bit daft.
I did state that my professor at Uni once said that every one holds some racist views and that I can see his perspective but I also understand that what you might call prejudice and he might call racist are just matters of semantics so i never pursued that discussion.
So what exactly are you saying ?
I can describe my character as doing whatever I want and then describe him claiming whatever I want. Whether that's accepted by my group or not is for us to decide, not you.
You say here that "ignoring stuff in D&D cos you don't like it and so you pretend it doesn't exist is a bit daft" as if I'm ignoring stuff in D&D. What is it you think I'm ignoring? Are you sure it's a case of someone ignoring something rather than just not accepting your value judgments about it?
Sorry, I don't agree with your professor. I would agree that everyone has some prejudices, but quite often those prejudices have nothing to do with race. For example, I dislike when guys where their baseball caps sideways, pants practically falling down, tags from the store hanging off them, gold teeth, "bling", etc. This, however, has nothing to do with skin color, as I dislike anyone participating in this subculture no matter what their skin color. It's a cultural predudice. I find that folks who enjoy that culture are often selfish and dishonest. It doesn't matter what their race is. So it's actually not just semantics. Saying everyone is at least a little racist is unprovable and IMO flat out wrong.
I'm saying that you're not showing any signs of being open to persuasion in this thread. You respond as if you'r opinions are incontrovertible, when that's actually quite far from the truth. Ya'all are arguing in support of this "dark" side to the rpg hobby that I see absolutely no evidence of existing. The "evidence" being presented is that you can run a "dark" character and so this shows the "dark" side of the hobby. Actually, it shows the "dark" side of you. Even then it's not all that "dark". No darker than a large number of movies, video games, or novels out there. It's simply one of many examples of this edginess that's been popular for a few years now. Even the AP of Poison'd that caused such a ruckus is no more than a caricature of "darkness", and in no way presented even a vague shadow of what being a real pirate in the age of sail was like as far as I can tell. I can often tell who the folks are who have never actually been exposed to the real "darkness" that this world can offer, as they often present these caricatures and cartoons of "darkness" as if it were somehow truly dark. I like seeing it, to be honest, because I wouldn't wish true suffering or despair on anyone, but I would like folks to be honest about how serious and "dark" these caricatures and cartoons really are.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;481950Actually, I do have a problem with evil gods, at least if they are presumed to be omnipotent (or nearly so), self-conscious of their "evil", and highly active in the world. Even Melkor-who-is-called-Morgoth is only one and a half of those three, and he's more than enough to build an entire set of campaigns around fighting.
Then don't play D&D would be my suggestion. Also, just be aware, this is your problem, not the problem of the source material. Plenty of us don't feel the need to take this fantasy so seriously all the time. Plus, while Tolkien's world is pretty awesome, it's not the end all, be all of what fantasy is allowed to be. Oh, and Melkor-who-is-called-Morgoth isn't actually anything at all beyond an imaginary construct described in a series of fantasy books. Finally, neither I nor Deities and Demigods (at least in the descriptions of the deities I'm alluding to) mention anything about omniscience, so the presumption of it is all you.
Come now Sigmund, you know perfectly well the "dark side" of gaming is thoroughly documented:)
QuoteFROM MAZES AND MONSTERS: And so... we played the game again... for one last time. It didn't matter that there were no maps... or dice... or monsters. Pardue saw the monsters. We did not. We saw nothing but the death of hope. And the loss of our friend. And so we played the game until the sun began to set... and all the monsters were dead.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481957Come now Sigmund, you know perfectly well the "dark side" of gaming is thoroughly documented:)
Most of these geeks have no idea what "darkness" is really like, and they should be thankful for that. It's hard for me to take any of this "darkness in RPGing" seriously when I lived through years of drug addiction and crime. I've served a little bit of time in jail, and I should have served much more than I did to be honest. My former roomate spent 25 of his 52 years on this Earth in a federal penitentiary. I hung out with a guy in my time at a halfway house that had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by his father, a police officer. I hung out with another guy who was so addicted to heroin he used to get his drugs and money by robbing drug dealers. He'd been shot twice and stabbed twelve times. Another feller was a 22 year old kid who was shot in the spine in a street gang conflict and will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair with a colostomy bag. I've been beaten to the point where the emergency room doc was surprised I wasn't blind. I've had my cheek broken in two places and shoved towards the back of my face with a pool cue. I've been homeless. I had one of my best friends stabbed to death by his girlfriend's teen-aged son. In my time as a drug a counselor in a rehab where i worked in the Young Adult unit, I've seen teen after teen.. and we're talking 14, 15 year olds, come into our program strung out on various pills and alcohol. We lost several to drug overdoses after they had completed the program. This stuff is real darkness.
Quote from: Sigmund;481956Then don't play D&D would be my suggestion.
I don't see why not. D&D works perfectly well without effectively-omnipotent, active, self-consciously evil gods. In fact, in all the years I've ever played D&D, I can't think of having ever used them, nor missed them.
QuoteAlso, just be aware, this is your problem, not the problem of the source material.
It's a matter of what you think is "the source material". I think settings like Forgotten Realms
do present their gods this way, and while I haven't played in them personally, I've read and heard many accounts where this concept was used in games.
QuotePlenty of us don't feel the need to take this fantasy so seriously all the time. Plus, while Tolkien's world is pretty awesome, it's not the end all, be all of what fantasy is allowed to be.
No one has said it was (and me least of all, as any look at my complaints about Tolkienesque fantasy in RPGs will show). However, Melkor-who-is-called-Morgoth is the ur-example in modern fantasy of inhumanly powerful dark lords who represent the force of metaphysical evil (as opposed to a raper wizard or something). He himself is a knock-off of Satan. When people put effectively-omnipotent, active, self-consciously evil gods into their game, I would not be surprised to find that they are influenced by his example (and Sauron's).
QuoteOh, and Melkor-who-is-called-Morgoth isn't actually anything at all beyond an imaginary construct described in a series of fantasy books.
:rolleyes: That's irrelevant. What matters is whether that imaginary construct is well-built or not.
QuoteFinally, neither I nor Deities and Demigods (at least in the descriptions of the deities I'm alluding to) mention anything about omniscience, so the presumption of it is all you.
I didn't say anything about "omniscience".
Sigmund, I think some gamers are especially empathic, and while they might not have experienced real darkness, the capacity to respond emotionally to something you imagine can be pretty strong. I think people pick archetypical pictures of darkness because that's the default way they imagine what they are bothered by.
People especially bothered by darkness in RPGs are the kind of people that can experience emotions in response to something they imagine. There is a limit to the point of describing something in an RPG, especially if it isn't something you are personally familiar with. I wouldn't be any better at giving a first hand account of being in prison than I am at giving a first hand account of being on the moon, and too much description turns into reading national geographic to the players.
If I say, "You are in prison," that could create a really bothersome feeling to someone that is sympathetic enough, just like, "You are on the moon," is an awesome image to someone with a good enough imagination." It is up to the player, how bothered they will be about being in prison, and to their experience, that can be darkness. I'm not going to sit them in a corner and read to them all the details of some real account of prison just so they can be educated on darkness during my game.
This is a part of why I borderline get the idea of misery tourism, because I can imagine people being empathic enough to feel like they are connecting with what's going on. Sure, this can piss off people who have been through it, because they think no one should play around with the idea of being in their club, and it can piss off regular gamers who think they are doing it wrong, because they don't want normal people to mix up their game with dungeons and dragons, or because they don't like the kind of people that play those games (weak, nasty, or stupid) but not everyone is the same and some people have a great capacity for emotional response to words, and some of that group really wants to think about evil, because evil is interesting.
Quote from: Sigmund;481960Most of these geeks have no idea what "darkness" is really like, and they should be thankful for that. It's hard for me to take any of this "darkness in RPGing" seriously when I lived through years of drug addiction and crime. I've served a little bit of time in jail, and I should have served much more than I did to be honest. My former roomate spent 25 of his 52 years on this Earth in a federal penitentiary. I hung out with a guy in my time at a halfway house that had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by his father, a police officer. I hung out with another guy who was so addicted to heroin he used to get his drugs and money by robbing drug dealers. He'd been shot twice and stabbed twelve times. Another feller was a 22 year old kid who was shot in the spine in a street gang conflict and will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair with a colostomy bag. I've been beaten to the point where the emergency room doc was surprised I wasn't blind. I've had my cheek broken in two places and shoved towards the back of my face with a pool cue. I've been homeless. I had one of my best friends stabbed to death by his girlfriend's teen-aged son. In my time as a drug a counselor in a rehab where i worked in the Young Adult unit, I've seen teen after teen.. and we're talking 14, 15 year olds, come into our program strung out on various pills and alcohol. We lost several to drug overdoses after they had completed the program. This stuff is real darkness.
I am glad you made it through all that alive. Thanks for sharing. I didn't realize you had been through so much.
You do make a good point on the difference between theoretical darkness and real genuine dark experiences. Sometimes I think we get way too into the theoretical stuff in these conversations.
QuoteGamers are especially empathic
There is insufficient literary means to express how hilarious this premise is.
And I'm being charitable and assuming you meant "empathetic," if you really meant "empathic," I'm gonna be here on te floor for a while.
Quote from: J Arcane;481976There is insufficient literary means to express how hilarious this premise is.
And I'm being charitable and assuming you meant "empathetic," if you really meant "empathic," I'm gonna be here on te floor for a while.
J Arcane, thanks for the English lesson. Also, I said
some gamers. I could have as easily said
some people - some people who like to game are empathetic.
I hope that clears it up for you. I'm not in the mood to talk to you if you are going to be a cunt, so don't expect a reply unless you fix your fucking attitude.
Quote from: Cranewings;481977J Arcane, thanks for the English lesson. Also, I said some gamers. I could have as easily said some people - some people who like to game are empathetic.
Which is about as useful a statement as "Some gamers have brown hair" or "Some dead people are Alma Cogan."
Quote from: J Arcane;481978Which is about as useful a statement as "Some gamers have brown hair" or "Some dead people are Alma Cogan."
I'm explaining why I think a image of darkness is all that is needed. An empathetic person that plays games will describe darkness in just enough detail to elicit the emotional response he is looking for. If Sigmond, for example, wanted an emotional reaction from someone describing something dark during a RPG, it would be of a very different character than one of the girls I game with that's 24, goes to state college, and never had anything happen to her. She doesn't need nor want to hear about real darkness in an RPG because she can feel everything she wants to feel by hearing about comic book darkness. Real darkness either wouldn't connect or be too much for her.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;481965I don't see why not. D&D works perfectly well without effectively-omnipotent, active, self-consciously evil gods.
True. It also works perfectly well with them, whether a Melkor-derivative or some other type.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;481965I don't see why not. D&D works perfectly well without effectively-omnipotent, active, self-consciously evil gods. In fact, in all the years I've ever played D&D, I can't think of having ever used them, nor missed them.
True enough. I'm really thinking not of D&D, but of the "default" setting for D&D, so I satnd corrected.
QuoteIt's a matter of what you think is "the source material". I think settings like Forgotten Realms do present their gods this way, and while I haven't played in them personally, I've read and heard many accounts where this concept was used in games.
I mentioned the source material, Deities and Demigods. Gods like Yeenoghu and Gruumsh and such.
QuoteNo one has said it was (and me least of all, as any look at my complaints about Tolkienesque fantasy in RPGs will show). However, Melkor-who-is-called-Morgoth is the ur-example in modern fantasy of inhumanly powerful dark lords who represent the force of metaphysical evil (as opposed to a raper wizard or something). He himself is a knock-off of Satan. When people put effectively-omnipotent, active, self-consciously evil gods into their game, I would not be surprised to find that they are influenced by his example (and Sauron's).
I don't think Tolkien's divine entities and hierarchies map very well to most D&D settings or the D&D ideas of divinity, planar architecture, or supernatural agents. Using Melkor as an example, therefore, is not very useful IMO.
Quote:rolleyes: That's irrelevant. What matters is whether that imaginary construct is well-built or not.
Whether it is well-built or not is a matter of opinion. despite his fantastic imagination, I see nothing to indicate Tolkien was some sort of expert or authority on religion (other than being a fantasy writer anyway).
QuoteI didn't say anything about "omniscience".
Brother, you mentioned omniscience in the second sentence of this post I've quoted... again. I, on the other hand, had not mentioned anything about omniscience until you brought it up, and even then it was only to point out that I had not mentioned omniscience in my post about orcs being created by an evil god in many folk's games (specifically, Gruumsh).
This elitism over playing pretend with dice is really kinda silly, don't ya think?
Quote from: John Morrow;481864The same argument has been used for decades to justify banning pulps, comic books, role-playing games, video games, heavy metal music, rap music, and so on. While Jack Chick is an extreme example, the argument is always that the thing in question can turn good people bad. The reality is that normal people can tell the difference between fantasy and reality and the people who can't can turn anything they feel intensely about into a hobby or cause, including things like environmentalism (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38957020/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/police-kill-discovery-building-gunman/#.ToFSs3Pv0sE).
This is true, but I think we are all against such bannings. In fact, with rare exceptions I believe in complete free speech. However, just because I oppose banning doesn't mean that I can't think there can ever be bad messages in pulps, comic books, video games, heavy metal, rap music, and RPGs. For example, I think that a lot of the original pulp stories had pointedly racist messages. Black Canaan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Canaan) is an extreme example, but plenty of the stories have side themes or slants to them that convey racism.
A common attitude seems to be that if I edit out the negatively stereotyped black characters from a story, then the story isn't racist anymore - and doesn't have any of the stigma. I think that is very much misguided. It reduces the obviousness of the racist attitudes, but they are still there in the rest of the story.
Quote from: Sigmund;481960Most of these geeks have no idea what "darkness" is really like, and they should be thankful for that.
Absolutely. And it is often easy for someone who hasn't experienced real darkness to glorify it. In particular, I'm thinking of sheltered suburbanite guys who go on about how cool some gang violence film was - or how sexy some rape-and-revenge film was.
Quote from: Cranewings;481968Sigmund, I think some gamers are especially empathic, and while they might not have experienced real darkness, the capacity to respond emotionally to something you imagine can be pretty strong. I think people pick archetypical pictures of darkness because that's the default way they imagine what they are bothered by.
Perhaps, but that's still no excuse to give this trivial bullshit more weight than it deserves. We would be better served by keeping some perspective about this. We're playing pretend here. trying to convince people that how they're playing pretend is somehow less correct, or perhaps even wrong, is taking this shit, and yourself, WAY too seriously.
QuotePeople especially bothered by darkness in RPGs are the kind of people that can experience emotions in response to something they imagine. There is a limit to the point of describing something in an RPG, especially if it isn't something you are personally familiar with. I wouldn't be any better at giving a first hand account of being in prison than I am at giving a first hand account of being on the moon, and too much description turns into reading national geographic to the players.
We can all experience emotions in response to things we imagine. That's no excuse to confuse imagination with reality. I'm very glad you are not familiar with prison, it's not a pleasant or comfortable place to be.
QuoteIf I say, "You are in prison," that could create a really bothersome feeling to someone that is sympathetic enough, just like, "You are on the moon," is an awesome image to someone with a good enough imagination."
Ok so far...
QuoteIt is up to the player, how bothered they will be about being in prison, and to their experience, that can be darkness. I'm not going to sit them in a corner and read to them all the details of some real account of prison just so they can be educated on darkness during my game.
Here... the part I bolded... this is what I have a problem with. Unless the player has actually been in prison before, it is not up to the player how bothered they will be about being "in prison", because we are not talking about them being in prison. We are talking about them imagining their pretend character being in imaginary prison. Unless it's been experienced first hand, I feel it's next to impossible for them to truly imagine what being in prison is actually like. I think it would be far better for everyone if the player realizes and acknowledges that they are just imagining what they think being in prison is like, and that they are not actually in prison and that even their imaginings are not reflective of reality. We're playing pretend, nothing more.
You could read real accounts of prison life to players for a month straight and they still won't know what it's actually like to spend time in prison. If you want to know what tea tastes like, drink some tea.
QuoteThis is a part of why I borderline get the idea of misery tourism, because I can imagine people being empathic enough to feel like they are connecting with what's going on. Sure, this can piss off people who have been through it, because they think no one should play around with the idea of being in their club, and it can piss off regular gamers who think they are doing it wrong, because they don't want normal people to mix up their game with dungeons and dragons, or because they don't like the kind of people that play those games (weak, nasty, or stupid) but not everyone is the same and some people have a great capacity for emotional response to words, and some of that group really wants to think about evil, because evil is interesting.
What I've posted is why I think misery tourism is pathetic. First of all, it's not actual misery. Second, it imparts absolutely no insight into the actual experience it's supposedly about. This is why I hate almost every alcohol or drug addiction movie ever made... they fail to achieve any sort of authenticity. Emotional response does not equal understanding or even true empathy. I find it very difficult to believe a group of middle-aged white guys/girls sitting around a middle class kitchen in suburbia eating Doritos and drinking Mountain Dew playing Steal Away Jordan can get even an inkling what being a slave was like, no matter what kind of emotional responses they might have. The whole idea is ridiculous. Just like equating orcs with racism and black people.
Quote from: jhkim;481990Absolutely. And it is often easy for someone who hasn't experienced real darkness to glorify it. In particular, I'm thinking of sheltered suburbanite guys who go on about how cool some gang violence film was - or how sexy some rape-and-revenge film was.
With this, I agree.
Sigmund, fair enough.
It is definitely pretend. I'm not trying to suggest there is real value to it in terms of real insight.
I'm a white, middle class 30 y/o and there isn't anything special about me, but even I've lost a good friend to heroin. While I haven't been changed by darkness (unless you count being bullied as a kid turning me into an extremely hostile martial artist as a adult) I can empathize with real problems. As adults in a shit world, I'm not sure we can get to be this old without knowing something about darkness.
Over half of my gaming group has been to war, or been shot at, or lost someone to drugs, or been assaulted. We use some of the most comic book descriptions of darkness you can imagine.
Quote from: Cranewings;481980I'm explaining why I think a image of darkness is all that is needed. An empathetic person that plays games will describe darkness in just enough detail to elicit the emotional response he is looking for. If Sigmond, for example, wanted an emotional reaction from someone describing something dark during a RPG, it would be of a very different character than one of the girls I game with that's 24, goes to state college, and never had anything happen to her. She doesn't need nor want to hear about real darkness in an RPG because she can feel everything she wants to feel by hearing about comic book darkness. Real darkness either wouldn't connect or be too much for her.
I have no problem with this as long as everyone understands that what she's feeling and "experiencing" is absolutely nothing like the reality, and is actually just playing pretend with dice. What I'm asking for is some perspective about this shit. I mean lets get down to it and relate this back to the topic of the thread. If some guy came up to any of you in a FLGS and start telling you about how orcs "prove" that black people are bad and that, just like orcs in the game, they need to be exterminated would you take the guy seriously? Would you find his argument compelling? Would you have at 15, or 14, or even 13 years old?
How about this. Do you ban your kids from reading or playing D&D, because it presents "racist" ideas? If so, how do you justify to them that it's ok for you to play D&D, but not them? If not, but you still find Adam Dray's argument compelling, how do you justify to yourself playing a "racist" game? Do you really think how strong and fast you are has anything to do with your musc... oops, wrong rant :D Seriously, do ya'all really think fantasy orcs are racist, and yet are still ok playing fantasy RPGs?
Quote from: Cranewings;481996Sigmund, fair enough.
It is definitely pretend. I'm not trying to suggest there is real value to it in terms of real insight.
I'm a white, middle class 30 y/o and there isn't anything special about me, but even I've lost a good friend to heroin. While I haven't been changed by darkness (unless you count being bullied as a kid turning me into an extremely hostile martial artist as a adult) I can empathize with real problems. As adults in a shit world, I'm not sure we can get to be this old without knowing something about darkness.
Over half of my gaming group has been to war, or been shot at, or lost someone to drugs, or been assaulted. We use some of the most comic book descriptions of darkness you can imagine.
True enough, but there's darkness, and then there's
Darkness, if ya get me. I certainly hope most people in the developed world haven't felt the soul-crushing pain and despair I have in my life, that would be depressing. The upside is, I've been sober over 15 years now, and have a true appreciation for the good things in life, and haven't committed a crime other than speeding in over 15 years either, so there is hope :D My point is that empathizing is not knowing or even relating. I also lost my first born child, and I most definitely hope few of you know what that feels like, even if you can empathize with me about it. We're talking about playing games here... lets keep some perspective is what I'm asking, and I include Dray in that.
Quote from: Sigmund;481960Most of these geeks have no idea what "darkness" is really like, and they should be thankful for that. This stuff is real darkness.
Indeed.
Thank you for sharing this, and for bringing a bit of maturity and perspective to this trainwreck of a thread.
Quote from: Sigmund;481945Frankly, requiring this much "realism" in the context of a fantasy game is what I find hard to believe. I have no idea what you base any of these "facts" on, since there are no other species of humanoids, so they can not, by definition, be "naturalistically-portrayed". [etc.]
"Naturalistically-portrayed" means portrayed as if real. In the case of humanoids, it means that you work out anthropological details about them and imaginatively extrapolate how things would be if they were "really real". When Wile E. Coyote falls off a cliff and then, a scene later, is up and around, still chasing the roadrunner, that's cartoon violence. If instead you show him shattered and bloody, only to be gruesomely and painfully reassembled by some mysterious process, that's a step in the direction of naturalism.
Sigmund, I'm not requiring realism. I'm pointing out the elaborate, but selective fashion, in which realism is being applied, in the name of justifying a scenario where "good" PCs are doing the right thing, with metaphysical certitude, in killing noncombatants.
This plays right into the quote in the OP, which I also object to. It's just that in one case you've got somebody saying that D&D and similar games glorify genocide, while in the other, you've got an argument that killing noncombatants can be "necessary" and good. The "facts" being asserted on the two sides aren't too different.
What this really points out is the logical leap in the OP. The early D&D books (which are the only ones I care about) state that Orcs, goblins, and so forth are evil and/or chaotic. (Some of them IIRC go from Chaotic to LE in the jump from OD&D to AD&D.) AD&D also adds pseudo-anthropological detail about females and young, chieftains, and forth, suggesting that Orcs have culture of a sort.
However, it doesn't follow that characters are compelled or justified in seeking out Orcs to kill and rob (as the OP would have it). Nor does it follow that the scenario of deciding what to do with humanoid young should arise in play, or that, if it does, the right thing to do is to exterminate them. As I believe one of the comments on G+ noted, conflicts with Orcs can be framed by the GM in terms of defense against Orcs who are the aggressors, or punitive/pre-emptive action against Orcs who have done, or are believed to be about to do something nasty.
Even if the action ends up with PCs in control of an Orc settlement, the D&D texts don't state that killing the females and children is necessary, justified, or "good". That's an interpretation brought about by a confluence of elements brought to the table: it's an overly literal interpretation of things like alignment and the listed alignments of humanoids, leading to a grotesque thought-experiment which (I would argue) is outside the scope of the original material. IMO it's perfectly okay to say that naturalistic orcs (shown as having females and young, etc.) are evil in a pragmatic sense--they're attacking you, or you're in a protracted conflict with them, and there's no immediate prospect of their changing their ways. But the scenario of exterminating young, as a good thing, demands this concept of "irredeemable" with absolute foreknowledge that goes well beyond pragmatism.
Quote from: John Morrow;481193I prefer my fantasy to be more "science-fictional" than mythological, thus the naturalistic nature of monsters in my D&D campaign. But claiming that something is mythical doesn't really escape the problem if the myth is propaganda in service of malicious ideas, which still brings us back to considering why the mythical elements are there.
The claim that it is propaganda in service of malicious ideas needs more evidence than rote assertion in service of other malicious ideas!
The issue of the difference between myth and lies, between the attitudes of those who know their myths for what they are and those who have been taught to hold -- and project onto others -- a rigid literalism, is recently on my mind for real-world reasons. Good and evil, idolatry and other things get in some quarters a treatment that historically has fostered much that is reprehensible.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482008"Naturalistically-portrayed" means portrayed as if real. In the case of humanoids, it means that you work out anthropological details about them and imaginatively extrapolate how things would be if they were "really real". When Wile E. Coyote falls off a cliff and then, a scene later, is up and around, still chasing the roadrunner, that's cartoon violence. If instead you show him shattered and bloody, only to be gruesomely and painfully reassembled by some mysterious process, that's a step in the direction of naturalism.
Sigmund, I'm not requiring realism. I'm pointing out the elaborate, but selective fashion, in which realism is being applied, in the name of justifying a scenario where "good" PCs are doing the right thing, with metaphysical certitude, in killing noncombatants.
This plays right into the quote in the OP, which I also object to. It's just that in one case you've got somebody saying that D&D and similar games glorify genocide, while in the other, you've got an argument that killing noncombatants can be "necessary" and good. The "facts" being asserted on the two sides aren't too different.
What this really points out is the logical leap in the OP. The early D&D books (which are the only ones I care about) state that Orcs, goblins, and so forth are evil and/or chaotic. (Some of them IIRC go from Chaotic to LE in the jump from OD&D to AD&D.) AD&D also adds pseudo-anthropological detail about females and young, chieftains, and forth, suggesting that Orcs have culture of a sort.
However, it doesn't follow that characters are compelled or justified in seeking out Orcs to kill and rob (as the OP would have it). Nor does it follow that the scenario of deciding what to do with humanoid young should arise in play, or that, if it does, the right thing to do is to exterminate them. As I believe one of the comments on G+ noted, conflicts with Orcs can be framed by the GM in terms of defense against Orcs who are the aggressors, or punitive/pre-emptive action against Orcs who have done, or are believed to be about to do something nasty.
Even if the action ends up with PCs in control of an Orc settlement, the D&D texts don't state that killing the females and children is necessary, justified, or "good". That's an interpretation brought about by a confluence of elements brought to the table: it's an overly literal interpretation of things like alignment and the listed alignments of humanoids, leading to a grotesque thought-experiment which (I would argue) is outside the scope of the original material. IMO it's perfectly okay to say that naturalistic orcs (shown as having females and young, etc.) are evil in a pragmatic sense--they're attacking you, or you're in a protracted conflict with them, and there's no immediate prospect of their changing their ways. But the scenario of exterminating young, as a good thing, demands this concept of "irredeemable" with absolute foreknowledge that goes well beyond pragmatism.
In my own experience, conflicts with orcs have tended to be on the same basis as conflicts with humans (and dwarves, elves, etc.).
Quote from: Sigmund;481987I mentioned the source material, Deities and Demigods. Gods like Yeenoghu and Gruumsh and such.
If you wish to simply deal with the gods of Deities and Demigods and ignore the many other campaign settings and campaigns hat exist, you are welcome to. You will be alone in doing so, though.
QuoteI don't think Tolkien's divine entities and hierarchies map very well to most D&D settings or the D&D ideas of divinity, planar architecture, or supernatural agents. Using Melkor as an example, therefore, is not very useful IMO.
While I do not disagree that Melkor himself does not map well to D&D mechanically, certainly he and Sauron are the inspiration for many of the "Supreme Evil Dark Gods" that litter both fantasy fiction and RPG campaigns. Lord of the Rings is mentioned in Appendix N, so this is hardly out of the blue.
QuoteWhether it is well-built or not is a matter of opinion. despite his fantastic imagination, I see nothing to indicate Tolkien was some sort of expert or authority on religion (other than being a fantasy writer anyway).
That is equally irrelevant. Tolkien, in Melkor, is using a fictional gloss on a well-established concept in Western religion that _has_ been extensively developed by theologians and artists prior to him (the concept of Satan).
QuoteBrother, you mentioned omniscience in the second sentence of this post I've quoted... again. I, on the other hand, had not mentioned anything about omniscience until you brought it up, and even then it was only to point out that I had not mentioned omniscience in my post about orcs being created by an evil god in many folk's games (specifically, Gruumsh).
I talked about omnipotence, not omniscience. An omniscient evil god is almost as problematic conceptually, though.
QuoteThis elitism over playing pretend with dice is really kinda silly, don't ya think?
No. Nor is it "elitism" to want to have a well-constructed, well-thought through world where things make sense.
Quote from: Phillip;482018In my own experience, conflicts with orcs have tended to be on the same basis as conflicts with humans (and dwarves, elves, etc.).
Same with me. I have evil orcs, I just don't have "irredeemably" evil ones. Most of the time, I don't even need orcs to be more evil than just violent, greedy and xenophobic.
Pseudoephedrin's orcs are an analogy for capitalist western societies which invade and destroy beautiful and peaceful indigenous people, such as elves and halflings.
Quote from: Phillip;482018In my own experience, conflicts with orcs have tended to be on the same basis as conflicts with humans (and dwarves, elves, etc.).
Right, "evil as a species characteristic" is far from the only way you can have conflict, and there are many scenarios where alignment doesn't stand at the forefront. E.g., it's about as easy to picture a war between human kingdoms as between a human kingdom and an orc kingdom.
One could get technical and argue that in a war between human kingdoms, there may be a "good" side, I suppose, but that doesn't say anything about the individual combatants. "Good" people can be soldiers in the wrong side of a war. And actually I'd say that even a "good" king can fight an unjust war (because good people make mistakes), an unjust war can be transformed into a just one, and vice-versa. In short, personal alignment doesn't always translate back and forth with actions on a collective scale.
That said, in practice, I'd expect the default condition in a game to be for orcs to be in conflict with, or at least hostile to, their neighbors. Or they might be allied with unsavory humans. That doesn't translate into universal imperatives or prevent things from changing in the course of the game, though.
Turning from D&D to RuneQuest's world of Glorantha, I think there are both kinds of creatures.
Trolls are "just people too", with cultural and personal issues. There is essentially a largely homogenous Trollish culture, and it features customs such as regarding other sentient beings (from trollkin to elves) as foodstuffs.
Broos seem to me to be of the "irredeemably evil" sort. Unlike that of, say, wasps, their inhumanity is in a sense not whole. Like many gods and monsters, they reflect only a part of the human (and other similiar beings') condition. As with much in Glorantha, this has to do with the mythic world being part of the ordinary world (or vice-versa).
Quote from: Sigmund;481997How about this. Do you ban your kids from reading or playing D&D, because it presents "racist" ideas? If so, how do you justify to them that it's ok for you to play D&D, but not them? If not, but you still find Adam Dray's argument compelling, how do you justify to yourself playing a "racist" game? Do you really think how strong and fast you are has anything to do with your musc... oops, wrong rant :D Seriously, do ya'all really think fantasy orcs are racist, and yet are still ok playing fantasy RPGs?
I don't speak for anyone else, but I feel like I have answered this one many times over in this thread.
I don't believe that I should ban my son from reading anything different than the views that I want him to have. So, for example, I am fine with him reading Robert E. Howard or watching old movies from the 30s and 40s, even if they have racist and/or sexist material. What I do do is teach him to criticize the stuff he's reading / watching / playing. For example, he was interested in James Bond, say, so we watched Goldfinger a few weeks ago - and we commented on and made fun of stuff in the movie. I just played Hellcats & Hockeysticks with him and two others over the weekend - and his character was using a high-power bomb to blow up her teacher.
To repeat, a few key points:
1) Historical stories and genres tend to not represent our modern-day values, especially over issues that have changed a lot over time: i.e. attitudes towards slavery, democracy, race relations, and sex differences among many others.
2) This doesn't mean we should burn all of our books except for a select few new ones. It means we have to recognize that values have changed and read critically. There will be some "bad" messages in generally "good" stuff.
3) Having an evil race is in my opinion a holdover, a bit like rescuing the princess as a trope. You can come up with all sorts of valid reasons why this particular princess needs rescuing, but ultimately the trope of rescuing princesses is closely tied to sexist roots and deserves poking fun at every once in a while. Likewise with the evil races, in my opinion. I'd note the Shrek movies as one example of such poking fun, where the handsome prince is the bad guy and the ugly ogre is the hero.
Quote from: jhkim;4820421) Historical stories and genres tend to not represent our modern-day values, especially over issues that have changed a lot over time: i.e. attitudes towards slavery, democracy, race relations, and sex differences among many others.
Eh, there is enough buried in historical stories and genres (if you're inclined to look for it) that completely or nearly meshes with our present day attitudes towards the subjects you mention.
Quote3) Having an evil race is in my opinion a holdover, a bit like rescuing the princess as a trope.
Seriously, JohnKim ?
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Cranewings;482029Pseudoephedrin's orcs are an analogy for capitalist western societies which invade and destroy beautiful and peaceful indigenous people, such as elves and halflings.
Naw, those are, quite literally my PCs in Emern.
My orcs are like the barbarians during the early Christian / late Roman era. Vital, rude, prolific and half-friendly in the worst way. If you think of men like Alaric, Stilicho, Attila and Genseric, as well as the peoples they led you'd get a pretty good idea of how I see orcs acting.
Quote from: Phillip;482039Turning from D&D to RuneQuest's world of Glorantha, I think there are both kinds of creatures.
Trolls are "just people too", with cultural and personal issues. There is essentially a largely homogenous Trollish culture, and it features customs such as regarding other sentient beings (from trollkin to elves) as foodstuffs.
Broos seem to me to be of the "irredeemably evil" sort. Unlike that of, say, wasps, their inhumanity is in a sense not whole. Like many gods and monsters, they reflect only a part of the human (and other similiar beings') condition. As with much in Glorantha, this has to do with the mythic world being part of the ordinary world (or vice-versa).
Broos are the best "irredeemably evil" fantasy race I've come across, but they also strike me as quite magical (chaos features) and alien. In general Glorantha is more fundamentally shot-through with magic and myth than the implied D&D setting. It also doesn't have Paladins.
Quote from: David R;482051Eh, there is enough buried in historical stories and genres (if you're inclined to look for it) that completely or nearly meshes with our present day attitudes towards the subjects you mention.
I'm not sure what you mean by "enough".
I would agree there is significant overlap between modern views and historical views about these topics (slavery, democracy, race relations, sex differences). Still, there are also significant differences. In popular modern works, the tendency is very strongly to edit out parts. We don't pretend that slaves didn't exist, but we also don't use the devious slave archetype in nearly the same way Plautus did (for example).
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;4818962. I find the idea of a naturalistically-portrayed, irredeemably evil species of humanoids difficult to accept. An irredeemable species means that they're born evil, or with the seeds of evil in their genes. (I.e., even if they're cute & harmless when young, they're genetically programmed to become noxious as they age.)
Human beings are genetically programmed to behave certain ways and have certain mental capabilities, too. It becomes noticeable in people who lack normal mental capabilities, such as with autism. Why is a species that naturally has a different set of capabilities, urges, and priorities difficult to accept?
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;4818963. Noxious is partly contextual. A species that's harmful when it comes in contact with humanity isn't inherently noxious. To be inherently noxious the species has to, essentially, require harm for its own survival. (In this sense, smallpox, measles or filariasis are worse than the plague bacterium, since plague doesn't require human hosts to propagate the species.) By definition, this means that stopping the harm caused by the species is equivalent to starving it to death or otherwise wiping it out.
Not the only option. They can also be noxious to their own kind such that if you leave them alone only with their own kind, they will prey on and abuse each other. Think about what violent criminals do to each other in prison if you need a model of how that works. So, sure, you could put them on a reservation where they can't hurt other people but they will just make life a living Hell for each other.
Quote from: jhkim;482060I'm not sure what you mean by "enough".
I would agree there is significant overlap between modern views and historical views about these topics (slavery, democracy, race relations, sex differences). Still, there are also significant differences. In popular modern works, the tendency is very strongly to edit out parts. We don't pretend that slaves didn't exist, but we also don't use the devious slave archetype in nearly the same way Plautus did (for example).
Are you talking about historical fiction and movies? If so i am not seeing it. Most of tge stuff i read they emphasize things like slavery and treatment of women. And straight history books havent avoided this stuff for some time.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482031Right, "evil as a species characteristic" is far from the only way you can have conflict, and there are many scenarios where alignment doesn't stand at the forefront. E.g., it's about as easy to picture a war between human kingdoms as between a human kingdom and an orc kingdom.
Then why have orcs and other monsters at all? Why not simply have two human kingdoms?
To quote George R. R. Martin's essay "First, Sew On A Tentacle" (from
Writing and Selling Science Fiction, 1976 (*)), where I think his observations about aliens and story have some relevance to fantasy role-playing creatures and setting:
"
Those writers who see in the shadowy figure of the alien nothing but a pulp convention are literarily blind; the alien is more than that, far more. The alien is a modern elf, a troll, a ghost. The alien is god and devil. The alien is mystery and color and romance. The alien is the ultimate outsider and the outsider has been a concern of serious literature since before there was an animal called 'serious literature.'"
[...]
"
The fist thing you should think about is -- why is this alien in my story?"
[...]
"
Stories of social and cultural conflict are very common in SF, of course. And that is good. [...] But they are human conflicts. There is no need to cast them in the clothes of human versus alien. To expand on the original rule, then: if the only important differences between the aliens and the humans in your story are cultural and social, then your story ought not have aliens at all."
(*) Contrary to what Kyle imagines, there are no true crime books on my bookshelf. The majority of my books are role-playing books and then books about Late Bronze Age History (which, sadly, never generates long threads on this site) and writing fiction (with a focus on genre fiction).
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482008Sigmund, I'm not requiring realism. I'm pointing out the elaborate, but selective fashion, in which realism is being applied, in the name of justifying a scenario where "good" PCs are doing the right thing, with metaphysical certitude, in killing noncombatants.
This plays right into the quote in the OP, which I also object to. It's just that in one case you've got somebody saying that D&D and similar games glorify genocide, while in the other, you've got an argument that killing noncombatants can be "necessary" and good. The "facts" being asserted on the two sides aren't too different.
I think that if the creatures portrayed in D&D are slain by player characters with reckless abandon and they are basically funny looking people rather than actual monsters, then the parallels discussed by the OP have some legitimacy, just as if chickens were really people, PETA's talk about the "Chicken Holocaust" might have some legitimacy. Where I believe the OP is wrong is in assuming that the monsters portrayed in games like D&D are basically funny looking people, just as PETA's mistake is assuming that chickens are people and fish are "sea kittens".
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482008However, it doesn't follow that characters are compelled or justified in seeking out Orcs to kill and rob (as the OP would have it). Nor does it follow that the scenario of deciding what to do with humanoid young should arise in play, or that, if it does, the right thing to do is to exterminate them.
The Orcs are listed in the monster manual with hit points, treasure, and details about what can be found in the monster's lair. B2 Keep on the Borderlands, a module included with basic D&D for quite a few years, contains lair after lair containing women and children. I am seriously curious how those who played trough B2 "back in the day" (or even recently) handled those encounters.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482008Even if the action ends up with PCs in control of an Orc settlement, the D&D texts don't state that killing the females and children is necessary, justified, or "good".
OK. Let's assume it's not good (which I think is a perfectly legitimate option). What does it mean for the PCs to spare the females and children after slaughtering all of the warriors and hunters?
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482008But the scenario of exterminating young, as a good thing, demands this concept of "irredeemable" with absolute foreknowledge that goes well beyond pragmatism.
D&D has long had the ability to detect alignment and the Paladin has long had the ability to Detect Evil at will. If that ability is not to create absolute knowledge of who the Paladin should or shouldn't slay, then what is it for?
Pretending orcs are psychopaths doesn't get around the problem Martin points out though. You're merely applying a slightly unusual human psychological type to them, not anything radically different from humanity.
Quote from: jhkim;481990This is true, but I think we are all against such bannings. In fact, with rare exceptions I believe in complete free speech. However, just because I oppose banning doesn't mean that I can't think there can ever be bad messages in pulps, comic books, video games, heavy metal, rap music, and RPGs. For example, I think that a lot of the original pulp stories had pointedly racist messages. Black Canaan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Canaan) is an extreme example, but plenty of the stories have side themes or slants to them that convey racism.
Sure, but is there anything in D&D that's so racist that you don't need to make assumptions about the motives of the authors to find it?
Quote from: jhkim;481990A common attitude seems to be that if I edit out the negatively stereotyped black characters from a story, then the story isn't racist anymore - and doesn't have any of the stigma. I think that is very much misguided. It reduces the obviousness of the racist attitudes, but they are still there in the rest of the story.
And if there aren't really any racist attitudes in the rest of the story after the editing is done? Why do you assume that they can never be fully excised?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482053Naw, those are, quite literally my PCs in Emern.
My orcs are like the barbarians during the early Christian / late Roman era. Vital, rude, prolific and half-friendly in the worst way. If you think of men like Alaric, Stilicho, Attila and Genseric, as well as the peoples they led you'd get a pretty good idea of how I see orcs acting.
That's awesome.
Back in the 3.0 days, I used to run a group of orcs (all with two hit dice of course), called "The Bane Lords." There deal was that they were the barbarians - demon worshiping lawful evil barbarians, which destroyed "Rome" and settled the city. The demon worshipers who ruled the orcs used magic to reconstruct the Roman culture (easy to do with Roman slaves).
One time I crushed 3 9th level characters with 3 Bane Lord orcs. They used a 20' spiked pit trap to keep a couple characters busy while they used nets and tridents to stab the other characters to death. Only one PC survived. Ever sense then the Bane Lords were famous.
Just imagine a big group of orcs marching in a disciplined phalanx, being led by a demon worshiper high priest in red robes, dear antlers, the huge ornate banner staff, all chanting some orc war song. It was great.
Quote from: Cranewings;482069Back in the 3.0 days, I used to run a group of orcs (all with two hit dice of course), called "The Bane Lords." There deal was that they were the barbarians - demon worshiping lawful evil barbarians, which destroyed "Rome" and settled the city. The demon worshipers who ruled the orcs used magic to reconstruct the Roman culture (easy to do with Roman slaves).
The last big fantasy campaign I ran was the monotheistic setting I briefly described some thread else. Orcs were basically agrarian in nature so they worshipped the nature/farming aspect of the setting's only God. When the big push by the current Empire centuries past resulted in planet wide conflict, the Orcs started worshipping the aspect of vengence known as The Dark Uncle (the cult of which was actually created by humans during the early days of the conflict). After a while customs and ideas of their old nature aspect worship mingled with the vengence aspect and it turned into the Cult of War, which was one of the main cults in the setting and which had adherents of every race.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482067Pretending orcs are psychopaths doesn't get around the problem Martin points out though. You're merely applying a slightly unusual human psychological type to them, not anything radically different from humanity.
It's radically different enough that it's not that hard to find their thinking described as if it were alien, if not actually calling it "alien" and the difference is not simply a social or cultural one.
Quote from: David R;482070The last big fantasy campaign I ran was the monotheistic setting I briefly described some thread else. Orcs were basically agrarian in nature so they worshipped the nature/farming aspect of the setting's only God. When the big push by the current Empire centuries past resulted in planet wide conflict, the Orcs started worshipping the aspect of vengence known as The Dark Uncle (the cult of which was actually created by humans during the early days of the conflict). After a while customs and ideas of their old nature aspect worship mingled with the vengence aspect and it turned into the Cult of War, which was one of the main cults in the setting and which had adherents of every race.
Regards,
David R
Nice.
What made the orcs different than humans if they have a human style culture? Why were they there if there was only one god? Who made them?
In my new sandbox game, which is pretty fun to write, world in motion and all that, I just had the party fight a group of fungus orcs.
Full on completely evil orcs a tribe of evil red goblins made by killing some mushroom headed goblins and using their bodies to grow the fungus. The orcs were basically guards for their layer.
My inspiration for orcs comes mainly from the nightmare sequence in An American Werewolf in London.
(http://sculpt.strick.co.uk/22_awil_costume_complete.jpg)
Quote from: John Morrow;482071It's radically different enough that it's not that hard to find their thinking described as if it were alien, if not actually calling it "alien" and the difference is not simply a social or cultural one.
Short-lived psychopathic / sociopathic cultures exist in the real world (just not intergenerational ones where child-rearing must be done by members of the psychopathic group). I don't see why a gang of orc psychopaths would be "radically different" from a gang of human psychopaths.
Quote from: Cranewings;482069That's awesome.
Back in the 3.0 days, I used to run a group of orcs (all with two hit dice of course), called "The Bane Lords." There deal was that they were the barbarians - demon worshiping lawful evil barbarians, which destroyed "Rome" and settled the city. The demon worshipers who ruled the orcs used magic to reconstruct the Roman culture (easy to do with Roman slaves).
One time I crushed 3 9th level characters with 3 Bane Lord orcs. They used a 20' spiked pit trap to keep a couple characters busy while they used nets and tridents to stab the other characters to death. Only one PC survived. Ever sense then the Bane Lords were famous.
Just imagine a big group of orcs marching in a disciplined phalanx, being led by a demon worshiper high priest in red robes, dear antlers, the huge ornate banner staff, all chanting some orc war song. It was great.
Nice, man. Shit like that is why I love intelligent humanoid opponents.
Some have suggested (well, Kyle has suggested) that this thread is no longer about RPGs. Given that this entire most recent page is talking about rpg stuff, I can't say I agree. So I'm not going to close the thread or anything like that.
However, I will issue a reminder to people that conversation about political topics as such are not allowed on the main RPG forum. You can talk about RPGs and RPG-related issues, including the political context of RPGs, but make a point of sticking to that context or this thread could be closed or moved.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482077Short-lived psychopathic / sociopathic cultures exist in the real world (just not intergenerational ones where child-rearing must be done by members of the psychopathic group). I don't see why a gang of orc psychopaths would be "radically different" from a gang of human psychopaths.
I think that's a fair point and you can also accomplish most of what's accomplished by non-human monsters with transformative evens on human individuals, which is what vampires, werewolves, zombies, and so on are pretty much all about. The point would be to illustrate the changes such psychology would create in an entire species where they are the norm rather than isolated gangs rather, but there are other ways that could be done.
While Martin is incredibly picky about what he thinks qualifies as as being sufficiently alien in that essay (he gives lots of specific examples and picks on everything from Star Trek to Larry Niven) and it's not surprising that the Song of Ice and Fire series contains no non-human monsters, I think he raises a very good point, which is why settings need things like elves, halflings, dwarves, orcs, and so on at all. Are they there simply because people borrowed them from Tolkien and others and keep using them because they are part of the game? The main reason why they were in my D&D game is that the players wanted kitchen-sink D&D. Earlier settings I've done, both science fiction and fantasy, had no non-human sentient creatures.
Why do you have orcs in your setting? (ADDED: And, yes, I know you talk about them being considered the same species as humans in your one setting, so how different are they?)
Quote from: Cranewings;482073Nice.
What made the orcs different than humans if they have a human style culture? Why were they there if there was only one god? Who made them?
Well, the One God made all the races on the planet. The four "main" races were Human, Orc, Elf and Wolfen. Although their cultures had some similarities - all were fuedalistic in nature, what separated them (obviously) were their physical/mental characteristics. Orcs for instance were hardy but had relatively short life spans. They seemed to take to cultivating the land so made excellent farmers. Green fingers and all that.
God said that he many faces and they could worship him any way they chose and he would grant them power and all that good stuff. So the Elves started a enigmatic nature cult. The dwarves paid homage to Him with a guardian/hearth cult, humans who understand Him the most and started a Cult of Mercy. Everyone got with the program except for the Wolfen who said, sod this and went their own way. Who could blame them ? They were the baddest mofos around and in those early days were already experimenting with democracy.
Regards,
David R
My reason for having them is similar to yours, Morrow: I play kitchen sink D&D. When I can I cut them out or drastically simplify them so that there are only a few nonhuman species.
I've only ever had one setting where I allowed them to proliferate, and that was the Dawnlands. There, the wide variety of demihumans allows me to subvert the tropes and cliches of them to reinforce the weirdness and oddity of the setting (the Dawnlands is a high weirdness setting). And even then, I originally built it as a kitchen sink D&D setting. Now that it's not, I'm thinking of reducing and combining some of the species (specifically, getting rid of Eladrin and replacing them with black elves who are otherwise identical to the Eladrin I currently have).
In Emern, the setting I'm currently using, the PCs are conquistadors and explorers in Emern's equivalent of the New World. Racism and imperialism are modestly important parts of the game (just as they were IRL in the early 16th century), and having hobgoblins and elves to hurl slurs against saves me the distaste and potential misunderstandings that using extremely racially charged terms might (this is also useful because our playing space has a lot of passers-by).
I've appropriated some of the early Spanish and Portugese ethno-racial classification system to help with the distance as well, since none of my PCs speak Spanish or Portugese so the terms mostly come off as exotic and strange rather than with the force of English racial slurs:
Moreno, mulatto, pardo = half-elf or half-hobgoblin;
Criollo = humans or dwarves born in Arkhesh
The native population of Arkhesh is "mestizo", which means they are a blend of human, dwarf, elf and hobgoblin
Anyone who is unassimilated to Emern / Tash culture is a gente sin razon (people without reason), whereas the Emerns and Tash are gente de razon (people of reason).
Quote from: John Morrow;482108Why do you have orcs in your setting? (ADDED: And, yes, I know you talk about them being considered the same species as humans in your one setting, so how different are they?)
This is actually most of my settings, when they are present. I see orc-human-elf as ring species, basically.
My orcs generally just serve as a readily identifiable group of barbaric humans that do not correspond to any specific real world race but whose culture is a vicious, violent, and greedy one, and whose goals are probably to loot and savage your home as a result of that. They can be reasoned with or ransomed off, though not always.
I tend to downplay the pig-man element and draw on the greenish skin, giant physique (my orcs tend to be between 6-8 ft. tall and mass 275+ lbs.) and prominent canines (but only rarely tusks).
Quote from: David R;482119Well, the One God made all the races on the planet. The four "main" races were Human, Orc, Elf and Wolfen. Although their cultures had some similarities - all were fuedalistic in nature, what separated them (obviously) were their physical/mental characteristics. Orcs for instance were hardy but had relatively short life spans. They seemed to take to cultivating the land so made excellent farmers. Green fingers and all that.
God said that he many faces and they could worship him any way they chose and he would grant them power and all that good stuff. So the Elves started a enigmatic nature cult. The dwarves paid homage to Him with a guardian/hearth cult, humans who understand Him the most and started a Cult of Mercy. Everyone got with the program except for the Wolfen who said, sod this and went their own way. Who could blame them ? They were the baddest mofos around and in those early days were already experimenting with democracy.
Regards,
David R
Pretty cool.
Quote from: Sigmund;481071This I think I can answer. The way I see it, absolute good and evil would be more of a mythic thing... I didn't see anywhere that referred to Perseus contemplating whether Medusa was redeemable. She was just evil, so he killed her for her head :) Dualistic alignments, IMO, create more of a mythic feel to a game. The alignments as a spectrum are what allow for more latitude in redeemability and shades of gray. It all depends on the feel a DM wants in the game. There's as much a place for mythic-style good vs. evil struggles as there is for ambiguous, gritty, shades of gray style games IMO. For me, postulating absolutely evil monsters (including orcs) is fine in a game striving for more of a mythic feel. There is no One True Way.
Perseus killed Medusa because he couldn't afford a horse.
Anyway, Greek myths are fucking weird, and usually have little to do with good and evil.
I'll let you guys return to whatever else you were talking about.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482008"Naturalistically-portrayed" means portrayed as if real. In the case of humanoids, it means that you work out anthropological details about them and imaginatively extrapolate how things would be if they were "really real". When Wile E. Coyote falls off a cliff and then, a scene later, is up and around, still chasing the roadrunner, that's cartoon violence. If instead you show him shattered and bloody, only to be gruesomely and painfully reassembled by some mysterious process, that's a step in the direction of naturalism.
Sigmund, I'm not requiring realism. I'm pointing out the elaborate, but selective fashion, in which realism is being applied, in the name of justifying a scenario where "good" PCs are doing the right thing, with metaphysical certitude, in killing noncombatants.
As soon as you decide on using the genre of fantasy, realism is being selectively applied. I am challenging the assertion that some folks, including you, seem to be advancing that their selections are somehow superior than others.
QuoteThis plays right into the quote in the OP, which I also object to. It's just that in one case you've got somebody saying that D&D and similar games glorify genocide, while in the other, you've got an argument that killing noncombatants can be "necessary" and good. The "facts" being asserted on the two sides aren't too different.
I think you are not reading folk's posts correctly. I have not sen anyone who is saying that killing non-combatants is "good". I am reading that killing evil non-combatants does not automatically make the killer evil, in the context of D&D and it's alignments. There is a major difference if you care to see it.
QuoteWhat this really points out is the logical leap in the OP. The early D&D books (which are the only ones I care about) state that Orcs, goblins, and so forth are evil and/or chaotic. (Some of them IIRC go from Chaotic to LE in the jump from OD&D to AD&D.) AD&D also adds pseudo-anthropological detail about females and young, chieftains, and forth, suggesting that Orcs have culture of a sort.
However, it doesn't follow that characters are compelled or justified in seeking out Orcs to kill and rob (as the OP would have it). Nor does it follow that the scenario of deciding what to do with humanoid young should arise in play, or that, if it does, the right thing to do is to exterminate them. As I believe one of the comments on G+ noted, conflicts with Orcs can be framed by the GM in terms of defense against Orcs who are the aggressors, or punitive/pre-emptive action against Orcs who have done, or are believed to be about to do something nasty.
I don't think there's a whole lot of folks advocating for "good" characters in fantasy games to seek out humanoids to kill just because they are "evil". Even if they are, it does not automatically lead to D&D being designed for the express purpose of this sort of pretend activity. I have not played in such a simplistic game since my early teens, and then it was just because I was still learning the rules. The point is, while there's nothing wrong with pretending such moral dilemmas, there's also nothing wrong with not pretending such moral dilemmas. Groups who pretend their characters just go in and lay waste to the place are not somehow suddenly racists, colonists, lazy, unimaginative, or any other derogatory labels we can apply. They are using a game in a way that entertains them. Who are any of us to judge?
QuoteEven if the action ends up with PCs in control of an Orc settlement, the D&D texts don't state that killing the females and children is necessary, justified, or "good". That's an interpretation brought about by a confluence of elements brought to the table: it's an overly literal interpretation of things like alignment and the listed alignments of humanoids, leading to a grotesque thought-experiment which (I would argue) is outside the scope of the original material. IMO it's perfectly okay to say that naturalistic orcs (shown as having females and young, etc.) are evil in a pragmatic sense--they're attacking you, or you're in a protracted conflict with them, and there's no immediate prospect of their changing their ways. But the scenario of exterminating young, as a good thing, demands this concept of "irredeemable" with absolute foreknowledge that goes well beyond pragmatism.
I agree with you right up until the last bit. IMO it's also ok to say that orcs are evil in the supernatural sense, including their non-combatants, and that exterminating them is no worse alignment-wise as killing baby dragons, baby beholders, baby harpies, etc. I see absolutely nothing wrong with a DM and group that postulates that orcs are inherently and irredeemably evil for whatever reason, pragmatic or not. It's their fantasy, who are we to say it's wrong? Sure, you might not enjoy that, but that's your personal taste and absolutely nothing more.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482023If you wish to simply deal with the gods of Deities and Demigods and ignore the many other campaign settings and campaigns hat exist, you are welcome to. You will be alone in doing so, though.
Bullshit. I hold up the Deities and Demigods only as a demonstration of possible approaches, nothing more. If you want to argue otherwise, you will be the one arguing alone. Your approach and ideas are not the only valid approach or ideas. Plus, most of the other published settings contain idea of "gods" that are little different from those included in Deities and Demigods. I am talking about RAW D&D because that's what the OP was talking about. If you want to have a different discussion, perhaps a new thread would be more useful.
QuoteWhile I do not disagree that Melkor himself does not map well to D&D mechanically, certainly he and Sauron are the inspiration for many of the "Supreme Evil Dark Gods" that litter both fantasy fiction and RPG campaigns. Lord of the Rings is mentioned in Appendix N, so this is hardly out of the blue.
No, of course not, and I agree with you here. The problem, however, in holding up Sauron or Melkor as examples in relation to D&D is that in D&D, characters very often can and do travel to other planes to fight and kill "Gods". These D&D gods are not omniscient or omnipotent, and are much closer to the Gods of Greek, Roman, and Scandinavian myth than Tolkien's world. In many campaigns, orcs are imagined as being created by Gruumsh, who's a right evil and angry feller, so orcs being evil and angry is no surprise. In Gruumsh's mythology, he created them to specifically campaign against and exterminate all the other races, who Gruumsh hates. Therefore, it's not out of the realm of believability to pretend that orcs are inherently and irredeemably evil simply because that's the way Gruumsh made them. It's not the only way to view it, of course, but there's nothing wrong with viewing orcs that way, and it doesn't mean such a group are automatically a bunch of racists for doing so.
QuoteThat is equally irrelevant. Tolkien, in Melkor, is using a fictional gloss on a well-established concept in Western religion that _has_ been extensively developed by theologians and artists prior to him (the concept of Satan).
Perhaps for inspiration, but I see very little in Melkor or Sauron that resembles the biblical Satan. Plus, not being a Christian, to me that still holds very little value. Hell, even these so-called theologians and artists can't agree on the nature of God, Satan, or even religion in general. It's definitely not rocket science.
QuoteI talked about omnipotence, not omniscience. An omniscient evil god is almost as problematic conceptually, though.
Fair enough. Most D&D Gods, at least in the RAW, are not omnipotent either. It makes it much harder to travel to the planes of the Gods and kill them if they are omni-anything.
QuoteNo. Nor is it "elitism" to want to have a well-constructed, well-thought through world where things make sense.
What is elitist is to say that not using a well-constructed, well-thought through world where things make "sense" (in as much as they can when the characters can fly, shoot lightning from their hands, and travel to other planes) is inherently better than worlds not given the same treatment in our games of pretend. I will do whatever I and my group wants to do when building our game-world and there is nothing about your choices that makes them inherently better than mine. Let's say I grant JJ his assertion that making orcs iredeemably evil is a feature of lazy and unimaginative world-building (which I'm not, but for argument's sake let's say I do), it still does not make that world-building inherently inferior to JJ's. If I want to be lazy in building my world for my game of pretend, I will. It's just a game of pretend. As long as I and my group are sufficiently enjoying my "lazy" world-building, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Quote from: beejazz;482131Perseus killed Medusa because he couldn't afford a horse.
Anyway, Greek myths are fucking weird, and usually have little to do with good and evil.
I'll let you guys return to whatever else you were talking about.
Depends on how you define "good" and "evil". The myths might not come out and directly address "good" and "evil", but Perseus wasn't there killing Medusa just for fun. He killed Medusa simply to gain a weapon against the Kraken. That it didn't bother him to do so was because Medusa was evil, and delighted in the death of her victims.
I agree, Greek myths are weird.
Quote from: Sigmund;482138Depends on how you define "good" and "evil". The myths might not come out and directly address "good" and "evil", but Perseus wasn't there killing Medusa just for fun. He killed Medusa simply to gain a weapon against the Kraken. That it didn't bother him to do so was because Medusa was evil, and delighted in the death of her victims.
I agree, Greek myths are weird.
He killed Medusa because he promised Polydectes* any gift he wanted because he couldn't afford a horse. He succeeded with the help of Athena, who made Medusa a monster for the sin of being raped (by Poseidon) in her temple. Perseus encountered a serpent called Cetus (not the Kraken) in an unrelated incident on the way home. He killed it because he was interested in Andromeda, who was to be sacrificed to it. Probably not to save any villagers, or he would have killed the many serpents he personally was responsible for spawning on the way home with Medusa's blood.
*some asshole who wanted to bang his mom.
EDIT: That it didn't bother him is because killing monsters (and other heroes) is what Greek heroes do, and that has little to do with morality or external justification.
Quote from: beejazz;482151EDIT: That it didn't bother him is because killing monsters (and other heroes) is what Greek heroes do, and that has little to do with morality or external justification.
Indeed, Greek Mythology is a prime example of ambiguous morality. The gods crap on mortals for the most petty of reasons, blameless victims suffer a great degree of injustice (being turned into monsters and killed by thoughtless heroes for example) and even the heroes themselves are bastards in one form or another - cheats, womanisers, kidnappers, rapists, fratricidal murderers, human sacrificers and so on.
In ancient times 'Hero' did not equate with being good... it just meant he was somebody dangerous who you paid wary respect to.
Quote from: beejazz;482151He killed Medusa because he promised Polydectes* any gift he wanted because he couldn't afford a horse. He succeeded with the help of Athena, who made Medusa a monster for the sin of being raped (by Poseidon) in her temple. Perseus encountered a serpent called Cetus (not the Kraken) in an unrelated incident on the way home. He killed it because he was interested in Andromeda, who was to be sacrificed to it. Probably not to save any villagers, or he would have killed the many serpents he personally was responsible for spawning on the way home with Medusa's blood.
*some asshole who wanted to bang his mom.
Sure, if you want to talk about the actual myth rather than the movie with cool special effects (LOVED the way Hades looked when he appeared) :D Either way, it doesn't matter because the result is the same. Perseus needed the head for something and killed Medusa without remorse to get it. Wouldn't you if you could? It's not like Medusa was some harmless innocent at that point, although she had been at one time. We all make choices.
QuoteEDIT: That it didn't bother him is because killing monsters (and other heroes) is what Greek heroes do, and that has little to do with morality or external justification.
The reason it's what Greek heroes do is because the monsters are evil and need to be killed. Even Jason, who, at the surface, quested to gain his throne. The guy he was taking it from was a selfish, ambitious would-be conqueror. Like you said, the Greeks are weird, but that doesn't mean they didn't consider what they thought to be "good" and "evil". The stories contain reasons for the heroes to be doing what they are doing, and in many cases it's because they are either defending someone/something or are given quests by someone else whom they have a need to please. This militaristic view of dealing with threats and obstacles is a strong influence, IMO, on the way D&D was designed to play. Especially when keeping in mind it was written neither by nor for folks who make life-long studies or vocations out of ancient mythology, but just have read some of it for entertainment.
Quote from: Pete Nash;482155Indeed, Greek Mythology is a prime example of ambiguous morality. The gods crap on mortals for the most petty of reasons, blameless victims suffer a great degree of injustice (being turned into monsters and killed by thoughtless heroes for example) and even the heroes themselves are bastards in one form or another - cheats, womanisers, kidnappers, rapists, fratricidal murderers, human sacrificers and so on.
In ancient times 'Hero' did not equate with being good... it just meant he was somebody dangerous who you paid wary respect to.
Depends on how you define "good". The Greek heroes are depicted according to the morality of their culture and time period. Of course the Gods were depicted as cruel and petty... life can be cruel and seemingly petty. The heroes reflected the values of their day, and in such a militaristic culture, is it really so surprising the heroes come off as a bunch of frat boys?
Quote from: SigmundSure, if you want to talk about the actual myth rather than the movie with cool special effects (LOVED the way Hades looked when he appeared) :D Either way, it doesn't matter because the result is the same. Perseus needed the head for something and killed Medusa without remorse to get it. Wouldn't you if you could? It's not like Medusa was some harmless innocent at that point, although she had been at one time. We all make choices.
Nothing wrong with basing your games on movies and pop-culture derived from myth, but I think it's better not to confuse the two too much.
As for whether Medusa was harmless, or attempted to kill anyone but Perseus deliberately, it isn't mentioned because it isn't relevant. Monsters didn't have to go and kill people for people to be justified in killing them.
When I look to myth and history, I try not to look through too modern a lens. I'm not a fan, for example, of looking for the monomyth or modern media parallels in everything, as the whole point is to bring in something *outside* my experience.
QuoteThis militaristic view of dealing with threats and obstacles is a strong influence, IMO, on the way D&D was designed to play. Especially when keeping in mind it was written neither by nor for folks who make life-long studies or vocations out of ancient mythology, but just have read some of it for entertainment.
I agree with the "militaristic view" and its influence on D&D*, but D&D sort of mixes sources. Paladins and a sort of "chivalrous view" exist alongside the militaristic view, and it can be hard sometimes to disentangle the two. Let alone when other aspects of D&D "morality" might be defined by Robin Hood or Conan or what have you.
*In fact, I tend to push the militaristic angle *over* the chivalrous one, keeping "justification" less of an issue.
Quote from: beejazz;482158Nothing wrong with basing your games on movies and pop-culture derived from myth, but I think it's better not to confuse the two too much.
Well if one were attempting a more academic approach I agree.
QuoteAs for whether Medusa was harmless, or attempted to kill anyone but Perseus deliberately, it isn't mentioned because it isn't relevant. Monsters didn't have to go and kill people for people to be justified in killing them.
True enough I suppose, although I'm not familiar with many Greek monsters that would not try to, or at least inadvertantly, kill anyone that got near them. In Medusa's case, perhaps Perseus was doing her more of a kindness.
QuoteWhen I look to myth and history, I try not to look through too modern a lens. I'm not a fan, for example, of looking for the monomyth or modern media parallels in everything, as the whole point is to bring in something *outside* my experience.
I agree with the "militaristic view" and its influence on D&D*, but D&D sort of mixes sources. Paladins and a sort of "chivalrous view" exist alongside the militaristic view, and it can be hard sometimes to disentangle the two. Let alone when other aspects of D&D "morality" might be defined by Robin Hood or Conan or what have you.
*In fact, I tend to push the militaristic angle *over* the chivalrous one, keeping "justification" less of an issue.
I agree, D&D greatly mixes sources. It's a legend myth mash-up, and I think that's part of it's appeal. Using a setting inspired by Greek myth, including a morality much closer to Greek myth than the modern view, and injecting the romanticized chivalrous view into that setting can be loads of fun. In that case, the heroes would very much go out to slay these evil and dangerous creatures to protect the common folk. Whether the monster was truly evil in intent, or simply tragic, would not be much of a factor. IMO it shouldn't have to be when playing pretend with such a game. To try and then view this game through the lens of colonialism and racism is pretty crazy, IMO.
Quote from: Sigmund;482134I think you are not reading folk's posts correctly. I have not sen anyone who is saying that killing non-combatants is "good".
John M. is. He's the only guy I'm really arguing with on that side as far as I can recall, although if anyone else wants to step up they're more than welcome.
This is why I haven't been jumping in to argue with CRKrueger or most of the other people who've been calling the OP a load of bollocks, because mostly, it is.
Quote from: John Morrow;482061Human beings are genetically programmed to behave certain ways and have certain mental capabilities, too. It becomes noticeable in people who lack normal mental capabilities, such as with autism. Why is a species that naturally has a different set of capabilities, urges, and priorities difficult to accept?
A specific different set of urges and priorities. Please explain how a humanoid species that needs to kill humans in order to survive can originate and sustain itself.
QuoteNot the only option. They can also be noxious to their own kind such that if you leave them alone only with their own kind, they will prey on and abuse each other. Think about what violent criminals do to each other in prison if you need a model of how that works. So, sure, you could put them on a reservation where they can't hurt other people but they will just make life a living Hell for each other.
So, they're mean to each other, therefore every one of them deserves to die?
The more naturalistic you try to make the creatures, the less fantasy and the more sci-fi things become. In turn, the more sci-fi, the less I'm willing to swallow the idea of absolute good and evil.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482163John M. is. He's the only guy I'm really arguing with on that side as far as I can recall, although if anyone else wants to step up they're more than welcome.
This is why I haven't been jumping in to argue with CRKrueger or most of the other people who've been calling the OP a load of bollocks, because mostly, it is.
Huh, haven't read that into John's posts, but perhaps I missed something. Fair enough.
Quote from: John Morrow;482065The Orcs are listed in the monster manual with hit points, treasure, and details about what can be found in the monster's lair. B2 Keep on the Borderlands, a module included with basic D&D for quite a few years, contains lair after lair containing women and children. I am seriously curious how those who played trough B2 "back in the day" (or even recently) handled those encounters.
I'm also curious about that. But...good monsters, humans, elves, etc. are all listed in the monster manual the same way. We could talk about why that is, but it sure doesn't have to do whether it's good/right/justified to hunt down orcs as opposed to other creatures.
In cases where enemies are defeated, leaving PCs in control of noncombatants...first I'd point out that "absolute defeat" happens a little too often in RPGs. With the exception of siege situations or battles where one side is routed and leaves its camp to be pillaged, I think there ought to be more cases where the orcs run away and take their dependents with them. But if the PCs are faced with the issue of dealing with noncombatants, sparing them can mean anything, particularly if you accept the argument I made earlier--that D&D alignment is a matter of broad strokes "here & now" disposition, not a statement of irrevocable destiny. For example, it wouldn't be unimaginable for orcs raised from infancy to be civilized. Also, while psychopathy is something I don't believe can be sustained in a social species, nevertheless if you postulate it, or at least some radically different psychology, the combination of intelligence and some kind of social impulse makes it possible to bargain on a basis of self-interest.
QuoteD&D has long had the ability to detect alignment and the Paladin has long had the ability to Detect Evil at will. If that ability is not to create absolute knowledge of who the Paladin should or shouldn't slay, then what is it for?
Interesting question. I checked the references to Detect Evil last night. Gygax appears to have given the idea some thought, and his concepts evolved somewhat from the Player's Handbook (June 1978) to the DMG (August 1979). The DMG seems to revise the use of the spell considerably, suggesting that it will really only detect supernatural evil, like devils--which of course dovetails nicely with the fact that supernatural evil creatures are of the essence of evil, unlike, say, a human who just happens to have an evil alignment or is planning to do something evil.
Besides, even the most expansive concept of Detect Evil is not "Predict Future". People can change alignments.
So basically I'd say, either way, that the Paladin's Detect Evil isn't a moral litmus test, it's a warning mechanism. This guy is evil, so don't trust him. Doesn't mean he should be executed on the spot.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482164A specific different set of urges and priorities. Please explain how a humanoid species that needs to kill humans in order to survive can originate and sustain itself.
For argument's sake, I'll say that feeling the need to kill humans doesn't automatically equate to the need existing solely for survival purposes, especially in a fantasy setting.
QuoteSo, they're mean to each other, therefore every one of them deserves to die?
The more naturalistic you try to make the creatures, the less fantasy and the more sci-fi things become. In turn, the more sci-fi, the less I'm willing to swallow the idea of absolute and evil.
Why not? Wouldn't the pretend world be a safer place without them? What positive contribution do they make to the pretend world that their loss is to be lamented? If their God has created them for the sole purpose of wiping out all the other sentient species (for example), what benefit is there to be gained by not wiping them out? Substitute "dragon" or "undead" for "orc" and nobody would even be having this discussion, but they are all pretend in the end, so what's the difference? If I were to include orcs in my home-brew setting, it would most likely be in just this role, to be honest. They would be extra-planar invaders who would attack and kill any other sentient species without mercy or hesitation. For the less polarized humanoids I already have dwarves, humans, and goblins. Why is it so easy to pretend that all elves (or dwarves) are good, but so hard to pretend all orcs are bad?
Quote from: Sigmund;482165Huh, haven't read that into John's posts, but perhaps I missed something. Fair enough.
He's said it multiple times throughout this thread explicitly (he even told a story about a time his PCs did it), and it's been the subject under debate for a thousand posts or so now. You've gone off the fucking deep end and don't appear to have kept track of anyone's position, including your own.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482167IAlso, while psychopathy is something I don't believe can be sustained in a social species, nevertheless if you postulate it, or at least some radically different psychology, the combination of intelligence and some kind of social impulse makes it possible to bargain on a basis of self-interest.
Just to address this specific issue, I disagree that if we're postulating a fantastic setting anyway that a high birthrate and mild sense of self-preservation would not allow a social species to lack a conscience as it relates to killing and still be social. Lacking the characteristic of feeling remorse does not equal feeling a compulsion to kill. Even without a conscience, the individuals of the species would have to be motivated to kill each other. I agree it would result in much higher incidents of violence among individual members of the species as motivations arose, the higher birthrates and unwillingness to directly challenge obviously stronger individuals could possibly balance that out. The lack of remorse also does not mean the individuals develop relationships with each other. Those relationships would just be of a different nature than what we think of, but it is fantasy after all.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482169He's said it multiple times throughout this thread explicitly (he even told a story about a time his PCs did it), and it's been the subject under debate for a thousand posts or so now. You've gone off the fucking deep end and don't appear to have kept track of anyone's position, including your own.
What I see John saying is that a good person can commit "morally questionable" acts in self-defense and not automatically be viewed as evil, such as in the case of Ripley in Aliens. You're going to have to be more specific if you want me to take you seriously. Have I missed something in this huge thread? Possibly, I am human after all. As for the rest, piss off troll. My position is clear. This whole thread is based on an OP that is fucking ludicrous, and every defense of that position or even ones vaguely similar to it have been pathetically weak, including yours. I see you and JJ and others putting forth this elitist view that your way of playing pretend is better or "deeper" or more "realistic" than one that includes pretend irredeemable evil and think that your one-true-wayism is retarded. Clear now or do I need to draw pictures?
Edit: I'm going through and reading all John's posts, and so far all I see is him describing why it would be pragmatic to wipe out an irredeemable species. So, if you are equating pragmatic with 'good", then I'll stand corrected. I have not, however, seen where he has described the extermination of irredeemable non-coms as some shining example of goodness and light. If anything, I'm seeing him say it's perhaps a necessary or pragmatic (which could be viewed as "good" for the safety of everyone else) task solely to protect the innocent, not to be be avoided, but not to be celebrated either, such as in the case of his party that killed the females and young of the goblin tribe.
Edit 2: Nope, haven't seen John post anything that I would interpret as him saying it's "good" to kill non-coms, in the sense of inherently good rather than "good" in the sense of the pragmatic removal of a future threat to innocents.
When I have used irredeemably evil orcs (and I don't always), there is a specific reason they are irredeemably evil - they were created that way. Most D&D worlds drop a fully-formed pantheon or multiple pantheons in your lap without going into the genesis of the cosmology. I take great pains to try and detail that cosmology as much as possible in my own worlds.
Now just looking at what D&D gives you, as I see it, the basic rationale of an "irredeemably D&D orc" is that it is created and given a soul by Gruumsh. The orc's purpose is to drive all other races from the world through war and prove the superiority of the orc race, for the glory of Gruumsh, in revenge against all the other racial gods. This creation myth comes from Dragon Magazine, Roger Moore I think.
Quote from: Roger Moore in Dragon MagazineIn the beginning all the gods met and drew lots for the parts of the world in which their representative races would dwell. The human gods drew the lot that allowed humans to dwell where they pleased, in any environment. The elven gods drew the green forests, the dwarven deities drew the high mountains, the gnomish gods the rocky, sunlit hills, and the halfling gods picked the lot that gave them the fields and meadows. Then the assembled gods turned to the orcish gods and laughed loud and long. "All the lots are taken!" they said tauntingly. "Where will your people dwell, One-Eye? There is no place left!"
There was silence upon the world then, as Gruumsh One-Eye lifted his great iron spear and stretched it over the world. The shaft blotted the sun over a great part of the lands as he spoke: "No! You Lie! You have rigged the drawing of the lots, hoping to cheat me and my followers. But One-Eye never sleeps. One-Eye sees all. There is a place for orcs to dwell…here!," he bellowed, and his spear pierced the mountains, opening a mighty rift and chasms. "And here!," and the spearhead split the hills and made them shake and covered them in dust. "And here!," and the black spear gouged the meadows and made them bare.
"There!" roared He-Who-Watches triumphantly, and his voice carried to the ends of the world. "There is where the orcs shall dwell! There they will survive, and multiply, and grow stronger, and a day will come when they cover the world, and they will slay all of your collective peoples! Orcs shall inherit the world you sought to cheat me of!"
As a result, orcs have more then violent DNA, they have a violent soul. They revel in violence, in pain, in suffering, in destruction, because their god crafted them thus. Do they breed? Yes. Do they have females and young? Yes. If set free, will those females find other orc males and create more orcs? Yes. Will those young grow up to ravage the countryside again? Yes. Is killing them necessary to the peaceful existence of good? Yes. Can they be other then what their god made them to be? No.
Now, I never had Paladins roving the wastes just looking for orcs to exterminate, I always saw Lawful Good militant orders as reacting to actual current threats to society and peace, not scouring the world in flame and sword.
Is slaying an "irredeemably evil orc" an inherently good act even if currently defenseless? Yes. Removal of evil is inherently good. Reveling in it, enjoying it, wishing for it, is evil. Doing it is good. Is it honorable, valorous, heroic? No. It is doing a despicable thing in the cause of the greater good. The reason that gets everyone going for the flamethrower is because in our world, where there is no greater good, humans have committed atrocities in the name of it nonetheless. However, the beauty of a fantasy RPG is that there may just be a greater good (or any other metaphysical construct you want to make that doesn't exist on earth). Of course if you can't imagine the existence of a greater good or an absolute good or absolute evil, well then of course you can't envision what I'm talking about.
Personally, slaying females and young should be seen as a horrific act, and I've never had a party just do it without conflict, sometimes PvP conflict, between good characters. However being the sword of a god is not easy, nor should it be. As Ken Hite put it...
Quote from: Ken HiteCivilization must be protected from the Barbarians, and to do that, somebody has to pick up The Gun. However, if you pick up The Gun, you become a Barbarian.
Now he was talking about one of the key elements of the western, however, I think the same can apply to a Paladin or other Lawful/Good knight/templar.
When you take up the sword of your god, you willingly accept that you might be sacrificing some of your humanity to do the god's will. You will be the defender of peace, yet never have any yourself. I think of the quote of Van Helsing when he realizes that "We have all become God's madmen."
Frankly, by my experience, a game where the players storm in, and put every orc, male, female and child to the sword without any questions, conflict, argument, guilt or self-atonement has never happened in 30 years of gaming, not even when I was 12. I know such games exist, but claiming them a base assumption or a core trope that infers something about the hobby itself, is just silly.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482181Is slaying an "irredeemably evil orc" an inherently good act even if currently defenseless? Yes. Removal of evil is inherently good. Reveling in it, enjoying it, wishing for it, is evil. Doing it is good. Is it honorable, valorous, heroic? No. It is doing a despicable thing in the cause of the greater good. The reason that gets everyone going for the flamethrower is because in our world, where there is no greater good, humans have committed atrocities in the name of it nonetheless. However, the beauty of a fantasy RPG is that there may just be a greater good (or any other metaphysical construct you want to make that doesn't exist on earth). Of course if you can't imagine the existence of a greater good or an absolute good or absolute evil, well then of course you can't envision what I'm talking about.
Fantastic way to put it, much better than anything I've posted. I enjoyed the rest of your post as well, nicely put.
I would challenge whether you can even summarise my position, let alone characterise it as "pathetically weak" with any veracity. Certainly you've shown that you aren't reading this thread very carefully, and that you don't actually have a coherent position, just a shitty, self-righteous attitude with nothing behind it.
As for Morrow, he explicitly stated that he ran a game in which his good PCs mowed down a bunch of greenskin kids without any moral consequences. This was because they were irredeemably evil.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482181However, the beauty of a fantasy RPG is that there may just be a greater good (or any other metaphysical construct you want to make that doesn't exist on earth). Of course if you can't imagine the existence of a greater good or an absolute good or absolute evil, well then of course you can't envision what I'm talking about.
It's worth pointing out that this actually swings the other way. A god who commands you to love what it defines as good people and hate and kill those it defines as bad is not an "absolute good" god (though, to be fair, many worshippers may believe so, wrongly). It's actually a very good example of relativism (in that how one acts towards others is dependent on a higher authority's opinion about them).
I brought up Jesus earlier, and I'd point to the (rarely followed) Christian ethic of doing good to everyone, even those who do evil to you, as an example of an actual absolute good, in that it's a universal standard that does not vary based on context. Jesus doesn't want you to kill Romans even when they're arresting the messiah so they can kill him later on as a troublemaker and seditionist.
Kant's idea of always treating people as ends rather than means to an end, though somewhat vacuous, is similarly absolute without even requiring a divine injunction. By contrast, the idea of a "greater good" served by the commission of violent acts is just utilitarianism, and utilitarianism is shot through with moral relativism (one of the big problems with utilitarianism IRL is that the "greater good" or "maximal utility function" can be satisfied in all sorts of ways that seem prima facie immoral and horrible and so boundary conditions have to be introduced to limit how the maximisation of utility can be realised).
"God told me to kill him so I did" is just "The emperor told me to kill him so I did," in disguise.
My problem remains not the existence or lack of existence of "absolute good" and "absolute evil" or "irredeemable evil" but that people just seem to be throwing these terms around with thinking through what they actually mean, and what the actual effects of them would be.
The closest anyone has gotten so far is Morrow, who is correct that the psychopath could be defined as "absolute evil" in that there is no condition for morality that they could consistently satisfy. I think he loads too much onto the concept and doesn't do enough work to adequately explain how what is IRL ecologically a parasite could survive without a host organism to be parasitic on (ordinary moral persons constituting a society). But at least he's trying rather than throwing around terms incorrectly.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482195I would challenge whether you can even summarise my position, let alone characterise it as "pathetically weak" with any veracity. Certainly you've shown that you aren't reading this thread very carefully, and that you don't actually have a coherent position, just a shitty, self-righteous attitude with nothing behind it.
As for Morrow, he explicitly stated that he ran a game in which his good PCs mowed down a bunch of greenskin kids without any moral consequences. This was because they were irredeemably evil.
I think you're thinking more of yourself than me. I've actually shown that I've read the thread just fine, I was just giving you the benefit of the doubt, which perhaps I shouldn't have since you've shown your troll to be without merit or value. If you want to challenge what I can and can't summarize, have at it. My veracity speaks for itself. Yours, however, might be suspect, as I'll show right here.
You say,
QuoteAs for Morrow, he explicitly stated that he ran a game in which his good PCs mowed down a bunch of greenskin kids without any moral consequences. This was because they were irredeemably evil.
What John said was,
QuoteIt happened very much on screen, which is why it was grim. The players infiltrated the goblin den with stealth to rescue some captives. There, they dealt with a goblin guard who made a deal to betray his fellows and give the party information if the Paladin would promise to spare his life, which they did. On the way out, they wound up engaging the males in the den. I don't remember if they were spotted or decided to engage on their own after witnessing the goblins brutalizing each other. After the males were killed in battle, the females, who were essentially trapped down a tunnel, drove their children into the party in an attempt to escape, and then the stronger females drove out the weaker females, and so on. The carnage and how brutal it was was quite clear to all involved because the combat was played out. When they finally went back to that part of the den, they caught the two strongest females who were hiding. If I remember correctly, they begged for their lives and tried to make deals but were still killed. I think that wasn't very controversial, not only because they were irredeemably Evil but out of disgust over what they'd done to survive that long (sacrificing the lives of their own children, sisters, and so on).
No where in there do I see John saying there were no moral consequences. In fact, by writing things like, "which was why it was grim" and "The carnage and how brutal it was was quite clear to all involved" I think John is making quite clear that while the fact that the goblins were known to be irredeemably evil in his campaign made such pretend slaughter less morally abhorrent in relation to D&D's alignment system, the players and by extension the characters still felt emotional turmoil by performing this act. This emotional turmoil is very much a moral consequence. In fact, quite often in the real world when folks do morally wrong things, emotional turmoil is the only consequence they suffer, so I'd argue that this emotional reaction is more "realistic" than being struck down by the Gods of Good. So either you can't read, or you're interpreting what's been written through the lens of whatever supports your own position best, which would not be the first time.
I acknowledge that being the uneducated lout that I am means that I often am not very good at expressing myself, but your personal attacks here reveal you to have as much or more of a "shitty, self-righteous attitude" as I have, and an apparent desire to just be hurtful as well. I have a rather thick skin, and posting on this site and Nutkinland before it have helped make it even thicker, but if you're going to disparage me I request that you aim for more accuracy and detail than the weak ass shit you're laying down here and now.
I should stay the fuck away from this stupid thread.
CRKrueger, the bit with Gruumsh? It is a friggin creation myth in a lot of settings. It is not cosmic truth....i mean, it can be...but just because Moore wrote it, it would be for most settings, a creation myth...no more absolute truth than any other myths. And the noxious way the other gods act, one doubts this a universal truth at all...it is a cultural creation myth.
It does NOT mean orcs are born evil, it means that there is an orcish myth that supports their actions, nothing more.
No more real than Hitler's Lebensraum.
Not saying you are wrong, just saying that can be construed as a myth.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198It's worth pointing out that this actually swings the other way. A god who commands you to love what it defines as good people and hate and kill those it defines as bad is not an "absolute good" god (though, to be fair, many worshippers may believe so, wrongly). It's actually a very good example of relativism (in that how one acts towards others is dependent on a higher authority's opinion about them).
I know you're not aiming this my way, but I find it interesting so I want to respond to it anyway. I agree with your whole first paragraph here...
QuoteI brought up Jesus earlier, and I'd point to the (rarely followed) Christian ethic of doing good to everyone, even those who do evil to you, as an example of an actual absolute good, in that it's a universal standard that does not vary based on context. Jesus doesn't want you to kill Romans even when they're arresting the messiah so they can kill him later on as a troublemaker and seditionist.
... and I agree with you here as well.
QuoteKant's idea of always treating people as ends rather than means to an end, though somewhat vacuous, is similarly absolute without even requiring a divine injunction. By contrast, the idea of a "greater good" served by the commission of violent acts is just utilitarianism, and utilitarianism is shot through with moral relativism (one of the big problems with utilitarianism IRL is that the "greater good" or "maximal utility function" can be satisfied in all sorts of ways that seem prima facie immoral and horrible and so boundary conditions have to be introduced to limit how the maximisation of utility can be realised).
Here is where we start to disagree this time. When dealing with a fantasy setting with "real" Gods and the existence of Good and Evil as forces, not just ideas, means that thinking of utilitarianism in the context of real life isn't as useful.
Quote"God told me to kill him so I did" is just "The emperor told me to kill him so I did," in disguise.
I disagree here because, in the context of a fantasy setting where the Gods are "real", defying your God is nowhere near the same as defying your emperor. The first, most obvious difference is that your soul does not get judged by and sentenced to some form of eternal afterlife by your emperor. On this basis alone, playing a character that defies it's God and Creator would be extremely "unrealistic" without extreme extenuating circumstances.
QuoteMy problem remains not the existence or lack of existence of "absolute good" and "absolute evil" or "irredeemable evil" but that people just seem to be throwing these terms around with thinking through what they actually mean, and what the actual effects of them would be.
This is because many and perhaps most people don't search for or explore morality through playing pretend with dice. Speaking for myself, I don't believe in the existence of absolute good or evil. I also don't believe in irredeemable evil in the context of the real world. What I do believe is that when imagining a fantasy world I am free to imagine whatever I want to imagine, and that folks telling me what I'm imagining is wrong or bad in some way are taking this pretend shit way too seriously.
Quote from: LordVreeg;482203I should stay the fuck away from this stupid thread.
CRKrueger, the bit with Gruumsh? It is a friggin creation myth in a lot of settings. It is not cosmic truth....i mean, it can be...but just because Moore wrote it, it would be for most settings, a creation myth...no more absolute truth than any other myths. And the noxious way the other gods act, one doubts this a universal truth at all...it is a cultural creation myth.
It does NOT mean orcs are born evil, it means that there is an orcish myth that supports their actions, nothing more.
No more real than Hitler's Lebensraum.
Not saying you are wrong, just saying that can be construed as a myth.
However, when imagining a fantasy world, it is just as plausible that the "myth" is true, or at least has some basis in truth. It depends on what sort of world the GM wants the group to pretend in. Pretending that the Gruumsh "myth" is true does not make one lazy, unimaginative, or a racist, as I'm sure you'll agree.
Quote from: Sigmund;482171My position is clear. This whole thread is based on an OP that is fucking ludicrous, and every defense of that position or even ones vaguely similar to it have been pathetically weak, including yours. I see you and JJ and others putting forth this elitist view that your way of playing pretend is better or "deeper" or more "realistic" than one that includes pretend irredeemable evil and think that your one-true-wayism is retarded.
The problem is that no one is explicitly arguing the elitist view. You're reading elitism into other posters - which may or may not be true privately, but it isn't what they're saying. I can't speak for other posters, but I don't think I'm being elitist. I have repeatedly denied that I'm arguing for one true way - but you insist on shoving that onto me and others.
Quote from: Sigmund;482157Depends on how you define "good". The Greek heroes are depicted according to the morality of their culture and time period. Of course the Gods were depicted as cruel and petty... life can be cruel and seemingly petty. The heroes reflected the values of their day, and in such a militaristic culture, is it really so surprising the heroes come off as a bunch of frat boys?
This is exactly what I have been saying. Ancient Greek myths represent the morality of their culture and time - and that morality isn't the same as ours today. However, when I say that, you and others seem to react by labeling me an insane Marxist loony.
Quote from: LordVreeg;482203Not saying you are wrong, just saying that can be construed as a myth.
Sure it can be construed as a myth, it can be total horseshit. It
can also be the absolute truth. I wasn't claiming it was the absolute truth of the D&D setting, I was just listing it as a way that D&D could allow for an "irredeemably evil" orc given the bog-standard backstory. In many of my D&D settings orcs weren't irredeemably evil, but in a couple, they were (in one it was actually gnolls, the Spawn of Yeenoghu not orcs).
Quote from: jhkim;482210The problem is that no one is explicitly arguing the elitist view. You're reading elitism into other posters - which may or may not be true privately, but it isn't what they're saying. I can't speak for other posters, but I don't think I'm being elitist. I have repeatedly denied that I'm arguing for one true way - but you insist on shoving that onto me and others.
I don't recall mentioning you specifically. I do remember mentioning JibbaJibba and Pseudo though.
QuoteThis is exactly what I have been saying. Ancient Greek myths represent the morality of their culture and time - and that morality isn't the same as ours today. However, when I say that, you and others seem to react by labeling me an insane Marxist loony.
Please point out where I have labelled you a Marxist loony, I don't recall that.
Edit: Honestly, I'm more likely to be labelled a Marxist loony than you I'd guess, if we focus on real world politics.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198I brought up Jesus earlier, and I'd point to the (rarely followed) Christian ethic of doing good to everyone, even those who do evil to you, as an example of an actual absolute good, in that it's a universal standard that does not vary based on context. Jesus doesn't want you to kill Romans even when they're arresting the messiah so they can kill him later on as a troublemaker and seditionist.
Of course there are whole libraries of Christian debate that would claim that Jesus had to let the Romans kill him, but when he returns at the end of Revelation he's going to kick ass and chew bubblegum, point to 'I come not to bring peace but the sword", "Sell your cloak and buy a sword." yadda yadda yadda. That's what happens when you make a dead philosopher a god, you get no actual guidance on the matter. Christianity is a great philosophy, too bad there's like 4 people in the world who actually practice it. :D
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198"God told me to kill him so I did" is just "The emperor told me to kill him so I did," in disguise.
Not if the God is real it isn't.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198My problem remains not the existence or lack of existence of "absolute good" and "absolute evil" or "irredeemable evil" but that people just seem to be throwing these terms around with thinking through what they actually mean, and what the actual effects of them would be.
If only these gentle scoldings came with wisdom like manna dropped from heaven, I might be enlightened. :rolleyes:
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198The closest anyone has gotten so far is Morrow, who is correct that the psychopath could be defined as "absolute evil" in that there is no condition for morality that they could consistently satisfy. I think he loads too much onto the concept and doesn't do enough work to adequately explain how what is IRL ecologically a parasite could survive without a host organism to be parasitic on (ordinary moral persons constituting a society). But at least he's trying rather than throwing around terms incorrectly.
I'm sure he finds your "A for effort" encouraging, hopefully he will do more to please.
Your only real problem remains that you happen to conveniently think your preferred fields of study in a world without an actual god made manifest have anything to do with a theoretical world in which such gods or god does exist and makes it's commands known.
Quote from: Sigmund;482171This whole thread is based on an OP that is fucking ludicrous, and every defense of that position or even ones vaguely similar to it have been pathetically weak, including yours. I see you and JJ and others putting forth this elitist view that your way of playing pretend is better or "deeper" or more "realistic" than one that includes pretend irredeemable evil and think that your one-true-wayism is retarded. Clear now or do I need to draw pictures?
The only one here who is being elitist and one-true-wayist is you. Asking people like Dray ( and others) to leave the hobby because of their mockworthy ideas. Morrow's ideas about "sanitized" play could be construed as elitist just as much as jibba's or psuedoephedrine's ideas about "badly designed setting or my "murkier waters". Just because I may not agree with any of them does not mean I think they should leave the hobby, and none of them has asked anyone to leave the hobby except you.
I may not subscribe to psuedoephedrine's idea about "badly designed" settings but I do think his settings are good examples of how his design philosophies infleunce his games. Just as I think jibba is wrong in saying that there's something inherently dark about the hobby that attracts fucked up people but I am sympathetic to some of views on setting design.
The conversation has moved (at least for some of us) beyond the ridiculous statements in the OP and I think it's rather disinguenuos of you to imply that just because you don't agree with some of the things we have said, we are some how defending the ideas in the OP.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: beejazz;482131Anyway, Greek myths are fucking weird, and usually have little to do with good and evil.
I would actually argue that the Greeks could actually be quite evil. I'm still surprised that anyone considers the Spartans admirable. You want to see a real human example of a violent psychopathic parasite culture in action (*cough* Helots *cough*), take a close look at the Spartans.
Quote from: Pete Nash;482155Indeed, Greek Mythology is a prime example of ambiguous morality. The gods crap on mortals for the most petty of reasons, blameless victims suffer a great degree of injustice (being turned into monsters and killed by thoughtless heroes for example) and even the heroes themselves are bastards in one form or another - cheats, womanisers, kidnappers, rapists, fratricidal murderers, human sacrificers and so on.
When life expectancy is under 40 and people expect the universe to randomly kill them, they are thankful of any help divine beings might offer them to keep them alive. They expected the universe to crap on them and were surprised when it didn't.
When life expectancy approaches 80 and people expect to die of old age, instead of being thankful to the divine that they remain alive because it is the norm, they curse the divine for ill fortune because that's seen as the rare exception. They are surprised or angry when the universe craps on them.
You can find all sorts of examples of modern people dying stupid deaths from wild animals, cliffs, waterfalls, and so on because they don't expect they'll die when they do stupid things and don't expect nature to hurt them. People in ancient times had very different expectations about reality than we do.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482164A specific different set of urges and priorities. Please explain how a humanoid species that needs to kill humans in order to survive can originate and sustain itself.
The first thing I have to ask is, do you have similar verisimilitude problems with vampires in role-playing games?
The second thing I have to ask is, how do you think real world parasites that exclusively afflict a single species originate and sustain themselves?
Third, one doesn't need to constantly kill to be evil, nor does one need to kill at all to be evil. The BTK Killer killed 10 people over more than a decade of time. Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka are only known for certain to have killed three (including Homolka's sister) but raped many more. Phillip Garrido kidnapped Jaycee Dugard and held her as a slave. Plenty of people would consider all of them evil, despite the fact that they were constantly active killing machines. A good fantasy example would be the dragon in Dragonslayer, who leaves the town alone but needs to eat a young maiden every now and then. Contrast that dragon with those depicted in Reign of Fire, that lays wasted to anything and everything, which is what you seem to expect.
Finally, I don't think they have to need to kill humans to the extent that, say, the Aliens do. In my D&D game, evil often preferred to go after weak targets of opportunity not of their own kind. In the absence of such targets, they might go after stronger targets or go after their own kind. If given a choice, a goblin would sack human settlements and take captives to abuse and perhaps ultimately kill and eat but in the absence of humans that they could kill or have any reasonable chance of killing, they could satisfy their hunger and cruel urges by viciously killing animals like deer or even rats and by brutalizing others of their own kind weaker than they are.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482164So, they're mean to each other, therefore every one of them deserves to die?
Think about all the real world atrocities one can blow off by dismissing it simply as being "mean". Would you consider it fair to describe the crimes of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka as them being "mean" to some women?
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482164The more naturalistic you try to make the creatures, the less fantasy and the more sci-fi things become. In turn, the more sci-fi, the less I'm willing to swallow the idea of absolute good and evil.
Science fiction is also has plenty of examples of remorseless killing machines and The Terminator and the Aliens have both been mentioned in this thread. Sometimes, they are literally machines but you can also find alien and transformed human, too. There are also science fiction zombies such as those in 28 Days Later. I'm not seeing the incompatibility.
Please... like the Greeks have dibs on this kind of behavior...
You want to see a real human example of a [strike]violent psychopathic parasite[/strike] modern culture in action (*cough* Helots *cough*), take a close look around you.
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uQt7YfFGA3U/TD_qfWckSCI/AAAAAAAAG80/Z3YXsTfrzXU/s400/juarez23.jpg)
I used to like partying in Juarez. I wouldn't go down there now though...
photo credits: http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/12/violence-plagued-juarez-only-got-worse.html (http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/12/violence-plagued-juarez-only-got-worse.html)
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198It's worth pointing out that this actually swings the other way. A god who commands you to love what it defines as good people and hate and kill those it defines as bad is not an "absolute good" god (though, to be fair, many worshippers may believe so, wrongly). It's actually a very good example of relativism (in that how one acts towards others is dependent on a higher authority's opinion about them).
Only if the distinction between good people and bad people is arbitrary and not a legitimate assessment of the situation.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198I brought up Jesus earlier, and I'd point to the (rarely followed) Christian ethic of doing good to everyone, even those who do evil to you, as an example of an actual absolute good, in that it's a universal standard that does not vary based on context. Jesus doesn't want you to kill Romans even when they're arresting the messiah so they can kill him later on as a troublemaker and seditionist.
Beyond the oversimplification of Jesus and his death, Romans were not irredeemably evil monsters.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198"God told me to kill him so I did" is just "The emperor told me to kill him so I did," in disguise.
The emperor is not God. You can have all sorts of fun equivocating things that aren't. This is how PETA winds up talking about "sea kittens". Romans are not inhuman monsters. Emperors are not God. Fish are not sea kittens.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198The closest anyone has gotten so far is Morrow, who is correct that the psychopath could be defined as "absolute evil" in that there is no condition for morality that they could consistently satisfy. I think he loads too much onto the concept and doesn't do enough work to adequately explain how what is IRL ecologically a parasite could survive without a host organism to be parasitic on (ordinary moral persons constituting a society). But at least he's trying rather than throwing around terms incorrectly.
Given that I haven't suggested a world of only irredeemably evil monsters and no humans, I'm not sure why I need to explain how they could survive without others to be parasitic on any more than one needs to explain how guinea worms could survive without humans in order to believe they exist.
Years ago, there was a thread on rec.games.frp.advocacy where a person said that he couldn't figure out how to create an "expansionist, totalitarian regime that can last more than a few years without going bankrupt", the assumption being that when one creates an empire, it must be created to endure. After a few rounds of speculation and a few suggestions of her own, Mary Kuhner replied, "So we go bankrupt--what do you think we are, a going concern? The Lords of Darkness *like* devastation, and they don't care what happens to their Empire. It is just a tool, to be discarded when it has done the maximum harm, or obtained whatever occult end it was designed for."
Species don't last forever, nor do they have to be designed to. If the evil monsters ever managed to kill all the humans and non-evil humanoids, their lives would become harder and they'd start preying on each other. Maybe they'd die out after a millennia, a century, or even just a few years. Why does that preclude their existence? They wouldn't be the first species to go extinct or the first parasite to go extinct because it no longer had a host.
Added: In fact, in my D&D game, the Druid's, in the cause ecological stability in the service of the spirit of their world, would have actively culled the goblinoids if they started to get the upper hand and might exterminate all of the humans much as they would also come to to aid of the goblinoids to preserve them and help keep the humans in check if the humans started to pose a real threat to exterminating them.
Quote from: GameDaddy;482238Please... like the Greeks have dibs on this kind of behavior...
I never claimed they did.
Quote from: GameDaddy;482238You want to see a real human example of a [strike]violent psychopathic parasite[/strike] modern culture in action (*cough* Helots *cough*), take a close look around you.
I think there are quite a few parallels between that and the Spartans.
So has anyone pointed out that the whining in the original post bears a striking semblance to the "video games cause violence" crowd?
EDIT: Also, I don't know how anyone could actually be friends with someone that smug, condescending, and histrionic.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482216Not if the God is real it isn't.
Yes, it is. If you are obeying an authority's commands because you fear or respect its power over you, it doesn't matter whether that is mundane or magical power.
QuoteYour only real problem remains that you happen to conveniently think your preferred fields of study in a world without an actual god made manifest have anything to do with a theoretical world in which such gods or god does exist and makes it's commands known.
Holy shit, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what reasoning
does, as well as the history of moral thought.
Protip: Our moral theories evolved in an intellectual context in which people did think God (or the Gods) manifested fairly regularly, and that his commands were well known and even obvious at times.
In fact, one of the earliest philosophical texts is about the very problem of whether the gods love what is good already, or whether the gods' love makes a thing good, written with two interlocutors who both fervently believe that the gods manifest their will on earth. This is not an obscure text - I read it at least three or four times in various contexts in a basic undergraduate philosophical education, and it bears directly on the very topic under discussion.
Reasoning about morality exists to satisfy the rational demands that mere power fails to meet, whether that is divine power or mundane, or whatever else. Obeying God simply because he is powerful is totally rationally inadequate, and in no way bears on the goodness or rightness of one's actions in any sort of intersubjective or objective sense. God doesn't get to define what is "good", any more than chalk gets to define what "chalk" is (if anything, at least one classic argument for God's existence & character flows exactly the other way, presenting God as essentially the perfected composite of all goodness which can be rationally assessed as such - but if you don't even know about the Euthypro, I'm not going to waste my time going through theology).
Quote from: John Morrow;482239Only if the distinction between good people and bad people is arbitrary and not a legitimate assessment of the situation.
No, you are wrong. Differing moral standards based on the character of actors, whether obvious or not, remains relativistic. Ethiopians existing is an objective fact, and whether someone is an Ethiopian is a fact that can be "legitimately assessed". Holding differing moral standards for Ethiopians and non-Ethiopians would still be relativistic.
QuoteBeyond the oversimplification of Jesus and his death, Romans were not irredeemably evil monsters.
Sure. Fortunately, Jesus didn't say "Love everyone, except those irredeemably evil monsters".
QuoteThe emperor is not God. You can have all sorts of fun equivocating things that aren't. This is how PETA winds up talking about "sea kittens". Romans are not inhuman monsters. Emperors are not God. Fish are not sea kittens.
You have missed the point of the analogy. As I said to Krueger, obeying power out of fear or respect for power is not an inherently good act, even if the power in question is itself good.
QuoteGiven that I haven't suggested a world of only irredeemably evil monsters and no humans, I'm not sure why I need to explain how they could survive without others to be parasitic on any more than one needs to explain how guinea worms could survive without humans in order to believe they exist.
You've missed the point again. Psychopaths are able to reach adulthood in our society because they are
not surrounded by other psychopaths, and not in a psychopathic society with none of the fruits of human cooperation and reciprocity. Orcs, if they are a self-contained, self-perpetuating society of psychopaths, do not have that host society to burrow into like a human psychopath does.
QuoteSpecies don't last forever, nor do they have to be designed to. If the evil monsters ever managed to kill all the humans and non-evil humanoids, their lives would become harder and they'd start preying on each other. Maybe they'd die out after a millennia, a century, or even just a few years. Why does that preclude their existence? They wouldn't be the first species to go extinct or the first parasite to go extinct because it no longer had a host.
It precludes their existence outside of that brief window of time, which makes intergenerational societies almost impossible. This is what we've been debating for a while now. That's why I said earlier that only short-lived societies that can externalise (or ignore) child-rearing and other tasks that the psychopaths are totally unsuited for could survive, and even then for only brief periods of time.
If someone is magicking up orcs whenever the current crop is depleted, then there shouldn't be any orc women or children in the first place to slaughter.
Quote from: Sigmund;482202I think you're thinking more of yourself than me. I've actually shown that I've read the thread just fine, I was just giving you the benefit of the doubt, which perhaps I shouldn't have since you've shown your troll to be without merit or value.
You couldn't keep "omniscience" and "omnipotence" straight, even after I corrected you on it. Don't brag about how you're on top of things when you can't even keep that stuff straight when people point it out to you.
QuoteIf you want to challenge what I can and can't summarize, have at it.
I did challenge you to. Do it, you fucking pretentious twit.
QuoteNo where in there do I see John saying there were no moral consequences. In fact, by writing things like, "which was why it was grim" and "The carnage and how brutal it was was quite clear to all involved" I think John is making quite clear that while the fact that the goblins were known to be irredeemably evil in his campaign made such pretend slaughter less morally abhorrent in relation to D&D's alignment system, the players and by extension the characters still felt emotional turmoil by performing this act. This emotional turmoil is very much a moral consequence. In fact, quite often in the real world when folks do morally wrong things, emotional turmoil is the only consequence they suffer, so I'd argue that this emotional reaction is more "realistic" than being struck down by the Gods of Good. So either you can't read, or you're interpreting what's been written through the lens of whatever supports your own position best, which would not be the first time.
John is talking about a world in which there is a clear conception of what he calls "absolute good" and in which the Gods actively enforce this, and with Paladins and Druids who must uphold certain alignments. And to slay noncombatants in this world is not immoral (it would not cause a Paladin to fall). The players might have felt emotional turmoil, but the characters should not have based on what he claims. If they did, then it is simply because his moral theory is inadequate (a claim I've made numerous times).
The rest of your post is just butthurt. Go whine to someone who cares.
Quote from: John Morrow;482239Species don't last forever, nor do they have to be designed to.
I'm not an expert on evolution or ecology, but I don't think very many extinctions have occurred due to a parasite or predator wiping out its prey or host. Usually they live in local equilibria; if the host/prey species is wiped out, it's because of some external influence.
Quote from: John Morrow;482237The first thing I have to ask is, do you have similar verisimilitude problems with vampires in role-playing games?
No, but vampires aren't a species, they don't propagate by mommy & daddy vampires having baby vampires, and they're highly supernatural.
QuoteThe second thing I have to ask is, how do you think real world parasites that exclusively afflict a single species originate and sustain themselves?
Is this a rhetorical question? I'd appreciate if you'd actually take a stab at it yourself.
I'd speculate (and probably getting in over my head) that all parasites start as opportunistic generalists--either finding their way from one species to another that offers a similar "environment", or taking on a parasitic lifestyle after a host species offers an environment that adequately substitutes for predation. E.g., vampire bats according to one theory originally ate blood-sucking arthropods, then they moved on to cut out the middle man as it were.
The wikipedia article on parasitism says that parasites may become specialists, infecting a single species, due to the need to overcome the unique defenses of that species. However it goes on to say that parasites and their hosts "should" over time co-evolve to the point that the parasite is less harmful or even beneficial to the host, since parasites benefit when their hosts thrive.
What this suggests to me is that, like diseases, highly virulent forms of parasitism are most likely the result of recent, radical changes in the environment. E.g. the Black Death in Europe is associated with rapid urbanization; the decimation of the Native American populations by disease occurred as a result of contact with Europeans after long isolation of the two populations; Pericles died in an epidemic brought on by population crowding during wartime; the Spanish Flu was incubated in the trenches of WWI and spread by soldiers returning home.
Or consider extinction by predation: the common housecat wiped out several bird species, true, but only because cats were introduced into Oceania by westerners.
QuoteThird, one doesn't need to constantly kill to be evil, nor does one need to kill at all to be evil.
Oh dear, more psychopaths...I'm sorry, but I really don't see the relevance here.
QuoteFinally, I don't think they have to need to kill humans to the extent that, say, the Aliens do. In my D&D game, evil often preferred to go after weak targets of opportunity not of their own kind. In the absence of such targets, they might go after stronger targets or go after their own kind. If given a choice, a goblin would sack human settlements and take captives to abuse and perhaps ultimately kill and eat but in the absence of humans that they could kill or have any reasonable chance of killing, they could satisfy their hunger and cruel urges by viciously killing animals like deer or even rats and by brutalizing others of their own kind weaker than they are.
This is a better argument, one that occurred to me. I'm not entirely sure how convincing it is, but I don't have a good answer either.
QuoteThink about all the real world atrocities one can blow off by dismissing it simply as being "mean". Would you consider it fair to describe the crimes of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka as them being "mean" to some women?
I don't give a damn, to be honest. If your orcs or goblins are naturally awful to each other
as a species or as society (not as individual deviants), then I can point to real species where stuff happens that's pretty hard to stomach. For example, infanticide and cannibalism among chimps, infanticide among lions and gorillas, female preying mantises biting the heads off males, etc. As long as we're talking about natural behavior, I don't see how it turns the entire species or society into a candidate for extermination. Even in the case of social behavior among humans:, yes to stopping suttee if you're in a position to do so, no to killing entire tribes because "they're a bunch of animals who are better off dead".
QuoteScience fiction is also has plenty of examples of remorseless killing machines and The Terminator and the Aliens have both been mentioned in this thread. Sometimes, they are literally machines but you can also find alien and transformed human, too. There are also science fiction zombies such as those in 28 Days Later. I'm not seeing the incompatibility.
I exclude zombies, vampires, and the like because, again, they aren't natural species. (Haven't watched 28 Days Later, do the zombies there breed and have kids?) It's not the evil of the Terminator, etc., that I question. I think I should have put it better by saying that once you start talking about species with a pretend scientific rationale for their psychology, ecology, and the like, it becomes harder to think of them as evil in an absolute sense since, first, nature just does what it does, and second, it becomes harder to rationalize genetically-inborn evil as being compatible with human characteristics such as sentience and sociality.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482259Yes, it is. If you are obeying an authority's commands because you fear or respect its power over you, it doesn't matter whether that is mundane or magical power.
"Magical"? Your atheism is showing if you can't even say Divine. You see no difference between a command given by a man who could kill you and a god? You need to use your imagination a bit more.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482259Protip: Our moral theories evolved in an intellectual context in which people did think God (or the Gods) manifested fairly regularly, and that his commands were well known and even obvious at times.
Protip: They were wrong about that, weren't they? Our moral theories evolved in an intellectual context where there was no God to confirm or deny any supposition or theory put forth by man.
It's quite easy to say that the existence of a god is not rationale enough to obey him
when there is no god. Moral theorists and philosophers can believe in god all they want to, however, none of them ever had god's confirmation or were ever struck dead for claiming he doesn't matter.
Somehow, I think a real god just might make a wee little bit of difference in how people think about morality and how a culture's morality may have developed.
Thinking that there is no god, yet there is an inherent absolute moral Truth, is simply religion by another name, and one that may not apply to every cosmology.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482276"Magical"? Your atheism is showing if you can't even say Divine. You see no difference between a command given by a man who could kill you and a god? You need to use your imagination a bit more.
He sees no difference because there is none. On both cases you obey because someone holds a huge power over you. Actually, in real world, most self - defined believers regularly disobey some or all their precepts, but they would surely obey an armed man. God is not very persuasive :D
Quote from: Imperator;482288He sees no difference because there is none. On both cases you obey because someone holds a huge power over you. Actually, in real world, most self - defined believers regularly disobey some or all their precepts, but they would surely obey an armed man. God is not very persuasive :D
A fair point. In a historical context (gross generalisation alert, but I am mostly thinking greco-roman), a deity is placed at or near the top of a pyramid of people who hold power over you. The pyramid is a context within which a transactional flow of favours passes down and honours and service pass upwards in return. If honours and service do not flow upwards, it can be harm and punishment that is handed down rather than favours. The magnitude of power (= the capacity to help and harm) at some point tips into a level that is 'divine'. This tipping point is not fixed by a difference between 'mortal' or 'normal' and 'supernatural', although the ability to affect natural phenomena is a key indicator. Very powerful human rulers can nevertheless be paid divine honours, and supernatural signs can adhere to even mortal deities, as evidence of their extreme power.
The point is that the potential to reinforce the power relationship through violence is almost always part of the mix, and there is a fine line between worship and propitiation - but the normative peaceful social relations of service and loyalty in return for favour and support are common to both religious and social intercourse.
So...in my campaign the nearest equivalent to an evil race (called Orcs but always treated as human) does stuff that is evil (i.e. routinely harmful to other folk) because it's part of what they have to do to maintain harmonious relations with their gods. It's not an observation of how evil should be dealt with in all fantasy worlds, it's just the approach I have taken for mine.
Quote from: Iron Simulacrum;482295So...in my campaign the nearest equivalent to an evil race (called Orcs but always treated as human) does stuff that is evil (i.e. routinely harmful to other folk) because it's part of what they have to do to maintain harmonious relations with their gods.
Sure but I don't think this makes the orcs in your world irredeemably evil anymore more so than any real world groups or individuals who for whatever reasons fall under the sway of powerful or charismatic individuals.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Imperator;482288Actually, in real world, most self - defined believers regularly disobey some or all their precepts, but they would surely obey an armed man. God is not very persuasive :D
The scary thing is that some believers don't disobey any of their precepts and won't abandon them even on the orders of an armed man. That's power, Ramon....real scary power :cool:
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Iron Simulacrum;482295So...in my campaign the nearest equivalent to an evil race (called Orcs but always treated as human) does stuff that is evil (i.e. routinely harmful to other folk) because it's part of what they have to do to maintain harmonious relations with their gods. It's not an observation of how evil should be dealt with in all fantasy worlds, it's just the approach I have taken for mine.
Fully agreement here.
I don't see why a fantasy setting has to align with our own personal assessments of evil and good, or why it has to be subject to a thorough philosophical analysis. I mean I have my own ideas about what good means, how that relates to the existence/non-existence of god, etc, but I can imagine a setting where all of my assumptions and knowledge aren't meaningful. That is half the fun.
Quote from: David R;482219The only one here who is being elitist and one-true-wayist is you. Asking people like Dray ( and others) to leave the hobby because of their mockworthy ideas. Morrow's ideas about "sanitized" play could be construed as elitist just as much as jibba's or psuedoephedrine's ideas about "badly designed setting or my "murkier waters". Just because I may not agree with any of them does not mean I think they should leave the hobby, and none of them has asked anyone to leave the hobby except you.
I may not subscribe to psuedoephedrine's idea about "badly designed" settings but I do think his settings are good examples of how his design philosophies infleunce his games. Just as I think jibba is wrong in saying that there's something inherently dark about the hobby that attracts fucked up people but I am sympathetic to some of views on setting design.
The conversation has moved (at least for some of us) beyond the ridiculous statements in the OP and I think it's rather disinguenuos of you to imply that just because you don't agree with some of the things we have said, we are some how defending the ideas in the OP.
Regards,
David R
Who asked Dray to leave the hobby? Are ya'all even capable of addressing something I've actually written? I don't remember mentioning you specifically either, so anything you're reading out of my post is in your head, not my post. I've already told Pseudo that I think he's a dang good GM and world-builder as well, but that doesn't mean he's infallible, and certainly not a pleasant person to discuss things with. I think he was addressing he bullshit to the wrong person though, cuz neither you nor jhkim actually read the words I wrote. Who's being disingenuous?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482259Yes, it is. If you are obeying an authority's commands because you fear or respect its power over you, it doesn't matter whether that is mundane or magical power.
No it's not. It's a matter of degree. It also plays into Dr. Twerski's Law of Emotional Gravity. A God is far more capable of punishing a transgressor, both while that transgressor is alive, and after they are dead.
QuoteHoly shit, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what reasoning does, as well as the history of moral thought.
What part of "fantasy game" do you not understand? Who gives a fuck about the history of moral thought when pretending to play an elf that's killing pretend orcs?
QuoteProtip: Our moral theories evolved in an intellectual context in which people did think God (or the Gods) manifested fairly regularly, and that his commands were well known and even obvious at times.
Protip: They were wrong. Our pretend orc would not be. His God can and would prove it.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482263You couldn't keep "omniscience" and "omnipotence" straight, even after I corrected you on it. Don't brag about how you're on top of things when you can't even keep that stuff straight when people point it out to you.
I might have been more "on top of it" if it were actually relevant. You've caught me, I'm human. If it had made a bit of diffrerence I would have said so. It didn't and still doesn't. Congratulations Mr. Perfect.
QuoteI did challenge you to. Do it, you fucking pretentious twit.
You got it you obnoxious douchebag. You are saying we all have to play our fantasy games the way you want us to or we're wrong. Your stance is not complicated, just pathetically retarded.
QuoteJohn is talking about a world in which there is a clear conception of what he calls "absolute good" and in which the Gods actively enforce this, and with Paladins and Druids who must uphold certain alignments. And to slay noncombatants in this world is not immoral (it would not cause a Paladin to fall). The players might have felt emotional turmoil, but the characters should not have based on what he claims. If they did, then it is simply because his moral theory is inadequate (a claim I've made numerous times).
The rest of your post is just butthurt. Go whine to someone who cares.
John was and is correct. However, it's extremely presumptuous of you to claim that his players shouldn't have felt anything, or their characters either. It's a fucking game you elitist cocksucker. A fucking GAME. We're not fucking post-docs here conducting fucking research you pretentious, shit-eating moron. It's a FANTASY GAME. absolutely none of your "rules" or "standards" have to apply to anyone else's game, and insisting they do does nothing but reveal you for the nasty, pathetic loser you are. Get a fucking real life if morality is so fucking important to you, stop trying to convince everyone else morality must be learned and practiced through a FUCKING GAME. The only butthurt around here is you whining about how nobody is playing by your moral rules, boo hoo.
Quote from: Imperator;482288He sees no difference because there is none. On both cases you obey because someone holds a huge power over you. Actually, in real world, most self - defined believers regularly disobey some or all their precepts, but they would surely obey an armed man. God is not very persuasive :D
The real world need not apply.
Quote from: Sigmund;482304Who asked Dray to leave the hobby? Are ya'all even capable of addressing something I've actually written? .
Who's being disingenuous?
You said it right (ok may not of Dray) , here (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=481947&postcount=1379).
QuoteI don't remember mentioning you specifically either, so anything you're reading out of my post is in your head, not my post
Who else could these "others" be? Didn't you give a lecture to Jibba on this very issue?
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Sigmund;482305What part of "fantasy game" do you not understand? Who gives a fuck about the history of moral thought when pretending to play an elf that's killing pretend orcs?
But isn't this what this whole thread is about ? Moral reasoning (usage in plain English, lads) is why I don't use evil races in my games. It's why (like I told jibba) we don't play serial killers or any other kind of irredeemable evil types. It's why in Bren's example the PCs who were playing gangsters didn't execute their rival's daughter who was with him. It's why Morrow is interested in why people don't or won't use evil races in their games and of his use of psychopaths (or races based on them) in his or his interest in when Paladins fall from grace.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;482308You said it right (ok may not of Dray) , here (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=481947&postcount=1379).
Read it again. I simply made some suggestions. I didn't
tell anyone to do anything. I try not to do that. I'm starting to think none of you in this thread are capable of addressing what is actually being written.
QuoteWho else could these "others" be? Didn't you give a lecture to Jibba on this very issue?
Regards,
David R
Quote from: FrankTrollman;477816No. He is saying that when you create the parameters of the world in the game or story you are creating, that you are morally responsible for the moral truths your parameters advocate. If you make a story where hypotheses that would be morally objectionable are definitively true, then your story is morally objectionable on the same grounds.
-Frank
Quote from: Darwinism;478547They're not people if they're damned savages that I dislike! There's nothing wrong with this viewpoint!
The thing is that in dungeon crawls alignment means fuckall because my party = good and not my party = evil. But when you go into an actual campaign where you're pretending to be crusading good guys, or neutral mercenaries, or evil bent on self-profit, portraying things as Always Chaotic Evil is just a lazy way of giving the party a target that they can feel justified in killing at best. And at worst it's a way of branding an entire race as savages who hate civilization/goodness/AR FREEDOM.
No, I didn't. I have no problem not typing out every person's name in such a long thread when there actually are "others".
Quote from: Sigmund;482317Read it again. I simply made some suggestions. I didn't tell anyone to do anything. I try not to do that. I'm starting to think none of you in this thread are capable of addressing what is actually being written.
And this is any less elitist and one-true-wayist, how?
QuoteNo, I didn't. I have no problem not typing out every person's name in such a long thread when there actually are "others".
So who are these others?
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;482316But isn't this what this whole thread is about ? Moral reasoning (usage in plain English, lads) is why I don't use evil races in my games. It's why (like I told jibba) we don't play serial killers or any other kind of irredeemable evil types. It's why in Bren's example the PCs who were playing gangsters didn't execute their rival's daughter who was with him
In my game that actually wasn't the case. They were just acting in character. They were gangsters, not child killers. I don't think any of us at the table were okay with people murdering a person in front of their child (not as bad as killing a child but still a very evil act in our opinions). But we were okay with this act in the game. We are fine with a disconnect between our own morals and our character's.
I think what is happening here is people are talking past each other at times. On the one hand people are making arguments about their own views regarding morality and what is theoretically possible, on another track you have people debating what is morally acceptable to include in a game, and on another you have people who aren't interested in either and just want something cool in their setting. My impression of Sigmund is he is saying he doesn't want the philosophical rigor employed by pseudo when he constructs his cosmology (build a cosmology around the gods, define good and evil around that, etc). I think Pseudo is saying he has a hard time buying into a setting if it falls apart under that kind of scrutiny. This is just a guess, it is a long thread and I could have missed a key detail. I don't think either one is wrong, they just want different things.
Quote from: David R;482316But isn't this what this whole thread is about ? Moral reasoning (usage in plain English, lads) is why I don't use evil races in my games. It's why (like I told jibba) we don't play serial killers or any other kind of irredeemable evil types. It's why in Bren's example the PCs who were playing gangsters didn't execute their rival's daughter who was with him. It's why Morrow is interested in why people don't or won't use evil races in their games and of his use of psychopaths (or races based on them) in his or his interest in when Paladins fall from grace.
Regards,
David R
If someone wants to build their D&D game around a moral dilemma, then there's nothing wrong with that, of course. However, the moral dilemma is most likely not actually present in the RAW and needs to be written in to the DM's setting/scenario. The OP, and others (see previous post) are contending this particular moral dilemma is, in fact, written into the RAW when it's actually not. The thread is about a mistaken reading of the rules. Morality is only the stick people are using to try and batter their opinions into the heads of everyone else.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482320In my game that actually wasn't the case. They were just acting in character. They were gangsters, not child killers. I don't think any of us at the table were okay with people murdering a person in front of their child (not as bad as killing a child but still a very evil act in our opinions). But we were okay with this act in the game.
This is exactly what I meant. Distinctions were made. Something which was genre acceptable was not rejected out of hand simply because of real world personal views. But some lines will not be crossed. I doubt (from reading your post) your players would play child killers, even if it's just a '"fantasy game".
Regards,
David R
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482320In my game that actually wasn't the case. They were just acting in character. They were gangsters, not child killers. I don't think any of us at the table were okay with people murdering a person in front of their child (not as bad as killing a child but still a very evil act in our opinions). But we were okay with this act in the game. We are fine with a disconnect between our own morals and our character's.
I think what is happening here is people are talking past each other at times. On the one hand people are making arguments about their own views regarding morality and what is theoretically possible, on another track you have people debating what is morally acceptable to include in a game, and on another you have people who aren't interested in either and just want something cool in their setting. My impression of Sigmund is he is saying he doesn't want the philosophical rigor employed by pseudo when he constructs his cosmology (build a cosmology around the gods, define good and evil around that, etc). I think Pseudo is saying he has a hard time buying into a setting if it falls apart under that kind of scrutiny. This is just a guess, it is a long thread and I could have missed a key detail. I don't think either one is wrong, they just want different things.
Mostly I agree Brendan, but where I object is when Pseudo, JJ, Darwinism, and Frank have said that people who include irredeemable evil monsters in their games are lazy worldbuilders, or in the case of Frank somehow complicit in the furthering of racism. They also include the implication that being a lazy worldbuilder (which in the case of irredeemable monsters is demonstrably false anyway) makes one somehow "less-than". This is what I object to most. It's not only wrong, it's elitist and pretentious.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482276"Magical"? Your atheism is showing if you can't even say Divine. You see no difference between a command given by a man who could kill you and a god? You need to use your imagination a bit more.
Since all you've done is assert that there's a difference without explaining what that difference is, why don't you try to explain it?
QuoteProtip: They were wrong about that, weren't they? Our moral theories evolved in an intellectual context where there was no God to confirm or deny any supposition or theory put forth by man.
It's quite easy to say that the existence of a god is not rationale enough to obey him when there is no god. Moral theorists and philosophers can believe in god all they want to, however, none of them ever had god's confirmation or were ever struck dead for claiming he doesn't matter.
Once again, you are wrong. The moral theorists and philosophers of the past did believe that there were tons of confirming events for the existence of the Gods and/or God, and that people _were_ struck dead for claiming he didn't exist.
You don't appear to understand that people in the classical and medieval eras saw what they considered to be the real signs of the gods / God's work in the world. They weren't "waiting for a sign" like a modern believer.
QuoteSomehow, I think a real god just might make a wee little bit of difference in how people think about morality and how a culture's morality may have developed.
Sure, they would end up like the Jews. The Jewish god asked the Jews to do all sorts of terrible shit (like commit genocide on the Amalekites), and has been chewed out on a couple of occasions by Jews and Gentiles according to the source text. The Jewish god is very specifically the source of the Law, not necessarily a good guy. The Jews obey him because their ancestors made a bargain that they are sworn to follow.
QuoteThinking that there is no god, yet there is an inherent absolute moral Truth, is simply religion by another name, and one that may not apply to every cosmology.
It's really not the same thing at all, unless you want to explain to me how "When considering the morality of an action you should ask yourself, what would be the consequences if this action were universalised?" which is an actual example of an absolute moral principle.
Quote from: Sigmund;482321Morality is only the stick people are using to try and batter their opinions into the heads of everyone else.
Not really. I don't see that. Like I said, there are some inbuilt moral assumptions in the game (D&D), although I don't think Dray has any real understanding of them. Like I said the conversation has moved on. The question here
has become ,I think, which was no doubt sparked off by Dray's post are gamers attitudes towards evil races in their games.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;482322This is exactly what I meant. Distinctions were made. Something which was genre acceptable was not rejected out of hand simply because of real world personal views. But some lines will not be crossed. I doubt (from reading your post) your players would play child killers, even if it's just a '"fantasy game".
Regards,
David R
Sorry, I misunderstood your initial post. Yes that pretty much sums it up. I don't think anyone in my group would be comfortable with the child killer thing. In fact I brought up that example because it came pretty close to that line. For the most part we are fine with ultra violent gallows humor when it is suited to the type of game (and mafia is a perfect fit), but there are still lines we wouldn't cross. Some of them arbitrary (I mentioned earlier playing a mobster was fine, but playing a terrorist would be a problem).
Quote from: David R;482322This is exactly what I meant. Distinction were made. Something which was genre acceptable was not rejected out of hand simply because of real world personal views. But somethings lines will not be crossed. I doubt (from reading your post) your players would play child killers, even if it's just a '"fantasy game".
Regards,
David R
Dude, what you're not getting is that it's ok for you to hold your view. It's ok to be uncomfortable about some of these ideas. Even John described his group as being less than comfortable about their pretend goblin slaughter. But having that view doesn't give anyone the right to condemn other's for not sharing that view. It's not somehow wrong to include irredeemable orcs, or evil non-coms, in a game of D&D. The game itself neither supports or condemns either approach, it simply provides the tools to do either, and then expects the DM and players to take those tools and make the game their own. What Frank doesn't seem to get is that the game doesn't have to rigidly define good and evil, and is better for not doing so. Each group or DM can interpret those for him/her self. that his experience tells him groups can't do this is, honestly, his problem. the groups I've been in have had no problem with this at all. As for Dray, he is seeing the phantoms of his own mind in D&D... it's shit that's not there.
We all get it. You would not enjoy a game that includes irredeemable evil or orc babies. Peregrin wouldn't either, but at least he admitted it's his and his group's own preferences, and not some moral rule. He remained open to being convinced, and agreed to think about it. That kind of dissenting opinion is the perfect one, IMO. he didn't belittle anyone else's PoV or opinions, he simply presented his own and then agreed to think about it. I think we're at the point where we all would be best served by doing the same.
Quote from: Sigmund;482323Mostly I agree Brendan, but where I object is when Pseudo, JJ, Darwinism, and Frank have said that people who include irredeemable evil monsters in their games are lazy worldbuilders, or in the case of Frank somehow complicit in the furthering of racism. They also include the implication that being a lazy worldbuilder (which in the case of irredeemable monsters is demonstrably false anyway) makes one somehow "less-than". This is what I object to most. It's not only wrong, it's elitist and pretentious.
I don't think it is lazy worldbuilding. Personally it isn't my cup of tea because I want races and cultures in my setting to be more historically rooted. Different kinds of settings call for different levels of texture. But I don't think my real world knowledge of history, religion or philsophy always has to factor into a game setting. I don't expect the GM to be a renaissance man who brings thousands of years of accumulated knowledge to the setting design table. I just want a fun and enjoyable setting. If the economic system wouldn't work in real life, that isn't going to interfere with my enjoyment (in fact it a much more interesting game world than one produced by an economist like Ben Stein---though I suspect he is secretly one of the world's greatest GMs). By the same token if the world's cosmology and morality have a few holes that philosopher could find, it isn't going to ruin the game for me.
Quote from: David R;482325Not really. I don't see that. Like I said, there are some inbuilt moral assumptions in the game (D&D), although I don't think Dray has any real understanding of them. Like I said the conversation has moved on. The question here has become ,I think, which was no doubt sparked off by Dray's post are gamers attitudes towards evil races in their games.
Regards,
David R
I don't see that at all. I see people trying to say that some ways of viewing evil and evil races is inferior to others. They are using real world morality to try to make this case. It's wrong. My fantasy world is whatever I make it, and judging me and my world-building skills only on the criteria of whether I include irredeemably evil monsters in my pretend world is an unsupportable position. Now if you and John are enjoying talking about morality in a more general or opinion-based way, then have at it. That's not what Pseudo is saying, however. Pseudo is trying to hammer his moral rules into everyone else's games, condemning anyone who doesn't agree with him as "lazy worldbuilders" or "pretentious twits". Hell, he can't even use the word "pretentious" correctly, and I thought I was the one without a formal education. I might be obnoxious at times, but I'm certainly not pretentious.
Quote from: Sigmund;482327We all get it. You would not enjoy a game that includes irredeemable evil or orc babies. Peregrin wouldn't either, but at least he admitted it's his and his group's own preferences, and not some moral rule. He remained open to being convinced, and agreed to think about it. That kind of dissenting opinion is the perfect one, IMO. he didn't belittle anyone else's PoV or opinions, he simply presented his own and then agreed to think about it. I think we're at the point where we all would be best served by doing the same.
Sigmund, it's irrelevent that I don't use evil races in my games or that John does in his games. What I was objecting to was your comment to psuedoephedrine along the lines of who cares about moral philosophy (reasoning) and that it's just a fantasy game. Obviously our moral reasoning informs our games or part of it. I get that you don't like what psuedoephedrine has been saying but let's keep a bit of perspective here.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482328I don't think it is lazy worldbuilding. Personally it isn't my cup of tea because I want races and cultures in my setting to be more historically rooted. Different kinds of settings call for different levels of texture. But I don't think my real world knowledge of history, religion or philsophy always has to factor into a game setting. I don't expect the GM to be a renaissance man who brings thousands of years of accumulated knowledge to the setting design table. I just want a fun and enjoyable setting. If the economic system wouldn't work in real life, that isn't going to interfere with my enjoyment (in fact it a much more interesting game world than one produced by an economist like Ben Stein---though I suspect he is secretly one of the world's greatest GMs). By the same token if the world's cosmology and morality have a few holes that philosopher could find, it isn't going to ruin the game for me.
I know ya don't brother, and I agree with ya. I don't even have orcs in my own world. I just find the idea that if I were to include irredeemably evil orcs in my game world, despite the years of geographic and historical study, map-making, note-taking, and system adaption, I'd somehow suddenly be a lazy world-builder, or worse a racist, to be elitism of the worst kind and completely unsupportable.
Quote from: David R;482331Sigmund, it's irrelevent that I don't use evil races in my games or that John does in his games. What I was objecting to was your comment to psuedoephedrine along the lines of who cares about moral philosophy (reasoning) and that it's just a fantasy game. Obviously our moral reasoning informs our games or part of it. I get that you don't like what psuedoephedrine has been saying but let's keep a bit of perspective here.
Regards,
David R
Fair enough. I should have said to Pseudo, "Who cares about
your moral philosophy". I stand corrected.
Edit: In my (admittedly weak) defense, I allowed him to piss me off. I'd be better served by not doing that.
Quote from: John Morrow;482232I would actually argue that the Greeks could actually be quite evil. I'm still surprised that anyone considers the Spartans admirable. You want to see a real human example of a violent psychopathic parasite culture in action (*cough* Helots *cough*), take a close look at the Spartans.
I guess I could have phrased that better. My point was that the myths weren't about a conflict between good and evil (certainly not as we'd define those things today... sometimes not even as they'd define those things back then).
The Greeks themselves? The characters in their myths? The things they did? Yeah, that stuff might be good or evil but it was sort of incidental. Had little to do with the premise of the story a lot of the time.
Quote from: Sigmund;482329I don't see that at all. I see people trying to say that some ways of viewing evil and evil races is inferior to others. They are using real world morality to try to make this case. It's wrong. My fantasy world is whatever I make it, and judging me and my world-building skills only on the criteria of whether I include irredeemably evil monsters in my pretend world is an unsupportable position. Now if you and John are enjoying talking about morality in a more general or opinion-based way, then have at it. That's not what Pseudo is saying, however. Pseudo is trying to hammer his moral rules into everyone else's games, condemning anyone who doesn't agree with him as "lazy worldbuilders" or "pretentious twits". Hell, he can't even use the word "pretentious" correctly, and I thought I was the one without a formal education. I might be obnoxious at times, but I'm certainly not pretentious.
I get what you are saying although I think psuedoephedrine's argument is more nuanced than that. I hope you understand where I'm coming from.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482303I don't see why a fantasy setting has to align with our own personal assessments of evil and good, or why it has to be subject to a thorough philosophical analysis. I mean I have my own ideas about what good means, how that relates to the existence/non-existence of god, etc, but I can imagine a setting where all of my assumptions and knowledge aren't meaningful. That is half the fun.
It doesn't have to align with your own beliefs. It simply has to be consistent and well-thought through. I don't believe human sacrifice is a good thing, but I include cultures with it in almost every game I run.
Quote from: Sigmund;482329I don't see that at all. I see people trying to say that some ways of viewing evil and evil races is inferior to others. They are using real world morality to try to make this case. It's wrong. My fantasy world is whatever I make it, and judging me and my world-building skills only on the criteria of whether I include irredeemably evil monsters in my pretend world is an unsupportable position. Now if you and John are enjoying talking about morality in a more general or opinion-based way, then have at it. That's not what Pseudo is saying, however. Pseudo is trying to hammer his moral rules into everyone else's games, condemning anyone who doesn't agree with him as "lazy worldbuilders" or "pretentious twits". Hell, he can't even use the word "pretentious" correctly, and I thought I was the one without a formal education. I might be obnoxious at times, but I'm certainly not pretentious.
I called you "pretentious" because you are. You're certainly happy to claim special knowledge of matters when you feel you can get away with it (your whining post about how hard your own life has been and how other gamers don't know anything about darkness), and you jump back and forth from trying to assert your opinions (badly) and claiming that thinking too much about these things is irrelevant whenever someone punches a hole in your nonsense.
I challenged you to summarise my viewpoint, and you still haven't. You are pretending to understand the views of others on this thread despite consistently getting them wrong. David R has had to spend a half-dozen posts that I've seen just pointing out to you that all the shit you've been arguing against has nothing to do with anything, and that you don't actually understand his point of view or anyone else's.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482339It doesn't have to align with your own beliefs. It simply has to be consistent and well-thought through. I don't believe human sacrifice is a good thing, but I include cultures with it in almost every game I run.
I didn't think you were coming from a position of it needs to align with your beliefs. But I think your standard for believability is much higher than most peoples when it comes to cosmology (it is a perfectly fine standard though). But I think Sigmund is just saying your standard isn't one he feels needs to be used across the board in all campaigns.
For what it is worth I think a thorughly vetted and scrutinized cosmology like the one you seem to use in your game would be great fun. But I can also enjoy a much simpler, "there are good gods and evil gods, morality flows from the cosmology itself", kind of world (without fretting over the philosophical implications of it).
For me it largely depends on what the world builder is trying to achieve. I wouldn't hold every kind of game setting to the same standards of consinstency and logic.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482342You're certainly happy to claim special knowledge of matters when you feel you can get away with it (your whining post about how hard your own life has been and how other gamers don't know anything about darkness), and you jump back and forth from trying to assert your opinions (badly) and claiming that thinking too much about these things is irrelevant whenever someone punches a hole in your nonsense.
I claim knowledge I have, what I don't do is pretend I'm somehow better than everyone else because of that knowledge like you do. I shared my personal experience to put things in perspective, quit whining that it shows how you're taking this shit too seriously. It's odd how many other folks get what I'm saying just fine, but you seem to have difficulty with it, if you can be believed (which I doubt, another opinion of mine is that you'll say anything to "win"). Perhaps the difficulty isn't mine after all. However, by all means, keep talking out your ass. We need some comedic relief in this thread.
I'd like to respond to you, Pseudo, but at this point I honestly have no idea how. All you're demonstrating, in paragraph after paragraph is your inability to conceive of a cosmology beyond our own or a refusal to accept that it may change how humans view things like good, evil, or morality.
There is a difference between a false belief in a god who supposedly reveals himself through natural events that cannot be proven, only believed in and a real god who actually reveals himself through supernatural events that prove the existence of the god and leave no doubt as to his wishes or will.
You can state "I'm wrong" all day long, however, it doesn't make it so.
The entire body of religious, historical, philosophical and moral thought of Earth was created in a context of the former, ie. false belief.
You can create a cosmology in which a fantasy deity has to follow the metaphysical rules of a world with no real deities or you could create a cosmology where the actual existence of gods has shaped man's response to them somewhat differently.
What you might call, simplistic, uneducated, or uninformed, I would call having imagination.
Quote from: Sigmund;482346I claim knowledge I have, what I don't do is pretend I'm somehow better than everyone else because of that knowledge like you do. I shared my personal experience to put things in perspective, quite whining that it shows how you're taking this shit too seriously. It's odd how many other folks get what I'm saying just fine, but you seem to have difficulty with it, if you can be believed (which I doubt, another opinion of mine is that you'll say anything to "win"). Perhaps the difficulty isn't mine after all. However, by all means, keep talking out your ass. We need some comedic relief in this thread.
I don't have any trouble understanding what you're saying. Your position is merely of psychological value for its insight into you, rather than deserving to be taken as any sort of rational consideration or empirical observation.
My position has remained exactly the same throughout this thread. Since you seem unable to summarise it (you still have not, despite boasting that you could), I would suggest you go back and read my posts more carefully than you obviously did the first time.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482344I didn't think you were coming from a position of it needs to align with your beliefs. But I think your standard for believability is much higher than most peoples when it comes to cosmology (it is a perfectly fine standard though). But I think Sigmund is just saying your standard isn't one he feels needs to be used across the board in all campaigns.
For what it is worth I think a thorughly vetted and scrutinized cosmology like the one you seem to use in your game would be great fun. But I can also enjoy a much simpler, "there are good gods and evil gods, morality flows from the cosmology itself", kind of world (without fretting over the philosophical implications of it).
For me it largely depends on what the world builder is trying to achieve. I wouldn't hold every kind of game setting to the same standards of consinstency and logic.
I specifically held out genre games as following different standards. I also specifically said that some games were fine with lazy world-building due to other factors.
I don't know what "hold[ing]" games to standards means here, since I have no power over other people except to mock their idiocy and punch holes in their arguments. I evaluate all settings that are not genre settings with a consistent set of standards, and some are better designed and some worse. I can't make people change their settings, so I can't "hold" them to anything. But evaluating them using a relatively consistent set of standards is only fair.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482348I'd like to respond to you, Pseudo, but at this point I honestly have no idea how. All you're demonstrating, in paragraph after paragraph is your inability to conceive of a cosmology beyond our own or a refusal to accept that it may change how humans view things like good, evil, or morality.
There is a difference between a false belief in a god who supposedly reveals himself through natural events that cannot be proven, only believed in and a real god who actually reveals himself through supernatural events that prove the existence of the god and leave no doubt as to his wishes or will.
You can state "I'm wrong" all day long, however, it doesn't make it so.
The entire body of religious, historical, philosophical and moral thought of Earth was created in a context of the former, ie. false belief.
You can create a cosmology in which a fantasy deity has to follow the metaphysical rules of a world with no real deities or you could create a cosmology where the actual existence of gods has shaped man's response to them somewhat differently.
What you might call, simplistic, uneducated, or uninformed, I would call having imagination.
If you cannot imagine the worldview of people in the past, I would not call it "having an imagination". You seem unable to understand that they believed in exactly the kind of magical, holy world you have displaced strictly into fantasy, and that the intellectual heritage they left us adequately describes both kinds of worlds (ours and theirs).
This is why your repeated complaints that I am somehow hampered by my atheism are bizarre. I am, if anything, the only person taking the world view of the genuinely religious Christian seriously in this entire thread.
All you're doing at this point is trying to snake out of the examples (the ancient Jews), and the reasoning (Might does not make right) of how a powerful god does not change what is good or bad.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482352I specifically held out genre games as following different standards. I also specifically said that some games were fine with lazy world-building due to other factors.
I still wouldn't call it lazy world building. You are going to focus on different things for different genres and different styles of play. Just because someone can imagine a setting where morality doesn't adhere neatly to real-world moral philosophy, that doesn't mean there isn't lots of elbow grease involved.
QuoteI don't know what "hold[ing]" games to standards means here, since I have no power over other people except to mock their idiocy and punch holes in their arguments. I evaluate all settings that are not genre settings with a consistent set of standards, and some are better designed and some worse. I can't make people change their settings, so I can't "hold" them to anything. But evaluating them using a relatively consistent set of standards is only fair.
Well, if you mock people, you are going to get consistently negative reactions. And they aren't going to listen to your criticisms. You seem like a very intelligent guy, with some creative ideas. I am sure in person you are perfeclty friendly. But when you make posts like this, attacking something as innocuous as my use of the word "holding" you come off as a bit pedandic. It just feels like you are belittling others to make yourself feel smart.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482350I don't have any trouble understanding what you're saying. Your position is merely of psychological value for its insight into you, rather than deserving to be taken as any sort of rational consideration or empirical observation.
My position has remained exactly the same throughout this thread. Since you seem unable to summarise it (you still have not, despite boasting that you could), I would suggest you go back and read my posts more carefully than you obviously did the first time.
I most certainly did summarize your viewpoint, I just did it in a way I'm fairly sure you don't appreciate. Honestly, after your bullshit in this thread, I really don't care if you appreciate it. If I'm wrong, try pointing out how for once, instead of flinging shit all over the place like a fucking howler monkey.
What my position is deserving of can be judged by everyone reading this thread. That you don't appreciate it doesn't surprise me, since you rarely appreciate any position that doesn't originate from you.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482352I specifically held out genre games as following different standards. I also specifically said that some games were fine with lazy world-building due to other factors.
I don't know what "hold[ing]" games to standards means here, since I have no power over other people except to mock their idiocy and punch holes in their arguments. I evaluate all settings that are not genre settings with a consistent set of standards, and some are better designed and some worse. I can't make people change their settings, so I can't "hold" them to anything. But evaluating them using a relatively consistent set of standards is only fair.
That you feel the need to characterize anything you don't like as "lazy world-building" or to mock what you perceive to be "idiocy" is your entire problem. It's the reason labels such as "pretentious" and "obnoxious" stick to you. You fail to realize that evaluating anything for yourself with a "relatively consistent set of standards" is fine, but that not everyone will share either your "relatively consistent set of standards" or your need to use such consistency, and that does not make them wrong. You very well can "hold" people to standards when discussing them or their games. You use these standards to unfairly judge and verbally condemn them, when you don't even have complete information about what standards they have, or how rigorous they have been in applying standards.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482355If you cannot imagine the worldview of people in the past, I would not call it "having an imagination". You seem unable to understand that they believed in exactly the kind of magical, holy world you have displaced strictly into fantasy, and that the intellectual heritage they left us adequately describes both kinds of worlds (ours and theirs).
This is why your repeated complaints that I am somehow hampered by my atheism are bizarre. I am, if anything, the only person taking the world view of the genuinely religious Christian seriously in this entire thread.
All you're doing at this point is trying to snake out of the examples (the ancient Jews), and the reasoning (Might does not make right) of how a powerful god does not change what is good or bad.
He didn't say he couldn't imagine the worldview of people in the past. You should really try responding to what's written, rather than the voices in your head.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482356Well, if you mock people, you are going to get consistently negative reactions. And they aren't going to listen to your criticisms. You seem like a very intelligent guy, with some creative ideas. I am sure in person you are perfeclty friendly. But when you make posts like this, attacking something as innocuous as my use of the word "holding" you come off as a bit pedandic. It just feels like you are belittling others to make yourself feel smart.
And this is exactly what I'm talking about. Well put.
You know Sigmund, you could compress these long multi-posts where you run around after comments that aren't even addressed to you into one-line "I'm butthurt! You suck!" posts and save us all the trouble of having to scroll past low-content, mostly irrelevant whining.
Also, you still haven't summarised my position. You've whined about it, about me, about how mean I am, but you haven't actually managed to restate it.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482365You know Sigmund, you could compress these long multi-posts where you run around after comments that aren't even addressed to you into one-line "I'm butthurt! You suck!" posts and save us all the trouble of having to scroll past low-content, mostly irrelevant whining.
Also, you still haven't summarised my position. You've whined about it, about me, about how mean I am, but you haven't actually managed to restate it.
I could do that, but since that's not my position, I'm not going to. You can also say I didn't restate it for the next decade and it won't be any more true than it is right now. I summarized it just fine. You are just butthurt over how I did it, and so you're sticking your head in the sand and hoping that if you pretend you don't see it, nobody else will either. I challenge you to point out where I've "whined" at all. Holding up a mirror to you so you can see what an asshole you're being is not whining. Any point you might have had, valid or not, is now lost amid all your flailing and poo flinging. Congratulations cupcake.
Edit: Oh, and posts that are not contained within private messages, but rather posted for everyone to see in the thead are by default addressed to anyone and everyone who might care to respond. I would say "nice try", but it really wasn't and I prefer to be honest.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482356I still wouldn't call it lazy world building. You are going to focus on different things for different genres and different styles of play. Just because someone can imagine a setting where morality doesn't adhere neatly to real-world moral philosophy, that doesn't mean there isn't lots of elbow grease involved.
I don't know how many times I can repeat this, but it seems I need to once again:
My concern is not replicating the morality of the real world. My concern is internal consistency and robustness, even for purely fictional morality. This is especially important when the morality goes beyond merely the ethos of individuals within a culture and is actually metaphysically embedded into the setting.
The more metaphysical the morality, the more important it is that it be consistent. Individual characters in a world are allowed to have perfectly incoherent ideas what is good and bad, just like people sometimes do in real life. But if the morality is metaphysical, then it cannot be incoherent without serious problems.
You can ignore these problems if it makes you happy, but as I said, it assaults the versimilitude of the setting, just as if you introduced screwed around with another metaphysical property, like the flow of time or causation.
Now, if people are unable to do the work required to adequately design a coherent and plausible moral system themselves, then I whole-heartedly encourage them to rip off the real world, since the real world has the advantage of having other people who have thought through these kinds of things.
QuoteWell, if you mock people, you are going to get consistently negative reactions. And they aren't going to listen to your criticisms. You seem like a very intelligent guy, with some creative ideas. I am sure in person you are perfeclty friendly. But when you make posts like this, attacking something as innocuous as my use of the word "holding" you come off as a bit pedandic. It just feels like you are belittling others to make yourself feel smart.
Words matter. One of the consistent problems with people on this forum is that they throw words around without thinking about what they mean. "Relativism" is a big one, but there are many others.
Holding someone to a standard means to compel someone to somehow abide by it. When I am being accused of being high-handed and domineering, it seems particularly important to point out that I am not compelling anyone to do anything.
As for being nice to people, when people start showing that they are arguing in good faith, I'll be willing to start being nice to them. This thread began as a shrill shriek of self-righteousness, and has continued with most of the posters simply beating their drums without reading what any of their correspondents have written.
Quote from: Sigmund;482367I could do that, but since that's not my position, I'm not going to. You can also say I didn't restate it for the next decade and it won't be any more true than it is right now. I summarized it just fine. You are just butthurt over how I did it, and so you're sticking your head in the sand and hoping that if you pretend you don't see it, nobody else will either. I challenge you to point out where I've "whined" at all. Holding up a mirror to you so you can see what an asshole you're being is not whining. Any point you might have had, valid or not, is now lost amid all your flailing and poo flinging. Congratulations cupcake.
Edit: Oh, and posts that are not contained within private messages, but rather posted for everyone to see in the thead are by default addressed to anyone and everyone who might care to respond. I would say "nice try", but it really wasn't and I prefer to be honest.
:rolleyes:
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482368I don't know how many times I can repeat this, but it seems I need to once again:
My concern is not replicating the morality of the real world. My concern is internal consistency and robustness, even for purely fictional morality. This is especially important when the morality goes beyond merely the ethos of individuals within a culture and is actually metaphysically embedded into the setting.
I understand, but you have been drawing on real world philosophical frameworks and arguments to make your point which is why I said that. My point is since it is entirely fantastical, our logic and reason need not always apply. Especially when you are getting into the idea of where good comes from. I see your argument and I tend to agree with it, but I can also accept the conceit in a game that good comes form the god or gods that made the universe. I think once you go there, since countless possibilities are on the table and I am less worried about scrutinizing it for holes.
QuoteThe more metaphysical the morality, the more important it is that it be consistent. Individual characters in a world are allowed to have perfectly incoherent ideas what is good and bad, just like people sometimes do in real life. But if the morality is metaphysical, then it cannot be incoherent without serious problems.
Well again, I have no problem with looking for consistency, but your standards here strike me as much more detailed and strict than most people are interested in.
QuoteYou can ignore these problems if it makes you happy, but as I said, it assaults the versimilitude of the setting, just as if you introduced screwed around with another metaphysical property, like the flow of time or causation.
I don't think it is quite as bad as messing with causation (that would create significant issues). It is more like messing with politics or economics in my opinion.
QuoteNow, if people are unable to do the work required to adequately design a coherent and plausible moral system themselves, then I whole-heartedly encourage them to rip off the real world, since the real world has the advantage of having other people who have thought through these kinds of things.
Psuedo this is the kind of stuff that rubs people the wrong way, and I understand why. If you want to think through all of the metaphysics in a detailed way (drawing on your knowledge of philosophy) that is fine, it is great that you can put so much thought into that part of your setting. But saying things like "if people are unable to do the work required to adequately design a coherent and plausible moral system" again comes across as you tearing down other posters who do things differently than you in order to build yourself up. I don't think that is your intention, but that is how it comes across to me.
QuoteWords matter. One of the consistent problems with people on this forum is that they throw words around without thinking about what they mean. "Relativism" is a big one, but there are many others.
Did you honestly have a hard time understanding my use of the word "holding" in this case? Words matter but flexiblity matters too. People use words in different ways in different contexts. Part of effective communication is understanding how a term is being used in a given context and adapting to it. Sure you can walk around correcting everyone over their use of the word "relativism" (which has very different meaning across different disciplines and in different social circles) or you can adapt in order to communicate effectively.
QuoteHolding someone to a standard means to compel someone to somehow abide by it. When I am being accused of being high-handed and domineering, it seems particularly important to point out that I am not compelling anyone to do anything.
This isn't my interpretation of "holding someone to a standard". It is one possible meaning, but I think it is a much more flexible phrase than that and can be used to indicate holding someone to a standard in order to make a judgment about them (not compelling them to do anything).
QuoteAs for being nice to people, when people start showing that they are arguing in good faith, I'll be willing to start being nice to them. This thread began as a shrill shriek of self-righteousness, and has continued with most of the posters simply beating their drums without reading what any of their correspondents have written.
Fair enough. Lots of people have been angry on this thread. And maybe I am just noticing your posts more because I am arguing from the other side than you. But don't expect to win over any one if you are going to insult them. Honeslty you make some of the most compelling arguments on the forum. I don't think I could beat you in a debate on most subjects. But you undermine your own position by resorting to insults and ridicule.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482368I don't know how many times I can repeat this, but it seems I need to once again:
My concern is not replicating the morality of the real world. My concern is internal consistency and robustness, even for purely fictional morality. This is especially important when the morality goes beyond merely the ethos of individuals within a culture and is actually metaphysically embedded into the setting.
The more metaphysical the morality, the more important it is that it be consistent. Individual characters in a world are allowed to have perfectly incoherent ideas what is good and bad, just like people sometimes do in real life. But if the morality is metaphysical, then it cannot be incoherent without serious problems.
You can ignore these problems if it makes you happy, but as I said, it assaults the versimilitude of the setting, just as if you introduced screwed around with another metaphysical property, like the flow of time or causation.
Now, if people are unable to do the work required to adequately design a coherent and plausible moral system themselves, then I whole-heartedly encourage them to rip off the real world, since the real world has the advantage of having other people who have thought through these kinds of things.
Words matter. One of the consistent problems with people on this forum is that they throw words around without thinking about what they mean. "Relativism" is a big one, but there are many others.
Holding someone to a standard means to compel someone to somehow abide by it. When I am being accused of being high-handed and domineering, it seems particularly important to point out that I am not compelling anyone to do anything.
As for being nice to people, when people start showing that they are arguing in good faith, I'll be willing to start being nice to them. This thread began as a shrill shriek of self-righteousness, and has continued with most of the posters simply beating their drums without reading what any of their correspondents have written.
austinjimm said, "What a ridiculous and irrelevant argument. Good/Evil, absolute or otherwise, are whatever your DM says it is at any given time of day." You responded...
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478227That is both retarded and empirically untrue.
Conveniently ignoring, of course, that AJ was referring to good/evil in the context of an imaginary world to be used in a game of pretend, where the players can imagine whatever the fuck they want. So, you were putting forth your opinion as fact, when it isn't even accurate. Nothing about pretend worlds that exist only in the minds of their players is empirical anything.
More examples...
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478229Protip: Tolkien is not a DM. He is an author. Confusing the two completely distinct roles is another, unrelated sign of a shithead DM, as well as of someone with a tenuous grasp of reality.
Bonus protip: As Frank pointed out, Tolkien didn't consider orcs to be irredeemably evil.
If you think I am trying to portray myself a victim of something here, you are even stupider than the above comment about Tolkien being a DM makes you appear.
... wherein you pretend MDB was referring to Tolkien as a DM, when what was actually being referred to was Tolkien's world-building. You saw MDB mention "shithead DM" and Tolkien in the same sentence and, ignoring the context, pounced on that in order to try to discredit MDB. Typical, especially when your argument is weak to begin with.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478233At this point, other than a handful of posters (Frank amongst them), this thread is full retard.
Let's go down the full retard list:
1) Morrow pretending to be a psychologist / moral philosopher rationalising a society of psychopaths, something that has never actually existed
1a) Someone mentions the Arabs / Muslims in relation to this
2) Misuse of the term "moral relativism" as a pejorative against some moral position the writer dislikes despite it actually being a more universal or absolute principle than the writer holds
3) Irrelevant fulminating against LIBRALZM and "white guilt"
4) Consistent confusion of authoritative citation of source material and facts with whims, desires, dreams & half-memories, also what you can find on the first page of Google that seems like it kind of supports what you said
5) A flood of low-post-count posters with indistinguishable and ignorant opinions jackal-wanking one another
6) Laziness, ignorance and stupidity deriving from privilege & the exploitation of the hard work of others are valorised by people too unimaginative to even make up sensible or interesting imitations of the world. The valorisations are used to explain why their laziness, ignorance, and stupidity are wonderful, and actually a sign of discerning taste & skill.
Yeap, it's a full retard thread all right.
This one's the real gem. Here, you assert your imagined superiority over pretty much everyone else. It very much speaks for itself.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478517I don't argue with stationery.
Yes, if one gets rid of the need for child-rearing and social cohesion it becomes plausible, if still unlikely, to have a gang of murder-machines. I've already agreed the Orcs from WFRP are an example of how to do just this, though that particular implementation isn't my favourite (due to the soccer hooligan angle, mainly).
In that case though, you're basically dealing with something like zombies. Might as well just use zombies or something similar.
Here you once again put forth your own opinions as some sort of universal standard. At least it's nice to know I'm not stationary.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478586A recent study showed that 65% of Gnolls no longer have the "E" gene, so no, they aren't an evil species.
The whole notion of an "evil race" is conceptually problematic, and something I avoid whenever possible. In the setting of mine that has abundant Gnolls (the Dawnlands), they are violent, predatory pack hunters with a taste for the flesh of sentients, and mostly belong to cults that worships demons. That means that most Gnolls are pretty evil. Intrinsically? No. I see no reason to say that Gnolls are any more evil than the above reasons make them.
Once again. It may be "conceptually problematic" for you.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478822I'm glad you managed to have fun, but you don't understand morality very well, and your self-described system for it has all sorts of ridiculous characteristics. We've discussed it several times over the years now, as you should recall.
I am not impressed with the creation of fake moral dilemmas by exploiting metaphysics. "Should orc noncombatants be killed?" is as stupid as "Should you travel back in time to kill Hitler?" It's a purposefully constructed puzzle (in the Wittgensteinian sense) of morality trying to disguise itself as an actual moral deliberation.
For someone who supposedly believes that "words matter" and that how one expresses their ideas is important, you sure do fail at expressing your "opinions" if all this really is just how you approach RPGing and world-building, and is not meant to be you expressing these ideas as somehow universal, or you trying to replicate the morality of the real world.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482370:rolleyes:
And this right here is what you think is an actual rebuttal. Your disdain and dismissive attitude is exactly why you often can't be taken seriously. It's sad, because you really do have decent ideas at times. Get over it.
Where did this tendency to try to dismiss other people's points as "whining" come from? It's irritating, and now even I'm doing it. I'm going to try to not do that anymore, so I apologize for that.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482375I understand, but you have been drawing on real world philosophical frameworks and arguments to make your point which is why I said that. My point is since it is entirely fantastical, our logic and reason need not always apply. Especially when you are getting into the idea of where good comes from. I see your argument and I tend to agree with it, but I can also accept the conceit in a game that good comes form the god or gods that made the universe. I think once you go there, since countless possibilities are on the table and I am less worried about scrutinizing it for holes.
You can have a world in which goodness comes from God, but God must be consistently, absolutely, and inflexibly good in order for that to be the case. He can't be an asshole to some orcs, and then kind to other people, and have that be anything more than favouritism and ultimately inconsistency.
Judaism gets around this by having God not be all-loving, so that God creates good things but is not the source of good like a lamp is the source of light.
Christianity deals with it by having God be all-loving and the source of goodness like a lamp is the source of light.
Trying to combine the two - God who is the source of goodness and who has inconsistent, non-universal standards for what is good just falls apart. Calling it "fantasy" doesn't change reasoning or logic (it changes the content they operate on, they themselves are universally true in all possible universes).
QuoteWell again, I have no problem with looking for consistency, but your standards here strike me as much more detailed and strict than most people are interested in.
It's worth pointing out that I am responding to the posters on this thread who argued that it was OK to slaughter orcish noncombatants and provided a spurious and specious set of justifications for it that drew on the terms and concepts I am using. I am simply applying them correctly and consistently and insisting that if they want to go this route, they should do so correctly, rather than simply asserting crap without thinking it through.
If a DM wants to justify unseemly crap like killing noncombatants, I am certainly going to investigate the reasoning behind it, and hold it to a fairly high standard, just as I would if a DM said to me "In this world, rape is cool because God created women to be the slaves of men," or "In this world, black people are less intelligent than whites - the stat bonuses I assign to each are just the objective facts of this world."
I put horrible shit in my games, but I don't try to justify it; it simply is, just like IRL rape and murder happen despite being abominable. If one simply wants the PCs to slaughter orcish noncombatants, well, that doesn't require God Himself smiling down on them as they trod the skulls of infants under their feet.
QuoteI don't think it is quite as bad as messing with causation (that would create significant issues). It is more like messing with politics or economics in my opinion.
Let me assure that if good has metaphysical components, that messing with it is exactly like messing with causation. The damage may not be as obvious, but it is as profound. The metaphysics of a world are the foundations out of which everything else must derive. A world where goodness was radically different in the ways described would be as bizarre if carried out logically as one in which causation worked in some radically different way.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482381Calling it "fantasy" doesn't change reasoning or logic (it changes the content they operate on, they themselves are universally true in all possible universes).
Here is the core of the differences I think. You see moral theory based on reason and logic to be a universal truth that transcends any idea of god, in other words, gods are not the source of truth, they are simply another form of being subject to metaphysical law. In general, I would agree with you that this applies to most settings, however, I can just as easily see a cosmology where a God, as the creator of all, is the source of all Truth. I know that seems irrational, and illogical, and it is, that's the point.
I no more have to defend my cosmology before a round table of the world's philosophers who existed in a world with no god, then I have to defend my magic system before a round table of the world's physicists who existed in a world with no magic.
Getting back to the wonders of orcs...
Even in a dualist or pantheist setting, you have gods who are the embodiment of truth, goodness, what have you and those who are the embodiment of evil. Humans are not created to be the embodiment of good, humans are good, evil and everything in between. They are a different class of being from the "irredeemable orc", which was created to be the physical embodiment of their god. There are select few humans who are the direct tools of their god on a world.
Every single "irredeemable orc" is the direct tool of its god on the world. They breed, multiply, cull the weak, forge the strong, and do their god's bidding of murder, rape, torture and destruction by the very nature of their souls and essence, given them by their god. Is that really such an impossible concept? Of course there is no real world analogue, is that even a point worth addressing?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482381You can have a world in which goodness comes from God, but God must be consistently, absolutely, and inflexibly good in order for that to be the case. He can't be an asshole to some orcs, and then kind to other people, and have that be anything more than favouritism and ultimately inconsistency.
Judaism gets around this by having God not be all-loving, so that God creates good things but is not the source of good like a lamp is the source of light.
Christianity deals with it by having God be all-loving and the source of goodness like a lamp is the source of light.
Trying to combine the two - God who is the source of goodness and who has inconsistent, non-universal standards for what is good just falls apart. Calling it "fantasy" doesn't change reasoning or logic (it changes the content they operate on, they themselves are universally true in all possible universes).
It's worth pointing out that I am responding to the posters on this thread who argued that it was OK to slaughter orcish noncombatants and provided a spurious and specious set of justifications for it that drew on the terms and concepts I am using. I am simply applying them correctly and consistently and insisting that if they want to go this route, they should do so correctly, rather than simply asserting crap without thinking it through.
If a DM wants to justify unseemly crap like killing noncombatants, I am certainly going to investigate the reasoning behind it, and hold it to a fairly high standard, just as I would if a DM said to me "In this world, rape is cool because God created women to be the slaves of men," or "In this world, black people are less intelligent than whites - the stat bonuses I assign to each are just the objective facts of this world."
I put horrible shit in my games, but I don't try to justify it; it simply is, just like IRL rape and murder happen despite being abominable. If one simply wants the PCs to slaughter orcish noncombatants, well, that doesn't require God Himself smiling down on them as they trod the skulls of infants under their feet.
Let me assure that if good has metaphysical components, that messing with it is exactly like messing with causation. The damage may not be as obvious, but it is as profound. The metaphysics of a world are the foundations out of which everything else must derive. A world where goodness was radically different in the ways described would be as bizarre if carried out logically as one in which causation worked in some radically different way.
Why is it so hard for you to suspend disbelief for this shit, but it's ok that druids can physically change their form into that of animals, wizards can cause things to appear out of thin air, or even that a creature the size and build of a dragon can fly at all. None of these are any less fantastic than the idea of a God that can be "good" and demand the destruction of "evil" at the same time. To be completely honest, I love your world-building, and on a level of purely personal taste I am much more likely to enjoy your standards of world-building and metaphysics than ones with much less rigorously thought out cosmology and set of moral standards. However, it is not wrong for someone to have tastes that run differently or even counter to your own. It can even be fun, if one allows oneself to be less demanding. More cartoonish, for sure, but no less potentially enjoyable.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482383Here is the core of the differences I think. You see moral theory based on reason and logic to be a universal truth that transcends any idea of god, in other words, gods are not the source of truth, they are simply another form of being subject to metaphysical law. In general, I would agree with you that this applies to most settings, however, I can just as easily see a cosmology where a God, as the creator of all, is the source of all Truth. I know that seems irrational, and illogical, and it is, that's the point.
I'm well aware of the existence of such a view - Sunni Islam since al-Ghazali (at least) holds it. Sunni Islam does not have a good explanation for why it is the case though (it's a mystery of the faith), and of course, miraculously, Allah decides that reason and logic do hold in everything, so that reasoning about morality still holds valid (Islamic jurisprudence is built around interpreting God's will as revealed to Mohammed).
"Being the source of truth" is a more complex concept than one might imagine, and it elides a lot of messy details, just like saying "radio waves are light waves" won't itself tell how to you build a radio that works. It goes into the nature of God, and brings in all sorts of issues about what that is.
QuoteGetting back to the wonders of orcs...
Even in a dualist or pantheist setting, you have gods who are the embodiment of truth, goodness, what have you and those who are the embodiment of evil. Humans are not created to be the embodiment of good, humans are good, evil and everything in between. They are a different class of being from the "irredeemable orc", which was created to be the physical embodiment of their god. There are select few humans who are the direct tools of their god on a world. Every single "irredeemable orc" is the direct tool of its god on the world. They breed, multiply, cull the weak, forge the strong, and do their god's bidding of murder, rape, torture and destruction by the very nature of their souls and essence, given them by their god. Is that really such an impossible concept? Of course there is no real world analogue, is that even a point worth addressing?
This "real world analogue" stuff is a red herring other people keep on bringing up, not me. My concern remains that I don't think a group like that would be able to maintain self-sustaining, intergenerational society so that there would be children and women (or at least female noncombatants). If you want relentless killer orcs, then you pretty much have to make them fungus or drops of a dying god's blood or whatever, and throw out the anthropological realism of having a lair somewhere with women sewing shirts and orcish children roaming around.
I've said before that either one is fine, but the two don't mix, or if they do, no one has yet managed to lay out how they could adequately.
Quote from: Sigmund;482384Why is it so hard for you to suspend disbelief for this shit, but it's ok that druids can physically change their form into that of animals, wizards can cause things to appear out of thin air, or even that a creature the size and build of a dragon can fly at all. None of these are any less fantastic than the idea of a God that can be "good" and demand the destruction of "evil" at the same time. To be completely honest, I love your world-building, and on a level of purely personal taste I am much more likely to enjoy your standards of world-building and metaphysics than ones with much less rigorously thought out cosmology and set of moral standards. However, it is not wrong for someone to have tastes that run differently or even counter to your own. It can even be fun, if one allows oneself to be less demanding. More cartoonish, for sure, but no less potentially enjoyable.
I said before that world-building isn't the be-all and end-all of gaming, but that I do think it's an important part of the kind of fantasy gaming that is treated as the norm.
Consistency and verisimilitude are important because they give players handles on how the world works. The more irrational and inconsistent the world, the harder time it is to get a grip on how one can act towards it outside of mechanics. Departures from an everyday understanding of how the world works need justification so that PCs can develop the kind of everyday agency you and I take for granted as they come to understand this. The more incomprehensible things are, the more PCs will stick to the few things they do know for sure - the numbers on their sheet and the defined powers and options in the rulebook.
This is as true for morality as anything else. It's especially true if you're using alignments, and there are real consequences in the game world for violating one's alignment, like losing one's class abilities and having to go on some giant quest you don't want to because you didn't know some quirk of local custom. I've never had a game with a paladin in it where the paladin PC hasn't asked me at least once "Will this violate my alignment?" or "Will my god consider this good?" and I would prefer to have a straightforward answer for that question rather than make a snap judgment that may be inconsistent with previous incidents in the campaign.
On iphone so patience. I think if you have a setting where god is the source of good that gives you a lot of leeway. I suspect with yoir interest in philosophy you may personally have more rigorous exsmination of the consequences of that than many others. But you are getting into esoteric concepts at that stage and i dont think most gamers are going to go that deep.
First if god is the source of good in your setting you can define good how you want. It need not be the christian notion of good, it need not be peaceful in nature. It could be all about destroying creatures tainted by evil.
If you really want to get into gritty metaphysical questions about these things you can. Lots of people will be fine without doing so or operate under different assumptions and conclusions than you on these issues.
Personally my education was in history so i tend to overthink historical-related elements in my game. My threshold for believability in this area is much higher than most of my players----in fact i've found when i world build the history too deeply it negatively affects their enjoyment. In the same way what works for you and constitutes a well built cosmology isn't going to be the same for everyone on the board here.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482398I said before that world-building isn't the be-all and end-all of gaming, but that I do think it's an important part of the kind of fantasy gaming that is treated as the norm.
Consistency and verisimilitude are important because they give players handles on how the world works. The more irrational and inconsistent the world, the harder time it is to get a grip on how one can act towards it outside of mechanics. Departures from an everyday understanding of how the world works need justification so that PCs can develop the kind of everyday agency you and I take for granted as they come to understand this. The more incomprehensible things are, the more PCs will stick to the few things they do know for sure - the numbers on their sheet and the defined powers and options in the rulebook.
This is as true for morality as anything else. It's especially true if you're using alignments, and there are real consequences in the game world for violating one's alignment, like losing one's class abilities and having to go on some giant quest you don't want to because you didn't know some quirk of local custom. I've never had a game with a paladin in it where the paladin PC hasn't asked me at least once "Will this violate my alignment?" or "Will my god consider this good?" and I would prefer to have a straightforward answer for that question rather than make a snap judgment that may be inconsistent with previous incidents in the campaign.
In the context of the paladin and D&D alignment, I can see your point. However, in the past the paladin's code is how I have usually handled the specific expectations of the paladin. Most codes I've seen used or use myself include details about these moral questions over which we've been arguing, and will depend very much on how black and white the morality of the setting is imagined to be. I can't argue that consistency is very important, but IMO this consistency only needs to be internal, and does not have to also be consistent with reality when playing in a fantasy game. Irrationality can be the point of a fantasy world. Quite often, magic is irrational, not just some sort of science. Flying dragons that can talk and cast spells are irrational. I see no reason why morality can't be irrational as well and still be entertaining, at least to some folks.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482393My concern remains that I don't think a group like that would be able to maintain self-sustaining, intergenerational society so that there would be children and women (or at least female noncombatants).
Well, first off, I think the females would be combatants, like the females of any species are, just not as effective as the males. As far as the rest...
Take the most aggressive, violent, xenophobic "redeemable" species you can think of. Where is the logical gap from there to the "ireedeemable" species? How does the removal of the capacity for good render a species incapable of self-survival?
Here's the thing though, you don't need to go this deep into cosmology to justify killing orcs. You only need to if you want to be explicitly justified in killing noncombatant orcs.
Orcish combatants don't require any heavy lifting beyond what human combatants require to justify killing them. Some dude is waving a sword at you, you stick him with your sword before he gets you, whether he has tusks and green skin or white skin and blue eyes. I have evil orcs in my games, they just aren't some sort of special uber-evil in the soul.
Someone going "There are these orcs, and they're completely evil, but they're helpless so you can remorselessly murder, torture and rape them and still be good" strikes me as weird. Not only that, but I do want a good explanation for why that is the case, just as if mythusmage pulled out Kiddie Raper the RPG, I'd demand a pretty good explanation from him about why Dracomangus the Sodomancer, Lord of All Creation, is OK with paedophilia.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482393This "real world analogue" stuff is a red herring other people keep on bringing up, not me. My concern remains that I don't think a group like that would be able to maintain self-sustaining, intergenerational society so that there would be children and women (or at least female noncombatants). If you want relentless killer orcs, then you pretty much have to make them fungus or drops of a dying god's blood or whatever, and throw out the anthropological realism of having a lair somewhere with women sewing shirts and orcish children roaming around.
I've said before that either one is fine, but the two don't mix, or if they do, no one has yet managed to lay out how they could adequately.
You say that "real world analogue" stuff is a red herring in relation to your position, but then your very next sentence you talk about how you don't think a group of irredeemable and violent orcs would be able to maintain a self-sustaining and intergenerational society. Why not? If we're talking about creatures that are never real, have never been real, and will never be real, why not? Is it not because it wouldn't jive with what you know about the real world? Of course it is, because you say so when you write, "f you want relentless killer orcs, then you pretty much have to make them fungus or drops of a dying god's blood or whatever, and throw out the
anthropological realism of having a lair somewhere with women sewing shirts and orcish children roaming around". Emphasis mine. In fantasy, nothing has to be based on reality.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482409Well, first off, I think the females would be combatants, like the females of any species are, just not as effective as the males. As far as the rest...
Take the most aggressive, violent, xenophobic "redeemable" species you can think of. Where is the logical gap from there to the "ireedeemable" species? How does the removal of the capacity for good render a species incapable of self-survival?
Good question. One thing that has not been considered that I recall seeing is that perhaps their violent or psychopathic natures only extend to species other than their own. This would make perfect sense if they were being postulated in the context of the Gruumsh myth.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482410Here's the thing though, you don't need to go this deep into cosmology to justify killing orcs. You only need to if you want to be explicitly justified in killing noncombatant orcs.
I agree there are simpler ways to justify killing orcs. I guess I asssumed the people designing these sort of campaigns found the idea of inherently evil orcs cool and that is why they went that direction.
QuoteOrcish combatants don't require any heavy lifting beyond what human combatants require to justify killing them. Some dude is waving a sword at you, you stick him with your sword before he gets you, whether he has tusks and green skin or white skin and blue eyes. I have evil orcs in my games, they just aren't some sort of special uber-evil in the soul.
Usually this is how I run things. Even in classic D&D I don't assume all orcs need to be eradicated, and I don't treat killing them mercilessly as lawful good (going by the text for lawful good that just isn't my take on how a lawful good character would behave). However I can see someone going a different direction if it suits their preferences.
QuoteSomeone going "There are these orcs, and they're completely evil, but they're helpless so you can remorselessly murder, torture and rape them and still be good" strikes me as weird.
I think it is wierd, but it is also a setting built around a much different moral framework than our own. In a way, this kind of thing seems much more inline with how ancient combat was often conducted. By our standards this wouldn't be good. But for Romans killing non-combatants usually wasn't much of a moral dilemma.
QuoteNot only that, but I do want a good explanation for why that is the case, just as if mythusmage pulled out Kiddie Raper the RPG, I'd demand a pretty good explanation from him about why Dracomangus the Sodomancer, Lord of All Creation, is OK with paedophilia.
I think if you find it distasteful content for a game, few explanations will be good enough. However I do think the "all orcs are evil by nature" is a pretty good solution to the immeditate problem of justifying the killing of orc non-combatants. The working defintion of good in the setting probably needs to be a little more rugged as well (this isn't the all-loving good of many modern religions).
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482410Someone going "There are these orcs, and they're completely evil, but they're helpless so you can remorselessly murder, torture and rape them and still be good" strikes me as weird.
I'm not sure if you are specifically responding to me or not, but I made it pretty clear earlier that raping, torturing and enjoying the slaying of "irredeemable orc" children
isn't good, but killing them would be.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482410Not only that, but I do want a good explanation for why that is the case.
The "irredeemable orc" is no different from an incapacitated demon in this case. It is not currently capable of harm, but if left alone it shall be capable of harm, and will do harm, for that's what it is, harm embodied. Anyone it harms later results directly from you choosing not to let it live. The choice does not rest with the "irredeemable orc" it
cannot be other then what it was made to be. The choice rests with you. Choosing to let an inherent evil exist when you could end it's existence is inherently evil. Choosing to end an inherent evil is an inherent good.
And please stop going on about "need for justification", Stabby McChildRaper and all the other snide, smug bullshit. The only one you're insulting is yourself.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482410Here's the thing though, you don't need to go this deep into cosmology to justify killing orcs. You only need to if you want to be explicitly justified in killing noncombatant orcs.
Orcish combatants don't require any heavy lifting beyond what human combatants require to justify killing them. Some dude is waving a sword at you, you stick him with your sword before he gets you, whether he has tusks and green skin or white skin and blue eyes. I have evil orcs in my games, they just aren't some sort of special uber-evil in the soul.
Someone going "There are these orcs, and they're completely evil, but they're helpless so you can remorselessly murder, torture and rape them and still be good" strikes me as weird. Not only that, but I do want a good explanation for why that is the case, just as if mythusmage pulled out Kiddie Raper the RPG, I'd demand a pretty good explanation from him about why Dracomangus the Sodomancer, Lord of All Creation, is OK with paedophilia.
Honestly, I think the non-com killing is not that big an issue when it comes to the game at the actual table. I doubt most of us really care about that at all, and is certainly not why I can imagine using irredeemable orcs in a game. What I would want is a species of enemies that would be the fantasy equivalent of the Terminator, as has been mentioned before in this thread. Sure, undead or demons could be used, but perhaps what I want is for my terminator species to also come across as a Hun-like horde of vicious killers (at least from the "good" guy's PoV) who can't be reasoned with, who give no mercy, who won't stop, who can't be redeemed or deterred. The have all the ability and adaptability of a living army of soldiers, and all the terror of unreasoning supernaturals. They can't be banished, aren't afraid of churches, can't be turned, can't be intimidated or convinced. They won't surrender, even to the last orc. That's how I would use them. Their mates, and children, and "everyday life" would give the illusion of rationality to them, but then the reality of their unwavering threat would be that much more horrific.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482381Let me assure that if good has metaphysical components, that messing with it is exactly like messing with causation. The damage may not be as obvious, but it is as profound. The metaphysics of a world are the foundations out of which everything else must derive. A world where goodness was radically different in the ways described would be as bizarre if carried out logically as one in which causation worked in some radically different way.
I don't doubt this would have heavy repurcussions in real life or in a fantasy setting where the effects of changing the metaphysics was fully examined. But my point is really that most players have a much lower threshold when it comes to metaphysics than physics. You can say "all orcs are evil, and the good comes from Jalai the sky god" and people will pretty much accept it. But if you tell your players rivers are running uphill or the world is zero G, they tend to ask a lot more questions about such changes.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482410Someone going "There are these orcs, and they're completely evil, but they're helpless so you can remorselessly murder, torture and rape them and still be good" strikes me as weird.
Torture and rape remain evil acts no matter who is doing them to whom. I couldn't imagine letting players indulge in either in an RPG. Certainly not one that I'd be a part of. But then, I play games about heroes, up to and including superheroes. I expect players to act like heroes.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482409Well, first off, I think the females would be combatants, like the females of any species are, just not as effective as the males.
Yes, I'd find that reasonable as well. It's why I've switched over to the less gender-specific term of "noncombatants", which I think gets across the general point more clearly.
QuoteTake the most aggressive, violent, xenophobic "redeemable" species you can think of. Where is the logical gap from there to the "ireedeemable" species? How does the removal of the capacity for good render a species incapable of self-survival?
Those are complex questions, but I'll try to answer them briefly:
The removal of a capacity for good could happen in one of two ways:
1) Removal of sentience
2) Removal of all of the neurological machinery that makes one capable of recognising and appreciating what is good, the value of others, etc.
(1) is not evil, just "noxious", to use Elliot's term.
(2) is a creature so intellectually limited that it cannot understand the value of loyalty, cooperation, reciprocity, etc. even through reasoning about it. It must lack the capacity to understand the point of view of others in any deep way, but perhaps it can mimic their behaviour sometimes when there is an immediate goal. It must lack the capacity to control and discipline its own social behaviour, and to ever improve or learn from the results of that social behaviour.
(2) IRL exists only as aberrations - the psychopath - and even then we're really looking at the most extreme examples thereof.
A creature that cannot regulate its own behaviour and must succumb to impulse (and where those impulses are only evil, as part of our initial constraints) could possibly get pregnant. It could even give birth. But the moment it gets angry at the baby, why would it not kill it in an impulsive rage or abandon it? How would it, if it cannot discipline and regulate its own behaviour, be able to maintain the routine of child care that young sentient creatures need?
Let's say that it is possible that orc children are much more self-sufficient from an early age than human children are, so that they can be abandoned by their parents (though this means they won't be hanging around the lair to be slaughtered) and raised to adulthood. Why would they then join with other orcs in a society, even a gang? They take no pleasure in socialisation (the capacity for friendship is a traditional good, and thus is impossible for them), and the risks of associating with a gang of equally monstrous individuals would be far greater than staying alone in the woods. You wouldn't have a society, you'd have a collection of intelligent, asocial predators avoiding one another. There would be no culture, no orcish language, no orcish technology (to build the swords etc.).
Psychopaths IRL are almost never really able to get past the point of two-person self-organisation (the "folie a deux") where a stronger psychopath dominates a weaker one.
So at best, you might have an orc who tried to physically dominate a weaker and smaller one, but the weaker and smaller one, equally ruthless, needs only to wait until the stronger one is asleep before throttling it or beating its head in with a hammer or rock or whatever (this has happened IRL, as a fellow-gamer friend who wrote the first omnibus on Canadian serial killers showed me in the manuscript of his book).
Also, it's extremely questionable whether these creatures, which we have defined as totally incapable of anything good, would even be brave enough to physically confront one another or anything else unless absolutely forced to. Their cruelty might overcome their cowardice in certain circumstances, but you're really looking at something much more like Gollum than like a typical orc.
IRL, a psychopath can get by acting like this because most people are not like this, and he is a parasite on the results and benefits of their goodness and socialising. In our example though, the orcs don't belong to a larger host society that they can take advantage of and steal the benefits of. They are left with the complex society and material culture that a bunch of solitary nomads have - none.
Quote from: Sigmund;482406In the context of the paladin and D&D alignment, I can see your point. However, in the past the paladin's code is how I have usually handled the specific expectations of the paladin. Most codes I've seen used or use myself include details about these moral questions over which we've been arguing, and will depend very much on how black and white the morality of the setting is imagined to be. I can't argue that consistency is very important, but IMO this consistency only needs to be internal, and does not have to also be consistent with reality when playing in a fantasy game. Irrationality can be the point of a fantasy world. Quite often, magic is irrational, not just some sort of science. Flying dragons that can talk and cast spells are irrational. I see no reason why morality can't be irrational as well and still be entertaining, at least to some folks.
Sure, I would agree that fantasy worlds do not need to be consistent entirely with the real world. However, I don't think elements like magic and dragons are irrational, just fantastical. Magic in games is often organised, with clear conceptual boundaries on what it can do (usually provided by the rules on casting spells if not otherwise explicitly listed). It is not scientific, but it is rational.
One can say "There is magic in this game, and it works like this..." and expect any sensible person paying attention to understand how magic works, especially if there is a clear set of well-written rules detailing how one casts spells and what happens when one does.
The important thing there is consistency of outputs / actions, rather than necessarily understanding the internal thaumological principles of magic (which are really just the rules for casting spells etc.). So long as magic acts in a predictable way, it can incorporated into an otherwise consistent world without causing damage to the verisimilitude or consistency because the ability to transparently predict the outcome of one's actions is the goal that verisimilitude and consistency serve.
Morality isn't fantastical though. Morality already exists, and we know how it works, and we are all already reasonably well-trained in it. We don't even really require rules for it (a good, though not perfect, indicator, of whether something is fantastical or not) though we do have some in classic D&D.
Deviations from our ordinary understanding of morality do not serve to make the world easier to get along in, unless presented in a comprehensible, rational way that PCs can grasp (which is why they have to be rational on some level). If the codes cannot be understood or do not make sense but transgressions are punished (by losing Paladin status etc.), you create an attitude of learned helplessness, as the easiest attitude when one is not sure of how to avoid being punished for screwing up is simply to do nothing at all. This is directly contrary to encouraging player agency.
You can use bizarre moral systems if you wish, so long as you can explain to players how and why they work, since otherwise you're just going to confuse them and leave them wondering what the hell they're supposed to be doing.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482417I think it is wierd, but it is also a setting built around a much different moral framework than our own. In a way, this kind of thing seems much more inline with how ancient combat was often conducted. By our standards this wouldn't be good. But for Romans killing non-combatants usually wasn't much of a moral dilemma.
The Romans had a radically different way of slicing things up ethically, and the notion of an "absolute good" that derives from something outside of human life would have been meaningless bafflegab to them. IRL, I think the Romans are right in that respect, but that's neither here nor there.
QuoteI think if you find it distasteful content for a game, few explanations will be good enough. However I do think the "all orcs are evil by nature" is a pretty good solution to the immeditate problem of justifying the killing of orc non-combatants. The working defintion of good in the setting probably needs to be a little more rugged as well (this isn't the all-loving good of many modern religions).
The problem actually becomes much easier to resolve if you give up the whole "absolute" and "irredeemable" elements, and just use "good" and "evil" in straightforward, ordinary ways to refer to individual orcs.
"These orcs are evil" is far less problematic than "All orcs are evil by nature".
While pure psychopathy of the malevolent form as personified by many serial murderers is perhaps demonstrated to be incompatible with cooperation, I think corporate behaviors of the last 100 years have well demonstrated that at least sociopathy can be evidenced on a grand scale while still producing productive and successful results.
It is perhaps debatable how sustainable it is in the very long term, but it's obvious that a mindset solely dominated by profit at all costs is possible and capable of producing a productive society, if not a moral one by many standards.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482418I'm not sure if you are specifically responding to me or not, but I made it pretty clear earlier that raping, torturing and enjoying the slaying of "irredeemable orc" children isn't good, but killing them would be.
Yes, but that part isn't exactly clear either. Is it permitted to steal from orc children? Is it permitted to lie to them?
If one has no moral obligation to orcs, then one has no moral obligation to them. Rape, torture, it's simply a matter of when your stomach starts turning, not logic. Sticking your dick in a tree is weird, but you have no moral obligation to the tree not to stick your dick in it.
QuoteThe "irredeemable orc" is no different from an incapacitated demon in this case. It is not currently capable of harm, but if left alone it shall be capable of harm, and will do harm, for that's what it is, harm embodied. Anyone it harms later results directly from you choosing not to let it live. The choice does not rest with the "irredeemable orc" it cannot be other then what it was made to be. The choice rests with you. Choosing to let an inherent evil exist when you could end it's existence is inherently evil. Choosing to end an inherent evil is an inherent good.
Not really. For example, in real life we usually lock up psychopaths and segregate them from others. In tales with demons they are usually banished, rather than slain, sent back to the prison of Hell.
That because, of course, as moral people we understand that we have moral obligations even to the worst people who are incapable of recognising their own moral obligations back to us.
QuoteAnd please stop going on about "need for justification", Stabby McChildRaper and all the other snide, smug bullshit. The only one you're insulting is yourself.
Mythusmage is a real person (he used to post here), and he really does have a setting where adults fuck children, and it really is totally cool according to the metaphysics of the setting. He posted about it here a couple of times, and I find it an evocative comparison with orc child-murder on how moral permissiveness in games can work.
I'm not suggesting you find raping kids acceptable, but I am attempting to point out how once you've decided that morality is totally arbitrary for game purposes, it can lead you to some super-fucking-weirdo places.
Quote from: J Arcane;482449While pure psychopathy of the malevolent form as personified by many serial murderers is perhaps demonstrated to be incompatible with cooperation, I think corporate behaviors of the last 100 years have well demonstrated that at least sociopathy can be evidenced on a grand scale while still producing productive and successful results.
It is perhaps debatable how sustainable it is in the very long term, but it's obvious that a mindset solely dominated by profit at all costs is possible and capable of producing a productive society, if not a moral one by many standards.
Corporations do the same thing as the lone psychopath - chew up and consume the sociality of others. Corporate loyalty is a great example of psychopathic babble convincing people that a predator for whom they are the prey is "actually" their friend.
Quote from: TristramEvans;482428Torture and rape remain evil acts no matter who is doing them to whom. I couldn't imagine letting players indulge in either in an RPG. Certainly not one that I'd be a part of. But then, I play games about heroes, up to and including superheroes. I expect players to act like heroes.
I don't necessarily expect my PCs to be heroic, but I would prefer that they are not Al Qaida.
Quote from: Sigmund;482414Good question. One thing that has not been considered that I recall seeing is that perhaps their violent or psychopathic natures only extend to species other than their own. This would make perfect sense if they were being postulated in the context of the Gruumsh myth.
That would be essentially the same as the position I've outlined as having when I use orcs. That doesn't require all the cosmological cruft though. They could have a psychology essentially identical to humanity and act in this way.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482422I don't doubt this would have heavy repurcussions in real life or in a fantasy setting where the effects of changing the metaphysics was fully examined. But my point is really that most players have a much lower threshold when it comes to metaphysics than physics. You can say "all orcs are evil, and the good comes from Jalai the sky god" and people will pretty much accept it. But if you tell your players rivers are running uphill or the world is zero G, they tend to ask a lot more questions about such changes.
Wait until Jalai asks them to crush the skulls of orc children, and you might get a few raised eyebrows.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482445Sure, I would agree that fantasy worlds do not need to be consistent entirely with the real world. However, I don't think elements like magic and dragons are irrational, just fantastical. Magic in games is often organised, with clear conceptual boundaries on what it can do (usually provided by the rules on casting spells if not otherwise explicitly listed). It is not scientific, but it is rational.
One can say "There is magic in this game, and it works like this..." and expect any sensible person paying attention to understand how magic works, especially if there is a clear set of well-written rules detailing how one casts spells and what happens when one does.
The important thing there is consistency of outputs / actions, rather than necessarily understanding the internal thaumological principles of magic (which are really just the rules for casting spells etc.). So long as magic acts in a predictable way, it can incorporated into an otherwise consistent world without causing damage to the verisimilitude or consistency because the ability to transparently predict the outcome of one's actions is the goal that verisimilitude and consistency serve.
Morality isn't fantastical though. Morality already exists, and we know how it works, and we are all already reasonably well-trained in it. We don't even really require rules for it (a good, though not perfect, indicator, of whether something is fantastical or not) though we do have some in classic D&D.
Deviations from our ordinary understanding of morality do not serve to make the world easier to get along in, unless presented in a comprehensible, rational way that PCs can grasp (which is why they have to be rational on some level). If the codes cannot be understood or do not make sense but transgressions are punished (by losing Paladin status etc.), you create an attitude of learned helplessness, as the easiest attitude when one is not sure of how to avoid being punished for screwing up is simply to do nothing at all. This is directly contrary to encouraging player agency.
You can use bizarre moral systems if you wish, so long as you can explain to players how and why they work, since otherwise you're just going to confuse them and leave them wondering what the hell they're supposed to be doing.
Dragons and magic are irrational in the sense that they are not based on or subject to the physics of the real world and they couldn't possibly do the things they do. A real creature built just like dragons as presented in D&D would never be able to naturally fly (http://www.fantasycomic.com/index.php?p=mithblog:0005). Various reasons can be postulated (http://www.blackdrago.com/flight.htm), not the least of which is, "they're magic". Most of the magic imagined by fantasy worlds is defined by it's ability to break the laws of the natural, rational world around us. Still, the laws of physics and the rational universe must be set aside to allow for flying dragons and magic.Yet despite this, physics seems to work the same as in our real world most of the rest of the time. This is because, while we can relate best to worlds that operate similar to ours, we seem to have little trouble selectively setting aside the laws of physics when imagining fantasy worlds. It also seems the less we actually understand about physics, the easier it is to not be bothered by imagining things that break the laws of physics. I see no reason why the same could not be said for morality. In fact, this would explain why you, someone who thinks about and understands real world morality more than most people has so much harder a time allowing for the breaking of these moral standards.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482456Wait until Jalai asks them to crush the skulls of orc children, and you might get a few raised eyebrows.
Sure, but that is because people generally find that concept distasteful. That doesn't mean it is inconsistent in the setting though.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482455That would be essentially the same as the position I've outlined as having when I use orcs. That doesn't require all the cosmological cruft though. They could have a psychology essentially identical to humanity and act in this way.
Indeed. And still be "irredeemable", at least in the eyes of their enemies.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482459Sure, but that is because people generally find that concept distasteful. That doesn't mean it is inconsistent in the setting though.
Indeed. The whole point of including it might be exactly because the players find it distasteful.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482447The problem actually becomes much easier to resolve if you give up the whole "absolute" and "irredeemable" elements, and just use "good" and "evil" in straightforward, ordinary ways to refer to individual orcs.
"These orcs are evil" is far less problematic than "All orcs are evil by nature".
Of course. Anytime you slap "all" before anything in a setting if forces you to maintain that consistently. It is definitely easier to allow for exceptions. No argument from me there. I just don't see why it is an issue if someone wants to take the alternate approach and go with all orcs are evil. Can lead to some interesting setting material.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482453Corporations do the same thing as the lone psychopath - chew up and consume the sociality of others. Corporate loyalty is a great example of psychopathic babble convincing people that a predator for whom they are the prey is "actually" their friend.
Out of curiosity then, do you find Ferengi in Star Trek hard to swallow as a society? They are, essentially, corporate sociopathy as cultural philosophy, and while later DS9 did undermine that and begin redeeming them, the basic idea was pretty regular.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482464Of course. Anytime you slap "all" before anything in a setting if forces you to maintain that consistently. It is definitely easier to allow for exceptions. No argument from me there. I just don't see why it is an issue if someone wants to take the alternate approach and go with all orcs are evil. Can lead to some interesting setting material.
It certainly makes them feel more "alien", which IMO could be a very compelling reason to use them. Especially if the players have grown way too familiar with "standard" orcs.
Quote from: Sigmund;482461Indeed. And still be "irredeemable", at least in the eyes of their enemies.
Sure. But it's one thing to say someone is "irredeemable" or "evil", and another for them to have the E-gene or be full of E-energy. I'm fine with the former and consider the latter somewhat odd, to say the least.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482468Sure. But it's one thing to say someone is "irredeemable" or "evil", and another for them to have the E-gene or be full of E-energy. I'm fine with the former and consider the latter somewhat odd, to say the least.
I might point out that, at least in 3rd edition, the existence of, essentially, "E-energy" is actually there more or less.
Which is sort of odd if you think about it too hard, and is why I tended to lean more on the "personifying death and decay" aspect of "negative energy" rather than a direct association with evil.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482459Sure, but that is because people generally find that concept distasteful. That doesn't mean it is inconsistent in the setting though.
It depends on what kind of god Jalai actually is. IRL, pagan gods are not considered the source of goodness like a lamp is the source of light. Rather, they set laws that must be obeyed, and provide good things to their followers. Jupiter doesn't determine what is good, any more than the state determines what is good. Both simply define what is permissible or not. Jalai sounds like that kind of god, and if he is, then crushing the skulls of his foes is not a question of good or bad, but of doing what one is required to do, regardless of how one feels.
Using a real world example, the Aztecs don't appear to have been horrible monsters, they appear to have truly and genuinely believed that if they didn't cut out the hearts of people the gods would die, and the entire world with them. It wasn't a matter of cutting hearts out being good or bad to do, it was a matter of necessity and divine command. I'm sure many Aztecs desperately wished their gods were capable of surviving without human sacrifice and if they thought they could, would have given up heart-cutting quite readily.
Quote from: J Arcane;482465Out of curiosity then, do you find Ferengi in Star Trek hard to swallow as a society? They are, essentially, corporate sociopathy as cultural philosophy, and while later DS9 did undermine that and begin redeeming them, the basic idea was pretty regular.
I find the Ferengi annoying but not implausible. In DS9 we see that they do have a lot of familial affection, and they do have regular social customs that allow them to get along in nonviolent, law-abiding ways. Most Ferengi are not breaking using any means at all to chisel one another, but are following a well-established set of social conventions.
The earlier Ferengi of TNG considered alone are kind of stupid if we consider them completely typical for all Ferengi. However, we do only really see the piratical types who don't appear to even be able to get along in greater Ferengi society IIRC.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482468Sure. But it's one thing to say someone is "irredeemable" or "evil", and another for them to have the E-gene or be full of E-energy. I'm fine with the former and consider the latter somewhat odd, to say the least.
Then I'm left with nothing else to argue with you about. Ah well.
Quote from: J Arcane;482469I might point out that, at least in 3rd edition, the existence of, essentially, "E-energy" is actually there more or less.
Which is sort of odd if you think about it too hard, and is why I tended to lean more on the "personifying death and decay" aspect of "negative energy" rather than a direct association with evil.
So have I.
Quote from: J Arcane;482469I might point out that, at least in 3rd edition, the existence of, essentially, "E-energy" is actually there more or less.
Which is sort of odd if you think about it too hard, and is why I tended to lean more on the "personifying death and decay" aspect of "negative energy" rather than a direct association with evil.
E-Energy is very limited as a concept in 3.x though. I tend to follow Keith Baker's idea that Detect Evil is really "Detect Negative Energy", and that such energy is not found in most evil humanoids, but only in creatures like demons, undead, and the clerics of evil gods (who specifically pick up an "aura of evil" in 3.x).
Quote from: Sigmund;482472Then I'm left with nothing else to argue with you about. Ah well.
High five, all is well.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482474E-Energy is very limited as a concept in 3.x though. I tend to follow Keith Baker's idea that Detect Evil is really "Detect Negative Energy", and that such energy is not found in most evil humanoids, but only in creatures like demons, undead, and the clerics of evil gods (who specifically pick up an "aura of evil" in 3.x).
I did the same. Not really even for "realism" or consistency's sake, but simply to keep it from being over-used, abused, or relied on too heavily.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482475High five, all is well.
:hatsoff:
Quote from: Sigmund;482476I did the same. Not really even for "realism" or consistency's sake, but simply to keep it from being over-used, abused, or relied on too heavily.
That too (otherwise it's an XP tricorder), but a single consistent standard helps everyone know what they're getting into with detect evil.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;4824312) Removal of all of the neurological machinery that makes one capable of recognising and appreciating what is good, the value of others, etc.
What does "good" have to do with value of others in relation to the self? One orc can't scour the face of the earth of everything non-orc by itself. It needs other orcs to thrive and prosper the same way any species needs other members. The idea that an orc would never recognize a non-orc as something of value does not mean that they have no sense of value. It doesn't follow at all.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431(2) is a creature so intellectually limited that it cannot understand the value of loyalty, cooperation, reciprocity, etc. even through reasoning about it. It must lack the capacity to understand the point of view of others in any deep way, but perhaps it can mimic their behaviour sometimes when there is an immediate goal. It must lack the capacity to control and discipline its own social behaviour, and to ever improve or learn from the results of that social behaviour.
Complete and total supposition, not a shred of fact.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431A creature that cannot regulate its own behaviour and must succumb to impulse (and where those impulses are only evil, as part of our initial constraints) could possibly get pregnant. It could even give birth. But the moment it gets angry at the baby, why would it not kill it in an impulsive rage or abandon it? How would it, if it cannot discipline and regulate its own behaviour, be able to maintain the routine of child care that young sentient creatures need?
The lack of regulation of it's behavior is a strawman. The fact that an orc is driven to kill all non-orcs says nothing of it's ability to raise other orcs. An "irredeemable orc" mother would beat the young, torture the young, to make them cruel and strong, and to prepare them for war and murder, but it wouldn't bash it's own children's head against the wall every time it stubbed it's toe. That's coming totally from you, it exists nowhere in the idea.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431Let's say that it is possible that orc children are much more self-sufficient from an early age than human children are, so that they can be abandoned by their parents (though this means they won't be hanging around the lair to be slaughtered) and raised to adulthood. Why would they then join with other orcs in a society, even a gang?
Simple survival is one reason, their inherent nature another. They are driven to join with other orcs, breed, then war with and kill all non-orcs.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431the risks of associating with a gang of equally monstrous individuals would be far greater than staying alone in the woods.
Again, making the rather ridiculous assumption that they slay their own as readily as they slay others, a fact existing only in your limited interpretation.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431You wouldn't have a society, you'd have a collection of intelligent, asocial predators avoiding one another. There would be no culture, no orcish language, no orcish technology (to build the swords etc.).
Except the foundation you're building these assumptions on doesn't exist, so yeah, they pretty much would have all those things, because they need them.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431Also, it's extremely questionable whether these creatures, which we have defined as totally incapable of anything good, would even be brave enough to physically confront one another or anything else unless absolutely forced to.
Bravery is good? Whether it is or not is immaterial, you're forgetting one thing - the "irredeemable orc" is predicated on a god that made them that way. A orc god to which their soul might go back to. Brave orcs kick back in Gruumsh's cave, getting to mate with the best orc chicks and rape other race's women for all eternity, orcs that run or fail to obey the warchief/shaman whatever are torn apart and eaten daily for all eternity. Religions get humans to be brave for far less payoff/punishment every day in our real world.
Morrow's the psychopath guy, there may be some parallels between a psychopath and an "irredeemable orc" but drawing an extended 1:1 relationship across several points is just silly. Again you're just saying nothing that doesn't exist here on earth, can't exist happen in a different way, also just silly.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431They are left with the complex society and material culture that a bunch of solitary nomads have - none.
Unfortunately, all that was, was a brilliant house of cards.
So after 157 pages, is it okay to kill orcs again?
And if so, what if they are Black Orks from Warhammer?
Holy shit, CRKrueger doesn't actually seem to know what "good" is or what makes people capable of being "good". Nor can he keep an argument straight, it appears.
Protip: You asked me to what separate a violent, xenophobic species from an "irredeemably evil" one. I stripped out all capacity for good. If you don't like that, don't ask the question.
Quote from: Sigmund;482419What I would want is a species of enemies that would be the fantasy equivalent of the Terminator, as has been mentioned before in this thread. Sure, undead or demons could be used, but perhaps what I want is for my terminator species to also come across as a Hun-like horde of vicious killers (at least from the "good" guy's PoV) who can't be reasoned with, who give no mercy, who won't stop, who can't be redeemed or deterred. The have all the ability and adaptability of a living army of soldiers, and all the terror of unreasoning supernaturals. They can't be banished, aren't afraid of churches, can't be turned, can't be intimidated or convinced. They won't surrender, even to the last orc. That's how I would use them. Their mates, and children, and "everyday life" would give the illusion of rationality to them, but then the reality of their unwavering threat would be that much more horrific.
What you then get is a caricature of historical (and current) xenophobic beliefs. But unlike Tolkien, who wavered at describing Orcs as fully natural, biological beings (with women & kids), and certainly never showed any scenes of such, you'd be establishing those beliefs as certainties regarding a group of "pseudo-people".
(Wikipedia runs down a list of theories & comments about orcs' nature & origins that can be found in Tolkien's writings. In an unpublished letter he wrote "there must have been orc-women", but he doesn't seem to have been willing to stare the implications in the face. Compare the actually-published passage in LotR where he talks about men under the influence of evil, where Sam sees a dead man of Harad and wonders "...what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was truly evil at heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace.")
The degree of xenophobia extending to the biological level has antecedents in stories about the origins of the Huns, actually; the ancient historian Jordanes wrote that the Huns arose from Gothic witches having sex with "unclean spirits" (http://www.harbornet.com/folks/theedrich/Goths/Goths1.htm#XXIV). But modern thought & science not only makes this sort of thing an anachronism, but modern attempts to square radical xenophobia with science strongly parallel the language found in RPG discussions of "irredeemable evil" justifying the slaughter of noncombatants. This is what makes the latter particularly distasteful to me. I'd speculate that it's largely the byproduct of math & science geeks being attracted to fantasy.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482474E-Energy is very limited as a concept in 3.x though. I tend to follow Keith Baker's idea that Detect Evil is really "Detect Negative Energy", and that such energy is not found in most evil humanoids, but only in creatures like demons, undead, and the clerics of evil gods (who specifically pick up an "aura of evil" in 3.x).
Again, this is similar to the gloss Gygax provides on Detect Evil in the 1e DMG.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482495Protip: You asked me to what separate a violent, xenophobic species from an "irredeemably evil" one. I stripped out all capacity for good. If you don't like that, don't ask the question.
Protip: All you
really did was set up a bunch of very dubious assumptions, claimed those were the only possibilities and then presumed to build arguments off those erroneous assumptions, then cry foul when I labeled them as such.
I'm not the one who can't keep the argument straight.
BTW, the bravery shown by Islamic suicide bombers who take their own life willingly for their cause is inherently good, is it? According to you, I guess. For me bravery has nothing to do with good or evil, it could be bravery merely for self-preservation. The act of bravery is not aligned, the intent that drives it is.
Nice way to avoid all the other stuff though. :hatsoff:
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482481That too (otherwise it's an XP tricorder), but a single consistent standard helps everyone know what they're getting into with detect evil.
I'm partial to the BECMI/RC "detect danger" interpretation of
detect evil, myself.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482470It depends on what kind of god Jalai actually is. IRL, pagan gods are not considered the source of goodness like a lamp is the source of light. Rather, they set laws that must be obeyed, and provide good things to their followers. Jupiter doesn't determine what is good, any more than the state determines what is good. Both simply define what is permissible or not. Jalai sounds like that kind of god, and if he is, then crushing the skulls of his foes is not a question of good or bad, but of doing what one is required to do, regardless of how one do, it was a matter of necessity and divine command. I'm sure many Aztecs desperately wished their gods were capable of surviving without human sacrifice and if they thought they could, would have given up heart-cutting quite readily.
I was thinking more of a god who created the universe and morality, that sort of thing. One where you you could tie his will to right and wrong.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482499Protip: All you really did was set up a bunch of very dubious assumptions, claimed those were the only possibilities and then presumed to build arguments off those erroneous assumptions, then cry foul when I labeled them as such.
I stripped away all qualities considered good, just as you asked, to present a creature that was "irredeemably evil". i.e. one that had no good qualities that would redeem it. I realise now, of course, that your questions were not asked in good faith, but were intended to be rhetorical, since you were unaware that they could be answered.
QuoteI'm not the one who can't keep the argument straight.
Get back to me on that when you can keep a consistent position for more than two posts.
QuoteBTW, the bravery shown by Islamic suicide bombers who take their own life willingly for their cause is inherently good, is it? According to you, I guess. For me bravery has nothing to do with good or evil, it could be bravery merely for self-preservation. The act of bravery is not aligned, the intent that drives it is.
You keep on pretending you know what you're talking about, and sprinkle terms like "inherently" and "absolute" as if they had some obvious meaning in context when they're just bafflegab here. What would it mean to say "bravery is inherently good" that would not be captured in "bravery is good"? You also don't appear to know what "bravery" is, as "bravery merely for self-preservation" doesn't make a lot of sense.
And yes, I will say it: Bravery, even in the service of awful causes, is an admirable trait. Intent matters, but it is by no means the only relevant factor.
Groups like the Nazis, AQ, etc., recruit individuals of good character whenever possible and then convince them that false facts are true so that they act in line with their good characters on the false facts. Not that these people are saints, but a hard-working, disciplined terrorist with a sense of duty and plenty of personal bravery is more useful than a lazy braggart who also happens to be cowardly and careless in accomplishing his mission. A soldier who is loyal, brave, and will not shirk his duty is far more useful for gunning down Russians soldiers than a shithead sadist.
On a final note, please spare me the hypocrisy of you condemning Islamic terrorists. The only point on which you differ is the initial conditions - they believe God exists, and you don't. You've otherwise already laid out that if God told you to kill evil unbelievers you would consider it righteous, good and justified to do so.
Quote from: Spinachcat;482493So after 157 pages, is it okay to kill orcs again?
Yes, but only if you rape and crucify their orcwomen and boil their orcbabies alive.
Quote from: Spinachcat;482493And if so, what if they are Black Orks from Warhammer?
Black? Wavelengthist!
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482505I was thinking more of a god who created the universe and morality, that sort of thing. One where you you could tie his will to right and wrong.
The concept just goes back to being incoherent. We're going around in circles here. Why did he allow orcs to exist in the first place? Why can't he save them and turn them good?
Either you've got the shittiest creator god around, or the whole thing's a soak.
Also, for the umpteenth time, gods don't create morality, they create laws. Morality arises from human life.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482507Get back to me on that when you can keep a consistent position for more than two posts.
So that's a "no" on response to systematic destruction of your strawman assumptions - big surprise there.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482507And yes, I will say it: Bravery, even in the service of awful causes, is an admirable trait.
Admirable, yes, I agree, but does that make it Good? Remember that
you started down this road yourself when you stripped out bravery by stripping out Good and claiming "irredeemable orcs" couldn't be brave.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482507On a final note, please spare me the hypocrisy of you condemning Islamic terrorists. The only point on which you differ is the initial conditions - they believe God exists, and you don't. You've otherwise already laid out that if God told you to kill evil unbelievers you would consider it righteous, good and justified to do so.
I claimed that under the right cosmological conditions, it could be righteous, good and justified to kill Evil beings. The "unbeliever" strawman you just threw in.
As far hypocrisy crap goes, there's that very small matter of Allah not being real. I know, you're having a real big problem with the whole "god's not real here, yet god could be real there" concept.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482509The concept just goes back to being incoherent. We're going around in circles here. Why did he allow orcs to exist in the first place? Why can't he save them and turn them good?
Either you've got the shittiest creator god around, or the whole thing's a soak.
life.
There are plenty of explanations of evil in a world created by an all good god. The chain of being is one i've found useful in games. I rarely run games with cosmic good and evil but that is what i used for my demon hunting setting.
I doubt it is a solution you will find satisfactory but it worked just fine in my campaign.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482496What you then get is a caricature of historical (and current) xenophobic beliefs. But unlike Tolkien, who wavered at describing Orcs as fully natural, biological beings (with women & kids), and certainly never showed any scenes of such, you'd be establishing those beliefs as certainties regarding a group of "pseudo-people".
(Wikipedia runs down a list of theories & comments about orcs' nature & origins that can be found in Tolkien's writings. In an unpublished letter he wrote "there must have been orc-women", but he doesn't seem to have been willing to stare the implications in the face. Compare the actually-published passage in LotR where he talks about men under the influence of evil, where Sam sees a dead man of Harad and wonders "...what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was truly evil at heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace.")
The degree of xenophobia extending to the biological level has antecedents in stories about the origins of the Huns, actually; the ancient historian Jordanes wrote that the Huns arose from Gothic witches having sex with "unclean spirits" (http://www.harbornet.com/folks/theedrich/Goths/Goths1.htm#XXIV). But modern thought & science not only makes this sort of thing an anachronism, but modern attempts to square radical xenophobia with science strongly parallel the language found in RPG discussions of "irredeemable evil" justifying the slaughter of noncombatants. This is what makes the latter particularly distasteful to me. I'd speculate that it's largely the byproduct of math & science geeks being attracted to fantasy.
What's your point? What if I want my orcs to be caricatures? Do you have something against caricatures? I don't care about historical or current xenophobic beliefs, Wikipedia, or Jordanes. It's a game, and I'm tired of all this silly pseudo-academic effort over a game of "lets pretend". Have fun with it, I'm gonna go roll some dice now.
Quote from: Sigmund;482419Honestly, I think the non-com killing is not that big an issue when it comes to the game at the actual table.
Here's the thing. I don't think it's an issue because IME folks who use irredeemable evil races don't make it a habit of putting the non-com of the race(s) in their games. Sanitized play, as Morrow refers to it as. I got no issue with that.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;482532Here's the thing. I don't think it's an issue because IME folks who use irredeemable evil races don't make it a habit of putting the non-com of the race(s) in their games. Sanitized play, as Morrow refers to it as. I got no issue with that.
Regards,
David R
Good deal, so we're left without a problem here then. Sounds good to me, I'm tired of this thread anyway.
Quote from: Sigmund;482531What's your point?
My point: it's highly distasteful to me. Suppose you've got a fantasy, any fantasy. I don't think fantasies are neutral, as if they just sprung up out of nowhere, and I have to accept them because they have their own internal logic. No: fantasies are a product of the interest of the people making them and enjoying them, or,
at least, the interest I have in them comes from me. I'm repelled by fantasies where there are subhumans who are shown as "real humanoids" (tribes, cultures, parents, kids), yet the fantasy presents it as "good", with metaphysical certitude, to kill them even when they don't present an immediate threat--like if they're infants.
I've said several times, I think, that I've got no problem with violence and killing in games; you can add racial prejudice and the portrayal of violent cultures. What I don't care for is "scientific" and "philosophical" justifications that encourage distasteful scenarios and which parallel real-world theories underpinning some of the worst violations of humanity in history. As I wrote before, to take these approaches basically turns the douchebag thesis in the OP into truth, when there are plenty of alternatives to provide the thrills I'm looking for (action & adventure) without setting up a bunch of unpleasant premises.
These next replies group together quotes thematically to keep ideas together. The quote links should go back to the original quotes in context.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482195As for Morrow, he explicitly stated that he ran a game in which his good PCs mowed down a bunch of greenskin kids without any moral consequences. This was because they were irredeemably evil.
The color of their skin was irrelevant. Do you really spend that much time obsessing over such details in your games?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482263John is talking about a world in which there is a clear conception of what he calls "absolute good" and in which the Gods actively enforce this, and with Paladins and Druids who must uphold certain alignments. And to slay noncombatants in this world is not immoral (it would not cause a Paladin to fall). The players might have felt emotional turmoil, but the characters should not have based on what he claims. If they did, then it is simply because his moral theory is inadequate (a claim I've made numerous times).
That's not correct. The players were all playing in character to one degree or another and the emotional turmoil was from their characters' perspective as well as theirs. That was the right reaction because it was consistent with the task being a grim necessity rather than a happy sport.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482368You can ignore these problems if it makes you happy, but as I said, it assaults the versimilitude of the setting, just as if you introduced screwed around with another metaphysical property, like the flow of time or causation.
The verisimilitude of a setting depends on what the characters consider plausible. Games screw around with all sorts of principles -- causation, flow of time, conservation of energy and matter, and so on with magic and most people don't notice because they don't care.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482381If a DM wants to justify unseemly crap like killing noncombatants, I am certainly going to investigate the reasoning behind it, and hold it to a fairly high standard, just as I would if a DM said to me "In this world, rape is cool because God created women to be the slaves of men," or "In this world, black people are less intelligent than whites - the stat bonuses I assign to each are just the objective facts of this world."
I guess you hated Old Yeller then? I mean, what kind of sadistic author would depict a boy shooting his own dog and make it seem like the right thing to do, right?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482410Orcish combatants don't require any heavy lifting beyond what human combatants require to justify killing them. Some dude is waving a sword at you, you stick him with your sword before he gets you, whether he has tusks and green skin or white skin and blue eyes. I have evil orcs in my games, they just aren't some sort of special uber-evil in the soul.
Why do you obsess so much over the appearance of orcs? Frankly, if you asked me what color the goblins' skin was in my game, I'd have to look at the picture in the Monster Manual because it really doesn't matter to me.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482410Someone going "There are these orcs, and they're completely evil, but they're helpless so you can remorselessly murder, torture and rape them and still be good" strikes me as weird. Not only that, but I do want a good explanation for why that is the case, just as if mythusmage pulled out Kiddie Raper the RPG, I'd demand a pretty good explanation from him about why Dracomangus the Sodomancer, Lord of All Creation, is OK with paedophilia.
What a wonderful straw man you've found on the Yellow Brick Road, Dorothy. Who said that good characters could torture and rape them or should even be remorseless about killing them? Again, from the Paladin code in my game:
"
15) Do not attack those who have not attacked you unless you know them to be Evil. Do whatever you can to spare those who are not Evil. Those who have turned to Evil yet still might be redeemed should also be spared. Kill that which is Evil by nature, for only through the Lethe might they be redeemed."
"
17) You should accept the surrender of your enemies and they will become your charge. Evil that cannot be redeemed that is in your charge should be dispatched quickly and without malice. All others in your charge should be treated honorably and humanely."
In other words, you shouldn't be killing them out of hatred. You should make their death as quick and painless as possible. In addition, it indirectly acknowledges that killing them isn't particularly honorable or humane and expresses hope that Evil creatures will eventually find redemption after reincarnation from the afterlife.
I'm not even sure how rape entered into the picture, Dances with Straw Men. I've repeatedly explained why I wanted it and how it actually played out in my game. And what makes all of your apparent assumptions and insinuations about crypto-racism so amusing to me is that the player who demanded the killable bad guys is African American.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482445Sure, I would agree that fantasy worlds do not need to be consistent entirely with the real world. However, I don't think elements like magic and dragons are irrational, just fantastical. Magic in games is often organised, with clear conceptual boundaries on what it can do (usually provided by the rules on casting spells if not otherwise explicitly listed). It is not scientific, but it is rational.
A person with a decent understanding of real world physics can abuse the magic in any fantasy game and a person who asks about the details of how various spell effects work shouldn't have much trouble asking questions that are difficult for a GM to answer without creating more problems (e.g., If I transform a person into a frog and put them in a tiny frog-sized box and then turn them back, what happens?).
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482445Morality isn't fantastical though. Morality already exists, and we know how it works, and we are all already reasonably well-trained in it. We don't even really require rules for it (a good, though not perfect, indicator, of whether something is fantastical or not) though we do have some in classic D&D.
Physics also exists. We know how that works at least as well as we know how morality works. That doesn't stop games from telling us how things work or taking liberties with how they work to add magic or make games more "cinematic".
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482451Yes, but that part isn't exactly clear either. Is it permitted to steal from orc children? Is it permitted to lie to them?
Of course not. Do you really not understand the concept of killing out of necessity rather than malice or cruelty?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482451If one has no moral obligation to orcs, then one has no moral obligation to them. Rape, torture, it's simply a matter of when your stomach starts turning, not logic. Sticking your dick in a tree is weird, but you have no moral obligation to the tree not to stick your dick in it.
Who is claiming that characters have no moral obligations to orcs or other monters? Is this straw man really necessary for you to make your case? If the Good character rapes or tortures and orc (or any other monster), then they are being cruel which would make them...uh...Evil.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482451Not really. For example, in real life we usually lock up psychopaths and segregate them from others. In tales with demons they are usually banished, rather than slain, sent back to the prison of Hell.
That because, of course, as moral people we understand that we have moral obligations even to the worst people who are incapable of recognising their own moral obligations back to us.
Beyond the fact that quite a few psychopaths get executed in the real world for their crimes, I'm not sure why you interpret an argument for killing out of necessity means that one has no moral obligations to those being killed. Just because slaughterhouses kill cattle for food does not mean that they don't have a moral obligation to treat them humanely. Just because prisoners are convicted of crimes and sentanced to execution does not mean that they get beaten to death or the police invite a bunch of people in to rape and torture them to death. Is this really where reading too many philosophy books takes your mind?
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482451Mythusmage is a real person (he used to post here), and he really does have a setting where adults fuck children, and it really is totally cool according to the metaphysics of the setting. He posted about it here a couple of times, and I find it an evocative comparison with orc child-murder on how moral permissiveness in games can work.
And what is the greater good served by having sex with children in that game? How many innocent lives does it save and how much suffering does it prevent? And, of course, killing orc children was never intended to be an enjoyable diversion for the players. But don't let that get in the way of your false equivalency argument.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482451I'm not suggesting you find raping kids acceptable, but I am attempting to point out how once you've decided that morality is totally arbitrary for game purposes, it can lead you to some super-fucking-weirdo places.
It's only arbitrary if you play the post-modernist(*) game of claiming that disctinctions don't matter so you can claim equivalency.
(*) Yeah, I'm sure I'm using the term wrong but the people who don't care will understand what I'm talking about.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482262You've missed the point again. Psychopaths are able to reach adulthood in our society because they are not surrounded by other psychopaths, and not in a psychopathic society with none of the fruits of human cooperation and reciprocity. Orcs, if they are a self-contained, self-perpetuating society of psychopaths, do not have that host society to burrow into like a human psychopath does.
Psychopaths can engage in cooperation and reciprocity as a means to an end and there are pragmatic reasons why monsters would want to have offspring that live to adulthood, not the least of which is to make their gang larger. If that's not sufficiently plausible for you, then it's not that hard to imagine them having selective instincts that are in play only while their offspring are very young but fade as they mature.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482262It precludes their existence outside of that brief window of time, which makes intergenerational societies almost impossible. This is what we've been debating for a while now. That's why I said earlier that only short-lived societies that can externalise (or ignore) child-rearing and other tasks that the psychopaths are totally unsuited for could survive, and even then for only brief periods of time.
Psychopaths do manage to raise human babies when they have an interest in doing so. Sure, sometimes they kill them when they become inconvenient, but not always. Make their offspring more relilient, less needy, and more numerous (which is how the goblins worked in my D&D game -- remember that I mented the children attacked the party -- all of them) and a enough of them would survive until adulthood.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431The removal of a capacity for good could happen in one of two ways:
1) Removal of sentience
2) Removal of all of the neurological machinery that makes one capable of recognising and appreciating what is good, the value of others, etc.
(1) is not evil, just "noxious", to use Elliot's term.
(2) is a creature so intellectually limited that it cannot understand the value of loyalty, cooperation, reciprocity, etc. even through reasoning about it. It must lack the capacity to understand the point of view of others in any deep way, but perhaps it can mimic their behaviour sometimes when there is an immediate goal. It must lack the capacity to control and discipline its own social behaviour, and to ever improve or learn from the results of that social behaviour.
(2) IRL exists only as aberrations - the psychopath - and even then we're really looking at the most extreme examples thereof.
I agree with (1) being noxious rather than evil but (2) is not correct. There are plenty of examples of clever psychopaths who exhibit pragmatic loyalty, cooperation, reciprocity, and other social behavior when it benefits them precisely becuase they can think their way through the benefits of doing so. Many can also control their behavior to some degree, which is why you'll see serial killers going years between killings. That doesn't change the fact that they will engage in evil when the opportunity presents itself, or work toward creating that opportunity even when it doesn't exist. I think you are confusing little-g good (anything that might be socially constructive or beneficial) with big-g Good (being willing to make sacrifices to be benevolent toward strangers with no expectation of reward). Redemption is about more than having a minor good trait or two.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431A creature that cannot regulate its own behaviour and must succumb to impulse (and where those impulses are only evil, as part of our initial constraints) could possibly get pregnant. It could even give birth. But the moment it gets angry at the baby, why would it not kill it in an impulsive rage or abandon it? How would it, if it cannot discipline and regulate its own behaviour, be able to maintain the routine of child care that young sentient creatures need?
The regulation of one's own behavior is not an all-or-nothing proposition. That humans have trouble regulating their hunger to eat does not mean that they eat 7X24 or eat indiscriminately, though they might become so if they are sufficiently hungry. Even people with severe addictions do not necessarily feed their addiciton 7X24.
An angry evil mother might get angry enough to kill or abandon their child but if there is some value in keeping them around and keeping them alive, they might simply abuse them without killing them. As long as she has other outlets for her cruelty, it need not be directed at her own children, especially if they are useful to her. Think of it as the evil flip-side of women who have babies so they can have someone to love and care for. The monstrous mothers have babies so they can have someone smaller than them to abuse and young and inexperienced nought manipulate.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431Let's say that it is possible that orc children are much more self-sufficient from an early age than human children are, so that they can be abandoned by their parents (though this means they won't be hanging around the lair to be slaughtered) and raised to adulthood. Why would they then join with other orcs in a society, even a gang? They take no pleasure in socialisation (the capacity for friendship is a traditional good, and thus is impossible for them), and the risks of associating with a gang of equally monstrous individuals would be far greater than staying alone in the woods. You wouldn't have a society, you'd have a collection of intelligent, asocial predators avoiding one another. There would be no culture, no orcish language, no orcish technology (to build the swords etc.).
The risks of associating with a gang of monstrous individuals is not far greater than staying alone in the woods if that individual has a good chance of being hunted down and no chance to successfully prey on other humanoid settlements. There is power in numbers and while you are correct that psychopathic serial killers can and do turn on each other, there are no shortage of psychopathic gangs of young men around the globe who direct their violence and abuse toward others because they have power in numbers. There, you don't look at the lone serial killer as a model but at the lawless gangs of young men taken in or even kidnapped as children and initiated into a life of horrific violence against others.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431Also, it's extremely questionable whether these creatures, which we have defined as totally incapable of anything good, would even be brave enough to physically confront one another or anything else unless absolutely forced to. Their cruelty might overcome their cowardice in certain circumstances, but you're really looking at something much more like Gollum than like a typical orc.
A creature does not have to be incapable of anything little-g good in order to be big-E Evil. Being Evil is not defined by what they aren't but what they are. Just because a child molester sends half his income to Unicef doesn't make him any less of a menace to those around him. Just because a serial killer gives a few dollars to a homeless person doesn't mean he's not an evil killer.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482431IRL, a psychopath can get by acting like this because most people are not like this, and he is a parasite on the results and benefits of their goodness and socialising. In our example though, the orcs don't belong to a larger host society that they can take advantage of and steal the benefits of. They are left with the complex society and material culture that a bunch of solitary nomads have - none.
If you look at more lawless parts of the world, gangs of them can be parasites by preying on others and taking their stuff instead of hiding withing a non-psychopathic support network. They don't need to be a part of a society to benefit from it. They can take from it from the outside, instead. Another option is to look at the Spartans, who pretty much raised their sons to be ruthless and remorseless psychopathic killers and who survived by terrorizing and abusing a captive population and killing their own weak, as a model.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482262Sure. Fortunately, Jesus didn't say "Love everyone, except those irredeemably evil monsters".
Correct. And if I were running a Christian game, I would not have irredeemable monsters, since redemption is sort of what Jesus does.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482262You have missed the point of the analogy. As I said to Krueger, obeying power out of fear or respect for power is not an inherently good act, even if the power in question is itself good.
Correct, but I think you are making a false assumption if you believe that people only follow God out of fear or respect for power. One may follow God's lead under the assumption that God's perspective allows Him to see good more clearly than any mortal can.
For example, it's been said that the flapping of a butterfly's wings on one side of the globe can start a hurricane on the other. Taking that particular example literally for the sake of argument, it could be possible to stop a hurricane that could kill hundreds by squashing a butterfly to stop it from flapping it's wings. If a king told me to start stomping butterflies because it will save thousands of lives, I'd probably think they were mad and would only comply out of fear or respect for the king's power. If God told me to stomp some butterflies to save thousands of lives, I'd do it under the assumption that God can and does know that cause and effect relationship as a certainty in the way that no human power does or could.
Similarly, if a human king told me to murder an infant because he's going to grow up and murder millions, I'd think he was made and would balk at doing so (I'd like to think I'd refuse, but I won't rule out that I might do so if the consequences of not doing so were great enough). If God told me to murder an infant because he's going ot grow up and murder millions, I'd still be uneasy with doing so but could imagine doing so if I had confidence that God knew for certain that not killing the infant will result in millions of deaths and that a greater good is served by that one death.
Yes, I'm sure that creeps you out. And, no, I don't want to go off on a tangent about how one might know for certain that it's really God talking to them or that God isn't lying. This is getting into the "going back in time to kill Hitler" turf that you said didn't really interest you.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482324You don't appear to understand that people in the classical and medieval eras saw what they considered to be the real signs of the gods / God's work in the world. They weren't "waiting for a sign" like a modern believer.
Uh, there are plenty of modern believers who see real signs of God's work in the world and aren't "waiting for a sign", too.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482381You can have a world in which goodness comes from God, but God must be consistently, absolutely, and inflexibly good in order for that to be the case. He can't be an asshole to some orcs, and then kind to other people, and have that be anything more than favouritism and ultimately inconsistency.
So there is no possible reason by which God can distinguish one person for another or one group from another and not be showing favoritism or inconstency? That sounds an awful lot like saying that a police officer, who considers it good to protect people from having their things taken or being restrained against their will by others is inconsistent or showing favoritism if they capture a prisoner who will be fined or imprisoned.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482271I'm not an expert on evolution or ecology, but I don't think very many extinctions have occurred due to a parasite or predator wiping out its prey or host. Usually they live in local equilibria; if the host/prey species is wiped out, it's because of some external influence.
All that's really necessary is that the host or the parasite change faster than the other can compensate for of if a parasite gets introduced to a new host and one can't deal with the other. While we don't know for certain, there are scientists that speculate that diseases and parasites contributed to or caused several large extinctions, including the decline of dinosaurs seen before the K-T boundary and North American megafauna. Diseases and parasites are also implicated in the extinction or drastic reduction of amphibians and non-vertibrates, as well as plant.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482271No, but vampires aren't a species, they don't propagate by mommy & daddy vampires having baby vampires, and they're highly supernatural.
They have to willingly produce other vampires and not exterminate them. It's not that difficult to imagine naturalistic vampires (or werewolves or zombies).
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482271Is this a rhetorical question? I'd appreciate if you'd actually take a stab at it yourself.
The point I was trying to make is that parasites exist in a sort of arms race with their hosts. If the parasite is too good, it kills off the host and hurts itself. If the host is too good, it fights off the parasite. When the changes happen slowly, there is a certain balance in the arms race but when things change quickly or there is a major leap, one can overwhelm and defeat the other.
How this relates to monsters is that so long as the monsters are in some sort of balance with the population that they are parasitic upon, the situation can last for quite a while. How this relates to orcs is that so long as subsistance-level humans lack the resources to go on an extended world-spanning extermination campaign, the monsters will survive and so long as the monsters don't get the upper hand, the humans will survive. Give humans the resources and will to exterminate, however, and they could wind up going extinct.
In a world with active deities and wish spells, there is no reason why monstrous humanoids would have to develop naturally. They could have been magically or supernaturaly created as a weapon of destruction, for evil or even well-intentioned reasons. They were designed to be evil and reliably produce evil offspring.
If you want a more naturalistic explanation, I can think of a few off the top of my head:
Perhaps they evolved in an environment with other monsters and predators so brutal that their lives has no place for compassion or sentiment but simply brutal hostility and hatred against all others. As humans encroached, they slaughtered the other monsters leaving them with no enemy but the humans, and when the humans withdraw, they turn on each other.
Perhaps in an environment where humans and other humanioids could magically detect the evil in a person's soul for millenia, they exiled the evil violent people in their midst into the woods as soon as their evil manifest and those evil individuals banded together for survival against natural threats, even though they brutalized each other. Over time, they started to reproduce and then produce offspring that were always inevitably evil like their parents. And they know that the best way to shift the abuse from theselves is to go after other intelligent prey to brutalize, which they do when they can.
Maybe they started out as an isolated group of evil cultists that grew and transformed over time into a different species, constantly culling the good or even neutral children in their midst until there were no more good or neutral children born to them.
Maybe they were humans or humanoids that mixed genes with a more brutal species of monster to form a new species that combined human intelligence with monstrous brutality and resiliance, even from birth.
Adding environmental magic and the supernatural to those naturalistic causes only makes htem more plausible.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482271Oh dear, more psychopaths...I'm sorry, but I really don't see the relevance here.
The relevance is that when we are discussing how evil could or couldn't work and would or wouldn't do in a game setting, examples of how real evil works are relevant.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482271This is a better argument, one that occurred to me. I'm not entirely sure how convincing it is, but I don't have a good answer either.
It's not difficult to make the concept more robust. If you can't buy the idea that monster babies are born resiliant enough to endure the abuse from their own mothers and survive, it's not that difficult to modify the monsters' instincts so that they aren't as brutal to their own children as they are to adults and other species, something one sees in humans as well as animals (with some interesting variations, including mother animals that pick which of their young survive, so they care selectively for them). If you want to go a step further, you could have them respond to "cute" with a desire to possess (like gold, gems, and other pretty things) rather than brutalize and slaughter, such that the monsters might kidnap human young rather than slaughtering them, creating a dynamic in the game where rescuing human infants and toddlers from such monsters is a job with some demand. I don't find it that difficult to think of reasons why evil mothers might want to have and care for children, even in the absence of instinct. Where a normal mother might want children to feel loved, an evil mother might want to collect them as minions to control and do her bidding, getting protection from their own mother in exchange for extending her power.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482271I don't give a damn, to be honest. If your orcs or goblins are naturally awful to each other as a species or as society (not as individual deviants), then I can point to real species where stuff happens that's pretty hard to stomach. For example, infanticide and cannibalism among chimps, infanticide among lions and gorillas, female preying mantises biting the heads off males, etc. As long as we're talking about natural behavior, I don't see how it turns the entire species or society into a candidate for extermination. Even in the case of social behavior among humans:, yes to stopping suttee if you're in a position to do so, no to killing entire tribes because "they're a bunch of animals who are better off dead".
We don't exterminate animals for their moral failings becaues they are animals. We don't exterminate entire groups of humans for their moral failings because, at worst, they are cultural rather than inborn or the practices of a minority. You can stop something like suttee through cultural changes, and that's because humans are not monsters. I'm talking about monsters. Animals are not people. People are not monsters.
Also please note that medical organizations are trying to make a species extinct right now. There is an effort to erradicate guinnea worms from the planet. From a fictional perspective, there are plenty of genre movies about wiping out monstrous threats to humans, be they vampires or intelligent aliens.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482271I exclude zombies, vampires, and the like because, again, they aren't natural species. (Haven't watched 28 Days Later, do the zombies there breed and have kids?) It's not the evil of the Terminator, etc., that I question. I think I should have put it better by saying that once you start talking about species with a pretend scientific rationale for their psychology, ecology, and the like, it becomes harder to think of them as evil in an absolute sense since, first, nature just does what it does, and second, it becomes harder to rationalize genetically-inborn evil as being compatible with human characteristics such as sentience and sociality.
Sentience is perfectly compatable with evil and humans are a part of nature, too.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482555My point: it's highly distasteful to me.
And I think that's what the vast majority of the objection boils down to. It's an attempt to rationalize what is, at it's core, an innate moral feeling of distaste.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482555I'm repelled by fantasies where there are subhumans who are shown as "real humanoids" (tribes, cultures, parents, kids), yet the fantasy presents it as "good", with metaphysical certitude, to kill them even when they don't present an immediate threat--like if they're infants.
So it's better for a game to have subhumans that are ugly, stupid, brutish, and culturally mean and only kill them when they go on crime sprees? And you think that's not just as analogous to real world racism?
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482555I've said several times, I think, that I've got no problem with violence and killing in games; you can add racial prejudice and the portrayal of violent cultures. What I don't care for is "scientific" and "philosophical" justifications that encourage distasteful scenarios and which parallel real-world theories underpinning some of the worst violations of humanity in history. As I wrote before, to take these approaches basically turns the douchebag thesis in the OP into truth, when there are plenty of alternatives to provide the thrills I'm looking for (action & adventure) without setting up a bunch of unpleasant premises.
I think you escape the parallels better by making the "subhumans"
less like real people ("inhumans") rather than more like them. As I've said at some length, the reason why there are parallels between the depiction of the monsters in role-playing games and the way that real racists depict those they hate is that the goal if the real world racist is to depict those they hate as monsters and they are willing to lie to do it. And the reason why they depict those they hate as monsters is that it makes sense to hate real monsters. The obvious answer is that real people aren't monsters, at least not conveniently grouped by something as irrelevant as race.
But if you have problems with having elements of a setting that justify the killing of monsters that parallel real-world theories used to justify some of the worst violations of humanity in history, then I think you are missing something very important, which is that depicting a racial group as being less intelligent, ugly, unlikeable, animalistic, and brutishly strong has parallels every bit as strong, if not stronger, with real world violations of humanity. You'll notice that the parallels that the Stormfront guy mentioned earlier in the thread drew between real world racism and D&D wasn't that Orcs had an evil alignment but that they had a negative intelligence modifier. So you can find parallels with racism in the idea that Orcs are inherently Evil and irredeemably monstrous but not in the idea that they are basically people with a -2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma, +4 Strength, favor being Barbarians, are culturally Chaotic Evil, and leave behind half-Orc offspring historically attributed to rape? Seriously?
John, I would love to argue with you more, but I've reached the point of exhaustion. Partly this is because you're reverting to your habit of line-by-line quotation-and-response, partly because you keep raising details which I've already mooted (like, eradicating guinea worms or any disease).
I did get far enough in your latest reply to see that you're making some claims about parasitism which I believe are mistaken. If you'd like to continue on just that topic, we can move it to Other Media.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482496The degree of xenophobia extending to the biological level has antecedents in stories about the origins of the Huns, actually; the ancient historian Jordanes wrote that the Huns arose from Gothic witches having sex with "unclean spirits" (http://www.harbornet.com/folks/theedrich/Goths/Goths1.htm#XXIV).
Yes, they were trying to depict the Huns as inhuman monsters so they depicted them as having monstrous traits. So, if you aren't trying to depict orcs and goblins and other ugly, less intelligent, and brutish humanoids in your game as monsters for the players to tangle with, then what is their purpose in the setting? What's the purpose of giving those creatures any monstrous traits if they aren't actually monsters?
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482576John, I would love to argue with you more, but I've reached the point of exhaustion. Partly this is because you're reverting to your habit of line-by-line quotation-and-response, partly because you keep raising details which I've already mooted (like, eradicating guinea worms or any disease).
And you keep dismissing details that are relevant because you find them distasteful. Do whatever you have to do.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482576I did get far enough in your latest reply to see that you're making some claims about parasitism which I believe are mistaken. If you'd like to continue on just that topic, we can move it to Other Media.
I don't really have any interest in debating the details of parasites. You can find a summary of the main point I made about parasites and extinction here (http://www.indiana.edu/~curtweb/Research/Red_Queen%20hyp.html) if you are interested.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482555My point: it's highly distasteful to me. Suppose you've got a fantasy, any fantasy. I don't think fantasies are neutral, as if they just sprung up out of nowhere, and I have to accept them because they have their own internal logic. No: fantasies are a product of the interest of the people making them and enjoying them, or, at least, the interest I have in them comes from me. I'm repelled by fantasies where there are subhumans who are shown as "real humanoids" (tribes, cultures, parents, kids), yet the fantasy presents it as "good", with metaphysical certitude, to kill them even when they don't present an immediate threat--like if they're infants.
I agree with you here. I'm a bit on the extreme end of the spectrum, though. I would get pretty nervous if any of my players argued that it was a moral good to slaughter "evil" non-coms (unarmed women, children, infants) in a game esp if slaughtering them would fall under the aegis of heroic play and I suppose they would feel the same way if I was the one putting forward the notion.
Regards,
David R
Oh wow, once again, Morrow ignores every objection and counter-argument to his nonsense to ramble on, drags in a bunch of red herrings, and unable to form a substantive counter-argument, instead merely bitches line-by-line without ever actually refuting anything.
Also, you are welcome to your fantasies about how murdering children is A-OK because God and a fussy legal code you made up say so. It does not become more reprehensible because you are extremely verbose about it.
I think John is making plenty of sense personally. Other than the conscious decision of not engaging his arguments because one finds them too long or detailed or distasteful, I don't see why they deserve two-lines dismissals as if he was just spewing some verbal diarreah. He wasn't, though one doesn't have to agree with him automatically.
Quote from: Benoist;482628I think John is making plenty of sense personally. Other than the conscious decision of not engaging his arguments because one finds them too long or detailed or distasteful, I don't see why they deserve two-lines dismissals as if he was just spewing some verbal diarreah. He wasn't, though one doesn't have to agree with him automatically.
I agree Benny.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482595Oh wow, once again, Morrow ignores every objection and counter-argument to his nonsense to ramble on, drags in a bunch of red herrings, and unable to form a substantive counter-argument, instead merely bitches line-by-line without ever actually refuting anything.
And now we are back to moaning about my posting technique, from the guy whose been relying more and more heavily on straw men to make his point.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482595Also, you are welcome to your fantasies about how murdering children is A-OK because God and a fussy legal code you made up say so. It does not become more reprehensible because you are extremely verbose about it.
Over 160 children and over 700 civilians have been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan for reasons less compelling than the ones I've given, by two different American Presidents from two different parts of the political spectrum. You are free to find that reprehensible, too, but please don't fool yourself into thinking that a greater good or other utilitarian ends are never a convincing argument to justify the killing of children. What this all boils down to is the trolley problem.
Quote from: Benoist;482628I think John is making plenty of sense personally. Other than the conscious decision of not engaging his arguments because one finds them too long or detailed or distasteful, I don't see why they deserve two-lines dismissals as if he was just spewing some verbal diarreah. He wasn't, though one doesn't have to agree with him automatically.
You are trying to push this thread past 2000, aren't you. ;)
Quote from: John Morrow;482638You are trying to push this thread past 2000, aren't you. ;)
LOL No, not really. Now, I've been without internet for the past few days and I admit I was surprised to see the thread still going, but hey, it's interesting. And that relates directly to gaming too, because if there's one thing that affects world building and, when you come down to it, the way this or that GM runs a game, that's how one understands and conceptualizes Evil, in this or that or many ways.
Quote from: John Morrow;482637And now we are back to moaning about my posting technique, from the guy whose been relying more and more heavily on straw men to make his point.
:rolleyes:
Morrow, you don't have the right to complain about strawmen when your commentary is full of shit like
"The color of their skin was irrelevant. Do you really spend that much time obsessing over such details in your games?"
Beno and Sigmund are welcome to be fooled that you are arguing in good faith, but I'm not that dumb personally. I also know that you respond line by line specifically to get away with shit like that.
QuoteOver 160 children and over 700 civilians have been killed by drone strikes in Pakistan for reasons less compelling than the ones I've given, by two different American Presidents from two different parts of the political spectrum. You are free to find that reprehensible, too, but please don't fool yourself into thinking that a greater good or other utilitarian ends are never a convincing argument to justify the killing of children. What this all boils down to is the trolley problem.
Ah, more irrelevant bullshit. Who said that utilitarian considerations could never be persuasive? Not me. On the other hand, who said that Americans murdering kids to get terrorists was a "convincing" utilitarian argument? Not me.
Quote from: Benoist;482639LOL No, not really. Now, I've been without internet for the past few days and I admit I was surprised to see the thread still going, but hey, it's interesting. And that relates directly to gaming too, because if there's one thing that affects world building and, when you come down to it, the way this or that GM runs a game, that's how one understands and conceptualizes Evil, in this or that or many ways.
This is definitely something that comes up in dicsussions all the time in my group.
Quote from: John Morrow;482637What this all boils down to is the trolley problem.
That was kind of interesting. Note, I found this (from the Wikipedia article o the problem) intriguing, although not entirely surprising:
QuoteThe experiment found that those who had stronger utilitarian leaning had stronger tendency to psychopathy, Machiavellianism or tended to view life as meaningless. The economist magazine who reported this finding stated that "utilitarians, ... may add to the sum of human happiness, but they are not very happy people themselves."
Also, as has been pointed out in relation to the ticking time bomb scenario, these sorts of thought experiments are unreal because they posit a level of knowledge about the future that doesn't exist; as such they fail as tools for developing ethics in the real world.
The trivial solution to any unconstrained utilitarian deliberation is "Kill everyone except for one person, and resolve the problem how they desire it to be resolved".
Quote from: Benoist;482628I think John is making plenty of sense personally. Other than the conscious decision of not engaging his arguments because one finds them too long or detailed or distasteful, I don't see why they deserve two-lines dismissals as if he was just spewing some verbal diarreah. He wasn't, though one doesn't have to agree with him automatically.
Wait, isn't this exactly what kicked off this whole thread? Reflexive dismissal because someone was spewing verbal diarrhea? Or are you just supporting "Team Right" now?
Quote from: StormBringer;482646Wait, isn't this exactly what kicked off this whole thread? Reflexive dismissal because someone was spewing verbal diarrhea? Or are you just supporting "Team Right" now?
Neither one of those. Try again.
I just think honesty demands we slaughter innocent kids rather than irredeemably evil ones in our games. Who knows we may even come out as heroes.
Regards,
David R
It's more that I think the subject of evil may be approached in different games and campaigns in a great variety of ways, and that it is, moreover, perfectly fine to be more comfortable with some approach rather than another, but I do have something against anyone claiming that a particular approach, like treating orcs are irredeemably evil creatures, makes me or anyone else, or the game itself for that matter, some kind of "-ist" for it.
This is complete bullshit, and those thinking along those lines really need to chill, take a step back, and stop projecting their own insecurities on other people's games, campaigns, intellectual potential or personalities. That's about it.
Quote from: Benoist;482665This is complete bullshit, and those thinking along those lines really need to chill, take a step back, and stop projecting their own insecurities on other people's games, campaigns, intellectual potential or personalities. That's about it.
Physician, heal thyself.
Quote from: StormBringer;482668Physician, heal thyself.
Indeed. Now go read all our previous posts and tell me that's not what I've been saying all along, mister smartpants.
Quote from: Benoist;482670Indeed. Now go read all our previous posts and tell me that's not what I've been saying all along, mister smartpants.
Does that include the original G+ thread, where you were screaming at him until he blocked you?
EDIT: Oh, and besides the title, there is post #8.
Quote from: Benoist;482665This is complete bullshit, and those thinking along those lines really need to chill, take a step back, and stop projecting their own insecurities on other people's games, campaigns, intellectual potential or personalities. That's about it.
Quote from: Benoist;477709What gets to me is the narrow-minded approach to interpret what this or that game element might mean in the grand scheme of things. If you see an entry with "Orcs, Chaotic Evil" then it's automatically got to do with racism, with "portraying others different than you as things to kill". It's therefore totally a pass for colonial genocidal stuff, see. And it's bad. It's dirty. So here's what I'd do to fix the game.
As long as you aren't projecting anything onto his game or campaign.
Quote from: Benoist;482665This is complete bullshit, and those thinking along those lines really need to chill, take a step back, and stop projecting their own insecurities on other people's games, campaigns, intellectual potential or personalities. That's about it.
Quote from: Benoist;477709Nevermind that this might not be an allegory at all. That this particular game element, the Orc, Chaotic Evil, might be interpreted in any number of ways in the game's context.
In ohter words, one could even interpret things exactly how Adam Dray has?
Quote from: Benoist;482665This is complete bullshit, and those thinking along those lines really need to chill, take a step back, and stop projecting their own insecurities on other people's games, campaigns, intellectual potential or personalities. That's about it.
Quote from: Benoist;477709And nevermind that not all D&D games are about just going there killing chaotic evil orcs for no reason whatsoever. That's convenient to portray the game that way to then say "here's what D&D does so horribly wrong, and here's how to fix it!"
This is so narrow minded. So petty and ... just fucking stupid.
As long as you aren't projecting anything onto his intellectual potential or personality.
So, you were for it before you were against it?
Quote from: StormBringer;482673Does that include the original G+ thread, where you were screaming at him until he blocked you?
Indeed it does. This was the crux of my point all along.
Quote from: Benoist;482675Indeed it does. This was the crux of my point all along.
That a foaming at the mouth response based on an internet stranger talking about his game isn't wise?
That was your point 1600 posts ago?
Quote from: StormBringer;482681That a foaming at the mouth response based on an internet stranger talking about his game isn't wise?
That was your point 1600 posts ago?
What? That's not what I am saying. READ for fuck's sakes.
Quote from: Benoist;482683What? That's not what I am saying. READ for fuck's sakes.
Ok, so...
"This is complete bullshit, and those thinking along those lines really need to chill, take a step back, and stop projecting their own insecurities on other people's games, campaigns, intellectual potential or personalities. That's about it."
...applies to everyone but you?
When I mention that you should have probably followed that advice in the beginning with regards to your screaming rant at the guy, you respond with:
"Indeed it does. This was the crux of my point all along."
But that wasn't really your point? Your point then seems to be that people like Adam Dray shouldn't do that, but it's perfectly ok if it's you or someone you agree with?
Quote from: StormBringer;482690Ok, so...
"This is complete bullshit, and those thinking along those lines really need to chill, take a step back, and stop projecting their own insecurities on other people's games, campaigns, intellectual potential or personalities. That's about it."
...applies to everyone but you?
When I mention that you should have probably followed that advice in the beginning with regards to your screaming rant at the guy, you respond with:
"Indeed it does. This was the crux of my point all along."
But that wasn't really your point? Your point then seems to be that people like Adam Dray shouldn't do that, but it's perfectly ok if it's you or someone you agree with?
I think Benoist has been pretty clear the whole time. He doesn't care how Dray uses orcs in his campaign, he just felt the guy was passing judgment on people who have evil orcs. That was what he was taking issue with. For the most part this has been a debate over whether that was actually what Dray meant to say (and I think reasonable people can disagree on that). I think lots of us were getting agitated and emotional (so I am not sure it is fair to go back and hold up samples of Benoist's or other peoples' posts that were made in the heat of a debate as encapsulating their position).
I think for anyone who gamed in the 80s, this is a hot button issue because Dray seemed to be using a lot of the same reasoning you saw from the religious-right anti-D&D crowd (he was just coming from the other side of the political spectrum, and wasn't roundly condemning all gaming...only certain kinds of gaming).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482697I think Benoist has been pretty clear the whole time. He doesn't care how Dray uses orcs in his campaign, he just felt the guy was passing judgment on people who have evil orcs. That was what he was taking issue with. For the most part this has been a debate over whether that was actually what Dray meant to say (and I think reasonable people can disagree on that). I think lots of us were getting agitated and emotional (so I am not sure it is fair to go back and hold up samples of Benoist's or other peoples' posts that were made in the heat of a debate as encapsulating their position).
I think for anyone who gamed in the 80s, this is a hot button issue because Dray seemed to be using a lot of the same reasoning you saw from the religious-right anti-D&D crowd (he was just coming from the other side of the political spectrum, and wasn't roundly condemning all gaming...only certain kinds of gaming).
That's pretty much exactly it, with Dray blaming the game itself for his white guilt.
Quote from: StormBringer;482690Ok, so...
"This is complete bullshit, and those thinking along those lines really need to chill, take a step back, and stop projecting their own insecurities on other people's games, campaigns, intellectual potential or personalities. That's about it."
...applies to everyone but you?
When I mention that you should have probably followed that advice in the beginning with regards to your screaming rant at the guy, you respond with:
"Indeed it does. This was the crux of my point all along."
But that wasn't really your point? Your point then seems to be that people like Adam Dray shouldn't do that, but it's perfectly ok if it's you or someone you agree with?
Dude, walk away from the internet and chill out. Please.
Benoist has made his position abundantly clear and I think the reason why you are being so butthurt over this is because of his mentioning of "team left". Because if you cannot see that Adam Dray in the OP is fucked in the head with his racism assertion then you really need to just go have a beer and relax.
Quote from: jeff37923;482713Dude, walk away from the internet and chill out. Please.
Benoist has made his position abundantly clear and I think the reason why you are being so butthurt over this is because of his mentioning of "team left". Because if you cannot see that Adam Dray in the OP is fucked in the head with his racism assertion then you really need to just go have a beer and relax.
Or, you know, he could talk about the "dark side to our hobby" specifically old-school D&D on his own fucking site dedicated to old school games on which the topic hasn't come up once if he feels so strongly about it. :D
But since, you're right, it's all about poor widdle Adam Dway who wears the same team jersey getting outed for the jackass he is, I doubt that will happen.
I mean, seriously. Un-fucking-believable.
Quote from: jeff37923;482713Dude, walk away from the internet and chill out. Please.
Benoist has made his position abundantly clear and I think the reason why you are being so butthurt over this is because of his mentioning of "team left". Because if you cannot see that Adam Dray in the OP is fucked in the head with his racism assertion then you really need to just go have a beer and relax.
*shrug* The funny thing is, if Benoist had done what you suggest, this trainwreck would never had existed in the first place. Like J said he wanted an echo chamber and he did get some of that. The conversation then moved to the differing attitudes of "evil" in games which mostly had nothing to do with defending the ideas in the OP.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;482747*shrug* The funny thing is, if Benoist had done what you suggest, this trainwreck would never had existed in the first place. Like J said he wanted an echo chamber and he did get some of that. The conversation then moved to the differing attitudes of "evil" in games which mostly had nothing to do with defending the ideas in the OP.
Regards,
David R
Actually I think there were multiple conversations going on at the same time, which was part of the problem. There was clearly a conversation about the nature of evil. But a handful of posters did seem to be saying something similar to the OP.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;482749But a handful of posters did seem to be saying something similar to the OP.
Sure, that's why I said "mostly".
Regards,
David R
Quote from: jeff37923;482713Dude, walk away from the internet and chill out. Please.
Benoist has made his position abundantly clear and I think the reason why you are being so butthurt over this is because of his mentioning of "team left". Because if you cannot see that Adam Dray in the OP is fucked in the head with his racism assertion then you really need to just go have a beer and relax.
Really? 1600 posts of people screaming in agony over a complete stranger making a patently ridiculous assertion, but I am the one who is 'butthurt'?
My irony meter has completely shattered, and now I need to get a new one.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482718But since, you're right, it's all about poor widdle Adam Dway who wears the same team jersey getting outed for the jackass he is, I doubt that will happen.
No, no, it's about poor widdle CRKwueger and his poor widdle feel bads over some random dude. Please, what can we possibly do to get you over this purest of outrages? No human should have to suffer the degradation you have suffered; I am sure we can extradite someone to The Hague and convict them of crimes against humanity.
Let's go another couple of rounds about how a wild generalization means someone is talking about you, CRKreuger, directly and specifically. Surely that could assuage the complete emotional trauma you have suffered here.
Quote from: Benoist;482731I mean, seriously. Un-fucking-believable.
Riiiiiiiight...
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/Trollface.png)
Yawn...in all the entire thread, there is one person who never talked about RPGs, or evil or anything else other then your pathetic "ist" crap, and that's you, little Stormy. :rotfl:
Care to find your cock and finally tell us what the "Dark Side" of the hobby is that it doesn't share with books, movies, plays or any other form of human communication? Oh, of course not.
I obviously disagreed with Jibba, but at least he actually said what he meant, unlike you, you pathetic little fuck.
Quote from: StormBringer;482753Really? 1600 posts of people screaming in agony over a complete stranger making a patently ridiculous assertion, but I am the one who is 'butthurt'?
I have not been screaming in agony. I simply said he was a cocksmock, and made mocking posts promoting the joy of gratuitous violence against imaginary monsters.
Aside from that there's been some masturbatory chatter on "what is evil, anyway?" and the like nonsense, all of which gave Morrow another excuse to talk about sociopaths with what is becoming creepy frequency.
Yes, Stormy, you are butthurt.
You forgot that game that came out of the thread too... Pfaffenheim or some such. How did that one go in any case, Kyle ?
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;482766I have not been screaming in agony. I simply said he was a cocksmock, and made mocking posts promoting the joy of gratuitous violence against imaginary monsters.
Then, it really doesn't apply to you.
Kind of like the original post doesn't apply to you, me, or pretty much anyone else. I would have to say... oh, I dunno... anyone who thinks the original post applies to them is completely bringing that to the argument themselves? That maybe being accused of whatever -ism is fashionable this week isn't really in there to begin with?
I heard that used as an argument somewhere recently.
Quote from: CRKrueger;482763Yawn...in all the entire thread, there is one person who never talked about RPGs, or evil or anything else other then your pathetic "ist" crap, and that's you, little Stormy. :rotfl:
Care to find your cock and finally tell us what the "Dark Side" of the hobby is that it doesn't share with books, movies, plays or any other form of human communication? Oh, of course not.
I obviously disagreed with Jibba, but at least he actually said what he meant, unlike you, you pathetic little fuck.
When he said what he meant,
it was in reference to what I had already stated.
And you still have to mischaracterize my argument, because you know if you actually address it,
you are fucked. I never said anything about a
unique characteristic of RPGs, in fact, I went to some length to state it was the
same characteristic as any expressive media. Keep adding straw, though, I am sure someone will be impressed with your ability to knock that one down.
The more you ask me to re-iterate what has been clearly delineated, the more people laugh at you. You are scrambling to regain some measure of dignity at this point, but you are shedding it faster than you could imagine.
So, please, keep asking about that. It is further demonstration that you had no intention of pursuing this discussion in good faith to begin with, and just wanted to scream about a random internet stranger.
And I will delete my account here if you can find where I supported any kind of "-ist" argument in relation to gaming or gamers.
In fairness, Stormy, it's not much of a bet if you're not losing anything of value.
Quote from: J Arcane;482784In fairness, Stormy, it's not much of a bet if you're not losing anything of value.
Fair enough.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482643That was kind of interesting. Note, I found this (from the Wikipedia article o the problem) intriguing, although not entirely surprising:
QuoteThe experiment found that those who had stronger utilitarian leaning had stronger tendency to psychopathy, Machiavellianism or tended to view life as meaningless. The economist magazine who reported this finding stated that "utilitarians, ... may add to the sum of human happiness, but they are not very happy people themselves."
Also, as has been pointed out in relation to the ticking time bomb scenario, these sorts of thought experiments are unreal because they posit a level of knowledge about the future that doesn't exist; as such they fail as tools for developing ethics in the real world.
I wasn't mentioning it as a tool to develop real world ethics. I mentioned it as a tool to understand real world ethics and to explain why one person can reject a moral choice regardless of the utility while another person will embrace the utility. Much of it boils down to whether you think of monsters as people or as monsters rather than people. And those who think of monsters as people can be as troubled about dehumanizing them as they'd be about the dehumanizing of groups of real people, which can lead to the feelings reflected in the OP. ADDED: It is also related to the point that people seem far more troubled by the thought of heroes slaying evil baby monsters than non-humanoid evil baby dragons.
If you are interested in the trolley problem and what causes it, you should read this article (http://discovermagazine.com/2004/apr/whose-life-would-you-save), which I linked to earlier in the thread.
Quote from: StormBringer;482780Then, it really doesn't apply to you.
Kind of like the original post doesn't apply to you, me, or pretty much anyone else. I would have to say... oh, I dunno... anyone who thinks the original post applies to them is completely bringing that to the argument themselves? That maybe being accused of whatever -ism is fashionable this week isn't really in there to begin with?
I heard that used as an argument somewhere recently.
The problem is, you are doing exactly what you are accusing all us who have participated in this thread of doing. Do you not see the irony in that? What makes your "screaming in agony" (really?) better than ours? The fact that we were "screaming in agony" over the OP while you are "screaming in agony" over our "screaming in agony"? We're allowed to have opinions about the OP. We're allowed to express the opinions we have. You're trying to tell us we're wrong for doing so. That actually is ok with you? How would you react if you were discussing a topic I thought was stupid and I came into your discussion threadcrapping and insulting you? You're starting to channel Seanchai again. That's exactly what he would do. Bust out with a snide, threadcrapping post that would spark a 20 page flame-war. Please don't be Seanchai. We're all allowed to have opinions on things like the OP and discuss it (and even fight over it) here. Taking us to task for it only reflects on you.
Quote from: StormBringer;482780Then, it really doesn't apply to you.
Kind of like the original post doesn't apply to you, me, or pretty much anyone else. I would have to say... oh, I dunno... anyone who thinks the original post applies to them is completely bringing that to the argument themselves? That maybe being accused of whatever -ism is fashionable this week isn't really in there to begin with?
I heard that used as an argument somewhere recently.
I used it myself. However, your use here is pretty wrong. I'll point out why then let it go, I have no desire to trade flames with you again.
Dray said that D&D contains racist trappings, and encourages genocide. He is saying the game itself, the RAW, contains these ideas. Not that only his game does, or it's how it seems to him. He further goes on to say that anyone who plays the way he's describing is either racist themselves or somehow clueless. He is saying his article applies to everyone. That's what I and others have expressed displeasure with. It's presumptuous and arrogant. I have seen no argument that convinces me otherwise. Honestly, the idea that D&D orcs even could represent minorities had never crossed my mind until this guy brought it up. So, my
opinion is that the racism he is seeing is his own. I don't know him, so I could, of course, be wrong. However, I see absolutely nothing in the source material he's referring to that jives with his view (and in fact am a touch skeptical he's even all that familiar with it), so I'm left with no other option than to believe it's from him. This belief is based on the evidence of what I see Dray saying in his article, combined with over 30 years of playing fantasy RPGs, mostly D&D at that, as well as my knowledge and reading of his source material. That is not something I'm bringing to his article. Dray has made an assertion. I and others here are challenging that assertion. That's it. If he were the least bit interested in defending this assertion here he'd be perfectly welcome to. I'm quite sure he's aware of it. I understand that you don't really agree with me, and I can dig that, but this specific argument you've attempted to twist around on us does not apply.
Quote from: StormBringer;482780Then, it really doesn't apply to you.
No. Nor does it apply to anyone else in this thread. I mocked, others gave serious consideration and made long posts before turning to mockery. They wrote a whole book, I just turned the book over and wrote the last page first.
QuoteKind of like the original post doesn't apply to you, me, or pretty much anyone else.
Yes, that has indeed been the essence of the substantive comments to this thread. In other words, that's the fucking point, you drongo.
Whereas
your point is rather unclear. You're reminding me of that Monty Python sketch "I'd like to have an argument, please."
If you aren't crusading for social justice on the Internet, YOU ARE THE RACISTS.
B.T. why don't you go fuck yourself ?
Maybe you should eat my dick and get over yourself. Call me a racist fuck again, please.
Ok, you are a stupid racist fuck.
I happened to have some pages still open from dragonsfoot where I was looking for people's experiences playing B2; reading idly, and clicking the links, I came across this post (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=754007#p754007). Doesn't answer that question but it does contain what is (to me) a convincing collection of evidence that the idea of "irredeemably evil races" is neither in the text of D&D nor Gygax's intention. And Gygax also made the distinction between "supernaturally evil" creatures like demons, on the one hand, and humanoids on the other.
Quote from: David R;482823Ok, you are a stupid racist fuck.
BT is intentionally trolling, mate. I don't know that he actually believes anything at all. Spare him no mind, it will hurt more than any attention, whether positive or negative, ever could.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;482809Yes, that has indeed been the essence of the substantive comments to this thread. In other words, that's the fucking point, you drongo.
No, dipshit, that hasn't been the point. With a few exceptions, the essence of the thread has been a nuclear pants-shitting meltdown because some random dude named everyone on the RPGsite as specifically and directly responsible for all the racism in the world.
Quote from: StormBringer;482782in fact, I went to some length to state it was the same characteristic as any expressive media.
Oh is that what you did, huh? Weren't going on and on about there being some reason why Stormfront chose D&D and RPGs? Well, glad to see at least you've finally come to your senses and agree with me that the "Dark Side to our hobby" is nothing more then people bringing their own baggage to the table.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482843BT is intentionally trolling, mate. I don't know that he actually believes anything at all. Spare him no mind, it will hurt more than any attention, whether positive or negative, ever could.
You're right, brother. No more hostility from me.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;482861You're right, brother. No more hostility from me.
We'll let Machete take over, then.
(http://www.dreadcentral.com/img/news/jun09/machete.jpg)
Quote from: StormBringer;482847No, dipshit, that hasn't been the point. With a few exceptions, the essence of the thread has been a nuclear pants-shitting meltdown because some random dude named everyone on the RPGsite as specifically and directly responsible for all the racism in the world.
Storm, what the hell, brother. Ok, let's not consider Sigmund's reasoned response to you or that CK and Bren managed to skillfully corner you into a spot regarding your "dark" comments (something which you would have either graciously explained or reconsidered under normal curcimstances).
This is theRPGsite where people lose their shit about random internet postings all the fucking time. Your comments here is like walking into a brothel and complaining of all the fucking that's going on.
Look, I ain't mockin' you, I respect you an' all, but just don't make this Dray situation any worse.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;482866This is theRPGsite where people lose their shit about random internet postings all the fucking time. Your comments here is like walking into a brothel and complaining of all the fucking that's going on.
Yeah, that is the truth and I should have thought about it before.
Quote from: David R;482866Storm, what the hell, brother. Ok, let's not consider Sigmund's reasoned response to you or that CK and Bren managed to skillfully corner you into a spot regarding your "dark" comments (something which you would have either graciously explained or reconsidered under normal curcimstances).
This is theRPGsite where people lose their shit about random internet postings all the fucking time. Your comments here is like walking into a brothel and complaining of all the fucking that's going on.
Look, I ain't mockin' you, I respect you an' all, but just don't make this Dray situation any worse.
Regards,
David R
From the very beginning, I have held that there is RaHoWa and not RaHoMo(nopoly) because the design of RPGs makes this sort of thing much, much easier. And despite everyone flipping the fuck out like the OP is the first person to ever, ever make the association he did,
it has been done before. And I am sure it has been done before
a lot, but not talked about in public. Because when it is talked about in public (Maid, Poison'd, et al), the participants learn pretty quickly not to talk about it in public anymore.
But it exists. The direction of the thread when I joined in was this bizarre veneer of confusion about where this guy could have possibly thought up such a mind-bendingly crazy association. It's because he is far, far from the first person to do so. Yes, Virginia, there are people out there who play RPGs just to lynch the Negroes and rape all the women in the country-side, just like there used to be furries who didn't draw giant zebras flooding a valley of tiny horse-women by masturbating. You know what I bet the mundane furries used to say? "Nah, it's just those certain people. We just pretend they don't exist".
So if everyone wants to carry on for 1600 posts about how
stupid the comparison is, go for it. Just don't carry on for 1600 posts about how
abhorrent or aberrant the message (or messenger) is, then pretend this is the first time this sort of thing has ever happened in RPGs, and finish with patting oneself on the back for rooting out this horribly twisted little man and properly crucifying him.
For a private post no one would have seen if not for one interlocutor that wasn't satisfied screaming at the guy in private.
Again, don't take this personally brother, you know I am not talking about you specifically. Before this thread, I would have guessed most other people around here would know when a generalization applied to them or not, but these days, I have reason to question even that.
But specifically:
QuoteThis is theRPGsite where people lose their shit about random internet postings all the fucking time. Your comments here is like walking into a brothel and complaining of all the fucking that's going on.
I see it more as enjoying my lapdance in the corner, when some other guy gets up from his two midgets and a hooker dressed like Jackie Chan, kicks open one of the doors, and starts screaming "Look at what that sick fucker is doing!!"
You are free to disagree.
Storm Bringer, I good deal of the battles on this website would never get started if people could tell when something is being generalized.
"The sky is blue."
"That's bullshit. The sky is red on the horizon and white where there are clouds. Plus your small fucking mind doesn't realize that if you could see a wider spectrum of colors it wouldn't be blue anymore. We aren't even scraping the surface on the changing colors based on time of day, cloud cover..."
"No, the sky is blue. That was a bunch of bullshit college talk. Who are you to know about the color of the sky? Did you do a dissertation for your doctorate on sky color? If you aren't a sky color doctor, your opinion doesn't mean shit to me so go fuck yourself."
And so on.
Quote from: Cranewings;482947Storm Bringer, I good deal of the battles on this website would never get started if people could tell when something is being generalized.
"The sky is blue."
"That's bullshit. The sky is red on the horizon and white where there are clouds. Plus your small fucking mind doesn't realize that if you could see a wider spectrum of colors it wouldn't be blue anymore. We aren't even scraping the surface on the changing colors based on time of day, cloud cover..."
"No, the sky is blue. That was a bunch of bullshit college talk. Who are you to know about the color of the sky? Did you do a dissertation for your doctorate on sky color? If you aren't a sky color doctor, your opinion doesn't mean shit to me so go fuck yourself."
And so on.
Excellent points, really. I am going to put this on my computer desktop as a reminder for the next time.
:hatsoff:
Yeah, that's right. Except that's NOT what the OP is saying. He doesn't just say that RPGs might be easier to bend to one's "-ist" projections, which in itself is pretty debatable compared to say, music or writing or drawing or about a zillion different hobbies, he's saying that D&D by design smacks of "-ist" itself, and that if you are playing using this paradigm, you are yourself less mature than He who realizes it, or you are yourself a "-ist".
Which is what we are reacting to from the start.
Learn to fucking read, God dammit !
Quote from: Benoist;482957Yeah, that's right. Except that's NOT what the OP is saying. He doesn't just say that RPGs might be easier to bend to one's "-ist" projections, which in itself is pretty debatable compared to say, music or writing or drawing or about a zillion different hobbies, he's saying that D&D by design smacks of "-ist" itself, and that if you are playing using this paradigm, you are yourself less mature than He who realizes it, or you are yourself a "-ist".
Which is what we are reacting to from the start.
Learn to fucking read, God dammit !
Grow the fuck up. Not everything said on the internet is about you.
I think Stormy can read quite well, and he's said in this thread that Dray was wrong.
But because his post wasn't solely confined to condemning him as the Antichrist, and actually possesses an additional, easily confused viewpoint, you're attacking him vigorously for shit he never said because you're too pig-fucking ignorant to read the words on your screen for what they actually say instead of what you think they resemble.
That, is fucking stupid. Which is par for the course, I suppose, but it's still fucking stupid.
And you J are still butthurt because you can't let go of our disagreements. Who needs to grow the fuck up now, smartass?
See, you can't even separate two completely different posts from one another.
I didn't say anything about "growing the fuck up".
I did say something about your reading ability, which you've again demonstrated fantastically.
Call me next time you're posting about something you aren't bitching about like you're a teenager certain he's smarter than anybody else. Til then, I really don't have anything more to say to you.
Quote from: StormBringer;482944But it exists. The direction of the thread when I joined in was this bizarre veneer of confusion about where this guy could have possibly thought up such a mind-bendingly crazy association. It's because he is far, far from the first person to do so. Yes, Virginia, there are people out there who play RPGs just to lynch the Negroes and rape all the women in the country-side, just like there used to be furries who didn't draw giant zebras flooding a valley of tiny horse-women by masturbating. You know what I bet the mundane furries used to say? "Nah, it's just those certain people. We just pretend they don't exist".
For a private post no one would have seen if not for one interlocutor that wasn't satisfied screaming at the guy in private.
Again, don't take this personally brother, you know I am not talking about you specifically. Before this thread, I would have guessed most other people around here would know when a generalization applied to them or not, but these days, I have reason to question even that.
Fair enough. I don't want to drag this out any longer and I just know some folks are gonna' take this post of yours and extend the pissing match, further. I get what you're saying. Just to add a little something to this point. Every single racist/homophobic/misogynist gamer that I have met, was through fairly mainstream channels like these forums. It's not like they are lurking in some dark corner somewhere....but I reckon' this is a conversation for another thread. Your analogy seems more accurate(?) than mine, this can only mean one thing, you suck.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482824I happened to have some pages still open from dragonsfoot where I was looking for people's experiences playing B2; reading idly, and clicking the links, I came across this post (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=754007#p754007). Doesn't answer that question but it does contain what is (to me) a convincing collection of evidence that the idea of "irredeemably evil races" is neither in the text of D&D nor Gygax's intention. And Gygax also made the distinction between "supernaturally evil" creatures like demons, on the one hand, and humanoids on the other.
I haven't read through that entire thread, since it seems to be covering pretty much the same ground that we've covered here, but I skimmed the page that opened and, elsewhere on that page, one person mention that Gary Gygax used to give an example of a converting orcs and then killing them before they could fall victim to their evil nature and be damned by it. I'm guessing that those who don't approve of slaying baby sentient monsters no matter how inherently and irredeemably Evil they are aren't going to approve of Paladins converting and then killing people in a state of grace before they can sin again, either. While it allows for a sort of redemption, if true it also shows that he entertained the idea that evil sentient creatures having an evil nature that they could not overcome and which would eventually get the best of them.
ADDED: I read a page or two more and it seems to boil down to the same issue -- are they monsters or people? And I suppose I should add that in AD&D, Raise Dead and Resurrection were limited to dwarf, gnome, half-elf, halfling, and human but not elf or half-orc, with the common explanation I've heard being that those were the only humanoids with true souls and the rest had spirits that could be reincarnated, instead. So there seem to have been a lot of assumptions built into early D&D that can lead to different interpretations.
Quote from: J Arcane;482964I think Stormy can read quite well, and he's said in this thread that Dray was wrong.
But because his post wasn't solely confined to condemning him as the Antichrist, and actually possesses an additional, easily confused viewpoint, you're attacking him vigorously for shit he never said because you're too pig-fucking ignorant to read the words on your screen for what they actually say instead of what you think they resemble.
That, is fucking stupid. Which is par for the course, I suppose, but it's still fucking stupid.
:hatsoff:
Quote from: David R;482980Fair enough. I don't want to drag this out any longer and I just know some folks are gonna' take this post of yours and extend the pissing match, further. I get what you're saying. Just to add a little something to this point. Every single racist/homophobic/misogynist gamer that I have met, was through fairly mainstream channels like these forums. It's not like they are lurking in some dark corner somewhere....but I reckon' this is a conversation for another thread. Your analogy seems more accurate(?) than mine, this can only mean one thing, you suck.
Regards,
David R
Honestly, I have not run into such people, but I will take your word that they are not as hidden as I had suspected. Discouraging, really.
Other than that, I will accept your assessment that I do indeed suck. I am a terrible, terrible person, and I will have to take that up with the Almighty when I shuffle off this mortal coil. For the duration, however, I will enjoy having friends that challenge me when I need it. :)
(EDIT: I have no idea what I was thinking about with "when it's appropriate.")
Quote from: StormBringer;482944From the very beginning, I have held that there is RaHoWa and not RaHoMo(nopoly) because the design of RPGs makes this sort of thing much, much easier.
(http://www.boardgamebeast.com/images/ghettopoly-board-game2.jpg)
QuoteAnd despite everyone flipping the fuck out like the OP is the first person to ever, ever make the association he did, it has been done before. And I am sure it has been done before a lot, but not talked about in public. Because when it is talked about in public (Maid, Poison'd, et al), the participants learn pretty quickly not to talk about it in public anymore. But it exists.
I think the very cruxt of your argument ..."that it exists" ...is what's caused the majority of arguments with your posts on this thread. Nobody has once denied it exists. Ever. It's such a blatant declaration of the obvious that it borders on a non sequitor.
QuoteThe direction of the thread when I joined in was this bizarre veneer of confusion about where this guy could have possibly thought up such a mind-bendingly crazy association. It's because he is far, far from the first person to do so.
Yes, but all of those people are highly unusual freaks with disturbed brains. Their assertions don't become saner just because there are more than one of them. Multiple people coming to this conclusion does not make the conclusion itself rational, nor does it imply the conclusion is based on logical implications. You have to already see the world through the distorted lens of a racist to make the racist associations, and so yeah, it comes off as "crazy" to rational, sane roleplayers.
QuoteYes, Virginia, there are people out there who play RPGs just to lynch the Negroes and rape all the women in the country-side, just like there used to be furries who didn't draw giant zebras flooding a valley of tiny horse-women by masturbating. You know what I bet the mundane furries used to say? "Nah, it's just those certain people. We just pretend they don't exist".
It's not about pretending they don't exist, it's about routing them out and driving them from society whenever they are encountered, be it online or IRL. To my mind the best :"cure" for people holding onto archaic harmful antisocial ideals is ostracization. To make it clear they are not "normal" and not welcome among normal people.
QuoteSo if everyone wants to carry on for 1600 posts about how stupid the comparison is, go for it. Just don't carry on for 1600 posts about how abhorrent or aberrant the message (or messenger) is, then pretend this is the first time this sort of thing has ever happened in RPGs, and finish with patting oneself on the back for rooting out this horribly twisted little man and properly crucifying him. For a private post no one would have seen if not for one interlocutor that wasn't satisfied screaming at the guy in private.
Why should anyone stop doing that? Isn't that a roundabout summation of the entire point of internet message boards?
Why Must Orcs Die?
Saturday, October 1, 2011 Update by Dennis "Corin Tucker's Stalker" Farrell
I've been looking forward to Orcs Must Die for quite some time. Your character takes on hordes of Orcs by utilizing weapons, magic, and traps that can be upgraded and combined. The art design is fantastic. The violence is goofy and fast paced. There is more variety and depth than Gears Of War 3's Horde mode.
In other words, it's an unofficial sequel to the SNES version of Home Alone. Sounds fun - until you consider the game's message.
Why must Orcs die? What could they have possibly done to justify this level of Orcicide?
The Orc agenda is to live long, happy lives that end peacefully rather than violently. This subversive act is a direct assault on the anti-Orc weapon industry. If the insidious Orcs got their way, thousands of hard working humans would be out of jobs.
Having green skin is a capital offense in Georgia, which you would already know if you saw the finale of the Hulk television series. Why should this impact Orcs that live outside the state? As it turns out, a century old zoning error expanded Georgia's jurisdiction across all fictional realms.
Having to second guess yourself every time you spell "Orc" or "Ork" is really aggravating.
You know how Brink hasn't had a much-needed patch in quite some time, and the company has absolutely failed to communicate with its audience? The guys responsible for that are Orcs.
Space Marine was great, but it only had like two hundred thousand Orks to kill. Now their innocent cousins must satiate the residual bloodlust.
An Orc wrote the recent WWE storyline that centered around Kevin Nash texting himself.
You know the economic problems that have plagued most of the world as of late? It can all be traced back to a single Orc in Buffalo, New York taking advantage of an all-you-can-eat buffet every day for the past ten years.
Orcs are green. You know who else was green? That's right, Hitler's pal Mussolini.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/video-game-article/orcs-must-die.php
Quote from: TristramEvans;483013(http://www.boardgamebeast.com/images/ghettopoly-board-game2.jpg)
Yes, one example from eight years ago and my entire worldview is shattered. Congratulations.
QuoteI think the very cruxt of your argument ..."that it exists" ...is what's caused the majority of arguments with your posts on this thread. Nobody has once denied it exists. Ever. It's such a blatant declaration of the obvious that it borders on a non sequitor.
Yes, and yet we have people who deny such a thing, and constantly wonder as to what I could have possibly been referring to, demanding explanation after explanation and a re-explaining of the whole thing from scratch every third post or so.
QuoteYes, but all of those people are highly unusual freaks with disturbed brains. Their assertions don't become saner just because there are more than one of them. Multiple people coming to this conclusion does not make the conclusion itself rational, nor does it imply the conclusion is based on logical implications.
Hey, fuck you science! TristramEvans says your basic methodology is bullshit. Also, everyone that joined in to assert the OP was an asshole? You are insane and your conclusion isn't rational.
QuoteYou have to already see the world through the distorted lens of a racist to make the racist associations, and so yeah, it comes off as "crazy" to rational, sane roleplayers.
Hey, Comp Lit! You are a bunch of fucking racists! Or, well, anyone who ever points out racism, I guess.
Fucking racists! (It doesn't matter whether they are right or wrong, does it? I sure hope not!) I mean, we certainly can't say RaHoWa has racist associations, that would make us racists.
QuoteIt's not about pretending they don't exist, it's about routing them out and driving them from society whenever they are encountered, be it online or IRL. To my mind the best :"cure" for people holding onto archaic harmful antisocial ideals is ostracization. To make it clear they are not "normal" and not welcome among normal people.
Hmmm... A bit of a conundrum. How do we 'rout' these people out if we can't talk about it? "You have to already see the world through the distorted lens of a racist to make the racist associations..." so I guess the only people that can make those associations are other racists, and I don't see how they are going to be helpful in routing themselves out.
QuoteWhy should anyone stop doing that? Isn't that a roundabout summation of the entire point of internet message boards?
Yes, of course. Everyone in the world is almost 100% consumed with cynicism, so the only thing there is to do is snarl and slash at everyone who doesn't share the exact same views as ourselves.
The entire point of message boards is strictly so people can be raging assholes all the time. I don't see any problems with that assessment.
Quote from: TristramEvans;483013(http://www.boardgamebeast.com/images/ghettopoly-board-game2.jpg)
I thought that I'd heard of this before. The stink over it was quite impressive.
Quote from: wikipedia article on GhettopolyThe game was criticised as offensively racist by a local chapter of the NAACP and black clergy among others.
The game was pulled from the market by Urban Outfitters, its retailer. Chang still marketed the game without their support. According to Chang's now-defunct website, further such games were planned, including Hoodopoly, Hiphopopoly, and Thugopoly. In October 2003, Hasbro sued David Chang over the game's similarities to Monopoly. In January 2006, Chang was found in contempt of court for failure to produce documents.
The court thus entered a "default judgment" for Hasbro's continued use of "Monopoly" as a trademark, and dismissed Chang's counterclaims, which were to revoke trademark status on "Monopoly". In May, 2006, the court estimated that Chang generated US$879,000 in profits from the sale of Ghettopoly, and that damages of $400,000 were reasonable as reflected in the court documents.
Quote from: Cranewings;483027Orcs are green. You know who else was green? That's right, Hitler's pal Mussolini.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/video-game-article/orcs-must-die.php
That is hilarious. The game looks pretty fun, really. Elements of tower defence games, but you don't have to just sit and watch the ones that make it past your towers waltz into the end-zone(s).
EDIT: Great, because of us, the meme is catching on all over the internet now.
WTF D&D: Battletech Loves the 80s (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/dungeons-and-dragons/battletech-art-1980s.php?page=4)
Nice.
I think Dan is going to blow a blood vessel if we keep discussing politics in the RPG forum, so as to the topic of outing the racists in the hobby...
See here. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=483084#post483084)
Going from yesterday's game session, I can report that actual gamers DO NOT GIVE A SHIT about this nonsense. No moral qualms were expressed about, for example, sneaking while invisible into an orcish barracks room and letting off a fireball wiping out 24 of them in one go.
"Um," I said, "what about the slave girl they captured being raped in the corner?"
"Maybe," said another player, "the body of her orcish rapist on top of her could shield her?"
"It'll definitely give her a bonus to her saving throw, but... still, half-damage of a 6d6 fireball will be a lot if she's low level."
"I'm Neutral. Some Good must die so we can kill the Evil."
"Okay, roll damage I guess."
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;483108Going from yesterday's game session, I can report that actual gamers DO NOT GIVE A SHIT about this nonsense. No moral qualms were expressed about, for example, sneaking while invisible into an orcish barracks room and letting off a fireball wiping out 24 of them in one go.
"Um," I said, "what about the slave girl they captured being raped in the corner?"
"Maybe," said another player, "the body of her orcish rapist on top of her could shield her?"
"It'll definitely give her a bonus to her saving throw, but... still, half-damage of a 6d6 fireball will be a lot if she's low level."
"I'm Neutral. Some Good must die so we can kill the Evil."
"Okay, roll damage I guess."
Did you have a Paladin or anyone aligned Good in the group?
Ha, the party in my game found the mushroom-headed goblin village and didn't fight them at all, due to the fact that they apparently have the same religion as the druid.
On the other hand, when they found the goblin burrow that worships dragons, they killed all of them.
Quote from: Cranewings;483114Ha, the party in my game found the mushroom-headed goblin village and didn't fight them at all, due to the fact that they apparently have the same religion as the druid.
On the other hand, when they found the goblin burrow that worships dragons, they killed all of them.
Role-playing games help to foster religious persecution!! :D
Quote from: CRKrueger;483113Did you have a Paladin or anyone aligned Good in the group?
Yes, but the magic-user was on his own, it was up to him alone.
Later, the good characters were upset. But they were also busy finishing off the other orcs, and the ogre mage, etc.
Quote from: StormBringer;483034Yes, one example from eight years ago and my entire worldview is shattered. Congratulations.
And D&D came out in 1977. So? Here's the thing, you specifically claimed that RPGs are more likely to be adapted for use to promote racist ideas,
QuoteFrom the very beginning, I have held that there is RaHoWa and not RaHoMo(nopoly) because the design of RPGs makes this sort of thing much, much easier.
but while "Ghetto-opoly" is merely number 1 of 5 in a "top 5 racist boardgames" online google result, where are the equivalents in the RPG publishing industry? If your hypothesis that RPGs lend themselves better to this sort of racist propaganda, surely it would be as easy to find more blatant published examples than one can in boardgames.
QuoteYes, and yet we have people who deny such a thing, and constantly wonder as to what I could have possibly been referring to, demanding explanation after explanation and a re-explaining of the whole thing from scratch every third post or so.
Except that that
never happened. No one denied that there are people out there who are racist and lay racist-themed RPGs. Not a single person on this thread. That was only ever the argument you were having with yourself while everyone else was discussing the implication that RPGs, by their nature, specifically encouraged a racist worldview. That was what Dray implied. That is what people are arguing about.
Quote from: TristramEvansYes, but all of those people are highly unusual freaks with disturbed brains. Their assertions don't become saner just because there are more than one of them. Multiple people coming to this conclusion does not make the conclusion itself rational, nor does it imply the conclusion is based on logical implications.
QuoteHey, fuck you science! TristramEvans says your basic methodology is bullshit. Also, everyone that joined in to assert the OP was an asshole? You are insane and your conclusion isn't rational.
LOL. "Science"? Wow.
Okay, you obviously are lacking a clear understanding of what scientific methodology means, perhaps because you've never encountered the term "science" outside of movies and Fox news reports.
Quote from: wikipediaThe Scientific Method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.
Quote from: Oxford English DictionaryThe scientific method is: "a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."
Notice that there are many steps to the gathering of scientific data, and a lot of tests must be performed before that data is acceptable to offer as "evidence" for a claim.
Notice the key words:
measurement,
experiment,
testing, and that all important annoying little inconvenience
evidence.
Notice these are all things that your argument is lacking.
You'd be better off using "magic!" as an excuse for your conclusions, because they have jack all to do with science.
QuoteHey, Comp Lit! You are a bunch of fucking racists! Or, well, anyone who ever points out racism, I guess. Fucking racists! (It doesn't matter whether they are right or wrong, does it? I sure hope not!)
Hey school subject completely unrelated to RPGs? What's that? Stormbringer is displaying complete ignorance of your methods as well? Eh? He also is engaging in hyperbolic rhetoric to avoid addressing the critique?
QuoteI mean, we certainly can't say RaHoWa has racist associations, that would make us racists.
No, but it would make you an idiot. A Donut doesn't have "sugar associations", it's composed of fucking sugar. RaHoWa doesn't hgave "racist associations", it's a racist game. Moreover, it is an unpublished online amateur fan RPG. It's existence is known to the general public simply because every few months some newbie on the internet stumbles across it and goes "OMFG, have you guys seen this shit?" From all available evidence, I think it's less likely RaHoWa was ever actually played by an RPG group than it was simply an elaborate (and ultimately incredibly successful) troll.
Okay, and now in your message you just babble nonsensically for a bit, frothing at the mouth and your butthurt apparently affecting your ability to communicate in English. So I'll just skip over it.
QuoteThe entire point of message boards is strictly so people can be raging assholes all the time. I don't see any problems with that assessment.
Well, it makes sense that's what you think.
Quote from: jeff37923;483115Role-playing games help to foster religious persecution!! :D
damn. Good point!
Quote from: TristramEvans;483137moronic bullshit
Well, it makes sense that's what you think.
Wow, you are really not smart, are you?
Quote from: StormBringer;483150Wow, you are really not smart, are you?
LOL.
Pretty weak.
Quote from: TristramEvans;483151LOL.
Pretty weak.
Two words: Peer Review.
Maybe you should get some experience with the world before deciding the dictionary holds all the answers to life's little arguments.
Going by the responses you've had to your posts in this thread, Stormy, I don't think you really want to carve in the benchmark of peer review.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;483173Going by the responses you've had to your posts in this thread, Stormy, I don't think you really want to carve in the benchmark of peer review.
"Total responses" does not equal "peer review". Most have been disingenuous to the core, and you are fully aware of that.
However, my immediate interest in the topic is that according to OxfordEvans up there "Multiple people coming to this conclusion does not make the conclusion itself rational, nor does it imply the conclusion is based on logical implications." is somehow the opposite of how knowledge and obtained and verified especially in scientific fields, but in other fields as well.
Old ideas are discarded and new ones take their place. Sometimes, it's uncomfortable. Tough shit.
This Slate article might make interesting reading in light of the discussion of evil in this thread (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_spectator/2011/09/does_evil_exist_neuroscientists_say_no_.html).
Quote from: StormBringer;483179"Total responses" does not equal "peer review". Most have been disingenuous to the core, and you are fully aware of that.
That's not what a peer review is. You seem to be just randomly throwing out terms in an attempt to sound academic.
QuoteHowever, my immediate interest in the topic is that according to OxfordEvans up there "Multiple people coming to this conclusion does not make the conclusion itself rational, nor does it imply the conclusion is based on logical implications." is somehow the opposite of how knowledge and obtained and verified especially in scientific fields, but in other fields as well.
Again, you seem to not understand that in scientific fields, a person doesn't simply look at a problem, assume the answer they think is most likely , and then treat that hypothesis like a fact, which is exactly what you've done on this thread. Posted a series of assumptions with no evidence to back them up, and thrown a hissy fit when people disagreed, claiming they are disagreeing with "Science!", when of course you've completely failed to subject your hypothesis to the scientific method.
So no, a bunch of people in the Middle Ages, looking at the ground and thinking it's flat and thus coming to the conclusion that the world is flat is not science. It's just a bunch of people who didn't bother to employ any regulated method of analysis jumping to a "rational" conclusion. It is ultimately nothing more than ignorance.
No one does peer reviews of unsubstantiated hypothesis, it would be pointless. Your comments aren't worthy of a peer review until you actually take the effort to prove or disprove your assumptions using a standardized method of testing. At the
very least, you would need to provide some form of statistical analysis to support your assumptions.
Right now, all you have posted are ill-informed opinions, that casual observation suggests are wrong.
Quote from: TristramEvans;483245So no, a bunch of people in the Middle Ages, looking at the ground and thinking it's flat and thus coming to the conclusion that the world is flat is not science. It's just a bunch of people who didn't bother to employ any regulated method of analysis jumping to a "rational" conclusion. It is ultimately nothing more than ignorance.
Speaking of ignorance, almost no one in the middle ages thought the world was flat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth). It was accepted fact that the Earth was spherical since about 600BCE when the Greeks figured it out. Some few scholars of mostly the religious bent maintained a flat earth theory, but it was gone daddy gone among the educated by the 14th century.
It's almost as though you didn't bother to employ any regulated method of analysis before jumping to your "rational" conclusion.
Quote from: KenHR;483243This Slate article might make interesting reading in light of the discussion of evil in this thread (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_spectator/2011/09/does_evil_exist_neuroscientists_say_no_.html).
I dunno'. I prefer Morrow's article and the question(s) it raises as far as evil in gaming is concerned. My only problem is that it would be more useful in an "evil in gaming" context if (for example) that situation with the baby, played out more like - "here's a baby. He's going to grow up to be one of the killer's of James Bulger. Does killing him to save the other passengers make the killer a hero or his actions heroic ?
Regards,
David R
Quote from: StormBringer;483271Speaking of ignorance, almost no one in the middle ages thought the world was flat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth). It was accepted fact that the Earth was spherical since about 600BCE when the Greeks figured it out. Some few scholars of mostly the religious bent maintained a flat earth theory, but it was gone daddy gone among the educated by the 14th century.
It's almost as though you didn't bother to employ any regulated method of analysis before jumping to your "rational" conclusion.
It's almost as though I made an
analogy. Weird, based on your arguments in this thread, you weren't able to pick up on that.
I'll try to keep my grammar simpler for you from now on so you can keep up.
Quote from: TristramEvans;483333It's almost as though I made an analogy. Weird, based on your arguments in this thread, you weren't able to pick up on that.
I'll try to keep my grammar simpler for you from now on so you can keep up.
You can try to keep your analogies
correct, instead.
This thread is about 10% content and 90% snark.
Which slightly more than usual.
(he says, while adding to the snark side of the equation)
Quote from: StormBringer;483340You can try to keep your analogies correct, instead.
Analogies don't need to be true to be correct. That analogy works fine, though it is fun to see you grasp desperately at anything you possibly can to sidestep the issue.
Quote from: TristramEvans;483453Analogies don't need to be true to be correct. That analogy works fine, though it is fun to see you grasp desperately at anything you possibly can to sidestep the issue.
Amazing. So, you agree with the OP's analogy as correct then? Since you claim it doesn't have to be
true to be
correct.
Quote from: StormBringer;483476Amazing. So, you agree with the OP's analogy as correct then? Since you claim it doesn't have to be true to be correct.
Oh right, I forgot that your grasp of language is minimal. "Does not need to be" =/= "Is always"
Quote from: TristramEvans;483490Oh right, I forgot that your grasp of language is minimal. "Does not need to be" =/= "Is always"
So who gets to decide when a bad analogy is actually correct? Should we start vetting these things with you personally, or do you have qualified representatives? Or is it just you? You get to be 'correct' no matter how wildly wrong your analogies are?
Quote from: StormBringer;483514So who gets to decide when a bad analogy is actually correct? Should we start vetting these things with you personally, or do you have qualified representatives? Or is it just you? You get to be 'correct' no matter how wildly wrong your analogies are?
Whether an analogy is bad or good depends on the applicability of the concept to the subject of the conversation. Analogies aren't arguments or points, they are merely a method of clarification, and thus are ultimately superfluous to the point.
Hey, why don't you cunts stop arguing and contribute something to my puzzles thread.
Quote from: Cranewings;483544Hey, why don't you cunts stop arguing and contribute something to my puzzles thread.
I'm working on it!
Quote from: TristramEvans;483540Whether an analogy is bad or good depends on the applicability of the concept to the subject of the conversation. Analogies aren't arguments or points, they are merely a method of clarification, and thus are ultimately superfluous to the point.
Ok, so the fact that people didn't really think the earth was flat in the middle ages applies in what way to the topic? That your assertion about multiple people coming to the same conclusion doesn't prove anything is also ignorant and wrong?
Quote from: StormBringer;483552Ok, so the fact that people didn't really think the earth was flat in the middle ages applies in what way to the topic? That your assertion about multiple people coming to the same conclusion doesn't prove anything is also ignorant and wrong?
It doesn't
prove anything, an analogy is simply an illustration of a concept. But since the illustration obviously befuddled you, try this one:
Many people believe that there is a God. They have evaluated life, read the Bible, and concluded that a supernatural divine creator does exist and Jesus is his saviour. A bunch of people also, with the same facts available to them, came to the conclusion that there is no God, and humanity evolved rather than being made in a garden from a lump of magic clay and a rib bone. Both are large groups of people, and both have come to the same conclusions based on their observations and evaluations, but they both can't be right. Thus, the mere fact that a large number of people have come to the same conclusion doesn't prove the conclusion.
Evidence is still required. There isn't a way around that.
Quote from: TristramEvans;483648It doesn't prove anything, an analogy is simply an illustration of a concept. But since the illustration obviously befuddled you, try this one:
Many people believe that there is a God.
Now you are using what is essentially unprovable to show that people can't prove it?
QuoteA bunch of people also, with the same facts available to them, came to the conclusion that there is no God, and humanity evolved rather than being made in a garden from a lump of magic clay and a rib bone.
And your follow up is the painstakingly long process that led to the theory of evolution. A theory that is... well, you know... a conclusion multiple people have arrived at.
Oh, and those two groups of people were not even remotely working with the same set of 'facts'.
QuoteEvidence is still required. There isn't a way around that.
Evidence like... most people in the Middle Ages knew the Earth was spherical?
The story so far: Multiple people reaching the same conclusion from the same data are not rational; analogies can be completely wrong and still be correct; and the authours of the Bible had access to the same information as Charles Darwin.
Did I miss anything important?
Quote from: StormBringer;483651Now you are using what is essentially unprovable to show that people can't prove it?
The example was apt exactly because it was a conclusion reached with no proof, like yours.
QuoteAnd your follow up is the painstakingly long process that led to the theory of evolution. A theory that is... well, you know... a conclusion multiple people have arrived at. Oh, and those two groups of people were not even remotely working with the same set of 'facts'.
The story so far: Multiple people reaching the same conclusion from the same data are not rational; analogies can be completely wrong and still be correct; and the authours of the Bible had access to the same information as Charles Darwin.
The example didn't reference the people who wrote the Bible or the scientists who went to the effort of testing and gathering evidence for the Theory of evolution. It was about modern day living Christians and Atheists, who both have access to the same information via schooling or independent study.
QuoteEvidence like... most people in the Middle Ages knew the Earth was spherical?
That's not evidence, that's a statement. Perhaps unsurprisingly, you appear to be unclear on the definition of "evidence". I realize you disdain the dictionary for some reason (all those definitions that disagree with you?), so I'll refrain from quoting that, but it might be something you should consider looking up on your own time.
QuoteDid I miss anything important?
Only the part where you make a valid point or argument for your claims.
Quote from: Cranewings;483544Hey, why don't you cunts stop arguing and contribute something to my puzzles thread.
The common sense! It burns!
Quote from: Cranewings;483544Hey, why don't you cunts stop arguing and contribute something to my puzzles thread.
I contributed to your puzzles thread, can I go back to arguing now? :)
Quote from: StormBringer;483811I contributed to your puzzles thread, can I go back to arguing now? :)
If you boat is floated thusly, and you've been working the other threads...
Knock yourself out...
So, Storm and Tristram, what do you guys think of Orcs as a metaphor for unchecked corporate malfeasance ?
Regards,
David R
Quote from: David R;483824So, Storm and Tristram, what do you guys think of Orcs as a metaphor for unchecked corporate malfeasance ?
Regards,
David R
I can work something up if you need a couple of idea hooks, but as they stand, not a very good metaphor.
For one thing, you would need a population that is largely distracted and thereby complicit in the conquests of the orcs. For example, while the orcs are clear cutting thousands of acres of forest around a large city,
à la Tolkien, the local populace would have to be utterly enamoured of the constant pronouncements by the competing town criers and the various theatres and stages around town and their decadent spiralling one-upmanship of lasciviousness, vulgarity and carnage.
Additionally, they would need some allies on the local council to make rulings in their favour, such as a law that the forest must be cleared away (for safety!) to a radius of 2 miles, plus an additional mile for each year since the first proclamation, so probably in the neighbourhood of 15mi by the time the characters stumble across the place. Borrowing from Pseudoephidrine's signature, they would then sell this wood to the city for exorbitant prices.
Just off the top of my head, you understand...
But the wood is essential to the economy! Wood harvesting employs over 1% of the human population, and their consumer spending has important trickle down effects on the rest of the human economy.
Plus, I myself plan to one day be a wood baron. Any regulations imposed on those orcs could possibly affect my imaginary wood-wealth accumulation!
Ex-cell-ent
Regards,
David R
Actually, I was recently asked by a political protest group here in Uruguay to run a D&D game for them, as a team-building exercise. The group is dedicating to protesting against a massive strip-mining operation that's planned in the north of uruguay. My plan is to do a somewhat shortened variant of Keep on the Borderlands, where there is a lair of goblins who have taken to digging a dungeon upstream from the local town and are polluting/poisoning the water of the river that feeds the town.
RPGPundit
Depending on one's perspective, that's either a clever inversion or an obscene distortion.
Quote from: RPGPundit;484061Actually, I was recently asked by a political protest group here in Uruguay to run a D&D game for them, as a team-building exercise. The group is dedicating to protesting against a massive strip-mining operation that's planned in the north of uruguay. My plan is to do a somewhat shortened variant of Keep on the Borderlands, where there is a lair of goblins who have taken to digging a dungeon upstream from the local town and are polluting/poisoning the water of the river that feeds the town.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;484066Depending on one's perspective, that's either a clever inversion or an obscene distortion.
Or just a damn good reason to play a game and drink beer.
Quote from: RPGPundit;484061Actually, I was recently asked by a political protest group here in Uruguay to run a D&D game for them, as a team-building exercise. The group is dedicating to protesting against a massive strip-mining operation that's planned in the north of uruguay. My plan is to do a somewhat shortened variant of Keep on the Borderlands, where there is a lair of goblins who have taken to digging a dungeon upstream from the local town and are polluting/poisoning the water of the river that feeds the town.
RPGPundit
I am curious; are the people gamers, non-gamers or a mix of both?
Quote from: jeff37923;484069Or just a damn good reason to play a game and drink beer.
That too.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;484070I am curious; are the people gamers, non-gamers or a mix of both?
A mix, but mostly non-gamers.
RPGPundit
Quote from: StormBringer;483811I contributed to your puzzles thread, can I go back to arguing now? :)
I suppose so. Sorry, this is one of those threads I forget about for days at a time (;
I'm going to try to add another puzzle or two tonight.
Quote from: Cranewings;484177I suppose so. Sorry, this is one of those threads I forget about for days at a time (;
I'm going to try to add another puzzle or two tonight.
Excellent! I am going to see if I can clear up some time and get another one up myself. Don't be surprised if it is some kind of weird Calculus/Biology hybrid, I have tests coming up next week. :)
Quote from: StormBringer;484196Excellent! I am going to see if I can clear up some time and get another one up myself. Don't be surprised if it is some kind of weird Calculus/Biology hybrid, I have tests coming up next week. :)
Oh awesome!
The ship's targeting computer goes down. Firing parameters have been given over to the ship's crew to enter manually!
The enemy vessel is approaching at 10,000 light years, 14:35:62 by 67:51:13. The enemy's shield is spherical, with a radius of 5000'. Shots striking the shield head on are reflected back and do no damage. Only disruptor blasts fired tangent to the shield have the ability to reduce its overall energy level. Find a vector tangent to the enemy's shields.
Quote from: Cranewings;484209Oh awesome!
The ship's targeting computer goes down. Firing parameters have been given over to the ship's crew to enter manually!
The enemy vessel is approaching at 10,000 light years, 14:35:62 by 67:51:13. The enemy's shield is spherical, with a radius of 5000'. Shots striking the shield head on are reflected back and do no damage. Only disruptor blasts fired tangent to the shield have the ability to reduce its overall energy level. Find a vector tangent to the enemy's shields.
And it has to be input to the computer in exact radians. :)
Quote from: Cranewings;484209The ship's targeting computer goes down. Firing parameters have been given over to the ship's crew to enter manually!
The enemy vessel is approaching at 10,000 light years, 14:35:62 by 67:51:13. The enemy's shield is spherical, with a radius of 5000'. Shots striking the shield head on are reflected back and do no damage. Only disruptor blasts fired tangent to the shield have the ability to reduce its overall energy level. Find a vector tangent to the enemy's shields.
.....
:confused:
Fuck it. Ramming speed!
Yeah. That would be so far away from my definition of "fun" as to be astronomical.
RPGPundit
Goofed up, can delete.
You are trying too hard to get those flames back up. :P
One day, this thread will reach 2,000 posts.
So, do you guys like gladiator movies?
Quote from: misterguignol;517827So, do you guys like gladiator movies?
Have you ever seen a grown man naked?
Quote from: misterguignol;517827So, do you guys like gladiator movies?
Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?
Seriously, i stab this thread with my +2 sword of stabbing.
Quote from: misterguignol;517827So, do you guys like gladiator movies?
Not since Spartacus: Blood on the Sand.
Quote from: misterguignol;517827So, do you guys like gladiator movies?
I'm a big fan of the Spartacus series, softcore never had such high production values.
Quote from: misterguignol;517827So, do you guys like gladiator movies?
I prefer when little orc children are devoured by lions.
Quote from: CRKrueger;517833I'm a big fan of the Spartacus series, softcore never had such high production values.
I managed 10 minutes before my brain started to weep.
Quote from: Benoist;517834Especially when little orc children are devoured by lions.
So orcs are also a metaphor for early Christianity now?
Dammit why had nobody told me earlier!
(http://www.freewebs.com/yuehime/jake1.gif)
Quote from: CRKrueger;517833I'm a big fan of the Spartacus series, softcore never had such high production values.
Orcs revolt against the Human Empire. Are the PCs going to stop them?
Do they keep their good alignment if they do so?
Quote from: Benoist;517837Orcs revolt against the Human Empire. Are the PCs going to stop them?
Do they keep their good alignment if they do so?
What if the orcs are tools of a good cleric, destroying a heretical yet neutral church?
WHAT THEN!
Maybe we can avoid having orcs represent genocidal colonial enforcement by having them instead represent gender oppression?
All orcs are male, all the PC races are amazons who reproduce asexually (unless an orc catches them).
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;518020Maybe we can avoid having orcs represent genocidal colonial enforcement by having them instead represent gender oppression?
All orcs are male, all the PC races are amazons who reproduce asexually (unless an orc catches them).
please, bring on and invite all the half orc copnversations back in...leave the damn door wide frigging open...see if we care...
Quote from: LordVreeg;517967What if the orcs are tools of a good cleric, destroying a heretical yet neutral church?
WHAT THEN!
I think that fighting the neutrality is stretching from good alignment generally. Fighting with actual weapons that is.
What makes a man turn neutral?
Loneliness.
I was actually fishing for a Zapp Brannigan quote but I guess that works.
My pop-culture-fu is weak.
I was just born with a heart full of neutrality. :D
Zapp's full of good quotes
Quote from: Zapp Brannigan, or was it Dick Cheney, maybe GingrichWe don't know anything about their race, history, or culture, but one thing's for sure. They stand for everything we stand against.
I tried to read this fucking thread (in one night, starting from 0). I got through 146 pages before I quit.
And it seems to have been necroed by... accident?
Fuck me for being too stupid to quit earlier.
(A sentiment which could, perhaps, have been applied to several participants in the original fracas, back in September of last year.)
Everything is political; not necroing this thread would be a statement in support of evil racist genocidal imperialist warmongering Bushitler KKK.
Quote from: Daddy Warpig;518180I tried to read this fucking thread (in one night, starting from 0). I got through 146 pages before I quit.
And it seems to have been necroed by... accident?
Fuck me for being too stupid to quit earlier.
(A sentiment which could, perhaps, have been applied to several participants in the original fracas, back in September of last year.)
You know you can set how many posts are displayed on a page. For example, I only have 18 pages listed for this thread.
Quote from: StormBringer;518193You know you can set how many posts are displayed on a page. For example, I only have 18 pages listed for this thread.
That is actually a helpful hint for the forum in general. Thank you.
But no matter how many pages it displays as, it's still 1501 posts I read, of 1741 (now 1742).
Again, fuck me for a stupid bastard. (Not Bloody Stupid, that's a different poster entirely.)
EDIT: And now I've finished it all. :banghead:
I find it hard to express how disappointed in myself I am.
Quote from: Peregrin;518106What makes a man turn neutral?
What can change the nature of a man...
Neutrality is found in the heart of every man. To rid society of neutrality one must begin with oneself, and who can cut out his own heart?
This thread, if nothing else, taught me that Psuedophedrine was banned and Jimbob 'ragequit' in protest, despite being the loudest proponent of the universal formum Rule: Don't piss off the Mods.
Which, in any balanced view of reality, is exactly what Psuedo did.
Though, of course, reading his posts in this very thread, from months back, sort of showed the inevitability of the banhammer.
Of course, I quit reading it around the five hundreds, so who knows what awesome I am missing, as the last dozen posts I read since then... not so much.
And So, I contribute Fluff, because Bog Knows I need to boost that post count...
And he was right, don't piss off the mods can be applied to every forum.
Quote from: Daddy Warpig;518213That is actually a helpful hint for the forum in general. Thank you.
But no matter how many pages it displays as, it's still 1501 posts I read, of 1741 (now 1742).
Again, fuck me for a stupid bastard. (Not a Bloody Bastard, that's a different poster entirely.)
EDIT: And now I've finished it all. :banghead:
I find it hard to express how disappointed in myself I am.
:) when I came back to the forums after a long hiatus in September, I saw this thread, read a post or two (no more than that) and then left again until November.
Of course he was right, which makes his hysterical overreaction (also: Jimbo is also the big proponent of saying that highly visible exits from the internet usually aren't... which means he just violated TWO of his own 'internet rules' in one action...) so much fun to point out.
But this is only relevant as this was the thread I saw a post of his where there was a link back to his dramatic stage right... which happened to explain where psuedo isn't (who, as it happened, had posted some more bitchy than usual posts in this thread before I knew he was banned...)...
So I'm totally just doing my part to fluff the post count in this thread (for less than altruistic reasons of fluffing my own pitiful numbers...)... because its a bit late to go back to January??? and post in the 'woe is us, Psuedo is gone, the Pundit is evil' hairshirtting which prompted these observations in the first place.
Double Irony: I had just gotten done telling a work-mate that this forum I read only really has a couple of rules: Don't go pro-pedophilia and don't try to reveal the secret ID of the Pundit.
Well...
Die!!!!
I decree that this thread is now about...
Dolphins who rape!
Quote from: Aos;518381I decree that this thread is now about...
Dolphins who rape!
Blow-hole violation is the last taboo.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518382Blow-hole violation is the last taboo.
I wonder if that sounds like fucking suction cups.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518380Die!!!!
My informal count shows this thread has at least another 248 posts to go before it can truly die.
If you mean me, well... we can see who is tastier at your leisure, sirrah!
I think OHT was writing German.
Quote from: two_fishes;518394I think OHT was writing German.
Handklapp!
Quote from: Aos;518381I decree that this thread is now about...
Dolphins who rape!
The RISUS Companion actually stats dolphins up as rapists. People don't give that game enough credit for its realism.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518382Blow-hole violation is the last taboo.
I though that was fffffforehead ffffucking!
Quote from: Aos;518416I though that was fffffforehead ffffucking!
That's it! We've come full-circle. Literally.
Quote from: Daddy Warpig;518213That is actually a helpful hint for the forum in general. Thank you.
You are certainly welcome.
QuoteBut no matter how many pages it displays as, it's still 1501 posts I read, of 1741 (now 1742).
Again, fuck me for a stupid bastard. (Not a Bloody Bastard, that's a different poster entirely.)
EDIT: And now I've finished it all. :banghead:
I find it hard to express how disappointed in myself I am.
That I can't help you with. And I participated in it all. :)
Quote from: Aos;518371:) when I came back to the forums after a long hiatus in September, I saw this thread, read a post or two (no more than that) and then left again until November.
Trollman's retardation in this thread was more then adorable.
It felt like he was that kid, who, even at the school for mentally challenged, is laughed and mocked by kids behind his back, for being too damn stupid.
Quote from: Rincewind1;518491Trollman's retardation in this thread was more then adorable.
It felt like he was that kid, who, even at the school for mentally challenged, is laughed and mocked by kids behind his back, for being too damn stupid.
Just so you know...this might give you some more perspective on his sensitivity to racial issues. Half the family got done by the nazis.
Quote from: ggroy;382608"Trollmann" sounds like a German or Austrian surname.
Quote from: FrankTrollman;382609It's Austrian (http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/biog/trollmann.htm). The German side of the family had no children (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Trollmann).
-Frank
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;518503Just so you know...this might give you some more perspective on his sensitivity to racial issues. Half the family got done by the nazis.
Eastern branch of my family was shot by Nazis in '43 for cooperation with resistance (my granduncle was a village leader there, and he housed few of the fighters for a few days, and well, Gestapo caught track of it. And they didn't screw around when setting an example). Both of my great grandmothers that I know/knew, served in forced labour camps. Sure, someone could say "But that's just a few" - but then who is engaging in the corpse counting?
And yet, I don't hate on Germans here, unless they are terrible cunts. Or presume that if you are okay with slaying orcs in DnD, you are a closet Nazi.
If I am going to be picky - I had looked at the first link in that pile, and it shows a biography of an Austrian officer. Ought I remind you which was the third nation that helped Germany and Russia in partitions of Poland? And quite a lot of Poles were drafted into all three of those armies when World War I started. Ought I carry that as a shield if the paths ever cross again?
Quote from: Rincewind1;518504Eastern branch of my family was shot by Nazis in '43 for cooperation with resistance (my granduncle was a village leader there, and he housed few of the fighters for a few days, and well, Gestapo caught track of it. And they didn't screw around when setting an example). Both of my great grandmothers that I know/knew, served in forced labour camps. Sure, someone could say "But that's just a few" - but then who is engaging in the corpse counting?
And yet, I don't hate on Germans here, unless they are terrible cunts. Or presume that if you are okay with slaying orcs in DnD, you are a closet Nazi.
If I am going to be picky - I had looked at the first link in that pile, and it shows a biography of an Austrian officer. Ought I remind you which was the third nation that helped Germany and Russia in partitions of Poland? And quite a lot of Poles were drafted into all three of those armies when World War I started. Ought I carry that as a shield if the paths ever cross again?
OK - sorry to bring it up.
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;518515OK - sorry to bring it up.
Not really a problem - if you feel any form of guilt, I apologise and please don't.
Those who forget their history are cursed to replay it - but those who live too much in their history, never live their own lives.
Quote from: Rincewind1;518516Not really a problem - if you feel any form of guilt, I apologise and please don't.
Any form of what? :)
Cheers Rincewind.
This thread is drifting back on topic. that should not happen.
Quote from: Aos;518523This thread is drifting back on topic. that should not happen.
Tell us about your bacon.
No dolphin has ever tasted it.
Quote from: Aos;518525No dolphin has ever tasted it.
Reasonable, that'd be a waste of perfectly good bacon.
And now I am hungry.
(http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1283/4700794890_0794273bf4.jpg)
Hairy armpits!
Like any good Frenchman, I instantly wondered what a bacon-wrapped dolphin would actually taste like, and which wine I would pair it with.
Like any good Pole, I wonder if dolphin meat'd do as appetizer for vodka.
Quote from: Rincewind1;518532Like any good Pole, I wonder if dolphin meat'd do as appetizer for vodka.
Ha!
Like any good Englishman, i wondered if dolphins would like tea if given the chance.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518533Ha!
Like any good Englishman, i wondered if dolphins would like tea if given the chance.
That's a silly question. The answer is - off course. What sort of a loon wouldn't like tea.
Like any good Canadian, I immediately want some kind of Dolphin Rights statement from the UN.
As an American I am wondering if we can refine dolphins into a replacement for petroleum for when we use it all up in our SUVs.
Quote from: misterguignol;518537As an American I am wondering if we can refine dolphins into a replacement for petroleum for when we use it all up in our SUVs.
You are not English?
Quote from: Rincewind1;518539You are not British?
Nah, I spell color without the u.
I did my masters in Britain, and study British lit almost exclusively, but no.
Quote from: misterguignol;518540Nah, I spell color without the u.
I did my masters in Britain, and study British lit almost exclusively, but no.
'course, I should had noticed when you spelled armour without the u earlier, though ;).
For some odd reason, I assumed you were.
Quote from: Rincewind1;518539You are not English?
We do have some standards.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518542We do have some standards.
Not in cooking you don't. QI taught me enough about Scottish cousine to never, ever, try it. Example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-fried_pizza
Quote from: Rincewind1;518541'course, I should had noticed when you spelled armour without the u earlier, though ;).
For some odd reason, I assumed you were.
I get that a lot.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518542We do have some standards.
Unfortunately not when it comes to food or dentistry, right? ;)
Quote from: misterguignol;518546I get that a lot.
Really? I never had any doubt you were an American- and I mean that in nicest way possible.
Quote from: Rincewind1;518545Not in cooking you don't. QI taught me enough about Scottish cousine to never, ever, try it. Example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-fried_pizza
Luckily, Scottish isn't English!
Quote from: Aos;518548Really? I never had any doubt you were an American- and I mean that in nicest way possible.
What gave it away? Was it how awesome I am?
Quote from: misterguignol;518546Unfortunately not when it comes to food or dentistry, right? ;)
We gave the world Beef Wellington and Yorkshire pudding. I don't get your first point.
Second point, fair enough.
Quote from: misterguignol;518550What gave it away? Was it how awesome I am?
I have no idea. I imagine that its obvious to everyone here that I'm an American, although, when I'm overseas no one ever believes it.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518549Luckily, Scottish isn't English!
Which is why I (as you could had seen in the quote in MG's post) originally posted "British" ;). I remember the joke on QI about Scottish cousine:
"Why does a Scotsman not eat some of the fries from his fish & chips?
So he has a salad ready for the morning"
Not that England does not have culinary sins to answer as well - The Mint Sauce (dun dun dunnnn).
Quote from: One Horse Town;518551We gave the world Beef Wellington and Yorkshire pudding. I don't get your first point.
Second point, fair enough.
Good point on the pudding. Mmm.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518551We gave the world Beef Wellington and Yorkshire pudding. I don't get your first point.
Second point, fair enough.
I always figured that whole Empire business you lot got up to was just an excuse to get better food, like curry.
Quote from: misterguignol;518555I always figured that whole Empire business you lot got up to was just an excuse to get better food, like curry.
Well, certainly the original food was a reason for why the British Empire was famously called to be "Built on latrines" ;).
Quote from: misterguignol;518555I always figured that whole Empire business you lot got up to was just an excuse to get better food, like curry.
True fact - the curry that English fuckers eat was originally some shit added to meat in India to hide the fact that it was starting to go off.
Quote from: Rincewind1;518556Well, certainly the original food was a reason for why the British Empire was famously called to be "Built on latrines" ;).
The British Army marched on its stomach. (But it could only march toward the latrines.)
Making bad meat palatable was a large part of the initial impetus to the spice trade wasn't it?
Quote from: One Horse Town;518558True fact - the curry that English fuckers eat was originally some shit added to meat in India to hide the fact that it was starting to go off.
Every spice ever started as such. It was why spices were so absurdly expansive during the Middle Ages and forth - they were needed for food preservation and taste buds preservation. Just like sushi, interestingly ;).
Quote from: One Horse Town;518558True fact - the curry that English fuckers eat was originally some shit added to meat in India to hide the fact that it was starting to go off.
So a true Englishman prefers to eat meat that has gone off without the benefit of a curry sauce? ;)
Quote from: Rincewind1;518556Well, certainly the original food was a reason for why the British Empire was famously called to be "Built on latrines" ;).
An army marches on it's stomach!
Turnips make for a sturdy stomach.
I dunno what you're so smug about. I bet you've never seen a vegetable.
Quote from: Aos;518561Making bad meat palatable was a large part of the initial impetus to the spice trade wasn't it?
It was, yes.
Quote from: misterguignol;518560The British Army marched on its stomach. (But it could only march toward the latrines.)
It's a joke from QI as well (spectacular show, watch it - Fry at his best). British Army was the first one to put standards about basic hygiene of army camps, which certainly helped with colonisation of tropics - diarrhoea was the most devastating foe in pretty much all of wars.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518565An army marches on it's stomach!
Turnips make for a sturdy stomach.
I dunno what you're so smug about. I bet you've never seen a vegetable.
Unless this is some word game, I can assure you I did. While my taste is rather pleban, I like to eat healthy and sound once in a while. Broccoli with a bit of garlic dip is divine.
Quote from: Aos;518561Making bad meat palatable was a large part of the initial impetus to the spice trade wasn't it?
Yup.
Therefore, there's no excuse for that hamburger shit.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518567Yup.
Therefore, there's no excuse for that hamburger shit.
Well, it is the next step in making stuff edible - making the parts of meat that are no longer theoretically "meat" palatable ;).
I do like a hamburger from time to time though. Especially made by me.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518567Yup.
Therefore, there's no excuse for that hamburger shit.
Burgers are like meat pies, you have to select the meat yourself or you're going to get the parts no one else will eat. I made one from ground sirloin today. It was quite tasty.
Are you guys thinking what I'm thinking? RPGSITE COOK OUT!
Cornish pasties, fish & chips and mushy peas. Lardy cake. 'Nuff said.
Lardy cake is the food of the Gods. Bit of a specialty where i come from.
This is the thread-drift of the century BTW. Orc-rape to obscure British quisine!
What is lardy cake?
Quote from: Aos;518575What is lardy cake?
It is pure awesome.
Google the recipe and despair.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518574Cornish pasties, fish & chips and mushy peas. Lardy cake. 'Nuff said.
Lardy cake is the food of the Gods. Bit of a specialty where i come from.
This is the thread-drift of the century BTW. Orc-rape to obscure British quisine!
All other 3 look nice (I'd say I'm willing to give mushy peas a try as a dip, but for Cornish pasties I just have ruskie pierogi). But Fish & Chips, really?
PS - do not point the latter out, or some may be tempted to get it back on track
Quote from: Rincewind1;518578But Fish & Chips, really?
British chips are fucking great though.
Every Sunday I would sit in the little park behind my London flat with a ton of chips slathered in malt vinegar and salt and it was heaven.
I'm Irish and Danish. Which means I put lingonberries on my soda bread.
Quote from: misterguignol;518583British chips are fucking great though.
Every Sunday I would sit in the little park behind my London flat with a ton of chips slathered in malt vinegar and salt and it was heaven.
I heard contrary, but if I ever visit England (soon I hope), I will give it a try none the less.
Quote from: Rincewind1;518578But Fish & Chips, really?
Mate, fish & chips is probably the second most popular fast-food here.
Cod, haddock or plaice fried in batter with nice thick chips. Maybe add a big pickled onion or gherkin and you're good to go. Shit, now i'm hungry.
What is the most popular fast food there?
Quote from: Aos;518561Making bad meat palatable was a large part of the initial impetus to the spice trade wasn't it?
Because the brits can't help but boil their meats, and mint sauce is fucking horrid with them so... curry it is, I guess?
Quote from: One Horse Town;518576It is pure awesome.
Google the recipe and despair.
I'm not much for sweets (unless it's late and I've been er, chemically enhanced) but I'd give that a try. Really, I'll eat anything made with lard.
Quote from: Aos;518588What is the most popular fast food there?
That'll be an Indian.
Curry is officially the nations favourite dish. I think it's vile.
Although i guess it depends what you think of as fast food. Is waiting 10 minutes too long?
Quote from: Benoist;518589Because the brits can't help but boil their meats, and mint sauce is fucking horrid with them so... curry it is, I guess?
Shut up garlic breath. Mint sauce is the only decent accompliment to lamb.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518587Mate, fish & chips is probably the second most popular fast-food here.
Cod, haddock or plaice fried in batter with nice thick chips. Maybe add a big pickled onion or gherkin and you're good to go. Shit, now i'm hungry.
Point taken, and I admit I do like fish (although not in coating - I prefer my animal meat in coating) and chips ;).
And yeah, I'm microwaving some pierogi's from yesterday right now >.>
Quote from: Benoist;518589Because the brits can't help but boil their meats, and mint sauce is fucking horrid... curry it is, I guess?
Fixed it for you ;). And this one I did try, blergh.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518591That'll be an Indian.
Curry is officially the nations favourite dish. I think it's vile.
Although i guess it depends what you think of as fast food. Is waiting 10 minutes too long?
Judging by what I heard online and from movies, curry it is indeed. In Poland, kebab is probably the most popular fast food. Although where I live, there is a ton of cheap and damn good Vietnamese restaurant, which are the (relatively fast) food of choice when you're out for most of us.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518591That'll be an Indian.
Curry is officially the nations favourite dish. I think it's vile.
Although i guess it depends what you think of as fast food. Is waiting 10 minutes too long?
Not for me. Pizza counts, doesn't it, so yeah 10 minutes is totally within the range.
The popularity of various types of fast food here is very regional. I would guess that after burgers, that where I am now (Northern Colorado) second place would go to Submarine Sandwiches or Pizza.
Anyway, I count myself as very lucky, I live in the rarest of places, a small American City with an unbelievable array of quality (non-chain) restaurants.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518592Shut up garlic breath. Mint sauce is the only decent accompliment to lamb.
Yogurt, lemon, olive oil, seasonings, and three days in the fridge.
Quote from: beejazz;518598Yogurt, lemon, olive oil, seasonings, and three days in the fridge.
Terrorist.
Quote from: Aos;518595Submarine Sandwiches or Pizza.
Totally overpriced here.
You can get a massive heap of fish & chips for £5. Want a decent sized pizza? £10 easy, without any side dishes. OK, subs are probably cheaper than fish & chips, but really, why not make a sandwich at home.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518600Totally overpriced here.
You can get a massive heap of fish & chips for £5. Want a decent sized pizza? £10 easy, without any side dishes. OK, subs are probably cheaper than fish & chips, but really, why not make a sandwich at home.
Pizza in the UK is pretty terrible, in general too. It's really hard to find pizza that is similar to the New York pizza I grew up on over there.
Plus, some of you fuckers put corn on pizza. What the hell is with that?
Quote from: misterguignol;518601Pizza in the UK is pretty terrible, in general too. It's really hard to find pizza that is similar to the New York pizza I grew up on over there.
Plus, some of you fuckers put corn on pizza. What the hell is with that?
Corn on pizza is delicious.
We have a couple good NY style places here, but most of the pizza is decidedly mediocre.
As for subs, depending on where you go, they can be much nicer than what you'd make at home.
Quote from: Rincewind1;518603Corn on pizza is delicious.
It's weird; I understand all the words you just used, but not the order you put them in ;)
Quote from: Aos;518604We have a couple good NY style places here, but most of the pizza is decidedly mediocre.
As for subs, depending on where you go, they can be much nicer than what you'd make at home.
There's a special sub here locally called the spiedi that is just chunks of meat (usually lamb, pork, or chicken) that has been marinated in oil, vinegar, garlic, and spices. The meat gets grilled on metal skewers and served on a sub roll or Italian bread.
There are no vegetables involved in this sandwich. Which is why this area was just ranked the second most obese in the nation.
We even have a hot air balloon festival honoring this one kind of sandwich, I kid you not.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518574This is the thread-drift of the century BTW. Orc-rape to obscure British quisine!
I assumed it was a deliberate attempt to inflate the thread's post count towards the mythical 2000 barrier. Maybe 2012 as part of some strange techno-Mayan pagan technomagical conjuration:
If this thread reaches 2012 posts, the World Will End!
(Or some believe. Not me. I'm not Mayan. Not even a little bit. But I'm still reading. I can't believe I'm still reading. Intervention!)
Quote from: misterguignol;518605It's weird; I understand all the words you just used, but not the order you put them in ;)
Read my lips - .
Quote from: misterguignol;518606There's a special sub here locally called the spiedi that is just chunks of meat (usually lamb, pork, or chicken) that has been marinated in oil, vinegar, garlic, and spices. The meat gets grilled on metal skewers and served on a sub roll or Italian bread.
There are no vegetables involved in this sandwich. Which is why this area was just ranked the second most obese in the nation.
We even have a hot air balloon festival honoring this one kind of sandwich, I kid you not.
Sounds like an awesome reason for a hot air balloon tbh.
Man, I think the one place in this town I simply couldn't live without is the Indian joint. Their biryani and makhani are both amazing, among my top dishes anywhere.
Most of the rest, I could live without, but that fuckin' makhani makes me hard. It is sex on a plate.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518599Terrorist.
I can share the more detailed version, if you want.
Quote from: misterguignol;518606There's a special sub here locally called the spiedi that is just chunks of meat (usually lamb, pork, or chicken) that has been marinated in oil, vinegar, garlic, and spices. The meat gets grilled on metal skewers and served on a sub roll or Italian bread.
There are no vegetables involved in this sandwich. Which is why this area was just ranked the second most obese in the nation.
We even have a hot air balloon festival honoring this one kind of sandwich, I kid you not.
I think I'd like to try that sandwich.
Quote from: Daddy Warpig;518607I assumed it was a deliberate attempt to inflate the thread's post count towards the mythical 2000 barrier.
There was a time where this sort of drift was pretty common around here. Anyway, I've always considered the threadjack to be a kind of art form.
Quote from: One Horse Town;518600Totally overpriced here.
You can get a massive heap of fish & chips for £5. Want a decent sized pizza? £10 easy, without any side dishes. OK, subs are probably cheaper than fish & chips, but really, why not make a sandwich at home.
Good Lord, $8 for fish and chips? Is that from one of the grease-shacks or a semi-reputable take away place?
And $15 for pizza is
cheap. You want anything more than cheese on it over here, you are looking at $20 minimum. Large pizza at Papa John's with pepperoni, onions and green peppers is $16.45, but large pizzas are today's special. Normally that would be close to $20 by itself.
Quote from: beejazz;518598Yogurt, lemon, olive oil, seasonings, and three days in the fridge.
You had me at "yogurt".
Quote from: StormBringer;518625Good Lord, $8 for fish and chips? Is that from one of the grease-shacks or a semi-reputable take away place?
And $15 for pizza is cheap. You want anything more than cheese on it over here, you are looking at $20 minimum. Large pizza at Papa John's with pepperoni, onions and green peppers is $16.45, but large pizzas are today's special. Normally that would be close to $20 by itself.
Maybe this is a regional thing; a large pizza one-topping pizza from one of the local places here is probably $12 or so.
Quote from: StormBringer;518625Good Lord, $8 for fish and chips? Is that from one of the grease-shacks or a semi-reputable take away place?
And $15 for pizza is cheap. You want anything more than cheese on it over here, you are looking at $20 minimum. Large pizza at Papa John's with pepperoni, onions and green peppers is $16.45, but large pizzas are today's special. Normally that would be close to $20 by itself.
Unfortunately, eating Papa John's is taking the life of your poor colon into your hands.
I bought a large Pizza for 12$ today, but if we had gone with what I prefer it would have been 20$ and from a different place
Quote from: J Arcane;518609Man, I think the one place in this town I simply couldn't live without is the Indian joint. Their biryani and makhani are both amazing, among my top dishes anywhere.
Most of the rest, I could live without, but that fuckin' makhani makes me hard. It is sex on a plate.
I have been looking to expand into Indian food one of these days. My only reservation is the curry. Is it jalapeño hot or wasabi hot? Or something different altogether?
Quote from: J Arcane;518628Unfortunately, eating Papa John's is taking the life of your poor colon into your hands.
Agreed. Hole in the wall pizza places are my personal preference.
Quote from: misterguignol;518627Maybe this is a regional thing; a large pizza one-topping pizza from one of the local places here is probably $12 or so.
Yeah, Domino's or Little Skeezer's is a good deal cheaper, but I can't eat those more than once a month. There is a place around here called 5 Buck Pizza, but I haven't tried them.
Quote from: J Arcane;518628Unfortunately, eating Papa John's is taking the life of your poor colon into your hands.
Absolutely, but it is soooo good. :)
Quote from: Aos;518632Agreed. Hole in the wall pizza places are my personal preference.
There is a place like that up by the University, best pizza I have ever had. They are a bit pricey, but definitely worth it.
Quote from: misterguignol;518627Maybe this is a regional thing; a large pizza one-topping pizza from one of the local places here is probably $12 or so.
Same here. Twenty would be a five topping special around here (pesto base, broccoli, bacon, pineapple, and feta for me).
Those of you for whom it's overpriced: They sell the dough where you live?
Quote from: StormBringer;518630I have been looking to expand into Indian food one of these days. My only reservation is the curry. Is it jalapeño hot or wasabi hot? Or something different altogether?
I find that Indian places are more than willing to steer you toward a curry that will fit your preferred level of heat. Just ask the server, really. Some dishes are quite hot (vindaloo) while others can be quite mild (korma).
The two things I would recommend to someone new to curry would be chana masala (chickpeas in tomato-based sauce) or tandoor chicken.
Quote from: StormBringer;518626You had me at "yogurt".
I used to do just yogurt and stuff, but the olive oil, chopped onion, and lemon juice really help.
Quote from: misterguignol;518636I find that Indian places are more than willing to steer you toward a curry that will fit your preferred level of heat. Just ask the server, really. Some dishes are quite hot (vindaloo) while others can be quite mild (korma).
The two things I would recommend to someone new to curry would be chana masala (chickpeas in tomato-based sauce) or tandoor chicken.
Excellent! Much appreciated, I will make a note of those and perhaps try one of them out this weekend.
Quote from: StormBringer;518630I have been looking to expand into Indian food one of these days. My only reservation is the curry. Is it jalapeño hot or wasabi hot? Or something different altogether?
It's really neither, and depending, not hot at all. It's really down to the dish, some are spicy, some aren't. Generally it's a dry heat, like hot paprika or chili powder.
Quote from: Aos;518632Agreed. Hole in the wall pizza places are my personal preference.
There's a place here that used to be my favorite, even did calzones the way I like them, but last time we ate there the place was literally buzzing with flies. There was a cloud of white gnats over the salad bar, and the front door was wide open.
I have not returned.
Quote from: StormBringer;518634Absolutely, but it is soooo good. :)
Eh. It's not bad, but after the horrifying pain it put me through the other night I will never order them again. I'm sticking to Abby's from now on.
Which is a shame, because the Papa John's delivery girl is seriously one of the most gorgeous women I have ever seen.
Quote from: Aos;518604subs
Hoagies.
And while pizza does run expensive in some spots, there's a place near me that's decent which offers two large and a 2-liter soda for 14-16 bucks. Not that faky cardboard pizza Papa's/Dominos serves either. Little Caesar's just reopened near us...but they're mostly in low-income areas and the stuff gives me the worst heartburn. Five dollars for a large isn't worth that.
Quote from: Peregrin;518642Hoagies.
I'm going to let this slide, but only because you used the correct word for soda.
Little Caesar's is mostly the devil, but I have a deep-seated love of Crazy Bread.
Quote from: J Arcane;518640It's really neither, and depending, not hot at all. It's really down to the dish, some are spicy, some aren't. Generally it's a dry heat, like hot paprika or chili powder.
That is the kind of heat I like on food.
QuoteEh. It's not bad, but after the horrifying pain it put me through the other night I will never order them again. I'm sticking to Abby's from now on.
Which is a shame, because the Papa John's delivery girl is seriously one of the most gorgeous women I have ever seen.
Not fun. Well, just toss it in the garbage after the delivery girl leaves, hopefully with your digits. :)
Quote from: StormBringer;518630I have been looking to expand into Indian food one of these days. My only reservation is the curry. Is it jalapeño hot or wasabi hot? Or something different altogether?
If you are concerned about the spiciness, ask them to prepare the food "Mild", but even the normal stuff isn't usually all that hot and there are dishes that are quite bland. Make sure you get Nan bread with your food. It's like a spice sponge.
Quote from: Peregrin;518642Hoagies.
So you're from
South Jersey, then, huh?
Quote from: misterguignol;518601Pizza in the UK is pretty terrible, in general too. It's really hard to find pizza that is similar to the New York pizza I grew up on over there.
The water makes a difference with pizza dough, bagels, and Italian bread. What they call "bagels" in much of the United States is more like a bread doughnut and the soft bread that Subway calls "Italian" isn't. There are pizza places that bring their water in from New York City.
Quote from: misterguignol;518601Plus, some of you fuckers put corn on pizza. What the hell is with that?
Having lived in Japan, I think corn is fine on pizza and so is cheddar cheese. The other things (http://www.chachich.com/mdchachi/jpizza.html) that the Japanese put on their pizza, though, can be really strange.
Quote from: John Morrow;518658If you are concerned about the spiciness, ask them to prepare the food "Mild", but even the normal stuff isn't usually all that hot and there are dishes that are quite bland. Make sure you get Nan bread with your food. It's like a spice sponge.
Much appreciated! I should have known this would be the place to get the best advice on such things. :)
Quote from: misterguignol;518601Pizza in the UK is pretty terrible, in general too. It's really hard to find pizza that is similar to the New York pizza I grew up on over there.
Plus, some of you fuckers put corn on pizza. What the hell is with that?
Here in boston we have been overun with greek pizza places. Getting harder and harder to fin the classic thin crust italian places with that three cheese blend.
Quote from: John Morrow;518660The water makes a difference with pizza dough, bagels, and Italian bread. What they call "bagels" in much of the United States is more like a bread doughnut and the soft bread that Subway calls "Italian" isn't. There are pizza places that bring their water in from New York City.
Having lived in Japan, I think corn is fine on pizza and so is cheddar cheese. The other things (http://www.chachich.com/mdchachi/jpizza.html) that the Japanese put on their pizza, though, can be really strange.
Huh, we have both good bagels and good pizza here, in Colorado, and I'm originally from NY, so I know of what I speak.
Quote from: John Morrow;518660The water makes a difference with pizza dough, bagels, and Italian bread. What they call "bagels" in much of the United States is more like a bread doughnut and the soft bread that Subway calls "Italian" isn't. There are pizza places that bring their water in from New York City.
.
I personally don't agree. But then I am from boston. Used to work at a local jewish bakery here and didn't see a difference between new york bagels and the ones our baker made. I have heard the water thing (usually from New Yorkers) and have never bought it. Surely there would be other places making this sort of claim if the water had that kind of impact.
Subway subs suck because they use crappy bread and meats, nothing to do with the water IMO. You want a good sub go anywhere there has traditionally been real italian american presence in the north east (I live next to Revere for example and there you can get great subs, sausages and raviolis). you want a bad sub, eat at subway.
I used to work as a pizza chef in Pittsburg so my English pizza is fine :)
Funny that the Frenchman derides British food when Roast Beef was the envy of the frenchies for a hundred years (before they invented le cordon bleu I admit) .
Think yourselves lucky I am off to India on Sunday and will be forced to dine at incredibly expensive luxury hotels in order to avoid Dehli Belly.
Quote from: jibbajibba;518730I used to work as a pizza chef in Pittsburg so my English pizza is fine :)
Funny that the Frenchman derides British food when Roast Beef was the envy of the frenchies for a hundred years (before they invented le cordon bleu I admit) .
Think yourselves lucky I am off to India on Sunday and will be forced to dine at incredibly expensive luxury hotels in order to avoid Dehli Belly.
You probably know this, but avoid ice water, and ice in general. A lesson I learned in Spain of all places.
Quote from: Aos;518732You probably know this, but avoid ice water, and ice in general. A lesson I learned in Spain of all places.
and salad (washed in water) etc ....
but I hope the 7* hotel I am aiming to eat in most nights is covered :)
It's the staff canteen I am more concerend with so the rule is don't eat it unless its been fried don't drink it unless it comes in a can. Much like Scotland in that regard
Quote from: Rincewind1;518578All other 3 look nice (I'd say I'm willing to give mushy peas a try as a dip, but for Cornish pasties I just have ruskie pierogi). But Fish & Chips, really?
PS - do not point the latter out, or some may be tempted to get it back on track
How did I miss this one?
There is a fairly large contingent of Polish folks living in Wisconsin, so we have some pretty damn good peirogis back there. I do like a nice pastie from time to time, though.
Quote from: Aos;518732You probably know this, but avoid ice water, and ice in general. A lesson I learned in Spain of all places.
and salad (washed in water) etc ....
but I hope the 7* hotel I am aiming to eat in most nights is covered :)
It's the staff canteen I am more concerend with so the rule is don't eat it unless its been fried don't drink it unless it comes in a can. Much like Scotland in that regard
Quote from: Rincewind1;518504Eastern branch of my family was shot by Nazis in '43 for cooperation with resistance (my granduncle was a village leader there, and he housed few of the fighters for a few days, and well, Gestapo caught track of it. And they didn't screw around when setting an example). Both of my great grandmothers that I know/knew, served in forced labour camps. Sure, someone could say "But that's just a few" - but then who is engaging in the corpse counting?
And yet, I don't hate on Germans here, unless they are terrible cunts. Or presume that if you are okay with slaying orcs in DnD, you are a closet Nazi.
If I am going to be picky - I had looked at the first link in that pile, and it shows a biography of an Austrian officer. Ought I remind you which was the third nation that helped Germany and Russia in partitions of Poland? And quite a lot of Poles were drafted into all three of those armies when World War I started. Ought I carry that as a shield if the paths ever cross again?
Yeah seriously. Two set of great-grandparents died in German concentration camps, my family lost all its fortune, my grandparents fled for their lives, that entire generation traumatized forever in ways that still reverberate in the family to this day... all this means that I might be inclined to take more offense than I usually would to a game like Grey Ranks or some forge game about nazis killing poles; not that I'm going to stupidly take offense at D&D characters killing orcs. If anything, family history makes me quite aware of why its NOT the same thing.
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And since this thread has gone massively, retardedly off topic, and people are just spamming it to try to get it up to 200 pages, I'll commit the biggest troll of all and lock the thread before that can happen. There. Fuck you all!
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