TheRPGSite

So I've been considering running D&D in an exotic-ish setting (ref) (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/no-politics-incan-fantasy-in-dd/), but I think there's a broad issue about this.

In D&D and other games with an absolute good and evil, it's usually true that good and evil are defined by modern standards. So, for example, D&D has always defined slavery as evil - even though slavery of various sorts was considered normal and even good in medieval times. I think this is usually considered a feature rather than a bug. In some games, you play grim-dark bastards who leave a trail of horror and destruction -- but some fantasy games you want to be genuine heroes who fight for truth and justice. There is simple good and evil and the heroes are good.

The latter is more what I want my upcoming D&D game to be. Real history was often grim and horrible, but if I'm playing a good-vs-evil fantasy, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm going for more escapist high fantasy.

The problem is that modern morality can be a disconnect with a setting even remotely based on history.

So I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it? I'll think if I can come up with some more examples.

I guess the big one for me would be Rifts and specifically the Coalition.  We played enough that we fell on various different sides of the coin at different times.  The thing that often came up was how does one cope with a world where some random person without warning can invade/conquer your mind or kill you without effort.  Even on the anti-Coalition side we had the questions about teaming up with the human supremacists when its against menaces like the Splugorth or the Vampires.

You just need to have everyone on the same page and try to get everyone to imagine what they'd do in that situation.  Some people it just doesn't dawn on them that their mage is ball shrinkingly scary.

I haven't had an issue with it. Even in Dark Sun, where slavery is common, I play it that good characters dislike slavery, but can't run around freeing every slave they see. It's just not practically feasible.

Things also get murky with different types of slavery. Bonded labor, chattel slavery, slave armies that wind up running things. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissary)
There's fertile ground for rpg politics in slavery, but it's understandable that many don't want to go there.

I think my approach is to recognize that there isn't a floating sign in the sky that goes "Ding!" whenever a Good character does something Evil, so they can stop it. It's not that slavery can be Good, it's that slavery is not always cartoony moustache twirling Evil.

But the only time I've gone into the topic of slavery is in Dark Sun, where most societies are at best ruthlessly pragmatic, or downright oppressive.

I haven't run much realistic historical settings. I have run the very 1970s sword & sorcery Wilderlands, and slavery has been a bit of an issue, with PCs going all out to abolish slavery, a very marginal ideological position in the setting. I don't recall anything else being such a trigger - serfdom certainly is not!

To me, it's no different than any other edge issue, such as how much sexuality is "on screen" versus how much is "fade to black".  There's a whole set of things that are happening in the world, that are needed to make the world sufficiently different from now such that it feels right to the players.  Then there's the subset of things that are there, but you don't pay much attention to them.  Then there's maybe a handful of things that we just decide that we don't even gloss over, because it doesn't fit the tone or we simply don't want to.  Point being, you can draw the line anywhere you want on any given thing, as long as you leave enough in there to get the feeling across.

For us, one that comes up quite a bit as something that gets only a nod is the whole noble/commoner thing.  Yeah, it's there.  It's in the backdrop.  Most of the people in the world deal with it.  Players in my game largely don't want to play in a game where there is effectively no social mobility along those lines.  So we tend not to, or assume that adventurers are one of the rare exceptions.  A game where adventurers have some social status and responsibilities to go with it?  They are all over that.  A game where adventurers are hobos, murder type or otherwise, trying to live below the social radar?  They want nothing to do with it.  Long as I get everyone on board on the issue, the rest of the world can be as dark or epic as we want on everything else, no one will even blink.  Though admittedly, there's only so far I'd want to push the dark part.  So not sure I know where the edge truly is. 

Quote from: jhkim on September 17, 2021, 04:38:41 PMSo I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it?

I'd suggest there's probably less conflict between historical morality and modern morality than one might think; the Ten Commandments have analogues in most cultures going back to ancient days. Even slavery was mostly regarded as something you only did to your people's enemies if you did it at all, and that if your own were enslaved they had to have sold themselves into it or earned it as punishment -- it was regarded as licit but not good, if you see the difference.

What often differs are which sins a particular historical culture or subculture has different practical standards about from ours, and why. Sexual infidelity was almost always condemned far more strongly in women than in men in the feudal Middle Ages, because female fidelity was the only real guarantee of a valid inheritance line back when wars got started over such things; as long as men fathered their bastards when they were conveniently out of their territory, no one much cared. And when the food-subsistence economy is much closer to the bone than a modern-day reader may realize, the harsh penalties for stealing food, and the sheer loathing most honest labourers or tradesmen feel for bandits and burglars, make more sense.

I have to admit that my own gaming history isn't much use because I had much less tendency to notice those things back when I was still actively gaming. I do recall at least one PC in a game I ran stealing a wagonload of furs and selling them for his own money without anyone in the group raising an eyebrow; he was True Neutral, so he had no alignment obstacles, but that sort of thing is definitely something I would have made more fuss with him about if it happened now.

I avoid mixing morality codes when I can avoid it. When I run a fantasy game that has the flavor and trappings of a a real historical setting, I always use the moral code of the historical setting, rather than a modern one. Yes, this means bad things happen that characters must consider business-as-usual. In that sense I would describe it as a bug, not a feature, that a fantasy game using tropes of medieval Europe would attempt to apply "modern sensibilities".

The last time I felt the desire for high fantasy that wasn't grimdark, I played Blue Rose. Modern liberal morality works fine in that setting partly because it is based on a high-fantasy literature that does not borrow much from real history. There is no dissonance.

I have read setting books that try to bring the modern moral sense into historical settings and they generally strike me as ridiculous. I suppose what I'm saying is that I appreciate your problem but I see no solution other than to allow Incans to be Incans, even if they they are fantasy Incans.

Quote from: jhkim on September 17, 2021, 04:38:41 PM
So I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it? I'll think if I can come up with some more examples.

This happened to me the other day.  Some arsehole could not tell the difference between fantasy Drow and real life people.

Luckily I was able to deal with it easily by telling him to fuck off.

   Morally, which is worse, killing someone or making them a slave?   Given that slaves had the real life choice to be slaves or die, I think killing is certainly worse.  So unless you subdue the evil doers without killing them, I probably would not worry too much about any modern sensibilities.   I do think it would be fairly easy to make a "good" kingdom outlaw slavery, I mean, you have people throwing fireballs, so I do not know how much historical reality you need.   

   What is the cultural backdrop for the campaign?   You say exotic, so does it involve cultures that used a great deal of slavery/human sacrifice/etc?   

Quote from: Shasarak on September 17, 2021, 06:56:07 PM

Quote from: jhkim on September 17, 2021, 04:38:41 PM
So I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it? I'll think if I can come up with some more examples.

This happened to me the other day.  Some arsehole could not tell the difference between fantasy Drow and real life people.

Luckily I was able to deal with it easily by telling him to fuck off.

;D ;D ;D

Man, I've only been hanging around here for a short while, but you're quickly becoming one of my favorite posters.

Quote from: Shasarak on September 17, 2021, 06:56:07 PM

Quote from: jhkim on September 17, 2021, 04:38:41 PM
So I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it? I'll think if I can come up with some more examples.

This happened to me the other day.  Some arsehole could not tell the difference between fantasy Drow and real life people.

Luckily I was able to deal with it easily by telling him to fuck off.

Drow see in absolute darkness, mate with demons to get hybrids, practice paranoia and treachery as mainstays of their society, and if they piss off their god by failing a test they get turned into cannibalistic spider centaur zombies. Also they shoot people with little crossbows and the darts are tipped with a paralytic.

Real life people...not so much.

Quote from: S'mon on September 17, 2021, 05:48:47 PM
I haven't run much realistic historical settings. I have run the very 1970s sword & sorcery Wilderlands, and slavery has been a bit of an issue, with PCs going all out to abolish slavery, a very marginal ideological position in the setting. I don't recall anything else being such a trigger - serfdom certainly is not!

Right, so, in the AD&D2e campaign I'm playing my PC (A wizard) comes from a culture that practices slavery but lives in a different kingdom where slavery is prohibited and slavers are killed (the slaves also don't remember why).

Due to language barriers (English not being my main one) I still have to get into a heavy RP session with some philosophers so they explain to him why serfdom is okay but slavery is not.

I think that in his eyes they would be very much the same.

Change my mind.

As for the original question...

Given that it's an imaginary world I don't see why modern sensibilities would need to intrude. Nothing that happens in that world is really happening much less to real people (and only humans are people by definition).

If you don't have a problem with your PC killing NPCs/Monsters left and right why would you have a problem with anything else?

Sexuality, sure Gay people have always existed, so? Is it fundamental for the adventure that my PC knows who is sleeping with who? If the answer is yes then I would expect for him to find a few gay relationships. As for his reaction to that it very much depends on the setting, is it something seen as normal and acceptable by the society at large?

And the same goes for the straight characters, does my PC need to know who is fucking who?

And I wouldn't play in a game where sex is not fade to black.

As for torture, rape, etc... Well, I asume that in a brutal world those things do happen, do they need to be explicity described? WHY? Honestly why the fuck do they NEED to be explicity described?

I don't consume porn and if I did I wouldn't consume 50 shades of rape porn, so I don't want it in my gaming thank you very much.

Politics: Only those that are internal and inherent to the world, and don't even dream of sliping by me some current day issues on the down low cuz it won't work.

I've never run into these sort of problems. And there are a few reasons for that.

First, I run D&D alignments according to what I feel is the clearest definition, those given in the 1E DMG. There, it defines good as respect for "human" rights, of which there are three that are enumerated. Human in quotes, of course, because this will likely extend to other races in a D&D world. But exactly where the line is drawn is left to the individual DM.

Evil is not defined as the mirror image of good, however. For evil, purpose is determinant. It takes priority above and beyond the "human" rights, and so evil is willing to trod on human rights for the sake of their "greater purpose." There is no requirement that evil's purpose involves mustache twirling. The purpose could be a seemingly noble one.

What this sets up is a system where you can clearly and objectively know whether an act fits in with good or evil. But at the same time, by being sufficiently broad that evil can have a noble purpose, you can have a moral ambiguity vibe to the game.

As for historical morality, the differences really are over-stated. Or maybe just wrongly stated. Natural Law did not start with Thomas Aquinas. It has its roots in ancient philosophers, and you see bits and pieces of it emerge throughout history. A lot of ancient and persistent ideas began being put into modern form with the School of Salamanca as early as 1177.

Regarding slavery, there were old manuals written for slave owners describing how you had to break the will of slaves, revealing that it was always understood that slaves were human beings with self-determination, and keeping slaves meant destroying that. This is not a modern insight. To most modern eyes, you look at Mark Twain. White dude who lived in the antebellum south. Wore a white colonel suit. He clearly must have loved slavery. But I can't help but think he was being subversive in his writing when N-word Jim has hopes and dreams. Property doesn't have hopes and dreams. I would point to this as yet another indication that the culture understood the gravity of what slavery meant. There were just political reasons to ignore clear and present reality. I would think the political climate of the present day makes it clear just how easily that can happen.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 18, 2021, 01:03:38 AMDue to language barriers (English not being my main one)

You write much better than some native English speakers I've read.

Quote from: jhkim on September 17, 2021, 04:38:41 PM
So I've been considering running D&D in an exotic-ish setting (ref) (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/no-politics-incan-fantasy-in-dd/), but I think there's a broad issue about this.

In D&D and other games with an absolute good and evil, it's usually true that good and evil are defined by modern standards. So, for example, D&D has always defined slavery as evil - even though slavery of various sorts was considered normal and even good in medieval times. I think this is usually considered a feature rather than a bug. In some games, you play grim-dark bastards who leave a trail of horror and destruction -- but some fantasy games you want to be genuine heroes who fight for truth and justice. There is simple good and evil and the heroes are good.

The latter is more what I want my upcoming D&D game to be. Real history was often grim and horrible, but if I'm playing a good-vs-evil fantasy, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm going for more escapist high fantasy.

The problem is that modern morality can be a disconnect with a setting even remotely based on history.

So I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it? I'll think if I can come up with some more examples.

To me it's never been a huge deal. I inform my players about the setting. And they can take it from there. If they do anything against that setting I inform them that's incorrect in the context of the situation.

Bear in  mind, I've run games for groups of (allegedly) mature adults and also kids. I've gotten a pretty good idea of the kinds of players there can be and how to plan around more desruptive ones. I think a big GM tip that's never talked about is that no matter how much effort you put in a setting you as GM will always be the one most into it. Most players are just looking for a fun time in a "cool" setting. They don't care that you fleshed out all the religions and cultures. It's certainly nice to play something like Planescape or Dark Sun where morality can be defined differently in ways that cause interesting roleplay situations. There are certain kinds of players who appreciate that kind of thing. And some who just want to bonk the dragon on the head and steal it's treasure.

For an example I once ran a game in Nosgoth. The setting from the Legacy of Kain games. I set it during the rise of Kain's vampire empire that took over the whole continent, with humanity confined to a single city. Where they were fed on by vampires and lived a bleak existence. In such a setting Lawful characters would be perceived as naive. But I had one player who insisted on playing a lawful good paladin. Normally I'd just say the player couldn't do that. But I actually thought it'd be interesting to see a character who lived a moral and pious life in such a dark and desolate world. So I let it slide.

The player in question later gave up on the character because all he was interested in was minmaxing paladin abilities against vampires and being a "super cool vampire slayer.". And in a world where Vampires have won completely and utterly such a fantasy was unobtainable without great effort of which this player didn't want to do because he just wanted a simple power fantasy.

tldr: Your players most likely won't care. It's nice to flesh out morality but it's not important for the most part. They understand good and evil well enough and that's enough for them. Unless they're awkward SJWs. Who shouldn't be welcome at your table anyway.

Quote from: jhkim on September 17, 2021, 04:38:41 PM

The problem is that modern morality can be a disconnect with a setting even remotely based on history.

So I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it? I'll think if I can come up with some more examples.

My way of dealing with it was to not deal with it. Specifically, I removed slavery in my Wilderlands campaign. My renaming of "Slave Market Plaza" to "Freedom Plaza" got a chuckle from my players. But as the Wilderlands is a mishmash of historical and literary tropes, dropping it has little-to-no impact.

On the other hand, if I was running a game set in Rome or the Aztec Empire, the players and I would have to accept that slavery is the cultural norm. The same would go for different treatment of the sexes, social inequity (the tension between the plebs and the patricians was part of Roman culture), torture, human sacrifice (big part of Aztec culture), etc. In this case, removing the elements you or your players find distasteful will quickly lead to you playing in a modern-day setting wearing the skin of a historical setting. Nothing wrong with that, but it is not playing in a historical setting.

Quote from: jhkim on September 17, 2021, 04:38:41 PM
So I've been considering running D&D in an exotic-ish setting (ref) (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/no-politics-incan-fantasy-in-dd/), but I think there's a broad issue about this.

In D&D and other games with an absolute good and evil, it's usually true that good and evil are defined by modern standards. So, for example, D&D has always defined slavery as evil - even though slavery of various sorts was considered normal and even good in medieval times. I think this is usually considered a feature rather than a bug. In some games, you play grim-dark bastards who leave a trail of horror and destruction -- but some fantasy games you want to be genuine heroes who fight for truth and justice. There is simple good and evil and the heroes are good.

The latter is more what I want my upcoming D&D game to be. Real history was often grim and horrible, but if I'm playing a good-vs-evil fantasy, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm going for more escapist high fantasy.

The problem is that modern morality can be a disconnect with a setting even remotely based on history.

So I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it? I'll think if I can come up with some more examples.

Totally separate things really.
If you want all your players to be good high-fantasy heroes why not just let them know before the game starts? It's a fantasy game, so it doesn't need to follow our history's true and dire past.

I prefer grim dark stuff myself, where the heroes are part of the problem. Of course, it's only an elf game at the end of the day which the woke scolds can't seem to grapple with. Game morality does not equal true real world morality. If that was the case we'd be in deep shit.

But you can always sanitize your game and remove the bits that seem too nasty as well. I wouldn't do it myself tbh.

If you put yourself in the position of the person or group that wants to control the world, what would you do if there were no limits to what you would do?

How would you gather followers and weld them into a force you could trust to do your will?

How for would you go to build your strength and tear down the strength of everyone else?

What bargains would you make and which would you break to your advantage, or you opponents loss?

You don't need to think of "Good" or "Evil" your opponents will supply that label. You have a world to control, by Any Means Possible.

As for slavery, it is a cost effective method of obtaining labor if the resources to retain the captives remains cheap as well.
Just make sure there are others that benefit enough to assist.
"Good"? "Evil"? We have a world to conquer!

There are some things that get called slavery that essentially arent. Depending of course.

Putting criminals to work during their incarceration comes to mind.

Then you have oddities like nobles and serfs/commoners who some will call slaves and some will not.

On the flip side there are things that do not get called slavery that either are, or are edging damn close. Some factories in the US and especially abroad fall into this pit. And I worked at one such hell hole for 5 years. Or in a way something worse than slavery.

In a fantasy setting though all bets are off and you can turn things in all sorts of ways.

You might have a group or entire race of slave that did so willingly in order to gain protection from other threats. The like where they are and do not want to be 'freed'.

Or people enslaved because otherwise they eventually run rampant due to some curse. For example the whole town or whatever is cursed with lycanthropy as long as they remain free. Or flip that around and have people cursed with lycanthropy to act as soldiers. The curse wont be lifted till they serve X number of years.

Or some situation where the slaves actually run everything and like it that way. Possibly to the point that they force people to be their masters. Or else.

And then you have servants which depending on the situation may seem like slaves or be actual slaves or be running the place pretty much.

Myriad ways to approach the subject.

In my own RPG there were multiple examples.
The former Sea Slaver Empire provided slaves to specific kingdoms where it was legal. And their systematic extermination by a major NPC prior to setting start destabalized alot of lands which are still recovering in various ways good or bad.
An island kingdom enslaved men because of a curse of infertility and this was the only way around. Though they were not short on volunteers.
Several kingdoms put captured soldiers during wars to work on either rebuilding damaged structures or other public works.
And at least one kingdom where the slaves run things. And another like in the example above in that the slaves prefer the safety that their masters afford them.

In a hopefully upcomming book there is a species that were not exactly slaves. They were organic constructs that eventually became self aware. Things were briefly messy as they did not want to be treated as property before a settlement was reached to their demands. Which turned out to be they wanted freedom of choice. The majority choose to stay on as servants because they are perfectly happy with that. The rest act as exploration vanguard or have filtered into outside societies. They do best under someone who can command and direct them. Or give them a defined direction or purpose. So they gravitate to people with a strong sense of leadership. They will also promptly disband from anyone who does not meet their requirements. Bemusingly they are more assertive in public service roles. Rescue, Police, and especially Medical roles. And acting. Especially stage plays.

A second species is recovering from the complete loss of their servant species that existed in a symbiotic relationship. Currently they hire anyone willing to assist. And they pay really well. Or sign on with groups that can see to their needs in return for their oft sought after services.

In one of the last comics I got from Steve Gallacci when I was working on an Albedo book the story revolves around a planet that is running a Labor Camp trap. Offer work and then keep the workers trapped and unable to leave with high prices on everything so they can never make enough to leave. This blows up in their face when the deception is exposed to every spacer in orbit who promptly threaten to cut off the planet from all trade unless this changes ASAP.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on September 18, 2021, 02:51:56 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 18, 2021, 01:03:38 AMDue to language barriers (English not being my main one)

You write much better than some native English speakers I've read.

The same can't be said of me speaking english, I used to have a much better command of the spoken language but lack of practice...

Quote from: Omega on September 18, 2021, 11:03:47 AM

You might have a group or entire race of slave that did so willingly in order to gain protection from other threats. The like where they are and do not want to be 'freed'.

Pretty much the backstory of the Oompa Loompas, IIRC.

Quote from: Shasarak on September 17, 2021, 06:56:07 PM
telling him to fuck off.

It's simple, but I like it...

Why suffer the insufferable? As I've been bleating out for years now, just play with the right people and you'll never have this problem. And should one of these man-childs infiltrate your game just revert to the above. Fuck off and play the tele tubbies rpg.

I wrote this for my Majestic Fantasy RPG draft.

QuoteGood versus Evil
In the Majestic Fantasy Realms, people do good and evil acts. Even the worst villains have a human side where kindness and generosity is shown. However, there are acts so vile that their execution maims the soul. Redemption is possible, but it is a long and difficult process, not unlike a recovering from a grievous injury. Demons are what they are because they have performed vile acts so often that their souls are but a twisted remnant. As a consequence, the vast majority of demons can only view the world as something to dominate. That others are either slaves, threats, or too powerful to challenge at this time.

The Abyss is, in a sense, an insanity ward created by the gods to protect the rest of reality from its inmates. The gods designed it so that maimed souls are drawn inside. It is said that the Abyss also contains the possibility of hope. That in its deepest and darkest reaches there is a way out. The path is harrowing and passes through regions horrifying, even to demons. But those who have managed to redeem themselves can escape into what lies beyond.

Some say that the final barrier is pride. But acknowledging the decisions that led to the soul's imprisonment within the Abyss were wrong is not enough. The soul has to humble their self and acknowledge that those action were nothing in light of the evil that was committed. Many find they are unable to acknowledge that their lives were a waste.

(https://i.imgur.com/rlsA2ye.png)

Quote from: estar on September 18, 2021, 12:34:36 PM
I wrote this for my Majestic Fantasy RPG draft.

QuoteGood versus Evil
In the Majestic Fantasy Realms, people do good and evil acts. Even the worst villains have a human side where kindness and generosity is shown. However, there are acts so vile that their execution maims the soul. Redemption is possible, but it is a long and difficult process, not unlike a recovering from a grievous injury. Demons are what they are because they have performed vile acts so often that their souls are but a twisted remnant. As a consequence, the vast majority of demons can only view the world as something to dominate. That others are either slaves, threats, or too powerful to challenge at this time.

The Abyss is, in a sense, an insanity ward created by the gods to protect the rest of reality from its inmates. The gods designed it so that maimed souls are drawn inside. It is said that the Abyss also contains the possibility of hope. That in its deepest and darkest reaches there is a way out. The path is harrowing and passes through regions horrifying, even to demons. But those who have managed to redeem themselves can escape into what lies beyond.

Some say that the final barrier is pride. But acknowledging the decisions that led to the soul's imprisonment within the Abyss were wrong is not enough. The soul has to humble their self and acknowledge that those action were nothing in light of the evil that was committed. Many find they are unable to acknowledge that their lives were a waste.

What's interesting is that some eastern religions came up with a similar explanation a few thousand years ago.

As OP, I should follow up on what I think.

To my mind, the clearest is the difference in fantasy between sources like Lord of the Rings or Narnia, versus sources like Conan or Game of Thrones. In gaming, I see more historically-inspired settings like Harn or Tekumel where there is a distinct culture with values different than modern-day. On the other hand, most D&D is more like the former.

There's nothing wrong with either, but they're not very compatible, and some people may want more the feel of one or the other. It's not so much a problem as a dial that I try to be aware of.

Quote from: S'mon on September 17, 2021, 05:48:47 PM
I haven't run much realistic historical settings. I have run the very 1970s sword & sorcery Wilderlands, and slavery has been a bit of an issue, with PCs going all out to abolish slavery, a very marginal ideological position in the setting. I don't recall anything else being such a trigger - serfdom certainly is not!

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 17, 2021, 06:07:20 PM
For us, one that comes up quite a bit as something that gets only a nod is the whole noble/commoner thing.  Yeah, it's there.  It's in the backdrop.  Most of the people in the world deal with it.  Players in my game largely don't want to play in a game where there is effectively no social mobility along those lines.  So we tend not to, or assume that adventurers are one of the rare exceptions.  A game where adventurers have some social status and responsibilities to go with it?  They are all over that.  A game where adventurers are hobos, murder type or otherwise, trying to live below the social radar?  They want nothing to do with it.  Long as I get everyone on board on the issue, the rest of the world can be as dark or epic as we want on everything else, no one will even blink.  Though admittedly, there's only so far I'd want to push the dark part.  So not sure I know where the edge truly is.

Yeah, that's exactly the sort of thing that I was thinking of. I can enjoy grimdark -- but when I'm playing more escapist, light-hearted games, I'm not so interested in the dark side of history.

I can do some stuff by just shifting spotlight. In my vikings campaign, I could say that theoretically rape and atrocities were happening during the various raids and battles, but we weren't going to have them highlighted. Likewise, there were slaves taken on raids and around in the households, but again they weren't the focus. That approach only goes so far, though.

When I'm playing something like Middle Earth, I want the heroes to be more straightforwardly good - taking after the books. Yes, it's often anachronistic (as it is with many things like clocks and fireworks) - but it's within suspension of disbelief.

Quote from: dkabq on September 18, 2021, 07:30:24 AM

Quote from: jhkim on September 17, 2021, 04:38:41 PM

The problem is that modern morality can be a disconnect with a setting even remotely based on history.

So I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it? I'll think if I can come up with some more examples.

My way of dealing with it was to not deal with it. Specifically, I removed slavery in my Wilderlands campaign. My renaming of "Slave Market Plaza" to "Freedom Plaza" got a chuckle from my players. But as the Wilderlands is a mishmash of historical and literary tropes, dropping it has little-to-no impact.

On the other hand, if I was running a game set in Rome or the Aztec Empire, the players and I would have to accept that slavery is the cultural norm. The same would go for different treatment of the sexes, social inequity (the tension between the plebs and the patricians was part of Roman culture), torture, human sacrifice (big part of Aztec culture), etc. In this case, removing the elements you or your players find distasteful will quickly lead to you playing in a modern-day setting wearing the skin of a historical setting. Nothing wrong with that, but it is not playing in a historical setting.

Speaking of Aztecs, slavery, and human sacrifice. If we talk about what is "humane" and what is not, then I'd say that there is virtually nothing more depraved and further from humane behavior than human sacrifice. I find the Aztecs fascinating, but they score very high on my subjective "most brutal and inhumane culture ever"-list, together with Romans and Assyrians and a few others.

I once had a discussion with Cessna about this, and he was of the opinion that the sacrifices were exaggerated and that Aztecs were in many ways quite humane, they apparently had schools for all the kids etc. But the funny thing is, I think this is NOT how the Aztecs themselves wanted to be seen. Look at their art. They were brutal, and they wanted everyone to know it.

You might consider if some institution that is currently condemned, like slavery, would evoke a response that is either exclusionary (ie, actively oppose it) or accommodating (ie there are good ways to handle slavery).

For example, if slavery is a fact of life in a society, there could be specific moral ways of dealing with slaves. If you look at old Japanese culture, the role of mercy comes to mind. If you lack mercy, then you cannot necessarily depend on mercy (or forgiveness) granted to you when you need it. The expectation then is that a heart felt apology _requires_ forgiveness unless there is evidence of intention.

I've nearly always wanted a mix of history, reality, or at least something close to it with the more escapist, high fantasy bits.  Part of the reason is that one of the most interesting parts of the game is where those ideas collide.  And I don't want it to be ham-fisted, as in "21st century Seattle kids are transported into fantastical but otherwise realistic/historical 500 A.D. Gaul and then change the world to exactly what they want or die trying."  That's too much like a fan fiction creative writing assignment from a person that knows diddly-squat about how human nature works, then and now.

I like to think I can come up with a more interesting mix, with more nuance, while avoiding a handful of things we don't particularly want to deal with that campaign and still leaving in enough other things that it gives some feel of being in another world.

Quote from: Trond on September 20, 2021, 02:32:10 PMI once had a discussion with Cessna about this, and he was of the opinion that the sacrifices were exaggerated and that Aztecs were in many ways quite humane, they apparently had schools for all the kids etc. But the funny thing is, I think this is NOT how the Aztecs themselves wanted to be seen. Look at their art. They were brutal, and they wanted everyone to know it.

https://ancient-archeology.com/a-500-year-old-aztec-tower-of-human-skulls-is-even-more-terrifyingly-humongous-than-previously-thought-archaeologists-find/ (https://ancient-archeology.com/a-500-year-old-aztec-tower-of-human-skulls-is-even-more-terrifyingly-humongous-than-previously-thought-archaeologists-find/)

"Huey Tzompantli" isn't the nickname of the God of Being Nice to People.

Quote from: Trond on September 20, 2021, 02:32:10 PMI once had a discussion with Cessna about this, and he was of the opinion that the sacrifices were exaggerated and that Aztecs were in many ways quite humane, they apparently had schools for all the kids etc. But the funny thing is, I think this is NOT how the Aztecs themselves wanted to be seen. Look at their art. They were brutal, and they wanted everyone to know it.

Well, every culture in the world has an interest in having its citizens see it as more just and proper than its enemies would, and in having its enemies see it as more brutal and terrifying than its citizens would. And in practice a culture which didn't treat its own citizens and children any better than it treated its enemies -- or treated its enemies just as well as it treated its own citizens -- would be either too brutal to hold together through internal conflict, or too gentle to survive external conflict.

So one of the places you can look for conflict is not just how sincere a culture is in its justifications for its acts of brutality, but the degree of corruption to which a system can fall prone and make even a practice of atrocity yet more horrific.  It's not just the sacrifice of enemies, it's when the priesthood starts coming up with perfunctory justifications for scooping their own poor off the streets as sacrifices solely to increase their own temple's influence, or in response to bribes paid by wealthy families to keep their beloved daughters out of the lottery.

Quote from: jhkim on September 17, 2021, 04:38:41 PM
So I've been considering running D&D in an exotic-ish setting (ref) (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/no-politics-incan-fantasy-in-dd/), but I think there's a broad issue about this.

In D&D and other games with an absolute good and evil, it's usually true that good and evil are defined by modern standards. So, for example, D&D has always defined slavery as evil - even though slavery of various sorts was considered normal and even good in medieval times. I think this is usually considered a feature rather than a bug. In some games, you play grim-dark bastards who leave a trail of horror and destruction -- but some fantasy games you want to be genuine heroes who fight for truth and justice. There is simple good and evil and the heroes are good.

The latter is more what I want my upcoming D&D game to be. Real history was often grim and horrible, but if I'm playing a good-vs-evil fantasy, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm going for more escapist high fantasy.

The problem is that modern morality can be a disconnect with a setting even remotely based on history.

So I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it? I'll think if I can come up with some more examples.

This is a potentially great thread in the making. I plan on participating.

I do think you mischaracterize one point...

QuoteThe problem is that modern morality can be a disconnect with a setting even remotely based on history.

"Modern" players do not fundamentally understand "morality". It's a word without meaning to those that freak out about "slavery" as a topic. They associate anything that makes them feel "SQUEE" with "BAD" and therefore "EVIL" and anything they like as "GOOD" without a grain of moral reference.

This phenomenon is underscored by an insane level of ignorance of history. A childlike naivete about civilizational development and sustenance.

Slavery is a historical norm. Every "great" culture in history practiced it or was part of it. It remains true to this day - we just disguise it under other systems with cleverly re-worded blinds and convenient political covers that don't seem to be an issue to those that pretend they hold "slavery" as some kind of ultimate evil.

To the point of your question:

I have never had a problem at my table with people confusing reality and their personal morality with the things that happen in my game. I have had very devout religious players, pagans, atheists, Christians, agnostics, each with their specific beliefs of varying degrees of rigidity, and never had an "issue". I assume by issue you mean people being so repulsed by what has happened in the game it affronts their own actual morality? It's never happened because no one at my table is so stupid to believe what people's PC's do, and what elements I have in my games is based on how I or the other people feel and believe the world outside of the game should be.

Maybe I'm lucky? I doubt it.

But at my table *everything* and *anything* is possible depending on the circumstances. I let things get as dark as they demand. And I've had some really dark moments (My Sabbat games are pretty grueling), but I'd also say I have some really ecstatic moments too where I'm always trying to elevate my players by making them realize the morality of their choices often have results that transcend their actual intentions - this has an intensely powerful effect that gets players to immerse themselves in the game.

The whole "Hey yeah, *I* did that?!?!?" effect. Of course it cuts both ways.

I think this is the big attractor I have with players that come to my table and they stick around for *decades*. I serve up gaming experiences that are equally morally challenging as they are rewarding from a gaming perspective. And I would like to emphasize - I generally don't aim for *dark* campaigns, and I Session Zero that upfront when I'm kicking off something, I want everyone to make sure they understand the basic tone of the game, but I'm also open to letting that shift based on the gameplay.

Another reason I don't use Alignment (and if I do I rarely go beyond Good, Evil, Neutral) is because of the increasing level of Moral Relativism that infects people's minds.

I think it's always been there to some degree... but now it's pretty bad. I just let people play their characters and quietly keep track of their (mis)deeds and rationales behind them.

In my game, it's a mix.

For example, in the good-aligned realms (e.g. The Seven Noble Realms or The Twin Realms of Magnificence) slavery is an absolute no-no. They do NOT have an egalitarian view of things but there are some rights all are entitled to.

In the evil realms (The Gloomlands, The Nine Caverns of Tyranny and Torment) slavery is a way of life. So far so good, what you'd expect.

But in the Alliance slavery was accepted and legal except in those places where it wasn't. If a slave could escape to such a place he was a slave no longer, but obviously this presented overall problems- until, in exchange for desperately-needed help against the Red Pirate Empire and raider-forces crippling trade from those good-aligned realms (azuralupins, lesser dragons, blue dragons and The Seven Noble Realms' air force and navy) it was legally abolished. But it still exists in the shadows, especially in Venesha. What's more, certain "independent" kingdoms outside the Alliance use slave labor, but the treaty does not apply to them, even though their rulers are merely puppets.

Because of this sort of thing conflicts often arise among realms and kingdoms. This makes the game much more complex because of clashing moralities.

In my game alignments exist and you must choose, thus accepting the benefits and consequences of that choice.

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on September 20, 2021, 07:38:36 PM
In my game alignments exist and you must choose, thus accepting the benefits and consequences of that choice.

This is pretty much how I do it to... I don't really say 'no' to the players per se. But whatever they do will have a knock on effect, and in some cases this could be good and in others bad.

But these are more actions based as opposed to alignment based. I mean, you could save the village and reap the benefits. Get the reward and have some new village contacts, etc. Although, you may now have earned yourself a recurring antagonist, who's pissed off for having his plans all messed up. The ball could be on the other foot if they were evil characters. But now, the villagers are after them...

Quote from: Trond on September 20, 2021, 02:32:10 PM
If we talk about what is "humane" and what is not, then I'd say that there is virtually nothing more depraved and further from humane behavior than human sacrifice.

If given a choice between fascists, communists, witch-hunters, a Balkan warzone, and Aztecs, then I'd pick Aztecs every single time.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 21, 2021, 01:36:02 PM

Quote from: Trond on September 20, 2021, 02:32:10 PM
If we talk about what is "humane" and what is not, then I'd say that there is virtually nothing more depraved and further from humane behavior than human sacrifice.

If given a choice between fascists, communists, witch-hunters, a Balkan warzone, and Aztecs, then I'd pick Aztecs every single time.

And I'd take the witch-hunters who are at least nominally Christian and are trying to save souls with their actions instead of feeding their enemies into the machine for the good of the State and/or their blood gods.

How horrible were the Aztecs? So horrible that other tribes in the region (whom the Aztecs raided to supply their human sacrifices) gladly sided with the alien foreign invader Cortez in order to destroy them.

Even by local standards of the time, the Aztecs were Chaotic Evil.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 21, 2021, 02:09:55 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 21, 2021, 01:36:02 PM

Quote from: Trond on September 20, 2021, 02:32:10 PM
If we talk about what is "humane" and what is not, then I'd say that there is virtually nothing more depraved and further from humane behavior than human sacrifice.

If given a choice between fascists, communists, witch-hunters, a Balkan warzone, and Aztecs, then I'd pick Aztecs every single time.

And I'd take the witch-hunters who are at least nominally Christian and are trying to save souls with their actions instead of feeding their enemies into the machine for the good of the State and/or their blood gods.

How horrible were the Aztecs? So horrible that other tribes in the region (whom the Aztecs raided to supply their human sacrifices) gladly sided with the alien foreign invader Cortez in order to destroy them.

Even by local standards of the time, the Aztecs were Chaotic Evil.

  Dont know if I agree with chaotic evil.  By definition it seems chaotic evil would be terrible at empires.  Lawful evil seems a better fit.   

I don't think you can *have* a civilization that writ-large is "chaotic evil" as a rule.

It might be for a time period where degeneration is clearly setting in, sure. But not for long term. So Aztecs might be lawful evil, with a particular emphasis on the evil part.


As for choosing alignment... again, I find it weird because what inevitably happens is other players reminding one another, or situationally justifying their own actions, of their alignment. I don't generally feel that's defining of what alignment means. It's what you do consistently in game that defines you. This is also why I think if your character is devout it's more important to follow the creed and dogmas of the deity rather than a specific alignment because it keeps it more grounded in the culture.

Plus it saves arguments where players start dickering around about the alignments of other players because of what it says on their paper vs. what they perceive another player does in game. Of course this is subjective in many cases.

Quote from: tenbones on September 21, 2021, 03:14:32 PMSo Aztecs might be lawful evil, with a particular emphasis on the evil part.

As for choosing alignment... It's what you do consistently in game that defines you. This is also why I think if your character is devout it's more important to follow the creed and dogmas of the deity rather than a specific alignment because it keeps it more grounded in the culture.

This goes back to the point I suggested above about assessing evil not just by what a culture or individual values, but by how consistently they uphold those values, even to their own disadvantage. The Aztec religious conscience openly espoused the belief that blood sacrifice was necessary to keep the universe intact and alive, and it's arguable that they couldn't possibly have maintained their power structure for the centuries they did if enough ordinary citizens hadn't sincerely believed that doctrine and willingly accepted it.

However, when that conviction gets fatally entangled with a convenient political power structure that helps the Aztec Empire (or any fictional analogue or similar tyranny) maintain military dominance over other peoples, that sincerity becomes a lot harder to believe in. One of the biggest hallmarks of real evil, both culturally and individually, is the degree to which hypocrisy is used to conceal corruption; the mark of the true barbarian, as Chesterton points out, is that he laughs when he's beating you but howls when you beat him -- there is no conception of ethics that applies outside his in-group, and even his definition of who constitutes his "in-group" can be conveniently fluid if it suits him.  (Non-fantasy example: Jimmy Conway, from GoodFellas.)

Quote from: tenbones on September 20, 2021, 03:35:33 PM
To the point of your question:

I have never had a problem at my table with people confusing reality and their personal morality with the things that happen in my game. I have had very devout religious players, pagans, atheists, Christians, agnostics, each with their specific beliefs of varying degrees of rigidity, and never had an "issue". I assume by issue you mean people being so repulsed by what has happened in the game it affronts their own actual morality? It's never happened because no one at my table is so stupid to believe what people's PC's do, and what elements I have in my games is based on how I or the other people feel and believe the world outside of the game should be.

I feel like there's a disconnect here. I've never had anyone who confused reality and the game. However, I have seen players who expressed that they didn't have fun when the gameplay got too dark for what they wanted in entertainment - like slaughtering helpless prisoners, torture, taking slaves, or the like.

For example, in one of my early games in grad school, I played in a GURPS game in a post-magical-apocalypse setting inspired by Earthdawn and Shadowrun where elves and dwarves mixed with a newly-reborn Roman Empire and other anachronisms (including medieval knights and feudalism). Initially, I connected to the historicity of the setting and created an elven merchant (Antonius Publius Eldarus) who was an enthusiastic convert to Roman culture. Meanwhile, though, the other players created fantasy characters more like modern high fantasy - an honorable dwarven knight, an empathic elven psychic, and a few others.

Since the world explicitly had societies from different times jumbled together, the contrast was technically intended. But the other players weren't into it when my character suggested things like decimating and/or enslaving enemies.

Quote from: oggsmash on September 21, 2021, 02:12:57 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 21, 2021, 02:09:55 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 21, 2021, 01:36:02 PM

Quote from: Trond on September 20, 2021, 02:32:10 PM
If we talk about what is "humane" and what is not, then I'd say that there is virtually nothing more depraved and further from humane behavior than human sacrifice.

If given a choice between fascists, communists, witch-hunters, a Balkan warzone, and Aztecs, then I'd pick Aztecs every single time.

And I'd take the witch-hunters who are at least nominally Christian and are trying to save souls with their actions instead of feeding their enemies into the machine for the good of the State and/or their blood gods.

How horrible were the Aztecs? So horrible that other tribes in the region (whom the Aztecs raided to supply their human sacrifices) gladly sided with the alien foreign invader Cortez in order to destroy them.

Even by local standards of the time, the Aztecs were Chaotic Evil.

  Dont know if I agree with chaotic evil.  By definition it seems chaotic evil would be terrible at empires.  Lawful evil seems a better fit.

Well, part of the problem of assessing alignment is the tend towards absolutism.
Does Chaotic always mean completely without order? Are the people amorphous blobs with no discernable anatomy? Does the sun randomly rise and set, and wheel around the sky over a Chaotic city? Do they build homes with all randomly placed walls?

Some order and some chaos is a part of every mortal thing. Cities and people and rules. Only on the Planes do you get examples of extreme alignment, and even then, it's because the planes are strange and mythical.

I like the concept of "Might makes right" to define Chaotic Evil, and I'd put the Aztecs in that category.

I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all ideal approach to alignment. It can be a useful tool to establish setting and reinforce assumptions.

Lamentations has what I think is a cool take, with the idea that every real person who has ever lived has been Neutral, and Law and Chaos represent incredibly dangerous supernatural forces that you probably do not want to mess with if you can help it.

I also like the classic D&D implied setting assumption of a frontier zone where law is the force of human (and maybe demihuman) civilisation, while chaos is monsters and other forces actively opposed to civilisation's advance.

So straight-up Law/Neutral/Chaos assumptions tend to appeal to me most. I haven't seen Good and Evil done well in a game setting.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 21, 2021, 09:38:54 PM
I would say the Aztecs fit Chaotic Evil pretty well.

Nah, definitely Lawful Evil. Chaotic Evil would want to be able to sacrifice the priests too.

LE says "I believe in hierarchy and order, even if mainly because it is useful as a tool to exploit and oppress others".

And even then, evil by our standards. The actual Aztec priests probably thought they were doing the right thing on some level, beyond just doing their jobs.

Quote from: Marchand on September 21, 2021, 09:51:55 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 21, 2021, 09:38:54 PM
I would say the Aztecs fit Chaotic Evil pretty well.

Nah, definitely Lawful Evil. Chaotic Evil would want to be able to sacrifice the priests too.

LE says "I believe in hierarchy and order, even if mainly because it is useful as a tool to exploit and oppress others".

And even then, evil by our standards. The actual Aztec priests probably thought they were doing the right thing on some level, beyond just doing their jobs.

By that definition, everybody would be Good. And possibly Lawful Good.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 21, 2021, 09:38:54 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on September 21, 2021, 02:12:57 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 21, 2021, 02:09:55 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 21, 2021, 01:36:02 PM

Quote from: Trond on September 20, 2021, 02:32:10 PM
If we talk about what is "humane" and what is not, then I'd say that there is virtually nothing more depraved and further from humane behavior than human sacrifice.

If given a choice between fascists, communists, witch-hunters, a Balkan warzone, and Aztecs, then I'd pick Aztecs every single time.

And I'd take the witch-hunters who are at least nominally Christian and are trying to save souls with their actions instead of feeding their enemies into the machine for the good of the State and/or their blood gods.

How horrible were the Aztecs? So horrible that other tribes in the region (whom the Aztecs raided to supply their human sacrifices) gladly sided with the alien foreign invader Cortez in order to destroy them.

Even by local standards of the time, the Aztecs were Chaotic Evil.

  Dont know if I agree with chaotic evil.  By definition it seems chaotic evil would be terrible at empires.  Lawful evil seems a better fit.

Well, part of the problem of assessing alignment is the tend towards absolutism.
Does Chaotic always mean completely without order? Are the people amorphous blobs with no discernable anatomy? Does the sun randomly rise and set, and wheel around the sky over a Chaotic city? Do they build homes with all randomly placed walls?

Some order and some chaos is a part of every mortal thing. Cities and people and rules. Only on the Planes do you get examples of extreme alignment, and even then, it's because the planes are strange and mythical.

I like the concept of "Might makes right" to define Chaotic Evil, and I'd put the Aztecs in that category.

  Lawful evil sort of like might makes right as well, and they also like to have a nice long rule book.  If the Aztecs were a smaller tribe, and pillaged and sacrificed I could see Chaotic Evil, but they did begin, expand, and control a pretty vast empire.  I think you have a hard time doing that without a pretty well established set of societal norms and a few firm rules.  I can agree it certainly doesnt mean there was some chaotic behavior, I am speaking from the terms of what the rulers and leaders of their society were able to sell as norms.   

   From an outsider's perspective, I think something like a Viking culture might be more on the lines of Chaotic Evil than the Aztecs.  Had human sacrifices as well, were brutal, took slaves, etc.  But had no interest in establishing empires and were more or less seasonal raiders.   

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 21, 2021, 10:00:10 PM

Quote from: Marchand on September 21, 2021, 09:51:55 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 21, 2021, 09:38:54 PM
I would say the Aztecs fit Chaotic Evil pretty well.

Nah, definitely Lawful Evil. Chaotic Evil would want to be able to sacrifice the priests too.

LE says "I believe in hierarchy and order, even if mainly because it is useful as a tool to exploit and oppress others".

And even then, evil by our standards. The actual Aztec priests probably thought they were doing the right thing on some level, beyond just doing their jobs.

By that definition, everybody would be Good. And possibly Lawful Good.

Yup, that's why I don't think the good/evil axis works when baked into a gameworld through an alignment system. Or at least I haven't seen it done well. I don't really want to get into moral relativism arguments in game.

It's one area where Skyrim fell a bit flat for me - most factions have reasons to like or not like them. Like the Nords vs Imperials or Foresworn vs Nords. I would probably be inclined to get behind the Imperials except they tried to cut my fucking head off at the start of the game. And then they had the cheek to try and recruit me. Take a hike, pal.

Sorry, off-topic... I actually kind of like Skyrim.

Anyway yeah I prefer my alignment to be more "objective" in game world terms. It is about being pledged to this or that supernatural force, or it is about whether or not human settlement expands into wilderness inhabited by monsters, for example. Helps to reinforce the setting in players' minds.

In terms of stability, the Aztec Empire lasted just under a hundred years, during which they had eight different Emperors and the first half of all their reigns had to largely be devoted to putting down all the rebellions their taking the throne caused. They were notorious for ganking local nobles whenever they failed to meet the arbitrary tributes the Emperor demanded and would replace them with various Imperial cronies who could rule as they pleased so long as they met the tribute demands.

In the end, despite a nominal population of 3-6 million, a single foreign invader with a force of just 620 men (most armed with just swords and shields) and no reinforcements (since he'd stolen then scuttled the boats just to get to the mainland from Cuba; Cortez was a D&D adventurer before they were even cool) who didn't even speak the language was able to win enough popular support to utterly destroy it.

That's not a lawful society. Maybe you could argue Neutral Evil instead of Chaotic Evil, but I think Lawful would be way too big a stretch for the empire as a whole.

I would always include good, evil, and neutral in any game I was running.

It could be a one-shot homemade anthro-game, a more typical 1977-style AD&D game, or the Ayundell game I'm working on, that will always be there along with lawful and chaotic.

One reason is that it makes heroic fantasy work better (get lost Critical Theory, which is selectively applied in any case), the other is logical.

In most such worlds life can be dangerous. Any society is surrounded by any number of monsters and hostile tribes. The only way such a society is going to even survive, let alone thrive, is if its folk operate on more or less the same wavelength. One of the most important factors with that is alignment. It does not have to be absolutely rigid- lawful good and neutral good presents no problems- but it has to be in the same area.

The idea of "multicultural" in any case, and this includes alignment, never works. Having something important to center around does. This is why Amish can raise a barn or home in such a short time while increasingly multicultural societies have trouble filling in a pothole. It is interesting to note that the ones pushing "multiculturalism" are NOT practicing it, quite the opposite in fact. There is a reason for that.

In The Peaceful Realm (Ayundell's version of "Arcadia") alignment is usually neutral good with some neutrals, but there they have good tendencies. Because all creatures there share that alignment rules and such are consistent for all of them and all can live with them- plus THEY ARE UNITED.

In The Nine Caverns of Tyranny and Torment (pretty obvious that one) they are lawful evil, ruled by the line of Archdukes. They are evil- slavery, raids, etc.- but because they are lawful and follow a disciplined, orderly set of regulations they too are united. Thus attacking them is as dangerous as attacking The Seven Noble Realms because they are organized and disciplined, this including an intelligent security protocol.

Many centuries ago the shadow elves lived there, and being chaotic evil refused to obey and in fact tried to usurp power from the then-Archduke (Ayundell has no immortals). Although united in purpose and having a good plan for their efforts the infighting among those elves, their chaotic infighting that MUST happen with chaotic evil beings, along with the superior numbers and discipline of the Archduke's forces, assured they would lose and lose badly, the few survivors making their way to The Endless Caves of Chaos and Madness, where they now have a considerable empire, but it is plagued by infighting and rumors of an invasion of the Nine Caverns will remain just that- any such invasion will never get past the first cavern and the forces of the five-dragon matriarchal council Tiamat.

The point is alignment is vital for fantasy gaming because it adds an extra dimension to gaming. Heroes are only as good as the villains. If a good character must enter a temple and encounters a blue dragon guarding it the result in heroic fantasy is obvious but suppose it is a bronze dragon sworn to an oath to let no one pass? The mission is vital and the lives of thousands of innocents depend on it, but how would a good hero deal with maybe having to kill a good creature- assuming he doesn't kill him first (how would the dragon feel? What would he do differently- maybe hold back and maybe die because he did?).

In Ayundell the kingdom of Venesha, part of the Alliance, is a greedy and decadent pleasure land. Although slavery is outlawed in the Alliance because of a treaty with several powerful good-aligned realms it exists in the shadows and slaver gangs exist. Evil beings have no problem dealing with Venesha but good-aligned ones (azuralupins, red pandas, elves, vulpinish, elves, humans from good-aligned realms, etc.) tend to shun it- but must sometimes deal with them. Dwarfs, once enslaved as a race, particularly dislike Venesha and the lisharians who run the place from behind the throne. Alignment makes such dealings and adventures much more interesting because sometimes it can make a player's life easier (an elf traveling to The Peaceful Realm) or more complicated (an azuralupin dealing with the ruling body in Venesha).

A player may want to be chaotic evil if he thinks "huh I can do ANYTHING I want so pfffffft on everyone else with your sissy rules" but will soon find that nobody trusts him, nobody wants him around, and the consequences far outweigh the benefits- even among chaotic evil adventurers he has to sleep with one eye open and never accept a drink from his "friend" if he has something that friend wants. A lawful good character can be trusted and friends are true but if executing evil Lord Nastnaughty (whom has surrendered) then and there would be for the best his morals would forbid this and in fact he'd have to prevent the chaotic good blue draconfolk from grabbing Nastynaughty and electrocuting him like an electric eel with his electrical ability.   

Problem is, RPGs are increasingly opposed to anything like that. Good and evil are becoming no-nos in an increasing relativistic society, and this has hurt gaming.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 22, 2021, 08:42:15 AM
In terms of stability, the Aztec Empire lasted just under a hundred years, during which they had eight different Emperors and the first half of all their reigns had to largely be devoted to putting down all the rebellions their taking the throne caused. They were notorious for ganking local nobles whenever they failed to meet the arbitrary tributes the Emperor demanded and would replace them with various Imperial cronies who could rule as they pleased so long as they met the tribute demands.

In the end, despite a nominal population of 3-6 million, a single foreign invader with a force of just 620 men (most armed with just swords and shields) and no reinforcements (since he'd stolen then scuttled the boats just to get to the mainland from Cuba; Cortez was a D&D adventurer before they were even cool) who didn't even speak the language was able to win enough popular support to utterly destroy it.

That's not a lawful society. Maybe you could argue Neutral Evil instead of Chaotic Evil, but I think Lawful would be way too big a stretch for the empire as a whole.

Aztec society may have been a case of "anarcho-tyranny." This is when some are expected to absolutely follow rigid rules while the privileged do not have to. I doubt any of those emperors were deposed by commoners.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 21, 2021, 02:09:55 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 21, 2021, 01:36:02 PM

Quote from: Trond on September 20, 2021, 02:32:10 PM
If we talk about what is "humane" and what is not, then I'd say that there is virtually nothing more depraved and further from humane behavior than human sacrifice.

If given a choice between fascists, communists, witch-hunters, a Balkan warzone, and Aztecs, then I'd pick Aztecs every single time.

And I'd take the witch-hunters who are at least nominally Christian and are trying to save souls with their actions

I'm agnostic btw, so that doesn't convince me. I picked Aztecs because my death would be quicker and less torturous with my heart torn out in record time than being strangled over several minutes by the witch-hunter's noose while my brain desperately screams for oxygen.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 22, 2021, 08:42:15 AM
In terms of stability, the Aztec Empire lasted just under a hundred years, during which they had eight different Emperors and the first half of all their reigns had to largely be devoted to putting down all the rebellions their taking the throne caused. They were notorious for ganking local nobles whenever they failed to meet the arbitrary tributes the Emperor demanded and would replace them with various Imperial cronies who could rule as they pleased so long as they met the tribute demands.

In the end, despite a nominal population of 3-6 million, a single foreign invader with a force of just 620 men (most armed with just swords and shields) and no reinforcements (since he'd stolen then scuttled the boats just to get to the mainland from Cuba; Cortez was a D&D adventurer before they were even cool) who didn't even speak the language was able to win enough popular support to utterly destroy it.

That's not a lawful society. Maybe you could argue Neutral Evil instead of Chaotic Evil, but I think Lawful would be way too big a stretch for the empire as a whole.

That's a good case.

Let me put it another way...

I do not dispute that Good, Evil, Neutrality exist in "D&D" (or any other game) as some moral dimension.

What I'm less concerned with is those words put on someone's character sheet. Because ultimately when I step back and look at the time spent on debating who/what is alignment in practice, play, and all the hairsplitting trying to pigeonhole famous characters into alignment in order to justify ones actions at the table... I say just remove all that stuff, and *play* your PC the way you want.

I don't need a singular example of where Batman tortured someone in order to save <X> for your PC to do the same under the auspices of Alignment (in order to not be dinged for it).

I'm pretty confident doing evil shit is evil. Doing good shit is good. It only matters insofar as NPC's react to such actions - be they authorities, or divine mandates.

I think alignment gets in the way of the nuances of Deities specific dogmas (which is why deities typically are worshipped by a swath of society across alignments - Lawful good sailors drop copper at Umberlee's (Chaotic Evil) shrines in order to have good fortune at sea. The gods care about those they're directly connected to - Paladins and Clerics typically, where general alignment still takes a backseat to the actual dogmas of the faith.

Players and their PC's will choose as they will, and you as a GM know whether their PC's are evil/good/neutral. And the only time it really matters is when someone is under some supernatural circumstance which requires objectivity. Contrary to what people believe - just because it says "Good" on your character sheet, might conflict with the actual actions of their PC. Hell in real life we see it all the time - deluded individuals that think they're crusading for "good" while doing heinous shit.

I think alignment is useful for general navigation of medians.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 22, 2021, 11:00:00 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 21, 2021, 02:09:55 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 21, 2021, 01:36:02 PM

Quote from: Trond on September 20, 2021, 02:32:10 PM
If we talk about what is "humane" and what is not, then I'd say that there is virtually nothing more depraved and further from humane behavior than human sacrifice.

If given a choice between fascists, communists, witch-hunters, a Balkan warzone, and Aztecs, then I'd pick Aztecs every single time.

And I'd take the witch-hunters who are at least nominally Christian and are trying to save souls with their actions

I'm agnostic btw, so that doesn't convince me. I picked Aztecs because my death would be quicker and less torturous with my heart torn out in record time than being strangled over several minutes by the witch-hunter's noose while my brain desperately screams for oxygen.

Aztecs also skinned people alive, dismembered them alive, drowned them, sentenced them to gladitorial combats (with no arena), tied them up and shot them with darts,etc.  The heart thing was Huitzilipochtli's service. Basically it got rid of enemy warriors captured in little wars. Xipe Totec liked skinning folks. Tezcatlipoca did the heart thing once a year after treating the victim like a god for the span of that year but he had to be an attractive captured warrior and the priests kept the sacrifice's head (whereas Huitzilipochtli ate warriors like pop corn after any war and wars were called to feed him) and his priests made soup out of meat from their victim's legs.

The Maya (or at least some of them) were dreadfully sadistic on top of being callous and blood thirsty though they had abandoned their cities for a wider spread more agrarian life by the time the Columbian contact happened.

Also your brain doesn't scream for oxygen, you just black out. Hypoxia just makes you sleepy and anoxia makes you insensate. If you are revived you will have no memory of any thing but feeling tired and then waking up probably with a canula in your nose. When your brain "screams" it is because your lungs are too full of carbon dioxide like when you have a plastic bag over your head. That is what your body senses that causes suffocation panic. It can also sense pain from blister agents and such but a lack of oxygen just makes you drift off and black out. You might feel a mild head ache. Many gases that replace oxygen have no effect on you in terms of discomfort. You body isn't good at sensing carbon monoxide or inerts like nitrogen. Something that burns tissue like flourine will be noticed as it makes the tissues swell up as does ammonia. 

Now the noose would be scary and it would hurt your neck to be held up by one unless they dropped you at neck breaking speed but it should pinch off your carotid quickly, blacking you out rather than leaving you gasping. Noose is better than being strangled or garotted  from behind with a cord because your weight does a hell of a good job of rapidly tightening a noose and then pulling on it. Most necks will not stand up to it for long at all. Most of what you see in people being hanged without the drop is nervous actions and not a sign of the person suffering.

Cortez had a hell of a lot of allies marching with him from the other local tribes the Aztecs kept down and he surprised those allies by fighting in formation instead of send out champions who sough to wounding enemy champions to take them captive and he also would go for the leaders to break the courage of their warbands and would cut off their paths of retreat He took leaders hostage too. His new form of warfare was adapted by his allies who went from treating the wars as a sort of ritualized almost sporting affair that they weren't competitive at to directly eliminating enemy strength and not wasting your own. Disease helped a lot too. And The Spaniards were welcomed at first because the emperor was a superstitious idiot who though they might be the sons of Quetzecoatl who exiled himself after disgracing himself while drunk on Pulche. Quetzecoatl had said he would come back to punish them all for getting him drunk causing him to sleep with his sister. The emperor thought maybe he could calm the returned enemy down and they would forswear vengeance or at least be more lenient with them for submitting to the promised return. Later the emperor was sent out to calm down the people of his city who were revolting against the invaders, not all of whom were Spanish and the crowd stones and spears into him instead of listening to him and he was dragged back inside where he perished of his wounds.

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on September 22, 2021, 09:42:06 AM
I would always include good, evil, and neutral in any game I was running.

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on September 22, 2021, 09:42:06 AM
The point is alignment is vital for fantasy gaming because it adds an extra dimension to gaming. Heroes are only as good as the villains. If a good character must enter a temple and encounters a blue dragon guarding it the result in heroic fantasy is obvious but suppose it is a bronze dragon sworn to an oath to let no one pass? The mission is vital and the lives of thousands of innocents depend on it, but how would a good hero deal with maybe having to kill a good creature- assuming he doesn't kill him first (how would the dragon feel? What would he do differently- maybe hold back and maybe die because he did?).

Quote from: tenbones on September 22, 2021, 11:30:03 AM
Players and their PC's will choose as they will, and you as a GM know whether their PC's are evil/good/neutral. And the only time it really matters is when someone is under some supernatural circumstance which requires objectivity. Contrary to what people believe - just because it says "Good" on your character sheet, might conflict with the actual actions of their PC. Hell in real life we see it all the time - deluded individuals that think they're crusading for "good" while doing heinous shit.

I think alignment is useful for general navigation of medians.

I think this goes back to my point from the OP. In history, there were an awful lot of people who believed they were crusading for good while doing what to us is heinous shit - it was often the norm.

One doesn't need an absolute alignment system for characters to have moral codes. I had a Harn character who was a devout Agrikan, acting for what he believed to be the good of the world and the people. He tried to be an exemplary pillar to the people of the village where he was stationed as cleric. But then, much of what he did was heinous to our modern-day morality.

For me, some of the most interesting villains have been in systems without alignment, which I think is from more thinking about these different justifications and varying moral codes in those games.

Alignment is like a decent to good analogy:  It's a starting point to establish rough areas.  The more you get down into the details, the less useful it becomes. 

Don't take that too far, because like all analogies (and alignment discussions), it eventually breaks down.  ;D

Hence why I've abandoned alignment in my settings outside of the Moorcockian cosmic balance. That avoids a lot of arguments about ethical calculus.

I especially despise arguments about what alignments apply to real cultures because (ignoring for a moment that applying a game convention to real life is blatantly stupid) there's a lot of cherry picking, cultural posturing, exoticism, and presentism. In a few centuries, the United States might be considered the single most evil civilization to have existed in the Americas by the enlightened scholars of Neo-Wakanda. Or whatever.

As everyone agrees that slavery is Bad, and they exist as a source of cheap labor, if you attempt to overthrow the institution of slavery buy replacing their cheap labor with undead/zombies, are you "Good" or "Evil"?
What kind of effect does this have on a game world?
Does anyone care what happens to the people that were slaves, as long as they are no longer enslaved?

Quote from: Greentongue on September 22, 2021, 08:06:12 PM
As everyone agrees that slavery is Bad, and they exist as a source of cheap labor, if you attempt to overthrow the institution of slavery buy replacing their cheap labor with undead/zombies, are you "Good" or "Evil"?
What kind of effect does this have on a game world?
Does anyone care what happens to the people that were slaves, as long as they are no longer enslaved?

Ask your GM. The answer is always "ask the GM."

In real life... sorry, in Haitian folklore zombies are souls enslaved even after death. You keep the soul trapped in a "zombie bottle" to remotely animate the corpse. It's still slavery and therefore bad because it prevents the sweet release of death.

Unless the family of the deceased paid you to zombify them as punishment for crimes. Which is a thing.

I had to wrestle with this for my own setting. I made it work by using morality from the more recent past; close enough to be relatable, far enough back to be interesting and plausible.

Greetings!

Hmmm. In my campaigns, everything that terrifies SJW's and provokes them to sobbing hysterics is present. Lots of "Privilege", classism, misogyny, racism, hatred. Whole castes of people are viewed by the elites as unwashed masses of filthy, depraved animals. Brutality, war, conquest, plundering--all such elements are an ordinary part of life. Slaves are ubiquitous. Cities are full of brothels thronged with depraved whores. Entire races have been exterminated in past ages, and there are frequent episodes of ethnic cleansing and brutal pogroms against whatever race, depending on the region, province, or kingdom--in some areas, Orcs and Half Orcs are targeted; other regions launch ethnic cleansing campaigns against various kinds of Humans, Elves, or Halflings. Religions are also frequently causes for social strife, riots, and persecutions. Districts within a city of worshippers of the Vanilla Tiger goddess or whatever can be persecuted--beaten, robbed, imprisoned, or killed. Various religions are often full of hatred towards rival religions and factions, and are always eager to embrace some pretext to launch a public campaign against the foreign religions. Many people and communities are clannish, and insular. Witch Hunters search for witches to burn at the stake, and dark, evil cultists are nearly everywhere. The wilderness outside the gates are full of savage, evil monsters. Underground sewers beneath towns and cities are often subterranean lairs for hungry ratmen, frog-men, cultists of various kinds, as well as monsters. Danger, violence, sadism, cruelty, and bloodlust are everywhere.

My players are made aware that the campaign world is much more based on ideas of the Ancient World and the Dark Ages, and has a strong dose of added Chaos, Metal, Blood and Thunder. 2021 Seattle it definitely isn't. ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on September 23, 2021, 12:10:55 AM
In my campaigns, everything that terrifies SJW's and provokes them to sobbing hysterics is present.

My setting is similar in that it would definitely provoke the Woke, but I have a bit more of a mix in mine. The there are absolutely places like you describe, but I also what might be best called "hope spots" (or as I refer to them "heroic realms") where more virtuous behavior is the norm.

They're never perfect; the Free Cities are trying to be an egalitarian Republic, but a lot of that is wrapped up in the persona of a single charismatic war hero who a decade earlier ended the reign of the tyrant who had ruled previously and the government he's tried to create may not survive its first real attempt at a peaceful transfer of power; but they're trying to be better.

The intent is to give heroic PCs someplace worth fighting for. If everything is a Game of Thrones crapsack world where the only difference between people is the ways they're awful to each other. Fantasy Worlds need their Shires every bit as much as they need their Mordors.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 23, 2021, 11:10:35 AM
The intent is to give heroic PCs someplace worth fighting for. If everything is a Game of Thrones crapsack world where the only difference between people is the ways they're awful to each other. Fantasy Worlds need their Shires every bit as much as they need their Mordors.

If you want "Heroic" fantasy, yeah, you need somewhere heroes will fight for.

Quote from: SHARK on September 23, 2021, 12:10:55 AM
Danger, violence, sadism, cruelty, and bloodlust are everywhere.

My players are made aware that the campaign world is much more based on ideas of the Ancient World and the Dark Ages, and has a strong dose of added Chaos, Metal, Blood and Thunder.

So do you have alignment in your game, SHARK? And if so, what is "good" defined as?

Quote from: Greentongue on September 23, 2021, 02:31:45 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 23, 2021, 11:10:35 AM
The intent is to give heroic PCs someplace worth fighting for. If everything is a Game of Thrones crapsack world where the only difference between people is the ways they're awful to each other. Fantasy Worlds need their Shires every bit as much as they need their Mordors.

If you want "Heroic" fantasy, yeah, you need somewhere heroes will fight for.

I love Lord of the Rings, and I've never read or watched Game of Thrones - but I don't think Shires or the equivalent are needed for fantasy worlds. I've had a lot of fun playing in historical or pseudo-historical settings where things are much more brutal than in Tolkien - like Harn and viking era campaigns. Still, I agree it's appealing to have heroes that feel really heroic to the players, as opposed to violent bastards slightly less horrible than their opponents.

Well, the range of dark to heroic is where we cross over from alignment into theme, right?  If the theme of the game is all dark pseudo-Grecian fantasy, you don't want a place for the player with the my little pony centaur to feel at home.  Conversely, if the theme is lighter, there has to be something in the game setting to relieve the dark tension. It has to be the correct "something" that works in that setting, too.

I did a very heroic "survivalist" game once.  It was lots of room for all the typical heroic fantasy tropes--except you could still easily starve to death because of the survivalist angle.  People would kill for food, and it was heroic to bring food to others.  Unbelievably, when I state it like that, we made it work somehow.  We stopped the campaign not because it wasn't working but because the players discovered, well into it, that they actually didn't want to play in a heroic survivalist game after all, and that worrying about starving to death was not what they wanted to roleplay, especially when it came down to them or some helpless people.  :D

QuoteAs for torture, rape, etc... Well, I asume that in a brutal world those things do happen, do they need to be explicity described? WHY? Honestly why the fuck do they NEED to be explicity described?

They don't, but of course it is a matter of the group mentality.

There was a time in a campaign I used to run where the players infiltrated Drow society - I don't remember why - and the female elf had to pose as a Drow to avoid race hatred. Now I like to have some cultural framework for the evil monsters too, and it wasn't long before one particular Drow noble realised what the player actually was. It seemed a bit unfair to simply drag her away for execution, and to be fair, the other players were only going to get themselves into the same situation if they attempted a rescue. But of course, Drow as I played them were decadent, so when the Drow noble decided to enjoy her new slave in private, I made the player aware she was was in a predicament, I closed my notes and told her "I leave it to your imagination as what followed that night". That worked. She was visibly shocked without having to wade through the awful details.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 23, 2021, 11:10:35 AM

Quote from: SHARK on September 23, 2021, 12:10:55 AM
In my campaigns, everything that terrifies SJW's and provokes them to sobbing hysterics is present.

My setting is similar in that it would definitely provoke the Woke, but I have a bit more of a mix in mine. The there are absolutely places like you describe, but I also what might be best called "hope spots" (or as I refer to them "heroic realms") where more virtuous behavior is the norm.

They're never perfect; the Free Cities are trying to be an egalitarian Republic, but a lot of that is wrapped up in the persona of a single charismatic war hero who a decade earlier ended the reign of the tyrant who had ruled previously and the government he's tried to create may not survive its first real attempt at a peaceful transfer of power; but they're trying to be better.

The intent is to give heroic PCs someplace worth fighting for. If everything is a Game of Thrones crapsack world where the only difference between people is the ways they're awful to each other. Fantasy Worlds need their Shires every bit as much as they need their Mordors.

Greetings!

*Laughing* Yes, Chris, I agree. I also have occasional "islands of hope" in my campaign, scattered about like little candle-lights flickering in the dark night. As dark and savage as much of my world is--I also have a few realms that, while themselves not perfect, strive mightily in their own ways to maintain and strengthen their own particular kingdoms to stand as firm bulwarks of reason, and to  good extent, peace, stability, and righteousness. Off the top of my head there are three or four Elven Kingdoms, and two or three Dwarven Kingdoms, for example, that maintain some kind of stable, reasonable, and virtuous societies, at least within the borders of their respective realms. Then I have a few enormous human empires, that while definitely not "peaceful"--does expend great effort, resources, and treasure in maintaining a reasonable society that embraces lawfulness, is guided by faith, aspires to righteousness, and zealously defends the empire and its security through fielding great armies of fierce legions. There are a few smaller human kingdoms scattered about the land that make some effort at resisting darkness and barbarism. Beyond such details, everything else around and between such places--hundreds or thousands of miles--is dominated by ruthless brigands, warlike bands of marauders, bloodthirsty tribes, and terrifying monsters.

A few places remain of mythical, idyllic beauty and virtue, which also serve as bastions of righteousness, peace, and inspiration for anyone that is fortunate to visit such celebrated locations.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: jhkim on September 23, 2021, 02:54:42 PM

Quote from: SHARK on September 23, 2021, 12:10:55 AM
Danger, violence, sadism, cruelty, and bloodlust are everywhere.

My players are made aware that the campaign world is much more based on ideas of the Ancient World and the Dark Ages, and has a strong dose of added Chaos, Metal, Blood and Thunder.

So do you have alignment in your game, SHARK? And if so, what is "good" defined as?

Quote from: Greentongue on September 23, 2021, 02:31:45 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 23, 2021, 11:10:35 AM
The intent is to give heroic PCs someplace worth fighting for. If everything is a Game of Thrones crapsack world where the only difference between people is the ways they're awful to each other. Fantasy Worlds need their Shires every bit as much as they need their Mordors.

If you want "Heroic" fantasy, yeah, you need somewhere heroes will fight for.

I love Lord of the Rings, and I've never read or watched Game of Thrones - but I don't think Shires or the equivalent are needed for fantasy worlds. I've had a lot of fun playing in historical or pseudo-historical settings where things are much more brutal than in Tolkien - like Harn and viking era campaigns. Still, I agree it's appealing to have heroes that feel really heroic to the players, as opposed to violent bastards slightly less horrible than their opponents.

Greetings!

Hi, Jhkim! Yes, I use the traditional AD&D alignments. I tend to interpret them in a couple of different ways though. Yes, they have some degree of cosmic reality, and remain spiritual ideals so to speak, especially on a "Vertical" basis, concerning the spiritual realm, spiritual beings, creatures, minions, and spiritual influences. On a "Horizontal" basis--in the mortal world--various creatures and races operate imperfectly, and with variation. Such "alignments", in a mortal sense, are unconscious/quasi-conscious spiritual ideals that inform, inspire, and serve as a philosophy to guide individuals or to be striven towards exemplifying. Supernatural creatures typically operate in absolute perfection within their alignment.

Mortals, however, of whatever flavour, do not.

Most of humanity generally tends towards being Neutral in alignment, with fairly strong tendencies for many to embrace Lawful Neutral, with a significant subset being Chaotic Neutral. A large minority are some flavour of Evil alignment. Across the teeming masses throughout my world, a relative minority actually embrace some flavour of Good alignment. ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: caldrail on September 23, 2021, 10:06:18 PM

QuoteAs for torture, rape, etc... Well, I asume that in a brutal world those things do happen, do they need to be explicity described? WHY? Honestly why the fuck do they NEED to be explicity described?

They don't, but of course it is a matter of the group mentality.

There was a time in a campaign I used to run where the players infiltrated Drow society - I don't remember why - and the female elf had to pose as a Drow to avoid race hatred. Now I like to have some cultural framework for the evil monsters too, and it wasn't long before one particular Drow noble realised what the player actually was. It seemed a bit unfair to simply drag her away for execution, and to be fair, the other players were only going to get themselves into the same situation if they attempted a rescue. But of course, Drow as I played them were decadent, so when the Drow noble decided to enjoy her new slave in private, I made the player aware she was was in a predicament, I closed my notes and told her "I leave it to your imagination as what followed that night". That worked. She was visibly shocked without having to wade through the awful details.

Nice. I like to run a PG-13 game, and "fade to black" and let the player's imaginations fill in the details is a good approach to the more unsavory events.

Quote from: Greentongue on September 22, 2021, 08:06:12 PM
As everyone agrees that slavery is Bad, and they exist as a source of cheap labor, if you attempt to overthrow the institution of slavery buy replacing their cheap labor with undead/zombies, are you "Good" or "Evil"?
What kind of effect does this have on a game world?
Does anyone care what happens to the people that were slaves, as long as they are no longer enslaved?

Slavery in the real world is not slavery in a game of make-believe.

Slavery as modernity views it is completely different than slavery was viewed in various stages of history. Civilization as we understand it today would *not* exist without the concept of slavery in the past.

I'm not sure why this is such an obsessive topic other than race-hustlers in America base their entire existence upon beating that dead-horse for personal gain, in lieu of other practices that litters history of many cultures -one could even argue modern ones - like child sacrifice, or arranged marriages or whatever.

The whole point of having problematic topics in RPG's and the cultures within them is to explore them from a gaming perspective. It's not an endorsement of anything.

Without slavery you'll have cultures that can't create efficiencies of labor that allow for other cultural pursuits - which also will affect the scale of the culture. Even then, you still have many primitive cultures that practiced the most brutal kinds of slavery: see the Plains Indians of America.

And yeah the Comanches never launched a rocket to the moon. They did apparently make helicopters...

Quote from: caldrail on September 23, 2021, 10:06:18 PM
There was a time in a campaign I used to run where the players infiltrated Drow society - I don't remember why - and the female elf had to pose as a Drow to avoid race hatred. Now I like to have some cultural framework for the evil monsters too, and it wasn't long before one particular Drow noble realised what the player actually was. It seemed a bit unfair to simply drag her away for execution, and to be fair, the other players were only going to get themselves into the same situation if they attempted a rescue. But of course, Drow as I played them were decadent, so when the Drow noble decided to enjoy her new slave in private, I made the player aware she was was in a predicament, I closed my notes and told her "I leave it to your imagination as what followed that night". That worked. She was visibly shocked without having to wade through the awful details.

Even with "fade to black", I avoid having captured PCs be raped. In my experience, basically all players prefer it that way.

the level of content in ones game should always be measured for the audience.

My regular campaigns are for adults only. They hover normally at low-grade R, or a hard PG-13... but are wide open to go hard R. - Evil is as evil does. Dependent on the respective cultures (should they exist) of the creatures in question (human or otherwise).

Quote from: tenbones on September 24, 2021, 01:45:35 PM
the level of content in ones game should always be measured for the audience.

My regular campaigns are for adults only. They hover normally at low-grade R, or a hard PG-13... but are wide open to go hard R. - Evil is as evil does. Dependent on the respective cultures (should they exist) of the creatures in question (human or otherwise).

I agree it should go with the audience. I regularly do Call of Cthulhu which is usually in the hard R range. Even when the players are on board for hard R in general, though, I find that having their PCs be raped is something they don't want.

Quote from: jhkim on September 24, 2021, 01:02:49 PM
Even with "fade to black", I avoid having captured PCs be raped. In my experience, basically all players prefer it that way.

I have a 'no raping the PCs!' rule, which I'll mention to the players where appropriate. You can have it in your backstory if you want, but no getting raped in-game and no raping other people's PCs, of course.

I'm not sure what I'd do though with this 'infiltrating drow society' thing if PCs got captured. I guess I'd 'merely' have them tortured (off screen) and sacrificed to Lolth, but I can imagine some players might want to have their PC try to seduce their hawt-drow-chick captors. Probably some of the female players... I guess I'd be willing to go along* with that, and fade to black. It may technically be rape in law** and morality, but it seems like it's fundamentally the player's choice to go that way. And it is, of course, not real.

*If everyone playing was an adult.
**Except that females can't actually commit rape in many jurisdictions. 'Sexual Coercion' then.

QuoteThe whole point of having problematic topics in RPG's and the cultures within them is to explore them from a gaming perspective. It's not an endorsement of anything.

Absolutely. In one episode from a campaign I ran, the players began exploring a city that had just been razed to the ground. They didn't know what to expect. At one point I described a potential enemy, a cruel VIP sort of minion with his followers, scouring the ruins for their own purposes. At first the players hid. Normally I approved of such wariness, but on this occaision there were things they they needed to find/loot. So I told they could hear a baby crying. A mother desperately trying to silence the child. The evil minion grinning and deciding the child must be put out of its misery.

The effect on the players was startling. They were out of cover and launching into a passionate and quite motivated melee. They found the info they needed to, the mother and child were gratefully saved.

But what if they had done nothing? Less experience points for sure. But the actual deed of slaying a young child wasn't necessary to describe. It could have been implied or perhaps delayed with a "Take it away!" leaving a bruised and or deceased mother behind. The act itself might not have been in sight. The result could be observed at some point and was no worse than having dead bodies lying around after the players had finished a fight.

Your question (How does modern morality fit a fantasy D&D setting) is weird.

Does your setting have Gods & Devils? Do they establish what is "Good and Evil"?

The modern "real world" doesn't have active Gods and Devils interacting with the world. At least, not in the way
fantasy realms work.

It depends on your setting: IF Gods & Arch-Devils impact the setting, especially concerning Divine Classes & Warlocks, then the realm's morality revolves around those cosmic entities. If you don't have those entities, then, anything goes.

Yeah?

Quote from: Theory of Games on September 24, 2021, 07:52:45 PM
Your question (How does modern morality fit a fantasy D&D setting) is weird.

Does your setting have Gods & Devils? Do they establish what is "Good and Evil"?

The modern "real world" doesn't have active Gods and Devils interacting with the world. At least, not in the way
fantasy realms work.

It depends on your setting: IF Gods & Arch-Devils impact the setting, especially concerning Divine Classes & Warlocks, then the realm's morality revolves around those cosmic entities. If you don't have those entities, then, anything goes.

Yeah?

My preference for settings is distant deities who appear only in dreams/visions at best and where divine magic could be just a poorly understood variant of arcane magic.

I also prefer to have non-accessible otherworlds. the story reason for an otherworld was so that characters from the mundane world could visit a place where the fantastic was possible and then return changed in some fashion... a D&D setting IS the otherworld; it doesn't really need other otherworlds on top except for very specific purposes.

Really, anything you'd want from the various D&D planes could just as easily be added to the material world; ex. Mount Olympus and Hades both existed in the material world (atop a tall mountain and underground respectively) of Greek Mythology. Heroes didn't need magic portals or plane shift spells to reach them; they climbed (or flew) to the mountain or found a cave that led to Hades.

Elemental realms (massive volcano lakes, lands of eternal winter, undersea kingdoms, sky cities, massive underground caves, primeval forests, lands corrupted by demons or the undead, etc.) and similar strangeness can just as easily be built into the mortal world of the setting as sectioned off into separate planes and doing so let's you keep things like the true nature of the gods or certainty about what happens after death as uncertain for the setting as they have always been in the real world; making reactions to religion and death similarly more relatable (and also evading the often unintentional cosmic horror that is the afterlife of many a D&D setting when it's implications are fully considered).

Quote from: jhkim on September 17, 2021, 04:38:41 PM
The problem is that modern morality can be a disconnect with a setting even remotely based on history.

So I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it? I'll think if I can come up with some more examples.

Quote from: Theory of Games on September 24, 2021, 07:52:45 PM
It depends on your setting: IF Gods & Arch-Devils impact the setting, especially concerning Divine Classes & Warlocks, then the realm's morality revolves around those cosmic entities. If you don't have those entities, then, anything goes.

Yeah?

The point of the question was about how players deal with gods and arch-devils, not internal consistency with the setting. For example, a good-aligned barbarian gets a vision from his god telling him to burn the people they just captured in baskets as a sacrifice.

Within the game, that's just what the gods say - and it's consistent with what historical religion held as good behavior. But the player of the barbarian PC might feel dissatisfied with doing that as a good act - even though the GM has defined it as good within the world.

EDITED TO ADD: That's a hypothetical example, which in retrospect is less useful - but I and others have posted a bunch of real examples from games over the thread.

Greetings!

I don't know what all of these gamers are so "disturbed" by and fucking traumatized. Get the fuck over it. It's a fucking game, about fictional characters, living in a weird, fantasy world.

I had a Player character tortured and raped. He was tortured and raped every day. He had been captured by the Drow Elves. He was gleefully used as a breeding slave for 6 months. It took 6 months of *in-game* time for the Player Party to locate where exactly their friend was, determine he was still alive, and what Drow noble bitch had imprisoned him.

My player--and a friend of mine, too--of course exclaimed upon his character's capture by the Drow that he was fucked for sure. He was playing a Paladin. The whole group knew how depraved and wicked the Drow Elves are, with their nobles, their priestesses, with their whips and tentacle staves. Everyone was describing themselves what my friend could expect. Of course, he asked me, and I told him. Yeah, the noble priestesses torture you, each and every day. They ensure that you are being thoroughly used as a sexual play-thing and breeding stock, each and every day. A strong, handsome human Paladin like you can be used to impregnate several Drow women each day--who will then go on to give birth to bastard Half-Drow children that will be raised in communal orphanages and trained up in their lives to become soldiers for the Drow Kingdom--or to amuse the vast crowds in the Gladiator Arena. As long as you remain obedient to your Drow Mistress, and cooperate fully and completely with the Drow Elf handlers around you, then the Drow Elves keep you alive, and reasonably healthy and well-cared for. After all, they are using you as breeding stock to fuck several Drow women every day, to contribute offspring. Periodically your character is whipped by the tentacle staffs, humiliated, and degraded, just to keep you properly in place at the feet of your Drow Mistress--and groveling towards every Drow Elf.

My friend played his loyal Henchman traveling with the rest of the group, having several adventures before they were able to infiltrate the Drow Elf city where his main Paladin character was being kept imprisoned and enslaved. In a terrific adventure, the group managed to heroically rescue their Paladin friend. The group just wasn't the same without their Paladin friend along with them. My friend, the player that was playing the Paladin--is black, and a Christian, was raised Southern Baptist and fundamentalist too. ;D He played his Paladin character in some awesome and fun ways, with a particular style and approach, for sure! The Paladin and the rest of the group ensured that the Drow Noble that had enslaved him was defeated, and they brought the thunder down for sure on the Drow compound, the surrounding Drow Elves, before making their escape, loaded down with plenty of treasure.

There was no whining, no crying, no trauma from the Paladin player, or anyone else in the group either. No one was fucking "uncomfortable". No one clutched their pearls and sobbed hysterically.

At other times, I have seen players have their characters sacrifice captured enemy bandits to their war gods after capturing them. The players were a Human Barbarian, and a Human barbarian Cleric. Offering captured enemies in sacrifice and homage to their fierce tribal gods seemed entirely normal for these players to do, and to embrace. They had their charcters cut the bandits throats, and burn them alive, as they performed their tribal religious ceremony. They then joined in with the rest of the group in feasting and preparing for the next trip into the nearby dungeon.

Again, no crying. No hysterics. No sobbing. No one being dramatically "uncomfortable". It's a fantastic game, played in a different world, by players that are fully comfortable with their Characters not being them, and the game is not connected to or a reflection of the real world in the present, or any ther weird bullshit. Basic Roleplaying 101.

The players also regularly slaughter whole caverns full of filthy, evil, savage Orcs. Males, Females, the young and the old. All are good for the sword. If they are Green coloured, they die--by sword and by fire. No one holds deep moral struggle sessions over the righteousness, goodness, and duty to routinely exterminate the Orc savages whenever and wherever they are found. They are evil monsters that threaten humanity and all of civilization. The Age of Man shall not go "quietly into the night". The players understand that their characters live in a world filled with very real monsters. Savage, evil monsters that want to enslave, subjugate, and conquer everything that their characters hold dear and cherish.

"No Quarter is Given!--And No Quarter is Asked for." ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: jhkim on September 24, 2021, 03:45:15 PM

Quote from: tenbones on September 24, 2021, 01:45:35 PM
the level of content in ones game should always be measured for the audience.

My regular campaigns are for adults only. They hover normally at low-grade R, or a hard PG-13... but are wide open to go hard R. - Evil is as evil does. Dependent on the respective cultures (should they exist) of the creatures in question (human or otherwise).

I agree it should go with the audience. I regularly do Call of Cthulhu which is usually in the hard R range. Even when the players are on board for hard R in general, though, I find that having their PCs be raped is something they don't want.

It's kind of funny. I have *never* run a CoC game. Most of my players would balk. I'm not sure if it's because they're not fans of the general Mythos over other horror games I've run or the fact that the idea I would run a CoC game would be too disturbing, because they feel I'd ratchet it up a notch (I wouldn't, I think doing the Mythos related games don't require anything other than staying true to the material - which is pretty horrifying.)

As far as rape is concerned, it's extremely rare to the level of being an evil Unicorn/Leprechaun crossbreed kinda rare. I can remember maybe twice where its ever happened in my games. And once it was to me many years ago as a player from another player (I was playing a Drow female if anyone cares to know and yes, it pissed me off, and yes I exacted revenge exactly as my character would have done).

I don't see rape in my games because
1) it's exceedingly rare for a player to have such degenerate PC's at my table
2) Most of my players play masculine males, when we have female PCs in the group they are naturally are protective of them. When we have female players the same holds true.

Being masculine is to be protective of the feminine that's how we evolved and it's instinctual to normal people (i.e. men).

The vast majority of the Hard R content in my games are combat violence, much of which is over-the-top Anime-inspired 30-ft rooster-tails of blood and guts gouting out of wounds, spraying the walls sorts of fare for over-the-top fun. I put my experience as an EMT to great use describing scenes of carnage - especially during investigations. Drug use (real and fantastical), sex - as appropriate and as detailed as it needs to be to get the point across, otherwise I fade to black unless something unusual is going to occur. My S&S games may have orgy scenes etc.

Mass combat and long-term campaigns of near genocidal mayhem occur, usually when it becomes obvious the enemy is unrelenting and likewise hellbent on their cause. Those events are long-term campaign issues that in hindsight are extremely dark.

So while I don't require an Alignment system, I most certainly have Good, Evil, and Neutrality extant in my games. They only matter insofar as what the PC's do and for their stated intent. We're well adjusted enough to navigate what is "evil" - to put ones own desires first at direct the expense of others (which sounds pretty weak, but one should understand that I'm coming from a very atomic level on this). Just because you do little selfish things all the time doesn't make you inherently evil. We all do. Just like we ostensibly do selfless things all the time (good). Where does any of this matter in the game? This is where our various moral laws give us the big bullet-points and our ethical compasses lead us and our respective cultures to maintain the values that they hold.

This is not an invitation to moral relativism - I would hold that is an inversion of actual morality. This an invitation to set standards that produce optimal results.

That the Meso-American cultures believed that Human sacrifice really kept the world from imploding doesn't mean their intent made their culture good. It might mean the sacrificial offering (the person) might be good, because many of them willingly offered themselves up to the Gods as a mark of honor and pride. But culturally it's evil - they're squandering life purely for reasons that have no place in reality.

The interesting question is this: Is it evil because Life is held as a moral sacrament? Or that reality upon which the act itself exists is not real? (i.e. the world is not going to end if the makebelieve Gods are not given blood-sacrifice).

Because in a fantasy game where the Gods are real - what if it were true? I hold it's still evil, because Good deities would not intrinsically require or partake in such acts. To say they do, makes them "not Good". What this does is set the GM to decide the tone of the culture. This is where I think people get confused because ultimately we're asking what is the difference then between the Fantasy Aztecs, and the real Aztecs in this practice? The answer is simple - there isn't one. That's why it's evil. Whether you're doing it to appease the Gods, or you're doing it reluctantly to keep your world from killing you, at the atomic level - you're still doing it for your own ends at the expense of others.

The FUN is playing with those assumptions at the table, especially where players and their PC's might not really give this much thought to it. So the perennial question is WHAT DO YOU DO?

queue the conflict!

Quote from: SHARK on September 25, 2021, 03:25:00 PM
Greetings!

I don't know what all of these gamers are so "disturbed" by and fucking traumatized. Get the fuck over it. It's a fucking game, about fictional characters, living in a weird, fantasy world.

I had a Player character tortured and raped. He was tortured and raped every day. He had been captured by the Drow Elves. He was gleefully used as a breeding slave for 6 months. It took 6 months of *in-game* time for the Player Party to locate where exactly their friend was, determine he was still alive, and what Drow noble bitch had imprisoned him.

My player--and a friend of mine, too--of course exclaimed upon his character's capture by the Drow that he was fucked for sure. He was playing a Paladin. The whole group knew how depraved and wicked the Drow Elves are, with their nobles, their priestesses, with their whips and tentacle staves. Everyone was describing themselves what my friend could expect. Of course, he asked me, and I told him. Yeah, the noble priestesses torture you, each and every day. They ensure that you are being thoroughly used as a sexual play-thing and breeding stock, each and every day. A strong, handsome human Paladin like you can be used to impregnate several Drow women each day--who will then go on to give birth to bastard Half-Drow children that will be raised in communal orphanages and trained up in their lives to become soldiers for the Drow Kingdom--or to amuse the vast crowds in the Gladiator Arena. As long as you remain obedient to your Drow Mistress, and cooperate fully and completely with the Drow Elf handlers around you, then the Drow Elves keep you alive, and reasonably healthy and well-cared for. After all, they are using you as breeding stock to fuck several Drow women every day, to contribute offspring. Periodically your character is whipped by the tentacle staffs, humiliated, and degraded, just to keep you properly in place at the feet of your Drow Mistress--and groveling towards every Drow Elf.

My friend played his loyal Henchman traveling with the rest of the group, having several adventures before they were able to infiltrate the Drow Elf city where his main Paladin character was being kept imprisoned and enslaved. In a terrific adventure, the group managed to heroically rescue their Paladin friend. The group just wasn't the same without their Paladin friend along with them. My friend, the player that was playing the Paladin--is black, and a Christian, was raised Southern Baptist and fundamentalist too. ;D He played his Paladin character in some awesome and fun ways, with a particular style and approach, for sure! The Paladin and the rest of the group ensured that the Drow Noble that had enslaved him was defeated, and they brought the thunder down for sure on the Drow compound, the surrounding Drow Elves, before making their escape, loaded down with plenty of treasure.

There was no whining, no crying, no trauma from the Paladin player, or anyone else in the group either. No one was fucking "uncomfortable". No one clutched their pearls and sobbed hysterically.

At other times, I have seen players have their characters sacrifice captured enemy bandits to their war gods after capturing them. The players were a Human Barbarian, and a Human barbarian Cleric. Offering captured enemies in sacrifice and homage to their fierce tribal gods seemed entirely normal for these players to do, and to embrace. They had their charcters cut the bandits throats, and burn them alive, as they performed their tribal religious ceremony. They then joined in with the rest of the group in feasting and preparing for the next trip into the nearby dungeon.

Again, no crying. No hysterics. No sobbing. No one being dramatically "uncomfortable". It's a fantastic game, played in a different world, by players that are fully comfortable with their Characters not being them, and the game is not connected to or a reflection of the real world in the present, or any ther weird bullshit. Basic Roleplaying 101.

The players also regularly slaughter whole caverns full of filthy, evil, savage Orcs. Males, Females, the young and the old. All are good for the sword. If they are Green coloured, they die--by sword and by fire. No one holds deep moral struggle sessions over the righteousness, goodness, and duty to routinely exterminate the Orc savages whenever and wherever they are found. They are evil monsters that threaten humanity and all of civilization. The Age of Man shall not go "quietly into the night". The players understand that their characters live in a world filled with very real monsters. Savage, evil monsters that want to enslave, subjugate, and conquer everything that their characters hold dear and cherish.

"No Quarter is Given!--And No Quarter is Asked for." ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Shark, you and I would have a lot of fun gaming together, I think. HAH

Quote from: jhkim on September 25, 2021, 01:44:32 PM

Quote from: jhkim on September 17, 2021, 04:38:41 PM
The problem is that modern morality can be a disconnect with a setting even remotely based on history.

So I guess this is about - when have you had a problem with difference between what is good by modern morality and good in a fantasy RPG? What were ways that you dealt with it? I'll think if I can come up with some more examples.

Quote from: Theory of Games on September 24, 2021, 07:52:45 PM
It depends on your setting: IF Gods & Arch-Devils impact the setting, especially concerning Divine Classes & Warlocks, then the realm's morality revolves around those cosmic entities. If you don't have those entities, then, anything goes.

Yeah?

The point of the question was about how players deal with gods and arch-devils, not internal consistency with the setting. For example, a good-aligned barbarian gets a vision from his god telling him to burn the people they just captured in baskets as a sacrifice.

Within the game, that's just what the gods say - and it's consistent with what historical religion held as good behavior. But the player of the barbarian PC might feel dissatisfied with doing that as a good act - even though the GM has defined it as good within the world.

EDITED TO ADD: That's a hypothetical example, which in retrospect is less useful - but I and others have posted a bunch of real examples from games over the thread.

But this is exactly why I don't care much about Alignment. BUT when it comes to the Gods - they will certainly have their ethos and creeds and if you are a follower of a God, which are very much real, then your prosecution of those creeds and that ethos is what will define you (and therefore your "alignment"). Being Good ain't easy.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 25, 2021, 11:00:15 AMI also prefer to have non-accessible otherworlds. the story reason for an otherworld was so that characters from the mundane world could visit a place where the fantastic was possible and then return changed in some fashion... a D&D setting IS the otherworld; it doesn't really need other otherworlds on top except for very specific purposes.

Really, anything you'd want from the various D&D planes could just as easily be added to the material world; ex. Mount Olympus and Hades both existed in the material world (atop a tall mountain and underground respectively) of Greek Mythology. Heroes didn't need magic portals or plane shift spells to reach them; they climbed (or flew) to the mountain or found a cave that led to Hades.

The point is debatable. In myths it was not every cave that led to Hades only certain ones and you couldn't climb just any mountain to reach the realm of the Olympians. It's entirely possible that certain locales allowed one to physically cross into another realm or other world. And, at least as far as the Underworld, there were physical barriers (River Styx) and guardians (Cerberus). And the Olympians who visited earth typically veiled their true form from mortal view. It's one of the reasons the gods often appeared in different forms. On Olympus they may always be in their true form because it is a divine other world.

Quote from: tenbones on September 25, 2021, 04:23:24 PM

Quote from: SHARK on September 25, 2021, 03:25:00 PM
Greetings!

I don't know what all of these gamers are so "disturbed" by and fucking traumatized. Get the fuck over it. It's a fucking game, about fictional characters, living in a weird, fantasy world.

I had a Player character tortured and raped. He was tortured and raped every day. He had been captured by the Drow Elves. He was gleefully used as a breeding slave for 6 months. It took 6 months of *in-game* time for the Player Party to locate where exactly their friend was, determine he was still alive, and what Drow noble bitch had imprisoned him.

My player--and a friend of mine, too--of course exclaimed upon his character's capture by the Drow that he was fucked for sure. He was playing a Paladin. The whole group knew how depraved and wicked the Drow Elves are, with their nobles, their priestesses, with their whips and tentacle staves. Everyone was describing themselves what my friend could expect. Of course, he asked me, and I told him. Yeah, the noble priestesses torture you, each and every day. They ensure that you are being thoroughly used as a sexual play-thing and breeding stock, each and every day. A strong, handsome human Paladin like you can be used to impregnate several Drow women each day--who will then go on to give birth to bastard Half-Drow children that will be raised in communal orphanages and trained up in their lives to become soldiers for the Drow Kingdom--or to amuse the vast crowds in the Gladiator Arena. As long as you remain obedient to your Drow Mistress, and cooperate fully and completely with the Drow Elf handlers around you, then the Drow Elves keep you alive, and reasonably healthy and well-cared for. After all, they are using you as breeding stock to fuck several Drow women every day, to contribute offspring. Periodically your character is whipped by the tentacle staffs, humiliated, and degraded, just to keep you properly in place at the feet of your Drow Mistress--and groveling towards every Drow Elf.

My friend played his loyal Henchman traveling with the rest of the group, having several adventures before they were able to infiltrate the Drow Elf city where his main Paladin character was being kept imprisoned and enslaved. In a terrific adventure, the group managed to heroically rescue their Paladin friend. The group just wasn't the same without their Paladin friend along with them. My friend, the player that was playing the Paladin--is black, and a Christian, was raised Southern Baptist and fundamentalist too. ;D He played his Paladin character in some awesome and fun ways, with a particular style and approach, for sure! The Paladin and the rest of the group ensured that the Drow Noble that had enslaved him was defeated, and they brought the thunder down for sure on the Drow compound, the surrounding Drow Elves, before making their escape, loaded down with plenty of treasure.

There was no whining, no crying, no trauma from the Paladin player, or anyone else in the group either. No one was fucking "uncomfortable". No one clutched their pearls and sobbed hysterically.

At other times, I have seen players have their characters sacrifice captured enemy bandits to their war gods after capturing them. The players were a Human Barbarian, and a Human barbarian Cleric. Offering captured enemies in sacrifice and homage to their fierce tribal gods seemed entirely normal for these players to do, and to embrace. They had their charcters cut the bandits throats, and burn them alive, as they performed their tribal religious ceremony. They then joined in with the rest of the group in feasting and preparing for the next trip into the nearby dungeon.

Again, no crying. No hysterics. No sobbing. No one being dramatically "uncomfortable". It's a fantastic game, played in a different world, by players that are fully comfortable with their Characters not being them, and the game is not connected to or a reflection of the real world in the present, or any ther weird bullshit. Basic Roleplaying 101.

The players also regularly slaughter whole caverns full of filthy, evil, savage Orcs. Males, Females, the young and the old. All are good for the sword. If they are Green coloured, they die--by sword and by fire. No one holds deep moral struggle sessions over the righteousness, goodness, and duty to routinely exterminate the Orc savages whenever and wherever they are found. They are evil monsters that threaten humanity and all of civilization. The Age of Man shall not go "quietly into the night". The players understand that their characters live in a world filled with very real monsters. Savage, evil monsters that want to enslave, subjugate, and conquer everything that their characters hold dear and cherish.

"No Quarter is Given!--And No Quarter is Asked for." ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Shark, you and I would have a lot of fun gaming together, I think. HAH

Greetings!

YEAH! Damn right we would, brother!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

QuoteThe point is debatable. In myths it was not every cave that led to Hades only certain ones and you couldn't climb just any mountain to reach the realm of the Olympians. It's entirely possible that certain locales allowed one to physically cross into another realm or other world. And, at least as far as the Underworld, there were physical barriers (River Styx) and guardians (Cerberus). And the Olympians who visited earth typically veiled their true form from mortal view. It's one of the reasons the gods often appeared in different forms. On Olympus they may always be in their true form because it is a divine other world.

In terms of environment it's perfectly plausible to have pocket existences within an otherwise normal world, if FRPG's can be described as such. So a certain cave, a certain mountain pass, or even a split tree will lead to an otherworld, large or small. Shades of Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe? Of course. The concept works. Especially in a world where magic is a reality.

Regarding alignment, I've learned to hate it. The problem with 'evil' is that players tend to use it as an excuse to behave badly without restriction and that's not a good thing. It created huge headaches for me especially when society reacted and the players got punished for their deeds. In fact, in one campaign, I made a decision to scrap alignment for players. Their motives needn't be whiter than white, but it makes storytelling a whole easier and consistent if the players are the good guys. There's a wealth of literature and legend to fall back on.

Regarding divine intervention, normally that would be omens, signs, luck, or curses. Gods aren't likely to waste time with lesser beings. Personal appearances, disguised or not, demand attention and action. But yoy can still be subtle. Ah yes. The Blue Warrior. One of my players got himself a sword and became aware it was magical in nature. Players love +1 or +2 here and there. After a while, when the character got complacent about it, he began to experience assistance from a blue warrior when deep in melee. Only he could see him. It took quite a long time for the player to realise the Blue Warrior was actually his sword. What he never realised at all ever was that the Blue Warrior was a manifestation of the very god he worshipped. Eventually the sword became too onerous and the player, perhaps wisely, chose to lay it aside.

QuoteThe point is alignment is vital for fantasy gaming because it adds an extra dimension to gaming.

No... not really. It's not even close to vital, and most fantasy fiction does not delve into such categories at all.
Which does not mean characters should be utterly amoral, it just means that morality does not need alignments in D&D way to exist.

Quote
If a good character must enter a temple and encounters a blue dragon guarding it the result in heroic fantasy is obvious but suppose it is a bronze dragon sworn to an oath to let no one pass? The mission is vital and the lives of thousands of innocents depend on it, but how would a good hero deal with maybe having to kill a good creature- assuming he doesn't kill him first (how would the dragon feel? What would he do differently- maybe hold back and maybe die because he did?).

And why do you need alignment for such dillema to exist?

QuoteProblem is, RPGs are increasingly opposed to anything like that. Good and evil are becoming no-nos in an increasing relativistic society, and this has hurt gaming.

My friend - most of RPG's lacks alignment. Most of RPGs lacked alignment from freaking Ice Age. This is basically way of D&D and few of D&D clones. From 70s you have systems and settings without given alignment. And they worked just fine - because you don't need strict Gygaxian diagram to have morality in your setting - neither objective nor subjective.

Quotewhich is why deities typically are worshipped by a swath of society across alignments - Lawful good sailors drop copper at Umberlee's (Chaotic Evil) shrines in order to have good fortune at sea.

I must say I always liked Faerun in this regard because while there was many stupid things - if you'd take some basic ancient pantheon (as it become more murky with all those mortal ascendants) - you have very good reasons for people to worship pantheon aligmentlessly. All warriors want Tempus favour, all farmers want Chanteua's, all people want to beg Talos to go slow with natural disasters, all wizards care about Mystra's favour, and so on and so on. Most of other big D&D setting were not really able to put CE gods worship as normal thing for common human civilisations.

QuoteI also have occasional "islands of hope" in my campaign, scattered about like little candle-lights flickering in the dark night.

I must say SHARK "few enormous human empires" and also 2/3 of Dwarven civilisation and 3/4 of Elven civilisation sounds like terribly lot of islands of hope, in fact whole continents of hope.
I mean few is at least three - so you can easily have LG/LN Roman, Persian and Chinese Empires and that's not the end :P

QuoteIt depends on your setting: IF Gods & Arch-Devils impact the setting, especially concerning Divine Classes & Warlocks, then the realm's morality revolves around those cosmic entities. If you don't have those entities, then, anything goes.

Well but you can have Olympian like gods, not really into deep morality, or strict karmic laws which while impersonal, would impose immovable morality to all actions.

QuoteI don't know what all of these gamers are so "disturbed" by and fucking traumatized. Get the fuck over it. It's a fucking game, about fictional characters, living in a weird, fantasy world.

I had a Player character tortured and raped. He was tortured and raped every day. He had been captured by the Drow Elves. He was gleefully used as a breeding slave for 6 months. It took 6 months of *in-game* time for the Player Party to locate where exactly their friend was, determine he was still alive, and what Drow noble bitch had imprisoned him.

Because various people have various level of own experiences, and various level of immersion into their PC avatars, Shark.
As much as I'm not really fan of woke turn and all this safety-for-all-cost, nevertheless things like PTSD are very real, and can be quite easily triggered sometimes. That's one thing. There are people with phobias deep enough, mere mention disturbs people - and that can simply be no fun. And there's also immersion - which like with fictional characters in movies, books, show births parasocial relationships, and then people gets really upset that something bad happened to fictional character. I mean it's not rocket science or some deep psychology.

That saying I personally quite like your ideas (aside of orc hate, orcs are cool, I'm Warcraft school of smash) but alas not everything is for everyone.

QuoteBeing masculine is to be protective of the feminine that's how we evolved and it's instinctual to normal people (i.e. men).

To your feminine. Family, tribe, kin. Looking at history I'd say we evolved to treat foreign feminine as more of... free game.

QuoteThat the Meso-American cultures believed that Human sacrifice really kept the world from imploding doesn't mean their intent made their culture good. It might mean the sacrificial offering (the person) might be good, because many of them willingly offered themselves up to the Gods as a mark of honor and pride. But culturally it's evil - they're squandering life purely for reasons that have no place in reality.

The interesting question is this: Is it evil because Life is held as a moral sacrament? Or that reality upon which the act itself exists is not real? (i.e. the world is not going to end if the makebelieve Gods are not given blood-sacrifice).

Because in a fantasy game where the Gods are real - what if it were true? I hold it's still evil, because Good deities would not intrinsically require or partake in such acts.

That's assuming Gygaxian notions of Good and Evil hold any meaning for those Fantasy or Not Aztec Gods.
Because sticking Gygaxian square on settings which cosmology does not submit to it... well just won't work.

If metaphyscial neccessity is to sacrifice people so universe continues - then well then metaphysical continuity determines what's Good and what's evil and not some Wisconsin wargamer from different reality ;)

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 09, 2021, 06:12:47 PM
To your feminine. Family, tribe, kin. Looking at history I'd say we evolved to treat foreign feminine as more of... free game.

But you're making my point. We treat foreign masculine as threats to our existence and we kill them historically. These days we call them CIS White Males and cancel them. The degree of evil matters.

QuoteThat the Meso-American cultures believed that Human sacrifice really kept the world from imploding doesn't mean their intent made their culture good. It might mean the sacrificial offering (the person) might be good, because many of them willingly offered themselves up to the Gods as a mark of honor and pride. But culturally it's evil - they're squandering life purely for reasons that have no place in reality.

The interesting question is this: Is it evil because Life is held as a moral sacrament? Or that reality upon which the act itself exists is not real? (i.e. the world is not going to end if the makebelieve Gods are not given blood-sacrifice).

Because in a fantasy game where the Gods are real - what if it were true? I hold it's still evil, because Good deities would not intrinsically require or partake in such acts.

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 09, 2021, 06:12:47 PMThat's assuming Gygaxian notions of Good and Evil hold any meaning for those Fantasy or Not Aztec Gods.
Because sticking Gygaxian square on settings which cosmology does not submit to it... well just won't work.

If metaphyscial neccessity is to sacrifice people so universe continues - then well then metaphysical continuity determines what's Good and what's evil and not some Wisconsin wargamer from different reality ;)

Not at all. In fact - I don't use Alignment as an overt mechanic in my games (D&D or otherwise) - but as a philosophical mechanism to explain cosmological realities in-game, I definitely use them. They're not defined by Gary Gygax as much as they are defined by the meanings of Good/Evil themselves.

I don't engage in moral relativism when the fundamental reality is that Good and Evil exists. Even metaphysical continuity does not transcend that reality - if it did, they would be rendered meaningless. If evil action is absolutely required to occur to allow reality to operate - fine. That reality is inherently evil. Your point is what? I'm not making a value judgement on the baseline of reality.

The question is whether or not you make it matter in the context of gaming. So another way of looking at it is this: what if you set your campaign in the Nine Hells? Fundamentally an axiomatic evil place. But that fact doesn't preclude the possibility that you create a culture that does not conform to that axiomatic reality. It's extremely unlikely - but it certainly has analog precedents in D&D.

Githzerai are a perfect example. They live monastic lives in the pure chaos of Limbo - within bubbles of pure will-driven Order.

As an abstraction of behavior and intent - if we're assuming these things matter, the GM has to make them matter only insofar that it matters for the game. For me - this is largely the province of Gods and their minions. Normal people don't need to justify shit to one another. What purpose does it serve?

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 09, 2021, 06:12:47 PM
To your feminine. Family, tribe, kin. Looking at history I'd say we evolved to treat foreign feminine as more of... free game.

I think the historical norm is more like the Rape of the Sabine Women - the foreign feminine is initially free game, but is incorporated into the victorious tribe, and eventually becomes 'our feminine' and thus protected. That's particularly true when the conquerors/raiders don't have their own women with them (eg Spanish/Portuguese in Central & South America, Vikings all over) or are highly polygamous. If neither of those hold then either you get a lower class of slave concubines, as with the Arabs (since only four wives), or you get genocide (eg Anglos in North America, Nazis in eastern Europe).

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 09, 2021, 06:12:47 PM
I must say SHARK "few enormous human empires" and also 2/3 of Dwarven civilisation and 3/4 of Elven civilisation sounds like terribly lot of islands of hope, in fact whole continents of hope.
I mean few is at least three - so you can easily have LG/LN Roman, Persian and Chinese Empires and that's not the end :P

Sounds like you're not familiar with SHARK World - it's enormous!  ;D ;D

QuoteNot at all. In fact - I don't use Alignment as an overt mechanic in my games (D&D or otherwise) - but as a philosophical mechanism to explain cosmological realities in-game, I definitely use them. They're not defined by Gary Gygax as much as they are defined by the meanings of Good/Evil themselves.

I don't engage in moral relativism when the fundamental reality is that Good and Evil exists. Even metaphysical continuity does not transcend that reality - if it did, they would be rendered meaningless. If evil action is absolutely required to occur to allow reality to operate - fine. That reality is inherently evil. Your point is what? I'm not making a value judgement on the baseline of reality.

And here's where I disagree. Metaphysics is always primary to any axiology. Good and Evil have a meaning only within cosmology. If you change cosmology for fictional world - you literally change what good and evil within given system is, regardless of Good and Evil in real world (or lack of them). Therefore definition is possible only in regards of reality itself, morality is subservient to reality. In D&D cosmology you have eternal balance of Good and Evil as equal forces, in Christianity or in Tolkien universe Evil is mere deprivation of Good, anomaly without essention of it's own, in Zoroastrianism evil is equal, but anomalous to reality because it was made by Good Guy. And what actions are Good and what are Evil, changes immensly with those basic changes.

For most real life religions and philosophies - Christian like way is closest - evil is anomaly. Therefore good is define by God/Natural Law. If if invent fake setting where Aztec metaphysics is real then... yeah what Aztec Gods want DEFINE GOOD in this fictional reality - Earth 616 morality shall not apply.

This is not moral relativism - which claims morality is basically personal invention - but moral realism ergo quite widely accepted in most philosophies and religions fact that morality is subservient to reality, not other way round.

QuoteThe question is whether or not you make it matter in the context of gaming. So another way of looking at it is this: what if you set your campaign in the Nine Hells? Fundamentally an axiomatic evil place. But that fact doesn't preclude the possibility that you create a culture that does not conform to that axiomatic reality. It's extremely unlikely - but it certainly has analog precedents in D&D.

If you take D&D cosmology - then all four alignments are cosmological constances, so reality is - all four are real, and their co-existence make reality, and define mortal morality by attunement to nature of cosmological constances. So existence of Nine Hells is perfectly fine as place of cosmological Law and Evil, but as neither of four is Absolute over others they cannot stop intrustions, as ultimately Nine Hells is the same reality as Mount Celestia.

That D&D cosmology however shall not apply if you make world that is based on Nahua cosmology because it defines Good and Evil well wastly differently and it will either be D&D game with Aztecs trappings merely (and morality of such religion will be fake, as people will lack knowledge of cosmic ultimates) or it can truly take all Aztec metaphysics along with necessity for different morality.

In fact D&D morality is inherently relativistic one, as you have four competing source of morality, neither of which can claim rightful authority over others.
To align with good is just as justified choice as aligning with evil, because they are equal forces constituting reality. There is no right and wrong, because basically anything you'll do will be right in one of those four books.

QuoteI think the historical norm is more like the Rape of the Sabine Women - the foreign feminine is initially free game, but is incorporated into the victorious tribe, and eventually becomes 'our feminine' and thus protected. That's particularly true when the conquerors/raiders don't have their own women with them (eg Spanish/Portuguese in Central & South America, Vikings all over) or are highly polygamous. If neither of those hold then either you get a lower class of slave concubines, as with the Arabs (since only four wives), or you get genocide (eg Anglos in North America, Nazis in eastern Europe).

Ultimately yes. You reap after you r... or something like this. But that depends. Goedelic conquest of Neolithic Ireland according to comparative genetics ended for instance with massive population replacement, not just men replacement. On the other hand in India most male bears either Aryan R1a or Dravidan H markers (both Aryans and Dravidans were originally external conquerors - Aryans from steppe, Dravidans probably either from Irano-Afghan area or even Caucasus), but female lineages based on mtDNA are like in 70% older, genetically kin to Melanesians, Papuans and Australians - descendants of earliest settlers in South Asia-Oceania.

QuoteSounds like you're not familiar with SHARK World - it's enormous!  ;D ;D

Equoator over 100 000 miles long with Hollow Earth to much or GTFO puny worldbuilder!!!

Quote from: Greentongue on September 18, 2021, 08:44:44 AM
As for slavery, it is a cost effective method of obtaining labor if the resources to retain the captives remains cheap as well.
Just make sure there are others that benefit enough to assist.
"Good"? "Evil"? We have a world to conquer!

Historically speaking, slavery generally had more to do with labor shortages rather than labor costs.  So places with huge labor pools, like China for example, did not practice slavery very much.  Yet it was common in neighboring Korea, where the population was much smaller.  And race was more often than not a non-factor.  But in the USA for example, people's perceptions are almost entirely viewed through the prism of American slavery, which was fairly exceptional in the grand scheme. 

So that can be a huge hurdle for some in having it in your game.  In my campaign setting, there are slavery rings, but none of the main states practice it in any widespread fashion.  But my players wouldn't object to me adding it because they're smart enough to realize it's a game and such a decision would be implemented for story related purposes.  You can't always find such mature players.  That's also why I seldom game with people I don;'t know well and try to avoid gaming online entirely.

Quote from: Persimmon on October 16, 2021, 11:45:23 AM

Quote from: Greentongue on September 18, 2021, 08:44:44 AM
As for slavery, it is a cost effective method of obtaining labor if the resources to retain the captives remains cheap as well.
Just make sure there are others that benefit enough to assist.
"Good"? "Evil"? We have a world to conquer!

Historically speaking, slavery generally had more to do with labor shortages rather than labor costs.  So places with huge labor pools, like China for example, did not practice slavery very much.  Yet it was common in neighboring Korea, where the population was much smaller.  And race was more often than not a non-factor.  But in the USA for example, people's perceptions are almost entirely viewed through the prism of American slavery, which was fairly exceptional in the grand scheme. 

So that can be a huge hurdle for some in having it in your game.  In my campaign setting, there are slavery rings, but none of the main states practice it in any widespread fashion.  But my players wouldn't object to me adding it because they're smart enough to realize it's a game and such a decision would be implemented for story related purposes.  You can't always find such mature players.  That's also why I seldom game with people I don;'t know well and try to avoid gaming online entirely.

Slaves were also plunder.

Quote from: dkabq on October 16, 2021, 12:57:22 PM

Quote from: Persimmon on October 16, 2021, 11:45:23 AM

Quote from: Greentongue on September 18, 2021, 08:44:44 AM
As for slavery, it is a cost effective method of obtaining labor if the resources to retain the captives remains cheap as well.
Just make sure there are others that benefit enough to assist.
"Good"? "Evil"? We have a world to conquer!

Historically speaking, slavery generally had more to do with labor shortages rather than labor costs.  So places with huge labor pools, like China for example, did not practice slavery very much.  Yet it was common in neighboring Korea, where the population was much smaller.  And race was more often than not a non-factor.  But in the USA for example, people's perceptions are almost entirely viewed through the prism of American slavery, which was fairly exceptional in the grand scheme. 

So that can be a huge hurdle for some in having it in your game.  In my campaign setting, there are slavery rings, but none of the main states practice it in any widespread fashion.  But my players wouldn't object to me adding it because they're smart enough to realize it's a game and such a decision would be implemented for story related purposes.  You can't always find such mature players.  That's also why I seldom game with people I don;'t know well and try to avoid gaming online entirely.

Slaves were also plunder.

Of course.  I was speaking about societies that relied extensively upon slaves for labor for vital economic enterprises.  Serfdom also fits here in some circumstances, like imperial Russia, which bound serfs to the land to allow the nobles to meet service requirements imposed by the tsars.

As I mentioned before, in my games, be it a standard Dungeons and Dragons game or any if-it-ever-happens Ayundell game efforts, or even writing, the concepts of good and evil are absolutely included.

Now, there are limits since the game is meant to be viewed by both adults and youngsters. For example while there may be scantily-clad slave girls (humans, elves, vulpinish, etc.) sex and rape are never even mentioned, if seen they are simply going about mundane tasks- there is no need to go into detail about what else may be happening, and even evil societies may impose limits on what one can do with them (on Ayundell females are generally non-combatants). Torture may be mentioned of course but there aren't any detailed descriptions about what is happening.

This is simply because it once was not considered necessary for good storytelling. Smeagol/Gollum was clearly tortured in Mordor; during the First Age some of the elves may have been tormented Dr. Moreau-style into orcs by Morgoth (see "The Silmarillion"), but Tolkein never gave any details because it was obvious what must have happened. Even H.P. Lovecraft never gave any real details (e.g. the creature in the pit in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward").

In other words, everyone knows about evil and gets it.

The obvious advantage to alignments with characters and races, be it a story or game, is set boundaries are established. If someone wants to play an evil character I discourage it, but if he insists then so be it- but I expect him to play like one and to accept the consequences: for example it is unlikely any good-aligned character will even want to associate with him except under certain specific circumstances. Likewise good ones (no you can't steal those gems just because they're pretty). Of course evil can pretend to be good or neutral for a time but sooner or later it must be detected. If good and stealing those gems would feed a starving village might that not create a moral problem, even if you would compensate the victim later on?

If a game is all relative than anything goes while at the same time nothing goes. The sadistic and corrupt shadow elves cannot be called "evil?" Slavers attacking a roofolk tribe, killing all the adults and leading the cubs away for a life of toil and misery are not evil? The Peaceful Realm and The Gloomlands are really no different? Sorry, but...no. As an artist and a writer myself that is absurd, had Tolkien tried that then "The Lord of the Rings" would have been complete and total garbage. Frodo and to a lesser extent Bilbo and Sam all went through The Hero's Journey just as Luke Skywalker did in a galaxy far, far away. The entire argument against alignment is just another facet of a corrupt philosophy meant to undermine society and turn us into hedonistic savages. Without the notion of good and evil civilization, be it fantasy, science fiction, or real must collapse because what is there to build it upon? Chaos?

Fables, fairy tales, sagas like "Star Wars," the "Atlanton Earth" series, and "The Lord of the Rings," they all dealt with this struggle. In Dungeons and Dragons it was the same, heroes battling evil. How could Darth Vader have redeemed himself in the end if he was not evil before? What if soldiers of an evil overlord's army are there by threat, their wives and young hostages? Do you destroy them before they can do evil even though they themselves are not evil? Do you try to find another way, like killing the overlord? What if there is no time, either kill those soldiers (bad thing) or allow a town to be butchered (bad thing)? Without alignments, without solid good and evil, what is left? Where is the deeper conflict?

Alignments applied to societies also allow logical subcreations. On Ayundell the shadow elves (drow equivalents) once lived within The Nine Caverns of Tyranny and Torment, but being chaotic evil rather than lawful evil they were always a problem- then, long ago, they tried to usurp the ruling Archduke of that time. The Archduke and his forces proved too well-organized and powerful, so the shadow elves were almost entirely destroyed except for some that escaped to the Endless Caves of Chaos and Savagery, there establishing their own civilization deep down.

See how alignments already provided a logical basis? The shadow elves are chaotic evil so in the regimented Caverns they were always misfits. Even if they were all total more powerful their chaotic behavior proved to be a weakness as they could not organize for any length of time. Evil may consume itself but with CHAOTIC evil it does so constantly, recklessly. This prevents shadow elf society from becoming even stronger and makes their desire for revenge against the current Archduke and the Caverns an impossibility. It is even rumored that the Archdukes send agents into the Caverns to further disrupt shadow elf society, which is not overly-difficult to do.

With chaotic evil anything goes, savagery; only powerful leaders can command and organize anything for any length of time and even then it is shaky. Lawful evil would approach life in a much more logical fashion: a lesser Duke may desire the Archduke's position but since the realm is well-run and he prospers and already has great power (a smart Archduke cuts nobility some slack) he will instead support him. Lawful evil is much more likely to take the long view and resist immediate gratification for something more in the future (the idea of high and low time preferences). A lawful evil ruler is less likely to kill a subordinate for failure if that subordinate still has uses in the future, especially if unexpected circumstances (e.g. the appearance of azuralupins) caused the failure or doing so would cause terrible unrest or disruption. How well would a partnership among lawful and chaotic evil characters work- and for how long?

Lawful and chaotic good is a different story yet the basics apply. Essentially both want the same things, they just don't agree on how to go about it. Chaotics believe the best way to achieve good is through individual freedom; lawfuls believe it comes from benevolent regulation. If executing a villain should be done lawfuls insist it be done through due process; chaotics would prefer to handle it then and there- but both want the villain stopped for the same reasons. Nuances, how would a copper dragon and a bronze dragon working together want to handle something? Keeping a promise to return stolen money is good, but what if that money will be used for evil purposes? 

The ironic part about relativism is that it deprives stories and games of any grey areas. Thanos could be considered evil based on what he was doing, but there was no doubt he did it because he wanted to avert greater misery and death. How would gamers react if they discovered the tyrant they had been hired to help overthrow was in fact keeping a kingdom that would quickly revert to savagery and brutal conquest under control? A stereotypical hero defeating lawful evil Lord Nastynaughty and freeing his hapless prisoners sounds good- until you realize that even a dark lord could have legitimate reasons to put someone in prison (rapists, murderers, bandits, etc.), so if that hero isn't careful his good deed may in fact make things worse, making him an unintentional villain and peasants nostalgic for Lord Nastynaughty!

It is only because of strongly defined good and evil that grey areas and questionable characters can exist at all. That now-infamous "good guy" drow was made all the more interesting and unusual precisely because the drow ARE an evil race- what made him turn to good? What was his backstory? Why was he so different? But by making the drow no longer evil he was robbed of the very thing that made him such an interesting character. A few good exceptions out of an entire race of evil beings become tragic outcasts: hated by their own kind but not welcomed or trusted by other races- but without good and evil? Eh, so what?

Small, weak, good creatures trying to escape a terrible evil destructive force that devastated their beautiful homeland and is now hunting the survivors has an emotional impact that cannot exist in a relativistic world. Imagine a hero among them dying as he held it off just long enough for the others to escape again (but now they are deprived of his protection). You can add dimension by making it so the force can only survive by consuming or absorbing those creatures, but while that may be understandable on the surface what if it is later revealed that by its own greed and arrogance that force became vampiric and so it became necessary to do that deed in the first place; but rather than accepting the fate it created for itself it chose to make innocents suffer.

The concept of good and evil, of alignments, add dimension and definite goals to gaming. It gives advantages and disadvantages to a character, it imposes limits, just like chess pieces- the queen can be removed by a knight she can't take but she can do things he can't. Even debating about what is good and evil must have a basis in what is considered good and evil for such a debate to exist in the first place!

The definitions can be blurred at the edges, but the basics should always apply. This is why alignments were included in Dungeons and Dragons, not just for heroic fantasy but so the game would be more multi-layered and require more thoughtful, intelligent choices.

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on October 18, 2021, 08:10:17 PMSmall, weak, good creatures trying to escape a terrible evil destructive force that devastated their beautiful homeland and is now hunting the survivors has an emotional impact that cannot exist in a relativistic world.

Really? How does...

Small, weak, creatures trying to escape a terrible destructive force that devastated their beautiful homeland and is now hunting the survivors has an emotional impact that cannot exist in a relativistic world.

...not have an equal impact?

QuoteImagine a hero among them dying as he held it off just long enough for the others to escape again (but now they are deprived of his protection).

That's the story of Horatius at the bridge. You can't honestly call the Romans "good," nor the Etruscans "evil," yet that story inspired generations of Romans and, via Thomas Macauley (https://discoverpoetry.com/poems/thomas-babington-macaulay/horatius-at-the-bridge/), of British schoolboys. The emotional impact of real people (or fictional people who are like real people) is at least as strong without adding on an artificial alignment grid.

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on October 18, 2021, 08:10:17 PM
The obvious advantage to alignments with characters and races, be it a story or game, is set boundaries are established. If someone wants to play an evil character I discourage it, but if he insists then so be it- but I expect him to play like one and to accept the consequences: for example it is unlikely any good-aligned character will even want to associate with him except under certain specific circumstances. Likewise good ones (no you can't steal those gems just because they're pretty). Of course evil can pretend to be good or neutral for a time but sooner or later it must be detected. If good and stealing those gems would feed a starving village might that not create a moral problem, even if you would compensate the victim later on?

If a game is all relative than anything goes while at the same time nothing goes. The sadistic and corrupt shadow elves cannot be called "evil?" Slavers attacking a roofolk tribe, killing all the adults and leading the cubs away for a life of toil and misery are not evil? The Peaceful Realm and The Gloomlands are really no different? Sorry, but...no. As an artist and a writer myself that is absurd, had Tolkien tried that then "The Lord of the Rings" would have been complete and total garbage. Frodo and to a lesser extent Bilbo and Sam all went through The Hero's Journey just as Luke Skywalker did in a galaxy far, far away. The entire argument against alignment is just another facet of a corrupt philosophy meant to undermine society and turn us into hedonistic savages. Without the notion of good and evil civilization, be it fantasy, science fiction, or real must collapse because what is there to build it upon? Chaos?

These examples simply don't match up to my experience. When I play games without alignment like Call of Cthulhu, or Star Wars D6, or Lord of the Rings  -- I don't find that there is a lack of judgement or moral dilemmas. There is if anything, greater room for moral complexity and conflict in those games. Not having an alignment system doesn't mean that none of the characters or societies have concepts of good and evil. They still do, but just like in the real world, different people will have differing ideas about what exactly is good and evil.

The game system doesn't demand that the GM declare one of them is right.

I've played plenty of games set in Middle Earth as well as Star Wars. My Middle Earth games including MERP, Decipher's Lord of the Rings system, and one using the Action System. None of them had alignment. (I think there is an optional rule in MERP, but I don't recall it being used.) Not having alignment rules doesn't mean that there is no good or evil in the world, just that there aren't simple convenient labels of such that can be checked. Players had to decide for themselves what was right and wrong - and there could be different judgements of such.

I just played in a Star Wars game last Saturday, and one of the features was that that this was in a "Lost Sector" where there were rival Jedi sects who all had differing practices and beliefs. My character was a nature-loving Jedi who believed in balance in all things and an appreciation of worldly experience, while my friend Lee played a Jedi who was more traditionally ascetic and light-saber-wielding.

Quote from: Bren on October 19, 2021, 11:42:52 AM

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on October 18, 2021, 08:10:17 PMSmall, weak, good creatures trying to escape a terrible evil destructive force that devastated their beautiful homeland and is now hunting the survivors has an emotional impact that cannot exist in a relativistic world.

Really? How does...

Small, weak, creatures trying to escape a terrible destructive force that devastated their beautiful homeland and is now hunting the survivors has an emotional impact that cannot exist in a relativistic world.

...not have an equal impact?

Because as I mentioned the force was was evil and actively hunting them. Why would your version be hunting them? If a natural phenomenon it would be no different than a tornado and is just a force. But my version has malevolence and was deliberately hunting them for evil reasons. My version also has intelligence and is hunting them because of its own self-destructive actions but is making others pay.

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on October 19, 2021, 11:19:38 PM

Quote from: Bren on October 19, 2021, 11:42:52 AM

Quote from: GriswaldTerrastone on October 18, 2021, 08:10:17 PMSmall, weak, good creatures trying to escape a terrible evil destructive force that devastated their beautiful homeland and is now hunting the survivors has an emotional impact that cannot exist in a relativistic world.

Really? How does...

Small, weak, creatures trying to escape a terrible destructive force that devastated their beautiful homeland and is now hunting the survivors has an emotional impact that cannot exist in a relativistic world.

...not have an equal impact?

Because as I mentioned the force was was evil and actively hunting them. Why would your version be hunting them? If a natural phenomenon it would be no different than a tornado and is just a force. But my version has malevolence and was deliberately hunting them for evil reasons. My version also has intelligence and is hunting them because of its own self-destructive actions but is making others pay.

The force in my example is other people (not necessarily human people). And those other people are actively and deliberately hunting the small, weak beings. Why? Conflict of resources, conflict of ideology, desire for plunder, fear on the part of the attackers. Any of the myriad of reasons that real people went to war against or tried to exterminate other people.

We also did that to wolves, lions, and other large predators that were seen as competition for game animals, a source of fear, and often as a way to prove one's bravery. But that seems beyond or outside of your example of the small, weak people.

I just don't see that tossing alignment into the mix does anything to enhance the moral conflict or the drama of the situation.

QuoteAs I mentioned before, in my games, be it a standard Dungeons and Dragons game or any if-it-ever-happens Ayundell game efforts, or even writing, the concepts of good and evil are absolutely included.

Now, there are limits since the game is meant to be viewed by both adults and youngsters. For example while there may be scantily-clad slave girls (humans, elves, vulpinish, etc.) sex and rape are never even mentioned, if seen they are simply going about mundane tasks- there is no need to go into detail about what else may be happening, and even evil societies may impose limits on what one can do with them (on Ayundell females are generally non-combatants). Torture may be mentioned of course but there aren't any detailed descriptions about what is happening.

This is simply because it once was not considered necessary for good storytelling. Smeagol/Gollum was clearly tortured in Mordor; during the First Age some of the elves may have been tormented Dr. Moreau-style into orcs by Morgoth (see "The Silmarillion"), but Tolkein never gave any details because it was obvious what must have happened. Even H.P. Lovecraft never gave any real details (e.g. the creature in the pit in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward").

In other words, everyone knows about evil and gets it.

The obvious advantage to alignments with characters and races, be it a story or game, is set boundaries are established. If someone wants to play an evil character I discourage it, but if he insists then so be it- but I expect him to play like one and to accept the consequences: for example it is unlikely any good-aligned character will even want to associate with him except under certain specific circumstances. Likewise good ones (no you can't steal those gems just because they're pretty). Of course evil can pretend to be good or neutral for a time but sooner or later it must be detected. If good and stealing those gems would feed a starving village might that not create a moral problem, even if you would compensate the victim later on?

If a game is all relative than anything goes while at the same time nothing goes. The sadistic and corrupt shadow elves cannot be called "evil?" Slavers attacking a roofolk tribe, killing all the adults and leading the cubs away for a life of toil and misery are not evil? The Peaceful Realm and The Gloomlands are really no different? Sorry, but...no. As an artist and a writer myself that is absurd, had Tolkien tried that then "The Lord of the Rings" would have been complete and total garbage. Frodo and to a lesser extent Bilbo and Sam all went through The Hero's Journey just as Luke Skywalker did in a galaxy far, far away. The entire argument against alignment is just another facet of a corrupt philosophy meant to undermine society and turn us into hedonistic savages. Without the notion of good and evil civilization, be it fantasy, science fiction, or real must collapse because what is there to build it upon? Chaos?

Fables, fairy tales, sagas like "Star Wars," the "Atlanton Earth" series, and "The Lord of the Rings," they all dealt with this struggle. In Dungeons and Dragons it was the same, heroes battling evil. How could Darth Vader have redeemed himself in the end if he was not evil before? What if soldiers of an evil overlord's army are there by threat, their wives and young hostages? Do you destroy them before they can do evil even though they themselves are not evil? Do you try to find another way, like killing the overlord? What if there is no time, either kill those soldiers (bad thing) or allow a town to be butchered (bad thing)? Without alignments, without solid good and evil, what is left? Where is the deeper conflict?

Alignments applied to societies also allow logical subcreations. On Ayundell the shadow elves (drow equivalents) once lived within The Nine Caverns of Tyranny and Torment, but being chaotic evil rather than lawful evil they were always a problem- then, long ago, they tried to usurp the ruling Archduke of that time. The Archduke and his forces proved too well-organized and powerful, so the shadow elves were almost entirely destroyed except for some that escaped to the Endless Caves of Chaos and Savagery, there establishing their own civilization deep down.

See how alignments already provided a logical basis? The shadow elves are chaotic evil so in the regimented Caverns they were always misfits. Even if they were all total more powerful their chaotic behavior proved to be a weakness as they could not organize for any length of time. Evil may consume itself but with CHAOTIC evil it does so constantly, recklessly. This prevents shadow elf society from becoming even stronger and makes their desire for revenge against the current Archduke and the Caverns an impossibility. It is even rumored that the Archdukes send agents into the Caverns to further disrupt shadow elf society, which is not overly-difficult to do.

With chaotic evil anything goes, savagery; only powerful leaders can command and organize anything for any length of time and even then it is shaky. Lawful evil would approach life in a much more logical fashion: a lesser Duke may desire the Archduke's position but since the realm is well-run and he prospers and already has great power (a smart Archduke cuts nobility some slack) he will instead support him. Lawful evil is much more likely to take the long view and resist immediate gratification for something more in the future (the idea of high and low time preferences). A lawful evil ruler is less likely to kill a subordinate for failure if that subordinate still has uses in the future, especially if unexpected circumstances (e.g. the appearance of azuralupins) caused the failure or doing so would cause terrible unrest or disruption. How well would a partnership among lawful and chaotic evil characters work- and for how long?

Lawful and chaotic good is a different story yet the basics apply. Essentially both want the same things, they just don't agree on how to go about it. Chaotics believe the best way to achieve good is through individual freedom; lawfuls believe it comes from benevolent regulation. If executing a villain should be done lawfuls insist it be done through due process; chaotics would prefer to handle it then and there- but both want the villain stopped for the same reasons. Nuances, how would a copper dragon and a bronze dragon working together want to handle something? Keeping a promise to return stolen money is good, but what if that money will be used for evil purposes?

The ironic part about relativism is that it deprives stories and games of any grey areas. Thanos could be considered evil based on what he was doing, but there was no doubt he did it because he wanted to avert greater misery and death. How would gamers react if they discovered the tyrant they had been hired to help overthrow was in fact keeping a kingdom that would quickly revert to savagery and brutal conquest under control? A stereotypical hero defeating lawful evil Lord Nastynaughty and freeing his hapless prisoners sounds good- until you realize that even a dark lord could have legitimate reasons to put someone in prison (rapists, murderers, bandits, etc.), so if that hero isn't careful his good deed may in fact make things worse, making him an unintentional villain and peasants nostalgic for Lord Nastynaughty!

It is only because of strongly defined good and evil that grey areas and questionable characters can exist at all. That now-infamous "good guy" drow was made all the more interesting and unusual precisely because the drow ARE an evil race- what made him turn to good? What was his backstory? Why was he so different? But by making the drow no longer evil he was robbed of the very thing that made him such an interesting character. A few good exceptions out of an entire race of evil beings become tragic outcasts: hated by their own kind but not welcomed or trusted by other races- but without good and evil? Eh, so what?

Small, weak, good creatures trying to escape a terrible evil destructive force that devastated their beautiful homeland and is now hunting the survivors has an emotional impact that cannot exist in a relativistic world. Imagine a hero among them dying as he held it off just long enough for the others to escape again (but now they are deprived of his protection). You can add dimension by making it so the force can only survive by consuming or absorbing those creatures, but while that may be understandable on the surface what if it is later revealed that by its own greed and arrogance that force became vampiric and so it became necessary to do that deed in the first place; but rather than accepting the fate it created for itself it chose to make innocents suffer.

The concept of good and evil, of alignments, add dimension and definite goals to gaming. It gives advantages and disadvantages to a character, it imposes limits, just like chess pieces- the queen can be removed by a knight she can't take but she can do things he can't. Even debating about what is good and evil must have a basis in what is considered good and evil for such a debate to exist in the first place!

The definitions can be blurred at the edges, but the basics should always apply. This is why alignments were included in Dungeons and Dragons, not just for heroic fantasy but so the game would be more multi-layered and require more thoughtful, intelligent choices.

(https://i.redd.it/s5ccnlg8dt341.jpg)

OK that's bit of over-exaggeration, but srsly dude. There's a lot of wrong here.

So first and foremost - alignement =/= objective morality. That's one thing all people screeching about how removing it leads to grey moral nihilism has to get. Tolkien has not alignment, alas he has Good and evil. So does "Wheel of Time" (though it's not my fav) and many others. Real life religions and philosophies has usually quite clear notions of right and wrong, but rarely something that would fit alignment for various reasons. First and foremost because Good-Evil/Law-Chaos cosmology of Great Wheel is utter bullshit. It's like morality chart by highly authistic kid, who tried to put all his favourite toys in afterlife. It's just against any serious philosophical and religious intuitions humanity ever discovered/created maybe aside American Moral Therapeutic Deism in the end (ergo bullshit).

So we have boring unispired cosmology that removes some serious dimensions, rather than enhancing it. Another simplificaton is on personal morality scale - most religions and believes has differentiation between good and evil, but also quite vast scope of various sins and virtues, and it's I think quite common for people to be virtuous in one area while still weak in others (then of course in D&D it's hard to treat Evil as weakness, it's perfectly acceptable moral choice of 1/4 of cosmic ultimate powers). You want interesting moral systems while keeping objective morality on level of gameplay - virtue/vice systems are way better than alignments, precisely by pinpointing characters good and bad sides, rather than trying to push them into one box. Because this box is fucking boring. But then I talk to a man who consider The Nine Caverns of Tyranny and Torment to be inspired worldbuilding choice, and apparently loves alignment so much he inflated Prime Material with Outer Planes. Yeah, very inspiring. Very meaningful. Aha.

The point is precisely real life is not like this. And vast majority of fantasy is not like this, because dividing people into clear black and whiteshirts, end usually in a procession of forgettable redshirts. The systems of psychology, personal believes, vice and virtue are way better to simulate in gameplay various moral aspects with or without objective morality (and let's remember the oldest fantasy books - whole sword and sorcery stuff was rather immoral thing, without objective outsiders to go and tell Conan robbing tombs is Chaotic Neutral behaviour) and yet Conan is still awesome rounded character, with quite clear moral code.

And third aspect close aligned to second - generally in real life and most stories we do not have AL detectors, AL spells, the gods coming to judge are rare either in real and fantasy religions. So aside of being utterly simplistic, it's also twisting gameplay into something quite utterly alien to real experience. You can do it in some specific systems - like I said IIRC there was this Arthurian game with vice and virtues (which was awesome because you can get well complicated characters without foolish discussion how to push them to alignment chart, and yet objective morality was still in place).

And Drizzt is not really interesting character. He's just good drow. Father of all snowflakes, of all wicked flumphs and tyrannical blink dogs, and lawful succubi. You don't need OBJECTIVE ABSOLUTE COSMIC EVIL OF SPIDER QUEEN to create cultural strife between mainstream and dissidents who consider such culture either immoral, or overly rigid or whatever. It happens all the time in real life - you have people abandoning their people's ways for good or bad to seek something else. Usually in much more interesting fashion than Drizzt. Give me Amishes turned technocrates, Hindus turned into judaism, Seattle SJWs turning salafite Muslims. That's cool stuff.

QuoteBut by making the drow no longer evil he was robbed of the very thing that made him such an interesting character. A few good exceptions out of an entire race of evil beings become tragic outcasts: hated by their own kind but not welcomed or trusted by other races- but without good and evil? Eh, so what?

Of course you don't need objective Good and Evil, not even talking about OBJECTIVELY DETECTED AND COMMONLY KNOWN Good and Evil to write such story.
You just need few cultures hating each other - like you know human cultures in real life. Like Rohingya Muslim turning Buddhist and wanting to assimilate into Burman society, or Serbian Orthodox converting to Lutheranism and embracing German culture, or like any situation when Culture A and Culture B basically hates each other, and someone from A wanna join B, or B-side at least.
Situation will be the same - A will hate you for abandoning your people and their believes, B won't trust you because you came from wicked and godless A people.

QuoteThe ironic part about relativism is that it deprives stories and games of any grey areas. Thanos could be considered evil based on what he was doing, but there was no doubt he did it because he wanted to avert greater misery and death. How would gamers react if they discovered the tyrant they had been hired to help overthrow was in fact keeping a kingdom that would quickly revert to savagery and brutal conquest under control? A stereotypical hero defeating lawful evil Lord Nastynaughty and freeing his hapless prisoners sounds good- until you realize that even a dark lord could have legitimate reasons to put someone in prison (rapists, murderers, bandits, etc.), so if that hero isn't careful his good deed may in fact make things worse, making him an unintentional villain and peasants nostalgic for Lord Nastynaughty!

I don't even know what are you talking about. That's perfectly scenario that does not need objective alignment. It just needs dissidents against authoritarian government who overthrows it just to makes things worse. Thing is in D&D absolute Wheel morality it does not matter - utilitarian consequences bear no value for judgement of Good, Evil, Law, Chaos. If your Good action cause tragedy, or Lawful actions cause spread of anarchy - well that's just nature of things - you still did right according to your absolute deontological alignment.

TL;DR Alignment is stupid, and every single idea you discuss here works equally fine OR BETTER, without D&D like cosmological alignment. Duh.

QuoteBecause as I mentioned the force was was evil and actively hunting them. Why would your version be hunting them? If a natural phenomenon it would be no different than a tornado and is just a force. But my version has malevolence and was deliberately hunting them for evil reasons. My version also has intelligence and is hunting them because of its own self-destructive actions but is making others pay.

The thing is for our small creatures this force will be evil whether it's willing or blind, whethers it's malevelont or cosmically uncaring. From their perspective it does not matter, and as long as story is about them - what reader care is their survival, not nature of catastrophe endangering them. That's why horror with good leads works just as well with CE slasher murderer, TN mutated bloodthirtsty dog-bears and LE demonic entity.

Greetings!

Hmmm...I think it is possible to think about "Alignments" and the traditional D&D Alignment System in a way that is entirely too serious, too philosophical, and embracing far too much intellectual baggage.

For many years, I have played with gamers that do just fine with the simple, traditional D&D Alignment System. There's no need to take the system too seriously, or attempt to map it somehow to real-world religious philosophy. It is of course fine to have some interesting and appropriate symmetries--but the analogy or the system is never going to be a perfect fit. In fact, it can never be so, and was never meant to be so. It is purposely straightforward and simplistic, for game purposes.

That's all it is. Like some have mentioned, the alignment system is a kind of shorthand, and a role-playing tool to assist the Player in playing their character, or the DM in playing various non-player characters. The system is a tool in which to assist the DM in thinking about a particular character's thinking, responses, or values at-a-glance.

That's what I have generally embraced and used the traditional D&D Alignment System for, and in my experience, it has done so well. The various cosmic forces, empowered spells, weird magic items and such other esoteric properties are simply stylistic flourishes and spiritual expressions of the larger alignment system in the game campaign in some limited, mechanical way. A Sword that has a specific alignment and some tendencies and goals, for example. Spells and effects that cause extra damage against the opposing alignment, and such like. Cool. It all works just fine.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: S'mon on October 10, 2021, 08:20:01 AM

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 09, 2021, 06:12:47 PM
I must say SHARK "few enormous human empires" and also 2/3 of Dwarven civilisation and 3/4 of Elven civilisation sounds like terribly lot of islands of hope, in fact whole continents of hope.
I mean few is at least three - so you can easily have LG/LN Roman, Persian and Chinese Empires and that's not the end :P

Sounds like you're not familiar with SHARK World - it's enormous!  ;D ;D

Greetings!

*Laughing* Yes, my friend, you recall how enormous the world of Thandor is!

I've always been inspired by the ancient time in history, where--as some historians have described it--was a time where the world was the most peaceful, stable, and happy. There was the Roman Empire ruling in the West; the Persian Empire/Sassanid Empire ruling in the Near East; the Kushan Empire ruling in India and Central Asia; and the Tang Empire ruling in China. All four of these enormous empires were co-existing simultaneously; and during this brief moment in time, there was more peace, stability, advancement, and prosperity going on in all of them. Economically, artistically, philosophically, the achievements and discoveries were all deeply intriguing and fascinating.

I love all that stuff. ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Again, this comes back to how morality is executed within the game's rules.

You just can't throw "WTF?" out there without naming a system. You named D&D. D&D has alignment and Gods and Devils that mark characters following those alignments. Based on your views, you have an issue with how alignment works and you're trying to ride around it while keeping it in the game.

Uh. That's called Cognitive Dissonance. You have an opinion that conflicts with what you're trying to do and you're trying to rationalize the difference. It's funny because I talk to people everyday that do this exact thing.

So I sit with them and explain LOGIC and break down what they want and how it conflicts with what they believe to be true. Then I try to give them the math to get where they want to go. 1+2 will never be 10. So 1+2 = 3 and if you mean to get to 10 you need to shift the variables. Simple. Get your starting point right. Then you can go anywhere done correctly.

You want Modernity which means you MUST remove Gods & Devils because they enforce the degrees of alignment. Replace them with Philosophy like we modern human use. Philosophy allows the levels of moral variation you're looking for.

Quote from: Theory of Games on October 26, 2021, 12:14:54 PM1+2 will never be 10.

Depends on the base. And by base I don't mean the lunatic fringe driving so much of politics these days, I mean the mathematical base or radix. When the base is 3, 1+2 is always 10.

Logic is pretty simple. The world, not so much.

On the historical concept of slavery being near universal.

That's absolutely true. But that doesn't change the fact that slavery was also pretty damn harmful. Not even to the people being enslaved, either.

You can make an entirely pragmatic argument on slavery being bad on the grounds that labor is a commodity that laborers sell to their employers. A slave represents two things: Someone who doesn't get paid and someone who cannot go to another job, become an entrepreneur and can't spend money. This means that a slave is a net drain on the economy, as money that someone would make in a functional economy being employed simply isn't put into the economy by a slave. This means the baker loses out on money that slave would spend buying his bread, the tailor loses out on money that slave would spend buying clothes, the landlord loses out on money that slave would spend on housing, and so on. The theoretical person doing the slave's work also doesn't get their money either, and no one can really compete with a labor cost of 0.

This can be seen in two places. The fall of Rome, where this was one of many contributing factors, and in the American South, which wasn't and to an extent still isn't highly industrialized. 

Basically I'm saying you could make a good argument that a Good society won't have slaves because it'll screw up the economy for everyone. That, and enslaving another human being is morally wrong, but if your society uses pre-enlightenment values then this is a good replacement, IMO.

Or in short. "Slavery is illegal here. Damn slaves, stealing all our jobs!"

Pre-Enlightenment values means that human life itself is a commodity.

One could argue that elites in the world today *still* operate from that position. Only the parameters have changed to more granular values. For example - it seems to be acceptable to citizens of the Western World that largely has abolished institutional slavery (which is not true - we use our prison population for slave labor to make products for the military, and now commercially called "correctional industries" where they are paid pennies on the dollar in most cases), we're perfectly fine with slavery in the form of foreign nations that practice slavery to build our items of convenience.

But let's be real, we're really talking about the common-folk or means, whip-cracking, slavery of old where our Adventurers wander around the streets and can go to the slave-market and see people up for sale on the block and realize "Hey! I can actually afford that!"

The "problem" is most GM's don't really give a lot of thought to the cultural economy and reality about how slavery would operate. Whether you call it 'indentured servitude' or 'correctional industry' or 'familial manservant inperpetuity' - or whatever, these things have gradations and cultural mores associated with them that differ wildly.

You can argue the whip-cracking, beat-your-slave's-ass to death kinda culture is as much a corollary of the values of "life" itself more than the legal status of the slave. As a commodity I think it's overblown that slave owners would kill their slaves with impunity *in general* because that's money down the drain, and not good for business. But in cultures where life is literally cheap - that may very well be the case. Most GM's don't take that kind of thought into consideration for effect. Because it's easy to have the Django-esque slave-owner that cinematically has endless amounts of slaves to kill for sport, rather than running the business of their lives. Which unironically is how must naive and stupid people view "slavery" whenever the word comes up. As pointed out in this very thread, the historical reality of slavery across the world is more technical (and interesting).

Assigning "good and evil" writ large is a shifty thing, based solely on "slavery" given its historical relevance and current practice. It's easy to be EEEEEEVIL. But in context, what does that mean when individuals themselves don't have the same values that their own alleged culture espouses?

Quote from: tenbones on October 27, 2021, 03:14:40 PM
Pre-Enlightenment values means that human life itself is a commodity.

One could argue that elites in the world today *still* operate from that position. Only the parameters have changed to more granular values. For example - it seems to be acceptable to citizens of the Western World that largely has abolished institutional slavery (which is not true - we use our prison population for slave labor to make products for the military, and now commercially called "correctional industries" where they are paid pennies on the dollar in most cases), we're perfectly fine with slavery in the form of foreign nations that practice slavery to build our items of convenience.

But let's be real, we're really talking about the common-folk or means, whip-cracking, slavery of old where our Adventurers wander around the streets and can go to the slave-market and see people up for sale on the block and realize "Hey! I can actually afford that!"

The "problem" is most GM's don't really give a lot of thought to the cultural economy and reality about how slavery would operate. Whether you call it 'indentured servitude' or 'correctional industry' or 'familial manservant inperpetuity' - or whatever, these things have gradations and cultural mores associated with them that differ wildly.

You can argue the whip-cracking, beat-your-slave's-ass to death kinda culture is as much a corollary of the values of "life" itself more than the legal status of the slave. As a commodity I think it's overblown that slave owners would kill their slaves with impunity *in general* because that's money down the drain, and not good for business. But in cultures where life is literally cheap - that may very well be the case. Most GM's don't take that kind of thought into consideration for effect. Because it's easy to have the Django-esque slave-owner that cinematically has endless amounts of slaves to kill for sport, rather than running the business of their lives. Which unironically is how must naive and stupid people view "slavery" whenever the word comes up. As pointed out in this very thread, the historical reality of slavery across the world is more technical (and interesting).

Assigning "good and evil" writ large is a shifty thing, based solely on "slavery" given its historical relevance and current practice. It's easy to be EEEEEEVIL. But in context what does that mean when individuals themselves don't have the same values that their own alleged culture espouses?

Greetings!

Excellent, my friend! Yeah, cultures and societies--both in "Ancient Times" as well as currently, are all over the map with moral values and how consistent they are. Greece an Rome both believed in the values of freedom, humanity, law, dignity, and rights--but these values were applied to certain kinds of people, either by civilization or race, or also by social and economic status. Carthaginians were slaughtered entirely--their relative wealth, status, or skills were deemed irrelevant. They were slaughtered by the Romans, and their women and children plundered as slaves by the hundreds of thousands. Likewise, Romans respected Iberians, Greeks, and Syrians, but Britons, Goths, Egyptians? Considerably less so. These kinds of things of course varied in degree by circumstance and time, as well. Centuries after the subjugation of the Carthaginian Empire, Carthage was rebuilt, and people born and raised in the province were respected Roman citizens. ;D

Just like with today. People don't give a fuck about slaves or slavery. As long as they get to eat whatever they want, fuck like monkeys, and wear Nike shoes--the slaves can keep on being subjugated. Millions of people slave away in China--often confined to special "Worker's Barracks" or apartments, constantly under surveillance, their social time controlled, and they are required to work 10, 12, 14 hours a day. It seems to vary by region, industry, and so on. They are paid a nickel an hour, and exist on starvation wages. They are constantly supervised, or at least most of the time, an controlled. Anyone getting uppity or smart mouthed gets their ass beat down. Run their mouth again, think they're a tough guy?--a Black van with armed men comes and gets them--and their families--in the middle of the night, and they simply disappear, and are never seen again.

That sounds like terrifying and brutal slavery to me, even if those people are not technically or officially termed as "slaves". But no one cares. They grind away, by the MILLIONS in China, in particular, but we have seen reports and investigations over the years with similarly brutal slave camps and slave conditions with Nike in Indonesia and other parts of South East Asia where Nike and other companies pay the government officials hundreds of millions of dollars to "look the other way" while workers are brutally treated, and forced to work where, when, and how Nike and their masters determine they do so. I've also read about how hordes of young girls are enslaved and forced to serve as breeders and whores. They don't like it? They get beaten, and then fed to the fucking crocodiles. Many times these girl's families are actually paid a considerable fee, and thereby forget about their daughter.

In Africa--Muslim and Black slave masters buy, sell, and own slaves, both men and women. Do we hear any "African American' activists or goody Liberal cock-sucking white champions here screaming about these horrible atrocities?

No. They are worried about a group of black people being seated on a different side of a fucking restaurant, or some phony "Hate crimes" where swastikas were painted on a school wall...by a black African-American girl.

All kinds of horrifying injustices going on around the world. But few people actually give a fuck. The population, the media, government agencies? Where are the celebrities, the media companies, screaming about how China and Black Muslims in Africa are oppressing and enslaving hundreds of thousands or millions of people? Black African Christians are routinely raped, gang fucked, enslaved, and murdered in many parts of Africa, often by the government or groups sanctioned by the government. Most of the most oppressive groups, organizations, and governments in Africa are, of course, Muslim. How come people here in America or in Western Europe aren't screaming about that?

Smug, Liberal's do-gooder hypocrisy, blindness, and obvious political self-interest, as you know, can be very frustrating. Just another reason why I despise most of modern Liberalism and modern Liberals. It is absolutely phony and corrupt, and smug, as well as petty and self-satisfied and spoiled. Decadent and gross. Liberals are morally disgusting on every level in so many ways. All o their constant crying abut "representation"; "rights"; and "dignity" for women, for gays, trans, or for racial minorities--it is all gross political and ideological performance theater, and absolutely corrupt and rotten to the core, like a bad apple let for too long out in the sun.

So many inconsistencies throughout the world and in society. There always have been. Slavery in the game can and should exist, because it is historically accurate and enhances the verisimilitude! ;D Plus, it provides enhanced dramatic effects and emotionalism for the Player Characters.

I have slavery in many regions of my campaign world. Slaves being bred, and put up on the slave block, to advertise their assets to their future masters and mistresses! Plus, it's entertaining watching the Player's faces when they see what's going on down at the local slave market. I like Sword & Sorcery themes too. Conan lived in a harsh and brutal world, too.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

QuoteHmmm...I think it is possible to think about "Alignments" and the traditional D&D Alignment System in a way that is entirely too serious, too philosophical, and embracing far too much intellectual baggage.

Well it was my opponent here who claim how many dimensions Alignment adds, Shark. I claim is reduced and simplify dimensions.
Being based on shoddy philosophy and cosmology is main reason.

In both cases of shallow and deep game it seems just... spare.

QuoteFor many years, I have played with gamers that do just fine with the simple, traditional D&D Alignment System. There's no need to take the system too seriously, or attempt to map it somehow to real-world religious philosophy. It is of course fine to have some interesting and appropriate symmetries--but the analogy or the system is never going to be a perfect fit. In fact, it can never be so, and was never meant to be so. It is purposely straightforward and simplistic, for game purposes.

I understand this purpose. I'm just saying for game perspectives better to have no morality-o-meter than broken one :P
Like I play Conan game, or Warhammer, or any of other fantasy adventure games - I have no alignment. I do not need it it... My foes are my foes because they do foe-ish stuff, not because morality-o-meter told me so.

QuoteThat's all it is. Like some have mentioned, the alignment system is a kind of shorthand, and a role-playing tool to assist the Player in playing their character, or the DM in playing various non-player characters. The system is a tool in which to assist the DM in thinking about a particular character's thinking, responses, or values at-a-glance.

And there are so many better systems for that used in RPGs. And you know - if it's just shorthand for RP, maybe not based your entire Afterlife based on it... as it may came out bit shorthanded :P

QuoteI've always been inspired by the ancient time in history, where--as some historians have described it--was a time where the world was the most peaceful, stable, and happy. There was the Roman Empire ruling in the West; the Persian Empire/Sassanid Empire ruling in the Near East; the Kushan Empire ruling in India and Central Asia; and the Tang Empire ruling in China. All four of these enormous empires were co-existing simultaneously; and during this brief moment in time, there was more peace, stability, advancement, and prosperity going on in all of them. Economically, artistically, philosophically, the achievements and discoveries were all deeply intriguing and fascinating.

I love all that stuff. ;D

Ha, I've just thinking about own take about FS/WH40k/Dune Space Feudalism setting, and this period is meant by me to be root of future civilisation (and shifting point for alt-history). Cool stuff.

Quote
You want Modernity which means you MUST remove Gods & Devils because they enforce the degrees of alignment. Replace them with Philosophy like we modern human use. Philosophy allows the levels of moral variation you're looking for

.

. I don't need to remove Gods and Devils to remove alignment. I can quite easy make gods in lieu of real pagan gods, which usually had from Gygaxian perspective both Good and Bad sides, often in quite drastic measures. What define God is specific portfolio, element of material he cared about, not Lawful-Chaotic axis. Devils can be easily revamped as punishers, enforcers for Gods, punishing those who falsely worshipping break divine taboos, while conspiring to take deities places.

QuoteYou can make an entirely pragmatic argument on slavery being bad on the grounds that labor is a commodity that laborers sell to their employers. A slave represents two things: Someone who doesn't get paid and someone who cannot go to another job, become an entrepreneur and can't spend money. This means that a slave is a net drain on the economy, as money that someone would make in a functional economy being employed simply isn't put into the economy by a slave. This means the baker loses out on money that slave would spend buying his bread, the tailor loses out on money that slave would spend buying clothes, the landlord loses out on money that slave would spend on housing, and so on. The theoretical person doing the slave's work also doesn't get their money either, and no one can really compete with a labor cost of 0.

Only if you assume bakers not making money on slaves is bad.

Quote from: Wrath of God on October 28, 2021, 11:29:38 AM

Only if you assume bakers not making money on slaves is bad.

In my explanation the slave would have been a free citizen, and thus able to spend money, buy bread, etc.

Yes. I understand it.
And I'm telling it's still just certain assumption - that slave owners should support bakers by freeing slaves and paying them.