Banning evil alignments [Archive] - Page 2 - Giant in the Playground Forums

true_shinken

2011-01-12, 07:33 PM

I mean, if approving, sanctioning, and commissioning the torture were all good acts, is carrying it out still an evil act?
I don't know the specifics about this pact you mentioned, but I imagine it was done for a reason. The main difference between gods and humans is the scope. For humans, scope basically doesn't matter. Killing a baby is an evil act, even if by killing said baby you save a thousand other people (a single evil act probably won't change your alignment, though). For gods? For them, scope matters. If said pact prevented Asmodeus from waging raging war on heavens, ripping the fabric of reality to shreds and stuff like that... then it's a price worth paying. A mortal may make hard decisions, but a god must make hard decisions. As such, they are a granted more leeway towards alignments, because every decision they actively take might shape the world in a way.

Let me give you another example. Here in Brazil, there is a mosquito called aedes aegypt (or something like that, I forget). Every year we go through a campaign on TV, radio, basically everywhere, on how to kill this mosquito and prevent it from reproducing, because it transmits a potentially fatal disease.
Now, are all brazilians evil because we kill those mosquitos?
The difference between god and mortal seems a lot bigger than that between a human and a mosquito.

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-12, 08:24 PM

First, thanks for Grelna the Blue for explaining for me why I see Rorscach's world-view as unfitting of Lawful alignment. More on it below.

On the contrary, despite extreme violence being used by him elsewhere, with evil people routinely turning up dead, he doesn't kill or maim the police, and is eventually taken into custody by them. He does not treat those who uphold the law equivalently with those who do not, even when he disagrees with them.

Wait, what? He sets one of the officers on fire and knocks several others down a staircase. He most definitely maims several of them. He's only taken to custody because the police outnumber him hundred to one. It's clear he's doing anything in his power to escape.

He explicitly does not refer to everyone as an enemy, instead calling some friends. He spends a good portion of his time warning others of impending danger. That does not mesh with anything you've said.

I didn't say he considers everyone his enemy, I said everyone on his way. -_- What he does to the police is a clear indicator of this. I have to check this from the comic, but I'm fairly sure he also says to Adrian early on "if you do that, I might have to kill you", which is further indicative of such mentality.

Disregards social conventions? So? LG does not mean nice.

Unnice is hurting someone's feelings by being brutally honest to them. Breaking someone's fingers when he says a bad word to you is anti-social. Post-insanity Rorschach goes way past merely unnice, like when he throws the masochist-in-spandex down an elevator shaft.

As already mentioned, deontological world views are extremely lawful. Someone interested in saving individuals is also good, but is likely in the neutral-chaotic end of the spectrum. A lawful person tends to see society and it's laws as more important than individual freedoms. Therefore, he will focus on fairly big-picture things, and abstract views of things are quite reasonable. Laws are abstracts.

I can accept a deontological world-view as a Lawful trait. However, that alone is not enough to make Rorsach Lawful - alignment is about both attitudes and actions that persist. And as noted, Rorsach doesn't give one whiff about society past his insanity - he perceives all other outlooks outside his own meaningless. His sympathy for his "fellow do-gooders" goes right out of the door when it threatens to stop him from doing his own thing - he clearly values his own hide and freedom more than other people. This is even further evidenced by the double-standard I mentioned earlier - Rorsach hunts down criminals, but does not acknowledge himself as one even though he's one by all rights. His "laws" work differently for him than everyone else.

What comes to laws being abstract, I both agree and disagree to an extent - some laws are arbitrary, but nonetheless tied to concrete things and behaviours. Rorschach's are so detached from the world they don't actually manifest as Lawful or Good behaviour - at least, not to the same extent they manifest as non-lawful and evil.

His personal sacrifices are entirely for the purpose of fighting what he sees as evil. It's certainly not beneficial to him in any way to live this lifestyle.

But non-good people also engage in actions that are not beneficial to them in any way. Evil and insane people also often engage in non-beneficial acts to satisfy their urges - like, you know, torturing people for slightest of reasons, stubbornly sticking to a deluded world-view and resorting to extreme violence when their freedom is threatened.

I agree that it's quite possible to see him as Lawful (something else) as well...the alignment systems sufficiently squishy that it's not uncommon to have multiple possibilities for any given complex character. But refusing to betray his beliefs at the cost of his own life is an extremely non-chaotic act.

... but completely refusing to compromise his own freedom and utter disregard for society is an extremely chaotic act, and he accumulates other minor chaotic deeds throughout the story. I agree that a Lawful character might fight an opposing order of other Lawful characters, but there's a reason why most freedom fighters are labeled as Chaotic in the end - forcefully acting outside established systems to erase them is Chaotic. If "refusal of outside order" does not count as Chaotic to any extent, then you might as well do away with so-called "ethical axis", since you've invalidated the only easy measure of Chaos.

And if you accept that the act of mass murder to attempt to coerce peace via a lie is evil, then opposing that is also good.

But one Good act does not a Good character make. Especially if the character has a mountain of Evil deeds on his back to outweigh it.

By this reasoning, criminals condemn themselves to be tortured during their lives by, you know, committing crimes and stuff.

Good and evil are not just sides of a war. It's not acceptable, in the long run, for good to pay unto evil with evil. So even if you can say criminals condemn themselves to torture during life, those who torture *them* also condemn themselves to be tortured in this life or the one after.

Also, once again, alignments are about behaviours that persist. Even if torture is always evil, one act of torture might not shift a Good character to Neutral or Evil, especially if they commit a lot of good deeds to "balance it out". Of course, if you follow the corruption rules, it's possible to end up damned regardless of pinging Neutral or Good when your vital functions stop.

EDIT: sorry, felt the need to revisit this one:

The alignment systems sufficiently squishy that it's not uncommon to have multiple possibilities for any given complex character.

I agree to an extent (l listed to fitting alignments for Rorschach myself *guilty whistle*), but I also think that part of the "squishiness" does not arise from the system itself, but from how people think of these things.

"Complex characters" are often those with long and convoluted history, with sometimes contradictory portrayal across the field. Problems crop up when people take too big of a slice of such character and try to cram it within single Alignment. Even worse, some people try to file all actions of a character under that single Alignment.

Which is somewhat absurd, considering the rules state that A) character actions are not consistent with their Aligment 100% of the time, and B) Alignment can change.

People change and characters change. Within the context of the rules, it'd be more logical to think a character can have different Alignment at different points of their career. I feel this is sometimes forgotten.

Smiling Knight

2011-01-12, 08:49 PM

I feel that there needs to be some sort of theorem of the internet like this:

As a discussion of character alignment lengthens, the odds of debate turning into one primary about Rorschach approaches one.

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-12, 09:13 PM

Hush! You're starting to make think I'm wasting my time here. :smalltongue:

TheWhisper

2011-01-12, 11:08 PM

I don't know the specifics about this pact you mentioned, but I imagine it was done for a reason.

It's called the Pact Primeval, set forth in the preface to the Fiendish Codex II. Here's a relevant quote:

So the deities handed down their new laws, and sent their clerics through mortal lands to proclaim that the punishment for sin would be torment.

So, in this universe, gods who are defined as good authorize eternal torture.

So my question remains. Are the devils, who are carrying out the orders of good deities, committing an evil act by doing so?

The main difference between gods and humans is the scope. For humans, scope basically doesn't matter. Killing a baby is an evil act, even if by killing said baby you save a thousand other people (a single evil act probably won't change your alignment, though). For gods? For them, scope matters. If said pact prevented Asmodeus from waging raging war on heavens, ripping the fabric of reality to shreds and stuff like that...

Ah, no. Read the Fiendish Codex II and get back to me.

A mortal may make hard decisions, but a god must make hard decisions.

Au contare. A mortal may not make "hard decisions", if torture is "always evil". (Except when gods do it.)

As such, they are a granted more leeway towards alignments, because every decision they actively take might shape the world in a way.

So there is one set of alignment rules for mortals, and another for gods. I ask again, at what divine rank do the rules change? The cannon rules list numerous cases of mortals (who may not torture) who became gods (who may). At what point in their ascension was torture no longer an evil act for them?

Let me give you another example. Here in Brazil, there is a mosquito called aedes aegypt (or something like that, I forget). Every year we go through a campaign on TV, radio, basically everywhere, on how to kill this mosquito and prevent it from reproducing, because it transmits a potentially fatal disease.
Now, are all brazilians evil because we kill those mosquitos?

You are so close to an important understanding...

What would be the answer to this question if you asked a Brazilian? How about if you asked a mosquito?

The difference between god and mortal seems a lot bigger than that between a human and a mosquito.

Get back to me when a mosquito ascends to humanity.

umbrapolaris

2011-01-13, 12:36 AM

Congratulations, you just proved me right.
Kenshiro and Rei are definitely Good. Did you read the manga at all? All Kenshiro does is walk around saving people. He is called the saviour more than once.

1- i knew about Hokuto no ken, around 20 years ago, it is my favorite manga.

2- when i mention Kenshiro or Rei , i said anti-heroes ({{scrubbed}}). you cant say kenshiro/Rei are the archetype of the truely good hero character, i will class them between neutral and good. at the beginning Ken didnt care about the innocents tortured or killed, he just want revenge from Shin and take back Yuria, he start to become a savior coz Lyn, she has a kind of karma influence on Ken (later we know their destiny are tied). Rei is the same, he trap and kill because he needed food, he even almost rape Mamya; he change coz Ken, the only truly good character is Toki.

and please i really dislike people who say sentences like : "did you read it at all or do you know what you talking about?" you are not a well of knowledge nor me and we have different point of views, your view is not the only truth , when i talk about something is because i know enough of it to talk about it.

NichG

2011-01-13, 01:27 AM

The thing about gods in D&D is, they are (often) the arbiters of the cosmic absolute morality. That lets them be arbitrary about it. If they decide that punishing the mortals they label as Evil is Good, they're the ones who get to direct the energies that create those labels. I would consider it a philosophically reasonable stance for a mortal in the D&D cosmology to decide that the gods of good are in fact evil due to such policies, or that cosmic good isn't always moral by their personal system of morality.

It reminds me of a campaign where someone in the party whose actions were always a bit questionable ethically got his hands on an item that caused him to be defined as Good, with a capital cosmic G, regardless of his actual behavior. It became a running joke that him using the item would inevitably lead to an alteration of the cosmic meaning of good and evil.

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-13, 06:57 AM

Alternatively: normal animals are always labeled as True Neutral, despite of how acting like them would be evaluated in a sapient being. Within context of the rules, this is largely because "animals are dumb" - having Int below 3 exempts them from normal judgement, because they are uncomprehending and incapable of acting against their base nature.

If you look at gods as "embodiments of concepts", then the same might apply to them. A god of fire always embodies both good and bad qualities of fire, regardless of his own personal morality. Gods create and enforce natural laws through their very existence, so ironically enough, it might be impossible for them to completely avoid screwing over someone - this might grant them some supernatural leeway what comes to their appointed tasks in natural order.

Of course, since there are Evil gods, it might simply be the Good ones are honestly doing their best, and the reason they can't make the world Happy Fun Place is because they have equal-but-opposite force nullifying their efforts.

true_shinken

2011-01-13, 08:49 AM

Au contare. A mortal may not make "hard decisions", if torture is "always evil". (Except when gods do it.)
Nitpick: au contraire.
A mortal can make hard decisions. One action does not change your alignment.

Get back to me when a mosquito ascends to humanity.
That's my point, actually.

1- i knew about Hokuto no ken, around 20 years ago, it is my favorite manga.

2- when i mention Kenshiro or Rei , i said anti-heroes (did u read my post?). you cant say kenshiro/Rei are the archetype of the truely good hero character, i will class them between neutral and good.
I think this may be the issue here. We're discussing D&D alignments. However you 'class' anything doesn't matter, because D&D already has standards and that's what we're discussing here.

at the beginning Ken didnt care about the innocents tortured or killed, he just want revenge from Shin and take back Yuria, he start to become a savior coz Lyn, she has a kind of karma influence on Ken (later we know their destiny are tied).
I take it you're not a native eniglish speaker?
Well, Kenshiro not caring about innocents is highly debatable. Even if he didn't, alignment changes. He could have started as Neutral then drifted towards Good. He's still Good for most of the manga, no matter how you put it.

Rei is the same, he trap and kill because he needed food, he even almost rape Mamya; he change coz Ken, the only truly good character is Toki.
Killing to survive is not an evil act. He didn't rape Mamya.
Toki is a saint. You don't need to be a saint to be good in D&D.

and please i really dislike people who say sentences like : "did you read it at all or do you know what you talking about?" you are not a well of knowledge nor me and we have different point of views, your view is not the only truth , when i talk about something is because i know enough of it to talk about it.
Dude, you did this very thing you dislike in your own post, here.
did u read my post? So... yeah.

hamishspence

2011-01-13, 05:55 PM

So, in this universe, gods who are defined as good authorize eternal torture.

So my question remains. Are the devils, who are carrying out the orders of good deities, committing an evil act by doing so?

it was Asmodeus that convinced the deities that it needed to be done to discourage mortals from worshipping demons (which had resulted in several worlds being destroyed)

At the time, Asmodeus was already corrupt.

Once they'd signed the pact, they were bound by it- even though it turned out that Asmodeus was using the process of tormenting mortal souls, to transform those souls into devils.

And, was actively tempting mortals into evil, so that he could have more devils.

Signing the Pact Primeval may have been a big moral mistake- it's not clear.
It's also worth remembering that the story itself is a legend, told by devils- with the deities in the story varying from place to place. So it may not be entirely accurate.

Is it evil for devils to torture evil souls, even though the Pact Primeval permits them to? Quite possibly, yes. It doesn't automatically follow that just because the Pact Primeval authorizes it, that the acts don't count as evil.

Rumpus

2011-01-14, 03:46 AM

OP, the first thing I would have done is turn to the other players and ask, "Are you going to let him do that?" Social disapproval from other players (or their characters) is one of the prime ways to limit chaotic stupid and stupid evil behavior. Plus, the other PCs can physically stop him, while you will have to pull something deus ex machina to stop stuff like this from happening. It can be a fun roleplaying dynamic if the more moral characters are trying to keep the monster in the group under control.

And, if the other players say, "Sure, whatever," I'd probably end the campaign and suggest popping in a movie. Players have a right to determine their character's actions, but you have no obligation to DM for players whose actions repulse you.

A handsome rogue seducing the 17-yr old princess after you rescue her is one thing, child rape is a whole different realm of booped up.

I've gotta ask, though: was slaughtering children supposed to be a point where the PCs stop and say, "Waitaminute, this is pretty booped up?" Or were you expecting them to murder everybody without remorse? There is nothing wrong with evil PCs, a lot of fantasy has protagonists would fall on the "Evil" end of the spectrum, but they are still somewhat sympathetic and relatable because they have limits. The Black Company is a good example.

I have no problem DMing for a group of backstabbing, greedy, moustache-twirling villains. I have no desire to play with (let alone DM) a group where the PCs are flat-out monsters.

TheWhisper

2011-01-14, 06:05 PM

it was Asmodeus that convinced the deities that it needed to be done to discourage mortals from worshipping demons (which had resulted in several worlds being destroyed)

At the time, Asmodeus was already corrupt.

Once they'd signed the pact, they were bound by it- even though it turned out that Asmodeus was using the process of tormenting mortal souls, to transform those souls into devils.

And, was actively tempting mortals into evil, so that he could have more devils.

So an evil act that you are manipulated into isn't an evil act?

In that case, how does Asmodeous tempt mortals?

Signing the Pact Primeval may have been a big moral mistake- it's not clear.
It's also worth remembering that the story itself is a legend, told by devils- with the deities in the story varying from place to place. So it may not be entirely accurate.

It's in a rulebook.

While that statement may seem pedantic, what it means is that it has as much weight as all those statements about good and evil being objective absolutes, and forces of the universe.

Is it evil for devils to torture evil souls, even though the Pact Primeval permits them to? Quite possibly, yes. It doesn't automatically follow that just because the Pact Primeval authorizes it, that the acts don't count as evil.

The Pact Primeval doesn't authorize it. It commands it. The devils are not allowed to torture mortals, they are obliged to. If they stop, they break their contract.

Truth is, you can spackle and paint liberally, but you just can't construct a universe, even a fictional one, where morality is an absolute, objective reality.

Why? Because no one can construct a set of moral principles that do not either contract themselves, or produce conclusions we find morally repugnant. You can tell a story about a pink unicorn if you want, but not one about a square circle. It would be a bad story, because it wouldn't make any sense.

Ragitsu

2011-01-14, 08:06 PM

Well, they found where the women and children

You know, I can see why the children would be taboo when it comes to killing, but why women? Is there some mystical reason why one gender gets a pass when it comes to violence?

Ragitsu

2011-01-14, 08:21 PM

Traditionally (1E), females and children in savage humanoid tribes were non-combative. In 3.5, it makes less sense as females are fully as capable in melee as males.

Yeah, I mean, aren't there female orc combatants?

Paseo H

2011-01-15, 12:12 AM

Hoo boy.

I believe there's also some sort of male protective instinct at work.

Stephen_E

2011-01-15, 01:00 AM

I've gotta ask, though: was slaughtering children supposed to be a point where the PCs stop and say, "Waitaminute, this is pretty booped up?" Or were you expecting them to murder everybody without remorse? There is nothing wrong with evil PCs, a lot of fantasy has protagonists would fall on the "Evil" end of the spectrum, but they are still somewhat sympathetic and relatable because they have limits. The Black Company is a good example.

I have no problem DMing for a group of backstabbing, greedy, moustache-twirling villains. I have no desire to play with (let alone DM) a group where the PCs are flat-out monsters.

That was I'm left feeling, from the info that we were given, that

the DM has to take a large degree of responsibility for where the PC went. You gave them a contract to murder an entire village, men, women and children. That's a solid step into the "let's be monster" zone. If you didn't want them to go there then you shouldn't have asked them to walk into the zone.:smallfrown:

Stephen E

WarKitty

2011-01-15, 01:02 AM

Stephen_E

2011-01-15, 01:05 AM

Yeah, I mean, aren't there female orc combatants?

If you look at tribe descriptions in modules the women are pretty much always described as non-combatants.

Female combatants are characters in DnD. Even when not PCs they are still DMPCs or ModulePCs.

Yes, DM still has a lot of built in sexism.

Stephen E

Silus

2011-01-15, 01:14 AM

Figure I'd throw my two cents in here.

Being a new DM, I'm not really up for banning anything (except maybe Psionics, but that's a totally different argument)(The only two big things for me is rape and pedophilia, which will result in an instant "rocks fall your character dies, roll up a level 1"). I figure it would be hypocritical of me, as I'm currently playing an almost Lawful Evil Tiefling Swashbuckler (She's a pirate captain). Sure, she does evil on occasion (Killing everyone aboard a ship, seducing, sleeping with then murdering the captain of a ship, razing a tribal village to the ground and killing anyone that tries to escape, ect.), but she always has a reason (it mostly boils down to profits).

Tychris1

2011-01-15, 01:15 AM

I've had the opposite problem in my first or second time DMing, in which the entire group consisted of good aligned characters. The problem was that they were blatantly retarded in every situation I threw at them. They always fell for the dirty orphen who stole mony from them (And killed the rogue about 2 times.), always walked into obvious traps, and seemed to ride around with a stick so far shoved up there ass that unless the tavern owner served grape juice the paladin was pulling out the fista cuffs because apparently that's "Serious Business.". So I'm forcing the next session to be either neutral or evil to have some interesting things happen.

FelixG

2011-01-15, 01:31 AM

Usually if I want to go that route I go with "elderly, young, and women who appear to be either pregnant or holding small children." You're still going to have a higher proportion of female non-combatants, due to the facts of pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Enter Krogat! the Orcish matron who has two orcish babies strapped to her arms using them as bucklers! :smallbiggrin:

Clepto

2011-01-15, 01:34 AM

My DM has a soft-ban on evil alignments, along with chaotic neutral. He has always had this ban, and probably always will, right alongside "no psionics", and "no bards" (don't ask me about that one, he reserves an irrational hatred of bards that dates back at least twenty years).

That being said, it is a soft ban. A player may be granted leave to have an evil character by special request, ahead of time, and with a detailed background of the character. If he's going to allow an evil character, he wants it worked into the story. He grants that privilege to anyone he thinks is a good enough roleplayer, but only to one player at a time. Once that character dies and frees up the slot, someone else may request it. If they want. Most of us choose good alignments anyway. Chaotic Good is my personal favorite alignment, and most of my characters align that way unless I need something different for class reqs or story purposes.

For example, here's a brief synopsis of the most recent evil character in our campaign. It was my character, and I came up with the build and concept, but the DM gave me the background.

I was the elder son of the human king, but on the king's death, he passed rulership onto my younger brother. I had a few levels in MoMF (not cheese, just want more options for shapeshifting), so I shifted into an Ogre, and conquered the Ogre Kingdom. Then made a deal with the Giants to attack the human kingdom. Then engineered some internal troubles with the neighboring human allies, so they couldn't come to the aid of my former kingdom, ensuring that kingdom's fall.

As a double-whammy, the humans and ogres had been waging a war with each other for generations, and hated each other fiercely. So once I toppled my old kingdom, I also single-handedly wiped out the ogre race by ordering attacks against other kingdoms. Shortly after the last of the ogres were wiped out, some adventurers stormed into my citadel looking for vengeance against the Ogre King. I shifted into something more reasonable, and locked myself in my own dungeon, awaiting rescue by these adventurers.

We spent most of the rest of the campaign killing giants, and trying to find the Ogre King. Most of my evil ways were conducted off-screen.

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-15, 05:47 AM

Truth is, you can spackle and paint liberally, but you just can't construct a universe, even a fictional one, where morality is an absolute, objective reality.

Why? Because no one can construct a set of moral principles that do not either contract themselves, or produce conclusions we find morally repugnant. You can tell a story about a pink unicorn if you want, but not one about a square circle. It would be a bad story, because it wouldn't make any sense.

Yes you can. All it needs to be is internally consistent. Whether we find such a morality repugnant is irrelevant, as within the setting, our morality holds no sway. I'd also note that most cases where I've seen someone claim a moral system "contradicts itself", that's not really been the case; it's been the person's real life morality that has contradicted the fictional one.

Which just loops back to the previous clause: the fictional morality does not need to fit our modern sensibilities to count as "absolute, objective reality". That'd be like saying "you can't construct an universe where magic is objective reality because it wouldn't fit our knowledge of modern physics". The trait of being fiction liberates world-building from such clauses of realism, and at least I've seen multiple fictional magic systems that were perfectly internally consistent.

I've also read stories about square circles, and they were rather entertaining. What you're doing there is short-selling a hypothetical story based on the faulty premise that a setting with absolute morality would hold no relation to our everyday life, which is not necessarily true.

Tetsubo 57

2011-01-15, 07:31 AM

No Evil alignments.
No Tome of Battle.
No spiked chain or mercurial weapons.

My standard ban list.

WarKitty

2011-01-15, 10:39 AM

Yes you can. All it needs to be is internally consistent. Whether we find such a morality repugnant is irrelevant, as within the setting, our morality holds no sway. I'd also note that most cases where I've seen someone claim a moral system "contradicts itself", that's not really been the case; it's been the person's real life morality that has contradicted the fictional one.

Which just loops back to the previous clause: the fictional morality does not need to fit our modern sensibilities to count as "absolute, objective reality". That'd be like saying "you can't construct an universe where magic is objective reality because it wouldn't fit our knowledge of modern physics". The trait of being fiction liberates world-building from such clauses of realism, and at least I've seen multiple fictional magic systems that were perfectly internally consistent.

I've also read stories about square circles, and they were rather entertaining. What you're doing there is short-selling a hypothetical story based on the faulty premise that a setting with absolute morality would hold no relation to our everyday life, which is not necessarily true.

The problem is that morality is a bigger sticking point for most people than magic and other stuff. If I want to play a hero, I want to play something that *my* moral sensibilities recognize as a hero. Similarly, I don't want to play along side someone who roleplays pedophilia, no matter how justified it is in some internal morality system.

Shatteredtower

2011-01-15, 11:31 AM

You gave them a contract to murder an entire village, men, women and children. That's a solid step into the "let's be monster" zone. If you didn't want them to go there then you shouldn't have asked them to walk into the zone.:smallfrown:

If I ask you to get me something you can't afford, am I at fault for anyone you kill to acquire it? No? How about if the acquisition was something you owed me? Not even then, right? So how do I stand if I see you about to commit murder and tell you not to do it? Could you honestly complain I'm being unfair, even if I was okay with theft?

That's what we have here. The player was told, "I can accept x, but y is going too far here." Instead of respecting his host's wishes, he played the, "I'm just playing my character!" excuse.

Excuse me? If the trait wasn't known in advance of this, the player has no business assuming it should be permitted, realistic or not. There are acceptable breaks from reality in games, and this is one of them.

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-15, 11:36 AM

The problem is that morality is a bigger sticking point for most people than magic and other stuff. If I want to play a hero, I want to play something that *my* moral sensibilities recognize as a hero.

That really varies. I've seen people complain as much about inconsistencies of physics as moral dilemmas and paradoxes. The "problem" is largely dependent on specifics of the setting - it wouldn't be that hard to craft a setting which would encourage whatever behaviour you perceive as heroic, while penalizing what you see as villainous.

I think you you took my words of "Whether we find such a morality repugnant is irrelevant" too far - just because heinous acts could be justified within a setting, doesn't mean they will. It was meant as rebuttal to the sort of fringe occasions where following premises of the setting leads to a judgment which violates someone's RL sense of morality or common sense - it's not necessarily fault of the setting, or something to be held against it.

Similarly, I don't want to play along side someone who roleplays pedophilia, no matter how justified it is in some internal morality system.

(Largely tangential; while it'd be possible to craft a setting where such acts would be justified, no-one's been talking about such setting anywhere. Neither would existence of such setting demand you be okay with it; saying otherwise would be like demanding you be okay with playing FATAL just because the GM happened to bring it to the table.)

Stephen_E

2011-01-15, 07:14 PM

If I ask you to get me something you can't afford, am I at fault for anyone you kill to acquire it? No? How about if the acquisition was something you owed me? Not even then, right? So how do I stand if I see you about to commit murder and tell you not to do it? Could you honestly complain I'm being unfair, even if I was okay with theft?

That's what we have here. The player was told, "I can accept x, but y is going too far here." Instead of respecting his host's wishes, he played the, "I'm just playing my character!" excuse.

Excuse me? If the trait wasn't known in advance of this, the player has no business assuming it should be permitted, realistic or not. There are acceptable breaks from reality in games, and this is one of them.

Your analogies don't pan out.

The more accurate comaprison would be if you told someone to mug a person and they killed them, and yes you would be held repsonsible for thedeath. Legal systems vary on how much your would be held responsible, with many considering you guilt of murder, but you would have to look hard and long to find a legal system that didn't hold you responsible.

The GM didn't contract them "to move the village". He contracted them to butcher every living thing there! You know, ethnic cleansing, genoside on a small scale. Seriously pedophillia is not on some completly different moral level. It really isn't.

Sure have a quite word that it goes beyond the GMs icky scale, but don't get self-righteous about the immorality of it. Because the GM took them there from what he said.

Stephen E

Shatteredtower

2011-01-15, 08:00 PM

Shatteredtower

2011-01-15, 08:26 PM

... Ran out of space. Let me give you examples.

Darth Vader killed scores of children in a PG rated movie. A battle station from the same series killed the entire population of a planet, including its children.

The rating would have gone up a few notches if it had been implied that the kids were getting the sort of attention the half-orc player tried to include. Off screen or not, it's still considered more disturbing. It is also no longer a matter of statistics, the difference between one death and eighty.

Children die regularly in war, and that is a bad thing. Soceity recognises that. It also recognises that there are worse things, such as a view that can be summed up as, "A shame to just let this go to waste." There have been loving parents who would kill their children themselves to spare them such a fate. We may not agree, but we should have the decency to drop the subject upon request.

Callista

2011-01-15, 08:46 PM

Whether orc society has females in their armies is up to the DM. Personally, I would have the females be mostly noncombatants, and mostly dominated by the males. If orcs are so hugely focused on physical strength and their women are even slightly less strong, then their women will probably be noncombatants. The exceptions would be women who are magic-users--these are rarer in orc society because of their charisma and intelligence penalties. I would do this because orcs are Usually Evil and this kind of gender divide seems right up their alley--even the weakest orc male could always lord it over a woman, who has been culturally persuaded that she is inferior. An orc female who is a powerful magic-user or even a powerful fighter could turn that upside down, though--and it could throw orc society into chaos. Expect the fallout to affect whatever communities the orcs usually raid... because an orc woman who overcomes gender boundaries to become a powerful leader will not be just any old orc captain. (This is why high-ranking male drow can be so dangerous--they have had to deal with similar obstacles.)

There are some societies where I would have the genders be more or less equal--or even unimportant. Dwarves would have a more or less patriarchal society, except that the females would be just as powerful as the males--they'd simply have their own realm of influence, probably clerical magic and economic power (trade, crafting, etc.). In many human societies, women have a very similar status as men, especially in societies where magic is common; but humans are so diverse that the arrangements can be anywhere from matriarchal to patriarchal, from oppressive to true equality. Elves and gnomes almost seem to ignore gender entirely; and halflings are generally so self-sufficient anyway that the females are generally considered to be just as competent as the males. The longer-lived a species is, the more likely it is to have traditions that are very difficult to break, and the less likely it is that any given community will break the species' general tendency as far as gender roles are concerned...

Mmh. Anyway, this is how I'd do it; you can make your world however you like. There's certainly nothing wrong with just ignoring the effects of gender--after all, this is D&D, not sociology class.

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-16, 01:26 AM

I've always viewed orc culture as being sharply divided along the genderline; orc males, aggressive as they are, form their own communities where they bash their skulls together to see who's da bozz, while females largely stay away from the fighting, focusing on raising their young and hunting for food.

What most humans think when they hear 'orc' are the raiding parties formed by male orcs. Said parties are effectively big violent competitions to see who's the toughest orc boy in town, and the winner(s) goes back to Orc Home County and scores with all the ladies.

Meanwhile, a human visiting an orc village would see a pretty different picture - a relatively peaceful community where daily life revolves around hunting, taking care of the kids and socializing. Only on the face of outside threat would they look particularly violent, such as when fending off a returning unwanted males. Think of a pride of lions.

The line between "combatant" and "non-combatant" loses meaning in such a society - orc females might not be warriors to the same extent as males, but they're still inhumanly strong carnivorous beasts and you just got between them and their offspring. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MamaBear)

I have several other odd ideas of my own about orcs: one is about the propensity of the myth of "no orc women". Orcs are physically stronger, and thus likely more muscular than humans - because human males are, on average, stronger than human females, humans are prone to view muscularity as a masculine trait. In other words: orc females look manly to humans. Due to different sexual characteristics between species, a non-knowledgeable human would be unlikely to correctly identify sex of an orc, and default to a gut feeling of masculinity.

Another is about why half-orcs would more likely have an orc father: As noted, orcs are more muscular than humans, and orc culture puts more emphasis on physical fitness. A human male would be hard-pressed to compete on these fields with an actual orc; a human male would likely come of as "weak" or even "childish" to orc females, and thus not alluring at all.

On the other side, an orc male that slightly weaker than average for an orc might still beat human males in contests of masculinity fairly easily. So an orc male who's dismissed as a weakling by ladies of his own species, might still look hunky to human ones, and thus have easier time impressing them.

Of course, due to differences between orc and human females, I think an orc male would be most drawn towards those human women who resemble orcs the most - that is, strong and aggressive ones. I don't think they'd find much allure from the most effeminate ones, as those might strike them as too different or childish.

The reason you'd never see orc dads hang around would be because they're not really fit for that - their instincs draw them elsewhere to WAAAGH!!! Forcing a male orc do parenting would likely be a poor idea and lead to hilariously bad consequences. ("Wait, smashing someone's face in is not proper etiquette? But dad always told me...")

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 03:43 AM

Yes, it really is on a different scale, once you realise this is a metaethical issue. We already know the game places a lower value on life than we do, because we play heavily armed people that expect to kill regularly for their own purposes. We cannot assume killing, regardless of scale, is the worst atrocity by the standards of those running the game.

We can look at RL and observe that where mass murder/killing occurs sexual crimes involving force go side by side or follow closely behind.

As for your mugging example, it's hard to convict a person that tried to stop a murder of so much as manslaughter. It can be done, but we know who's facing murder charges.

What?:smallconfused:

No one was talking about stopping a murder.
If you employ someone to mug a person, and the target dies you will be found responsible to a greater or lesser degree.

The PC could have refused to kill children. He could have done so with a horrified sense of shame, or terrifying stoicism. Instead, the player chose to escalate, was told not to, and threw a fit.

Blaming the DM for the player's poor conduct is not acceptable.

The party was evil. There was no bones made about it.

When the GM sets up a hook for the party, claiming "the players didn't have to take it" is simply silly. RPGing is a coperative game. Good players are obliged to take up the GM's hooks unless they have a serious objection to it.

As for claiming the player threw a fit. I don;t recall if the GM used those words, and I would like to hear the players side of things. Claiming a "fit" was thrown is a fairly blatant attempt to biase the argument.
We have no idea whether one, bith or neither through a "fit".
The GM was upset, and the player was upset with the GM getting upset.

Holding the GM as significantly responsible for where a campaign goes is entirely resonable and acceptable.

Stephen E

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 03:47 AM

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-16, 04:41 AM

US societal pecualarities towards sex are not a good guideline for general moral philosophying.

Stephen E

I think you're missing the point here; the point is that there are actual people with such morals, and regardless of how much sense said morals make, they will, in practice, still find X less offensive than Y, regardless of how heinous X is in comparison to Y by some other set of morals. Thus Y isn't automatically "okay" just because X is present, or because they often went hand in hand in real life.

Zaydos

2011-01-16, 05:40 AM

Evil? I ban if the PCs are specifically supposed to be heroes (there have even been games where I said, look you are legendary heroes be good guys). Never had it matter when I did. I've also banned all non-evil alignments before if it fit the campaign.

Parties without evil PCs? Yeah I've seen them... despite actively encouraging evil alignments.

PCs that decided to go into a pirate bar and take slaves in the pirate city and their safe haven? Yeah I had that even (yes one of the first things my PCs did in a pirate game was get themselves wanted in the free city :smallsigh:)

PCs that would slaughter orcish women and children? Yes. Strangely enough I've had the players spare the women and children and take them to find a new home (before abandoning them without any hunter/gatherers where they were rather low on the food chain so they all still died due to the PCs not thinking that far ahead).

PCs that raped small children? Never. That... why? It turns my stomach. An evil PC raping someone would be something... it makes me twinge. Pedophilia rape though? I think I might just do a rocks fall and you die (that noted I've had campaigns where the gods did have a list of smite worthy sins, and that was one of them; same with adultery, because it was breaking an oath to the gods).

Slaughtering non-combatants? Expected. Even with good aligned characters it's not that uncommon (although it does present a moral quandary due to the natural inclinations of races in D&D towards certain alignments set against the ability to raise a creature towards good). Whether it's the best thing for a good character to do... it isn't. With evil characters? They can laugh and sing jingles while they do so. But there is still a line... and apparently child rape crosses it.

The DM can be blamed for sending them to commit genocide by wiping out the orcish population. The DM cannot be blamed for the PC deciding raping children was a good thing to do. Being evil aligned doesn't justify that; just like being evil aligned doesn't justify repetitively attacking and killing your own party to loot their stuff (it is possible for betrayal to be justified, but "I'm evil" alone is not enough to derail the game; if your character can't work with others retire him and roll up a new one).

And yes I'll admit I have a double standard and it is more acceptable to commit violence towards males than females. The first is, depending upon the situation, something that can either upset me or be amusing. A guy even jokingly attacking a girl though will make me upset, you just don't do it. This applies even when I know the girl could beat me up, because it's just not something you do. As a side-note this doesn't apply in D&D or video games, or even all books. I blame hormones and biology for it mostly.

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 06:30 AM

Originally Posted by Stephen_E
US societal pecualarities towards sex are not a good guideline for general moral philosophying.

I think you're missing the point here; the point is that there are actual people with such morals, and regardless of how much sense said morals make, they will, in practice, still find X less offensive than Y, regardless of how heinous X is in comparison to Y by some other set of morals. Thus Y isn't automatically "okay" just because X is present, or because they often went hand in hand in real life.

If we were discussing the GMs morals you would indeed have a point.
I didn't think we were.

What I was commenting on was the universal tendancy for humans engaged in wholesale massacres to often engage in rape of the females regardless of their ages. And therefore a valid character development (even if more than a little icky, but then so is murdering children , including toddlers).

If you are running a evil campaign where the characters are engaging in massacres then you should sit down with your players beforehand and say "I don't want rape because I find it to disturbing".
In this case the GM didn't think of it. Fine he should sit down with the player and say he wants it dropped because he finds it personally disturbing, regardless of how appropriate thematically or character/alignment wise.

The DM instead appears (by his own words) to have come across all self-righteous about the player having oversteped the unspoken but obvious (to the GM) boundaries. And then banned the player from ever playing evil because the GM considers murdering children ok, but raping there is so completely disgusting <roll eyes>.

The GM does go so far as to admit that maybe he shouldn't have used the massacre plot, but then proceeds to dump all the blame on the player rather than accept the bulk of the responsibility on himself.

The ugly truth is that the player is right that within the campaign as we've been informed of it was a valid character action devlopment and not a chaotic-evil/stupid choice.
If you are going to play those types of campaigns I would suggest people should detail out the "don't cross these lines" beforehand.

Stephen E

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 06:44 AM

Evil? I ban if the PCs are specifically supposed to be heroes (there have even been games where I said, look you are legendary heroes be good guys). Never had it matter when I did. I've also banned all non-evil alignments before if it fit the campaign.

Just a side note.
Been evil and been a hero are not mutaully exclusive posistions.
Heroic =/= Good
and
Evil =/= unheroic

Vlad Tepes been an excellent example.
Not a good man. Indeed hard to argue against calling him evil, but a hero nonetheless.

Stephen E

Zaydos

2011-01-16, 07:01 AM

Just a side note.
Been evil and been a hero are not mutaully exclusive posistions.
Heroic =/= Good
and
Evil =/= unheroic

Vlad Tepes been an excellent example.
Not a good man. Indeed hard to argue against calling him evil, but a hero nonetheless.

Stephen E

I have to agree that it is possible for neutral or evil characters to perform heroic deeds (having in the last 12 hours argued how Grettir was the most awesome Norse hero despite his never really doing anything good in the D&D sense [maybe killing the berserkers]). That said a heroic game would be, in my opinion, one where the PCs embodied the ideals of selfless heroism which are (in D&D terms) good aligned (as honestly if you look at the alignment system they asked "what would a hero do?" okay that's good aligned). While you can be a hero without embodying these ideals, you cannot be an ideal hero; something that, in my all to often arrogant opinion, only exists in fantasies.

It's the difference between a realistic hero and a storybook hero a hero and a child's mental image of a hero (coming from my own disillusionment upon actually reading Arthurian legends).

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 08:21 AM

The flawed heroes are more interesting IMHO.

Not just in RL but in fantasy as well.
Sometimes the flaws still leave the heroe what DnD would define as good, but it also includes the heroes that are definitley not of "good" alignment, but are at best neutral and sometimes even evil.

David Gemmel wrote a lot of "heroic" fiction.
Morningstar is a great example of the non-good hero.
The hero starts of evil and by the end might actually be considered neutral, but never good.

Stephen E

Ravens_cry

2011-01-16, 08:58 AM

There is a difference between 'flawed' and evil, even neutral.
This is something that the 90's antihero archetype forgot, creating unlikable characters attacking other unlikable characters in a story it was impossible to care about in a puerile attempt at maturity.

umbrapolaris

2011-01-16, 09:29 AM

my point of view is that d&d is a game, in that game you can do all you want from the extreme goodness to the most despicable things. most of the controversies about RPG (online or table) is that some weak minds cant make the distinction between a game and reality and starting to believe what they do in the game may be acceptable in real life. my character is an evil wizard , so i may rape, torture, kill, eradicate an entire city and others despicable acts to attain my goal; acts i will never do in real life unless i had a very very serious reason.

people who cant make that distinction (or cant accept those kind of evil behavior or acts played by someone in a game) should not play in that game.

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 09:30 AM

And Evil =/= unlikeable

As I said flawed can still be good, but also often Neutral or Evil as well.
Depends on the flaw.

It seems to me you are falling into the trap that Hroic=good=liable.
If they are the heroe then they must be good, and if they are unliable they are evil.

Thomas Covenant was probably the 1st big "anti-heroe" of modern fantasy. Unlkable in many ways but not evil by DnD akignment standards, although he did do at least 1 significant evil act. Mostly neutral-good from memory.

Greek Mythology is of course replete with heroes that tended to netral or even evil. Selfish vain, destructive and petty were common traits. Going well beyond "flawed but good".

Non-good heroes are interesting to roleplay in my opinion because you have to work out why they are heroes.

Stephen E

umbrapolaris

2011-01-16, 09:52 AM

Non-good heroes are interesting to roleplay in my opinion because you have to work out why they are heroes.

Elric of Melniboné or Snake Plissken (Escape from NY) is my favorite character. my archetype of the Anti-hero.

Ravens_cry

2011-01-16, 10:15 AM

@Stephen_E:
Of course, there have been plenty of likeable evil characters, at least from a readers distance.
And of course can have a protagonist who is evil. However, unrelenting Dark Dark Dark is just as excrementally dull as pure goodness and light personified. Of course, at least some of what makes Greek protagonists actions seem evil is more then a little values dissonance,and others was the Greek passion for tragedy.
That being said, unrelentingly, non-repenting evil protagonists are rarely heroic in how I see the word. Firemen? Heroic. People who dive into rivers to save babies? Heroic. Been a slaughter happy little fiend? Not heroic to me.

Good characters are interesting for me to roleplay because it is a swim upstream, against the current. It's easy to not give a hoot, it's easy to say "It's not my problem."
Actively trying to do right by the world, even when it doesn't do right by you?
That takes a kind of guts I wish I had.

Shatteredtower

2011-01-16, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by Stephen_E
US societal pecualarities towards sex are not a good guideline for general moral philosophying.

Sure they are. You may disagree with the standard, but you know it exists and it is widespread. The game has always assumed it, even while acknowledging that some half-elves were sired like Dragonlance's Tanis and not every half-orc had parents like Therkla's. In general, however, it avoids the subject. It hasn't always been that good on the subject of non-combatants, though the few times it gets a mention it is to advise against a DM using them to punish players with an unwinnable dilemma.

It was natural to assume certain lines weren't to be crossed. Anyone who wanted to go there should have brought it to the table before the event, and let it go the moment anyone objected.

Note that the DM did object and the player refused to let it go.

Umbrapolaris, it is not weak to have boundaries, nor to respect those others express.

Roderick_BR

2011-01-16, 11:04 AM

It's all about personal preference, really. Myself, I like heroic games, where your group stumbles onto some ancient evil, and you need to save the world. Sometimes your group wants to play it like that. Sometimes not. I do take part in some games sometimes, where the only motivation is to "gain power" and "kill suff". But then again, I do that with videogames. In roleplay, I prefer heroic games. If I feel I may not like the game, I'll just excuse me from it. Maybe hang around playing something or watching tv, or helping the DM to handle the rulebooks.
In short: The group needs to read ahead what kind of game they'll play. If it's something you don't like, you can say you are not interested, but won't bother the other people's game.

umbrapolaris

2011-01-16, 11:14 AM

Umbrapolaris, it is not weak to have boundaries, nor to respect those others express.

In real life , i agree, in games, not. we play games for doing things we cant IRL.

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 11:21 AM

Elric of Melniboné or Snake Plissken (Escape from NY) is my favorite character. my archetype of the Anti-hero.

To be honest I would've set Elric as good, but Snale was decidely neutral. :smallbiggrin:

But yes, both were interesting.
Elric in part because he was trapsing around with a horendously powerful and evil artifact that he was constantly battling it out over who was boss.

Stephen E

aart lover

2011-01-16, 11:27 AM

i've never actually banned an evil PC. Sometimes evil characters can be the most interesting to play. So long as they're kept in check. For instance, they can't go around slaughtering entire villages, derailing the plot, at least not with some repercussions. Thing like genocide, the stuff in OP's first post, killing just because they can, etc., is all forbidden in my games. If that Chaotic Sociopath even tried, he would be mercilessly put down by the rest of the party.

Ravens_cry

2011-01-16, 11:29 AM

In real life , i agree, in games, not. we play games for doing things we cant IRL.
To an extent. After all, it is all 'fake' However, there is one thing that is real, emotions. And I don't care if it is 'realistic', imagining a party slauightering a village, woman, children, and all, then having a half orc commit rape and sexual assault makes me feel utter disgust. That emotion is real, if not the cause behind it.
After all, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

umbrapolaris

2011-01-16, 12:01 PM

To be honest I would've set Elric as good, but Snale was decidely neutral. :smallbiggrin:

i dont think Elric was good at all, after all he his the ruler of an extremly evil empire who enslave , torture, rape their slave, conquer territories with chaotic gods and demons's help .

Elric don't hesitate to torture or mutilate, even reanimate corpse for attain his goals, what make us feel he was good, was his loyalty for his companion (and remorse when his demonic sword killed them).

in fact,i saw that most of the anti-heroes are originally bad guys doing "good" things. ^^

@Raven: in RPG, as you said, all his about emotions. if you feel disgusted by the acts of an evil character, it means that the player play it well.

Shatteredtower

2011-01-16, 12:02 PM

In real life , i agree, in games, not. we play games for doing things we cant IRL.

As long as the table and its host agree to it. I've had to remove a player for as mild a crime as swearing before, because that was not acceptable in my parents' home, around my preadolescent siblings. Again, this was something the player only did in game, oddly enough. Now that they're adults, it's only an issue when their kids are around.

But I've met too many people turned off by the hobby because their first exposure to it involved people playing rapists. The default reaction to that has never been positive. Throw children into the mix and suddenly you're pushing all kinds of buttons.

Killing gets more of a pass, even when it shouldn't. Our heroes include slayers of dragons and giants, and even other humans that just got in their way. That includes child murder, 'justified' because kids were deemed obligated to avenge their parents. That's bad enough without sexual violence.

Ravens_cry

2011-01-16, 12:17 PM

@Raven: in RPG, as you said, all his about emotions. if you feel disgusted by the acts of an evil character, it means that the player play it well.
It is certainly someone most of the characters I have played would not want to associate with. Seriously, disgust is easy. Shocking people, dead simple. Suddenly doing something reprehensible, that your character never showed signs of doing before, will likely shock and disgust, it certainly will me, but it isn't necessarily role playing well. And if it was consistent behaviour, my characters would have personally not wanted them in the party.

Shatteredtower

2011-01-16, 12:26 PM

Umbrapolaris, even doing a thing well is no justification for it. You must always consider your audience. If you think it's worth getting barred from a table or jeopardising friendships, that's your call. What isn't your call is another person's reaction.

I also dispute the claim that the reaction comes because the crime was played well. In my experience, the reaction comes simply because the subject was introduced, all too often sprung on other people that didn't expect it. That is cheap shock value.

Consider how many actors playing rapists apologise in advance to other performers for the role they're about to play, despite being under contract to do so. I've yet to meet a gamer that showed a similar level of consideration to the table before springing this on everyone else.

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 12:41 PM

That being said, unrelentingly, non-repenting evil protagonists are rarely heroic in how I see the word. Firemen? Heroic. People who dive into rivers to save babies? Heroic. Been a slaughter happy little fiend? Not heroic to me.

Unrelenting evil? What is that.
Humans don;t tend to be unrelenting anything.

Your assumptions are interesting.
Firemen = Heroic? You seem to assume that means they are good.
Those heroic fireman are a mixture of all types and alignments.
There will be wifebeaters, bigots and all sorts mixed in there, including the occasional pedophile. None of this will necessarily impact on them carrying out the duties you consider heroic.
People who dive into rivers to save babies sometimes go home to beat their kids. Humans are not as black and white in their behaviour as you seem to want them to be. Been brave doesn't make them good.

1 Good act does not make your alignment good, no more than 1 evil act makes you evil.

Stephen E

umbrapolaris

2011-01-16, 12:44 PM

personally, when playing my character, every evil acts (or considered evil) i did has a purpose or is part of a goal. i avoid to do evil deeds for free. If in my table a player insist of doing child's tortures without any RP reason except enjoying the idea, i will surely be uncomfortable and starting to thinking something is wrong with him.

Zaydos

2011-01-16, 12:48 PM

I've never seen someone play a rapist. I've seen someone play a sociopath that shot anything that tried to talk to them (sometimes justified, sometimes not) despite being the charisma character of the group.

As for flawed heroes being more interesting. Yes I love Elric (I read the series in like a week), but I will point out that it is his desire to do good that makes him interesting. Oh, he's Evil in the D&D sense I won't for a moment try and deny it but throughout the story he struggles for redemption and there are a few times he even attempts to fight others' battles for them. Really every evil deed he did was against someone just as evil or because of Stormbringer. Excellent character, but not an excellent example of a hero; the only time he's a hero is when he tries to scrape up a good act or goes out to avenge someone and you always know that's going to end badly so foul is the star he was born under. Also Elric never did a complete monster act; his sword did but it gave him an out he just wasn't strong enough to fight it.

Hence for a heroic campaign, you know one where you're supposed to play the top echelon of heroes, anti-heroes don't really work. For a normal game, you know where you're just supposed to be heroes because it's Heroic Fantasy to begin with, and everyone almost everyone (there is a singular exception) I've ever known IRL has assumed that means vaguely hero-like (the exception thought it meant trying to take over the world with diplomacy skill at 1st level), doesn't necessarily stop less ideal heroes.

I'd also point out that anti-heroes are only interesting if well written. Rorschach really interesting, because he was well-written and made us question "is he good?" "is he evil?" Even Snake from Escape From New York has moments where you question "is he good?" The moment a flawed hero performs an act of willful and total evil, one which forever dispels that question, they are no longer heroic.

And game or not there are things that do cross a line. Like random party killing, if you want to play an anti-social sociopath who cannot interact with others and/or runs around raping children then well the first a solo game would be required and the second :smalleek:

Also this conversation really makes me think of Nietzsche (since these two ideals of "heroic" were heavily focused upon when he was defining the difference between a "good and evil" and a "good and bad" morality system).

Ravens_cry

2011-01-16, 12:55 PM

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-16, 01:15 PM

Unrelenting evil? What is that.
Humans don;t tend to be unrelenting anything.

Maybe in real world (a big maybe, that is), but we're talking about fiction here, pal. In fiction, unrelenting good and evil pop up all the time.

Guess what else pops up all the time? Non-humans. If I'm playing an Angel or Demon or something else that's basically (Un)Holiness Incarnate, any and all arguments about humanity being incapable of relentless whatever fall on deaf ears.

Your assumptions are interesting.
Firemen = Heroic? You seem to assume that means they are good.
Those heroic fireman are a mixture of all types and alignments.
There will be wifebeaters, bigots and all sorts mixed in there, including the occasional pedophile. None of this will necessarily impact on them carrying out the duties you consider heroic.
People who dive into rivers to save babies sometimes go home to beat their kids. Humans are not as black and white in their behaviour as you seem to want them to be. Been brave doesn't make them good.

1 Good act does not make your alignment good, no more than 1 evil act makes you evil.

Stephen E

Nothing what you say actually contradicts firefighting being both good and heroic. The only thing you're saying is that people can be evil bastards despite occasionally doing heroic and good actions; admittedly true, exact same thing I've said myself, even.

However, there are also firemen who are, all around, decent persons - making them unambiguously good and heroic, and that's partly because they're firemen.

To me, it seems you're assuming an assumption; it doesn't seem to me Ravens_cry thinks all firemen must be good. You're not really countering anything said by him, you're just talking past him.

I've never seen someone play a rapist.

Wait, there are playing groups that don't go through a phase of Comedic Sociopathy where they try to rape and kill everything that moves? I'm confused. (Read: I'm envious of you, you lucky bastard!)

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 01:16 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen_E
Originally Posted by Stephen_E
US societal pecualarities towards sex are not a good guideline for general moral philosophying.

Sure they are. You may disagree with the standard, but you know it exists and it is widespread. The game has always assumed it, even while acknowledging that some half-elves were sired like Dragonlance's Tanis and not every half-orc had parents like Therkla's. In general, however, it avoids the subject. It hasn't always been that good on the subject of non-combatants, though the few times it gets a mention it is to advise against a DM using them to punish players with an unwinnable dilemma.

Correction. It's a terrible basis for determining good/evil. Showing gratitious torture and murder is fine but straight sex is dodgy? If you are trying to hold that up as a reasonable basis for good and evil you are in worse shape than the GM's player.

It was natural to assume certain lines weren't to be crossed. Anyone who wanted to go there should have brought it to the table before the event, and let it go the moment anyone objected.

Lmao. I'm sure your are correct that everyone thought there were lines that shouldn't be crossed, but trying to suggest that everone would have the same lines with out prior discussion is truly silly.

Note that the DM did object and the player refused to let it go.

That's right. The GM objected to the players characterisation of his PC. A 15 min discussion enshued.
If a GM tells me he doesn;t like my charcterisation of my character I will discuss it with him. He doesn't get to tell me how to run my character without a discussion.
Maybe you view the GM as the dictator in the game, but many people view it differently.
And given that part of the discussion was the GM saying he would never let the player play an evil alignment, or even a neutral alignment again, I'm dubious about the reasonableness of the GMs approach to the discussion.

Stephen E

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 01:28 PM

i dont think Elric was good at all, after all he his the ruler of an extremly evil empire who enslave , torture, rape their slave, conquer territories with chaotic gods and demons's help .

Elric don't hesitate to torture or mutilate, even reanimate corpse for attain his goals, what make us feel he was good, was his loyalty for his companion (and remorse when his demonic sword killed them).

in fact,i saw that most of the anti-heroes are originally bad guys doing "good" things. ^^

How many of the Elric books and short stories have you read?

He was raised in a cruel society that worshiped the Chaos god. He left it in disgust and fought against evil, bith by the gods of chaos and the gods of law.
He went to great difficulty to gather herbs to keep him alive and functional rather than take energy from his sould draining sword.
Yes he used his sword in battle, but given the people he was fighting that's not a simple equation.
He often used other weapons when he could, despite they increased the chance of him losing. The Sword and he constantly battled as he forced the sword to be used for good as much as possible.
It's not like he could just toss the damned thing away.

Indeed Elric was considered the bearer of the sword that most frustrated it evil aims in it's long history and was the person who finally defeated it.

Even when his upbringing left him little concept of good he still tried to do it.
Didn't always suceed, but he tried. What is that if not good?

Stephen E

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 01:32 PM

We are talking abut fiction here, Stephen_E and in fiction, yes people can indeed be unrelentingly evil. It isn't always clownish moustache bufoonery. Look at the Joker, ironically enough. Yes, evil is a complex issue, but hey, sometimes you don't want that .After all, role playing is doing the things you can't in real life.
That includes a more clear cut morality.

You were using RL examples.
And yes, people aren't unreliving evil, and it's more than a little difficult for a person to play unrelenting evil.
Writing about it is easier, but then if we are talking about DnD then you aren't talking about a player writing an unrelenting evil. We would be talking about him playing one.

Stephen E

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 01:49 PM

Nothing what you say actually contradicts firefighting being both good and heroic. The only thing you're saying is that people can be evil bastards despite occasionally doing heroic and good actions; admittedly true, exact same thing I've said myself, even.

He was saying Firefighters were good and heroic. Not firefighting.
There's quite a difference. So that would probably explain why I'm not contradicting it.

To me, it seems you're assuming an assumption; it doesn't seem to me Ravens_cry thinks all firemen must be good. You're not really countering anything said by him, you're just talking past him.

Well I disagree. What he was saying was that firemen were good and heroic. There was no "some" in there.
I can only go on what he has written. Not on what you think he meant by what he wrote, or what you would've written.
I'm not a mindreader.

Wait, there are playing groups that don't go through a phase of Comedic Sociopathy where they try to rape and kill everything that moves? I'm confused. (Read: I'm envious of you, you lucky bastard!)

I've played in many campaigns in more than a few groups and I seemed to have missed all those phases. Closest I ever had was a Halfling Druid who seducedtrumatised women, but it still was seduction not rape. Oddly enough he did actually murder a NPC that was a date rapist. But he didn't kill him for that reason.
I've done spociopaths/psychopaths for both comedic and straight, but never gone for rape and don;t recall a party member swinging that way.

Stephen E

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-16, 01:50 PM

And yes, people aren't unreliving evil, and it's more than a little difficult for a person to play unrelenting evil.

My players manage that by accident, it can't be that hard to do it intentionally...

Ravens_cry

2011-01-16, 01:55 PM

You were using RL examples.
And yes, people aren't unreliving evil, and it's more than a little difficult for a person to play unrelenting evil.
Writing about it is easier, but then if we are talking about DnD then you aren't talking about a player writing an unrelenting evil. We would be talking about him playing one.

Stephen E
This hobby is called interactive story telling for a reason, we are all making a story together. I don't want to be part of a story about pedophile rapist, I also don't want to be a part of a story about a village murdering psychos.Yes my characters have done things I would never do. And yes, I do acknowledge more then a little dissonance in my culture's viewpoint on depictions of violence and on sexuality. But there are some things I don't want to imagine, some stories I don't want to tell.

I was using real life examples of heroism, because they are some of the most heroic acts I know of. Whatever they do after, going into a burning building to save lives, diving into a raging river to save a child, is a Good act. Dangerous, yes, even a little foolish from a pure self preservation stance. But heroic and Good all the same. And you can't continually do good things, unless the Evil you do overshadows it, without being Good. It may be you job in the case of a fire-fighter, but it is the job you chose. It's not quite as simple as that I know, you can't help a thousand, even ten thousand, old ladies across the street to make up for brutally murdering a child. but doing good is the best way to be good, and I want to read and make stories about people who do good, or at least try. Yes, they can have flaws, in fact they should. Like I said earlier, maybe in another thread, Sam Vimes is my favourite paladin.

Finger snapping Rorschach sickened me by the way, he was everything that is repulsive about the 90's anti-'hero' archetype, except the big gun, bad anatomy and too many pouches of course. Though that can be arranged. (http://www.bleedingcool.com/wp-content/uploads//2010/08/watchmen2.jpg)

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-16, 02:18 PM

Finger snapping Rorschach sickened me by the way, he was everything that is repulsive about the 90's anti-'hero' archetype, except the big gun, bad anatomy and too many pouches of course.
Not too surprising, considering Rorscach was meant as a deconstruction of a "noir-detective vigilante", to lay bare faults of such a character. The "Nineties Anti-Hero" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NinetiesAntiHero) partly happened because too many readers and writers missed the point (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MisaimedFandom) and overlooked his repugnant qualities. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DracoInLeatherPants)

He was supposed to be sickening. However, it seems Alan Moore didn't make him sickening enough...

Hyudra

2011-01-16, 02:28 PM

I think the key point is that extremism, be it extremist evil, extremist good, extremist law or extremist beliefs, is problematic. The problem with evil alignments is that they lend themselves to extremist tendencies, because we're so unfamiliar with acting evil.

Some people, caught up in the freedom of being able to act evil, don't know how to put brakes on it, so they're evil for the sake of being evil, and that leads to killing random people on a whim, or screwing over the group. This is less a problem with the alignment itself, and more a lack of creative imagination, lack of ability to roleplay, and lack of maturity. These guys may well be problematic in any alignment. Your only option here is, as much as I hate it, to ban the alignment for that player and hope that they're less problematic as good or neutral PCs.

There's two other scenarios, but I think they don't crop up all that often. Scenario B is that you get someone who doesn't necessarily act mindlessly evil (Stupid Evil, though they can act this way and fit this scenario), but who takes their evil to an uncomfortable extreme. Book of Vile Darkness stuff, and stuff the BoVD wouldn't print. This reflects a problem with the player, either deep down or in their lack of respect for the others sitting around the table.

The third scenario is that you get an evil character who is played well enough without any problems on their end, but whose very presence seems to give rise to issues with other players. I've run into this:

Play by post game, I'm playing a lawful evil Hexblade. Things go pretty swimmingly at first. One probably wouldn't be able to guess my character was evil, barring an almost total lack of compassion or mercy for downed opponents and general heavy-handedness. My plan was to have the evil alignment become slowly apparent over the course of several adventures, allowing for a moment of DM sanctioned drama when my character eventually came at odds with the rest of the group in some point of belief. The issue was another player who was playing a chaotic neutral caster. Me and four other PCs are roleplaying up the ying-yang, and it's arguably one of the best play by post games I've had in that respect. The issue was a fifth player, best friend of the DM, playing a chaotic good caster. Not really roleplaying, except to incessantly taunt other players for their failures in character. Spending some rounds in combat doing nothing, or doing nothing meaningful (like running from one corner of the battlefield to the other). Ignored the battle plan and nearly got everyone killed twice; at one point we split into two groups to fend off two separate phalanxes of orc warriors for the final encounter of the adventure arc... and he decides to leave his group (which is summarily defeated and captured) to go loot & set fire to the empty orc camp. My group of three is then left to deal with one group from one end and a half group flanking us from the rear.

I raised the issue with the DM and talked to the other players. The feedback indicated that the DM & the others were sick and tired of the character as well, but the DM couldn't in good conscience kick the player out of game, as he was a friend IRL and a PC in one of said player's campaigns. I suggested (and was given the go ahead for) trying to resolve the issue in character.

I sent a PM to the player, just letting him know that there were some issues with his character & the group dynamic, and if he was amenable, we could try and roleplay the discussion. He agreed, so as our first adventure arc concluded, my character took his aside and told him in no uncertain terms to shape up or ship out; that the jeering at every missed attack or spell failure would stop, that he would share the loot he had gathered from the orc warcamp with the rest of the group and make a reasonable effort to follow the stated plan of battle when lives were on the line. Pretty fair, as I saw it, and in line with my character's personality & roleplaying thus far.

His response? Using out of character knowledge (I'm pretty sure), "Oh no! You're evil!", followed by him rolling initiative. I win the initiative roll, but it doesn't matter, because I then discover the DM let the player use a class the player himself had homebrewed, without so much as a glance over. So even though I win initiative, I'm subjected to two spells before I even get to take an action and an immediate action backbiter after I've made my first successful attack. I manage to get one attack off (thankfully his class didn't include high HD, and his build didn't have much Con) with high power attack, nearly drop him, and am then contained under a dome-shaped wall of stone without so much as an attack of opportunity. Keep in mind, that's a 5th level spell and we were level 5-6.

The wounded caster then ran to the group, told them I was evil and that I had told him I planned to kill them all, and a whole story beyond that. He then runs away in character and quit the game OOC. The group fell apart due to the ensuing drama and the inability to reconcile OOC knowledge (Hyudra's not a problem player) with IC knowledge (That was a pretty convincing looking argument, with nearly dead & bloodied caster telling us the Hexblade tried to kill him).
Long of it short, an otherwise good game & group dynamic spoiled by a problem player who used someone else's evil alignment as an excuse to try and spoil things. Perhaps something else would've come up, but in this case, my evil alignment was the catalyst for the group break up, to no meaningful fault of my own.

In the end, evil alignment can make for some good gaming & interesting group dynamics. It also sadly requires that everyone at the table have some degree of maturity.

Ravens_cry

2011-01-16, 02:33 PM

He was supposed to be sickening. However, it seems Alan Moore didn't make him sickening enough...
It's almost a facet of Poes law. No matter how repulsive you make a character, you will always find those who like them.

Zaydos

2011-01-16, 02:57 PM

Wait, there are playing groups that don't go through a phase of Comedic Sociopathy where they try to rape and kill everything that moves? I'm confused. (Read: I'm envious of you, you lucky bastard!)

Yes. Actually sex in general was completely unmentioned until one of us was in college and then the youngest of us (who was also extremely sheltered and the reason we weren't mentioning it) made a connection between Mage Armor and protection. It still never really came into the game.

I've had other groups with PCs who propositioned tentacle monsters, despite knowing that they could and would impregnate males. Still no rape.

How many of the Elric books and short stories have you read?

He was raised in a cruel society that worshiped the Chaos god. He left it in disgust and fought against evil, bith by the gods of chaos and the gods of law.
He went to great difficulty to gather herbs to keep him alive and functional rather than take energy from his sould draining sword.
Yes he used his sword in battle, but given the people he was fighting that's not a simple equation.
He often used other weapons when he could, despite they increased the chance of him losing. The Sword and he constantly battled as he forced the sword to be used for good as much as possible.
It's not like he could just toss the damned thing away.

Indeed Elric was considered the bearer of the sword that most frustrated it evil aims in it's long history and was the person who finally defeated it.

Even when his upbringing left him little concept of good he still tried to do it.
Didn't always suceed, but he tried. What is that if not good?

Stephen E

I've read the original six and would place his alignment as neutral or evil in D&D terms with a constant struggle to become good aligned. I would deem him ultimately a good person even, and it is his struggle against evil which is heroic (which also happens to be the good part). In fact I would say he is probably the most (okay only) convincing rebel against his Always Chaotic Evil race I've seen and that it is the foibles of the D&D alignment system that places his alignment. Had fate not chosen to mess him up whenever he did legitimate good he would have been good. Although this does not actually help the argument that good =/= heroic as it is his good acts that make him a hero despite his non-good acts which detract from it.

As for the firefighters they are assumed to be heroic because the only actions we see are heroic and good ones. When you find out that one considers it just a paycheck, beat their wives and kick puppies that man quickly ceases to be a hero.

It is possible to have sociopaths that, in the right circumstances, come off as heroes. Read the original issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, due to their protagonist status the turtles come off as heroes, don't need to think about how they are four people whose whole lives have been dedicated to training to assassinate one man because he assassinated a rival assassin. Now even in the 2nd issue they begin to have more developed personalities, and other goals/motives, but even in the first issue (where they are Splinter's living weapons) they come off as heroes because they're killing a bad guy and that's all you really need to know.

Also rape being worse than violence has existed a very, very long time. It's not unique to puritanical ethics. I'd start citing examples from mythology, along with counter examples which show a disturbing trend among deities, but at some point that gets too close to, or into, real world religion so I'm not going to.

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-16, 03:50 PM

Also rape being worse than violence has existed a very, very long time. It's not unique to puritanical ethics. I'd start citing examples from mythology, along with counter examples which show a disturbing trend among deities, but at some point that gets too close to, or into, real world religion so I'm not going to.

Why not just link him to TV tropes and call it a day?

Zaydos

2011-01-16, 03:51 PM

Why not just link him to TV tropes and call it a day?

Because I don't know what trope it would be found under... and don't tell me or else I'll go and read the page.

Ravens_cry

2011-01-16, 03:54 PM

Why not just link him to TV tropes and call it a day?

Because that would mean linking TO TV Tropes, and it would mean calling it a day. Seriously, that place is a Time Hole.

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-16, 04:02 PM

The specific trope would be Rape Is A Special Kind Of Evil, and other ways to deal with the subject can be found under Rape Tropes. It doesn't prolly speak highly of me as a human that I can tell this so easily.

Ravens_cry

2011-01-16, 04:05 PM

The specific trope would be , and other ways to deal with the subject can be found under . It doesn't prolly speak highly of me as a human that I can tell this so easily.
It shows curiosity, which speaks highly of you as a human being, in my opinion.

GeminiVeil

2011-01-16, 04:11 PM

Wow, this discussion has gone on for quite a while. Of course, I think that typically, the more controversial the subject matter, the more it gets talked about.
Weighing in with my two coppers, I think people are looking at this from multiple different methods. (duh, right? :smallsmile:)
Method 1: Game issue. As far as this goes, I think that, IMO, I fall somewhat on the side that the DM has the scales of fault slightly tipped to him. He seemed to push the good v. evil thing first, giving the players an arc to slaughter a whole village, supposedly including non-combatents. Then, when the player tried to up the ante back, he was 'going too far'. Now, I agree that the method he used was repugnant, and this is just my opinion, but that is how I see the situation. Of course, there is only the DM talking about the situation, and he does not referance really what the other players felt about the situation, so all this is just based on what the DM said.
Method 2: Player issue. I kind of agree for the most part that the player went too far. He should have at least asked if people were ok with this kind of an aspect brought into the game. However, once again, not much detail was given. If he just kinda mentioned it, then even though awful, he could have been trying to spare details but still act in character. If he tried to go into exacting detail, that is a whole other issue that needs to be addressed to a psychiatrist.
Method 3: Alignment issue. I've personally played an evil character that had nothing to do with intimacy. Of course, he was LE. I can't pull off chaotic very well. But I think I played my LE very well. So I can personally attest to Evil can be done well. Whether or not this individual did or not, again, not enough info, but from what is available, the DM said he was doing a great job playing evil until this instance. So just like 1 evil act shouldn't make you evil, one stupid act shouldn't make your whole character stupid (and therefore banned, as well as all evil alignments)
Method 4: World views. I think I will abstain from this one, seeing as it's already pretty deep into it without help. :smallsmile:
Method 5: Interactive views. I fall pretty much in the middle of this one. It's kind of each persons fault to an equal degree that they didn't discuss things, either beforehand or afterwards. Yes, there was SOME communication after the fact, but that's when emotions were running high and no one wanted to give an inch as both thought they were completely in the right. So here I would simply suggest talking more in depth, and calmly about the situation and see if something can be achieved there. If not, then banning might be the only available option.
Method 6: View I've missed. I can't possibly know all the views by all the people that have weighed in, so if I forgot any or left any out, it wasn't an affront to those views or the people with those views. :smallsmile:
Disclaimer: All the above is only my opinion.

Frozen_Feet

2011-01-16, 04:18 PM

It shows curiosity, which speaks highly of you as a human being, in my opinion.

Yeah, but it also shows I'm willing to waste hours on the net reading things of questionable content. :smalltongue::smallwink:

Ravens_cry

2011-01-16, 04:41 PM

Yeah, but it also shows I'm willing to waste hours on the net reading things of questionable content. :smalltongue::smallwink:
Honey, that's what the net is for.:smallamused:

DisgruntledDM

2011-01-16, 07:47 PM

Well, I stopped caring after the thread veered off into Rorshach. I'd love to see statistics as to the frequency of that occurence on the net. Anyway, the aftermath: After giving it some thought, said player did agree that he went overboard, and we both decided to not stop the game to argue about something in the future.

Now, of course, another issue may be arising with another player seemingly going from "optimized" to "Munchkin", but that's for another thread.

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 09:54 PM

My players manage that by accident, it can't be that hard to do it intentionally...

Hmmm, I suspect that I would disagree with your claim of unrelenting evil on the part of your players if I saw them in action.:smallwink:

Stephen E

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 10:10 PM

This hobby is called interactive story telling for a reason, we are all making a story together. I don't want to be part of a story about pedophile rapist, I also don't want to be a part of a story about a village murdering psychos.Yes my characters have done things I would never do. And yes, I do acknowledge more then a little dissonance in my culture's viewpoint on depictions of violence and on sexuality. But there are some things I don't want to imagine, some stories I don't want to tell.
Fair enough but the group limits need to be worked out over time.
It is unreasonable to assume your limits are what everyone else would agree with without forknowledge. Which is what the OP GM seems to have done, and many here agreed with.

I was using real life examples of heroism, because they are some of the most heroic acts I know of. Whatever they do after, going into a burning building to save lives, diving into a raging river to save a child, is a Good act.

This goes back to the idea that an act is good or evil regardless of concept.

I personally consider this a highly dubious concept. With out intent and circumstances you can't know.

A man jumps into a river to save a drowning child - Good?

The man had kidnapped the child to sacrifice to summon a powerful demon to destroy the local town. The child had escaped and was willing to risk drowning rather than let the man sacrifice him.

Suddenly the act doesn't seem so good.

Stephen E

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 10:36 PM

WarKitty

2011-01-16, 10:40 PM

Fair enough but the group limits need to be worked out over time.
It is unreasonable to assume your limits are what everyone else would agree with without forknowledge. Which is what the OP GM seems to have done, and many here agreed with.

For things that are common to many people's limits (such as sex crimes), the onus is on the person bringing the element into the game to ensure that the group is ok with it. The base assumption is that certain elements are off-limits but can be ok'd by group consensus, not that they are ok unless specifically banned.

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 10:47 PM

(Elric)
I've read the original six and would place his alignment as neutral or evil in D&D terms with a constant struggle to become good aligned. I would deem him ultimately a good person even, and it is his struggle against evil which is heroic (which also happens to be the good part). In fact I would say he is probably the most (okay only) convincing rebel against his Always Chaotic Evil race I've seen and that it is the foibles of the D&D alignment system that places his alignment. Had fate not chosen to mess him up whenever he did legitimate good he would have been good. Although this does not actually help the argument that good =/= heroic as it is his good acts that make him a hero despite his non-good acts which detract from it.

Tes, there has been quite a lot more Elric written over the years, mostly in short stories. He was one of the Eternal Champions, so by definition a hero as far as the author was concerned. The Eternal Champion is the archtypical hero at least as seen by the author.

Note Elric was not mentioned in support of Heroic =/= good.

Also rape being worse than violence has existed a very, very long time. It's not unique to puritanical ethics. I'd start citing examples from mythology, along with counter examples which show a disturbing trend among deities, but at some point that gets too close to, or into, real world religion so I'm not going to.

I would beg to differ on the religious angle, but yes, better we don;t go there.
I still have 10 months to work of on my previous warnings. :smallredface:

Stephen E

Stephen_E

2011-01-16, 10:52 PM

For things that are common to many people's limits (such as sex crimes), the onus is on the person bringing the element into the game to ensure that the group is ok with it. The base assumption is that certain elements are off-limits but can be ok'd by group consensus, not that they are ok unless specifically banned.

Right. Now just tell me how people are supposed to know which elements are off-limits but can be oked by group concensus, if it hasn't been dicussed beforehand.

Stephen E

WarKitty

2011-01-16, 10:54 PM

Right. Now just tell me how people are supposed to know which elements are off-limits but can be oked by group concensus, if it hasn't been dicussed beforehand.

Stephen E

There are societal standards. That's what I meant by "common to many people's limits." You know the same way you know that bringing up what you did last night in bed with your significant other during dinner is not appropriate.

umbrapolaris

2011-01-16, 10:59 PM

How many of the Elric books and short stories have you read?

all.

He was raised in a cruel society that worshiped the Chaos god. He left it in disgust and fought against evil, bith by the gods of chaos and the gods of law.

he is not disgusted but bored with it, the novel mention by default, he did those cruel acts too. he his the ruler of this nation. if he was "good" he will ban or trying to change some of the customs; he even did worse he give the rulership to his brother who is far crueler than him ! noway a good hero will do that. across the saga, Elric did some act of torture to obtain information or just by pleasure to take revenge upon his enemy from Pan Tang (forget the name). he summons Arioch many times. he drink souls from enemy soldiers for rejuvenating himself. all this acts cant be done by a "good " hero. Elric his definitely not good. opposing demons or gods of chaos don't make someone good.

He went to great difficulty to gather herbs to keep him alive and functional rather than take energy from his sould draining sword.
Yes he used his sword in battle, but given the people he was fighting that's not a simple equation.
He often used other weapons when he could, despite they increased the chance of him losing. The Sword and he constantly battled as he forced the sword to be used for good as much as possible.
It's not like he could just toss the damned thing away.

he neglect his sword not for "goodness" but for not being dependent of it, Elric is proud. a junkie who stop using drugs dont do it for "goodness" but for stopping being dependent.

when he was in extreme life or death situation, he dont hesitate to use his sword for draining souls. a "good hero" will never do that.

Indeed Elric was considered the bearer of the sword that most frustrated it evil aims in it's long history and was the person who finally defeated it.

yes, he was first defeated by Stormbringer, and in the cross-over novel, with all the manifestations of "the champion, he ultimately defeated it.

Even when his upbringing left him little concept of good he still tried to do it.Didn't always suceed, but he tried. What is that if not good?

Elric is the "Dark Side" of the "Eternal Champion" , Hawkmoon can be considered as good.
"trying" is not enough to be considered as "good".

that the big problem, i'm evil if i am a priest who spend most of my time good-doing but did some punctual evil acts (like abusing children in my church), i'm good if im a tyrant who mass murder and torture but take care of my family and friends?

Evilness and Goodness it is just a point of view.