RPing A Good Social Darwinist-How Would You Do It?

[Leliel]

Basically, I've changed my character Joshu Tabren-basically, he's a Bael Tuarth patriot who was born a few centuries too late-into a planar character who came from his native world to Sigil to learn more about Bael Turath and eventually, hopefully, gain enough power to restore it. This being Sigil, he's naturally going to run into the factions, and I'm already planning for him to become an intiate of the Fated.

Now here's where the dilemma comes in. You see, Joshu's a good guy-selfish and misanthropic he might be-and the Fated are, basically, Social Darwinists. If you can't control your own destiny, you don't deserve one, in thier eyes...and Joshu wants to be the archtypical "beloved king".

While I myself got an idea of how to play him-just beacuse you want people to achive their own destiny doesn't mean you can't help them find the potential-it brought up an intresting question:

How would you play a Good- or Lawful Good-aligned character who believes in "survival of the fittest"?

[Malacode]

One of my friends is playing a Lawful (Something) Psionic Darwinist in an upcoming game. He plans to RP as he would any other character, just show no mercy to those he fights. Those he's allied with he considers strong due to their intelligence in banding together. It's not that difficult to do, methinks

[IM@work]

If you were to play a true Darwinist you would have little to no mercy as Darwinism goes by a "only the strongest survive" pattern. Also the character would view each new challenge as a way for him to adapt to a new situation. I don't see a Darwinist character as a lawful good type, more of a slightly chaotic neutral, after all chaos is really what the theory of evolution is all about.
If you inisist on making him a good character I would suggest having his actions help others to adapt and to survive for the common good, and when things go bad believe that it was for the greater good that things turned out the way they did. To be a total Darwinist means little caring about others, which is why I believe few people are true Darwinists.
It sounds like you have an interesting character in the makings, good luck!

[Mastikator]

Maybe he thinks of people as sheep, and like sheep, it's not their fault that they were born inferior to him, but like a shepard, he does need them. So he can either oppress them, or simply be nice enough to make them want him to be king.
He might figure it's more effective to harvest their loyalty by being benevolent (and thus genuinely earning it). I think it might be justified to say he's both a touch misanthropic, a social Darwinist and lawful good. But kinda a stretch on all. :p

[MeanJoeSmith75]

Read Atlas Shrugged. John Galt considers himself Lawful Good I would bet.
Fittest doesn't necessarily mean strongest. It means the most fit for the job/position. I doubt that a pure Darwinist would consider a brute barbarian with AC 35 and 500 hp and does 12d12 damage on a hit the best to lead a nation. MAYBE the army, but prowness in battle does necessarily mean ability to lead.

[Inyssius Tor]

How would you play a Good- or Lawful Good-aligned character who believes in "survival of the fittest"?

I'm not sure. "Social Darwinism"--ugh--seems like it would be an inherently evil (or at best on the low side of Neutral) philosophy, with ramifications ranging from archetypal Chaotic Evil (I'm the baddest man around, so I can do whatever I want) all the way through archetypal Lawful Evil (glory to the Master Race!)

I'll write more in a second but I'm sick of getting ninja'd.

EDIT: Could you please edit your topic to include the word "Social", just for the sake of clarity? You may use the terms "Darwinist" and "Social Darwinist" interchangeably, but a whole lot of other people use "Darwinist" as shorthand for "people who believe in the theory of evolution"--and even more believe that all three terms are interchangeable.

[Jerthanis]

If you were to play a true Darwinist you would have little to no mercy as Darwinism goes by a "only the strongest survive" pattern. Also the character would view each new challenge as a way for him to adapt to a new situation. I don't see a Darwinist character as a lawful good type, more of a slightly chaotic neutral, after all chaos is really what the theory of evolution is all about.
If you inisist on making him a good character I would suggest having his actions help others to adapt and to survive for the common good, and when things go bad believe that it was for the greater good that things turned out the way they did. To be a total Darwinist means little caring about others, which is why I believe few people are true Darwinists.
It sounds like you have an interesting character in the makings, good luck!

You do realize that you're describing Social Darwinism, and not the theory of natural selection, right? Because there IS a difference. Kind of a big one.

There's absolutely nothing to say a Social Darwinist cannot be a good person, it's just the tack he would take would be one of inspiration and leadership rather than reactionary heroism. Instead of saving every person he personally sees drowning, he would teach free swimming lessons. He would affect changes to social institutions to make them stronger.

Mostly though, to play a good person, simply figure out their personal philosophy and decide that that person thinks he's a good person by doing it, whatever it is. A good litmus test is to read the character's philosophy in your in-character voice as if they know they're a good person, and if they sound like complete madmen to you, you know they aren't actually good... so change it until it rings "good" to your ear.

[Hectonkhyres]

The key, as I figure it, would be for your character to figure that 'good' is whatever works and a faith that that which doesn't work will eliminate itself even without the players' intercession. The world doesn't need any goddamn saving... but you can still do so if you want to. Kicking ass is fun, the resulting glory and loot are both fun and directly beneficial to you, and cutting off some of the more obvious sicknesses of the world before they metastasize is a good deal all round. Its damage control.

You can play him in a lawful fashion where these rules are objective and you are just trying to follow what is already there, neutral (crap happens, its none of my business, and I just want to get out of this alive and not starving), or chaotic (crap happens but I've got my own damn standards).

Darwinism does not require you to be a cold, soulless bastard willing to see children starve in the street because they are weak.

[kamikasei]

Jerthanis is correct in pointing out that you're "summing up" the important details here with highly loaded and frequently misunderstood terms, and then confusing those terms yourself.

It would probably be most helpful if you could describe specifically what a) your character and b) the Fated believe. I gather the Fated are an existing group in Planescape lore?

A "Darwinist", if understood to mean "subscriber to the theory of evolution", should recognize the usefulness of co-operation, symbiosis, ecology, etc.: a group of people who help each other are stronger in total than an equal number of people who have to waste energy watching out for their allies stabbing them in the back.

A "social Darwinist" as I understand the philosophy, on the other hand, would subscribe to a number of false views around the causes of and solutions to social ills: the idea that the poor are poor because of some fundamental flaw, that this flaw is heritable, that therefore the "undesirable" should be prevented from breeding to improve the health of the society: not merely evil, but also simply incorrect.

Read Atlas Shrugged. John Galt considers himself Lawful Good I would bet.

What a character "considers himself" to be and what he is are not necessarily the same thing in D&D. Are we to provide self-justifications for an evil man or motivations and a mode of behaviour for a genuinely good one?

[Tsotha-lanti]

I'd take Knowledge (geology), get a ship, and sail around trying to study the effects of volcanic activity but accidentally come upon evidence of evolution.

[Limos]

A Social Darwinist who is Lawful Good would be all about "The Greater Good". He would feel completely justified in not helping people because it will be better in the long run for them to learn to help themselves.

And it isn't the Strongest who survive. It's the Fittest. You can be Fit without being Strong. The Wizard is (let's face it) squishy. A barbarian is most definately Stronger. However when faced with a magical dilemma the Wizard is clearly more Fit.

[Agrippa]

Simple, what defines fitness to live? To someone of Good alignment that's very easy, lack of extreme cruelty towards others. Now some Good aligned characters might go to far and spare someone like, let's say the Joker. A Good aligned social Darwinist like your Joshu, would kill the Joker with no remorse or pity. People who don't severely harm others for fun, profit or ideology are fit to live. Mass murdering psychopaths are unfit to live. They corrupt and pollute society. Its that simple Leliel.

[Flickerdart]

Anyone that can't pull their weight gets left behind. Don't play a Good-aligned Cleric, unless you want to go a Rapture-style pay-per-use heal station.

[Ozymandias]

It's possible to hold views that are cynical or misanthropic and simultaneously do good things. Basically, a Social Darwinist looks at the destitute and says, generally, "this is their fault". A Neutral one would leave them be; an Evil one would make them suffer or die; A Good one would help them.

[Sergeantbrother]

I'm not sure is a "Social Darwinist" can be good from a D&D perspective. At least not if they adhere strongly to both D&D's definition of a good alignment and strictly practices Social Darwinism.

Of course, if the Social Darwinist occasionally falters in their beliefs and helps others in need, then they could be good.

In D&D being good is about going out of your way to help others, its about philanthropy basically. Social Darwinism would tend to be against this idea, since such an attitude would conclude that if people can't solve their own problems then it is right and natural for them to bear to consequences for their weakness. Now, such people may believe that pursuing this agenda may serve a greater good - and "culling the weak" may well serve a greater good - but in D&D the ends don't justify the means so you can't act in a non-good way for a greater good and still have a good alignment. In the real world, whether the end justifies the means is a complex and ongoing debate.

I would generally see a Social Darwinist as neutral on the scale between good and evil - the Randian hero who pursues his or her own greatness and leaves lesser individuals to fail as they will but doesn't actively harm them. I suppose that the epitome (if perhaps a characature) of Social Darwinism is chaotic evil - if I'm strong enough to get away with it then I had the right to do it.

Edit :

Let me clarify this a little. You can be good and believe in Social Darwinism, but the two pulls are in conflict with each other, so in being good the Social Darwinist is compromising his beliefs. Perhaps he thinks, theoretically, that the weak should be allowed to starve for the greater good, but he's just too soft hearted to let it happen.

[Learnedguy]

Social Darwinists always seem to make up for better villains that good guys somehow

Anyway, I suppose the man should be a very pragmatic guy with a nice streak. He searches for strengths and weaknesses in people he meet and in himself, and then he tries to work on them. He'll dislike people who are past their competence level (like say, a foolish or cruel king) and he'll encourage people to do the best of their ability in stead of squandering it.

And he might still be a jackass in the end

[bosssmiley]

Not strictly Social Darwinism, but if you want to make a competitive person sympathetic then give him some of the trappings of the Protestant work ethic. Something like: the sin is not in being poor/weak/ignorant; the sin is in not working to improve your circumstances. This keys into the whole 'hope springs eternal', 'no man is beyond redemption' thing that LG has going on, and also plays on the 'nothing truly worth doing is easy' dourness that D&D LG sometimes downplays.

The lives of some of the great capitalists follow a quasi-Social Darwinist pattern (I'm not getting into the whole relationship between the PWE and Social Darwinism though). Read some Horatio Alger stories, Sam Smiles' "Self Help", or look into the life of James J. Hill, the man who built the Great Northern railroad in the mid-19th century entirely with private money. Hill's motto: "We have got to prosper with you or we have got to be poor with you."

As for the OP's Joshu: no-one ever said a philanthropist can't be misanthropic too. Just have the character do things for his own advantage that indirectly benefit others too.

"I set up this (clean water supply) for my own convenience. If other people want to mimic my good sense, that's their look out. Although I will note that infectious disease in the town is down 50% since we arrived. Smart men don't fight good sense, and fools don't prosper."

[only1doug]

Social darwinist in DnD.

If someone makes a potentially fatal error (that doesn't also endanger the social darwinist) he'll leave them to their fate rather than warn them.

If someone has accepted a duel to the death then win or lose that's their problem.

If the barbarian runs headlong into danger then let him injure the enemies and die alone.

If someone dies then resurrection magics should not be used.


Good aligned character

Help those in need



assessment

Good aligned social darwinist seems a contradiction in terms, In DnD terms a social darwinist would be described as evil.

the best way of playing it is to do the good acts while muttering about how you should be letting them prove their own strength.

[woodenbandman]

I was a druidic darwinist once, but I couldn't call myself good. In fact I was kind of evil (not really that evil). You probably can't be good if you are a darwinist, unless you are stupid and believe that people asking you for help is a legitimate survival tactic.

[Talya]

Someone already mentioned "Atlas Shrugged," which is a good call, although I wouldn't suggest anyone be forced to dredge through Ayn Rand's writing just to make a character.

"Lawful Good" (or any "Good") "Social Darwinism" is going to fall into Rand's Objectivism philosophy. This is not inherently evil or even non-good. Objectivism is about recognizing excellence and rewarding it, among other things.

If you want an entertaining and lighter version of Atlas Shrugged, go watch Pixar's The Incredibles again. The whole movie is an Ayn Rand love-fest (right down to copycatting the symbolic book-cover imagery of the strong man lifting up the globe), and it's really good at getting the point across.

[kamikasei]

I was a druidic darwinist once, but I couldn't call myself good. In fact I was kind of evil (not really that evil). You probably can't be good if you are a darwinist, unless you are stupid and believe that people asking you for help is a legitimate survival tactic.

a) Please be a little clearer what you mean by the term "Darwinist", before you again accuse most of the western world of being evil.

b) Of course asking for help is a legitimate survival tactic. The ability of a group of people to respond to adversity is an adaptation as much as the ability of a single person to do so.

If you're going to treat a word as shorthand for "evil, short-sighted jerk", it's a bit pointless to slap it on a character and then ask how he can also be Good.

[Jayabalard]

How would you play a Good- or Lawful Good-aligned character who believes in "survival of the fittest"?

I wouldn't play that character as good or lawful good. Sure, he sees himself as a good guy but that doesn't make his alignment Good with a capital "G"

The important thing to keep in mind that that most villains aren't villains in their own eyes; the character as you describe him is a good example of this sort of person.

[Prometheus]

In general, I agree with the posters who expressed the sentiment that there seems to be an inverse relationship between Social Darwinism and good. D&D however, is notoriously inconsistent and open to interpretation on the subject of alignment, so I say you can play it how you want.
As for how to RP him, while religious fundamentalists have shamefully tried to associate the movement with Darwinism, I think the movement more closely aligns itself with old-school theists who believe in Divine Right, Manifest Destiny, or the Caste System. The idea is that God rewards his followers in this life, and therefore you can infer from someone's state just what God thinks of them. In the case of Clerics in the D&D world, this is clearly the case. The problem however, is that evil has a much stronger influence in the D&D world, so one could just as easily infer that the less fortunate are very important and are being martyred by the forces of evil. Therefore, this particular brand of religiousity either needs a strong good-evil detection system built into it or to simply deny the power of the other side.

Alternatively, have him excessively focused on the conservation of some resource to the point that he is inclined to make cold calculated decisions about the merit over than equality. This makes a lot of sense in a crisis situation, but without such a setting that makes him either a crazy conservationalist or extreme capitalistic utilitarian. But than again, it depends on what degree you want to emphasize this bent.

[Knaight]

To respond to the title, I wouldn't. Social Darwinism just seems like it can't be good.

[Hectonkhyres]

To respond to the title, I wouldn't. Social Darwinism just seems like it can't be good.

Oh, really? Fine. I will pull out the big guns.
Kamina from Gurren Lagaan. Chaotic Good Darwinist extraordinaire. People need to get off their own goddamn asses and do things rather than cowering in their holes while a big shiny hero hands them paradise on a silver platter. The moment you see someone kneeling in the dirt, accepting the crap life throws at them as if it were their due, you punch them in the goddamn teeth. And repeat as necessary with ever increasing force until they get it through their heads that they need to stand up.

The hero's job is just to be there to make sure that the idiots get a chance to stand up and make something of themselves rather than being killed or kept stunted. One does not judge the fitness of a bunch of seeds by setting fire to them before they even germinate. You have to actually put them in some kind of soil and see what the bastards can do. That, and the aforementioned punch to the teeth.

Sneer at the weak all you like... but first make sure they are actually weak.

[Jayabalard]

Oh, really? Fine. I will pull out the big guns.
Kamina from Gurren Lagaan.

/shrug ... sounds chaotic neutral at best, prossibly chaotic evil.

[JaxGaret]

/shrug ... sounds chaotic neutral at best, prossibly chaotic evil.

I don't know that character from personal experience, but judging from the description, if Kamina's actions lead to improvement in other people's lives and were intended to do so, then that is certainly Good, not Evil.

[vicente408]

Kamina is most certainly Chaotic Good. While I've never thought of him in relation to Social Darwinism, it does fit him to a certain extent. But, moreover, his character is very much one that inspires others to do the best they can, whether by encouragement or leading by example. He wants his friends and allies to stop restraining themselves and do things they have never done before, better than they have ever done them. That said, he's not really a Social Darwinist; I doubt a character epitomizing that philosophy would have put as much effort as Kamina into helping his friends. They would more likely havve given up on someone who clearly doesn't want to improve themselves, instead of sticking up for them time and time again until they finally get the message. Not to mention that Kamina is Chaotic as all get out, and wouldn't be a good fit for the OP's request.

[Cybren]

Social darwinism wasn't a philosophy or school of thought, it was a justification for the actions of imperial europe.
I'd probably play the character as more fatalistic, perhaps even somewhat nihilistic, as social darwinism has some real world connotations many people find unpleasant.

[Riffington]

In the game In Nomine, the Archangel David is the angel of Stone. He represents self-defense, strength, endurance, and small communities. He is basically Lawful Good, but he feels that humans have become too soft. As the war between the Angels and the Demons grows closer, the humans will inevitably be caught in the middle, and he doesn't think they are ready for it. So he sends his agents to toughen people up - he supports boy scouts, marathons, miners, and even skinheads (believing their fistfights and rough-and-tumble lifestyle are kind of what we need right now).

A Good Social Darwinist cannot simply shrug his shoulders when someone is starving to death. Nor can he justify sending them the kind of charity that will sap their will to work. He must try to improve education, create opportunities to work, etc - so that those with the will to succeed have a decent chance to succeed. There is nothing to say that it should be easy though.