Goblins and the evolution of Gaming Morality

[Morty]

We can argue alignment all week and never agree.

And that's the point.

No one who plays Monopoly complains that you are an evil slumlord when they land on Baltic Ave. right after you put a hotel on it, or complains that your four-house development on Pacific Ave. has a negative environmental impact.

Gygax and Arneson came from a time when fantasy novels were largely concerned with good and evil, conformity and individuality. (Two top-rated TV shows of the day, Gunsmoke and Bonanza, illustrate this, and were contemporaries of Star Trek: The Original Series.) Within a decade of the publication of D&D such morality tales were considered too contrived or trite to be taken seriously and they were replaced with stories of dark heros who were morally indistinguishable from their foes.

So I disagree with the premise that if D&D hadn't done it someone else would have. The era of good guys versus bad guys was already over.

But D&D got a whole generation of gamers who might otherwise never have been exposed to it to think about what good and evil really mean. That's a good thing. Especially when we disagree, because it's our disagreements that make us think and, perhaps occasionnally, realize that we were wrong.

And maybe we're evolving a little along the way.

You're still arguing against accusations no one seems to have actually made.

[Jason]

We can argue alignment all week and never agree.

And that's the point.

No one who plays Monopoly complains that you are an evil slumlord when they land on Baltic Ave. right after you put a hotel on it, or complains that your four-house development on Pacific Ave. has a negative environmental impact.

Gygax and Arneson came from a time when fantasy novels were largely concerned with good and evil, conformity and individuality. (Two top-rated TV shows of the day, Gunsmoke and Bonanza, illustrate this, and were contemporaries of Star Trek: The Original Series.) Within a decade of the publication of D&D such morality tales were considered too contrived or trite to be taken seriously and they were replaced with stories of dark heros who were morally indistinguishable from their foes.

So I disagree with the premise that if D&D hadn't done it someone else would have. The era of good guys versus bad guys was already over.

But D&D got a whole generation of gamers who might otherwise never have been exposed to it to think about what good and evil really mean. That's a good thing. Especially when we disagree, because it's our disagreements that make us think and, perhaps occasionnally, realize that we were wrong.

And maybe we're evolving a little along the way.

I agree with you on many points. If D&D hadn't created role-playing games in the time place it did there is no certainty that someone else would have stepped forward and done it.

I'm not sure I agree on the "all fiction now features anti-heroes" point. Marvel and Star Wars are both very popular right now, and both feature a lot of pretty clearly black and white villains. The polarization in politics in the US looks to me to also be a search for villains and heroes by the public. So our culture has not decided to give up on good guys vs. bad guys.

[Vahnavoi]

Good versus evil didn't go anywhere, it was relegated to children's entertainment - as was D&D itself for a while. Don't confuse temporary whims of fashion for permanent change, progress or evolution.

[brian 333]

I agree with you on many points. If D&D hadn't created role-playing games in the time place it did there is no certainty that someone else would have stepped forward and done it.

I'm not sure I agree on the "all fiction now features anti-heroes" point. Marvel and Star Wars are both very popular right now, and both feature a lot of pretty clearly black and white villains. The polarization in politics in the US looks to me to also be a search for villains and heroes by the public. So our culture has not decided to give up on good guys vs. bad guys.

Good point, though the stories we see in the comic movies are mostly from the 60s or earlier. But even in the movies we see Spiderman and Wolverine, to illustrate a point.

Spiderman, from the 60s, is arguably the first complex comic character, but he's clearly Good. Wolverine, from the 70s, is 'bad' but he's doing bad for a good cause.

This is not to say there was a hard date with unambiguously good heros on one side and unambiguously evil heros on the other, but it's definitely a trend. Marvel makes money by bucking the trend.

[Morty]

There's a considerable difference between having unambiguous heroes and villains and creating entire species of sapient beings whose purpose is to be nothing but low-tier minions for the latter. This strikes me as yet another deflection.

[Worldsong]

Wasn't Monopoly originally designed to prove a point?

I think the biggest point Monopoly has proven is that it's not a very good game.

[Ranadiel]

Wasn't Monopoly originally designed to prove a point?

Yup. 1.0 of Monopoly was called the Landlord's Game and was meant as a teaching tool about the evils of monopolies and the virtues of "Georgism." In the original game you played two rounds, the first with a proto-version of the modern rules and the second with rules based around the concept of a "single land value tax." People began making home brew variants fairly quickly and the second round getting jettisoned became popular within a decade of the original version.

In view of all of that, the original creator probably would have actually supported complaining "that you are an evil slumlord when they land on Baltic Ave. right after you put a hotel on it," since that seems consistent with the point they were trying to make.

[Spartan360]

Morality, alignment, ethical and pragmatic decisions in both real life and fiction aren't always as clean as some people push. You can be merciless, unempathetic and extreme while still wishing and working for a better outcome even though you won't always be looked on as a hero for it.

Another thing would be how good aligned decisions aren't always for the better and "evil" ones aren't always self-driven or worse. An example from Star Wars Tor is whether you should steal medicine for the war-Orphans that have suffered from completely callous war criminals or you can return it back to the true owners, the army who needs it for the wounded soldiers that need it to either live or to get back into the fight as soon as possible. In the game, Stealing it and giving it to the orphans is seen as the light/good option but anyone who thinks it through would likely notice the actual conflicting points, such as the fact that you are not only stealing from them but also potentially dooming soldier's who have been fighting to keep everyone there safe. Sure, you might have saved a bunch of kids but at the same time, not only have you allowed soldiers/defenders of those same people and more die but your allies now have less resources and manpower.

So I think what often causes such problems in RL and fictional is that people have difficulties scaling their morality or alignment depending on the varying situations. Especially when even when complaining about someone's action, the complainer eventually does or would do the same when faced with a similar event.

[danielxcutter]

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't massacre goblin children considering in OotS they're basically funny-looking humans.

[Spartan360]

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't massacre goblin children considering in OotS they're basically funny-looking humans.

Doubt that most people would under normal situations.

[Jason]

I think the biggest point Monopoly has proven is that it's not a very good game.

And yet it continues to sell, and there are thousands of branded variants.

[Worldsong]

And yet it continues to sell, and there are thousands of branded variants.

Yeah, turns out that being good and being profitable are not as closely linked as one might think.

[Spartan360]

Monopoly is somewhat like real life, you can spend the entire game being equal to your competition, you manage to take the nearest train to the rich life or you get your legs smashed by a baseball bat and never recover.

Personally in my actual opinion though, Monopoly is something that depends on personal taste, Most people that I have met love playing the game but I have also met people that detest the game. So basically, it's pretty much same thing as with pretty much everything in the world that people want to or refuse to experience.

[Vahnavoi]

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't massacre goblin children considering in OotS they're basically funny-looking humans.

Doubt that most people would under normal situations.

There's a Nietschze quote I could throw at you, but since I'm lazy, I'll just paraphrase and get to the meaning:

If you've never been in a situation where you even could massacre children, patting yourselves on your backs over how you totally wouldn't do it isn't of interest to anyone. Don't mistake lack of opportunity and ability for morality.

[Spartan360]

There's a Nietschze quote I could throw at you, but since I'm lazy, I'll just paraphrase and get to the meaning:

If you've never been in a situation where you even could massacre children, patting yourselves on your backs over how you totally wouldn't do it isn't of interest to anyone. Don't mistake lack of opportunity and ability for morality.

I know about Nietschze but again under normal situation as in I was simply sent to attack a mostly defense goblin village (aka Redcloak's origin) and the fact this isn't goblin slayer, There would be no reason for most people to kill the children, the elderly and the wounded. This is more like a situation that the Huns practiced rather than a vengeance or extremism driven one by something similar to the world and history that's in the LOTR.

[Ionathus]

Monopoly is somewhat like real life, you can spend the entire game being equal to your competition, you manage to take the nearest train to the rich life or you get your legs smashed by a baseball bat and never recover.

Personally in my actual opinion though, Monopoly is something that depends on personal taste, Most people that I have met love playing the game but I have also met people that detest the game. So basically, it's pretty much same thing as with pretty much everything in the world that people want to or refuse to experience.

I feel like the game-playing people in my life are just as polarized on it: they either really enjoy Monopoly or absolutely hate it.

Put me in the hate camp, though. Any game that's so dependent on luck, and has no real avenue for getting back in the game once you're even slightly down, is a poorly-made game in my book. Which, as others have said, was apparently the original point of the game.

And that ties nicely into the goblin discussion for me. It'd be one thing if all the races were playing Catan, for instance: you box each other out of resources, and you put the robber on each other, but at the end of the day it's a pretty individual, peaceful game with some trading. People can take resources from you, but they can't actively destroy your actual progress (VPs).

Compare that to a game like Monopoly or Risk, where in order to win, you have to crush others...and the ones who are crushed have laughably small odds of becoming a major player again. It's hard not to see the parallels in how entire races lose and then keep losing as a result.

[danielxcutter]

I feel like the game-playing people in my life are just as polarized on it: they either really enjoy Monopoly or absolutely hate it.

Put me in the hate camp, though. Any game that's so dependent on luck, and has no real avenue for getting back in the game once you're even slightly down, is a poorly-made game in my book. Which, as others have said, was apparently the original point of the game.

And that ties nicely into the goblin discussion for me. It'd be one thing if all the races were playing Catan, for instance: you box each other out of resources, and you put the robber on each other, but at the end of the day it's a pretty individual, peaceful game with some trading. People can take resources from you, but they can't actively destroy your actual progress (VPs).

Compare that to a game like Monopoly or Risk, where in order to win, you have to crush others...and the ones who are crushed have laughably small odds of becoming a major player again. It's hard not to see the parallels in how entire races lose and then keep losing as a result.

The goblins are basically trying to flip the board at this point because of that, especially since someone made a mistake earlier and gave them less money to start with.

[Ionathus]

The goblins are basically trying to flip the board at this point because of that, especially since someone made a mistake earlier and gave them less money to start with.

I'd argue that other goblins, when Redcloak isn't involved, seem to mostly cling to life and try to play the hand they're dealt, hoping to grind their way back into the game (I'm mixing all the metaphors today, huh).

Redcloak seems to be the only one obsessed with flipping the board, and while it's gotten him some results, it's pretty clearly not sustainable on the long term.

[danielxcutter]

I'd argue that other goblins, when Redcloak isn't involved, seem to mostly cling to life and try to play the hand they're dealt, hoping to grind their way back into the game (I'm mixing all the metaphors today, huh).

Redcloak seems to be the only one obsessed with flipping the board, and while it's gotten him some results, it's pretty clearly not sustainable on the long term.

Hmm, yes that’s true.

Honestly I think it’d be reasonable to understand why he wants to flip the board even if most people still want to keep playing.

[CountDVB]

Hmm, yes that’s true.

Honestly I think it’d be reasonable to understand why he wants to flip the board even if most people still want to keep playing.

Well, his reasons are a mix of selfish and selfless, the former tainting the latter since he doesn't wanna consider the fact he was in the wrong. It will all come down to what happens in the end, but as the way he is now, I suspect that he will still be selfish.

But in terms of flipping the board, it's not just because they started out with "less money", but the fact they are considered inherently evil just because of what they are/because they were made by Fenris and thus, considered just for the purpose of cutting them down.

[Spartan360]

All games that use dice and even other games depend on luck, some just more than others.

[Gurgeh]

Gygax and Arneson came from a time when fantasy novels were largely concerned with good and evil, conformity and individuality. (Two top-rated TV shows of the day, Gunsmoke and Bonanza, illustrate this, and were contemporaries of Star Trek: The Original Series.) Within a decade of the publication of D&D such morality tales were considered too contrived or trite to be taken seriously and they were replaced with stories of dark heros who were morally indistinguishable from their foes.

Eh, I don't think this assertion holds up. Speculative fiction had gone through a bunch of changes in the 60s and 70s and while there was plenty of black-and-white stuff out there (when has there not been?) there was also a huge amount of influential and successful fiction that took more complex (or cynical) views on morality. The original Law/Chaos alignment system from Basic is taken almost directly from Michael Moorcock's stories, after all.

The creators of D&D may have been unimaginative and arch-conservative in their views on morality and ethics - honestly, I wouldn't know - but the stories and authors that influenced them were most definitely not.

As far as Monopoly goes, its biggest sin is the fact that it's a player elimination game that takes way too long to eliminate its players. It's not uncommon for someone to achieve an unbeatable position fairly early in the game, but converting this unassailable lead into an actual victory, with every other player eliminated, may take three or four times longer - during which time the trailing players aren't really going to have much fun.

[Ionathus]

All games that use dice and even other games depend on luck, some just more than others.

Of course, but you can't deny there are tiers of luck-based games where skill or strategy or player choice barely even factors into it.

Even comparing d20 systems to something like PbtA: rolling a 20-sided die, with equal chances for 1 or 20 or anything in between, inherently makes the proficiencies and modifiers you choose less important. It makes the game more swingy and more dependent on the roll of a die. Compare that to PbtA, where you roll 2d6: when the average roll is weighted towards the middle, it means that your modifiers have a much stronger chance of actually affecting the roll.

That's not a slight against D&D: I really enjoy rolling d20s! But the game definitely swings harder because it's weighted more towards luck than consistency.

Monopoly has elements of strategy, sure, but it really all still comes down to a roll of the dice, and there are very few things you can do to change the course of the game.

Basically, the only games anyone should ever play are Tic-Tac-Toe, Go, and Chess. Luck in any form is a sin against gaming itself.

[Metastachydium]

Basically, the only games anyone should ever play are Tic-Tac-Toe, Go, and Chess. Luck in any form is a sin against gaming itself.

(Some forms of the game that we know as chess do, in fact, have dice (e.g. chaturaji).)

[Ionathus]

(Some forms of the game that we know as chess do, in fact, have dice (e.g. chaturaji).)

Boy, I would absolutely love a version of chess that wasn't 100% dependent on my own competency. Give me a bad roll to scapegoat and I'll take that any day.

[arimareiji]

Monopoly has elements of strategy, sure, but it really all still comes down to a roll of the dice, and there are very few things you can do to change the course of the game.

Basically, the only games anyone should ever play are Tic-Tac-Toe, Go, and Chess. Luck in any form is a sin against gaming itself.

Monopoly is Tic-Tac-Toe with dice, just as it was meant to be. (^_~)

The point of the game was to be utterly imbalanced in favor of whoever is the luckiest near the start (and follows the relatively-obvious strategies), which may or may not have been meant to parallel "good fortune as a function of birth".

[dps]

If you've never been in a situation where you even could massacre children, patting yourselves on your backs over how you totally wouldn't do it isn't of interest to anyone. Don't mistake lack of opportunity and ability for morality.

IMO, if put into a situation in which they were allowed to massacre children with no negative consequences, the biggest factor that would keep a lot of people from participating would be plain laziness, not morality.

[danielxcutter]

I wouldn't want to do that even if I could get away with it!

[dps]

I wouldn't want to do that even if I could get away with it!

So you're putting yourself in the Lazy alignment, then. 😁

[Fyraltari]

I wouldn't want to do that even if I could get away with it!

On saura jamais ce qu'on a vraiment dans nos ventres,
Caché derrière nos apparences.
L'âme d'un brave ou d'un complice ou d'un bourreau ?
Ou le pire, ou le plus beau ?
Serions-nous de ceux qui résistent, ou bien les moutons d'un troupeau,
S'il fallait plus que des mots ?
[...]
Et qu'on nous épargne à toi et moi,
Si possible, très longtemps
D'avoir à choisir un camp.

"We will never know what we really have in our guts. The soul of a brave, of an accomplice, of an executioner? The worst or the most beautiful? Would we be of those who resist or sheep in the herd, if it took more than words? [...] May we, you and I, be spared, if possible for a very long time, having to pick a side."
From Born in 17, in Leidenstadt by Jean-Jacques Goldman, Michael Jones and Carole Fredericks.

It's easy to say we would (not) have done this or that but the truth is, most of us don't know, and I hope we never find out.