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  1. - Top - End - #211
    Giant in the Playground Administrator
     
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by Solara View Post
    Admirable effort, but in the end, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.
    It is literally my entire job to write or draw things for the purpose of making people think this way or that. That's all I do. Forgive me for not dismissing it as an inherently futile endeavor.
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  2. - Top - End - #212
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Look, I'm won't ask people to give up fighting capital E-evil for fighting capital-E-evils sake.

    I'm just asking why does it have to be an entire race of people doing it for no reason? why does it have to be orcs? anything can be capital E-evil! just have the enemy kick a puppy, torture some peasants for no reason and add in maniacal laughter! its literally easy as that. you don't need to invent a race that does it. it requires no effort or thought, as you yourselves admitted, so why are you people trying so hard to defend it?

    I mean, its not as if you need any special tools, just say the PC's are good, everyone you fight is evil, then go to town, you can do that with any RPG, however we are pushing for a more thoughtful approach here, to a higher examination, you can go ahead and leave it unexamined at your table- there are tons of games aside from DnD that while trying to reach for deeper themes, still has their beer and pretzel players that just do crazy things and fight stuff but playing as things other than medieval murderhobos. DnD needs more examination and such, there is difference between the power fantasy of being able to kill whatever you want, and the moral fantasy that your right in doing so.

    I have no problem with your power fantasy, your moral fantasy on the other hand is quite troubling.
    I'm also on discord as "raziere".


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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by Scow2 View Post
    Yet, "Usually Evil" humanoids (And I'd go so far as to say "Usually Good" humanoids as well) aren't Humans. I also don't believe that any humanoid, except with a single exception, are not made from an inherent imbalance of Primal Good/Evil and/or Law/Chaos. Nonhuman (As in, any race except by-the-book Humans) Sentient creatures in D&D aren't merely seperate cultures that developed over time to adapt to their environment/surroundings. They are tools and creations made by their Deities, each who has a personality that can fit into an alignment category, that is reflected within each of their creations. The experience of life of being created by one deity is something D&D's humans all lack, which leads to them going all over the alignment spectrum and finding the idea that a sapiant race doesn't have entirely free will in its moral outlook and judgement to be alien to the point of incomprehensibility. For the most part, "Usually Evil" creature's minds are inherently corrupted by Evil, and is something they have to deal with their entire life, though enough willpower can overcome it.
    II understand that point, and in fact "hardwired by the powers that be" is the only explanation I accept for a sentient creature being always evil. but then it is not a sentient creature the way we think. It is a partially supernatural being. so the description should not go like "goblins are vicous and murderous sadistic bastards", but instead "goblins were created by the evil deity to fight humans, and while being intelligent, they lack free will on that matter". That is a perfectly acceptable way if you like to have a black and white world.

    But my favourite way to create an "evil race" is to make a culture that is self consistent, and do not consider itself evil, but is equivvalent to evil from the outside perspective. I particularly like how I made the orcs: "orcs are not inherently evil, but their society is founded over an honor code that requires every challenge to be met with violence. Since such "challenge" can consist in just looking at them the wrong way, they are often at odds with all the other races. For their parts, the orcs don't understand why the other races hate them, because to them that behaviour is absolutely normal. In general, they have a complex honor code that is often mistaked for cruelty by those who don't knwo them well. for example, they are known to sometimes torture to death prisoners; however, to them that is a mark of honor, to allow a worthy opponent to show his strenght by enduring torture with honor. the more cruel the torture, the greatest the respect they are showing you. If an orc is captured by an enemy, he will often ask to be tortured to death, and will be offfended on a refusal; the greatest offence would be to spare his life: that implies that he's no treath to you, and will cause him to lose his honor forever, a fate most orcs consider far worse than death..."
    Of course there were a few peaceful tribes who rejected that way of living, but they always marked themselves apart. since no peaceful orc was allowed to live among the warlike tribes, any orc in a warlike tribe was automatically a valid target to kill on sight just for his affiliation. He would be offended if you considered him otherwise.
    In memory of Evisceratus: he dreamed of a better world, but he lacked the class levels to make the dream come true.

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  4. - Top - End - #214
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by hamishspence View Post
    And despite being "Usually neutral" the halfling patron deity- Yondalla- is Lawful Good.

    So, it isn't always the case that a race's patron deity in D&D determines the most common alignment of that race.
    Actually, Yondalla is only one of the Halfling's deities - they have several. Also, Yondalla is actually a two-faced deity: The Lawful Good "Yondalla" presented to everyone saying "We halfling are civilized and virtuous people!" and, and the Chaotic Leadsheet-Neutral "Dallah Thaun", who will go to any lengths required to protect the Halfling race.

  5. - Top - End - #215
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
    Terry Pratchett, Lords & Ladies. The elves are
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    literally from another dimension, and "here" chiefly for the fun and sport of hunting and torturing humans.
    Yep. From the blurb,

    Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
    Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
    Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
    Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
    Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
    Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
    The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
    No one ever said elves are nice.
    Pratchett's elves are basically extra-dimensional amoral parasites - they literally cannot comprehend empathy or emotions. They're the only sapient species that doesn't get a sympathetic portrayal. His dwarves, trolls, vampires, werewolves, orcs, goblins, gnomes, gnolls, gods, gargoyles, fairies and humans are all capable of both good and bad, and held accountable for their choices as individuals, but his elves are just alien.

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    Look, I won't ask people to give up fighting capital E-evil for fighting capital-E-evils sake.

    I'm just asking why does it have to be an entire race of people doing it for no reason? why does it have to be orcs?
    It isn't easy being green? I honestly don't know why its orcs and goblins, I'm far more interested in talking up dragons myself as they are highly magical in-game and iconic. The fact that orcs and goblins come from mythology means they were there long before Tolkien or Gygax came along and made them low level cannon fodder.
    Quote Originally Posted by Morty View Post
    It would have been awesome if the writers had put as much thought into it as you guys do.
    The laws of physics are not crying in a corner, they are bawling in the forums.

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by Reddish Mage View Post
    It isn't easy being green? I honestly don't know why its orcs and goblins, I'm far more interested in talking up dragons myself as they are highly magical in-game and iconic.
    That's why it's orcs. With dragons, your run the risk of conflating their obvious power and potential danger to life and limb with the moral issue of how to interact with them. With orcs, they're no more powerful than a human, so the fact that they're treated like they have no ethical value becomes a lot more obvious.

    Try reading veti's rant about killing a dragon on sight from a page or so back with the word "orc" in place of "dragon." It reads a lot more disturbing and unjustifiable, because we know that a single orc is not the threat that a single dragon is.
    Rich Burlew


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  8. - Top - End - #218
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowere View Post
    II understand that point, and in fact "hardwired by the powers that be" is the only explanation I accept for a sentient creature being always evil. but then it is not a sentient creature the way we think. It is a partially supernatural being. so the description should not go like "goblins are vicous and murderous sadistic bastards", but instead "goblins were created by the evil deity to fight humans, and while being intelligent, they lack free will on that matter". That is a perfectly acceptable way if you like to have a black and white world.

    But my favourite way to create an "evil race" is to make a culture that is self consistent, and do not consider itself evil, but is equivvalent to evil from the outside perspective. I particularly like how I made the orcs: "orcs are not inherently evil, but their society is founded over an honor code that requires every challenge to be met with violence. Since such "challenge" can consist in just looking at them the wrong way, they are often at odds with all the other races. For their parts, the orcs don't understand why the other races hate them, because to them that behaviour is absolutely normal. In general, they have a complex honor code that is often mistaked for cruelty by those who don't knwo them well. for example, they are known to sometimes torture to death prisoners; however, to them that is a mark of honor, to allow a worthy opponent to show his strenght by enduring torture with honor. the more cruel the torture, the greatest the respect they are showing you. If an orc is captured by an enemy, he will often ask to be tortured to death, and will be offfended on a refusal; the greatest offence would be to spare his life: that implies that he's no treath to you, and will cause him to lose his honor forever, a fate most orcs consider far worse than death..."
    Of course there were a few peaceful tribes who rejected that way of living, but they always marked themselves apart. since no peaceful orc was allowed to live among the warlike tribes, any orc in a warlike tribe was automatically a valid target to kill on sight just for his affiliation. He would be offended if you considered him otherwise.
    I find your method even more likely to cause controversy (As it implies the author doesn't find the behavior offensive), and, in outlining how wrong a race is, can go too far in detail, especially if the atrocities hard-wired into the species come anywhere near the culture's population recovery/growth system.

    There is only one creature that is "sapient" in the way we think (And, given how drastically the human mind can change and percieve the world and act under chemical effects ranging from drugs to even natural hormones and neurotransmitters makes me question even that nature of "sapience"). I don't find it absurd that other species can have alignment-affected mental imbalances that cause them to inherently/immediately see 'evil' acts as the best course of action to take, or have overwhelming urges/instincts to commit unspeakable acts. Goblins may not have been made by a specific deity... The 'real-world' origin of Goblins is disobedient children of other species, who turn to evil and wickedness without a parent to serve as a moral compass (And is preserved as the race procreates... whether it's by normal reproduction or childnapping depends on setting). And Bugbears are childish bullies taken up to 11.

    My favorite "Go to" Evil race is Gnolls, because they are based on a real-world similarity: Spotted hyenas. And, unlike every other mammal in the world, the first instinct a newborn hyena has isn't to find and nurse from its mother. Instead, it's commit fratricide. In 4e, Gnolls also literally have a demonic voice in their mind from the moment they are born (And pick up Abyssal automatically, as a result).

    With all of my support for the existence of inherently evil races, though, I don't agree that they are worthy of mass genocide: Even with the inherent disposition toward evil that needs constant vigilance, there are a few that can overcome it and opt to be Neutral... or even Good - and as long as there is One Good Goblin/Hobgoblin/Gnoll/etc, for his/her sake, the race should be spared. The number of deliberately killed innocents it takes to be considered an atrocity is one.

  9. - Top - End - #219
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    Try reading veti's rant about killing a dragon on sight from a page or so back with the word "orc" in place of "dragon." It reads a lot more disturbing and unjustifiable, because we know that a single orc is not the threat that a single dragon is.
    And, obviously, that's why I made it a dragon. With an orc, it would be ridiculous.

    But I do think it's a point that's at risk of getting lost in this discussion. Using a dragon makes the point that religiously treating "all sentient beings" as "equals" is just as silly as the other way around. You need to recognise the differences, not as a matter of morality, but of necessity.
    "None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
    And, obviously, that's why I made it a dragon. With an orc, it would be ridiculous.

    But I do think it's a point that's at risk of getting lost in this discussion. Using a dragon makes the point that religiously treating "all sentient beings" as "equals" is just as silly as the other way around. You need to recognise the differences, not as a matter of morality, but of necessity.
    Not when there are no dragons in the real world, no, we don't. There is no actual necessity to depict that scenario because that scenario will never happen. The scenario with the humanoid of a different skin color happens every single day.

    Or to put it another way, I will happily accept a loss in versimilitude with regards to how characters in a fictional narrative treat giant fire-breathing lizards if it means that even one real person in the real world might think more carefully about how they treat their real neighbors. That is a price I will gladly pay ten times over.
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  11. - Top - End - #221
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
    And, obviously, that's why I made it a dragon. With an orc, it would be ridiculous.
    Rather, with an orc, the ridiculousness would be more obvious.

    Your example--stacked as it was--still doesn't work unless you want to say that it's perfectly Good for anyone to try their level best to kill the Order on sight. High-level adventurers are at least as dangerous as dragons; Roy shares a race and (probable) class with the man primarily responsible for far more misery in the part of the world he currently occupies than any dragon we've seen could dream of. Whenever Vaarsuvius is there, everyone around her/him is a sneeze away from seeing their city melt...

    ...and would be even if Vaarsuvius was Good-aligned and had never committed mass murder.

    Congratulations on being able to accomplish the extremely easy feat of imagining a situation to justify killing a dragon on sight, but it's still not an argument.
    Last edited by Kish; 2013-09-16 at 07:40 PM.

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    I actually took the Giant literally as I read the rant and imagined it in my head, so in this scenario a winged Orc that had been burning villages came flying and landed and it was awesome.
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
    And, obviously, that's why I made it a dragon. With an orc, it would be ridiculous.

    But I do think it's a point that's at risk of getting lost in this discussion. Using a dragon makes the point that religiously treating "all sentient beings" as "equals" is just as silly as the other way around. You need to recognise the differences, not as a matter of morality, but of necessity.
    Making it a dragon completely defeats the point. You shoot the dragon because dragons are really rare, you know that there's a specific evil one in the area, and you are making a best guess that you're shooting the right one.
    As Gray Watcher pointed out, if you shoot the wrong one you no longer have the arrow. For example, if the village was for some reason a dragon pilgrimage sight and dragons landed there on a regular basis and did no harm, shooting the first one you saw would be both stupid and evil.

    Putting it in real world terms, if you were a sniper charged with shooting a suicide bomber on sight, and this suicide bomber were 6 foot 7 man with long red hair and a tattoo of a duck on his face, you would probably shoot the first guy matching that description you saw because they aren't exactly growing on trees.

    Edit: Sorry, I mean hamishpence.
    Last edited by Aldrakan; 2013-09-16 at 07:49 PM.

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Ah, and here I nearly posted about veti that if you replaced "dragon" with "highly exotic looking human" it would seem clear. The problem with the example is there are too many vague points, how many dragons actually exist in this world, what are their relations with human? How reliable is this news you heard. Is it consistent with dragon behavior to go around level towns one after another and was that exactly what was related to you? See, I can table the entire issue of whether you can profile solely on its lizard-looking-winged-thing (you didn't say that your fighter understood what a dragon was any better) in that I'm uncertain from your details that the level of confidence is even high enough to warrant shoot on sight even if you could positively identify the being as the very being that was referred to by the news.

    Now if this was a game session, given that this set up is oh so convenient there's obviously some sort of story going on, and its not going to end as simply with shooting that dragon, I'd expect it to be worthwhile to be sure what's going on.

    Also, I note that talking is a free action and does not lower your initiative count.

    All that said, I'm sure you can engineer this so that your level of confidence is high enough and the danger great enough that you can shoot, but I'm pretty sure after we did all that the example would not be all that relevant anymore to the discussion.

    Even if you can get everyone to shoot on the basis of just about any trait if you could raise the danger level high enough, immediate enough, make the trait rare enough and put the confidence level into the stratosphere. That proves only that hard cases make bad law.
    Last edited by Reddish Mage; 2013-09-16 at 08:02 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Morty View Post
    It would have been awesome if the writers had put as much thought into it as you guys do.
    The laws of physics are not crying in a corner, they are bawling in the forums.

    Thanks to half-halfling for the avatar

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    Silly question.

    What about a game which involves hunting down sentient creatures, enslaving them, and forcing them to fight others of their kind for the amusement of humans? I think the game is called ... pokemon?
    Per the cartoon, Pokémon want to get out there and mix it up. Ash's Turtwig, after deciding it wanted to accompany Ash, would still not do it unless Ash could defeat it. Pikachu gets whupped ALL the time, and it still wants to go at a moment's notice. Oshawott escapes its Pokéball going "Pick me! Pick me!" more than once.

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    Not when there are no dragons in the real world, no, we don't. There is no actual necessity to depict that scenario because that scenario will never happen. The scenario with the humanoid of a different skin color happens every single day.

    Or to put it another way, I will happily accept a loss in versimilitude with regards to how characters in a fictional narrative treat giant fire-breathing lizards if it means that even one real person in the real world might think more carefully about how they treat their real neighbors. That is a price I will gladly pay ten times over.
    Well hang on, are we talking about your story in particular or fiction in general? In the former it goes without saying that you can write it for the purpose of inspiring people to think more about their ethics and pay that "price" as you put it in pursuit of that goal. But going beyond your own creations, I think the fact that dragons don't exist is just as irrelevant as the fact that orcs don't exist. It doesn't need to be clearly and obviously applicable to real life on a 1-to-1 basis to be a valid exploration of the ethical questions at hand.

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    Essentially, you had two nomadic peoples (in the case of the Arabs raiding each other), or you had two small sedentary peoples who lived next to each other, neither of whom was strong enough to wipe the other out. In fact, wiping each other out would defeat the purpose of this kind of war -- however else are young men to gain wealth and prestige quickly, if you drive away all the enemies and force them to do work?
    Simple, just expand into your new territory until you bump into somebody else's, then try and take theirs too. Though to be fair the examples I was thinking of all had a distinct advantage in one way or another. Then again, with elves vs. goblins we'd have to include the possibility of magic which I'm sure would count...

    At any rate, even if it's healthier from a Darwinian perspective in the long run, I doubt many communities are going to think it through enough to purposely keep their enemies around as a 'game preserve' of sorts. When the Comanche got their horses, that was pretty much it for their neighbors. (Though they kind of shot themselves in the foot with that one since some of those tribes were acting as a buffer zone between them and the US invaders...)

    Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
    Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
    Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
    Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
    Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
    Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
    The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
    No one ever said elves are nice.
    Looks fantastic, thanks for the recommendation guys. :)

    I just hope they're not albino moon worshippers too or Terry Prachett has officially stole my ideas...directly from my brain...with a time traveling device of some sort... and my lawyer will be contacting him shortly.
    Last edited by Solara; 2013-09-16 at 08:16 PM.
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by Scow2 View Post
    I find your method even more likely to cause controversy (As it implies the author doesn't find the behavior offensive), and, in outlining how wrong a race is, can go too far in detail, especially if the atrocities hard-wired into the species come anywhere near the culture's population recovery/growth system.
    You may find it controversial, but I like it because of that. Especially since it's realistic. because 99% of what people do that we label as evil? they think they are justified. In ancient sparta, there was a day in the year when it was ok for a young warrior to kill any number of enslaved peasants, to prove his worth. I'm sure those who did it never considered it as evil, but glorious. all ancients societies practiced slavery. none of them ever assumed there was anything wrong with slavery. in fact, when the slaves revolted, often they took slaves themselves. those people who owned slaves were no more evil than me or you. the native americans tought they were right in raiding the settler, and the settlers tought they were right in taking all the land for themselves and shooting all the buffalos. When two people clashes, both sides are absolutely sure they are in the right. And that's maybe the most tragic part of it all. then history decides who had been right all along. Now I think I am a good person, but maybe in the future I will be considered a monster cause I eat animals. One hundred years ago I would have been considered a slacker, because I would not work 12 hours per day as was common at the time. What is right and what is wrong is highly relative, and while this DO NOT mean we should stop trying to decide what is right and what is wrong, it also means that we must be careful about the judgments we make on those assumptions.

    So, back from a D&D perspective, if I make an enemy people, I give them some internal motivation that make them persuaded that they are right. In the case of the orcs, that made every adult male of a warlike tribe a legitimate target, as every adult male of such a tribe is by definition a soldier in war with you, because he made such a choice, and if he wanted to be peaceful he could have left his tribe and find shelter in one of the peaceful tribes (by the way, about population recovery: only male fight. 90% of male orcs die before adulthood, but those suriving will easily get a dozen wives and make dozens of children, so the population remain stable. I thought it out). I didn't even do it on purpose; I let their culture evolve starting from the warrior stereotype, I added lots of gratuitous violence cause I still wanted them to be opponents, I put into it a pinch of aiel's honor code, and I ended up with that.
    Even then, I never treated them as xp bundles. I had one mission where the pcs had to protect some peaceful orcs from an evil elf who wanted to stir interracial troubles as an excuse to take their land, then I had one mission where an orc warlord wanted to force the peaceful orcs to adopt his way of life and declare war on the humans, while another warlike chieftain opposed him arguing that in order to eventually beat the humans the orcs had to settle down and cultivate fields and grow their numbers and start some magic academies of their own. he also claimed that the first orc had no honor because he killed an unarmed elder of another tribe (the proper form would have been to give him a weapon and make him fight against an elder from your tribe, so that it would be a "fair fight"). He eventually told the pcs that he had a debt of honor to them and thus he accepted to live by their moral code, even if he found it all screwed up.
    So, I gave those orcs plenty of depth.
    If you think that I gave them an evil culture just to make them acceptable targets, you are missing the point. I wanted to explore the concept of a chaotic evil culture. How it could come into being, how it could perpetuate itself, how it could avoid self-destruction and anarchy, how an honorable person ascribing to the values of that culture would look like, how they would see our culture. I even gave a sort of peaceful solution, with everyone staying in his own land and not bothering the other peoples.
    There is just so much you can do with a "usually evil" race that do not entail just killing them cause they are evil. Even if you choose to accept the label, you can still make them intersting and treat them as people.
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by Aldrakan View Post
    Making it a dragon completely defeats the point. You shoot the dragon because dragons are really rare, you know that there's a specific evil one in the area, and you are making a best guess that you're shooting the right one.
    Not just really rare, but also really powerful. That's why I need to make the judgment call immediately, I don't have the luxury of interviewing it first. The potential consequences of not doing it are just - unthinkable.

    Seriously, if this dragon wanted to approach on a friendly basis, the way to do that would be to identify someone who was on their way to the village - a homecoming farmer, peddlar or someone - land, and talk to them first, to send us a message. Landing unannounced in the middle of the village is just asking for trouble.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    Not when there are no dragons in the real world, no, we don't. There is no actual necessity to depict that scenario because that scenario will never happen.
    Then - with great respect - why did you include dragons in your story? Surely the whole point of dragons is to highlight the power disparity with everyone else. If you're trying to draw real-world parallels, and dragons don't have such a parallel, why write them in?
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    Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
    Not just really rare, but also really powerful. That's why I need to make the judgment call immediately, I don't have the luxury of interviewing it first. The potential consequences of not doing it are just - unthinkable.
    And the potential consequences of doing it, and being wrong, are equally unthinkable. You've conveniently only included the error type where you hesitate and the dragon turns out to be the one you were looking for, ignoring the error type where you don't hesitate and the dragon turns out to be Good--or, perhaps worse, Evil with a bunch of Evil friends who weren't interested in you until you killed the dragon.

    Power works both ways. It does not create the moral imperative for you to kill the dragon, it just makes the consequences of being wrong--in either direction--far greater.

    Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
    Seriously, if this dragon wanted to approach on a friendly basis, the way to do that would be to identify someone who was on their way to the village - a homecoming farmer, peddlar or someone - land, and talk to them first, to send us a message. Landing unannounced in the middle of the village is just asking for trouble.
    And yet this changes nothing about the moral argument.

    Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
    Then - with great respect - why did you include dragons in your story? Surely the whole point of dragons is to highlight the power disparity with everyone else. If you're trying to draw real-world parallels, and dragons don't have such a parallel, why write them in?
    Because it's a story about Dungeons and Dragons. No, surely the whole point of dragons is NOT to highlight the power disparity with everyone else, which is evident because Rich has used them to do other things in this work. The author is not obligated to only use a race to represent the theme you think they should represent.

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
    Then - with great respect - why did you include dragons in your story? Surely the whole point of dragons is to highlight the power disparity with everyone else. If you're trying to draw real-world parallels, and dragons don't have such a parallel, why write them in?
    I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it is, at least partly, because in a D&D rules based comic you pretty much have to include some dragons.
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowere View Post
    You may find it controversial, but I like it because of that. Especially since it's realistic. because 99% of what people do that we label as evil? they think they are justified. In ancient sparta, there was a day in the year when it was ok for a young warrior to kill any number of enslaved peasants, to prove his worth. I'm sure those who did it never considered it as evil, but glorious. all ancients societies practiced slavery. none of them ever assumed there was anything wrong with slavery. in fact, when the slaves revolted, often they took slaves themselves. those people who owned slaves were no more evil than me or you. the native americans tought they were right in raiding the settler, and the settlers tought they were right in taking all the land for themselves and shooting all the buffalos. When two people clashes, both sides are absolutely sure they are in the right. And that's maybe the most tragic part of it all. then history decides who had been right all along. Now I think I am a good person, but maybe in the future I will be considered a monster cause I eat animals. One hundred years ago I would have been considered a slacker, because I would not work 12 hours per day as was common at the time. What is right and what is wrong is highly relative, and while this DO NOT mean we should stop trying to decide what is right and what is wrong, it also means that we must be careful about the judgments we make on those assumptions.
    Thank you for this. Soooo many people don't get this. I think we might possibly be the most arrogant and judgemental generation that ever lived.

    Not just really rare, but also really powerful. That's why I need to make the judgment call immediately, I don't have the luxury of interviewing it first. The potential consequences of not doing it are just - unthinkable.
    But the same thing applies to Aldrakan's 'suicide bomber with a duck tattoo' analogy. I don't think the scenario as you've set it up would be much of a moral quandary at all though...the story would be in the practical consequences of what would happen if by some bizarre coincidence and freakishly bad timing your warrior guy (or sniper) happened to be wrong.
    Google query for the Giant's posts, for those of us who think they're way more interesting than yet another speculation thread but don't have time to read every thread on the forum to find one he's posting in.

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by Solara
    I just hope they're not albino moon worshippers too or Terry Prachett has officially stole my ideas...directly from my brain...with a time traveling device of some sort... and my lawyer will be contacting him shortly
    .

    No, no they don't. Terry Pratchett's "elves" bear close resemblance to the Fey of myth, and they are NOT like Tinkerbell. The ones that are more benevolent are handicapped by the fact that they don't really "get" humans, and so don't understand (for example) why being taken away from fairyland and returning hundreds of years later in human time might be a problem.

    The nasty ones ... well, think nasty little boys with small animals, except the small animals are humans.

    There was something about the eyes. It wasn’t the shape or the color. The was no evil glint. But there was…

    … a look. It was such a look that a microbe might encounter if it could see up from the bottom end of the microscope. It said: You are nothing. It said: You are flawed, you have no value. It said: You are animal. It said: Perhaps you may be a pet, or perhaps you may be a quarry. It said: And the choice is not yours.”
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
    Then - with great respect - why did you include dragons in your story? Surely the whole point of dragons is to highlight the power disparity with everyone else. If you're trying to draw real-world parallels, and dragons don't have such a parallel, why write them in?
    Because the D&D game already includes dragons, and the treatment of such within the text of the game and around the gaming table was already an issue before I drew my first comic. I didn't invent this setting out of whole cloth, it's a pastiche. It's a commentary on the way people are already playing the game. The "point" of including the black dragons in OOTS is to expressly make these very points that I am being criticized for making. To take the criticisms of Start of Darkness to the next level: Yes, even dragons.

    The real-world parallel that I am drawing is to the real players sitting around the real table, rolling dice and making up stories about dragons, not to any actual dragons. I'm not making commentary on how I think humans should treat dragons, I'm making commentary on how I think people should write fiction or play games about how humans treat dragons. Namely, they should acknowledge that if the fictional human kills the fictional dragon on sight for no reason than that they are a dragon, then that fictional human has done something bad. Maybe something understandable given the circumstances, but not something to be lauded and congratulated upon for doing what needed to be done.

    That's it. That's all I'm trying to accomplish. It's a really simple point, but this whole discussion proves that it's a point that needs to be made.
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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowere View Post
    - Snip-
    And my problem with this whole thing is that it conflates Species and Culture... which might be more relevant to the real world, but it defeats the purpose of having multiple sapient species of varying natural ability and psychosis in a fantasy or transhuman setting, IMO. And, it causes problems with either giving too much or too little information on the race's behaviors as well.

    There's no need to kick out the Objective Alignment system, either, if racial behaviors are already determined: Why not label the orcs of your culture "Usually Chaotic Evil", because they pretty clearly are (even if they don't think so).

    When it comes to panel 1 of Strip 11: "Killing evil creatures" is not an Evil act unless it's done for Evil ends - If someone is vile enough (By depriving others of essential rights, such as that to life) to have earned an "Evil" tag, their own right to life is forfeit. However, someone must still exercise caution in killing members of a race that's "Usually Evil", because there's a chance that a given member has overcome/ignored the racial inclination (Though it's usually possible to discern within a few moments, because they are outliers in their culture).
    Last edited by Scow2; 2013-09-16 at 09:34 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    I have no problem with your power fantasy, your moral fantasy on the other hand is quite troubling.
    This is my favorite thing anyone has said so far in this thread.

    Edit: Although this runs a close second.
    Last edited by ti'esar; 2013-09-16 at 10:01 PM.

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Incidentally, the fact is, I'm rather sympathetic of the notion that dwarves, elves and gnomes could be very discriminatory towards humans as a race that doesn't trend towards a good alignment as such it is clearly a danger to associate too closely with them.
    Last edited by Reddish Mage; 2013-09-16 at 09:51 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Morty View Post
    It would have been awesome if the writers had put as much thought into it as you guys do.
    The laws of physics are not crying in a corner, they are bawling in the forums.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Math_Mage View Post
    And the potential consequences of doing it, and being wrong, are equally unthinkable. You've conveniently only included the error type where you hesitate and the dragon turns out to be the one you were looking for, ignoring the error type where you don't hesitate and the dragon turns out to be Good--or, perhaps worse, Evil with a bunch of Evil friends who weren't interested in you until you killed the dragon.

    Power works both ways. It does not create the moral imperative for you to kill the dragon, it just makes the consequences of being wrong--in either direction--far greater.
    False equivalence. There's a straightforward moral calculus here. The consequences of being wrong in each direction are not symmetrical.

    Dragons are, as previously mentioned, really rare. Thus the chances of this being "the" specific evil dragon are quite high. However, for the sake of being fair, let's say those chances are only 50/50.

    If I kill it, and it turns out to be innocent, an innocent person has died. That's on me, it's my crime, and I'm the one who has to deal with my guilt. If that means giving myself up to the dragon's relatives for justice, letting them take a life for a life - then I guess that's what I'll end up doing. Final casualty count: 1, or worst case, 2. (I would certainly plead for my life in those circumstances, and I would hope that a genuinely "good" dragon community would see my point of view. But worst case, I die.)

    (I'm going to ignore the "what if it's evil but just here to grab a barrel of beer before continuing on to terrorise someone else" option, because that's just too silly to live.)

    If I don't kill it, and it turns out to be guilty, then by the time I next get to roll initiative, 30 innocent people have died, and I then have to kill the dragon anyway. Final casualty count, assuming I win initiative on the second round: 31.

    If the odds are 50/50, then (Expected deaths) if I kill it: 1.5. (Expected deaths) if I don't kill it: 15.5. Even if you make a much more generous assessment of the odds - let's say there's a 75% chance it's innocent, and it could only kill 10 people with one breath - the calculus still comes down firmly against it.

    (Aside: I know there are people who think that "taking one innocent life is just as bad as taking 30". I've heard that argument several times in my life, and it's never made a lick of sense to me. Then there's the argument that I'm directly responsible for the lives I take, but only indirectly responsible for those I allow the dragon to take. I believe that line of moral reasoning is fresh out of the back end of a horse. If I could have prevented those deaths, and, fully forseeing the consequence, I didn't, then - yes, I am responsible.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Math_Mage View Post
    And yet this changes nothing about the moral argument.
    On the contrary. The dragon should have known that her arrival, unannounced, in a village unaccustomed to receiving such visitors would be greeted with consternation, not to say panic. Failing to take some precaution against that is criminal recklessness on her part. A bit like driving a hummer at maximum speed through a built-up area: you might not mean any harm, but really, you're in no position to act the injured-innocent if harm does ensue.
    "None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by Scow2 View Post
    When it comes to panel 1 of Strip 11: "Killing evil creatures" is not an Evil act unless it's done for Evil ends - If someone is vile enough (By depriving others of essential rights, such as that to life) to have earned an "Evil" tag, their own right to life is forfeit. However, someone must still exercise caution in killing members of a race that's "Usually Evil", because there's a chance that a given member has overcome/ignored the racial inclination (Though it's usually possible to discern within a few moments, because they are outliers in their culture).
    I have to say you're wrong here. Killing anything sentient should require the same proofs and reasons behind the killing no matter the race or reputation. 'Evil' can be anything from a barkeep who routinely shortchanges customers when they can get away with it and who might rob any unwary travellers to the most vile devil worshipper. Just because some spell/effect tells you they're on that end of the alignment spectrum does not equal making it okay to kill them. There's no proof of actual misdeeds, just general malign intent. Roy said it best here - 'Concern for the dignity of sentient beings' does not make distinctions about the alignment of the sentient beings.

    Yes, heroes fight evil, and often kill the villains. But they don't set out to kill all evil characters they see. They fight to stop commissions of evil, not to slake their bloodlust on socially acceptable targets. That way lies Belkar.

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    Default Re: The literary merits of Alien Intelligence

    Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
    Then there's the argument that I'm directly responsible for the lives I take, but only indirectly responsible for those I allow the dragon to take. I believe that line of moral reasoning is fresh out of the back end of a horse. If I could have prevented those deaths, and, fully forseeing the consequence, I didn't, then - yes, I am responsible.)
    This is why I get so frustrated with Batman whenever he fights the Joker.
    Google query for the Giant's posts, for those of us who think they're way more interesting than yet another speculation thread but don't have time to read every thread on the forum to find one he's posting in.

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