Different mannerism and morality in your campaign worlds

[Derren]

One thing quite common in any entertainment medium when dealing with historic or fantasy settings is that the people in there have a morality similar to us (more specific, modern western morality) and also behave like modern people.

Yet in reality, this hardly was the case. Even just 100 years ago the values people hold dear were rather different from today as shown by the recently discovered temporary release of a prisoner of war by the German Kaiser to visit his dieing mother, only requiring his worth to come back to prison (which he kept)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23957605

When you go further back it changes even more dramatically compared to our modern morality.

So I wonder how do you hold it in your games?
There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, having different morals and manners in the setting as compared to the real world and keeping it the same.

Having different values can increase immersion somewhat, especially when you play in a historic setting (like ancient rome), or a setting closely mirroring a historic one, but can be tiresome to keep up all the time. It also requires all players to know and embrace the different morals.

Keeping it the same removes those problems of course as everyone (more or less) shares the same set of values. But the immersion might suffer, especially when something which was generally accepted in the setting you play in would be considered strange or worse with modern values.

 

[SLOTHmaster]

I think that in general the moralities of other time periods are so alien to our modern minds that players will always use their modern morality. At best they would use a romanticized, stereotyped version of that period's mores. To many things were too different. Take gays for example- back then they didn't exist. Which isn't to say that there weren't men who liked other men, but that back then someone who committed sodomy was seen as having committed a sin, which happened to be having sex with another man, not as someone who seeks sex with other men. (Source: Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies.) Basically there are far too many things we take for granted that were vastly different to come even close to emulating them while roleplaying.

 

[Fetfreak]

Our group uses a romanticized version of middle ages, something close to a Song of Ice and Fire.
Then again, I have several different countries and races than do have different mannerisms and customs, outside of the norm. The way burials are made, who rules the country, laws, slavery and so forth.
We try not to force these differences too much because it can get tiresome. I just remind the group of the important stuff so we can create some immersion.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think this kind of realism, just like any other requires the group to have knowledge and put in effort in order to implement it. That is to say, if you're a history buff and you have some time to spare, it makes sense to try and play with culture and psychology and imagine what a bygone age would look like if supernatural things were real.

Personally, I'm not a history buff and I have no real attachment to the fantasy setting, so I tend not to go there.

 

[steenan]

I love exploring different value and belief systems. Playing characters with moral systems significantly different from my own is, for me, one of the biggest sources of fun in RPGs. That's why I really like games such as Dogs in the Vineyard.

In general, I'm not that interested in history and I don't try to exactly replicate morality of specific periods. I'm more interested in how the fantastic aspects of a setting affect the morality and how moral beliefs shape fantastic cultures.

 

[Celebrim]

One thing quite common in any entertainment medium when dealing with historic or fantasy settings is that the people in there have a morality similar to us (more specific, modern western morality) and also behave like modern people.

Yet in reality, this hardly was the case. Even just 100 years ago the values people hold dear were rather different from today as shown by the recently discovered temporary release of a prisoner of war by the German Kaiser to visit his dieing mother, only requiring his worth to come back to prison (which he kept)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23957605

I'm confused. How does that depart from modern standards of morality? Isn't that the expectation of honorable behavior by both parties? Or are you simply saying that modern people lack morals? What did either party do that would not be approvable under conventional moral understanding today?

When you go further back it changes even more dramatically compared to our modern morality.

I suppose, but your example is unconvincing.

An example I find somewhat more convincing from my recent campaign is that the PC intervened in an argument between a local craftsman and a foreign merchant when the local discovered that the servants accompanying the man were in fact his slaves. The foreign merchantly passionately argued that his slave owning was moral on the grounds of his ethical treatment of his slaves, and further that his society was ultimately more honorable and just than the local one where slaveholding was illegal. The situation was complicated by the fact that the slaves themselves seemed to agree with their master - but of course there was no way of really being sure that at some level it was cohersion. The local craftsman argued that it was even more abhorrent that a person's identity could be suppressed to the point that the identified with their owner than it would have been had the slave been in state of rebellion, to which the foreign merchant replied astoundingly how could it possibly be more moral to mistreat ones slaves than it was to treat them well.

In this case, a seemingly very moral person (in fact he is 'lawful good') believes that slave holding is not inherently evil, merely subject to evils in the absence of what he'd consider honor but that this doesn't codemn the holding of slaves as an institution because all institutions are similarly subject to evil in the absence of honorable rulers and customs. The question becomes, "Is he right or wrong in his beliefs?" The local craftsman held the somewhat more modern conception that slave holding is an inherent evil in and of itself; regardless of the conditions surrounding the institution slavery was in and of itself one of the greatest possible evils. But again, how do you go about proving this assumption to someone who does not have your assumptions? Being truly honorable and good, if it could be shown that slave holding was a great evil in and of itself, the foreign merchant would have readily changed his ways but you can't exactly 'detect evil' on an relationship, an idea, or an institution.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, having different morals and manners in the setting as compared to the real world and keeping it the same.

I would like to think my own campaign worlds manners and customs are radically different than those of the modern world, but I've never really thought that morality within the world was different than our own. I can hardly imagine what a universe would be like with different morality than our own and where right and wrong and justice and injustice were differently defined.

 

[delericho]

If I were running a historical game, then I would try to encourage players to adopts the manners and morality of characters from that time period.

However, despite its trappings, fantasy is not truly historical, so there isn't any real reason to assume historical morals are any more suitable than modern ones.

My preferred approach in a fantasy setting is for the 'base' area to adopt what I refer to as a "Battlestar" model - it's pretty egalitarian, especially as gender roles and sexuality are concerned. Anyone can do anything, there's no great racism, and so forth. That seems to be the approach most players are most comfortable with, and it means that a casual female gamer isn't going to be met with sexism that is liable to make her uncomfortable (while being undeniably accurate in a more 'historical' approach).

From there, I allow other areas to diverge from that norm. Perhaps one culture is strongly patriarchal, and there female characters will face sexism. Or, equally, perhaps a given culture is strongly matriarchal and the reverse is true. Some nations may have extremely strong caste systems, or practice slavery, or strongly curtail religious freedom, or...

One other thing: the assumed morality of a nation/culture/whatever is quite a different thing from the morality assumed by the alignment system. The former may change, even change radically, from place to place, while the latter is fixed. Just because a given culture practices slavery and believes it to be both lawful and good doesn't mean that they're right.

All IMC, of course. YMMV.

 

[Derren]

I'm confused. How does that depart from modern standards of morality? Isn't that the expectation of honorable behavior by both parties? Or are you simply saying that modern people lack morals? What did either party do that would not be approvable under conventional moral understanding today?

Do you really believe that in the modern world someone would release a prisoner of war, while the war is still going, or to use a specific example, a prisoner of Guantanamo so he can visit his dieing mother far away in his own country with only his word of honor that he comes back on his own to be reimprisoned (and that he would actually keep his word)?
This kind of honor imo died in after WW1 and was rather exceptional in that war anyway.

 

[Celebrim]

Do you really believe that in the modern world someone would release a prisoner of war, while the war is still going, or to use a specific example, a prisoner of Guantanamo so he can visit his dieing mother far away in his own country with only his word of honor that he comes back on his own to be reimprisoned (and that he would actually keep his word)?

That's a different question. You are asking if I believe modern people are moral even by their own standards. That's unrelated to what they believe morality to be. The question of morality is, "Do you really believe that in the modern world someone would believe one ought to release a prisoner so he can visit his dying mother far away, relying only on his word of honor that he return, and do you also believe that the prisoner, having pledged his word ought to return?"

The answer to that question is, "I believe someone could believe that because I myself do believe those things." Indeed, the very fact that you recognize the behavior as moral, honorable, and something you approve of proves that morality hasn't changed.

Whether there exists specific examples of people who share that morality and act on it isn't really relevant. All that matters is whether I believe conventional modern morality approves of those things. That is to say, in reading the story would we expect the reader to get the sense that the actors in the story were living up to a heroic idea? If the answer is, "Yes", then morality hasn't changed, but our expectation of how common place it is may have.

This kind of honor imo died in after WW1 and was rather exceptional in that war anyway.

So what you are saying is that modern people are less moral?

I almost hesitate to touch the Guantanamo example, but try to follow this line of reasoning:

a) It would be immoral to release a prisoner if the person was imprisoned for a crime rather than a virtue. In the case of the Kaiser, did he believe the prisoner was imprisoned on account of a crime or on account of a virtue?

b) It would be immoral to release a prisoner if the jailor could not be certain that the prisoner would return. In the case of the Kaiser, the Kaiser had reason to believe that the prisoner and himself had a shared sense of what is right and wrong and therefore that an oath by the prisoner would be honest and be fulfilled. In a real sense, WWI is a war between two factions that largely share a common culture. In the case Guantanamo what evidence is there that the prisoner shares the same sense of morality that the jailor has? In fact, I would argue that there is a shared sense by the two factions in the war Guantanamo is a symbol of that the other has no morality as the other understands it, and therefore has no obligation to the other much less cause for mutual trust. This renders it a far different case than say the American Civil War or even WWII - both of which we could use to site equivalent matters of trust between enemies. So it doesn't really prove that modern morality has changed, since it would be equally possible to find cases in the 19th century or earlier where the sort of trust that allows the WWII prisoner exchange doesn't exist. I could get it even more basic in to the specific belief that allows trust between enemies, and how it is definitely not present in both parties in the Gitmo case, but we'd get the thread closed.

I could also potentially site a case in the referenced modern war of the trust existing because the specific beliefs that allow for it are present on both sides, but really, let's get off of controversial topics.

Now, it an example of morality changing would be to examine the case of the released prisoner and his return and be appalled by the moral code that was on display. If for example your moral code is something like, "Crush your enemies and see them driven before you.", then the mercy and foolishness on display is appalling to you. Why did the victor not vanquish his foe when he had the chance? And why did the prisoner, upon learning his enemy was a weak fool not use the opportunity to avenge himself on the enemy rather than foolishly and weakly replacing himself in the power of his enemy? There are societies out there whose basic moral code is, "Do it to them before they do it to us!", or "If your enemy strikes you, hit him back twice as hard!", or "If they put one of ours in the hospital, we put one of theirs in the morgue." Under those terms, they would see the story you sight as an example of 'honor' as being an example of folly and indeed evil. Afterall, they themselves would not do it, nor would they approve of their neighbors acting in this manner. That would be two different moral codes.

Other moral codes might be, "Don't get involved.", or "Never miss an opportunity to assert your control over others." Under those terms, again the story of the trusting enemies is appalling. But this is entirely different than saying we believe that modern society believes the story is appalling.

Yet, since all the above moral codes are ancient, can we say that they've really changed? And has our assessment of which is 'right' significantly changed?

 

[Derren]

So what you are saying is that modern people are less moral?

Would modern people release an enemy in with those conditions or would they not?