Why are we okay with violence in RPGs?

Celebrim · Jun 20, 2019

Ilya Bossov said:
Since we're talking about Tolkien's works, there's an interesting book that offers a unique, alternative perspective. If you're struggling to find colonialism in D&D or in Lord of the Rings, you should probably read The Last Ringbearer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer

I have read 'The Last Ringbearer'. I consider it a distasteful, derivative, mockery of good which a person deluded by Morgoth might create. It is no more nuanced or reasonable criticism of Tolkien and his works than 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' is of Judiasm. And quite frankly, I believe it exists to serve the same purpose.

If you can't create something interesting that stands on its own merit, don't purloin the work of someone else and distort it to draw attention to you that you'd otherwise not recieve.

UPDATE: And as others have noted, it's bizarre to claim you are trying to understand one person's works, by reading a work by someone else entirely. If you can find "colonialism" in "The Last Ringbearer" it proves nothing about "The Lord of the Rings".

Tony Vargas · Jun 20, 2019

Celebrim said:
Is it presumptuous to assume demons are evil?

Ilya Bossov said:
Yes. Tieflings would like to have a word.

Yeah, they have diabolic ancestry, not Demonic. Totally different.

Celebrim said:
I mean, heck, the whole XP primarily equals killing thing wasn't even a feature until 3e, so if that's your problem, then it's not old school games you have a problem with but modern ones.

lowkey13 said:
Counter-counterpoint.

Typical play for AD&D was whatever I was playing.

Atypical play for AD&D was whatever you were playing.

Typical play wasn't.

All we can go on, for sure, is the written rules at the time (& commentary, there was a lot of Gygaxian commentary woven into said rules), albeit, with the caveat that virtually no one used all of them, exactly as written, nor was there any given crazy rule that absolutely everyone ignored.

At very beginning, you got big chunks of XP for killing monsters. Very quickly (Greyhawk!) that was reined in, and XP given for treasure, as well. That was roundly criticized, and eventually became optional, then went away (as above, with 3e it was gone, replaced by Quest XP). But, even when it was the law of the land, FWIW, along with huge gobs of gp being paid out for training to level up, the explicit rules-codified-in-B&W way of getting treasure, from the 1e MM in 1977 on, was to kill a monster with a nice Treasure Type.

Sure, many of us thought XP for gp was silly and dumped it, many of us thought treasure types were dumb and overruled them placing treasure in other ways, many of us added more elaborate rules for classes getting XP specifically for doing things related to their class abilities - but, as the rules themselves stood, FWIW: XP for Gold, Treasure for killing the right monsters.

Xaelvaen · Jun 20, 2019

Celebrim said:
One of my homebrew adventures involves the PC's investigating a series of attacks perpetrated by kobolds following a village festival.

I love adventures of this vein, and use them quite readily myself, though this one in particular is an interesting take on money being valued more than safety - cleverly done.

Celebrim said:
Anyone that thinks hobgoblins are some sort of stand in for a real world ethnic group in my game is in my considered opinion, an idiot. For one thing, I'm not very fond of direct analogies. I don't do the 'Orcs are minorities' thing that you see in a movie like 'Bright'. Unless something has a one to and onto relationship between the thing and the thing it's referring to, chances are it isn't referring to that. And for another thing, you haven't experienced my game and thus are in no position to judge. And finally, I refuse to concede that you have some sort of privileged standing as a "reader" to tell me the living author what what I create actually really means. If you want to read something into my work personal to your experience, I cannot stop you from doing so, but not only is doing so in my opinion a failure of empathy and understanding on your part, but it inherently only says something about you and nothing about me or my work.

I had to read this one a few times, then check my previous post, to ensure I hadn't somehow offended you or even implied any judgement haha. I'm not the sort to judge; creative freedom for everyone. In truth, I agree with you whole-heartedly with regards to the living author and their creative direction. Obviously, your players enjoy heartily that which you create, and who else is worthy of judgement of a GM's work? None. Also, your notation about the Drow rings true as well - we've done the very same thing purely based on the setting in which we all wanted to play.

Celebrim said:
I can't think of an incident where any player consciously did this either. There have been murders by PCs in my game, but the persons in question were not innocent, or else the player didn't mean to kill them, or else the player had freaked out and acted impulsively.

I've never actually had that happen either - how did they handle the news of their activities, in example the woman in the necromancer's lair? Did the players cope well, or was it purely an in-character demoralization (if even that)?

Celebrim said:
But on the other hand, I'm not sure we are "ok with violence" in the way that is meant or that the particular reasons advanced why we ought not be "ok with violence" are as thoughtful as say the average Amish minister or 60's civil rights advocate advocating peaceful resistance would advance. Or really, thoughtful at all.

That, was in fact, quite thoughtful and analytical of the current atmosphere.

billd91 · Jun 20, 2019

Celebrim said:
I have read 'The Last Ringbearer'. I consider it a distasteful, derivative, mockery of good which a person deluded by Morgoth might create. It is no more nuanced or reasonable criticism of Tolkien and his works than 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' is of Judiasm. And quite frankly, I believe it exists to serve the same purpose.

Shocked! Shocked I am that someone from somewhere east of Western Europe might have a different perspective of a work that treats nations that come from further east than the Men of the West as dupes of evil at best.
Shocked some more(!) I am that someone might make a derivative work to rebut ideas in it.

Celebrim · Jun 20, 2019

Xaelvaen said:
I had to read this one a few times, then check my previous post, to ensure I hadn't somehow offended you or even implied any judgement haha.

Sorry about that. Strictly speaking, most of the time I employ the word 'you', I'm doing so improperly when I mean the English pronoun 'one'. But the pronoun 'one' is so uncommon in modern English, that if I employ it correctly I end up sounding like an even more stilted stuck-up person than I actually am: "And finally, I refuse to concede that one has some..." And dropping in 'y'all' creates the opposite problem. So by 'you', please understand I don't mean 'you' specifically, but am referring non-specifically to other parties who may have the idea being discussed.

I've never actually had that happen either - how did they handle the news of their activities, in example the woman in the necromancer's lair? Did the players cope well, or was it purely an in-character demoralization (if even that)?

Depends on the player. Some take moral issues more seriously than others. For some it's all just a game, so they just shrug or laugh about it and move on. In the case of the woman in the necromancer's lair, in campaign one of the reasons that necromancy is evil is that anyone that dies on necromanticly tainted ground tends to become undead, so I decided it was appropriate to have the woman haunt the PC that killed her as a ghost. She's become a reoccurring character continually reminding the PC/player of the problem. (As an aside, attempts to weaponize Barb the ghost have resulted in some of the most spectacularly evil things that the party has ever done. To the extent that one of the characters now has evil on their character sheet as a result of interaction with Barb.)

The BBEG in the campaign is a necromancer named Keeropus. One long running element of the campaign is that when they trade words with Keeropus, he always taunts them by saying that they have it all wrong - he is the hero of the story and they are the villains. Keeropus came to the party's attention after a tsunami destroyed half of the city they were staying in. Keeropus excused the 10's of thousands of deaths he caused by claiming it was an accident and it was all for the greater good. The longer the campaign goes and the more things that they've done that they regret, and the more things that they do that kill innocents 'for the greater good', the more seriously they are taking this idea. So, while the players don't all take this seriously, and don't all see things the same way I do, on the whole I think the campaign is succeeding in its original philosophical goals.

One thing I've learned over the years is the sort of focus of play you can have depends on the number of players you have. I have six players, so I don't really have the luxury of keeping the focus of play on deep internal exploration of character, simply because we can't focus the spotlight on one player for that long. Likewise, not every player even is interested in that aesthetic of play. If we had half as many players, the moral aspects of the campaign would probably be more highlighted.

dragoner · Jun 20, 2019

billd91 said:
Shocked! Shocked I am that someone from somewhere east of Western Europe might have a different perspective of a work that treats nations that come from further east than the Men of the West as dupes of evil at best.
Shocked some more(!) I am that someone might make a derivative work to rebut ideas in it.

We still are considered subhumans, they hate us for just existing. The book is in fact a brilliant take on the tale.

Celebrim · Jun 20, 2019

billd91 said:
Shocked some more(!) I am that someone might make a derivative work to rebut ideas in it.

If it actually treated with the ideas in LotR, I might be sympathetic. But it doesn't actually. It attributes ideas to the LotR that are not found in it, and which are often as not contrary to the text itself. It's an ugly fabrication.

And if a writer of some foreign nation created an original epic based on the mythos of that nation, I'd probably be very sympathetic to it. It wouldn't disturb me in the slightest that a Russian equated Westerners with dangerous invaders. Heck, as blatant of a propaganda piece as the Stalinist work 'Alexander Nevsky' is, it's still a great work of art, and Tolkien's work is far more nuanced than 'Alexander Nevsky'. And among other things, Tolkien's work - to the limited extent it addresses colonialist themes at all, and for the most part it doesn't because it's grounded in medieval mythos and not colonialist or post-colonialist - it's explicitly anti-colonialist.

As a test, here is how you know you've hit the mark when bringing a different perspective to an idea. If the person with a different perspective is required to defend as reasonable your take on things then it's truly a different perspective. If for example Tolkien upon reading 'The Last Ringbearer' would have been inclined to argue that even with the different perspective the elves are still the good guys, then you know you've done well. But neither I nor Tolkien need to defend the 'people of the West' as imagined in 'The Last Ringbearer'.

Besides which, I'm wondering if you've actually read it. On the whole, 'The Last Ringbearer' does not really take umbrage at the whole east/west colonialist thing. In fact, this shouldn't even be particularly surprising considering the guy is Russian, and if we wanted to have a talk about colonialism and the eradication of native peoples and cultures folks from Russia would not have a moral leg to stand on with respect to lecturing anyone. I strongly suggest anyone investigate Russia's history of treatment of the aboriginal peoples of Asia if you want to have a discussion about colonialism. Eskov certainly isn't interested in that discussion.

No, the real thing that burns the britches of Eskov is Tolkien's Catholicism, theism, and as he would have it anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism, and Luddite tendency to reject technological progress. The fight in 'The Last Ringbearer' is between Reason (as symbolized by the Orcs) and Magic (as symbolized by the Elves). This is not a simplistic East versus West conflict in Eskov's version of the history either, at least if you mean by East and West the real world's east and west. According to Eskov, 'The Lord of the Rings' is about the rejection of reason, and not especially about "Colonialism" or even "Racism" except to the extent that the forces of Superstition use that to advance their cause. The book ends with magic/superstition defeated, and the survivors of the war entering into an new age of Enlightened Industrialism.

Celebrim · Jun 20, 2019

dragoner said:
We still are considered subhumans, they hate us for just existing. The book is in fact a brilliant take on the tale.

Who is "we" and "they"? And what is "the tale"?

And if by "the book" you mean, "The Last Ringbearer", have you actually read it?

dragoner · Jun 20, 2019

Celebrim said:
Who is "we" ... ?

An Orc? Or maybe a Hobgoblin, who knows what they will say tomorrow. The truth remains, that I would only turn my back to find your knife there; or at least what counts.