The Problem of Evil [Forked From Ampersand: Wizards & Worlds]

[mhacdebhandia]

An orc in my game is not evil; it is a shark and driven by a lust for savage slaughter that it can control no more than the predator from the deep. It is dangerous, murderous and it must be destroyed or else ruin will follow, but it is not evil; just a tortured thing consumed by blood-lust. This IMHO is how Tolkien wanted us to view Orcs.

Tolkien has about as much relevance to my games of D&D as a plastic bucket full of eels, at least when it comes to questions like this. He has nothing to teach me about morality and the "proper" position of antagonists in my games.

The whole idea that there is some "true D&D" way to do these things is just so much crap.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Sorry, I play games to escape reality, not model it badly.

Escapism is overrated.

Treating the PCs and their NPCs allies as a football team that you play for against the Evil Orc football team is all well and good, but you don't have to be "working through your issues" to want your games to take place in a more ambiguous moral or political landscape.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Notice that all through that paragraph I said for me. I ain't telling you what you should enjoy. But I don't need to be lectured on how I should be playing or what I should like.

And I was disagreeing with you on what makes good D&D. I'm allowed to do that.

Players that enjoy this sort of thing are more interested in their characters, their backgrounds and motivations, then they are about orcs and XP.

You are mistaken if you believe that moral certainty makes backgrounds and motivations unimportant. I know this from personal roleplaying experience.

This is also a huge double standard. Moral relativist games suck because no DM can be Moore and Whedon, so they're just kidding themselves. But moral absolutist games rock even though those DMs aren't Tolkien?

No, not at all. Moral relativist games are boring if the DM is trying to use a game medium to walk through Kant's moral theory. I've already read that one. Further, D&D really isn't built for deep and meaningful moral exploration. It's a game of epic fantasy, not a coffee house in Prague.

What is it about saying "We're right and they're wrong, the end" that makes a game superior to others? And, why are you trying so hard to convince everyone here of that?

I really don't care if you agree with me or not. Kamikaze Midget started a thread looking for opinions. I gave mine.

But if you really want to know: It's because D&D is a lousy medium for moral argument. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it is lousy. If you want to explore moral issues there are just much better ways to do it. Read a book; take a class; debate your favorite Priest or Rabbi. Trying to develop your moral compass by playing D&D is most likely to result in both skewed ethics and bad gaming. Further, what are the odds that all the players at the table need to learn the same lesson? Slim to none, I'm thinking.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Hey, I'm just curious but to those who play with good and evil absolutes... where do Warlocks stand in your campaigns? I'm just curious to see where the class falls for most in a black and white world.

Seriously, the Infernalist fluff is a problem. The strict reading of the rule effects aren't any more evil than any other classes though, so it's easy to re-fluff them. Feylocks and Starlocks don't even need that, mostly.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Yeah, I agree. The new Galactica was better when it focused primarily on adventure, without too much of the moral relativism (which makes no sense in context anyway, after one side has unprovokedly genocided 99.99% of the others' population).

The "moral relativism" in the new Battlestar Galactica isn't about whether the humans should forgive the Cylons, dude. It's about things like whether or not Cylon prisoners have rights, whether or not to trust Cylons who want to fight for the humans, whether or not humans and Cylons have the right to have a family together.

There's no question that the Cylons, as a group, murdered 99% of humanity without provocation; the ambiguity comes in when you consider whether an individual's belonging by "birth" to such a murderous group means they're not considered persons, with the rights of persons. That sort of thing.

A D&D analogy might be "can an orc be a paladin of Pelor?" or "does an orc-human couple have the right to live among humans and raise a half-orc child?", that sort of thing.

 

[Jasperak]

I know what you're trying to say, but this phrasing is screwed up.

What if their goals are to wipe out the orcs so that humans can take their lands? Are the orcs who fight back, perhaps even raiding human villages to put the PCs on the defensive, evil?

Now, I know that you mean something like "the PCs in my game are heroes, so anyone who gets in their way is evil because at a minimum they're interfering with the pursuit of something good". Your PCs wouldn't set out to wipe out the orcs of the Red Hills so humans could start mining for copper there, so it doesn't come up - but the way you phrased it, above, really doesn't work, because there are plenty of potential goals for PCs which you don't have to be evil to oppose. It's just that none of them would be the PCs' goals in your game.

I'm not sure you do understand. I think I have answered your initial question several times that the orcs in my game are EVIL. I'm not talking about other human lands, nor using the orcs as an analogous culture to one you would find in the real world. Because in my games I define the orcs as EVIL the PCs have no issue with orc genocide. There is no redeeming aspect to orc culture since there is no orc culture! In my games you cannot redeem an orc. We do not treat orcs as humans in another skin. We find this play works for us. I really don't know any other way to say we avoid these questions by defining the orcs as EVIL.

To answer directly your comment about the PCs setting out to wipe out the orcs of the Red Hills to take their copper mines. In a hypothetical situation, if the PCs were tasked by their liege to assault the orcs to secure the mine for the kingdom, they would generally be happy to do it. Depending on the reward of course

To me it is really about what team the PCs are on. We try to keep moral ambiguity out of the equation. The orcs are always on the other team and we tell stories about how we beat the snot out of them.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I'm not sure you do understand. I think I have answered your initial question several times that the orcs in my game are EVIL.

Yeah, the post I quoted of yours was from early in the thread, so I did have my question answered later on as I read further.

However!

To me it is really about what team the PCs are on. We try to keep moral ambiguity out of the equation. The orcs are always on the other team and we tell stories about how we beat the snot out of them.

Now I have a new question.

Why is it important to your games that orcs are not people? I mean, I will absolutely accept an answer like "because Tolkien did it and we like Tolkien", but why not fight devils? Non-humanoid monsters which are just as intelligent as people, something like the xenomorph from Alien?

I'm just trying to grasp why it's so important to some people that there be things that look like people but don't count as people for them to kill in their games. Again, "tradition" is an acceptable answer, of course.

 

[Rechan]

And I was disagreeing with you on what makes good D&D. I'm allowed to do that.

Yeah, but you have no right to tell me I'm playing the game wrong.

No, not at all. Moral relativist games are boring if the DM is trying to use a game medium to walk through Kant's moral theory. I've already read that one. Further, D&D really isn't built for deep and meaningful moral exploration. It's a game of epic fantasy, not a coffee house in Prague.

Okay, I want you to explain to me what you think a morally ambiguous game of D&D looks like. Go ahead.

From the way you talk, I expect your response to look like this:

DM: "All right, goblins charge from the underbrush towards the caravan. I'd like everyone to roll a philosophy check."
Player 1: "I got a 23. I understand the importance of self preservation in the desire for primitive humanoids to raid caravans. But, according to Aristotle, man does not need to infringe on another man for survival. There are, after all, non-lethal ways to sustain oneself, especially in a world such as this with magic that can grow and produce food. I should have a +2 to my next Talk Reason check in order to avoid a violent altercation."
DM: "Unfortunately, the head goblin rolled a 19. He counters your current Philosophy check with his Dodge Empathy skill. His band gains self worth from raiding caravans. The goblins pull out their weapons."
Player 2: "But wait. I want to quote Kirkiguard - can that give me a bonus?"
Player 3: "And I have this passage of 'The Republic', that should help."
DM: "One at a time, please."

You say D&D is Epic fantasy, therefore it's not "not a coffee house in Prague." It's also a strategy game, but it isn't a Sun Tzu lecture or a Military Academy. It's also a game about fighting, but it's not a martial arts or fencing class. It's a game about math, but it isn't a course in staitstics. It's also a game about acting a role, but it's not a stage play on Broadway. It's also a game about playing elves, but it's not Santa's Workshop.

D&D is a rules system. Everything else is what you do with it. That's it. There's nothing about Shadowrun that makes it inherently better to play Morally Ambiguous games than D&D Modern; the only difference between the two are the rule systems. Anything one can do with D&D, Fantasy GURPS and Fantasy HERO can do, and vice versa.

But if you really want to know: It's because D&D is a lousy medium for moral argument.

Who the hell is making an argument?

Here, let me put it to you this way: D&D is a great medium for telling a story, and some stories can be morally ambiguous.

Trying to develop your moral compass by playing D&D is most likely to result in both skewed ethics and bad gaming.

I really, really don't get this argument.

We pretend to be elves that cast magic for gods sake; there's not much room to throw stones at someone else's hypothetical mental clarity.

What makes you think that the point is to 'develop' or 'learn' something?

Saying that someone likes to play morally ambiguous games so they can "develop a moral compass" is like saying someone likes playing a barbarian because "they have anger issues they need to work out" or likes to play a cleric because "they want to develop a closer relationship with God". It's a cop-out argument so you can make morally ambiguous games look stupid.

I know what right and wrong is. I know what good and evil is. No matter what my character does in a game, it is not going to change my belief system. I don't use D&D to change anything about me, I do it because it's fun, and you know what? I find morally ambiguous games fun. It's that simple. And doing them with D&D is not hard and still enjoyable.

So you can't really tell me "D&D isn't a medium for moral ambiguity" when I can use it for it, I and my players like it. If it wasn't, then we couldn't do it successfully. If it wasn't, then Eberron wouldn't exist or be so successful. If D&D was only Epic Heroic Fantasy, there wouldn't be supplement after supplement on rules for playing monsters.

Or, we can do it your way: D&D is a horrible way to reinforce Good and Evil. D&D is a system of probability and simple math. If you need something to help you be Good, then go to church.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

But if you really want to know: It's because D&D is a lousy medium for moral argument. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it is lousy. If you want to explore moral issues there are just much better ways to do it. Read a book; take a class; debate your favorite Priest or Rabbi. Trying to develop your moral compass by playing D&D is most likely to result in both skewed ethics and bad gaming. Further, what are the odds that all the players at the table need to learn the same lesson? Slim to none, I'm thinking.

I gotta side with Irda Ranger on this. D&D is a poor medium for this sort of game. Not that this sort of game is bad, it most certainly isn't. But, I do think it's bad for D&D. D&D focuses on killing, plain and simple. The entire game is set up that you are going to go out somewhere, with weapons, and kill stuff. This has been true of D&D since forever.

Yes, not every game focuses on combat, that's true, but, to be honest, that's certainly the direction the mechanics are pointing you towards. Heh, there's a reason we call it Kill XP.

I think there are games which can do this sort of exploration very well. I'm just thinking that D&D isn't one of them. It's a very poor tool for this sort of campaign.

 

[Hussar]

WOTC defines the brand. As an example I would guess that there are more people playing in Eberron than in Greyhawk and maybe even the Forgotten Realms reboot. That's just a guess though.

Right now it doesn't matter as much, but it may five years from now when Heroic Fantasy makes way for Dark Fantasy or Noir Fantasy. When Greyhawk and the original Forgotten Realms are distant memories.

I would hasten to point out that Greyhawk is most definitely based in other genres than Heroic Fantasy. Greyhawk has LOADS of shades of grey and is much more heavily leaning towards pulp and sword and sorcery fantasy than heroic. Look at the actual city of Greyhawk and you'll see that. Zagyg makes himself a god by imprisoning demon lords and draining their power. And he's one of the (sort of) good guys in the setting.