When modern ethics collide with medieval ethics

[Kaodi]

On the other hand so called lawful good PCs can own slaves.

Then what exactly is it that makes them " good " ?

In a D&D world, the arbiters of what is " good " are usually the gods. If there really is supposed to be something that is " good " , then a god of " good " ought to know the best arguments for it. Medieval ethics died out precisely because people came up with better arguments for why it was wrong. A god of " good " however, is never going to be mistaken in the way that people in medieval societies were.

You could argue that what is " good " is whatever pleases the gods, but then the idea of " holy power " being brought to bear on the servant of an " evil " god does not really make sense unless " holy " just means " fuelled by god X " , in which case divine powers are really going to have be judged on a case by case basis, and justice basically becomes the Thrasymachan " interest of the stronger " .

 

[El Mahdi]

Oh, God! Please don't let this thread devolve into one about alignments. Especially as what the OP intended was specific to:

I am just curious if other groups have had this kind of issue. Also how you handle modern ethics VS more medieval ethics in your games?

Discussing alignments can only lead to madness.

@Kaodi I promise to give you an XP cookie if you don't discuss alignments...

 

[Elf Witch]

Then what exactly is it that makes them " good " ?

In a D&D world, the arbiters of what is " good " are usually the gods. If there really is supposed to be something that is " good " , then a god of " good " ought to know the best arguments for it. Medieval ethics died out precisely because people came up with better arguments for why it was wrong. A god of " good " however, is never going to be mistaken in the way that people in medieval societies were.

You could argue that what is " good " is whatever pleases the gods, but then the idea of " holy power " being brought to bear on the servant of an " evil " god does not really make sense unless " holy " just means " fuelled by god X " , in which case divine powers are really going to have be judged on a case by case basis, and justice basically becomes the Thrasymachan " interest of the stronger " .

One way to look at it is that you are as a good person taking responsibility for a criminal and putting a roof over his head and food in his mouth while allowing him certain freedoms while he pays back society for his crimes. If I had a choice of being stuck in a medieval prison or being a slave to a person who fed. clothed me an didn't mistreat me I would choose being a slave.

Now mistreating the slave is not a good act but then neither would it be a good act for a guard to mistreat a prisoner in prison.

My character has a slave a young girl who was sentenced to either enter slavery or lose a hand for being caught numerous times thieving. I have taught her to read and write and other skills when she leaves my service after her ten year sentence she will be able to make it in the world without having to steal.

As for the holy argument if you have good and evil in your campaign it is okay for the clerics of good gods to use their skills to stop the spread of tyranny and evil. When was the last time in a game did you find the evil gods not doing something that would be bad for everyone?

In our game the evil churches are trying to raise a feel unholy power that will be everlasting darkness to the world. And they are using there clerics for this purpose so that makes their clerics legitimate targets to be taken out.

In a game where the evil gods are not so evil then maybe things should run differently.

 

[Hand of Evil]

My players have always had the issues above, one of the biggest was it being okay to kill a people because of their race, aka American Indians and not to be held accountable. They had no issues with horse thieves but a race, they just could not get behind.

 

[Kaodi]

Discussing alignments can only lead to madness.

@Kaodi I promise to give you an XP cookie if you don't discuss alignments...

I am not sure I can continue discussing the subject of medieval ethics at all without reference at least to elements of alignment.

I mean, if discussing alignments can only lead to madness, and if alignments deals with good and evil, and if ethics is the study of good and evil, then to discuss ethics just is to discuss alignment, and thus discussing ethics can only lead to madness, .

 

[gamerprinter]

I was wondering if any other people have had this issue where our modern ethics on things like slavery, treatment of prisoners, all people created equal come into conflict with a game set using a more medieval culture?

No, my players never give me flack for how the world, social classes, or anything really works.

The DM made it clear when she started her game that it was medieval style world. That nobles and royalty had more rights then the merchant and peasant classes. That there were two sets of laws and punishments, For example a noble killing a peasant most likely would only have to pay out some kind of payment to the family but if a peasant killed a noble they were executed. A peasant or merchant attacking a noble or royalty would face execution.

Well, since I've been developing Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story setting for PF, I've relied on Japanese history for these kinds of concepts.

Strangely, at least in this inference, in ancient Japan it was the opposite. Commoners are believed by the state to be basically ignorant. Thus there were indeed two sets of laws, however, from the state's point of view, the samurai are expected to know what is right and wrong. Punishment to samurai in most instances was death. Whereas for the Commoner, a fine, whipping or many other forms of punishment was more likely.

Commoners were expected to 'not know' therefore they were punished less severely than Samurai who were expected 'to know'.

If you were rude to a noble you could well find yourself getting a beat down or be thrown in the stocks.

On the other hand, samurai were expected to do the punishment drectly without the need for a court of law. If a Commoner even looked into the eyes of a samurai, say while passing each other on the road. It was expected of the samurai to punish the 'looker' now, and more than likely they were beheaded for doing so.

The party was in an abandon mine investigating the disappearance of several clerics of Herineous. We found an active temple of Hextra and all the clerics were dead but one. We freed him and when we gave him a weapon he turned it on himself the party cleric healed him and found that they had all been tortured over and over until they recanted their belief in Herineous. They were broken in body, mind and spirit.

We took his weapons away and continued on the cleric eventually got away from us and jumped into a chasm to his death. Our cleric who serves Herineous was very upset.

We got into a battle with the clerics of Hextra and all but two were slain. The other two were taken prisoner. Before we could discuss what to do as a party one of the players gave his word that if they cooperated they would be spared.

This of course caused a huge out cry form the player playing the cleric as well as from a few of us who felt that he didn't have the right to speak for all of us. While we argued what to do the cleric went over to them and asked they why they served an evil god were they coerced into it. He offered them the chance to come back into the light.

They refused they were very proud of the god they serve so the party cleric killed them.

The DM supported the player saying in no way did he violated his lawful good alignment. That as a good character he stopped an evil and as a cleric of a good god he followed his code and the law that allows him to act as judge, jury and executioner.

Some of the players disagreed and called it murder and dishonorable. It has changed the way the cleric gets treated by some of them.

This sounds very Judeo-Christian in thinking. You are working in a medievil setting, so Judeo-Christian was the primary religion, especially in Europe during the medievil period.

However, D&D, religion-wise, seems more like classical Europe with pantheons of gods. The concept of good and evil was not so clearly defined in the classical period. Essentially there were no good nor evil gods, there were just gods, and man was incapable of decyphering their intent - gods are beyond reason. So issues of good and evil did not really pertain to the gods. Every god had aspects that were good and evil, and worshippers of any god weren't good or evil based on the god worshipped, rather they're individual acts as humans could only be measured as such.

Just this last Sunday another issue like this raised its head. We were in the poorer area near the docks. We robbed by a bunch of hoodlum kids. My sorcerer cast web on the little miscreants to stop them from fleeing. Two city guard came up and start asking questions. One of them was quite rude and nasty to my sorcerer who was wearing the emblem of one of the most powerful magical guilds in the city. I am also of noble blood. Quite put out over this treatment I cast dominate on the one guard and when the other guard tried to flee I cast baleful polymorph turning him into a dog.

I was with two of the other party members and instead of staying with me while I questioned the dominated guard they took off saying that they didn't want to be involved.

It turned out that they were not city guard but impersonating them they were part of a criminal ring. Which was something I had suspected because otherwise they would never have talked to my sorcerers in the fashion that they did.

I retrieved all of our stolen goods and turned the two into the guards received a nice bonus which I didn't share because after all they left and didn't earn it.

I was really pissed that they left me and I said so thanking rather sarcastically for watching my back. They in turn got angry saying that what did I expect them to do that I had attacked and cast spells on the city guard for no other reason then the fact that I was arrogant. That I put them in danger of being arrested and that I endangered the party with my reckless behavior.

I argued back that it made perfect role playing sense that my character would not allow herself to be talked to that way and that I had every reason to be suspicious of them and that following the rules as the DM laid down at the start as a noble I would not have been censored for what I did.

At this point the DM backed me up saying that she had the guards mouth off to me as a clue that something was hinky and that I had acted totally in character and I was right that even if they had been city guards because of the way they talked to me they would have been in trouble.

In these discussions/arguments one things seems to be the cause of it all and that is the players who have the most issue seems not to be able to let go of their modern ethics. Killing unarmed prisoners is murder under any set of rules. Casting dominate on anyone is an evil act. Getting thrown in the stocks for calling a noble a greedy bloodsucker even if its true was wrong.

I am not saying we are not having fun and that we want the game to end or those players to quit. Sure it would be nice if they got on board with the rest of us so we could avoid these arguments when they come up. But for the most part we enjoy the game.

I am just curious if other groups have had this kind of issue. Also how you handle modern ethics VS more medieval ethics in your games?

It seems that despite your and your DM's understanding of law, and right and wrong in a medievil world, apparently the other players don't really understand. So perhaps the DM needs to lay out some general concepts of what is right and wrong - that the other players don't seem to be understanding. The DM needs to make it more clear what is considered right and wrong, as actions that the PCs can become involved with. That, to me seems to be the main problem here.

That said, if the players who are concerned can put these opinions as roleplaying considerations of the characters having a conflict with what is right and wrong - that would a good thing. It's very common that characters should not always get along. The players not getting along is a problem, but as a GM, I'd suggest the players put their feelings about what your character is doing, as roleplaying opportunities, and not out of game arguments. In roleplaying, conflict is good, even between party members. It makes it more real.

It also might be a problem you will not be able to fix, since those concerned players measure everything in current (2011) sensibilities, and cannot seem to eschew that for what might have been counter sensibilities in a medievil age. To many people the precepts of right and wrong are inviolate - the same across the ages. And anyone with any history knowledge, knows this not to be true. But some people cannot be convinced of anything. So while I sympathize - depending on the individuals, you may not be able to fix the problem.

As an aside, on another forum (which will not be mentioned) where there is a definite anti-Pathfinder vein among many of its members, I noticed a long 'hate thread' regarding Golarian's use of slaves, where noble PCs could actually own slaves was cause for the long derisive thread. I'm mentioning this, because there are many, many people, who would probably have a problem with what your character did in game, because they too cannot separate modern sensibilities to those of previous times.

They couldn't get over it, I don't know if your concerned players can get over it either. I doubt you'll be able to convince them otherwise.

 

[Elf Witch]

It's very challenging to enforce a "cultural viewpoint" onto players who 1. don't understand it, or 2. don't want to understand it, or 3. think they understand it, but differ with the DM's understanding of it. It's actually hard to get players to remember anything that is "fluffy" in a campaign unless it's in their face in every game session.

Unless we grew up in that culture, had it help shaped our own moral compass, it's hard to play from a different point of view each time. The exception would be to play something diametrically opposed to our experiences and attitudes. Our own experiences and what we think is right and wrong is what really determines our reactions.

Also, unless each game session reinforces the cultural aspect as part of the game, this is something that's easily forgotten. Players will remember their hp, AC, attack rolls, how to flank, but if the DM gives a whole bunch of history, cultural mores, and so on, it's going to be in one ear and out the other. Even if the DM writes it down and gives it out as a handout, the players are still likely not going to remember it, let alone reference it.

For example, I wrote a short primer in Carrion Crown campaign. I wrote that magic items can only be bought and sold in certain locations; otherwise, if you went to your local village and asked about buying magic items, you'll be accused of witchcraft and dealt with accordingly. Already my players are forgetting this aspect. I have six players. I think one of them only read the character generation part and didn't bother with the rest, four of them read it but they certainly didn't print it out nor do they reference it, and one of them did print it out, but he doesn't reference it either.

In my Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign, one of the players was a noble and threw away thousands of years of cultural upbringing and social acceptance to do things like "power to the little people" and so on. Essentially, the player was playing their character with a modernist vision when in reality such envisionment didn't exist.

As a GM, I like to have players remember campaign fluff and I reward them for it (players get a free drawing of the Harrow Deck through certain actions that others would do in the culture they are in), but I don't punish them for making choices that would only come from a 21st Century American.

You are right about some players not remembering fluff or not caring. I see it as a DM.

But I feel that these players often get pissy with the players who do. As a player I really get into the world and I remember fluff I don't like it when I get penalized by other players because of it.

This last session it really bothered me that they were angry that I did not have to roll a sense motive to have an idea that something hinky was going on that I used my knowledge of the world to respond.

The DM does not penalize them for their 21 century thinking as long as they don't do something stupid. Calling the King's governor a horses ass when you are a lowly second level PC of humble birth gets you thrown in the stocks for 24 hours and gets rotten fruit and veggies thrown at you.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Using a game to explore another cultural mindset, you run into some of the same issues you do with learning a language: If you immerse into as much as you can, you'll learn it a lot faster, but struggle some early. If you ease into it, you can avoid some of the nastier struggles at the expense of a longer learning curve.

With my group, our sessions are relatively far apart but long when we have them. So it is far better for me to pick the two or three cultural differences that are most important to the setting and focus on those hard, rather than a wider, less prominent approach. If I'm going to have "nobles are above the common" law as a main theme, then I'll maybe hit that hard and gloss over serfdom this time around. Or vice versa.

Contrawise, if you want to really immerse in a broader set of details, you need some kind of written explanation of the differences, and be prepared to discuss them at the table--even out of character if necessary--until everyone is at least moderately comfortable. Otherwise, you are trying to explore the subtle ramifications of slavery in this world, while a couple of the players are doing the equivalent of trying to remember how to ask directions in a language they don't speak.

 

[Elf Witch]

When it comes down to it, we all have ethics, ideas, and attitudes that can (and do) conflict with the setting. None of us are perfect at setting immersion. Even in a game such as the one described in the OP, I'm sure there are things that could come up, that even the players who are more immeresed than the rest of the group would still have objections too. We all pick and choose (whether consciously or subconsciously) what is acceptable or not.

One person may not have a problem with a medieval presentation of slavery, and yet have a problem with a medieval presentation of women (and the resultant restrictions). Yet another person may enjoy the idea and immersion of rank and social sturcture, yet still maintain modern views of morality and justice (a dichotomy for sure, but one that does happen). It's common to one extent or another with every gamer and game group.

So, the only thing that really matters then is the OP's question: "...how (do) you handle modern ethics VS more medieval ethics in your games?"

I think the only thing that works is that the group be up front about talking about this, whether before the game begins or during. The DM being the final arbiter of the campaign world should say to the group whether a PC's actions (or even an NPC's/Monster's actions) are consistent with the game world (as this DM apparently did). And then make it clear (not a demand, but a very firm statement), that the players try to put aside their own feeling on what may have happened, and have their characters treat the other PC (NPC/Monster) in a way consistent with the DM's adjudication. The DM is not telling the players how to roleplay their character, but asking them to not fall into the trap of metagaming their character based on outside-of-game information (in this case, modern ethics - which don't exist yet in the game world). To an extent, they are "meta-gaming" their characters (even though it is impossible for us to completely seperate our own experiences from those of our characters).

In other words, everyone just needs to remember to keep in-game things in-game, and out-of-game things out-of-game...and abide by the DM's adjudication. If the DM's adjudication says a characters actions were okay, then the Players need to play their characters accordingly. End of story.

I don't think it possible to get everyone to agree with things like this if you do then wow you are one lucky DM.

I think that the DM should be upfront which our was and if you agree to play then you need to accept the DMs adjudication on how things work.

I think some players just like to debate these things. We have one guy at the table who tries to turn everything into a debate. As a trained debated he debates to win.

This can cause issues where the DM gets to the point that they don't want to debate any longer they just want to move on with the game.

I believe that a good player knows when to shut up and accept the DM's ruling. When I DM I have the final word about how things work in my world and at my table and if you cannot accept that then you need to find another table to play at.

As a player I give the DM the same respect.

The only way for a game to run smooth with different opinions and personalities is for one person the be the final arbitrator and that is the DM.

I just read your paragraph on calling it metagaming to my DM I live with her which is another kettle of fish sometimes. She said thank you that your phrasing can help her next time this stuff comes up.

 

[Elf Witch]

No, my players never give me flack for how the world, social classes, or anything really works.



Well, since I've been developing Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story setting for PF, I've relied on Japanese history for these kinds of concepts.

Strangely, at least in this inference, in ancient Japan it was the opposite. Commoners are believed by the state to be basically ignorant. Thus there were indeed two sets of laws, however, from the state's point of view, the samurai are expected to know what is right and wrong. Punishment to samurai in most instances was death. Whereas for the Commoner, a fine, whipping or many other forms of punishment was more likely.

Commoners were expected to 'not know' therefore they were punished less severely than Samurai who were expected 'to know'.



On the other hand, samurai were expected to do the punishment drectly without the need for a court of law. If a Commoner even looked into the eyes of a samurai, say while passing each other on the road. It was expected of the samurai to punish the 'looker' now, and more than likely they were beheaded for doing so.



This sounds very Judeo-Christian in thinking. You are working in a medievil setting, so Judeo-Christian was the primary religion, especially in Europe during the medievil period.

However, D&D, religion-wise, seems more like classical Europe with pantheons of gods. The concept of good and evil was not so clearly defined in the classical period. Essentially there were no good nor evil gods, there were just gods, and man was incapable of decyphering their intent - gods are beyond reason. So issues of good and evil did not really pertain to the gods. Every god had aspects that were good and evil, and worshippers of any god weren't good or evil based on the god worshipped, rather they're individual acts as humans could only be measured as such.



It seems that despite your and your DM's understanding of law, and right and wrong in a medievil world, apparently the other players don't really understand. So perhaps the DM needs to lay out some general concepts of what is right and wrong - that the other players don't seem to be understanding. The DM needs to make it more clear what is considered right and wrong, as actions that the PCs can become involved with. That, to me seems to be the main problem here.

That said, if the players who are concerned can put these opinions as roleplaying considerations of the characters having a conflict with what is right and wrong - that would a good thing. It's very common that characters should not always get along. The players not getting along is a problem, but as a GM, I'd suggest the players put their feelings about what your character is doing, as roleplaying opportunities, and not out of game arguments. In roleplaying, conflict is good, even between party members. It makes it more real.

It also might be a problem you will not be able to fix, since those concerned players measure everything in current (2011) sensibilities, and cannot seem to eschew that for what might have been counter sensibilities in a medievil age. To many people the precepts of right and wrong are inviolate - the same across the ages. And anyone with any history knowledge, knows this not to be true. But some people cannot be convinced of anything. So while I sympathize - depending on the individuals, you may not be able to fix the problem.

As an aside, on another forum (which will not be mentioned) where there is a definite anti-Pathfinder vein among many of its members, I noticed a long 'hate thread' regarding Golarian's use of slaves, where noble PCs could actually own slaves was cause for the long derisive thread. I'm mentioning this, because there are many, many people, who would probably have a problem with what your character did in game, because they too cannot separate modern sensibilities to those of previous times.

They couldn't get over it, I don't know if your concerned players can get over it either. I doubt you'll be able to convince them otherwise.

Your setting sounds very interesting.

She researched several period of time and the world is a mix of ancient Rome , medieval and some other game settings like Kingdoms of Kalamar and Pendragon thrown in.

With the gods she does use alignments and clerics have to be their deity's alignment, The gods are not distant they play a very big role in what happens in the world through their clerics and followers. Also a god's powers is directly linked to how many followers they have so one way to attack another god is to attack and kill their followers or get them to recant their loyalty to the god they worship.

Even good churches have issues of trying to poach members though they don't kill other good gods followers. But they are not above bribery.

The DM said after Sunday and the angry emails that she is going to start reminding people of how things work.

She also asked that if a player is upset that they ask to talk to her privately because getting the entire table involved just leads to arguing.