When modern ethics collide with medieval ethics

[Andor]

It seems this thread has gotten off-topic, and it is such an interesting one, I would like to see itget back on track.

I have to assume that this problem is not unique to my game. Since it continually rears its ugly head time and again I have decided to type up and distribute a handout, which I intend to review at the beginning of every session until all my players get it right. Topics I will cover in the handout will include structure of law, societal caste roles and interaction, and commomplace moral and ethical structures. Also intend to define the alignment structure of the world. Wish I had thought to do this in the beginning.

Anyone have any other advice?

Yes, actually.

Humans tend to think and learn in terms of stories. Try to write, or steal a few illustative stories of how things should work in your game world and include them as in world stories/myths/legends in your pamphlet.

Some of the medieval morality plays would be a good starting point.

In story form they'll learn it better, internalize it more easily, and might actually read the pamphlet to boot.

 

[S'mon]

Medieval ethics died out precisely because people came up with better arguments for why it was wrong.

What is this medieval ethics of which people speak? I've read a fair bit on ethics and the last time any ethicist argued "slavery was ok" in the West would have been in the pre-Christian Roman Empire. By the 6th century AD the Codex of Justinian, the basis of both Byzantine law and medieval European Law describes slavery as "against the Law of Nature" (Ius Naturae) though, regrettedly, part of the Ius Gentium, the "Law of Nations", ie man-made Law.

Likewise the idea that a noble can kill a commoner but not vice versa is decidedly pre-Christian and pre-Medieval, if it existed at all it'd be a way of looking at the Germanic weregild system, which set a variable value on your head that your murderer had to pay for killing you. But the weregild system was designed to regulate and reduce conflict in a situation where no strong central authority existed, it simply recognised that the poor man lacked the wherewithal to exact vengeance on the noble who killed his brother, but honour could be satisfied by a payment. Whereas as a practical matter if you killed the noble's brother, of course the noble is going to kill you. Ethics as such barely enters into it.

There were no 'medieval ethics' saying that rape, slavery, or the killing of lower-status persons were ok.

If Hextorism is equivalent to Satanism then the medieval-ethical approach to the Hextorists in the first post would be, as Gygax once pointed out:

a) If possible, convert them to the LG religion to save their immortal souls, then
b) Kill them to prevent backsliding.

With (b) being optional - if you're certain they won't backslide, then ok to let them live. But it's the souls that matter. If you were unable to convert them then you or a duly appointed authority would certainly need to kill them to prevent them from corrupting and damning the souls of others.

If Hextor is regarded as a legitimate deity, like a saint in Christianity, then according to 'medieval ethics' you should not be killing the prisoners just as you shouldn't kill them in 'modern ethics', there is no significant difference.

Edit: In Europe it has often been 'normal' to kill prisoners of war, except for high status noble prisoners, but it has not been regarded as 'ethical' for nearly two thousand years.

 

[fanboy2000]

This reminds me of a book I read recently, Sex with Kings. The book is about King's mistresses. I'm not a history buff, and most of the history buffs around me are into the war aspect. They know all about knights, armor, fire arms, famous battles, etc. As such, I don't hear a lot about anything else, so the book was a nice change of pace from the kind of history I'm normally served by my friends.

But what really struck me while reading the book was how under-represented mistresses were in D&D setting material and fantasy books that I had read. I'm sure that somewhere out there there's a supplement with an NPC mistress, but I've yet to see it. Ditto with fantasy books.

This caused me to use a mistress as a patron for my Eberron campaign. I said she was a mistress (all they knew is that they were being hired by a Dutchess who lived in the same castle as the King of Breland. They either never put it together, or they suspected but never voiced their suspicion.

Anyways, reading the book made think about the kinds of power struggles that go on in a royal court that I hadn't seen D&D cover, but could be useful to PCs in an urban setting.

In France, the king's mistresses was an official position. It came with prestige and power. It was a kind of institutional hypocrisy, The Church condemned adultery, but politics and diplomacy required the royalty marry other royalty even if they both hated each other. So, King's kept having mistresses. They were quite popular with members of the court as well, but not universally popular.

So, I think there's room for multiple views on ethics in a given campaign world. PCs in particular, not necessarily having a real medieval counterpart, are, I think, ripe for having atypical views and opinions on the settings ethics.

This is usually due to ignorance on the part of the players. Point them at some historical novels, or fantasy books set in a really different world like Glorantha.

I wouldn't recommend books written recently about historical time periods, or fantasy books. Even the best modern authors have a tendency to gloss over important details of a time period or romanticize the periord. (E.g., Fantasy Gun Control.)

Fiction written during the time most analogous to the campaign setting would, I think, be a lot better. (IIRC, you mentioned morality plays which I think is on the right track.)

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I try to avoid creating campaigns that would directly impact on a player's ability to enjoy playing the character they want to play. For instance:

I've long been planning a swashbuckling horror game with Jane Austen overtones. One of the ladies in my group asked me about the social status of women and whether or not they're allowed to carry swords and duel. I had already considered the question and was basically of the thought that female characters can do anything male characters can. But I did ask my player if she wanted her female character to face any sex discrimination.

I asked because I wasn't sure exactly what she, as a player, was hoping to get from the campaign. The final outcome was her character does have to put up with some cold stares and snide comments but not too much. It gives her character something to bristle at and an easy source of conflict should it be required.

Beyond that I would also avoid creating situations that would greatly offend the players. Rape in war was mentioned above. I would never put this in one of my games. I would not like to play in a game in which it happened. It happens in the real world but that's not reason to have it happen in the game. This is one of those areas I won't go. Everyone has areas they won't go. Things they consider inappropriate for representation in a game.

One can try to be sensitive but there's no guarantee that someone won't be offended. Look at the 2 people from Elfwitch's example in the OP. They were offended by some pretty mild stuff (for a game based around the genocide of humanoids for the purpose of profit.) Sometimes people will simply choose to be offended. Nothing much to be done about it except stop playing with them.

cheers.

 

[Li Shenron]

Thank you [MENTION=9037]Elf Witch[/MENTION] for bringing this thread up, it's really interesting stuff! I'm only sorry I can't provide much help here, because I never fully managed to handle these kind of problems myself neither as a DM nor as a player

Starting from your case, I think you and [MENTION=28373]Broken Druid[/MENTION] handled everything very well, certainly better than I would have managed. But I have to admit that I would have also as a player had some issue with the prisoner-killing scene.

One thing I want to mention, is that even if you write up a reference "setting's ethics system", individual characters are always going to have their issues with it. I mean, look at our modern world, it's not that we agree with our own ethics system, in fact we have many and we have more arguments today than every before. But why? Are we sure that the people in the middle ages were so much more united in their beliefs and ethical views? Or could it be that we only see the bigger picture in the written form of the law, which (in medieval times certainly more than today) was written by those few in power, not by the population? Hence I am not so sure that people of the middle ages accepted that law-based ethics because of cultural convinctions rather than simply because they had little choice (although it's possible that this later translates in actually believing in such ethical system).

In a way, I would find it actually quite interesting for these issues to come up in a game of D&D, because I think that "grey areas" are more interesting, but then not everybody likes dealing with these and react with strong "black & white" behaviour.

The only thing that I could do to mitigate problems a bit, would be to try and improve descriptions in order to either move more into grey areas or farther away, depending on the group's perceived preference. For instance, about slavery... it's very different if you describe:

- women, children and aged people being ball-and-chained and clearly suffering both physically and psychologically for their condition
- unchained servants working and living in relatively poor but non inhumane conditions, but unable to leave because of the law (think young Anakin and mom in Star Wars, or slaves in the Roman era)
- ball-and-chained prisoners of war or outlaws, who otherwise behave like decent people and would simply wish to be freed
- ball-and-chained prisoners of war or outlaws, who actually behave like petty criminals and look like they would gladly murder a lot of people in retribution for their condition

I think I would react very differently to each of these... so in case of a kill-the-evil-prisoners scenario, perhaps it would be better (if you know that some of your players have a hard time figuring out the greys) to enhance the description in order to ease the choice. Maybe those prisoners saying "no, we won't convert to LG" is quite too blunt and short to figure out what to do, in fact I got too a feeling of discomfort that the LG cleric killed them after one question... even if I understand that the above is acceptable for your settings ethics, and maybe the LG cleric could have killed them even without asking.

I don't know... Maybe the bottom line is that really you shouldn't try to have a settings ethics to redefine Good vs Evil, because it's always going to be subjective to characters as well as players, and just restricts to the laws.

 

[Tallifer]

I wouldn't recommend books written recently about historical time periods, or fantasy books. Even the best modern authors have a tendency to gloss over important details of a time period or romanticize the periord. (E.g., Fantasy Gun Control.)

Fiction written during the time most analogous to the campaign setting would, I think, be a lot better. (IIRC, you mentioned morality plays which I think is on the right track.)

Indeed. I think that every Dungeons & Dragons player should read Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory or some of the Lancelot poems of Chretien de Troyes. The values and personalities are quite different from those in fantasy novels written today.

 

[Tallifer]

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.

However the polytheistic Romans were outraged by what they considered the barbaric and bloodthirsty religion of the druids. They endeavoured to wipe out every last druid, even pursuing them to the ends of Wales to the isle of Anglesey. Much hypocrisy in all this, but it certainly shows that the ancients were capable of as much intolerance and narrowness in their definitions of good and evil as were mediaeval Christians.

 

[Tallifer]

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?

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.

What about gender relations? Has your dungeon master trodden in that dangerous path of mediaeval/classical culture?

 

[delericho]

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?

Very occasionally, although not necessarily in those terms.

At the outset of the campaign, assuming alignment is going to be a factor at all, I will make sure my players are aware that the NPCs and cultures in the setting will have their beliefs on what is good, lawful, etc, but that they may well be wrong.

By contrast, the alignment system in the game, operates according to standards of good and evil, law and chaos as filtered by myself, which suggests a much more 'modern' interpretation of ethics. (I wouldn't presume to actually be 100% right about the nature of good and evil, law and chaos, but I do believe there are some areas where we have made significant progress.)

The issue comes when an NPC in the setting will react to his interpretation of what a PC has done, and the player of that PC will then argue with me about how it should be considered good/lawful/whatever. At which point I occasionally have to remind the player that the NPC may well be wrong... but that by itself does not change his opinion. How does his PC react to that NPC in that situation?

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.

<snip>

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.

<snip>

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.

It sounds to me like your group are having problems separating player action/reaction from character action/reaction.

One player has his PC give his word and then the other players take exception to this. But this is a character issue - how do the other PCs respond to their comrade's ill-chosen words?

The cleric acts as judge, jury and executioner, and the other players take exception to this. But, again, it's a character issue - do the other PCs agree with the action, and if not how do they respond.

And, again, you play the "arrogant nobleman", and the other players take exception. They then have their characters run off, and you take exception. But these are all character issues - shouldn't it be the rogue who confronts your noble over the arrogance, rather than Bob confronting you?

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is an interesting topic. The key is to know your group. I dont think there is a right way or wrong way to handle this, it is just important to be aware of what your players fund acceptable onthis front. I run a game called Colonial Gothic (by rogue games for those who are interested) once in a while and it is set in Revolutionary america with heavy horror overtones. In that sort of game you need to decide off the bat how to handle slavery, gender roles, etc. I am fine with running the game in a historically accurate way or running a more sanatized version. It all depends on the players.

What has surprised me is you never can tell what will offend individiuals. In a historical setting. For examples some players will be offended if slavery is part of the setting, others will be offended if you eliminate it (because it can appear you are glossing over a major stain on US history).