Different mannerism and morality in your campaign worlds

[Celebrim]

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

Yes, they would if the conditions were sufficiently similar. We know that because most modern readers reading the story approve of the actions of both sides.

 

[Derren]

I think you are pretty, lets say optimistic, when you think Obama would release a Guantanamo prisoner to see his mother in Pakistan/Afghanistan without any supervision and expecting him to come back on his own because he gave his word (and he actually doing it).

 

[Celebrim]

I think you are pretty, lets say optimistic, when you think Obama would release a Guantanamo prisoner to see his mother in Pakistan/Afghanistan without any supervision and expecting him to come back on his own because he gave his word (and he actually doing it).

I think you are persisting in discussing the topic in terms that violate the EnWorld board rules, and that this prevents me from giving an answer to your statements.

Let's just say that I think your analogy is entirely false and leave it at that, but that even in so much that your analogy isn't false, analogous behavior to the cited exchange of trust in WWI have occurred in modern times but that I can't discuss them or even what makes your analogy false without provoking the closure of the thread. In short, you persist in discussing a subject of controversial political matter and this prevents me from even correcting your facts or perceptions. And likewise, you refuse my offers to discuss the subject in less controversial terms, evading questions like, "If most modern readers approve of the behavior in the story, what makes you think at least some wouldn't behave the same in the same situation?"

 

[Derren]

Nice way to weasel yourself out of the discussion. Problem is that this is the most similar situation we currently have to this situation in WW1. But of course it doesn't apply.

Your problem is that you think that just because someone believes to be a moral way of acting that he would automatically act in that way.

 

[Celebrim]

Nice way to weasel yourself out of the discussion.

I'm not weaseling out of the discussion.

Problem is that this is the most similar situation we currently have to this situation in WW1.

If all we have at hand is a cantaloupe, it doesn't mean we can use it as an egg for lack of a better substitute. Don't be surprised if the recipe that calls for an egg turns out differently when you use a cantaloupe instead.

Bad substitutions are bad. Bad analogies are bad.

But of course it doesn't apply.

No it doesn't apply. Among the obvious reasons it doesn't apply is that the Kaiser did not believe that the person he was releasing was a criminal, and the person that was released did not believe it was ok to lie. Had for example, the prisoner of war been caught out of uniform performing an act of sabotage and not been under the command of an officer and not held loyalty to a nation state with similar laws, culture, and morality to his own, the Kaiser would probably have never considered him the sort of individual that could be trusted because the actions of the prisoner would have suggested something other than an 'honorable' individual. Where the modern equivalent to the Kaiser to find himself in a similar situation, that is, his morality causes him to believe that the prisoners are honorable, then the same logic that applied then applies now. But, if the historical Kaiser finds himself with the historical equivalent of dishonorable prisoners, then the same logic that applies now applies then.

 

[SLOTHmaster]

You two realize neither of you is going to agree with the other, could you just agree to disagree and leave your arguments where they stand?

 

[Michael Silverbane]

You two realize neither of you is going to agree with the other, could you just agree to disagree and leave your arguments where they stand?

Have you ever been on the internet before?

 

[Mark Chance]

"Values" and "morality" aren't the same thing. Values change; morality doesn't.

 

[SLOTHmaster]

Have you ever been on the internet before?

Actually this is my first time. Apparently my fox is on fire, how do I put it out? And what is a fox? Like an internet fox, I know what a real fox is.

But on a more serious note, I only usually see people that entrenched on this site in edition wars. I guess I got too used to enworld's relative sanity.

 

[haakon1]

For what it's worth, in my campaigns, evil is evil and good is good. But what's "socially acceptable" varies.

Typically, my Greyhawk campaigns are based in Bissel, which in my version is a sort of idealized medieval Lawful Good realm with a good ruler, chivalrous knights, generally good nobles, and a free peasantry of doughty yeoman. It has some bad people -- bandits, an evil druid, cultists, smugglers -- but in general, it's a Shire-like place. The only thing "bad" about the society is that it's involved in a war with Ket (which keeps invading it), so some people are racist against the folks from that side of the continent. And nearly everyone is racist against humanoids -- many folks against half-orcs and a few against the local aboriginal tribal humans too (who are an oddball combination of Welsh, Swiss, and American Indian as I run them!).

I recent started running the Shackled City Adventure Path. My Cauldron is called the Shackled City not because of the adventure plot, but because it's wealth is based on slave plantations. A lot of the ruling class actually are evil to varying degrees, from a culture built on slavery and piracy . . . and those who are genuinely Good have freed their slaves or don't participate in it (slaves are banned from the city itself for security reasons). Neutral folks -- always the vast majority -- don't question the norms of their society.

So my morality is all the same (evil is always evil), it's just different societies tolerate different things.