Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Again, however, that is as @Reynard says "operatic" evil, the kind of thing you expect to see in a superhero comic. I still advocate for banal evil as an important part of verisimilitudinous settings.
D&D General D&D Assumptions Ain't What They Used To Be
- Thread starter el-remmen
- Start date
Hussar
Legend
Again though there needs to be a distinction between home games and published.
And really we all have lines. I don’t think anyone would be comfortable for DnD to have rape rules for example. Or graphic depictions of rape in the books. Or anything to do with children. I’m pretty sure we can all think of at least one thing you’d nope out of.
The issue really is where you draw the line. It’s not good enough to just say, “well it doesn’t bother me”. We did that for decades and that’s how you get books like Orcs of Thar.
I’m kinda hoping that ten or twenty years from now people won’t pick up my books and say, “you were okay with this?”
And really we all have lines. I don’t think anyone would be comfortable for DnD to have rape rules for example. Or graphic depictions of rape in the books. Or anything to do with children. I’m pretty sure we can all think of at least one thing you’d nope out of.
The issue really is where you draw the line. It’s not good enough to just say, “well it doesn’t bother me”. We did that for decades and that’s how you get books like Orcs of Thar.
I’m kinda hoping that ten or twenty years from now people won’t pick up my books and say, “you were okay with this?”
But none of that is thematically significant or significant to the actual story being told.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Arguable. But it's definitely significant to the setting, which is a big deal in an RPG context.
Chaosmancer
Legend
But what do we mean by "banal evil"? Muggers? Sure, muggers exist. Banditry because people are poor and rich people tend to be jerks? Sure, that exists. Wealthy disparity getting covered in there. What about drugs? Sure, got no problem with drugs existing, especially since people expect alcohol.
At what point have I added enough "banal evil" that I'm allowed to say "no slavery or racism" without being told I'm making an Utopia?
Necropolitan
Hero
Bandits would rather take things from other people than work for a living.
The idea that poverty drives theft is nonsense, especially since most property crimes are against people in the same areas and thus the same economic situation. If someone chooses to steal for a living despite having other less-lucrative options then I'm fine with the setting calling them Evil since they're choosing to harm others to improve their own lives despite not needing to.
Hussar
Legend
I do find it interesting that on one hand you have folks insisting on historicalism - pointing to "faux-Rome, faux-Egypt, etc" while at the same time ignoring the fact that most D&D settings are about a thousand years AFTER those settings. As in Middle Earth is far, far closer to us in history than it is to the Roman Empire and certainly close than Egypt or Athens.
Kinda seems that folks are cherry picking their histories.
Kinda seems that folks are cherry picking their histories.
MichaelSomething
Legend
Ensuring all the TPS reports have the correctly colored cover??
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
To me, banal evil is any bad stuff perpetrated by people that doesn't smack of super villainy.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Byzantine bureaucracy definitely falls into the category, yes. An unfair justice system, oppressive taxes, personal crises, emotional distress, the horrors of war, and yes, slavery and racism all qualify, among many other things. The evil that men do, as it were.
Raising a zombie horde is just as operatic IMO as replacing the king with a mind-controlled doppelganger or using your death ray to destroy Metropolis.
