[BoVD]Well, since I can't seem to post this on Wizards forums...

[SemperJase]

Did I learn something from "exploring evil?" You bet your bippy!

Interesting. I do note that the lesson was learned as a result of real personal interaction. There were real players behind the characters.

Would that lesson have been learned if it were an NPC?

 

[Mallus]

Oh, it's not completely invalid, but it isn't an irrefutable proof either.

Granted. I try not to traffic in irrefutable proof. I've heard the stuff's radioactive.

Causal arguments are tough. I might have been better off stating that's its been my totally annecdotal experience, as an American who grew up immeshed in the violent power fantasies which were custom-designed for adolescent males {you know, video games, Mad Max films, Arnold, Scarface, etc}, that these entertainments have been harmless.

Except for the boardgame Risk. Now there's a game that can still make me come to blows...

 

[Zappo]

Granted. I try not to traffic in irrefutable proof. I've heard the stuff's radioactive.

Causal arguments are tough. I might have been better off stating that's its been my totally annecdotal experience, as an American who grew up immeshed in the violent power fantasies which were custom-designed for adolescent males {you know, video games, Mad Max films, Arnold, Scarface, etc}, that these entertainments have been harmless.

Ok, ok... I've played and seen the same stuff too, and I'm a good person nonetheless. The same holds true for about everyone I know (including people who routinely play evil D&D PCs). But I like hard numbers when talking about proof. It's probably my mathemathical background surfacing every now and then, I can't help it.

 

[Tiefling]

Why is it that people believe that 13 - 14-year-olds (and heck, even younger kids) are not aware of and perfectly capable of handling supposedly mature ideas such as drug-use, torture, and prostitution?

Also, why are drug-use and prositution being called "evil" and "vile?"

 

[Mallus]

It's probably my mathemathical background surfacing every now and then, I can't help it.

No problem... I have a background in English Lit. {can you tell?}.

Forgive me if I try to prove up is down {sans the hard numbers, of course...}

 

[RobNJ]

Why is it that people believe that 13 - 14-year-olds (and heck, even younger kids) are not aware of and perfectly capable of handling supposedly mature ideas such as drug-use, torture, and prostitution?

Also, why are drug-use and prositution being called "evil" and "vile?"

I certainly did at that age. And if I've called them such, it's only by mistake. In my personal morality, the addiction to drugs is as evil as things get, but it's more the pusher-and-drug that I find evil than it is the addict. If I characterized them that way, it was only in the assumption that those on the other side of the argument would frame them that way.

 

[Storm Raven]

The last paragraph would be a valid criticism if your assumptions were true, which they are not.

I can only work with the evidence available, and you haven't given any information that would indicate that you put any more thoguht into your PCs actions than "they're orcs with slaves, kill them!"

 

[Ezrael]

In general, in the country I live in both drug use (save for a few legal ones like alcohol, caffeine or tobacco products) and prostitution are illegal, and the problem with illegal activities like they are is that the procurement of either is dominated by people who will casually murder others in gruesome manners in order to maintain control of those cash-cows. This excludes the involvement of my government in both industries (For instance, in the 1960's and 1970's the CIA ran brothels in which it experimented in dosing the clientele with LSD without their knowledge...look up Operation Midnight Climax for some details, starting here:http://www.mistersf.com/notorious/notciaacid.htm) and so it tends to be considered solely the reserve of violent men and women who will kill and torture without concern for the lives of others merely for profit.

In addition there are religious concerns, but I'm an agnostic and cannot speak to them.

 

[SemperJase]

I can only work with the evidence available, and you haven't given any information that would indicate that you put any more thoguht into your PCs actions than "they're orcs with slaves, kill them!"

I believe I explained it better than that. Regardless of how the orcs would see the issue, kidnapping and enslaving people is an evil action. Rescuing those victims by force, up to and including slaying as many orcs as necessary to secure the release of the slaves is not an evil action.

The reasoning had nothing to do with the alignment written down on character sheets other than the previously stated desire of the characters to do good.

 

[Tiefling]

Okay, now I've read through the entire thread. (I want some sort of award for that!)

SJ, you're contending that playing evil characters is unhealthy, and that people should not do it. You don't have any evidence of it. You're basing it entirely on your gut feeling. But you insist that you're holding the moral high ground. This makes people, quite understandably, angry. Until you get some sort of statistical analysis of the number of people who aren't psychos to begin with and then play evil characters and become them, people are going to continue to be angry. Perhaps if you said, "It seems to me that playing evil characters might be unhealthy, although I don't really know," people would be cool with it. Instead you say, "Playing evil characters is definitely unhealthly, and people should not do it. So there."