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

[Storm Raven]

Should I really respond to this stupidity?

If you consider questions such as "where does your authority to determine who should be killed for their crimes come from" to be "stupidity" then I think we can dismiss your opinions on morality as being infantile.

 

[Piratecat]

Should I really respond to this stupidity?

Give it a rest, guys. This is a discussion, not an argument. Time to walk away from the keyboard for a bit, and return to the thread when you can stay polite.

Thanks. If this is somehow a problem, please fell free to email me.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

My opinions on morality in a D&D game may be infantile. It's not that important. Do you sit up at night and contemplate the morality of orcs kidnapping people or something? We run an adventure based game, there isn't a focus on exploring morality. We play to have fun, and that isn't exploring the human condition and morality.

But to let you know the Kingdom the players are in right now would pay a reward for the heads of the orcs who have been kidnapping people. Yes it is a capital crime, and nobody would care if the players killed the orcs to the last man, woman, or child. They are evil and the King would be happy to see the infestation gone.

 

[RobNJ]

My opinions on morality in a D&D game may be infantile. It's not that important. Do you sit up at night and contemplate the morality of orcs kidnapping people or something?

The problem, Flexor, is you're apparently coming into the middle of the discussion without having read and paid attention to the entire thing. He's having a conversation about absolute morality versus relative morality. Yes, it's silly to argue that characters might actually be killing people who appear to be evil but who are in fact doing good. You would admit that you can't absolutely be sure the people you're dealing with are evil.

The problem is that SJ is claiming that he has received wisdom on what good and bad is, and it is infallible. The point was merely being made that infallability is impossible.

You read one of the comments without all the context and therefore lept to the wrong conclusions about the conversation. He then assumed you DID have all the details and were making ludicrous statements in that context, and things got outta hand.

 

[barsoomcore]

There is quite a difference between saying I am trying to be a good husband and making a mistake while doing that than saying I'm going to disrespect my wife intentionally and see what happens.

Well, since that's been the whole point of my argument up to now, I'm glad you see it my way.

I'm a better person because I learned from my mistake (evil action), not because I did the mistake. I would have been a better person if I had stopped to think about my actions and their consequences before I did that.

Stopping to think about your actions? You mean, imagining what might happen if you tried a particular course of action? Oh, I see. Roleplaying. Playing an imaginary character -- yourself being disrespectful. Hey, that's role-playing an evil character, isn't it? Evil SemperJase, being rude to his wife. By having that character try things you discover something about yourself, don't you?

That's exactly what I'm talking about. At last we agree.

I appreciate your view and I even agree that exploring moral questions has value. I disagree that intentionally practicing evil is the means to learn those lessons.

You "disagree that intentionally practicing evil is the means", do you? And I suggested it might be the means... where? How can you possibly be disagreeing with something I never said?

Honestly, SemperJase, if you don't understand my argument, please say so. I'll endeavour to make it clearer for you. If you do understand and disagree with some point of it, identify that point and explain why you disagree.

As far as I can see, we're in complete agreement. Role-playing evil characters may provide some people with beneficial results. You agree with this statement, right? That's all I've been trying to prove, SJ. Not that we should run around clubbing people to death, not that we should intentionally perform evil acts upon each other, and not that moral standards are relative. Just that role-playing evil characters may provide benefits to some people.

If you're suggesting in some sort of oblique way that role-playing an evil character is "intentionally practicing evil", well, you've already agreed that it isn't so without some new evidence I can't imagine why you would suddenly start asserting this. If this is what you're trying to say, please be clear. Assume I'm not very bright and we'll get along much better.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Give it a rest, guys. This is a discussion, not an argument. Time to walk away from the keyboard for a bit, and return to the thread when you can stay polite.

Thanks. If this is somehow a problem, please fell free to email me.

I was only referring to the question that SR put to me. I never refered to him/her as stupid. But if that's out of line I'm sorry.

 

[Storm Raven]

My opinions on morality in a D&D game may be infantile. It's not that important. Do you sit up at night and contemplate the morality of orcs kidnapping people or something? We run an adventure based game, there isn't a focus on exploring morality. We play to have fun, and that isn't exploring the human condition and morality.

But to let you know the Kingdom the players are in right now would pay a reward for the heads of the orcs who have been kidnapping people. Yes it is a capital crime, and nobody would care if the players killed the orcs to the last man, woman, or child. They are evil and the King would be happy to see the infestation gone.

So you basically play with cartoon superhero type morality. That's fine, but that's not what SJ has been saying. He's saying that in his game morality is important, and his characters do "good" things when viewed from a moral context, not just that they are the "good guys" and the villains are the "bad guys". He asserts that his heros follow standards of conduct that make the players "better" people in the real world due to their playing heroes.

To support this he showed what he thought was a sterling example of his party acting "good". The problem is that in "real world" terms, his party may or may not have been doing good. At face value, his party charged into a community of orcs with no real knowledge about the group other than they had taken slaves, used no option other than to bash them to death, and determined that they had the authority to determine an appropriate punishment for the crime of kidnapping and the right to enforce that punishment.

His statements have led me to the conclusion that the only distinction his players have made is the cartoon superhero type: Dr. Doom is evil because the writers tell us he is. Ghost Rider is a good guy because the writers tell us he is, and so on.

 

[Serps]

I find it ironic that SJ is defending and responding to challenges to his moral code by answering hypothetical questions posed by other forum members, yet fails to see the benefit of other gamers challenging and exploring their own (ostensibly less airtight, since they don't have his rock-solid moral code) moral and ethical frameworks in the context of an RPG.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but an untested conviction isn't much use to anybody.

(For the record, I've read the BoVD, but not Dragon #300. I found the book to contain information which was useful to me, albeit distasteful in parts. I would even allow PCs to take certain (vetted) Vile feats, but I doubt any of my players will. They like to stay on the (oft-Lawful) Good side, so all the book does is make some of the villains in my Freeport adventures that touch more despicable.)

 

[Zappo]

Welcome to the forums, Serps! Leave that dead horse alone, though, ok?

 

[herald]

All right, if this is going to get off track and become the debate over the American Civil War, Then somebody should shut this thread down.

Let me go on the record right now and say I find the idea of Slavery to be one of the great wrong that any society has ever done, second only to genocide.

Slavery forms humanity of it's victims and its owners. It deprives society of reaching its true potential and no world class society has survived very long with out outlawing it. No one can say where the worlds greatest minds will be born and American inventors have proven that time and time again.

But I will not go on to allow to go unchallenged that the United State entered into war to "free the slaves."

I will be glad to avoid the "States Rights" argument and move ever so closely to the crux of the problem that brought on the war.

The high cost of moving the goods from southern states to where the factories in the Northern states was destroying Southern economies. The Southern State were at best existing like third world countries. Cheep labor costs was provided by slaves, but laws had already been past to prevent slave owners from aquiring more slaves.

With a dwindling labor supply and rising costs of tariffs on goods moving from south to north and the rising cost of goods being shipped south, the stage had already been set to make Southern states from being equal.

So the South did what it could. It took it's fight to Congress. it tried everything in its power to change the tax burdens, but their calls fell on deaf ears.

In the end, Southern leaders felt that they were trapped, their economy would go down in flames because they could not afford to pay for manual labor, and they couldn't produce enough goods to pay for need good from the North and they had no power to do anything about it.

Current thinking was that if they could break off from the union, they could bargain with other countries directly to sell their goods abroad. England was one of those counties.

You could understand where the Southerners fealt like they had history to back themselves up. Taxation without representation.

The North had to realize what was going to happen. It wasn't like this was a suprise, even when rebel forces attacked. News papers printed stories with headlines warning about war. Leaflets, broadsides, booklets all talked about problems faced in the south.

The President and Congress could have negotiated before a single shot was fired, but the didn't. The stonewalled, and waited until the south was desperate, and still they were stubborn.


This doesn't make the North evil, it doesn't make the South right. But it is a mistake that they both made, a both paid a price so severe that it makes the American loss of life in World War II pale in comparison.

I would also right now like to take exception to comment made by the individual who stated that every person who lived South of the Mason Dixon line was a traitor during the Civil War.

Every state in the South provided at least one unit of men to fight on the Union side. That was not the Confederacies idea, that was citizens taking matters as well as their lives and the livelihoods into their own hands for the sake of the whole Union. So don't be so quick to judge everyone who lived south of the Mason Dixon line.

Lincoln, the great emancipator, didn't even get around to the Emancipation Declaration until two years after the war, and he didn't bother to free the slaves in the North that still existed. Those slave would have to be freed by their owners themselves, or die that way. The Emancipation Declaration was just a document created with a two fold process, it was propaganda to bring other forces into support the President and other Nations, and to try and further damage the Southern economy (which was sadly already broke.)

But, ploy that it was, it was the second greatest thing that he had ever done. It was second only to fighting to keep the Union together.

IMHO, world history shows that without America's combined ability to create goods that prevented Germany's ability to conquer Europe in WW II.

I don't own a Confederate Flag, I'm not the kind of guy that goes around shouting "The South will rise again!" Mostly because I don't want it to. And I am always offended and disturbed by racest individuals of any stripe using it as a symbol of hate against anyone.

But I respect those that honor that flag as a common people that had their ancestors stood up against a government that would not help them when their backs were up against the wall.

My name is Michael Griffin-Wade.
I am a seventh generation Floridian, and Southerner and Citizen of the United States, and I am proud of it.