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Consequences of playing "EVIL" races
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7927588" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>I'm very keen on the relativist argument, which is odd if you consider my [not allowed by board rules]. That said, I'm usually not very keen about relativism in my games, or, rather, I like to have situations that aren't entirely relativist or even largely aren't relativist in regards to alignment or the nature of creatures. Usually, I just go with the monsters being monsters because it's a leisure activity and the blanket permission to not have to evaluate the morality of all acts is part of that leisure activity. Much like we watch TV shows and can appreciate, maybe, complex moral dilemmas, we're insulated from them because we don't have to directly engage, the script does that. When presented with a Thanos, we don't really have to spend a lot of time evaluating if Thanos is the bad guy -- Captain America thinks he is and that man's a paladin of virtue. We've seen him wrestle with difficult moral stuff, and he's done right by it, so if he's not wrestling with Thanos' moral position, must not be much of a question. And, that fine, because the point of entertainment isn't to make us confront the stuff we do deal with everyday, but provide a relief valve. So, if orcs are usually easy to point at bad guys, they're not serving as a subtle metaphor of [real life people] so we can engage in subtle displays of [real life politics]. I mean, I suppose they could be, if that's really what you and your players want, but usually it's not. It's Saturday morning cartoons where GI Joe doesn't have to every worry about Cobra Commander being a bad guy because he's just a bad guy. And most games exist at this level of morality -- orcs are just this week's bad guys that the heroes get to fight and prevail, not a complex moral commentary on the plight of [real world stuff].</p><p></p><p>So, I tend to run primary colors versions of morality in my games. If I'm not, I make sure that the group understands that I'm not, what that might or might not mean, and that they all have buy in. Because, again, it's a leisure activity, not a struggle session. I like shades of grey, but I tend to not run that way because it makes it less fun (for me and my group, clearly). That still leaves me lots and lots of room to have interesting and complex bad guys. You can be obviously evil but still sympathetic -- just do bad things for what sound like good reasons.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7927588, member: 16814"] I'm very keen on the relativist argument, which is odd if you consider my [not allowed by board rules]. That said, I'm usually not very keen about relativism in my games, or, rather, I like to have situations that aren't entirely relativist or even largely aren't relativist in regards to alignment or the nature of creatures. Usually, I just go with the monsters being monsters because it's a leisure activity and the blanket permission to not have to evaluate the morality of all acts is part of that leisure activity. Much like we watch TV shows and can appreciate, maybe, complex moral dilemmas, we're insulated from them because we don't have to directly engage, the script does that. When presented with a Thanos, we don't really have to spend a lot of time evaluating if Thanos is the bad guy -- Captain America thinks he is and that man's a paladin of virtue. We've seen him wrestle with difficult moral stuff, and he's done right by it, so if he's not wrestling with Thanos' moral position, must not be much of a question. And, that fine, because the point of entertainment isn't to make us confront the stuff we do deal with everyday, but provide a relief valve. So, if orcs are usually easy to point at bad guys, they're not serving as a subtle metaphor of [real life people] so we can engage in subtle displays of [real life politics]. I mean, I suppose they could be, if that's really what you and your players want, but usually it's not. It's Saturday morning cartoons where GI Joe doesn't have to every worry about Cobra Commander being a bad guy because he's just a bad guy. And most games exist at this level of morality -- orcs are just this week's bad guys that the heroes get to fight and prevail, not a complex moral commentary on the plight of [real world stuff]. So, I tend to run primary colors versions of morality in my games. If I'm not, I make sure that the group understands that I'm not, what that might or might not mean, and that they all have buy in. Because, again, it's a leisure activity, not a struggle session. I like shades of grey, but I tend to not run that way because it makes it less fun (for me and my group, clearly). That still leaves me lots and lots of room to have interesting and complex bad guys. You can be obviously evil but still sympathetic -- just do bad things for what sound like good reasons. [/QUOTE]
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