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<blockquote data-quote="deadman1204" data-source="post: 9367059" data-attributes="member: 7045949">After thinking about this, I think the OP has a very poor read on history.The troops of&nbsp; Charlemange were not unusually &quot;evil&quot; or &quot;violent&quot;. That was everyone. Those &quot;muslims&quot; that they fought? They were not innocent victims. They were world renouned slavers and pillagers. All powers pillaged, plundered, and took slaves. Be they in Gaul, Iraq, China, or elsewhere.Heck, in the middle ages when Europe was a backwater to the great empires of the middle east and elsewhere, guess what Europe's major export was? Slaves. Yet you cannot say Europe was exceptionally &quot;bad&quot; because guess who was buying up all those slaves? The major empires of the world...This goes to the core of the fantasy idea of kings and nobles. ALL rulers were terrible people by todays standards. They killed, pillaged, and enslaved anyone they could. Any ruler who wasn't aggressive didn't last long, as their neighbors would pick them apart - if their own nobles didn't depose them for lack of warfare and profits.The modern idea of chivalry and nobility has zero relation to the historical concept of it. Actual Chivalry meant the skilled application of violence.&nbsp; I don't mean the romantic &quot;fair fights&quot; and &quot;honorable duels&quot;. I mean burning and plundering everything in your path in the name of your king or cause. Razing a village leaving zero survivors in the name of your cause was the definition of Chivalric in the year 1,000. In fact, failing to destroy all the peasants in your path was weakness and foolish. You were leaving resources for the enemy to rebuild with. Letting all those people go meant they could raise food for the enemy or become conscripted soldiers. Only in much later centuries was the concept of chivalry completely altered into what we think of as chivalry today.The basic tenant of DnD is murdering people who you don't like and stealing their stuff. The reason could be a one dimensional comic book treatement as a &quot;bad guy&quot;, or that they are on the wrong political side. Quite often we deny that the &quot;enemies&quot; are even people. Every dragon is as smart or smarter than people are, yet everyone salivates at the idea of murdering and robbing them. Even selling and enslaving their children as &quot;pets&quot; and &quot;mounts&quot;. It makes no sense to inject morality into one part of the conversation while ignoring the rest of it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="deadman1204, post: 9367059, member: 7045949"] After thinking about this, I think the OP has a very poor read on history. The troops of Charlemange were not unusually "evil" or "violent". That was everyone. Those "muslims" that they fought? They were not innocent victims. They were world renouned slavers and pillagers. All powers pillaged, plundered, and took slaves. Be they in Gaul, Iraq, China, or elsewhere. Heck, in the middle ages when Europe was a backwater to the great empires of the middle east and elsewhere, guess what Europe's major export was? Slaves. Yet you cannot say Europe was exceptionally "bad" because guess who was buying up all those slaves? The major empires of the world... This goes to the core of the fantasy idea of kings and nobles. ALL rulers were terrible people by todays standards. They killed, pillaged, and enslaved anyone they could. Any ruler who wasn't aggressive didn't last long, as their neighbors would pick them apart - if their own nobles didn't depose them for lack of warfare and profits. The modern idea of chivalry and nobility has zero relation to the historical concept of it. Actual Chivalry meant the skilled application of violence. I don't mean the romantic "fair fights" and "honorable duels". I mean burning and plundering everything in your path in the name of your king or cause. Razing a village leaving zero survivors in the name of your cause was the definition of Chivalric in the year 1,000. In fact, failing to destroy all the peasants in your path was weakness and foolish. You were leaving resources for the enemy to rebuild with. Letting all those people go meant they could raise food for the enemy or become conscripted soldiers. Only in much later centuries was the concept of chivalry completely altered into what we think of as chivalry today. The basic tenant of DnD is murdering people who you don't like and stealing their stuff. The reason could be a one dimensional comic book treatement as a "bad guy", or that they are on the wrong political side. Quite often we deny that the "enemies" are even people. Every dragon is as smart or smarter than people are, yet everyone salivates at the idea of murdering and robbing them. Even selling and enslaving their children as "pets" and "mounts". It makes no sense to inject morality into one part of the conversation while ignoring the rest of it. [/QUOTE]

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