Dragon 300 a bad idea

[Henry]

Honestly, if people really had a "darkside" which they needed to express, or else they'd EXPLODE one day into a violent rage, then society would be a THOUSAND times more violent than it is, now. The vast majority of people manage to live productive, normal lives without requiring an "outlet" for their supposed darkside.

I respectfully disagree. Outlets come in many forms - jogging and excercise, sports games, dexterous hobbies such as figure painting and crafts, taking long drives in pastoral scenes, and even simple primal scream thrapy (otherwise known as "yelling your lungs out where no one can hear.")

Most human beings can manage their anger and stress, and those things that can stress them, to the point of not acting out on them. However, there will always be individuals who cannot - as in the case of Columbine. Taking away their video games would not have stopped them.

 

[The Sigil]

People in therapy have to commit their full willpower and agreement to the therapy, and still it often doesn't work. If one doesn't want to become evil, he won't, not even if he plays the evil corpse-raping necromancer for 6 hours a day. Not even under hypnosis. A normal human mind simply doesn't work like that.Becoming better at something doesn't mean you will practice it. I could get very good at killing people by taking an advanced martial arts course, but that doesn't mean I will ever do it.

This illustrates a very good point... and one that I did not explore as fully as I would have liked in my last post.

Again, imagining yourself (or your PC) doing something does not necessarily mean you are going to actually take that course of action. That is why therapy doesn't always work - perhaps there is that force of subconscious will (or whatever) sabotaging the therapy (I think the only thing that could keep a person who consciously wants to change from changing is a mental or physical problem - and not necessarily one in the control of the person).

OTOH, NOT imagining yourself doing something is a pretty good way to ensure that you don NOT take a course of action. We almost always think before we act.

My other question is, "if the guy really dislikes evil, why is he playing a corpse-raping necromancer 6 hours a day?" That indicates to me that he doesn't REALLY dislike it as much as he claims.

I think my brother made an interesting point when he was discussing an evil campaign he ran in once. He is basically a good and loving person and he said, "at one point, I finally said to myself, 'this is sick. Why am I even pretending to do these things? I don't want to do them.' When I realized that, I realized that if I didn't want to do them in real life, there was no point in doing it in a game."

I tend to agree with that sentiment. If you don't want to do them IRL, why bother with them in a game?

Finally, again addressing the question of the DM, I personally think most DMs see their villains as much through the eyes of the heroic PCs as through the villains themselves. The DM keeps himself "arms-length" from his villains most of the time - with a PC, it's "I do this" - with a DM, it's "he does this." That difference, from first to third person, is huge.

--The Sigil

 

[barsoomcore]

I could get very good at killing people by taking an advanced martial arts course, but that doesn't mean I will ever do it.

A very good point. I have in fact been practicing how to kill people with a sword for over ten years now. I have not yet actually killed a soul.

Here's the thing: If you want to hurt people, you will fantasize about it. You will play out potential scenarios. Just as we do with all the things we want to do.
If you don't want to hurt people, it doesn't matter how many times you fantasize about it. Fantasy doesn't make you WANT things. It may encourage you to proceed down paths you're already interested in, but it won't create that interest.

I'm not saying there is no danger in exploring your "dark side" (assuming you have one). You may discover things about yourself you never wanted to know. You may in fact trigger off some repressed desire to cause pain. I admit this is a possibility.

But the desire had to be there to begin with. Role-playing won't put it there.

If you don't want to get better, no amount of therapy is ever going to help. The same holds true for getting worse. It only works if you want it to.

 

[SemperJase]

SemperJase:

I have a question. What about DMs?

Am I therefore a troubled person? Am I in danger of hurting others from my dark fantasies? I don't think I am, but I'm wondering what you think.

Good question barsoomcore.

As another poster mentioned, the DM's role is different. Unlike the players, the DM isn't specificially the character. Generally, the attrocities committed by a villain are "offstage" the DM merely reports what has been done by the character.

Secondly, the DM generally does not identify personally with an NPC the way a player does with his/her PC.

Now, if the DM were to use his NPC's as way to get a thrill from dominating and completely controlling his PC's I would say that it is dangerous. Still, if you were this kind of DM, I would doubt if your players would have much fun and you would quickly be a DM without a group.
Thirdly, the DM in a heroic campaign is really assisting the players. The DM is acknowledging that the evil characters are wrong by setting up the scenario of pitting the good PC's against the antagonist.

However, the DM who assists evil PC's by setting up a scenario that encourages murder, rape, and torture against innocent NPCs is participating in that negative behavior.

 

[psionotic]

Adventurers are vigilantes by nature. Characters I have played have killed those who are 'evil', who have committed crimes, who simply threaten to harm others, countless times.

But I myself am pretty pacifistic. I don't own a gun and never will.

For healthy people, roleplaying is an escape and a chance to be someone else. I consider my roleplaying experiences to be a positive force in my life, and I have learned a lot about myself from the characters I like to play. But none of them have made me any more likely to hunt down and kill the guy who stole my bicycle.

 

[drnuncheon]

Actually, from what I heard the dragon 300 special sealed section was pretty tame and weak. Like it was more about having a special sealed section than actually having something in there that may upset a reader.

Pretty much. The "monster cults" weren't any more vile than the ones in the non-sealed section of an earlier Dragon, and most of the spells were pretty tame too. Yeah, wall of maggots is gross, but it's not even R-rated.

The one spell that was truly vile was also purely gratuitous - there was absolutely no reason for it to involve necrophilia except for the shock value. It could just as easily been a 'touch a corpse and turn it into armor' spell. I was very disappointed that they included it.

My primary complaint with the issue was not due to the fact that they dealt with "mature" themes, but that they chose to do so in such a juvenile way.

J

 

[Piratecat]

Not to drag this kicking and screaming back on topic, but I really quite enjoyed issue 300. Let's face it... I would have bought it with or without the sealed section, and my major impression was "nothing in here really needs to be sealed." Except for the corpse nookie, maybe. That was a tad bit gratuitous.

But I liked the cool new necromantic spells. I liked the articles. It's going to be a useful issue for me. And the sealed section was just over-rated hype, and I can forgive that if it sells more copies for Paiso.

 

[barsoomcore]

I think my brother made an interesting point when he was discussing an evil campaign he ran in once. He is basically a good and loving person and he said, "at one point, I finally said to myself, 'this is sick. Why am I even pretending to do these things? I don't want to do them.' When I realized that, I realized that if I didn't want to do them in real life, there was no point in doing it in a game."

I could not have come up with a better endorsement for running an evil campaign. Well said, Sigil.

Playing an evil character shows you what evil really is. This is a valuable thing -- you understand what is wrong with this. Rejecting simple-minded fantasies of power and domination is a part of growing up and becoming a human being. For many people, exploring those fantasies is the quickest way to discover their essential hollowness.

Just like your brother. It's a good thing he played in that campaign. Now he knows.

 

[The Sigil]

My primary complaint with the issue was not due to the fact that they dealt with "mature" themes, but that they chose to do so in such a juvenile way.

This is always the biggest problem with such material IMO.

--The Sigil

 

[Dr_Rictus]

It was in still poorer taste to dismiss the Columbine incident out of hand as "irrelevant."

I certainly didn't do so. Did somebody? I'm not trying to be disingenuous; I may have missed it.

I did say that bringing it up was fallacious, i.e. a plausible argument that is nevertheless false or invalid. I maintain that an off-hand mention of the incident itself without accompanying commentary was a fallacious tactic: it falsely charges the opposition argument with defending itself from a philosophical alliance with murderers, as if that purported alliance were the issue itself.

I also expressed what I would characterize as considerable dismay at its introduction into the thread. I called the tactic a "trick," though I do admit that may not have been its intent. I value rational discussion very highly when it comes to emotionally charged topics, so the use of emotionally-charged fallacy is particularly disturbing to me. Nor is it an academic issue to me; as a professional game designer (who has worked on products intended variously for children and for mature audiences) I am deeply concerned with the ethics of the profession.

As an aside, I do appreciate your willingness to engage in the discussion subsequent to these comments intellectually. It has considerably allayed the fears I had at the outset about the direction things were turning (not that these sorts of discussions don't inevitably tend to devolve eventually).