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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 841054" data-attributes="member: 2013">I won't speak for Psion, but I will speak for me.Why is murdering "evil" in such a context condoned?  Because it is "kill or be killed."  If you do not kill evil, it will kill you.  If it kills you, good is overcome by evil and ceases to exist.  Therefore to uphold the continued existence of good, it is necessary to exterminate evil.  Since it is, in essence, self defense, it is no longer strictly "murder."  Obviously, we distinguish between premeditated murder and self-defense... but whether or not "pre-emptive self-defense" can be considered separately from murder is another discussion.  I happen to think that if you subscribe to the "black and white" evil and good morality, you can justify pre-emptive assaults on the grounds that "we know - we don't BELIEVE but we know as an indisputable point of fact - that they will at some point attack us.  We therefore are acting in self-defense."  Not to be confused with the Real World where we might question as to whether we "know they will attack us" - we just think they probably will.  It's a simplistic mindset, to be sure, but B&W evil IS simplistic and can easily be brought to this conclusion, offering rational justification for those who step into a B&W mindset.Rape is NOT condoned.  Rape is a violation of another sentient being.  You cannot rape an evil race and have it be a good act.  IMO, even with a B&W mentality, you do not rape - this is not "exterminating evil before it exterminates you" and therefore does not qualify as "self-defense" as argued for in the above paragraphs.Torture is a trickier question.  It gets into "does the end justify the means?"  Are you interrogating a prisoner to advance your war with his kind?  I personally play torture as an evil act - because it does not directly advance the "exterminate evil before it exterminates you" cause and must be rationalized into the realm of "Self-defense" by such arguments as "by getting information, we allow ourselves to exterminate more evil."  If you do not get the information from your prisoner, you have to fall back on the "it might have worked" - and this is not sufficient rationalization to provide justification IMO.Thus, killing "evil" creatures is justifiable because it is in direct self-defense (if they are evil, it is known that they will for certain attack you eventually).  Rape and torture are not, because there is no certainty that these actions are definitely in "self-defense" (even "pre-emptive SD").  Does that make sense?  Again, it is a simplistic view of good and evil, but allowed under the B&W interpretation.Since you conceded the point that those who DEMAND vile content are less than those who DEMAND NO vile content, let us use an example.  These numbers are pulled out of the air, but serve illustratively.2% demand NO vile content1% demand VILE content97% don't care one way or the other.Printing VILE content:Satisfies 98% of your fan base (the 97% "don't care" and the 1% demanding it)Annoys 2% of your fan base (the 2% "No vile")Printing NO VILE content:Satisfies 99% of your fan base (th 97% "don't care" and the 2% demanding none)Annoys 1% of your fan base (the 1% "we demand vile")Given the above, how does it make business sense to print vile content?  Doing so satisfies less of your fan base than if you omitted it and annoys more of your fan base.  The percentages annoyed either way are small, but in a strictly business sense, if you subscribe to the theory that those who demand NONE outnumber those who demand VILE, it doesn't matter that the vast majority "doesn't care" - you're losing by printing vile.Bad example.  First off, I don't pay for the radio station.  Also, I can't "turn" to another Dragon... there are not multiple choices.  A better example is, "you get exactly one radio station in your area of the country.  Furthermore, you have to pay to listen to it.  When it plays something you don't like, do you just turn it off and shrug or do you feel outraged that they're using your money to send you stuff you don't want?"Though, FWIW, I have taken my Dragon subscription money and used it to subscribe to the ENWorld Player's Journal instead - the closest thing I can find to a replacement.Here, I agree with you whole-heartedly. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Most people will find this shocking, but I was *looking forward* to the BoVD when I first heard about it.  As more details became available, my enthusiasm dimmed, because I was worried that it was going in a direction that I personally feel is unneeded in gaming.  When I saw it in my store, I was offended.  So it's not like I was looking to complain about it from the start... it's a product that "earned" my ire (if you can call it that) - it didn't "start out" with strikes against it in my eyes.--The Sigil</blockquote>

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