Isn't Success in D&D Dependent Upon Murder?

[Henry]

I think it is intriguing to ask ourselves why we find pretending to be killers so amusing. Is the human race simply wired to kill? Are we acting out our own inner aggressions? The debate on this issue is certainly old, but I doubt it will ever end.

Ah, this takes me back to the very first version of Eric Noah's boards...

I think "escapism" fits as much as anything else. It';s because a huge portion of most every culture is heroic epics from the past which glorify the warrior and the defense of what is good, true, and decent. Not going into politics, there do arise situations throughout history where people and states have had to fight back or be killed, and those situations are made easier when you have a heroic justification to fall back on - a reason that says, "Look, somebody cool did it before you did, so it's not that bad, and in fact, it's honorable." Examples range from Heracles, to Beowulf, to Zorro (technically pulp, but fits the mould), even up to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Couple that with pulp fiction of the previous century - Conan, Fafhrd & the Mouser, Doc Savage, Flash Gordon... down to Star Trek, Jonny Quest, and Star Wars. Escapism that says, "you live in this humdrum 9-to-5 life, but here's some cool people you can read about who look cool, have lots of consequence-free sex, and kick butt on all who oppose them."

So if you get psychoanalytical about it, many D&D scenarios, especially the more classic "dungeon-crawls", could be described as glofied murder fantasies - but it's stretching it the same way that using an anti-bacterial soap is indulging murder fantasies. Most of the time, it's people wanting to emulate cool characters, and our literature makes those cool characters' actions black and white.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It's not murder unless it's illegal.

I think it is intriguing to ask ourselves why we find pretending to be killers so amusing. Is the human race simply wired to kill? Are we acting out our own inner aggressions?

Who gives a ?

I'm sorry but isn't the observation that D&D PCs are a bunch of killers (not murderers) utterly obvious? It isn't an interesting point.

 

[Piratecat]

It isn't an interesting point.

To you, perhaps. But it probably is to others. So the thing to do is not threadcrap, and instead to just move on to the next thread if you don't need to add anything.

 

[Qualidar]

Couple that with pulp fiction of the previous century - Conan, Fafhrd & the Mouser, Doc Savage, Flash Gordon... down to Star Trek, Jonny Quest, and Star Wars. Escapism that says, "you live in this humdrum 9-to-5 life, but here's some cool people you can read about who look cool, have lots of consequence-free sex, and kick butt on all who oppose them."

Damn that Haji !!!

 

[Zulgyan]

Unlike our world, D&D has beings that are bad by nature.

This does not happen in our world, where all things are good by nature.

PCs of the D&D world do no wrong, since they try to make the world a better place by fighting what is bad.


Anyway... D&D is a game, and not a moral teaching session. As man of faith I like to learn about morality and apply it to my life. As a D&D gamer, I like to have fun. That involves killing many things and taking their stuff. Something that wouldn't be fun at all in real life.

 

[Umbran]

I think it is intriguing to ask ourselves why we find pretending to be killers so amusing. Is the human race simply wired to kill? Are we acting out our own inner aggressions? The debate on this issue is certainly old, but I doubt it will ever end.

I think a large part of the issue sits in the fact that it really is only pretending. As such, the real nature of the human race as killers (or not) does not really enter into it, or does so only tangentially (as I';ll note in a bit). It is fiction, and we know it. For mentally and emotionally healthy players, the actions of our characters really don't reflect anything about our real-world moral or ethical nature. It is a gedanken experiment, nothing more.

Form there, we can be more general - why to we enjoy playing characters that can do anything we don't normally do in real life? Because we have complex brains that like to get some exercise now and then.

Now, put together the fact that the hobby does not have real-world moral consequences with the fact that we are not far removed from our brutal past. I wouldn't say we are "wired to kill", but we did develop under conditions where life was pretty violent. So, violence is still in our mental lexicon of possible solutions to tough problems.

 

[bento]

The point the OP makes, players gain power through defeating (most probably "killing") foes, led me to look at other systems and how they reward players.

In my search True20 had the greatest appeal because players level up when the GM (DM) tells them to. The guideline for GMs is this levelling up taking place after the completion of an "adventure." So the emphasis for the GM to throw monsters/humanoids at the players to kill, for me at least, is greatly diminished.

When I used True20 to run an Asian-flavored adventure, the players were much more likely to take prisoners or incapacitate enemies without the coup de tat. Their focus was re-oriented from "killing and taking stuff" to resolving the situation. There were times they used force to defeat baddies, but during conflicts where the antagonists were "gray" rather than evil, the players always chose non-violence. There are other rules in True20 to get players to seek alternatives to violence - greater "lethality" during combat and fewer access to magical healing, but I think taking the need for killing to gain XP off the table helped focus them on the story.

A DM can always institute this "no levelling until I say so" rule, without playing with True20 rules. The players will probably grumble at first, but as long as you follow up with fewer meaningless slaughter encounters, and more story-based rewards, they may come to like it more.

 

[TerraDave]

Yes, D&D has been designed to rationalise killing/murder and looting/armed robery. And its very much in the core of the game. Its harder, and less fun, to play otherwise.

As noted above, its also not unique in games or media. And that does say something about people.

But don't feel to bad about the body count. At least no one has blown up the Deathstar (thousands, hundreds of thousands, dead?). And something like Axis and Allies, now that is a blood-bath.

 

[Delta]

It was actually a discussion that began in-character on the morality of killing sentient creatures, whether evil deserved to be punished, and whether death was the appropriate punishment.

In D&D, the answers are -- it's okay; yes; and yes.

There shouldn't be much in-character debate on the issue. The answers to morality questions in D&D are objective and fixed -- the answers can be determined with divination, or commune, or a phylactery of faithfulness.

D&D is based on killing stuff, but based on the worldview (D&D's is not ours), killing isn't the same as murder. Most cultures don't consider executions, hunting, or putting down stray animals to be murder -- and that's the analog of what adventurers crusading against evil do in D&D. Stuff admittedly I don't want to see in real life against other people; but in D&D those things are clearly considered good acts, against evil races.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I honestly think it's just a game. Does the popularity of Monopoly say something about how humans enjoy financially destroying others? Does the popularity of Battleship say something about how humans secretly harbor a desire to be naval commanders and fire randomly across the ocean in the hopes of hitting an enemy frigate? I don't know. Maybe.

But I think it probably says more about humans and games. We like games and we like competition. We play and watch all sorts. DnD isn't too much different.