Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="airwalkrr" data-source="post: 3578478" data-attributes="member: 12460">Before I begin, let me please iterate very clearly that:I AM NOT TRYING TO START A FLAME WAR.I'm looking for rational discussion on this social phenomenon. Moving on.I had a rather insightful moment the other day when, while talking with my buddies after a game, we began tallying up the number of corpses we had stacked (proverbially of course) in the course of the present campaign. Our number was an estimate based on shaky memory, but I had been journaling our progress quite diligently for a number of sessions so it is fairly accurate. By the time we were 4th level we were responsible for the death of some 160 creatures, many (if not most) of them sentient and intelligent. 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. Since the majority of our party was good-aligned (at the time; we've shifted down the axis a bit since then) we began discussing the issue in-character when we realized that even our good-aligned PCs had differing opinions on the matter and it eventually developed into a real-life conversation.One situation which came up was an encounter with a humanoid of some sort (an orc I think) who ate humans. While many of us agreed in-character that such an act was cannibalistic and vile, our characters discovered that the orc had not slain the humans and had in fact merely scavenged the bodies. It turns out the orc was actually neutral and had never killed anyone before. In the end, we sent the orc on its way after teaching it a lesson on the devouring of intelligent species, but we got to wondering whether the orc's behavior was really improper, or in D&D terms, evil.I occasionally play characters who are racist bigots against some kind of humanoid because it presents an interesting roleplaying challenge to the group. My favorite is the elf so convinced of the superiority of elf-kind that he views humans as little more than chattel and deems even half-elves as nothing better than slave-drivers. In his estimation, creatures such as orcs and goblins must be eradicated from the world in a genocidal effort. I even play such characters with good alignments from time to time, though they are more tempered in their beliefs, seeing orcs as simply beyond redemption genetically (extermination being a kind of necessary evil) and humankind as children who must be constantly supervised and even scolded at times. These characters have often proved expedient in games where the other players are willing to wax eloquent over the morality of killing every monster they come across. But in truth, a vast majority of the D&D game is centered around this kind of killing, often in cold blood. The monster must be slain because it is evil. If you allow the monster to live, it will probably backslide into its evil ways and become a recurring villain. And besides, if you don't kill the monster, he will probably at least be angry that you took his stuff (stealing is always easier on the conscience when the previous owner is already dead). At worst, he will swear vengeance against you and become the mastermind behind an entire story arc designed to squash your characters where they lie.The point is, in order to get the rewards of playing the game well (namely XP and treasure), monsters must usually be dead, cremated, and ashes scattered to the wind atop the highest peak in sight by sundown. Now there are certainly exceptions to the rule, but I have found the vast majority of the time, things are better for my characters when the bad guys are dead and stay dead (and don't become UNdead). Western society is thoroughly familiar with and used to extreme violence. Crime is widespread and Hollywood tells us that the story isn't over until the villain is dead (until he returns to life for the sequel). D&D is hardly the worst thing we could be exposed to so I don't question whether or not violence is appropriate. However, I do question why a hobby needs to be so dependent upon what is essentially murder (many monsters are just humans in monster-suits) to be fun. I've thought about it many ways and I just can't see that the game would be much fun if I purchased a merciful weapon, turned bad guys in to the law, and only destroyed things that weren't alive already (like undead and constructs). Campaigns that don't rely on such things are rare, and it often requires an unusual group of people to pull such things off.We often don't think of it as murder. We think of it as justice. We think of it as revenge for misdeeds done towards us or our love ones. Maybe we simply don the evil alignment and say we don't care. But the fact of the matter is the main characters are basically serial killers who often even have their own routines ("Cut out his tongue so they can't speak with dead!" "Burn the bodies so they can't be animated later!" etc.). 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.</blockquote>

Verification