Killing as fun and games: a question for the Good Guys

[Edena_of_Neith]

D&D is (or at least was) a game about killing. Killing gets you experience points. Killing gains you levels. Killing gets you treasure (which got you experience and levels, see 1E.) Killing gets you magic (and yet more experience and levels, in 1E.) Killing, makes you more able, to kill.
And killing is all fun and games. It is the *game* of Dungeons and Dragons.

Now, in our real world, your typical person does not think of killing as fun and games.
We ordinary folk may *play games* in which killing is fun and games, but *actual killing* is not fun and games. (Well, let's hope that's the case with us ordinary people!)

Let's go In-Character, with our Player Characters, the NPCs, Commoners, monsters, and all the others in the campaign setting.
How do they see killing?

In the campaign world, it's a stretch of the imagination to believe that the PC or NPC 'good guys' or even the 'neutral folk' think of killing as fun and games. Heck, not even all of the 'bad guys' think of killing as fun and games.
I'm guessing that relatively few PCs, NPCs, Commoners, or others think of killing as fun and games. An extraordinary few *do* think that way, and of course cause no end of trouble for the rest, and the PCs typically go after such miscreants.

-

Roleplaying, to some extent, involves us in the thinking of our Player Characters.
We are playing a game based on killing, for the purpose of fun and games ... and our characters generally do not view killing as fun and games. (At least, as a general rule they don't ... evil characters are an exception.)

So I have a question to pose, and hope someone has an answer:

* How do we create a GOOD aligned people In-Character, who view killing as fun and games? *

 

[Nifft]

We don't. Instead, create GOOD people who view battle as deadly serious, and train and fight with each other to practice, not to kill each other.

Then, introduce EVIL people & things what need killing. The killing isn't fun, it's necessary. (The risk of dying isn't fun either.)

Why do you care if the people in the game are having fun? It's the people around the table who matter!

Cheers, -- N

 

[Darkwolf445]

I am guessing it is because D&D, in general, is filled with real monsters and palpable evil. I am not saying mankind is not evil in the real world, just that EVIL is very obvious, very real, and very confrontable in most fantasy worlds.

 

[WillieW]

Roleplaying "death" usually takes places in settings which mirror certain time periods in the history of the real world in which death was very much an everyday event, whether by disease, war, or punishment. The people then didn't particularly see death as "fun and games", but perhaps were more innured to it than most modern Western societies. Think of public executions, attended by hundreds or thousands of people. In the roleplaying game, characters live in a world similarly balanced where death is not a desirable feature but is perhaps a more everyday event than in our real societies. And characters who are adventurers are not pursuing a sport, as you seem to imply, but embark on adventure with the expectation of rewards which may have to be gleaned by overcoming foes. Usually the good aligned characters advance the cause of good -- building civilisation, spreading the worship of good aligned deities, defeating monsters -- by removing evil creatures and enemies along the way. This tends to involve killing them, which in the game context is a necessary "evil" in the cause of good.

 

[Doug McCrae]

* How do we create a GOOD aligned people In-Character, who view killing as fun and games? *

Most heroes in adventure fiction, for example James Bond, the Three Musketeers or anyone played by Erol Flynn, don't seem to take killing too seriously. And yet they are not evil. Maybe from a modern, angsty psychoanalytical perspective they are all sociopaths, but in their own universes they are the good guys.

 

[Shazman]

I don't know what kinds of D&D you play, but in most D&D games I've been in, PC's don't actively seek out sentient beings to slay with wild abandon. PC's are usually forced to kill in defense of themelves or for the greater good (i.e. stopping an evil ritual or army from claiming innocent lives). Which is more evil: killing the marauding red dragon or standing by idly while it razes villages? In many campaigns their are many ways to get exp besides killing. Subduing enemies or talking/sneaking your way out of potentially dangerous situations are all viable means of ending encounters. Overcoming challenges is what gets you exp, not mindlessly slaying things. This may not be true in campaigns of evil-aligned PC's, but that is a different story.

 

[Weregrognard]

* How do we create a GOOD aligned people In-Character, who view killing as fun and games? *

Xcrawl ?

 

[rgard]

I am guessing it is because D&D, in general, is filled with real monsters and palpable evil.

And sometimes my characters are evil.

 

[William drake]

D&D is (or at least was) a game about killing. Killing gets you experience points. Killing gains you levels. Killing gets you treasure (which got you experience and levels, see 1E.) Killing gets you magic (and yet more experience and levels, in 1E.) Killing, makes you more able, to kill.
And killing is all fun and games. It is the *game* of Dungeons and Dragons.

Now, in our real world, your typical person does not think of killing as fun and games.
We ordinary folk may *play games* in which killing is fun and games, but *actual killing* is not fun and games. (Well, let's hope that's the case with us ordinary people!)

Let's go In-Character, with our Player Characters, the NPCs, Commoners, monsters, and all the others in the campaign setting.
How do they see killing?

In the campaign world, it's a stretch of the imagination to believe that the PC or NPC 'good guys' or even the 'neutral folk' think of killing as fun and games. Heck, not even all of the 'bad guys' think of killing as fun and games.
I'm guessing that relatively few PCs, NPCs, Commoners, or others think of killing as fun and games. An extraordinary few *do* think that way, and of course cause no end of trouble for the rest, and the PCs typically go after such miscreants.

-

Roleplaying, to some extent, involves us in the thinking of our Player Characters.
We are playing a game based on killing, for the purpose of fun and games ... and our characters generally do not view killing as fun and games. (At least, as a general rule they don't ... evil characters are an exception.)

So I have a question to pose, and hope someone has an answer:

* How do we create a GOOD aligned people In-Character, who view killing as fun and games? *

I think you've got this all wrong.

Where you, and players you know might see killing as fun and games, and the only way to advance others see it the way it should be. There are many ways to explain EXP and level advancement.
Also, as much as you loved killing the Troll, I'm not sure its always OK with your PC. He might've wished to run away, but was forced to stand his ground. OR, he didn't really want to kill the soldier, but it was the only way to save hisown life.

DnD isn't about killing, and if you think so, you might want to step back from the game and do something else.

 

[el-remmen]

Stuff. . .

Willie!

Sorry to sidetrack the thread, but I just wanted to say, it is good to see you around these part, Mr. Walsh. You wrote some of my favorite Dungeon adventures of all time.

You briefly posted to my old Aquerra boards some years ago, but it nice to see you made your way to EN World.
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As for killing ever being "fun and games" for the good guys, it really depends on the tone of your game. A "good guy" could guiltlessly enjoy killing orcs, if all orcs are beings of evil with no redeeming qualities. . . I don't happen to run games like that, but some people do and have fun with it - in fact, the moral quandaries regarding killing that come up in my games often enough would probably makes some people MISERABLE - but my group finds it fun.