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

[Edena_of_Neith]

You miss the point. The point is that the people of Medegia were mundane. Just ... ordinary people.
They needed to become un-ordinary people. They needed to become extraordinary people.
Ivid used extraordinary people and beings. Aerdi used extraordinary magic, items, means, and beings. The destruction of Medegia was heavily accomplished by the extraordinary.

The reality of Medegian society was mundanity. The Holy Censor ruled over a feudal state in which the common people were kept as serfs or peasants. They had no chance to become extraordinary, to shine, to achieve anything.
This culture doomed them, for they lived in a world of the extraordinary.

The whole idea that I proposed at the start of this thread: that a good aligned people could enjoy killing as fun and games, is an extraordinary concept. (Some would say horrific instead, or use words for the concept a lot more demeaning than that.)
Unfortunately, I cannot pursue that line of thinking further. It would lead to an argument over human nature itself. It would lead to a frightful mess.

Instead, I will say that Medegia needed to be Extraordinary, if it was to survive.
The Ramen, were an extraordinary people.

Edena_of_Neith

 

[Doug McCrae]

Drizzt could take Vader but the Enterprise would beat them both.

NO WAI!!

 

[shilsen]

You miss the point. The point is that the people of Medegia were mundane. Just ... ordinary people.
They needed to become un-ordinary people. They needed to become extraordinary people.
Ivid used extraordinary people and beings. Aerdi used extraordinary magic, items, means, and beings. The destruction of Medegia was heavily accomplished by the extraordinary.

The reality of Medegian society was mundanity. The Holy Censor ruled over a feudal state in which the common people were kept as serfs or peasants. They had no chance to become extraordinary, to shine, to achieve anything.
This culture doomed them, for they lived in a world of the extraordinary.

The whole idea that I proposed at the start of this thread: that a good aligned people could enjoy killing as fun and games, is an extraordinary concept. (Some would say horrific instead, or use words for the concept a lot more demeaning than that.)

And here again, as in much of this thread, you make a huge jump and try to correlate two things that have no connection. There's absolutely no connection between (1) a good aligned people being very good at warfare and defending themselves and (2) the same good aligned people enjoying killing as fun and games. I don't know that much about Greyhawk, but I do know that it contains various nations such as Furyondy, Keoland and others that are arguably good aligned but also very capable of self defense and fighting Iuz, without any of them enjoying killing as fun and games. In the Eberron setting, which I'm a lot more familiar with, there are multiple nations that do not consider killing fun and games, but which are also extremely good at warfare.

In short, the idea that you proposed at the beginning of this thread is flawed in its preconceptions, which makes the vast majority of the points you make thereafter flawed too. IMNSHO, of course.

Unfortunately, I cannot pursue that line of thinking further. It would lead to an argument over human nature itself. It would lead to a frightful mess.

I've read this thread, remember? It's way too late to avoid that

 

[green slime]

Look at my question from the POV of: How do the people of Medegia save themselves and their country?
Look at my question from the POV of the 2nd Edition rules (since Medegia was destroyed under 2nd Edition rules.)

This has been answered already.

You just won't accept, that defeating a threat always granted XP, killing or no. No DM I played with would have denied a player XP for capturing a villian and returning him to justice.

Medegia was destroyed because some story writer thought it was a cool idea, not because their military was weak. Their military was a fantastical product of someone's imagination.

 

[billd91]

If the Spartans could pull it off against the Persian Army, then the Medegians must have a way to pull it off against Ivid's Juggernaut.

Except the Spartans didn't pull it off against the Persian army. They were outflanked when the Persians defeated the 1000 Phocians guarding the flanks and were killed to a man - the '300' and the approximately 900 helots who supported them along with the 700 Thespian volunteers who also stayed behind to fight.

Realistically speaking, the salvation of Medegia could only come by mollifying Ivid. Osson of Almor's forces would have to be trapped and crushed. The leaders of Medegia whose support of Ivid was less than enthusiastic would have to be replaced, ideally turned over to Ivid for his amusement. And levies of troops would probably have to be sent to support Ivid's other campaigns against Nyrond and other enemies.

Ultimately, Medegia was destroyed because the authors wanted thought it would be an intresting element to place in the history of the Greyhawk wars. And it is. Watching the insane Overking turn on his own usual supporters adds drama and texture. It also makes evil less monolithic and suggests to players and DMs that there may be opportunities for good and evil to work together to defeat a worse evil... one so debased that it will lash out at anything with tremendous force.

 

[green slime]

What the Spartans did do, was loose the battle and win the war: the other Greek states saw the sacrifice made by the Spartans, and they also saw just how incompetent the Persians were. Yes, the Persians had an army the size of which Asia Minor had never seen before. Yes, they ultimately won that particular battle. But the won it in such a way they were humiliated. And they continued to be humiliated in spite of their overwhelming numbers, in further battles until they could stomach their losses no more, and turned tail like hounds.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I asked: How do we create a good aligned people, who view killing as fun and games?

Apparently, nobody can answer the question.

 

[green slime]

I asked: How do we create a good aligned people, who view killing as fun and games?

Apparently, nobody can answer the question.

No you didn't.

But now that you ask the question: No "we" can't. Because killing as "fun and games" is generally regarded as cruel, callous, unneccessary, inhumane, vile, repugnant, & reprehensible. Thus, for a society to develop such a take on real, actual murders, homicide is to fall head long into Evil.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

So, you are saying the question is impossible to answer. Fair enough.
If someone else thinks they can answer it, though, I'm curious as to what they would say.

EDIT: I never said it was an easy question!

 

[green slime]

So, you are saying the question is impossible to answer. Fair enough.
If someone else thinks they can answer it, though, I'm curious as to what they would say.

I'm saying it can't be answered within the standard frame of morality that DnD has, with its fixed, universal moral judgement on what is good/evil.

If you instead switch to a different moral view of the universe, a non-standard DnD version, then I'm sure you could find a motivation with which it is "good" to sacrifice people on an hoary Altar to the demons of war and pestilence.

Just don't try and convince me that that society is "good."