Arrgh! Mark!
First Post
It seems to me that Good characters are happy characters devoted to helping everyone work together regardless of race, species, colour, and odor.
Is it just me, or is this happy do-gooder who goes about stealing from evil sorcerers and so on only available because of our so called 'better' morality? You know, the white beurocratic morality of good for all and all for good. UNESCO and so on.
While this is certainly good, how would it be possible for characters in any medieval setting, untouched by globalisation, understand or support this? Even staple fantasy has nothing like the two great wars that kicked off our current notions of morality.
Racism is a part of our world. Regardless of its morality, it is an interesting part of our history. Without some great unifying force, how could fantasy pretend to have such wonderful morals? Some bloke thought of it one day? There's been nothing like the Great War or WW2 in most fantasy, ancient dragon wars aside.
So I say, chances are your good character shouldn't be so good as what you think he should be. Wasn't he born to a certain country at a certain time? Isn't he subject to historical events? Isn't he told every day that members of other races are pretty useless and want to take what he has, so he has to take theirs first?
Every high fantasy world I've played in reads something like this. Oh, people have their differences. Elves are snooty, dwarves are prideful, humans are idiots. But they don't truly dislike one another. Only individuals dislike.
Wheres the institutional hate, baby? 'Can't we all just get along' is something I doubt most fantasy can cope with!
But regardless, playing such worlds is much more interesting on the roleplaying side of things. I doubt there's been more than a hundred figures of power in the real world who could be classified as good. That LG king your making who wants to help everyone? LG is relative to his country and his people. What godforsaken reason should he have to be a bleeding heart for people who have warred with him and he has warred against for his entire life? Who have killed his people? And on the other side is the same thing.
Also, war happens quite often. Skirmishes mostly. Don't forget this. An entire kingdom at peace is one you should re-think. An entire empire not torn with civil war, raiding barbarians and corrupt politicians is one you shouldn't be playing in.
I'm sick to death of liberal happy bunny kingdoms of nice who are raided by monsters. The biggest monsters, the true evil lies at the heart of civilisation. Never forget that. Even chromatic dragons are just neutral hungry or neutral greedy. Its only the human that wants you to suffer before you die.
Is it just me, or is this happy do-gooder who goes about stealing from evil sorcerers and so on only available because of our so called 'better' morality? You know, the white beurocratic morality of good for all and all for good. UNESCO and so on.
While this is certainly good, how would it be possible for characters in any medieval setting, untouched by globalisation, understand or support this? Even staple fantasy has nothing like the two great wars that kicked off our current notions of morality.
Racism is a part of our world. Regardless of its morality, it is an interesting part of our history. Without some great unifying force, how could fantasy pretend to have such wonderful morals? Some bloke thought of it one day? There's been nothing like the Great War or WW2 in most fantasy, ancient dragon wars aside.
So I say, chances are your good character shouldn't be so good as what you think he should be. Wasn't he born to a certain country at a certain time? Isn't he subject to historical events? Isn't he told every day that members of other races are pretty useless and want to take what he has, so he has to take theirs first?
Every high fantasy world I've played in reads something like this. Oh, people have their differences. Elves are snooty, dwarves are prideful, humans are idiots. But they don't truly dislike one another. Only individuals dislike.
Wheres the institutional hate, baby? 'Can't we all just get along' is something I doubt most fantasy can cope with!
But regardless, playing such worlds is much more interesting on the roleplaying side of things. I doubt there's been more than a hundred figures of power in the real world who could be classified as good. That LG king your making who wants to help everyone? LG is relative to his country and his people. What godforsaken reason should he have to be a bleeding heart for people who have warred with him and he has warred against for his entire life? Who have killed his people? And on the other side is the same thing.
Also, war happens quite often. Skirmishes mostly. Don't forget this. An entire kingdom at peace is one you should re-think. An entire empire not torn with civil war, raiding barbarians and corrupt politicians is one you shouldn't be playing in.
I'm sick to death of liberal happy bunny kingdoms of nice who are raided by monsters. The biggest monsters, the true evil lies at the heart of civilisation. Never forget that. Even chromatic dragons are just neutral hungry or neutral greedy. Its only the human that wants you to suffer before you die.
