Peace and social cooperation in D&D.

[Ulrick]

In the grim darkness of the near present there is only war...

 

[Krensky]

In the grim darkness of the near present there is only war...

What do you mean 'near'? There's plenty of war right now.

 

[Black Omega]

It is important to note that in the D&D world, folks fail to trade with monsters not because of their physical form, but because of one of the basic assumptions of the game world - that Evil exists. Pre-4e, it was a palpable force of the universe, akin to gravity. And many monsters were steeped in it, some actually made from it., In the long term, those who actively wish you pain, suffering, and an ill-end are not viable trading partners.

I consider this an important point. In DnD morality is not relative. It's very black and white and with a couple simple spells you can tell if someone is good or evil. In terms of the game world, these spells are not self deceptions, they are quite accurate.

 

[Ulrick]

What do you mean 'near'? There's plenty of war right now.

If I have to explain it then you didn't get the reference.

 

[Krensky]

If I have to explain it then you didn't get the reference.

I got the 40K reference.

There's also something like thirty wars going on right now, some of which started over sixty years ago.

 

[the Jester]

In the west we see such harmony between individuals and in society as a whole, that compared with the D&D world it would appear miraculous or an act of God from their view. Of course it is no such thing. The peace and social cooperation that exists in the western, civilized world is not a miracle nor an act of God. It is a human recognition that men fare better in cooperation with one another for the improvement of their lives, in production, trade and the extension of the division of labor to cover the whole earth. Yet this insight has eluded the world of D&D. In D&D, men see the path to wealth and prosperity in killing and looting. Men live in constant fear of being killed by those who want to take their wealth. No peace or security exists. Only constant warfare.

Those are some rose-colored glasses you're wearing.

Are you not familiar with inner city gangs, with prejudice leading to beatings, with the shooting of political figures, with the drug war on the U.S.'s southern border, on the exploitation of resources by moneyed interests at the expense of the little guy, with organized crime, with petty backstabbing and office politics? And that's just to start, and not to even mention the three wars we're in.

To me, the fundamental issue leading to the level of cooperation you'll see in the modern world is a combination of the assembly-line method and increasingly dense populations. No Act of God required; it's all us.

 

[Numlock]

In D&D, men see the path to wealth and prosperity in killing and looting. Men live in constant fear of being killed by those who want to take their wealth. No peace or security exists. Only constant warfare.

I could imagine that this is your opinion, but since when is this a fact? In my campaigns PC's have always had respect for law and property, and stealing has always been a last resort. Killing to acquire an item has been a absolute no-go in more than one situation.

Anyhow, the total anarchy that you describe in your OP doesn't seem like a fact to me, but more as an assumption.

 

[Ettin]

In the west we see such harmony between individuals and in society as a whole (...) It is a human recognition that men fare better in cooperation with one another for the improvement of their lives, in production, trade and the extension of the division of labor to cover the whole earth.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NutFkykjmbM]YouTube - ‪Hate Comes to Orange County‬‏[/ame]

 

[joeandsteve]

In before thread lock.

 

[pemerton]

I think that the OP could have stated his/her point in a slightly less inflammatory manner, but there is an interesting question in there, I think - namely, why are D&D worlds not modern worlds of the sort that Weber, Marshall Hodgson etc describe? (And I would definitely look to Weber or Hodgson rather than Hayek or von Mises for a viable social theory of modern capitalism. They make the important point that you can't just wish the capitalist market, and the institutions that make it possible, into existence - they are socially grounded, and have a history.)

The issue, at least in my view, isn't one of "the West" (whatever that is) vs the others. It's about the subordination of human social formations to the pursuit of production unconstrained by value considerations other than efficiency. Weber calls it "rationalisation", Hodgson "technicalisation". In Hodgson's view, China came very close during the Sung period (and my understanding is that China enjoyed real economic growth during this period), but due to local "setbacks" failed to reach the point of self-sustaining technicalisation:

[N]ew concrete sorts of opportunity for social investment, hitherto impractical . . . , became practicable. . . Usually such activities had found sooner or later a point at which further cultural complexity was so subject to interruptions by historical accidents that it did not repay the risks it incurred. . . This was especially true in any field that required large-scale social investment of time or money, and hence freedom from such disorganization or arbitrary intervention as would disrupt the peace and social orderliness which such investment presupposed. . . By the end of the sixteenth century [in western Europe] just those kinds of calculative, innovative investment that were most dependent on freedom from social disruption were reaching levels rarely reached before that: that is, improvements in technical methods of achieving concrete, material ends by way of multiple, interdependent specialization. And, despite such disasters as the Thirty Years' War and the English Civil War, nothing happend to stop the process as a whole, especially in northwest Europe. A very similar process had been stopped in later Sung China under the nomad dynasties.​

"The great Western Transmutation" in Rethinking World History, pp 51-52.

Anyway, this suggests some ideas for explaining the absence of technicalisation in a D&D world - constant interruption to the requisite social processes, perhaps caused by the intervention of magic, or otherworldly beings, or just insufficient room to expand the agricultural base in an effective manner. The presence of demons, devils, orcs etc, makes any or all of these factors plausible.