So, do you want to get really philosophical about this?
Yes! The worry that fiction can have real-life moral consequences has been around so far as I understand from at least Aristotle, and its paradoxes are quite well ennumerated. So far as I know they have barely been explored in connection withh TTRPG.
If the imaginary word does not differ AT ALL from the real one, then there is no morality in that world at all - any more than there is morality in a mirror. "Morality" does not exist without choice. That imaginary world has no choice, because it must IN ALL WAYS match the real one.
Recall that it can differ as altered by the fiction. Of course it is true that pretend characters don't really make choices, for example Dr. John Watson never makes any choice. But I think readers picture that Dr. John Watson has a moral compass, and were they asked whether he would do something considered highly immoral by 19th century British society there would be fair consistency in their replying that he would not (barring some extenuating circumstances.)
That, of course, requires that one believe that fiction has morality at all. The fictional inhabitants of that world don't actually have existence, and so cannot experience actual suffering, after all.
Plus, if a fiction itself has morality, such that a fiction that includes immorality is itself immoral, then it becomes immoral to teach morality, because the basic way to do so is to consider fictional immoral acts, and their impacts. And that's pretty clearly nonsense, right? I should be able to teach little Billy why he shouldn't harm creatures when he doesn't have to, right?
So, I suggest that the morality is not in the fiction - it is in the real-world results of exposure to that fiction. Which, as previously discussed, we don't have clear evidence is a problem.
You seem to be arguing against something, but I feel unsure what? My understanding was that we'd covered all this upthread. Here you lay out that little Billy can take moral lessons from fiction. That suggests that fiction can exert an effect on little Billy's developing morality. As you say, it's these real-world results that concern us. That relates to the worry that morality can be "exported" from fiction back into the real-world.
Are you perhaps arguing that only positive moral learning can be exported back into the real-world, and never immoral learning?
It is perhaps helpful to separate "I find this distasteful" from "I find this immoral". We can exclude things from our games because we don't like them. We don't need the argument that they are immoral.
My distaste is motivated by a real life moral position. There are many things I would refrain from pretending to do in a roleplaying game on similar grounds. I exclude them because I don't want to pretend to do those things. As I laid out upthread
when I pretend to do X' (which is immoral in real life), I can maintain some sort of separateness from doing X (in real life)
that separateness can be leveraged for inter alia irony, investigation (see your example of the Paradox Realm), and ignoring
how well I maintain that separateness and whatever it costs me is a personal matter
my preference appertains to that personal matter
I have a personal distaste for pretending my character feels powerful and confident slaughtering masses of minions
because I find that notion immoral in real-life. If I didn't find it immoral in real-life, whatever it costs me to maintain the separateness would be moot so I likely wouldn't exclude it.
Of course, that argument doesn't get others to also exclude things from their games.
I agree with you here, albeit there is a possible implication that you believe I aim to get others to exclude things from their games. Is that accurate? If so, I'm confident that I haven't written anything like that in my posts in this strand: it's certainly not my intent.
