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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6125204" data-attributes="member: 27160">Yes, but by codifying them you remove their meaning.RPGs &quot;exist&quot; in the imaginary world in only the most tenuous of ways, but they also exist in parallel in the &quot;real&quot; world inhabited by the players. In that real world, the terms &quot;good&quot; and &quot;evil&quot; have non-absolute, or at least incompletely defined, meanings. As soon as you place a fixed definition or &quot;code&quot; about such terms - even in a fictional and imaginary world - the terms no longer refer to what the players in the real world recognise as what the terms normally refer to. They now represent some warped, distorted thing in the fictional world that carries the label &quot;good&quot; or whatever, but which no longer genuinely represents what the real-world players playing the game would be comfortable referring to as &quot;good&quot;.The problem is that &quot;good&quot; really IS a slippery concept, so that you can give some codified and fixed 'team' the label 'Good', as suggested up-thread, but the resulting thing will not be recognisable as actual, real &quot;good&quot; as perceived by real-world denizens. If you want to play a game that allows for the dramatic and thematic impact of actual real questions of good and evil, therefore, no codification will work.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6125204, member: 27160"] Yes, but by codifying them you remove their meaning. RPGs "exist" in the imaginary world in only the most tenuous of ways, but they also exist in parallel in the "real" world inhabited by the players. In that real world, the terms "good" and "evil" have non-absolute, or at least incompletely defined, meanings. As soon as you place a fixed definition or "code" about such terms - even in a fictional and imaginary world - the terms no longer refer to what the players in the real world recognise as what the terms normally refer to. They now represent some warped, distorted thing in the fictional world that carries the label "good" or whatever, but which no longer genuinely represents what the real-world players playing the game would be comfortable referring to as "good". The problem is that "good" really IS a slippery concept, so that you can give some codified and fixed 'team' the label 'Good', as suggested up-thread, but the resulting thing will not be recognisable as actual, real "good" as perceived by real-world denizens. If you want to play a game that allows for the dramatic and thematic impact of actual real questions of good and evil, therefore, no codification will work. [/QUOTE]

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