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The "Good Society" in Fantasy Gaming
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<blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 5729778" data-attributes="member: 17106"><p>No. Societies are rarely so simple, and I certainly don't want them to be in my game.</p><p></p><p>I think Star Trek is a great example of why. At one point, humans were considered good, Klingons bad, and Kirk gifted primitive people with the wisdom of the American flag. Modern Star Trek (and all the other scifi it inspired) acknowledges humans as flawed, Klingons as noble allies, and shows the fallacies of imposing one's moral values on others. In this way, I suspect fiction is a highly relevant representation of the time in which it was created.</p><p></p><p>I similarly take a 'realistic' approach to humans/elves/dwarves/orcs/goblins etc. Everyone's out for their own interests. Humans are a mixed bunch. They join together in friendship, they soak up knowledge from their surroundings, and build great civilizations. They're also xenophobic, short-lived, and ignorant. Orcs, conversely, are selfish, violent, and hateful, but they respect the natural world, they're strong warriors when you need one, and their competitiveness can lead to great accomplishments. Same idea for all the other races. To me, this is modern morality (and I believe in applying my values to all my fiction regardless of setting).</p><p></p><p>As to the other question: to me, since most societies are a mixed bag, a 'good society' is quite extreme. When I imagine a 'lawful good' society, I imagine an authoritarian regime of religious persecution, sexual repression, and close-mindedness. Basically I imagine Puritans. When I imagine a lawful evil society, I imagine something that is aesthetically quite different but fundamentally similar. Humans are neither good nor evil, and attempting to impose morality on them (or their like, in fantasy) is a futile endeavor.</p><p></p><p>You can tell I'm not big on the 'Detect Alignment' spells.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ahnehnois, post: 5729778, member: 17106"] No. Societies are rarely so simple, and I certainly don't want them to be in my game. I think Star Trek is a great example of why. At one point, humans were considered good, Klingons bad, and Kirk gifted primitive people with the wisdom of the American flag. Modern Star Trek (and all the other scifi it inspired) acknowledges humans as flawed, Klingons as noble allies, and shows the fallacies of imposing one's moral values on others. In this way, I suspect fiction is a highly relevant representation of the time in which it was created. I similarly take a 'realistic' approach to humans/elves/dwarves/orcs/goblins etc. Everyone's out for their own interests. Humans are a mixed bunch. They join together in friendship, they soak up knowledge from their surroundings, and build great civilizations. They're also xenophobic, short-lived, and ignorant. Orcs, conversely, are selfish, violent, and hateful, but they respect the natural world, they're strong warriors when you need one, and their competitiveness can lead to great accomplishments. Same idea for all the other races. To me, this is modern morality (and I believe in applying my values to all my fiction regardless of setting). As to the other question: to me, since most societies are a mixed bag, a 'good society' is quite extreme. When I imagine a 'lawful good' society, I imagine an authoritarian regime of religious persecution, sexual repression, and close-mindedness. Basically I imagine Puritans. When I imagine a lawful evil society, I imagine something that is aesthetically quite different but fundamentally similar. Humans are neither good nor evil, and attempting to impose morality on them (or their like, in fantasy) is a futile endeavor. You can tell I'm not big on the 'Detect Alignment' spells.;) [/QUOTE]
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