When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like nail.
The recent threads on the removal of alignment from humanoid races (such as orcs, kobolds, etc.) has caused me to reflect more deeply on the nature of violence within TTRPGs generally, and D&D specifically. I had my original thoughts here:
I think it’s more to do with the language chosen to describe them than their very existence (although this may be better discussed elsewhere). if the problem was simply a word or phrase that could be changed without changing the meaning and concept that would be a place I would be willing to...
www.enworld.org
But at the end of that post, I curled around to what I think is the underlying issue I have recently been wrestling with; the nature of violence in Dungeons & Dragons. In the title to the post, I cheekily refer to the question as to whether or not "hobomurder" is essential to D&D, but this is more a post (and a thread) about the nature of violence in society, fiction, and D&D. About the way that our culture celebrates violence, and the way that the rules of D&D channel activities toward violence; in effect, the game itself rewards violence. That's the reason why I started this with the quote I did; traditionally, D&D prizes combat, and when the rules of the game are geared toward combat (violence), it is more likely that every problem can be solved through combat (violence).
My purpose is not to assign any sort of blame, by the way. This is just something I'm thinking about in light of WoTC's recent actions, and I am wondering if other people think the same way?
This brief examination will look at three issues; first is the overall cultural impact of violence, second is the rules focus of D&D toward violence, and third is the alignment aspect.
A. Natural Born Killers.
It's inarguable that popular culture favors and fetishizes violence. This is not something new; Edmund Burke, when writing on the sublime, observed, "Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the
sublime. ... Little more can be said than that the idea of bodily pain, in all the modes and degrees of labour, pain, anguish, torment, is productive of the sublime; and nothing else in this sense can produce it." We enjoy seeing violence and cruelty , so long as it is inflicted upon someone other than ourselves. A public hanging, a public execution, is the prior version of today's John Wick film; what is past is prologue.
This trend arguably became even more pronounced in America due to the adoption of the MPAA ratings code in 1968, which began to ratchet up the amount of allowable violence through the 70s and 80s while perversely clamping down on almost everything else (from profanity to sexual expression); eventually getting to the strange phenomenon of movies wherein a still-beating heart could be ripped out of a chest in a human sacrifice and scrape by with a PG, but two curse words or sexual innuendo (let alone actual nudity) sent a movie to the realm of R.
But key to this is the trend, in both movies and in television (seriously, 80s TV, man), of the "inverse ninja law." Specifically, that the hero would be able to dispatch numerous unnamed minions and henchmen with varying amount of bloodshed depending on the nature of the show/movie (Commando? Lots of blood. Hardcastle & McCormick or Airwolf? Not so much.) For the most part, mere identity within an evil organization or opposition to the hero is sufficient for death.
And this trend continues to today. For the most part, it is unremarked upon, unless it is elevated to the level of conspicuous slaughter so over-the-top it almost becomes a parody of itself (such as John Wick) or it arguably calls attention to the tension it would have with deeper themes (such as Snyder's Superman). Violence, though, is part and parcel of modern popular culture.
B. If Orcs Weren't Made out of XP, I Wouldn't Kill Them.
I am not going to dwell too much on the "hobomurder" past of D&D; I think that it is both true and overstated. Yes, there was a reason that (for example) the designers had to "stat up" shopkeepers in the City State of the Invincible Overlord in the 70s to keep PCs from slaughtering them to take their stuff; but there were a multitude of games and a multitude of styles. Not every game was so-called hobomurder.
Yet ... the rules of D&D, both then and now, favor violence. While there are different ways of getting XP (GP, milestone, etc.) the one, sure-fire way that has always existed? Killing.
How do you get more stuff? Killing the things that have the stuff.
Pre-published adventures (modules, APs)? Assume that you will kill stuff, with VERY few counter-examples (such as Beyond the Crystal Cave).
Spells? Mostly combat.
Rules and abilities for characters? Geared toward combat.
Combat rules? Almost all about lethal combat, not subduing.
Social skills? Almost always vastly underdeveloped compared to combat sections.
And so on. Heck, the game descended from wargaming, and people discuss the necessity of a grid or battlemap for playing! While you don't need to play D&D in a violent manner, it is very hard to avoid doing so.
C. Relevance to the Current Situation.
Circling back around, I understand why we want to have moral absolutes in D&D. If there is something that is evil, irredeemably and unalterably so, then it makes sense to kill it. There can be no argument, no quarter given, no moral qualms whatsoever about the just use of violence. To use the easiest example, if there is a demon that is unalterably evil, then destroying that demon must be good.
Given D&D is a game that is inextricably tied into violence, then, there might be some questions raised when it is not a demon, but a human or humanoid; perhaps it is as simple as an 80s film, and in this fiction, by opposing the protagonist, they must be put to the sword. Or perhaps not.
I keep circling around to this issue because I am torn between competing impulses; on the one hand, D&D is a game, and a fiction. It is fun and escapist. To sit around and spend all my time wondering about the morality of killing kobolds seems about as sensible as worrying about the ethics of capitalism while playing Monopoly.
...and yet, maybe there is something about this underlying violence. I am certainly less comfortable blithely ignoring the issue completely than I was. I am just uncertain what, if anything, there is to do.
I thought I'd start a thread to see what other people were thinking about this. Thoughts?
EDIT: Title edited to reflect we not murdering hobos.
