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Some thoughts on good and evil choices

Vault Dweller

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Walks with the Snails said:
The main problem is that consequences in games tend to be immediate and overwhelming.
Good point, I agree. Regardless of whether you are good or evil, there are always factions that you managed to cross, and who think that some punishment is in order, and who should not forget about you easily. I expect such a faction to put a consistent effort of trying to get you and changing the strategy according to the way you handle previous "efforts".

For example, let's say you did something bad in a town, the local guards should try to arrest you, you have 4 basic choices: kill'em all, talk your way out, sneak out, or surrender. If you sneak out, the guards should employ some means of detection next time they are trying to deal with you, your sneaking skills may still be higher and allow you to escape again, but the fact that they are on to you, and that they are looking for a way to counteract your abilities, should give you a very unpleasant feeling of inevitability.

If you managed to talk your way out, arguing that you are not the person they are after and proving that the description they got does not really fit you, the next person who's after you should be more skilled in conversation, or be literally deaf :lol:

Saint_Proverbius said:
there should be a Magnificent Seven style effect where the helpless-to-stop-you town starts planning on a way of killing you or getting rid of you. Pooling resources and hiring vigilantes would be one way of doing this, so when you show up in that town again after a set amount of time, you get ambushed.
Absolutely, it makes sense, it fits, and such an encounter could have some great Magnificent Seven references :lol: Knowing that it might happen, will make you very careful, more observant, helping you developing "sleep with one eye open" attitude as WwtS said. Also, it can make you do an extra effort to keep the villagers happy, taking care of some little problems for them and providing protection.

Speaking of ambushes, in Morrowind I killed some guys in the Council Club, and used the club as my headquarters. I'm sure these guys had friends (considering they were in Camonna Tong, I think) and it would be very cool if they ambushed me there. Imagine, you open the door, go in and start sorting out the loot and then suddenly there are people everywhere attacking you. If you escape, you'd be very careful accepting odd quests and fucking with people you don't know.

If they have alignment detection spells, then they should have things set up like metal detectors that tell them when Mr. Skull O'Evil walks in to town or in an important building
Another great point, if you arrive in town and immediately being called in for questioning and "friendly" warning, you'd plan your actions including a getaway one with much greater care. It would add a lot to the "playing evil" atmosphere, just like entering a local bank equipped with an alignment detection thingy, and seeing an additional number of guards taking strategic positions "just in case".
 

Voss

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The detection spells would be nice... it also points out one of the problems with most fantasy settings- the magic is just tacked on to a vaguely medieval setting. And no one is really taking advantage of whats actually there, inherent in the system. And people being what they are, they would take advantage of it.

Speak with dead and divination spells in particular should have a larger role in most rpgs.

As for town guards- when was the last time you could actually get out of one of those encounters? It generally just turns out to be random attacks by the brute squad...
 

Skorpios

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I guess part of the problem is that in trying to model a very complex real-life phenomenon (ie good/evil) there is now way to do it justice. For it to work in a CRPG, it has to be abstracted to some sort of limited system of labels (D&D's good, lawful, neutral, chaotic, and evil for example).

The point is, intelligent people in the real world can't really agree on what good and evil really mean, so expecting an accurate reflection of it in a computer game is asking a bit much.

Good and evil are so subjective and dependant on so many factors - cultural, social, religious, moral etc.

Taking a human life = evil. But what about euthanasia? What about in a fantasy setting where some sentients aren't even human?

Good CRPGs deal with these kind of questions, but the complexities of every facet of these types of questions could never be fully expressed in a game made in a reasonable timeframe in any case.

Another point might come from the marketing side: do games designers really want to push their games as the 'ultimate evil simulators'? Encouraging people to act out their darkest fantasies (even in a fantasy setting on a computer) might not be the smartest move for companies trying to sell their products to everyone, from children to adults.
 

Vault Dweller

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Voss said:
it also points out one of the problems with most fantasy settings- the magic is just tacked on to a vaguely medieval setting. And no one is really taking advantage of whats actually there, inherent in the system.
That is a very good point. In CRPGs magic is usually there only to provide an equivalent to a melee character, but when you play a game it rarely feels that magic is a part of this particulrar world. Surely once discovered and mastered magic would be employed everywhere, changing the way things work, and changing the way people think calling for different approaches. It's no big deal to role-play a thief stealing stuff from a house in the middle of the moonless night, it would be more interesting to play a thief who need to think and figure out how to deal with magical defenses (not traps) the house may have, where sneaking is overrated, where intents could be detected, where the dead are no longer silent, where reality itself could be tampered with (you can't climb over a wall that leads or passes through a different dimension), etc
 

Sharpei_Diem

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The problem is, as mentioned, that good and evil are entirely subjective. To the local dwarves, killing a human villager might be a non-event; the nearby orc clan might see it as an evil act (hurts their relations); and a human politician might see it as good (the deceased was a malcontent). As soon as you slap a label on the character's actions, you've already decided the bias of the game. Once you've decided the bias of the game, creating anything in opposition to that bias means additional work and problems because the permutations have to be explored and solutions created.

I gotta get back to work now, but i'll write more about this later...

Somethings to think about though:

In an environment that (typically) predates the invention of the printing press and reputation spreads by word of mouth, how does village B know you slaughtered everyone in village A? Or even that you successfully robbed a merchant's store at midnite? What's to prevent the character from lying about anything they've done? "Erik the vile? No, I'm Sir Stephen the Valiant."

What purpose does alignment serve in a game? Why even have it?
 
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People make too much of moral relativism. In certain circumstances, it's a valid way of looking at things. But people are too quick to take it to extremes. I mainly get tired when people use it by talking in generalities and then basically jump to the conclusion that since 1 is greater than 0, and 1000 is greater than 0, therefore 1 = 1000.

Everyone has probably faced some difficult moral dilemmas in their life, but it's not really an everyday event. Most of the time it's fairly clear-cut what is right and what is wrong. People generally do the wrong thing from desperation, lack of correct information, lack of will, etc. Not because they genuinely thought they were in the right. At best, they didn't see anything wrong or rationalized their actions to let them think there wasn't anything wrong with what they did. The "Well, someone else might think differently" garbage starts to wear a little thin when it comes to serious matters like life and death. Things like orcish culture can be put in fairly stark terms of evil. It's what they're defined by. Abusing and exploiting the weak is what their society is based on. It's not a matter of having crude table manners or worshipping a different god, they'd as soon eat you as talk to you. An orc can separate themselves from orc culture, but they're not a part of the orc culture anymore, and the culture still exists regardless of what a few rebel orcs might think.
 

Voss

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Thats were the relativism comes in though- from the orcish point of view, they aren't being evil. It is simply the natural order of things/ how the gods decreed it to be. If the strong kill the weak, its simply right and proper- if the sad little wanker didn't want to get killed, he should have been stronger (or more cunning). To the other orcs, there isn't anything evil involved. (and from a survival aspect, this sort of behavior is useful, considering that orcs in most settings live in fringe areas, and too many weaklings in a tribe could cause serious problems in conflicts with other tribes, hunting and day to day survival)

The other issue that comes up with fantasy particularly is the absolute and definite existence of gods. It becomes a serious question of whether or not what a god tells you to do is by its very nature, the right (and morally correct) thing to do. Backed up by eternal torture and punishment if you don't do it their way.
 

Vault Dweller

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Sharpei_Diem said:
The problem is, as mentioned, that good and evil are entirely subjective
I agree that actions could not always be measured as good or evil as these concepts are entirely subjective indeed. Sometimes good intentions lead to bad results and visa versa, what one person consider evil, another thinks of as 'no big deal', etc. However, characters' actions must be measured and evaluated, and the best way to achieve it is to create a system where every individual and organization have their own set of values and an agenda that would rate the actions of a character.

For example, Kingdom A is a law abiding place but really hate Kingdom B, so they would tolerate you as long as you don't break any local laws even if you are a hunted criminal in B. A military faction A1 in kingdom A supports the war against B but believes that the war and any military acts should be regulated by the chivalry code. Any less then honorable action on your part means no quests or services from these guys, unless you come across a NPC who despite being one of a high ranked official in A1 believes that chivalry works better when assisted from the shadows; of course he would not deal with you if are an honorable knight in shiny armor, or if you are a low level scum, but if you are a "knight material" who mistakenly believes that the end justifies the means and haven't broken any local laws, then he would deal with you.

That would make a game way more interesting then some generic reputation/alignment thingy where you know that if do some general good stuff there would be good people everywhere that would like you anyway 'cause you are a freaking hero :roll:

Walks with the Snails said:
Not because they genuinely thought they were in the right. At best, they didn't see anything wrong or rationalized their actions to let them think there wasn't anything wrong with what they did
Excellent point, I don't think that anybody has ever thought of himself as evil. It's all in the rationalizations and that's what I would really like to see in a game. It would be interesting to explore a city of theives where all acts of theivery are encouraged, where you are not guilty if you are not caught, etc. Or if you start relatively good to see what led you to "the other side", to see the rationalization and justification of your actions as they happened, as one taken step demands another, and so on. That is a much better way to play an evil character then to slaughter everyone in sight.
 

Voss

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I like your example, but I'd like to see some people in law abiding kingdom A that buck the trend. Most won't care about what you do elsewhere, but some people should mistrust you based on your actions in the other kingdom (if you were a law breaker there, you'll be a lawbreaker here), whereas some other people will have heard of your reputation and will see you as a useful tool that doesn't worry about the little details.
 
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Voss said:
Thats were the relativism comes in though- from the orcish point of view, they aren't being evil. It is simply the natural order of things/ how the gods decreed it to be. If the strong kill the weak, its simply right and proper- if the sad little wanker didn't want to get killed, he should have been stronger (or more cunning). To the other orcs, there isn't anything evil involved. (and from a survival aspect, this sort of behavior is useful, considering that orcs in most settings live in fringe areas, and too many weaklings in a tribe could cause serious problems in conflicts with other tribes, hunting and day to day survival)

How do you know they're not being evil from their point of view? That in itself is presuming they share your mentality - that a "worthwhile" person should strive not to do evil. It seems more likely that they just don't care. Either way, it really doesn't matter. Their way of life pretty much precludes peaceful coexistence, so they have to be stopped. From a realistic standpoint, whatever excuse for morals they have is a moot issue unless those can be appealed to to make them adopt a more sensible way of life (involving accepting your right to exist).

The other issue that comes up with fantasy particularly is the absolute and definite existence of gods. It becomes a serious question of whether or not what a god tells you to do is by its very nature, the right (and morally correct) thing to do. Backed up by eternal torture and punishment if you don't do it their way.

Huh? Again, you're presuming a lot. In a polytheistic setting, you just follow a different god if you're evil, and then it's their decision what to do with you when you're dead, not the good gods. It just so happens that when you're at the mercy of an evil god in the afterlife, well, you do the math. And anyway, by these gods, you've got absolute defintions of good and evil. They set them. More precisely whoever wrote the game set them, but they're there nonetheless. Whether you happen to disagree with them or not is irrelevant, you're not the one making those rules any more than you can wake up one morning and announce what you think the gravitational constant of the universe should be. It just is.
 

Sharpei_Diem

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Walks with the Snails said:
Things like orcish culture can be put in fairly stark terms of evil. It's what they're defined by. Abusing and exploiting the weak is what their society is based on. It's not a matter of having crude table manners or worshipping a different god, they'd as soon eat you as talk to you. An orc can separate themselves from orc culture, but they're not a part of the orc culture anymore, and the culture still exists regardless of what a few rebel orcs might think.

Yes, fairly stark maybe from a human point of view, not an orcish one. Are they evil because they attack humans? Did the humans attack them first (even if so, does that justify it?). Animals can attack humans, are they evil too? Some central american native cultures sacrificed people, would they be evil? How about cannibals? What if they eat only the strongest of people because they believe that their own strength is augmented by their meal? The ascendance of European culture following the middle ages could very well be based on the 'abuse and exploitation of the weak'; were they evil?
 

Vault Dweller

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Voss said:
I like your example, but I'd like to see some people in law abiding kingdom A that buck the trend. Most won't care about what you do elsewhere, but some people should mistrust you based on your actions in the other kingdom (if you were a law breaker there, you'll be a lawbreaker here...
Of course, there should be many different reactions based on the events your name is associated with (see my original example that started this thread), and based on the events you claimed you participated in if you pass the persuasion check. However, it should not be all black and white, and that's where agenda of an individual or a faction comes into play.

Walks with the Snails said:
Things like orcish culture can be put in fairly stark terms of evil. It's what they're defined by. Abusing and exploiting the weak is what their society is based on......How do you know they're not being evil from their point of view? That in itself is presuming they share your mentality - that a "worthwhile" person should strive not to do evil.
I don't think that any culture defies itself as evil or bad, rather they use rationalization to justify their way of life as the right one, the one that works for them, the one that would lead them to better things whatever they are. Such a culture could consider acts like kindness, honor, honesty, altruism as weaknesses and would not tolerate any among its people, just like in many communist societies many money-making activities and freedom of speech were treated as crimes.
 
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Sharpei_Diem said:
Yes, fairly stark maybe from a human point of view, not an orcish one. Are they evil because they attack humans?

Not enough information to judge.

Did the humans attack them first (even if so, does that justify it?).

Just going by the general orcish template here. Just read your typical monstrous manual. You'd never know "who started it" and that really isn't important. Orcs make the lifestyle choice to raid and pillage, etc.

Animals can attack humans, are they evil too?

Animals aren't sentient and don't have the intelligence to know what they're doing. So no, they aren't evil. Orcs know exactly what they're doing, though.

Some central american native cultures sacrificed people, would they be evil?

Yep.

How about cannibals?

If they murdered people who would otherwise have lived a long and happy life, you betcha. If it's people who died of natural causes, ewww, but you could probably argue it's not inherently evil.

What if they eat only the strongest of people because they believe that their own strength is augmented by their meal?

What difference does that make? If I stand to gain something by killing someone, is it any less evil than if I just do it for kicks?

The ascendance of European culture following the middle ages could very well be based on the 'abuse and exploitation of the weak'; were they evil?

As far as the abuse and exploitation of the weak, you betcha. They came up with plenty of rationalizations, but they should have known better in their hearts.
 

Vault Dweller

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Walks with the Snails said:
Sharpei_Diem said:
The ascendance of European culture following the middle ages could very well be based on the 'abuse and exploitation of the weak'; were they evil?

As far as the abuse and exploitation of the weak, you betcha. They came up with plenty of rationalizations, but they should have known better in their hearts.
I don't think that there is a human culture that hasn't earned the right to be called evil. Humans are evil bastards by nature, some of us who manage to do less evil in comparisson fancy themselves good and righteous :D
 

Voss

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Its the old cannibalism should be grounds for leniency in murder cases because its less wasteful. (Thank you, Calvina and Hobbes)


Walks, you're taking a very extreme and absolute view of good an evil. One that isn't very common and hasn't been around very long, historically, even at lot of the 'nicest' (and I lose the term loosely) cultures have routinely slaughtered anyone that differs from the beliefs they considered most important. Morals shift, as do good and evil. Take little things like marriage ages- what was once common and normal by Western societies (marriage at about 13) just 1-2 centuries ago is now consider wrong by the same societies' standards.

As for for the orcs- the presuming I was doing is based on the general fantasy literature based on how they are described. If you like, I could make a case for them (from their own point of view) just protecting themselves from the bigotted and racist humans. (like, say, Arcanum) .

On the gods thing, the standard fantasy pantheon is so random and divided that while the gods are defined, definite and absolute, the values the various religions espouse most definitely are not- morals and values different radically, in some cases between gods that share the same alignment. For example Eldath and Mielikki in the FR are both neutral good nature gods, but eldath forbids killing except 'under direst need', while Mielikki has no particular feelings on killing except for not needlessly killing wild things.
Is either one any less good?

Or to bring up an old standard, is killing someone to stop them from killing someone else any less a murder, and therefor evil? And to make it more tricky, say they don't know they will be killing...accidently roadkilling someone, for example.
 
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Voss said:
Walks, you're taking a very extreme and absolute view of good an evil. One that isn't very common and hasn't been around very long, historically, even at lot of the 'nicest' (and I lose the term loosely) cultures have routinely slaughtered anyone that differs from the beliefs they considered most important.

Yeah, I'm just a rebel like that. So most of the world still thinks cannibalism, wanton slaughter, etc. is peachy?

And not around so long? I think the basic ideas were out there at least, say, 2000 years ago.

Morals shift, as do good and evil.

It's making an assumption in itself that good and evil are malleable, subject to the whims of an arbitrary group of people. People once thought the world was flat, did that make it flat? They thought the sun revolved around the earth, did that make it so? A society's hierarchy of values can change, sure, I'll buy that. It doesn't necessarily follow that fundamental Good and Evil are so malleable. Perhaps we've just been stumbling around for millenia without fully realizing what was there all along. Perhaps we knew it all along, but it was just easier to rationalize our evil away because it was easier and our needs are less pressing now. It's easier to justify to yourself stealing a fairly significant sum of money from a well-off but not wealthy guy when you're starving than when you're a billionaire.

Take little things like marriage ages- what was once common and normal by Western societies (marriage at about 13) just 1-2 centuries ago is now consider wrong by the same societies' standards.

That's IMO fairly minor. It's more a societal decision based on how we raise our young and our life expectancies, not so much a pure good and evil issue. Really increasing aversion to capital punishment would be a more significant example, but that's also partly because we increasingly have the luxury to be more lenient and give more support to the people we lock up. A society's strict adherence to doing good things will probably always have an inverse relationship to the amount of burden it places on them. That's why I'd probably say, bear with me here, people don't necessarily always do what they know is right. And the tendency gets worse when you put them in groups. And even worse when other people feed these groups with a lot of nice-sounding rationalizations. A crazy thought, I know.

As for for the orcs- the presuming I was doing is based on the general fantasy literature based on how they are described. If you like, I could make a case for them (from their own point of view) just protecting themselves from the bigotted and racist humans. (like, say, Arcanum) .

Great, revisionist history meets gaming. The setting books pretty much define the gameworld. They often tell you things a handful of actual people in the gameworld know, if any of them do. They can pretty much be taken as the way things really are. You want to write a setting where orcs are persecuted, cool, I'm just talking the stereotypical case. Orcs holing up in caves is protecting themselves. Orcs are generally a touch more, shall we say, proactive. Hence Evil is written in big bold letters somewhere next to their hit points. Not misunderstood, not ignorant, not vicitims of racism, Evil. They don't necessarily have to have any real-world parellels, but in this setting, they're Evil. That's how it is, you can take it to the bank. Want to make up your own way of How Things Really Are, write your own setting.

On the gods thing, the standard fantasy pantheon is so random and divided that while the gods are defined, definite and absolute, the values the various religions espouse most definitely are not- morals and values different radically, in some cases between gods that share the same alignment. For example Eldath and Mielikki in the FR are both neutral good nature gods, but eldath forbids killing except 'under direst need', while Mielikki has no particular feelings on killing except for not needlessly killing wild things.
Is either one any less good?

Really I'd probably look somewhere else than FR for a deep and well-thought-out theology, or well-thought-out anything. It's not really the kind of example I meant anyway, the gods there are just humans with k3wl powers, waiting for some random adventurer to hit 40th level and knock them off. Whatever's written in there about morality doesn't necessarily hold for the real world, any more than the rules on magic do. For the sake of the setting, it's whatever the writers want it to be. If they decree any male human over the age of 30 who is seen wearing a pink leotard on the third Friday of any month shall have his soul consumed by succubi, well, there's a 100% guarantee that's how things work there.

Maybe I'm just thinking of how I'd want a setting to be written. Um, not about the pink leotards, though, that's just silly.

Or to bring up an old standard, is killing someone to stop them from killing someone else any less a murder, and therefor evil? And to make it more tricky, say they don't know they will be killing...accidently roadkilling someone, for example.

So why not talk about that instead? Why does it always have to be about cannibalism, orcs are secretly the good guys because they think they are justified in their raping and pillaging efforts, etc. Your examples here are basically trying to find a balance between two competing moral values. Two fairly universal values, that I'd go so far as to say go deeper than some random society's interpretation of the moment. Stopping the orcs who are burning down your village for no reason whatsoever, well, that's a little more clear-cut, ain't it?
 

Sharpei_Diem

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Voss: The other issue that comes up with fantasy particularly is the absolute and definite existence of gods. It becomes a serious question of whether or not what a god tells you to do is by its very nature, the right (and morally correct) thing to do. Backed up by eternal torture and punishment if you don't do it their way.

Yeah, there's all sorts of sticky problems with fantasy and the presence of gods. I think it's pretty poorly done now and needs some rethinking: particularly things like where they derive their power from and the representation of that power. Clerics are generally regarded as healing stations, despite whatever the particular nature of their deity is. In typical settings they(clerics and deitys) have been plunked down as portable hospitals without much thought into how they relate to the society as a whole. Even without the presence of verifiable powers, churches and religions in reality were(are) powerful entities; the source of laws, information and education. In a world where an afterlife is a fact, and with mystical powers all their own, churches would have an enormous impact....but that's probably a different topic...

Walks: It just so happens that when you're at the mercy of an evil god in the afterlife, well, you do the math.... More precisely whoever wrote the game set them, but they're there nonetheless. Whether you happen to disagree with them or not is irrelevant, you're not the one making those rules any more than you can wake up one morning and announce what you think the gravitational constant of the universe should be. It just is.

Well, that's the good thing about this being fantasy. I can wake up and change the gravitational constant of the universe, at least the one in my mind. But to your earlier point, that's one of the parts that involves what i just said. I think the concept of an afterlife where servants of evil are all writhing in pain and misery, solely because they were wicked is a product of 'good' theology. Maybe it's a hedonistic party 24/7?

Vault Dweller: I don't think that any culture defies itself as evil or bad, rather they use rationalization to justify their way of life as the right one, the one that works for them, the one that would lead them to better things whatever they are. Such a culture could consider acts like kindness, honor, honesty, altruism as weaknesses and would not tolerate any among its people, just like in many communist societies many money-making activities and freedom of speech were treated as crimes.

Looked up definitions of evil, and found this one to be particularly useful and pertinent to this discussion: Moral badness, or the deviation of a moral being from the principles of virtue imposed by conscience, or by the will of the Supreme Being, or by the principles of a lawful human authority; disposition to do wrong; moral offence; wickedness; depravity.

walks: Just going by the general orcish template here. Just read your typical monstrous manual. You'd never know "who started it" and that really isn't important. Orcs make the lifestyle choice to raid and pillage, etc.

I don't view any manuals to be things set in stone. They might serve as guidelines sometimes, but really it's the job of the gm to put it all into some sort of context. Some gms(both real and virtual) and players prefer things to be clearly defined with little ambiguity. ie: Orcs=evil. Sometimes, i like this model, but most of the time, I prefer things with more depth.

Vault Dweller: I don't think that there is a human culture that hasn't earned the right to be called evil.

I'd disagree. I think it'd be hard to find a culture or society that could be properly defined as 'evil'. It's that subjective thing popping up again. Most societies tend to emphasize their own culture at the expense of foreign cultures: makes it hard to slap a generic label on their actions.
 

Voss

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I tend to keep morality in games and morality in the real world fairly seperate- they don't overlap much. (adventurers tend to be too far on the mass murderer scale to really fit into real world morality)

As for the orcs attacking a village...well that doesn't come down to good versus evil does it? It strikes me more of an immediate us vs. them- one group's interests pitted against another group's interest.

A few quick comments (I have to leave, but I'll be back)

all history is revisionist history- no history captures 'what actually happened'

2000 years? Moral philosophy of that particular group points to good, but actions perpetrated by the same bunch have consisted of the some of the vilest evil I've seen.
The wars over Reformation are particularly good for examples of this- 'they believe differently, their different beliefs jiopardize our chance of salvation, we must kill them all' attitude in particular.
 

Vault Dweller

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Sharpei_Diem said:
Vault Dweller: I don't think that any culture defies itself as evil or bad, rather they use rationalization to justify their way of life ....
Looked up definitions of evil, and found this one to be particularly useful and pertinent to this discussion: Moral badness, or the deviation of a moral being from the principles of virtue imposed by conscience, or by the will of the Supreme Being, or by the principles of a lawful human authority; disposition to do wrong; moral offence; wickedness; depravity.
And that is precisely the nature of the problem we are discussing. More often then not the principles of virtue imposed by conscience are more flexible then the will of the Supreme Being and are totally different from the principles of a lawful (as they understand it) human society. Not to mention that even the will of the Supreme Being thing is unclear as JC, Budda, and Muhammad tend to disagree on many basic principles of virtue.

Vault Dweller: I don't think that there is a human culture that hasn't earned the right to be called evil.
I'd disagree. I think it'd be hard to find a culture or society that could be properly defined as 'evil'. It's that subjective thing popping up again. Most societies tend to emphasize their own culture at the expense of foreign cultures: makes it hard to slap a generic label on their actions.
Well, we are not talking about the minor local relatively harmless customs, but about more serious things that we can all define as evil. It's hard to find a society that at one point or another didn't eagerly kill many (as in numbered in at least thousands) other people in the name of some stupid cause. Russians killed millions in the name of the revolution and enforced this disease in Eastern Europe, Germans killed as many because they thought they would do a better job running Eurasia, at some point European culture decided to move on to greener pastures accross the ocean and killed tons of insensitive to their needs locals in the process, French did the revolution and had to do some serious crowd control with guillotines that worked day and night in some provinces, then ... well I'll just list some names that are well associated with some serious killing in the name of [insert a worthy cause here] in no specific order: Alexander, Ghengis Khan, Hannibal, Roman Empire, the Crusades, the 100 years War, Inquisition, Napoleon, WW1, WW2, Hiroshima, Vietnam, Arab-Israeli conflict, African wars, Afganistan, and gazillion of smaller less famous but by no means less bloody wars all around the globe at any given time in history. The list is endless, the whole history of mankind is a history of warfare, conquest, and violent solutions to every problem. It's in the people, in their nature, sell them a worthy cause and nice peaceful folks would turn into a blood thirsty mob in a blink of an eye. From that point of view mankind is an evil race without a doubt.
 

Astromarine

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Orcs murder and Pillage. So do Vikings. Sure, you can say that the Viking culture was evil based on Judaico-Christian beliefs, and it was certainly evil to the people in their path. Still, if you genocide vikings on sight, you are also considered evil by Judaico-Christian beliefs, and are certainly considered evil by the people in your path. Why would it be different with Orcs? Because they're Green? Here, I have a conical helmet covered in a white sheet to give your lawful good Paladin.
 

Voss

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You don't need to sell them a worthy cause. You just need to convince the sheep in the front of the mob that they are thinking what you say they are thinking, and the rest will follow them. Though, admittedly, you can never underestimate the amount of evil done by a 'worthy' cause.
But I think that is just because the universe runs on irony.
 

Sharpei_Diem

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Vault Dweller said:
And that is precisely the nature of the problem we are discussing. More often then not the principles of virtue imposed by conscience are more flexible then the will of the Supreme Being and are totally different from the principles of a lawful (as they understand it) human society. Not to mention that even the will of the Supreme Being thing is unclear as JC, Budda, and Muhammad tend to disagree on many basic principles of virtue.
The difference though is that in the fantasy world, the gods have vocal mouthpieces. The afterlife is an established fact. Really, would you dare the loss of eternal bliss because you pissed off your deity? This is what i meant when i referred to the power of religion in fantasy settings.

I think Feist's midkemia, and his books in general, portray a reasonably thought out fantasy world. In particular relationships between man and god and man and magic are well done. The thought that things like demons arent a supernatural entity in themselves, but creatures from another realtiy works well (as opposed to demons being the souls of evil people, or whatnot)


Something else I was chewing on...

If we take orcs and say that they're evil, because of their very nature, then are only humans given the ability to choose their fate? If not, then which other races are so priveleged? I just think this systems bogs down with too many problems. Certainly it could be a satisfactory game world - something you fire up, play a bit and unplug without thought. But it could be a vibrant, dynamic, engaging world....
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
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Sharpei_Diem said:
The difference though is that in the fantasy world, the gods have vocal mouthpieces. The afterlife is an established fact. Really, would you dare the loss of eternal bliss because you pissed off your deity? This is what i meant when i referred to the power of religion in fantasy settings.
1. Not every setting that has gods should have an afterlife.
2. Not every afterlife should be a reward for a proper behaviour, good or bad
3. Not every person would be able to follow every rule throughout a lifetime without slipping once or twice .... a day :lol:
4. Not every choice is presented in a black-and-white format. Sometimes good intentions lead to very bad results and visa versa (see my original example). Thus it's very easy to unintentionally fall out of grace with a deity or two.
5. Usually fantasy settings come with plenty of gods in every shape and color. You can safely piss one off and seek protection of another.

If we take orcs and say that they're evil, because of their very nature, then are only humans given the ability to choose their fate? If not, then which other races are so priveleged?
Hmm, interesting point, but I think that it works in comparisson. Comparing to humans who destroy and build in equal proportions, orcs mostly destroy, and thus score higher on an evil meter.
I don't think the humans are given the ability to choose their fate either, btw. Individuals always have an ability to choose within acceptable limits generated by a society, but a soceity's ability to change is very slow and in a fantasy game for all purposes is non-existent unless the change itself is a focus of a game. So the only solution is to move the world forward accelerating the changes like Arcanum did or place the gameworld in a different world where the races have to make some adjustments to their 'normal' ways of life.
 

Verylittlefishes

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(This is for sure my record-breaking necroing)

:necro:

So where are we now 15 years later? Ideas formulated in this thread were more or less realized in AoD...and that's it?
 

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