Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;914724I don't know what 'mastrubation' is, but I don't want to face moral dilemmas in a game of D&D because I game for escapism.  As I said before, I get plenty of moral dilemmas playing this game called "real life."

And that's fine and dandy. But different people find different kinds of escapism entertaining. One might not think that rape, assault, torture and violence were entertaining, but people watch that stuff.

Quote from: Spinachcat;914666I don't game to masturbate over moral conundrums. Real life has enough of that bullshit.

Real life is also full of murder and theft. But I don't see anyone complaining that killing things and taking their stuff isn't fun because it happens in real life.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;914732And that's fine and dandy. But different people find different kinds of escapism entertaining. One might not think that rape, assault, torture and violence were entertaining, but people watch that stuff.

Wait, are we now saying Rebecca DeMornay is a goblin?  Because...I want to be on her team.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;914723And you'll get way more people telling you that textual literalism is the greatest heresy of the 20th century, and that the vast majority of Christians reject the "it's OK to slaughter" mentality.

And if they're actually an educated Christian... rare, sadly... they'll point out that the book of Joshua was written centuries after the events depicted, while the Hebrews were captive in Babylon and that the priestly caste rewrote the events in Judges to give the Hebrew slaves a heroic myth, and that Joshua is essentially a Jewish Rambo.  (the later Rambo, that is)

I guess it may depend where you are and which denominations are prevalent.  I'm largely in agreement with you.  People of any religion who are pro-genocide make me nervous.  I watched First Blood for the first time this spring.  Imagine my shock to discover that John Rambo didn't kill a single person.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;914617Next we'll hear about how going into a dungeon and killing orcs is just like a gang of white supremacists going through minority housing projects and murdering them all.

Heh.  I have that game.

Ratman_tf makes a fair point: in games like D&D where wholesale slaughter and ruin is the norm, it's a bit like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin to be debating the murder of goblin children.

In the real world, people who kill other human beings up close with hand weapons repeatedly suffer profound psychological effects from the experience.  We're happy eliding those.  There's no reason we can't be happy to just torch the goblin nursery because none of this is real.

Quote from: Bren;914708And yet presumably you aren't killing evil people right and left in the real world. So the sort of evil you mean must be different than ordinary human evil.

Whether goblins are evil by nature and unable to change or be redeemed certainly is a legitimate question to raise. It's too bad you just dismissed it.

And yet goblins (and creatures with different names but similar niches or roles) aren't unalterably, irredeemably evil by nature in all fantasy campaigns. Your experience with fantasy, both literary and as RPG settings must be really limited if you are entirely unaware of the existence of other alternatives.

Not going to waste my time. You're not reading the posts you're "responding" to.  You're only looking to talk.

Quote from: daniel_ream;914745In the real world, people who kill other human beings up close with hand weapons repeatedly suffer profound psychological effects from the experience.  We're happy eliding those.  There's no reason we can't be happy to just torch the goblin nursery because none of this is real.

I had to go there.

Quote from: Omega;914672Because facing moral dilemmas in a game = mastrubation.

So says village idiot #1 and #2.

I'm sorry that our fun does not look like your fun?

For me it depends on the game. If goblins are fundamentally EVIL by nature and cannot be redeemed then putting them down is not an evil act. This posits a world where actual quantifiable universal "good" and "evil" exist and are hardwired into the fabric of reality. I think many if not most D&D type games default to this even if they do not outright say it.

If your gaming group doesn't care to engage the question of the morality of killing goblin children, then kill them or don't and enjoy your game.

In my current campaign goblins are actually minor fae (there are no Orcs), as such they can appear to be any age. They are generally of the Unseelie Court which makes them wicked by human standards and Chaotic in alignment. The morality of slaughtering them depends on a character's personal code of ethics and morality. Some might say that chaotic, unseelie far should be killed whenever possible. Others might say that they are rational beings and should be given the option of surrender and reforming their ways.

My world has Law and Chaos as hardwired extremes, lthough most people are neutral. Law is not always Good and Chaos is not always Evil. Either left unchecked will lead ultimately to stagnation.

Quote from: Ghost;914754Not going to waste my time.

Why not? I wasted my time reading and responding to you?

Quote from: DavetheLost;914770They are generally of the Unseelie Court which makes them wicked by human standards and Chaotic in alignment. The morality of slaughtering them depends on a character's personal code of ethics and morality. Some might say that chaotic, unseelie far should be killed whenever possible. Others might say that they are rational beings and should be given the option of surrender and reforming their ways.

I'd say going out of your way to piss off the Unseelie Court by killing any of them you meet is behavior designed to quickly lead to your character having an interesting, but unpleasant series of encounters with chaotic, in-human, magical, bored beings. Given Unseelie behavior, they may decide to have a contest to figure out who can invent the most interesting and unpleasant fate to inflict on that PC.

QuoteMy world has Law and Chaos as hardwired extremes, lthough most people are neutral. Law is not always Good and Chaos is not always Evil. Either left unchecked will lead ultimately to stagnation.

Very true to the Moorcockian source material.

Quote from: Manzanaro;914661It's nothing to do with my limitations. I've run into players who enjoy torture, murder, rape, and etc. in games; nothing to do with exploring a character or anything like that, they were just twisted fucks. I've run into GMs who would throw in goblin babies simply because they find the idea of the PCs killing goblin babies to be amusing. I don't play role playing games to experience an empty depiction of violence, especially one against helpless targets. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because I don't necessarily enjoy the same things as you, it is due to a "limitation" on my part.

You're limited in some part by your experiences, just like all of us.  In another thread here, we have people trying to have PCs rape young girls, we have guys masturbating at the table, we have people pissing on the floor.  Those might be among their experiences, but they're not trying to say those idiots have anything to do with roleplaying in general.  13 year old males tend to have a kickass247365 playstyle.  After that it's highly subjective.  Some people played Vampire: The Masquerade as a game of personal horror, some played Trenchcoats and Katanas.  A game that doesn't force playstyle...gets all kinds.  The fact that it gets one certain kind at one certain table says nothing about the game.  Do people tend to kick in the door and charge more in D&D than in RQ or RM?  Arguably yes, but I've seen careful D&D players and maniac RQ players.  The maniacs tend to die more, regardless of system, the way it should be.

Quote from: Manzanaro;914661Also, your whole conceptualization of good and evil seems very simplistic here. In reality, "good" people do not have a moral necessity to kill "evil" people; that's not how good and evil work. Admittedly though, there are game settings that do employ moral concepts in an equally simplistic way. Though I will say that it is a rare game or setting that says a particular race always is and always will be evil, unless that race is some sort of supernatural manifestation which is not generally the case with goblins.

How "good and evil work" doesn't apply, the difference is Culture.  Wasn't too long ago in California that it most definitely was the "way things worked" for good people to gather together to kill the evil-doers.  Vigilance Committees were nearly everywhere and took the law into their own hands.  When the posse was called and you were an able-bodied man, you went.

Now, that is against the law, but you still have people who think they have a moral imperative to take the law into their own hands to punish evil - they end up in jail.

BTW, Good vs. Evil can be just an interesting and nuanced as your supposedly less simplistic moralistic version, which really is just as detailed just on a different axis. Self vs. Others.

Man I'd love to talk about Good and Evil in a fictional setting once without all the responses being smeared with the gamer's typical smug superiority concerning religious thought.

Quote from: Manzanaro;914661Also, your whole conceptualization of good and evil seems very simplistic here. In reality, "good" people do not have a moral necessity to kill "evil" people; that's not how good and evil work.

You do understand that we are talking about a game and not reality, right? Pardue, are you listening?

Even if we're adhering to an age-old trope of RPGs ("ugly is evil"), I am of the opinion that killing Goblin children is a moral grey area. Real world issues aside - keeping within the spirit of the discussion - if those children had a predilection towards violence, I'd say it would be an act for the greater good. However, I'd still ding my players with Corruption points.

Most RPGs aren't equipped to punish/reward/guide players for morally grey acts. This is why Corruption is vital for character growth in ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG. It succinctly addresses what happens in situations where something may be done for the greater good, but the act in itself is reprehensible. Binary acts in RPGs of right or wrong/good vs evil are hard to judge, and ZWEIHÄNDER gives a GM tools to handle it.

Quote from: Bren;914708And yet presumably you aren't killing evil people right and left in the real world. So the sort of evil you mean must be different than ordinary human evil.

Isn't that kind of what this whole sub-thread was about?  If goblins are no different than humans then you don't treat them differently than any sapient race.

Quote from: Bren;914708Whether goblins are evil by nature and unable to change or be redeemed certainly is a legitimate question to raise. It's too bad you just dismissed it.

Uh, is that what he did?

Quote from: Ghost;914512In some settings orcs aren't evil, they're just a different-looking race, with a benevolent creator-god looking down disappointed every time a human being discriminates against them.  In other campaigns orcs are evil with a small e, prone to aggression, and generally malicious.  Sometimes, like in Tolkien, they are evil with a large E, created by evil for evil with no middle ground.  None of these variations is necessarily wrong or superior, they're just different.  

Where I come from directly stating that exact point is not dismissing it.  I'm guessing you just missed it because it was a bit back?

Quote from: Bren;914708And yet goblins (and creatures with different names but similar niches or roles) aren't unalterably, irredeemably evil by nature in all fantasy campaigns.

See above.

Quote from: Bren;914708Your experience with fantasy, both literary and as RPG settings must be really limited if you are entirely unaware of the existence of other alternatives. It seems like your experience of fantasy is limited to one or two D&D settings. But even D&D settings had that Drool Drizzler doh Whatsists name guy. In a setting where Drow are supposed to be EVIL, like goblins, somehow Drizzler is not evil. Is someone had killed Drizzler as a baby, Salvatore would have needed to go out and find another job to pay for that roof over his garage.

As I said, whether goblins are unalterably, irredeemably evil by nature is a legitimate question. Ironically, its a question you intentionally avoided with your erroneous assumptions about the logical nature of goblins in every fantasy campaign.

Quote from: ReaganThere you go again.

You're really beating the hell out of this "Your ignorant, simplistic view etc..." line of argument which is claiming he's ignoring something he stated in his very first post in the thread.

Quote from: Bren;914708But your EVIL goblins remove the need for characters (or players) to think about the experience of killing goblins.

You appear to be trying very hard NOT to think.

Coming from a guy who's goto game has “mechanics to support throwing bucket loads of opponents against the PCs with minimal threat to their survival.”  that's a bit thick with irony.  Mook rules means your H+I characters are chopping down hordes of HUMAN Pawns and Retainers.  Unless the game is an Alt-History where Cardinal Richelieu (or whoever) has a medevac chopper and a surgical unit, that's a metric assload of humans chopped down for King, Country, Honor, Fame, Glory, etc.

They going to court for all of those killings?  If not, what's simple again?

Quote from: Bren;914708Which is fine. Playing RPGs is a leisure activity. It doesn't have to be any more meaningful than watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Which is pretty much my opinion about any game with mook rules.

Quote from: Bren;914708If you and your pals want your fantasy roleplay to be grand theft auto with goblins it doesn't bother me so long as you aren't at my table. And you clearly are not at my table.

Yay, more mindless anti-religion masked as useless superiority bullshit.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;914783Even if we're adhering to an age-old trope of RPGs ("ugly is evil"), I am of the opinion that killing Goblin children is a moral grey area. Real world issues aside - keeping within the spirit of the discussion - if those children had a predilection towards violence, I'd say it would be an act for the greater good. However, I'd still ding my players with Corruption points.

Most RPGs aren't equipped to punish/reward/guide players for morally grey acts. This is why Corruption is vital for character growth in ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG. It succinctly addresses what happens in situations where something may be done for the greater good, but the act in itself is reprehensible. Binary acts in RPGs of right or wrong/good vs evil are hard to judge, and ZWEIHÄNDER gives a GM tools to handle it.

Marketing Combined with Actual Topicality: 8/10 Not bad.  You're getting better.