TBP and its ilk apparently oppose the inclusion of "biological essentialism" in RPGs. However, what about a race of robots programmed to be evil? Would that be "bionic essentialism" and therefore sinful? If not, why couldn't nature, or the gods, "program" a biological race to be evil?

I mean, Eclipse Phase, basically... The TITANs weren't programmed, but they're pretty much evil anti-life in the mold of, say, Skynet.

Quote from: Bruwulf on January 09, 2023, 03:44:03 PM
I mean, Eclipse Phase, basically... The TITANs weren't programmed, but they're pretty much evil anti-life in the mold of, say, Skynet.

I miss EP so much, the setting IS amazing and I love how wild humanity has become.

Sadly it's gone off the stratospher Woke since 2.0.

They always were woke, to be fair. It used to be so blatant that even on TBP you could complain about how woke they were, back before "woke" was a term in common use.

The first thing I did when I got 2.0 was to flip to the Jovians and see what they did with them.

It basically confirmed all my fears and I haven't paid attention since.

Luckily that doesn't matter, I have all the books from 1.0 and I can play them for the rest of my life.

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on January 09, 2023, 03:26:05 PM
TBP and its ilk apparently oppose the inclusion of "biological essentialism" in RPGs. However, what about a race of robots programmed to be evil? Would that be "bionic essentialism" and therefore sinful? If not, why couldn't nature, or the gods, "program" a biological race to be evil?

Any limitations of material reality that interferes with their impossible vision of perfect equality between all peoples and things is considered "Evil" by these people.

Quote from: Zelen on January 09, 2023, 08:29:56 PM

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on January 09, 2023, 03:26:05 PM
TBP and its ilk apparently oppose the inclusion of "biological essentialism" in RPGs. However, what about a race of robots programmed to be evil? Would that be "bionic essentialism" and therefore sinful? If not, why couldn't nature, or the gods, "program" a biological race to be evil?

Any limitations of material reality that interferes with their impossible vision of perfect equality between all peoples and things is considered "Evil" by these people.

Wishing woke leftists can continue to wish away reality. Their version of "pray away the gay."

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on January 09, 2023, 03:26:05 PM
TBP and its ilk apparently oppose the inclusion of "biological essentialism" in RPGs. However, what about a race of robots programmed to be evil? Would that be "bionic essentialism" and therefore sinful?

If the robots' actions are the result of programming they can't themselves change, they're not moral agents and therefore are not "evil". They are only tools used for evil by their programmers and controllers.

QuoteIf not, why couldn't nature, or the gods, "program" a biological race to be evil?

Same logic. Evil is by definition a moral choice. A race whose members were universally incapable of making moral choices wouldn't be much better than biological machines.

However, this is not (I think) what TBP and the Woke crowd really object to in the term "biological essentialism". They think the term means "the belief that the biology of the group determines the personality and psychology of the individual," which they believe is reified by the fact that in RPGs, a "race" is defined primarily by the game-relevant advantages and disadvantages which the vast majority of its members have in common with one another, and which work to force all PCs of that race towards certain roles in play and away from others.

It's not so much the idea of a race "programmed to be evil" as a race destined by its biology to incline towards any behaviour pattern to a degree an individual's own choice can't wholly overcome if it wishes. The problem is that this objection misses the point of having origin template packages of any kind to begin with, which is to offer convenient shortcuts during character creation and handles during gameplay to players who have already decided what game roles they're interested in.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on January 09, 2023, 11:38:07 PM
Same logic. Evil is by definition a moral choice. A race whose members were universally incapable of making moral choices wouldn't be much better than biological machines.

However, this is not (I think) what TBP and the Woke crowd really object to in the term "biological essentialism". They think the term means "the belief that the biology of the group determines the personality and psychology of the individual," which they believe is reified by the fact that in RPGs, a "race" is defined primarily by the game-relevant advantages and disadvantages which the vast majority of its members have in common with one another, and which work to force all PCs of that race towards certain roles in play and away from others.

It's not so much the idea of a race "programmed to be evil" as a race destined by its biology to incline towards any behaviour pattern to a degree an individual's own choice can't wholly overcome if it wishes. The problem is that this objection misses the point of having origin template packages of any kind to begin with, which is to offer convenient shortcuts during character creation and handles during gameplay to players who have already decided what game roles they're interested in.

Neoplatonist1's original question mixes up (a) what is logical within the fiction, and (b) what lessons the fiction has for the real world. Fantasy often has morals or lessons for the real world. For example, Tolkien's ents are fictional creatures - but they convey Tolkien's real-world values of nature conservation. This isn't mind control. Someone can read Tolkien and not care about real-world forests. But some consider such morals an influence in that direction.

The concern with fantasy racial stereotypes is thinking that they can convey a lesson regarding real-world races. Tolkien's dwarves are greedy for gold, for example. In his original portrayal, he considered them like Jewish people. He explicitly said so in interviews, and based their language on Hebrew. Even though dwarves are heroic at times, their greed can still be considered an objectionable stereotype. The Jewish association was dropped in later adaptations of Tolkien, so it's not as much an issue.

Tolkien's orcs are not as clearly coded. For example, Elvish languages are based on Finnish (for Quenya) and Welsh (for Sindarin). An outside scholar connected orcish with Ancient Hurritic, but that hasn't been confirmed by any of the published letters or notes from Tolkien. Tolkien described them in letters as looking like "least lovely Mongol-types", but their English dialog was similar to cockney.


So the question with robots would be -- what lessons or themes does the robot fiction convey about the real world? Different portrayals of robots have different interpretations. For example, films like The Stepford Wives and Ex Machina had a feminist slant on robots. There are obvious parallels to anti-feminism (in the former) along with human trafficking and the sex trade (in the latter). In the Terminator movies, robots are embodiments of corporate greed and mechanization. In Star Wars, they represent lower-class servants - like their inspiration of the hapless peasants in Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress.

For example, I've run several one-shot Star Wars games with droid PCs who were advocates for droids having equal rights rather than being property. That can certainly be seen as having parallels to real-world civil rights struggles, even though the droids were not coded as any particular ethnicity. Here were the pregens for a FATE game of mine, for example:

https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/starwars/droids/characters.html

Quote from: jhkim on January 10, 2023, 03:50:52 AMSo the question with robots would be -- what lessons or themes does the robot fiction convey about the real world? Different portrayals of robots have different interpretations.

For example, I've run several one-shot Star Wars games with droid PCs who were advocates for droids having equal rights rather than being property. That can certainly be seen as having parallels to real-world civil rights struggles, even though the droids were not coded as any particular ethnicity.

True enough, but I would say that the assumptions needed to make that particular situation a valid parallel -- i.e. that droids actually have real self-awareness and free will, and therefore the right to be able to exercise the latter as the former sees fit -- already entail one possible answer to Neoplatonist1's original question, which is that the nature and design of one's hardware substrate doesn't ipso facto predetermine the outcome of one's software processes.

The objection to PC essentialism (whether biological or cybernetic) in RPGs, as I understand it, is the belief that any formal "hard and fast" in-game definition of what specific PC backgrounds do and don't provide to characters is in itself a denial of, and message against, that principle of freedom. It doesn't matter that the player chooses the background, goes the thinking, if the message about the character is that the character himself didn't, and if the effect of that background is that the PC will forever after have the course of his adventures deeply influenced by that a priori definition of who he is and what he can do.

To pick a given theme for robot PCs at all, in other words, and to structure robot PC design around manifesting and dramatizing that theme, is to take agency away from the characters and players to begin with. The objection of essentialism in PCs is not what lessons or themes a character background is intended to convey, but that a background is built to work towards conveying any themes at all other than what the player himself wants to do, and I think it likely that somebody bothered by this will find it just as bothersome for robot PCs as they would for half-orc or dwarven PCs. (After all, paradoxically, a world in which every droid resents its service and wants its freedom could be argued to present just as "essentialist" a reading of what "droidness" is as a world in which none of them do.)

In my original writing I'm working on aliens with radically different psychology from humans as a result of their biology. One is a superorganism that considers all other life to be food and research material. They're not magically evil, but they're inherently hostile to humanity and they consider this the natural course of action. Trying to debate with them wont work because they think humans are animals who don't know whats good for them.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 10, 2023, 08:59:32 AMOne is a superorganism that considers all other life to be food and research material. They're not magically evil, but they're inherently hostile to humanity and they consider this the natural course of action.

Out of curiosity, is this superorganism ever presented from its own POV as a dramatic protagonist? Is any given individual of its kind (assuming its kind even has individuals) theoretically capable of changing this perception and attitude, if it gained sufficiently unprecedented experiences or discoveries from its species' history?

The definition of a dramatic protagonist (which in this context includes RPG PCs, I think) is somebody whose choices make measurable differences to the outcome of whatever story they're in, and who changes or grows as a result of those choices and their outcomes. "Essentialism", I'd suggest, is what happens when the definition of who or what a character is predetermines those choices and isn't sufficiently changed by them.

I would like to see people who think "Biological Essentialism" is a bad/evil thing explain how a Giraffe and an Orca should be able to swim the same speed,   or explain how a field mouse and a rhino have no significant biological differences between the two.

An Elf becomes an ADULT around the age of 100 years old (in D&D), THAT IS NOT HUMAN.  How could you understand the mental/psychological aspects of an Elf character when they are a child for longer than a normal human even lives?  What ethnic group of humans is this supposed to represent in their racist worldview where these optional player races are "different flavors" of human?

Different ability scores for different species/race makes sense and isn't racist,  these people have taken too much kool-aid.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on January 10, 2023, 09:16:30 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 10, 2023, 08:59:32 AMOne is a superorganism that considers all other life to be food and research material. They're not magically evil, but they're inherently hostile to humanity and they consider this the natural course of action.

Out of curiosity, is this superorganism ever presented from its own POV as a dramatic protagonist? Is any given individual of its kind (assuming its kind even has individuals) theoretically capable of changing this perception and attitude, if it gained sufficiently unprecedented experiences or discoveries from its species' history?

I'd like to do some aliens pov, yes.

Interacting with other species actually made them even more hostile. Initially they were willingly to meet halfway by sending emissaries to explain how amazing it would be to join them and be eaten first, because open war would be costly. This kept failing so they decided to give up and go straight for war as the first option. Turns out it's much more efficient than they thought.

Unlike other voracious hive mind species in schlock scifi, where the writers get bored with them and rewrite them as peaceful space hippie's because they think that's somehow an improvement (it's not. Writers please stop doing this), mine aren't. I already have humans to act human, so it would be redundant.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on January 10, 2023, 09:16:30 AM
The definition of a dramatic protagonist (which in this context includes RPG PCs, I think) is somebody whose choices make measurable differences to the outcome of whatever story they're in, and who changes or grows as a result of those choices and their outcomes. "Essentialism", I'd suggest, is what happens when the definition of who or what a character is predetermines those choices and isn't sufficiently changed by them.

This is an interesting point. I feel an actually good example of biological essentialism is this novela Three Worlds Collide.
https://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pdf

The story is a commentary on metaethics. The premise is that humanity encounters two alien species with radically different (and to us evil) ethics as a result of their different evolutionary histories. These ethical systems are incompatible with each other, so each species tries to forcibly impose its own ethics on the other two by genetically modifying them to integrate their own ethics. The idea that they could just leave each other alone and peacefully coexist with their differences intact is never presented as a viable option.

You'll see what I mean when you read the story.

This story was a key inspiration for writing my own aliens. It just feels believable that different species with wildly different evolutionary histories would have radically different psychologies and ethics. It feels believable that these would be insurmountable barriers and not something that could be trivially ignored and changed as is the case in most other scifi. In fact, the idea that you could and should genetically remake other species to suit your own arbitrary ethical calculus is quite frankly repulsive. That ethical relativism/repulsiveness is the point of my superorganism: their ethics make perfect sense to them and anything else is seen as evil/insane, while humans simply cannot comprehend why they would act this way and likewise see them as evil/insane.

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on January 09, 2023, 03:26:05 PM
why couldn't nature, or the gods, "program" a biological race to be evil?

They never claimed it wasn't possible. They claimed it was badwrongfun.

To them, the only correct way to play an RPG is by upholding leftwing precepts. And "live and let live" is not an option. You must submit.