Why thanks Chris for sharing those stories! I always found the alignment ethos one of the most fun parts of games. And those are great examples how ethos affects justifications which affects behavior.

That vampire example reminds me of a VtM game I ran which had the Princedom set up some junkie flop houses as a more humane place to corral the addicts, keep tabs on drifters, and with an occasional blood doll or blood puppy residing. Infiltrating it as a pretend addict and watching the sadness was a moral quandry for my Anarch PCs, who wanted to control (liberate) the territory for themselves. The human concentrated brokenness weared away at the vampire PC spies inside. And then there was the question: We as a group don't have the $ and professional means to help people like this, let alone contain this, or the drug trade, and there's far too many evil humans who make money and power off this to stop it completely without risking the Masquerade. This Camarilla adhesive bandage might actually be as much a mercy as a depressing nightmare.

Humans are frightening. It's their world. Your monsters have to live in it.

But eventually you do have to have that discussion with players whether they have a moral compass at all, and what 'pole North' do they think it points to. It's often a difficult discussion to have with people who haven't been taught morals & ethics let alone traveled and seen much of horror from the other's shoes. Often childish aswers ensue that you'd have to walk them through A Lot to see another view. Or you could roleplay out the actions of such consequences as gaming fodder, but I've had few repeat takers as it tends to trouble their inner peace... they like easier, more action-packed answers. Their play, my play, I learn to give and take as much as I can.

A group of sensitivity writers telling WotC to hire them or else they will sick their twitter sock puppets on WotC.

Quote from: Opaopajr on October 23, 2024, 12:31:29 PMBut eventually you do have to have that discussion with players whether they have a moral compass at all, and what 'pole North' do they think it points to. It's often a difficult discussion to have with people who haven't been taught morals & ethics let alone traveled and seen much of horror from the other's shoes. Often childish aswers ensue that you'd have to walk them through A Lot to see another view. Or you could roleplay out the actions of such consequences as gaming fodder, but I've had few repeat takers as it tends to trouble their inner peace... they like easier, more action-packed answers. Their play, my play, I learn to give and take as much as I can.

Well, I do know (or at least strongly suspect) the answers to some of them. Not really my place to play amateur psychologist, but I will say that, knowing the persons behind these PCs, I can certainly understand how those points were reached (short answer - trauma and cope) and why it made sense for them to evaluate as being "good" even if I don't find it enjoyable to play as if those points were the right and moral thing to do.

Put another way, I haven't had my belief the in general goodness of people kicked out of me by life. Others have and RPGs are not the place to working through such things which is why I generally just left things lie rather than trying to dig into it.

Why yes, never do free unlicensed therapy at the RPG table. But yeah, more than a few people who come with a rougher life experience, from my observation, favor a far more extreme application of punishments. You could try explaining the philosophical underpinnings of ethics, compassion, mercy, and restraint but at that point: unreceptive audience, unpaid teaching, no gaming occuring. C'est la vie.

It's hard to find that audience who can do a lot of things beyond the lowest common denominator. Hence why as much as people rail against adventure tropes like "meeting in a tavern", "merchant caravan", and "fetch quests" it's really the strongest foundation from which to start with a brand new batch of players. From there you can curate which players have the interest and capacity for more complexity. Know thyself and know thy audience.

Simple: A party consisting of members of the modern Democratic Party in the United States.  Choose your super-villain: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hilary Clinton, the list goes on.

Kamala Harris would just be a mindless golem serving her master(s).

Nothing in the universe is more evil.

My party of Illithid PC's is probably more evil than that. Like me, they don't give a fuck about politics. But those brains...