Quote from: CRKrueger;482181However, the beauty of a fantasy RPG is that there may just be a greater good (or any other metaphysical construct you want to make that doesn't exist on earth).  Of course if you can't imagine the existence of a greater good or an absolute good or absolute evil, well then of course you can't envision what I'm talking about.

It's worth pointing out that this actually swings the other way. A god who commands you to love what it defines as good people and hate and kill those it defines as bad is not an "absolute good" god (though, to be fair, many worshippers may believe so, wrongly). It's actually a very good example of relativism (in that how one acts towards others is dependent on a higher authority's opinion about them).

I brought up Jesus earlier, and I'd point to the (rarely followed) Christian ethic of doing good to everyone, even those who do evil to you, as an example of an actual absolute good, in that it's a universal standard that does not vary based on context. Jesus doesn't want you to kill Romans even when they're arresting the messiah so they can kill him later on as a troublemaker and seditionist.

Kant's idea of always treating people as ends rather than means to an end, though somewhat vacuous, is similarly absolute without even requiring a divine injunction. By contrast, the idea of a "greater good" served by the commission of violent acts is just utilitarianism, and utilitarianism is shot through with moral relativism (one of the big problems with utilitarianism IRL is that the "greater good" or "maximal utility function" can be satisfied in all sorts of ways that seem prima facie immoral and horrible and so boundary conditions have to be introduced to limit how the maximisation of utility can be realised).

"God told me to kill him so I did" is just "The emperor told me to kill him so I did," in disguise.

My problem remains not the existence or lack of existence of "absolute good" and "absolute evil" or "irredeemable evil" but that people just seem to be throwing these terms around with thinking through what they actually mean, and what the actual effects of them would be.

The closest anyone has gotten so far is Morrow, who is correct that the psychopath could be defined as "absolute evil" in that there is no condition for morality that they could consistently satisfy. I think he loads too much onto the concept and doesn't do enough work to adequately explain how what is IRL ecologically a parasite could  survive without a host organism to be parasitic on (ordinary moral persons constituting a society). But at least he's trying rather than throwing around terms incorrectly.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482195I would challenge whether you can even summarise my position, let alone characterise it as "pathetically weak" with any veracity. Certainly you've shown that you aren't reading this thread very carefully, and that you don't actually have a coherent position, just a shitty, self-righteous attitude with nothing behind it.

As for Morrow, he explicitly stated that he ran a game in which his good PCs mowed down a bunch of greenskin kids without any moral consequences. This was because they were irredeemably evil.

I think you're thinking more of yourself than me. I've actually shown that I've read the thread just fine, I was just giving you the benefit of the doubt, which perhaps I shouldn't have since you've shown your troll to be without merit or value. If you want to challenge what I can and can't summarize, have at it. My veracity speaks for itself. Yours, however, might be suspect, as I'll show right here.

You say,

QuoteAs for Morrow, he explicitly stated that he ran a game in which his good PCs mowed down a bunch of greenskin kids without any moral consequences. This was because they were irredeemably evil.

What John said was,

QuoteIt happened very much on screen, which is why it was grim. The players infiltrated the goblin den with stealth to rescue some captives. There, they dealt with a goblin guard who made a deal to betray his fellows and give the party information if the Paladin would promise to spare his life, which they did. On the way out, they wound up engaging the males in the den. I don't remember if they were spotted or decided to engage on their own after witnessing the goblins brutalizing each other. After the males were killed in battle, the females, who were essentially trapped down a tunnel, drove their children into the party in an attempt to escape, and then the stronger females drove out the weaker females, and so on. The carnage and how brutal it was was quite clear to all involved because the combat was played out. When they finally went back to that part of the den, they caught the two strongest females who were hiding. If I remember correctly, they begged for their lives and tried to make deals but were still killed. I think that wasn't very controversial, not only because they were irredeemably Evil but out of disgust over what they'd done to survive that long (sacrificing the lives of their own children, sisters, and so on).

No where in there do I see John saying there were no moral consequences. In fact, by writing things like, "which was why it was grim" and "The carnage and how brutal it was was quite clear to all involved" I think John is making quite clear that while the fact that the goblins were known to be irredeemably evil in his campaign made such pretend slaughter less morally abhorrent in relation to D&D's alignment system, the players and by extension the characters still felt emotional turmoil by performing this act. This emotional turmoil is very much a moral consequence. In fact, quite often in the real world when folks do morally wrong things, emotional turmoil is the only consequence they suffer, so I'd argue that this emotional reaction is more "realistic" than being struck down by the Gods of Good. So either you can't read, or you're interpreting what's been written through the lens of whatever supports your own position best, which would not be the first time.

I acknowledge that being the uneducated lout that I am means that I often am not very good at expressing myself, but your personal attacks here reveal you to have as much or more of a  "shitty, self-righteous attitude" as I have, and an apparent desire to just be hurtful as well. I have a rather thick skin, and posting on this site and Nutkinland before it have helped make it even thicker, but if you're going to disparage me I request that you aim for more accuracy and detail than the weak ass shit you're laying down here and now.

I should stay the fuck away from this stupid thread.

CRKrueger, the bit with Gruumsh?  It is a friggin creation myth in a lot of settings.  It is not cosmic truth....i mean, it can be...but just because Moore wrote it, it would be for most settings, a creation myth...no more absolute truth than any other myths.  And the noxious way the other gods act, one doubts this a universal truth at all...it is a cultural creation myth.

It does NOT mean orcs are born evil, it means that there is an orcish myth that supports their actions, nothing more.

No more real than Hitler's Lebensraum.

Not saying you are wrong, just saying that can be construed as a myth.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198It's worth pointing out that this actually swings the other way. A god who commands you to love what it defines as good people and hate and kill those it defines as bad is not an "absolute good" god (though, to be fair, many worshippers may believe so, wrongly). It's actually a very good example of relativism (in that how one acts towards others is dependent on a higher authority's opinion about them).

I know you're not aiming this my way, but I find it interesting so I want to respond to it anyway. I agree with your whole first paragraph here...

QuoteI brought up Jesus earlier, and I'd point to the (rarely followed) Christian ethic of doing good to everyone, even those who do evil to you, as an example of an actual absolute good, in that it's a universal standard that does not vary based on context. Jesus doesn't want you to kill Romans even when they're arresting the messiah so they can kill him later on as a troublemaker and seditionist.

... and I agree with you here as well.

QuoteKant's idea of always treating people as ends rather than means to an end, though somewhat vacuous, is similarly absolute without even requiring a divine injunction. By contrast, the idea of a "greater good" served by the commission of violent acts is just utilitarianism, and utilitarianism is shot through with moral relativism (one of the big problems with utilitarianism IRL is that the "greater good" or "maximal utility function" can be satisfied in all sorts of ways that seem prima facie immoral and horrible and so boundary conditions have to be introduced to limit how the maximisation of utility can be realised).

Here is where we start to disagree this time. When dealing with a fantasy setting with "real" Gods and the existence of Good and Evil as forces, not just ideas, means that thinking of utilitarianism in the context of real life isn't as useful.

Quote"God told me to kill him so I did" is just "The emperor told me to kill him so I did," in disguise.

I disagree here because, in the context of a fantasy setting where the Gods are "real", defying your God is nowhere near the same as defying your emperor. The first, most obvious difference is that your soul does not get judged by and sentenced to some form of eternal afterlife by your emperor. On this basis alone, playing a character that defies it's God and Creator would be extremely "unrealistic" without extreme extenuating circumstances.

QuoteMy problem remains not the existence or lack of existence of "absolute good" and "absolute evil" or "irredeemable evil" but that people just seem to be throwing these terms around with thinking through what they actually mean, and what the actual effects of them would be.

This is because many and perhaps most people don't search for or explore morality through playing pretend with dice. Speaking for myself, I don't believe in the existence of absolute good or evil. I also don't believe in irredeemable evil in the context of the real world. What I do believe is that when imagining a fantasy world I am free to imagine whatever I want to imagine, and that folks telling me what I'm imagining is wrong or bad in some way are taking this pretend shit way too seriously.

Quote from: LordVreeg;482203I should stay the fuck away from this stupid thread.

CRKrueger, the bit with Gruumsh?  It is a friggin creation myth in a lot of settings.  It is not cosmic truth....i mean, it can be...but just because Moore wrote it, it would be for most settings, a creation myth...no more absolute truth than any other myths.  And the noxious way the other gods act, one doubts this a universal truth at all...it is a cultural creation myth.

It does NOT mean orcs are born evil, it means that there is an orcish myth that supports their actions, nothing more.

No more real than Hitler's Lebensraum.

Not saying you are wrong, just saying that can be construed as a myth.

However, when imagining a fantasy world, it is just as plausible that the "myth" is true, or at least has some basis in truth. It depends on what sort of world the GM wants the group to pretend in. Pretending that the Gruumsh "myth" is true does not make one lazy, unimaginative, or a racist, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Quote from: Sigmund;482171My position is clear. This whole thread is based on an OP that is fucking ludicrous, and every defense of that position or even ones vaguely similar to it have been pathetically weak, including yours. I see you and JJ and others putting forth this elitist view that your way of playing pretend is better or "deeper" or more "realistic" than one that includes pretend irredeemable evil and think that your one-true-wayism is retarded.

The problem is that no one is explicitly arguing the elitist view.  You're reading elitism into other posters - which may or may not be true privately, but it isn't what they're saying.  I can't speak for other posters, but I don't think I'm being elitist.  I have repeatedly denied that I'm arguing for one true way - but you insist on shoving that onto me and others.  

Quote from: Sigmund;482157Depends on how you define "good". The Greek heroes are depicted according to the morality of their culture and time period. Of course the Gods were depicted as cruel and petty... life can be cruel and seemingly petty. The heroes reflected the values of their day, and in such a militaristic culture, is it really so surprising the heroes come off as a bunch of frat boys?

This is exactly what I have been saying.  Ancient Greek myths represent the morality of their culture and time - and that morality isn't the same as ours today.  However, when I say that, you and others seem to react by labeling me an insane Marxist loony.

Quote from: LordVreeg;482203Not saying you are wrong, just saying that can be construed as a myth.

Sure it can be construed as a myth, it can be total horseshit.  It can also be the absolute truth.  I wasn't claiming it was the absolute truth of the D&D setting, I was just listing it as a way that D&D could allow for an "irredeemably evil" orc given the bog-standard backstory.  In many of my D&D settings orcs weren't irredeemably evil, but in a couple, they were (in one it was actually gnolls, the Spawn of Yeenoghu not orcs).

Quote from: jhkim;482210The problem is that no one is explicitly arguing the elitist view.  You're reading elitism into other posters - which may or may not be true privately, but it isn't what they're saying.  I can't speak for other posters, but I don't think I'm being elitist.  I have repeatedly denied that I'm arguing for one true way - but you insist on shoving that onto me and others.  

I don't recall mentioning you specifically. I do remember mentioning JibbaJibba and Pseudo though.

QuoteThis is exactly what I have been saying.  Ancient Greek myths represent the morality of their culture and time - and that morality isn't the same as ours today.  However, when I say that, you and others seem to react by labeling me an insane Marxist loony.

Please point out where I have labelled you a Marxist loony, I don't recall that.

Edit: Honestly, I'm more likely to be labelled a Marxist loony than you I'd guess, if we focus on real world politics.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198I brought up Jesus earlier, and I'd point to the (rarely followed) Christian ethic of doing good to everyone, even those who do evil to you, as an example of an actual absolute good, in that it's a universal standard that does not vary based on context. Jesus doesn't want you to kill Romans even when they're arresting the messiah so they can kill him later on as a troublemaker and seditionist.

Of course there are whole libraries of Christian debate that would claim that Jesus had to let the Romans kill him, but when he returns at the end of Revelation he's going to kick ass and chew bubblegum, point to 'I come not to bring peace but the sword", "Sell your cloak and buy a sword." yadda yadda yadda.  That's what happens when you make a dead philosopher a god, you get no actual guidance on the matter.  Christianity is a great philosophy, too bad there's like 4 people in the world who actually practice it.  

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198"God told me to kill him so I did" is just "The emperor told me to kill him so I did," in disguise.

Not if the God is real it isn't.  

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198My problem remains not the existence or lack of existence of "absolute good" and "absolute evil" or "irredeemable evil" but that people just seem to be throwing these terms around with thinking through what they actually mean, and what the actual effects of them would be.

If only these gentle scoldings came with wisdom like manna dropped from heaven, I might be enlightened.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198The closest anyone has gotten so far is Morrow, who is correct that the psychopath could be defined as "absolute evil" in that there is no condition for morality that they could consistently satisfy. I think he loads too much onto the concept and doesn't do enough work to adequately explain how what is IRL ecologically a parasite could  survive without a host organism to be parasitic on (ordinary moral persons constituting a society). But at least he's trying rather than throwing around terms incorrectly.

I'm sure he finds your "A for effort" encouraging, hopefully he will do more to please.

Your only real problem remains that you happen to conveniently think your preferred fields of study in a world without an actual god made manifest have anything to do with a theoretical world in which such gods or god does exist and makes it's commands known.

Quote from: Sigmund;482171This whole thread is based on an OP that is fucking ludicrous, and every defense of that position or even ones vaguely similar to it have been pathetically weak, including yours. I see you and JJ and others putting forth this elitist view that your way of playing pretend is better or "deeper" or more "realistic" than one that includes pretend irredeemable evil and think that your one-true-wayism is retarded. Clear now or do I need to draw pictures?

The only one here who is being elitist and one-true-wayist is you. Asking people like Dray ( and others) to leave the hobby because of their mockworthy ideas. Morrow's ideas about "sanitized" play could be construed as elitist just as much as jibba's or psuedoephedrine's ideas about "badly designed setting or my "murkier waters". Just because I may not agree with any of them does not mean I think they should leave the hobby, and none of them has asked anyone to leave the hobby except you.

I may not subscribe to psuedoephedrine's idea about "badly designed" settings but I do think his settings are  good examples of how his design philosophies infleunce his games. Just as I think jibba is wrong in saying that there's something inherently dark about the hobby that attracts fucked up people but I am sympathetic to some of views on setting design.

The conversation has moved (at least for some of us) beyond the ridiculous statements in the OP and I think it's rather disinguenuos of you to imply that just because you don't agree with some of the things we have said, we are some how defending the ideas in the OP.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: beejazz;482131Anyway, Greek myths are fucking weird, and usually have little to do with good and evil.

I would actually argue that the Greeks could actually be quite evil.  I'm still surprised that anyone considers the Spartans admirable.  You want to see a real human example of a violent psychopathic parasite culture in action (*cough* Helots *cough*), take a close look at the Spartans.

Quote from: Pete Nash;482155Indeed, Greek Mythology is a prime example of ambiguous morality. The gods crap on mortals for the most petty of reasons, blameless victims suffer a great degree of injustice (being turned into monsters and killed by thoughtless heroes for example) and even the heroes themselves are bastards in one form or another - cheats, womanisers, kidnappers, rapists, fratricidal murderers, human sacrificers and so on.

When life expectancy is under 40 and people expect the universe to randomly kill them, they are thankful of any help divine beings might offer them to keep them alive.  They expected the universe to crap on them and were surprised when it didn't.  

When life expectancy approaches 80 and people expect to die of old age, instead of being thankful to the divine that they remain alive because it is the norm, they curse the divine for ill fortune because that's seen as the rare exception.  They are surprised or angry when the universe craps on them.

You can find all sorts of examples of modern people dying stupid deaths from wild animals, cliffs, waterfalls, and so on because they don't expect they'll die when they do stupid things and don't expect nature to hurt them.  People in ancient times had very different expectations about reality than we do.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482164A specific different set of urges and priorities. Please explain how a humanoid species that needs to kill humans in order to survive can originate and sustain itself.

The first thing I have to ask is, do you have similar verisimilitude problems with vampires in role-playing games?

The second thing I have to ask is, how do you think real world parasites that exclusively afflict a single species originate and sustain themselves?

Third, one doesn't need to constantly kill to be evil, nor does one need to kill at all to be evil.  The BTK Killer killed 10 people over more than a decade of time.  Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka are only known for certain to have killed three (including Homolka's sister) but raped many more.  Phillip Garrido kidnapped Jaycee Dugard and held her as a slave.  Plenty of people would consider all of them evil, despite the fact that they were constantly active killing machines.  A good fantasy example would be the dragon in Dragonslayer, who leaves the town alone but needs to eat a young maiden every now and then.  Contrast that dragon with those depicted in Reign of Fire, that lays wasted to anything and everything, which is what you seem to expect.

Finally, I don't think they have to need to kill humans to the extent that, say, the Aliens do.  In my D&D game, evil often preferred to go after weak targets of opportunity not of their own kind.  In the absence of such targets, they might go after stronger targets or go after their own kind.  If given a choice, a goblin would sack human settlements and take captives to abuse and perhaps ultimately kill and eat but in the absence of humans that they could kill or have any reasonable chance of killing, they could satisfy their hunger and cruel urges by viciously killing animals like deer or even rats and by brutalizing others of their own kind weaker than they are.  

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482164So, they're mean to each other, therefore every one of them deserves to die?

Think about all the real world atrocities one can blow off by dismissing it simply as being "mean".  Would you consider it fair to describe the crimes of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka as them being "mean" to some women?

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;482164The more naturalistic you try to make the creatures, the less fantasy and the more sci-fi things become. In turn, the more sci-fi, the less I'm willing to swallow the idea of absolute good and evil.

Science fiction is also has plenty of examples of remorseless killing machines and The Terminator and the Aliens have both been mentioned in this thread.  Sometimes, they are literally machines but you can also find alien and transformed human, too.  There are also science fiction zombies such as those in 28 Days Later.  I'm not seeing the incompatibility.

Please... like the Greeks have dibs on this kind of behavior...

You want to see a real human example of a [strike]violent psychopathic parasite[/strike] modern culture in action (*cough* Helots *cough*), take a close look around you.




I used to like partying in Juarez. I wouldn't go down there now though...


photo credits: http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/12/violence-plagued-juarez-only-got-worse.html

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198It's worth pointing out that this actually swings the other way. A god who commands you to love what it defines as good people and hate and kill those it defines as bad is not an "absolute good" god (though, to be fair, many worshippers may believe so, wrongly). It's actually a very good example of relativism (in that how one acts towards others is dependent on a higher authority's opinion about them).

Only if the distinction between good people and bad people is arbitrary and not a legitimate assessment of the situation.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198I brought up Jesus earlier, and I'd point to the (rarely followed) Christian ethic of doing good to everyone, even those who do evil to you, as an example of an actual absolute good, in that it's a universal standard that does not vary based on context. Jesus doesn't want you to kill Romans even when they're arresting the messiah so they can kill him later on as a troublemaker and seditionist.

Beyond the oversimplification of Jesus and his death, Romans were not irredeemably evil monsters.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198"God told me to kill him so I did" is just "The emperor told me to kill him so I did," in disguise.

The emperor is not God.  You can have all sorts of fun equivocating things that aren't.  This is how PETA winds up talking about "sea kittens".  Romans are not inhuman monsters.  Emperors are not God.  Fish are not sea kittens.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;482198The closest anyone has gotten so far is Morrow, who is correct that the psychopath could be defined as "absolute evil" in that there is no condition for morality that they could consistently satisfy. I think he loads too much onto the concept and doesn't do enough work to adequately explain how what is IRL ecologically a parasite could  survive without a host organism to be parasitic on (ordinary moral persons constituting a society). But at least he's trying rather than throwing around terms incorrectly.

Given that I haven't suggested a world of only irredeemably evil monsters and no humans, I'm not sure why I need to explain how they could survive without others to be parasitic on any more than one needs to explain how guinea worms could survive without humans in order to believe they exist.

Years ago, there was a thread on rec.games.frp.advocacy where a person said that he couldn't figure out how to create an "expansionist, totalitarian regime that can last more than a few years without going bankrupt", the assumption being that when one creates an empire, it must be created to endure.  After a few rounds of speculation and a few suggestions of her own, Mary Kuhner replied, "So we go bankrupt--what do you think we are, a going concern? The Lords of Darkness *like* devastation, and they don't care what happens to their Empire. It is just a tool, to be discarded when it has done the maximum harm, or obtained whatever occult end it was designed for."

Species don't last forever, nor do they have to be designed to.  If the evil monsters ever managed to kill all the humans and non-evil humanoids, their lives would become harder and they'd start preying on each other.  Maybe they'd die out after a millennia, a century, or even just a few years.  Why does that preclude their existence?  They wouldn't be the first species to go extinct or the first parasite to go extinct because it no longer had a host.

Added: In fact, in my D&D game, the Druid's, in the cause ecological stability in the service of the spirit of their world, would have actively culled the goblinoids if they started to get the upper hand and might exterminate all of the humans much as they would also come to to aid of the goblinoids to preserve them and help keep the humans in check if the humans started to pose a real threat to exterminating them.