Quote from: FrankTrollman;478238Look, the fact that it is a game doesn't allow it to include logical impossibilities.

Yes, it does. (HINT: It's a fantasy game.)

Quote from: austinjimm;478222Probably why you don't get it. D&D ain't Star Trek.

Which is the point of the fucking reference you ignorant twat.  

That episode is one of the ones that distinguishes DS9 from it's series peers because it is such an un-Star Trek thing.  There's no diplomatic solution, it just wants to fucking kill you.

Which is why it's such a good analogy to the present discussion.  

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;4782336) Laziness, ignorance and stupidity deriving from privilege & the exploitation of the hard work of others are valorised by people too unimaginative to even make up sensible or interesting imitations of the world. The valorisations are used to explain why their laziness, ignorance, and stupidity are wonderful, and actually a sign of discerning taste & skill.

I think there is far less imagination in insisting everything be an imitation of the world, than daring imagine one beyond it.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478233Yep, it's a full retard thread all right.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478234Also, it's super-hilarious to see a bunch of Christian posters in here arguing that innately evil people & species need to be killed to be dealt with.

Yes, yes it is.  With you just vaulting yourself to the top of the list.

Go to the Everglades and firebomb a few snakehandler churches, you'll feel better.

Quote from: J Arcane;478241I think there is far less imagination in insisting everything be an imitation of the world, than daring imagine one beyond it.

When someone has their personality constructed around the denial of an idea, it's near impossible to get them to accept it, even in a theoretical, or in this case, fantastical sense.

Quote from: J Arcane;478241Which is the point of the fucking reference you ignorant twat.

Well, excuse me, Shitnozzle.

Quote from: austinjimm;478239Dang! Your an expert on Christianity, too!
:rotfl:

You don't have to be an expert on Christianity to understand what a salvationist religion is. You also don't have to be an expert on Christianity to know what the core fucking tenets of the world's largest religions are. For fuck's sake, we aren't talking about obscure theological points argued over by Benedictine monks, we're talking about the concept of salvation through Jesus Christ. If you think that it is funny that someone knows what that is, you must have had no exposure to any Western culture for the last sixteen hundred years or so.

Seriously dude: this is not an obscure concept.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;478245Seriously dude: this is not an obscure concept.

No, but it has nothing to do with orc babies.

The funniest thing is, this thread has probably gotten more replies then the OP's entire bloghistory.  

Insulting everyone (or almost everyone) in the thread with general ad-hominem attacks isn't exactly showing the strength of one's point.  

I think a better summary is that different people have different ways of approaching the issue - but the issue of killing orc prisoners and/or babies does bother some people.  Adam Dray, quoted in the OP, suggested some ways.  John Morrow suggested an alternative that he thought was useful - positing that orcs had an inborn trait of psychopathy.  Others have suggested orcs not having women or children at all and/or always attacking to the death (against any principle of self-preservation).  

I don't think there's a single right answer, but I'd thank people who gave thoughtful replies.

Quote from: CRKrueger;478247The funniest thing is, this thread has probably gotten more replies then the OP's entire bloghistory.  

I just wanted to post that I suspect this will be the next thread on these boards to hit 1000 replies.

Quote from: Patrick Y.;478192A similar thing ended up happening to me, once. We were playing Shadowrun, and we were doing a straight up robbery of some tech company. I was the driver, and playing a bit of a nutter with a nasty streak. We broke in and found these two employees who we didn't expect to be there, and one of them ended up trying to scream for help. So, I said my guy was going to club him to death, and the GM decided I should roll it out. It ended up taking forever, with roll after roll after roll, and after a little while the whole thing just became exquisitely uncomfortable. We showed up at the table for some high spirited Pulp Fiction, and the dice turned it into Sympathy For Mr Vengeance.

That is the thing I love the most of the RPG hobby. And that is why I think these things shouldn't be just handwaved.

Quote from: John Morrow;478219The question is whether such racism is justified in a fantasy setting in a way that it is not in the real world.

It will depend on the 'physics laws' of the world, so to speak. If you decide that in your setting there are absolute good and evil, then racism would be justified in that setting. But you will probably find tons of incoherent situations.

QuoteFor most people, such monsters are included for the same reason they include demons, zombies, and killer robots in their games, which is to provide a clear enemy to fight and defeat because people often want their escapist fiction to be more simple than reality, with clear-cut bad guys.  And for such people, wanting to kill an orc because it's a monster is no more a desire to wallow in justifiable racism than wanting to kill zombies is.

100% agree. That is why I find the OOP idiotic. And I find perfectly OK and fun to desire that your games work that way.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;478230If the DM changes the definition of Good and Evil even once, then the definition of Good and Evil were not at any time absolute. Once you've defined morality relative to something, even relative to the DM, then you have a relative - and thus not absolute - moral system. That is what the fucking word means.

There is another issue, which is that if the moral system in use is subject to the unknowable and changeable whims of someone who isn't the person making moral choices, then neither the moral choice nor the moral system has any meaning. You might as well be spinning the Wheel of Morality at that point.
-Frank

Well put. And this is why alignment are quite useless.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478234Also, it's super-hilarious to see a bunch of Christian posters in here arguing that innately evil people & species need to be killed to be dealt with.

Nothing new, I'm afraid. Every "religion of peace" through history has done and does the same.

Quote from: austinjimm;478236You do understand that Dungeons & Dragons is a *game,* right?

I'd like if people decided if this is or not a valid argument, because it does not seem to be whenever certain other games arise in a thread. In that cases, this argument is not considered a valid defense.

QuoteAll of these things take place off-camera, so to speak. However, the orcs don't do these things because they are misunderstood or discrimnated against. They do it because they are fiendish sociopaths from birth to death.

Well, if you can make it work with internal consistency, then it's OK. So, for you the reason for defining them Evil wouldn't be the actions they do (after all, humans are capable of doing all those things) but their nature?

Quote from: austinjimm;478239Dang! Your an expert on Christianity, too!
:rotfl:

Has he said somethign wrong or false? As far as I can see, his statement is true. And you don't need to be an expert to know that basic tenet of Christianty.

Quote from: J Arcane;478241I think there is far less imagination in insisting everything be an imitation of the world, than daring imagine one beyond it.

While you have a point, the problem for me is not to dare imagining something different, but the breaks in internal consistency it entails.

Quote from: Melan;478249I just wanted to post that I suspect this will be the next thread on these boards to hit 1000 replies.

TheRPGSite, always doing the heavy lifting when it comes to publicize obscure games and blog posts from people no one knows shit about

Quote from: austinjimm;478220(Wow! This thread has grown quick. Someone probably already responded to this. Anyhow...)

The rules (e.g. the Monster Manual) say that orcs are evil. Or, going back to OD&D, orcs are Chaotic. Take your pick.

You're new here, so I'm not sure if you are preaching to the choir or are trying to be snarky. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt:

When I said "Who says orcs are evil", I was speaking from the (IMO out of touch) perspective of the quoted post in the OP. In other words, laboring under the belief that what the rulebook said is just some parroted stereotype as views from the perspective of humans in the setting, and not a morally authoritative take on the role of the creature in the world.

EDIT: And I can see reading the rest of the page that you're just a troll and didn't deserve said benefit.

Who the hell are you and what do you want here? A friend of the oop who has you panties in a bunch?

Quote from: MDBrantingham;478232No.  No that would be too ridiculous.  I'm sorry, but you have pushed the power of the imagination to the absolute limite.  An evil race?  What are we talking about here?  Meaning what?  That they are evil?   That they can't be reasoned into understanding that destruction is counterproductive?  That they cant see that A + B = C.  Come on.  Just how far do you expect me to take this imagination thing?  An evil race?  Am I supposed to believe that they actually "enjoy" evil?  That there is some "thrill" they get from the feel of tearing something's guts out?  That they feel pleasure and freedom when raping someone, a sense of power?  Get real.  I wouldnt feel that.  I dont imagine holding her down (just once) and asserting my control, wiping that smile off her face...uh, uh, what was I talking about?  Oh yeah, why would an orc?  What is there, some 'Crystal" or something that makes orcs evil?  ROLFMAO.  Magic?  RPGs?  Ha ha ha.  Everything is magic, and crystals, and vile evils.  What a...

Just shoot me when I start writing posts like this. It's as illogical as mine or koltars one liners but it's invested in like John morrow wrote it.

After 100 pages of talking about races being evil, why would you post 14,000 words about not getting the idea. I couldn't finish the longest paragraph so if it turns into something, sorry.

Quote from: jhkim;478248John Morrow suggested an alternative that he thought was useful - positing that orcs had an inborn trait of psychopathy... I don't think there's a single right answer, but I'd thank people who gave thoughtful replies.

Just one damn minute Admiral.

There is always a right answer.  If you're a real roleplayer (one of those guys that plays the role of a character according to the campaign he is actually in, instead of dragging his own notions of what should or should not be the case from whatever "superior reality" he is coming from, then you know that the GM has the "right answer.")  

If you find yourself balking at the idea that maybe somebody besides you could be defining the truth in a given senario...that doesnt make you more openminded than the rest of the gamers in your neighborhood - it makes you less imaginative and an elitist snob.  IE a brickhead.  

I dont give a damn what John Morrow suggested when I am running my campaign, because John Morrow is just some guy.  It's my campaign.  If I want to know what John Morrow suggests, I'll join his campaign, and if I do, I wont be so pretentious as to suggest that I know better than him what is right or wrong or true in his campaign.