Quote from: jibbajibba;478360First off we are going to disagree about the limits where you can set the Good/Evil axis. Maybe its because you think Good and evil come from religion and I think religion reflects fundermental human principles about good and evil. You can't make eating Toast Evil. You can make it a heresy, you can make it unlawful, you can make it a shunned activity that means offenders are stoned or whatever, you can't make it evil. If you do them all that has happened is you have purloined the word Evil and changed it's meaning to be 'something that this reglion\culture thinks is wrong' .

I think we are confusing the idea of a fictional setting with its own cosmology and the problem of evil in the real world. In the real world, I agree, "eating toast is evil" would be a somewhat arbitrary religious decree and not something one could point to as objectively evil. But that is because there is a great deal of uncertainty and debate in our world over the existence of god.

In a world where the gods are real and the cosmology is concrete, good and evil can be whatever the designers of that setting want it to be. Good and evil flow from the core cosmology.

In a fictional fantasy setting they don't have the same issues we have when it comes to reality (they can have the same issues but they don't have to). These are settings where (often) gods are real, the will of the gods is known and the place of humanity within that cosmology is clear.

QuoteSo putting that to one side.

I never said that orcs alwasy respresent some racial minority. What I said was that if the GM chooses to have orcs as a sentient race with free will then they can not be inherently evil, violent, brutal and savage yes but not evil, and this is the standard D&D orc. By all means they can be treated that way by the powers in the world and I would expect that to be reflected in the world with conflicting views and positions (shit we have that here and the orcs don't even fucking exist ).

I don't mean to suggest you said anything like that. I am this is what the post in the OP was arguing and that some posters appear to be in agreement.

I guess I just disagree with the second part of this paragraph. Personally i think it is more believable to make orcs culturally predisposed towards violence than inherently evil. However I don't think it is impossible to conceive of orcs as a sentient race that is inherently evil (I think the question of their free will is debatable---since this could also just be a matter of degree).

It just sounds like you are saying people are imagining the impossible and that is somehow a problem. I mean this is a world where magic exists, which is impossible. If I want orcs to be both evil and have free will (even if I conceded it is some kind of contradiction) I can still do it.

QuoteIf the GM makes the orcs evil for a reason, like they are corrupted elves, or grown from the ground then fine they are irredeemably evil. If the game was a well developed one then I would still expect some  opinions about that across the world some nuance to the postion. I would still hold that Good characters shouldn;t go out into the world to eradicate these creatures at least not without some inneral debate.

But these are all matters of personal preference. Not possible or impossible. You want things clarified and impact measured in a setting. If magic exist, its repercussions must be accounted for. If orcs are evil, then that needs to be fleshed out within the setting. I suspect most people feel this way to varying degrees. But they don't have to. I can just run a game where I declare "orcs are evil" but the rest of the setting mirrors our own world in every way.

Whether the characters should or should not irradicate these creatures is dependant on the morality within the fictional setting (which is clearly different in many cases from our own notions of good and evil).

QuoteTake Dr Who in the genesis of the Daleks. He has the option to destroy the entire race but he opts not to becuase it is an evil act. Or take The Serenity movie. The Operative does things for the Alliance that he knows are for the greater good, but he is fully aware that in doing those questional things he himself can no longer be considered good. He reconciles himself to this. This is akin to the internal conversations I would expect PCs to engage in.

I think most people would expect characters to have inner conflicts like this. But they would expect them to be within the framework of the setting cosmology and morality, not our own.

I will give another example. I am running a Roman campaign (we don't use alignment so it probably isn't the best analogue). But the characters are all Romans living with a Roman mindset from 38 AD. Some of the things they are doing I personally would find appalling. Their attitudes toward women are terribly oppressive. Their views on slavery are awful. But this is the world they live in.

Now take that idea of a a completely different moral framework than our own, and import it into a setting where the cosmology supports it objectively. Where good and evil have been clearly defined by the gods.

QuoteI do not care about racism fromt eh game seeping into real life. But I want the racism in the game to be recognised in the game if that makes sense.

I don't think I follow. If players are being racist in game, obviously that is an issue. If the GM is running a game where he is clearly advancing racist views towards Jews or African Americans, then sure that desperately needs addressing. But if the orcs in my setting wear vaguely eastern clothing, does that mean there is something racist that needs to be addressed or is it just a matter of aesthetics?

Quote from: jibbajibba;478338Sorry Ben, you are wrong on this one.

I tried to explain upthread you can define the laws and cultures of your world but you can't define an objective good and evil.

Let's take a real world example. Jyhadists think its 'good' to blow up plane loads of relatively innocent people. Would we say that yes that was from their perspective a good act?
I certainly wouldn't I would say it might well be a lawful act in their cosmology but not a good one.

You just sound ignorant then.  Whether a particular act of blowing up a plane is good in their cosmology is a nuanced question for which their Imans will have an answer.   Sometimes particular jihadists commit acts which from what I can tell are sinful by their own lights*, which (depending on the group, but let's say Al Qaeda, who are Salafi) requires an appropriate declaration of war prior to attacking, don't target observant Muslims when possible, etc.   But for you to say it can never be good in their cosmology, because you don't like it, just sounds ridiculous.

*This contributed significantly to the failure of the 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' sub-group.  Core Al Qaeda by contrast are a lot more careful to abide by Islamic strictures.

I will say this though JibaJibba. In my games my preference is to have there be moral cloudiness so the players don't neccessarily know what the objective cosmological standards of morality are. I suspect our settings wouldn't be too far apart for that reason. But I just think it is possible to have a believable setting where morality is concrete and obvious to the inhabitants of the setting.

Quote from: MDBrantingham;478364Why do you want that?

Because they might as well be playing WOW.

Quote from: S'mon;478368You just sound ignorant then.  Whether a particular act of blowing up a plane is good in their cosmology is a nuanced question for which their Imans will have an answer.   Sometimes particular jihadists commit acts which from what I can tell are sinful by their own lights*, which (depending on the group, but let's say Al Qaeda, who are Salafi) requires an appropriate declaration of war prior to attacking, don't target observant Muslims when possible, etc.   But for you to say it can never be good in their cosmology, because you don't like it, just sounds ridiculous.

*This contributed significantly to the failure of the 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' sub-group.  Core Al Qaeda by contrast are a lot more careful to abide by Islamic strictures.

Hmm... no I am not ignorant. I can toally see that it can be acceptable religiously, did not Mohammed himself slay all the Jews after the battle of Medina etc etc. doesn't make it good. Something is not good because it complies with a certain religious ideology that makes it lawful... and here we are arguing about semantics again.

Quote from: jibbajibba;478370Because they might as well be playing WOW.

And sometimes that is what you want out a game which is suppossed to be fun. If I just want to enjoy the escapism of having my character rescue the captured villagers while slaughtering some orcs, then that is what I do. If I want to sit down to a game based around a moral dilemma of the week, it can still be fun - but it will get boring after awhile and won't allow me to engage in escapism as well.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;478261That's because Morrow has a hardon for psychopaths. Seriously, he brings them up all the fucking time, in most discussions on politics, and on the rare occasions he posts about roleplaying. Even way back in 2006 in a discussion about Pundit's landmarks.

It's D&D, for fuck's sakes. Psychology is irrelevant, notwithstanding the random insanity tables.

I agree, although I do often find what John writes interesting all the same

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478233At this point, other than a handful of posters (Frank amongst them), this thread is full retard.

Let's go down the full retard list:

1) Morrow pretending to be a psychologist / moral philosopher rationalising a society of psychopaths, something that has never actually existed
1a) Someone mentions the Arabs / Muslims in relation to this

2) Misuse of the term "moral relativism" as a pejorative against some moral position the writer dislikes despite it actually being a more universal or absolute principle than the writer holds

3) Irrelevant fulminating against LIBRALZM and "white guilt"

4) Consistent confusion of authoritative citation of source material and facts with whims, desires, dreams & half-memories, also what you can find on the first page of Google that seems like it kind of supports what you said

5) A flood of low-post-count posters with indistinguishable and ignorant opinions jackal-wanking one another

6) 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.


Yeap, it's a full retard thread all right.

Would just like to point out that a society of orcs has never existed either. So, if a society of orcs is imagined to exist, why not a society of irredeemably evil orcs?

Quote from: FrankTrollman;478238Can the DM create a rule he can't override?

Look, the fact that it is a game doesn't allow it to include logical impossibilities. If morality is malleable, it's malleable. That means it isn't absolute. Because absolute morality means morality that is not malleable.

You said that absolute morality didn't stop the DM from changing the definition of Good and Evil at different times of the day. And that's wrong. If the morality is absolute, it can't change at different times of the day. If morality can be changed over the course of the day, it's not absolute.

Your statement was logically inconsistent with itself. You can have morality that the DM can change or you can have absolute morality, but you can't have both. By definition.

-Frank

Flinging balls of flame you form from nothing, changing into animals, and dragons.... all logical impossibilities. There are quite a few games which include logical impossibilities.

Quote from: jibbajibba;478353Dude, chill.

Mate, I consider you an internet buddy. I'm cool with you. I just think what you just said is a load of steaming bullshit is all.

Quote from: Imperator;478250Well, 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?

If it's ok to define demons, undead, and red dragons as irredeemably evil, why not orcs? After all, I haven't seen anyone go on for page after page arguing over the "morality" of killing dragon babies.

I haven't always agreed with MDBrantingham's method of expression, but I do agree with the idea that each DM is perfectly capable and within their rights to set the parameter's of what's "evil", how, why, and what's acceptable to do about it. Whether you (and not you Imperator, but the collective "you" ) like it or not, that fact that D&D is just a game is truth, and it's filled with logical impossibilities and fantasic shit and if anyone wants to tack on one more by making orcs psychopaths is their choice and doesn't automatically equal them being racist in the sense we think of it in the real world.  Honestly, if any individuals want to see me that way for doing such a thing, then they are invited to avoid my games. I would hope they don't expect me to lose any sleep over it, and if the OP, or anyone else, were to consider me a "racist" or "dick" DM, or whatever, I'm 100% ok with that. Anyone who actually knows me, and especially the folks I care about, actually know the truth of that issue and what the rest of the world thinks is not even a little bit my concern.

Do ya'all really expect to arrive at some "solution"? I'm not saying we can't discuss the merits or lack thereof of different approaches, but such emotion and vitriol over imaginary morality seems a little unwarranted to me.

In the end, my opinion is the OP would be better spent finding a different hobby of such angst is generated over orcs in an fantasy game. Just seems like a big troll to me.

Quote from: jibbajibba;478264Actually not sure as you could argue that he vast majority of PCs display Psychopathic behaviour (oh and it was me that brought up the Psychos first this time )

It's all about taste. If you want a simple hack and slash, efffectively turning D&D into a tactical combat games then fine. Alignmen, morality etc are all irrelevant in that game. And that game has a place.

If you add more depth to the game and make your PCs more rounded then you want to consider how they react to certain things. Like it says in my sig I am a method roleplayer I expect the world to be inhabited by 3 dimensional characters on all sides.
 I have no problem with orcs being irredeemibly evil so long as that has some justification (orcs in Tolkien being created by corrupting elves for example) the interesting part comes in how the PCs interact with that evil. I can not except that the GM gets to define good and evil in his world. He can define the Laws of the world, he can define the customs of the world, but the players are bound to bring their own good/evil with them and trying to pretend that isn't the case ends up becoming a semantic arguement of the type you have when you are trying to be edgy when you are 15. Saying 'but in my Aztec world Human sacrific is Good,' is just being dickish. You can say 'Human sacrifice is the way we do things, it is the Law,' doesn't make it good.

So by all means define goblins or giants in a racist way but be aware that you are doing it. Or just play a hack and slash. What I find unsupportable is the game that claims to be using imagination and deeply immersive and far superior to MMOs and CRPGs when the PCs just wade into groups of creatures kill them with no remorse and still claim themselves to be Goodly heroes.

Because that's what they want to do. I get it, you would not find that style of game fun, or feel that engaging in such imaginary acts to be compatible with imaginary "good" heroes, but maybe other folks do. Are you seriously trying to say their's is "badwrongfun" and yours is the right way? None of this shit is real. There are no actual babies, orc or otherwise, being killed. None of this has anything to do with actual morality any more than being entertained by a Conan novel or enjoying watching slasher films has anything to do with actual morality.

Quote from: jibbajibba;478371Hmm... no I am not ignorant. I can toally see that it can be acceptable religiously, did not Mohammed himself slay all the Jews after the battle of Medina etc etc. doesn't make it good. Something is not good because it complies with a certain religious ideology that makes it lawful... and here we are arguing about semantics again.

If the Religion says it's Good, then it's Good in that Religion.  It's not just Lawful, it's Good.

Quote from: S'mon;478385If the Religion says it's Good, then it's Good in that Religion.  It's not just Lawful, it's Good.

So if Gruumsh says slaying and/or enslaving all other sentient beings is good, is it "Good" as per alignment?

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478287Step 1: Mass charm person.
Step 2: Mass atonement.

People are really going to a lot of effort - including using pseudo-scientific reasoning, pseudo-intellectual moralising, and of course tons and tons of angry whinging - to make absolutely sure that not one orc, ever, anywhere, under any conditions, could ever even possibly consider becoming good, so it's all right to kill their children.

That's fucking weird. Morrow, Krueger, you guys seem real desperate to make it OK to kill baby orcs to avoid feeling a dirty conscience, throwing out idea after idea as each one is demolished in turn.



Personally, I've always been fine with "You're at war with the local orcs," and to let PCs do as they please from there. Some will slaughter noncombatants like orc babies and women, some won't. Such is war. If you want to play a flatly heroic game where PCs won't crush the skulls of children, tell them so and then don't put the children of their enemies in the game.

There, this full retard thread has been solved.

Except being charmed is not being willing, it's being magically compelled. As DM I would never let a player get away with that one. See, it's not hard to keep throwing up imaginary counters to these arguments. None of this shit is real. The orcs aren't going to care if we slaughter their babies, they don't exist.