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Post by KiddoFreak on Jul 22, 2006 0:27:48 GMT -5
It took me a while to decide which thread this should go under, let me explain why. My original curiosity in all of your opinions stemmed from a long-running debate in the dungeons and dragons crowd. However, after reading a particularly heated and well-educated debate on the alignment system in DnD, I began to wonder what we (the majoriy white, christian, "different" people) would think on the subject. I've actually read some interesting things that seem to reflect people's opinions pretty well. Such as posts about how There is no good and evil, or maybe that evil is just plain fun to pretend. That reminds me of the poster formerly known as Demon. There is an argument about how Good and Evil only works in DnD in the sense that there are true monolithic ideas of good and evil in the world, which is absent in real life and should not be in a realistic or intruiging game world. This person gave the example of a mercantile society where one only gave if one would be given to and any "selfless" acts were deemed evil. This made me think of Gamerman. Another made the remark that Good and Evil are based on culture and are going to be different, that it should be up to the DM and ultimately the players to decide. I guess this seemed like an "Azan-esque" answer to me. Then there was the poster who said something about how having no alignment allowed for good roleplaying, reminded me of Vash. The people that argued for the alignment system reminded me more of myself, those who thought that Good and Evil should be relatively agreed upon and that is what will be good and evil. In game this brought up a number of issues with spells dealing with alignment. It was this that made me want to post this in a roleplaying or even the DnD thread. However, I decided that I wanted those of us that don't play the game to be able to take part in this. Moreover, I want this to apply somewhat to real-life good and evil and what you think this means outside of the gaming context. It was this that made me want to put this in the debate board, however we have agreed (after the "love" thread) that abstract ideas should not or even could not be debated. I guess I want this to be a sort of debate, or maybe even just a repository for ideas. I'm curious to see how we all differ. For us DnDers maybe this will broaden our gaming. For all of us, I hope we can gain some different perspectives. I'm always open for a good debate, though, so don't think I'm barring you from (respectfully) inquiring about something you might disagree with. I don't even know how popular this will be, but I hope at least a couple people see this and respond. P.S. For those of us that do play DnD and want to see a cool thread, this is the link: boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=497104&page=3&pp=30
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Post by Azan on Jul 22, 2006 9:56:15 GMT -5
Well, in my opinion, DnD and the real world differ very much... in DnD I do believe there are set morals, such as torchering a prisoner to get information would be a definite evil... however A neutral character might if the circumstances required him to, but it would still be an evil act (in which case it would be a DMs choice, as even a good character might resort to torture)... however in real life its more of a situational thing (and culture thing). There are hundreds of examples around the world and in history where acts are being commited that the rules of DnD would consider evil, but we do not, for example the sacrificing of children 600 years ago in South America, sure it was because of ignorance but I dont consider the people who killed the children evil. Or lets go back to the torture example, the Genieva Convention prevents any UN country from torturing prisoners, yet its being done in Iraq and almost nothing is being done to stop it. Now this act I would consider wrong, mainly because the US had an overwhelming force compared to the Iraqis, however the soldiers that did it only saw the greater good.
Blah, I was going to type more but I gtg, ill post more later.
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Post by Qecbum on Jul 23, 2006 22:52:13 GMT -5
hmmm...
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Post by Azan on Jul 26, 2006 13:58:25 GMT -5
Hmm, upon re-reading my post I am going to have to change my opinion a bit. DnD mimics what we (America and other modern nations) see as right and wrong, in our perspective torchering a prisoner is a wrong thing to do, but might be required given certain circumstances... like DnD, this makes sense seeing as how it was an American who made DnD and that most players belong to modern nations.
Now if you had someone who grew up in a 3rd world country where its kill or be killed (or something along those lines) their sense of morals would not fit with the DnD setting (much) however they may still strive to do good, while doing evil acts. Which can also be done in DnD.
So overall I am going to have to say that DnD has a pretty good setup depending on how the DM handles it, Ive seen DMs in online boards that have a really black and white sense of morals, typically their campaigns are filled with cliche'... and I have seen some where every decision falls into a grey area. Personally I prefer having every decision have consequence, its a lot more like real life and it allows for more options.
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Cloud
Silver Member
Sgt. Johnson: Well, I don't care if it's God's own personal anti-son-of-a-bitch machine, or a giant
Posts: 125
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Post by Cloud on Aug 1, 2006 17:43:31 GMT -5
I guess thats true but I say there is no "good" or "evil." The "good" side thinks the other is "evil" while the other side considers its seld the "good" side and the other side evil.. If you get what I mean...
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Post by KiddoFreak on Aug 7, 2006 3:10:16 GMT -5
Yeah, I get it. I was just wondering what people think of other kinds of morality, like Utilitarianism (where someone is only worth what they contibute, if you do not contrbute you are "evil") or Consequentialism (where nothing is really "good" or "evil" until after the consequenes take place and decide for you). Uh, an example of something I wonder about is like what Hitler did in Germany. Sure, he was crazy and xenophobic, but he was amazingly intelligent, charismatic, and actually brought Germany back from the brink of an economic collapse during his reign. I'm not saying that I think everyone should be like Hitler, I'm just wondering from which perspective "evil" is really evil. I guess according to what Merlin said, Hitler thought of himself as good. However, this seems like a case that most everyone can agree upon as evil. However a lot of people don't really know about how good his reign was on Germany's economy. I dunno, just something to think about.
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