Dungeons & Dragons and the ethics of imaginary violence

[grymhild]

http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/cult ... nce-ethics

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... caust.html

New generations of players are introduced to RPGs as little more than a collective fantasy of massacre and greed.

This is not Tolkien's Middle-Earth, with its anti-fascist political commentary and yearning for an end to glory and the triumph of peace. This is violence without pretense, an endless hobgoblin holocaust.

Here's the narrative arithmetic that Gygax came up with: You come across a family of sleeping orcs, huddled around their overflowing chest of gold coins and magical weapons.

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Why do orcs and other monsters horde gold when they can't buy anything from the local "shoppes," or share a jug of mead in the tavern, or do anything but gnash their teeth in the darkness and wait for someone to show up and fight them? Who knows, but there they are, and you now have a choice.

You can let sleeping orcs lie

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and get on with the task at hand—saving a damsel, recovering some ancient scepter, whatever.

Or you can start slitting throats—after all, mercy doesn't have an experience point value in D&D. It's the kind of atrocity that commits itself.

“If a player commits an act which is outside of the norms of our society, or the one you are simulating, the most effective response is to explore the consequences within the story,” he explains. “Any crime has an aftermath, real suffering, and real consequences. Played out correctly, it will make the player question their action.”

A good DM, then, will construct a world in which the in-game morals are far grayer. Rather than pulling the wings off fairies, that party of orcs you’ve just stumbled upon in a dungeon may, in fact, have been celebrating a child orc’s birthday.

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Thoughts?

[Charraj]

Agree, of course!

The server deals with an awkward interaction between combat/grinding and RP. Fighting is in the roots of D&D and NWN2. So the fact that this is a persistent RP world doesn't always jive perfectly with the combat-oriented mechanics of the game.

Still, I think we do a decent attempt at digging under the superficial surface of D&D. But those endless spawns ARE a bit awkward to explain away.

[Tsidkenu]

I'd say so much revolves around the DM running the campaign. A good DM will make characters actions have consequences and that does indeed leave good food for thought, both on an IC and OoC level.

I agree that the DnD model of xp-for-kills is probably not the best, but again a big part of this is determined by the DM of a campaign. A party needs not necessarily gut everything that moves to complete a quest or task; sure it might be needed sometimes but there are a whole bunch of other skills that a good DM would put to use to permit alternate means of completing tasks. Of course, this is difficult to apply in an 'automated' environment such as BGTSCC where the majority of PC-NPC interaction happens during grinding sessions. That is not to say the DMs have no input, because they do! And some of those (particularly smaller sessions, yes I'm looking at you DM Ioulaum!) are just some of the best RP experiences one can find on the world that has been made for us to enjoy.

IC killing ought to have more psychologial repercussions though. I'm yet to see someone play an aged fighter or paladin suffering from PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) from all the killing they had to do during their career. War, killing and witnessing death are extremely traumatic events in one's life, the reverberations of which echo down the ages, something that 5 hours of grinding Xvarts hardly does any justice to.

[Steve]

Fighting is in the roots of D&D and NWN2.

I'd argue much, much more NWN2 than D&D. Considering that, there are actually a fair representation of NWN2 Player-made Modules that are possible to complete sans combat.

NWN2 essentially limited the tools. The ratio of combat-based vs. non-combat based items our PCs can actually equip—and, to what end they can have attributes placed on them in the Builder—speaks to this, in my opinion.

[thids]

For the 2nd article

Yes, D&D is a combat centric system, especially the 3rd edition. But you are not obliged to focus on the combat. While there are much better systems out there for roleplay, there is nothing stopping you from running a combat-light campaign in the D&D system. Does the system limit roleplay in some way? No, if it does then that problem lies on the shoulders of the DM not the system itself.

World of Darkness is an infinitely better system when it comes to roleplay for an example, but what's stopping you from coming up with house rules for your D&D campaign that implement things from WoD into your game?

I get the feeling that the author of the first article is the type who absolutely loathes when he is told "hey, here's the basics, go wild with it!".

Also, "hobgoblin holocaust"? Really? The feeling of social justice in the author is so strong that it's bursting out into the fantasy realms.


As for the 1st article it's absolute rubbish. "my character (Shamir, a 3200-year-old Chaotic Evil character) " I should have known better and stopped reading right there, I wouldn't have been left this infuriated.


Overall both of them don't seem to comprehend the term "roleplaying game". It's a common problem though, people often have a hard time making a distinct line between themselves and their characters. People with the right approach to roleplaying games don't play them to play an extension of themselves, or to play out their "dark fantasies". Making a blanket statement that all people in fact do play roleplaying games for those reasons is just ridiculous.

Just for the record, I eventually went back and apologized to that innkeeper for burning down his place of business. Turns out I’m really Chaotic Neutral after all.

Yeah, sure you are.

IC killing ought to have more psychologial repercussions though.

Not in a world where Greater Restoration is readily available

[Kasmir]

There is a partial answer to this that we started to explore on another server. In the end a server has to balance the 'draw' for players from constant combat with the 'draw' from RP.

Here are a couple of radical solutions I've seen/played out on other servers that favoured RP over grinding with the according shift in player base.

Obviously these are just for interest - not going to happen here

(i) Level limit - One server (my fave of all time which I played for 5 years) had a '8+1 system' in a very low magic world. You could get to L8 relatively quickly but any subsequent 'levels' only granted feats, not other level-related goodies. As a counter to that you got a feat every level up to 8. All custom classes, no multiclassing. Also had a separate system for 'reputational gains'. This meant you could get to 80% of the power of a long time PC within a few months with a new character. An 8+10 could still be killed by a few 8+1s if they were stupid/unlucky. Dream for DMs as there was never any powerbalancing required for events. There were still character goals but these were focused more on the game world than the character sheet. I don't think there is anything like this in the world now....

(ii) No xp for kills. Increase simple reset quests. I once played a server with a system like this (well, nearly, there was still some xp for kills). All quests were on a reset timer and most of them required little or no IRL time to get the xp (skill rolls after a conversation etc). A couple of harder quests still required you to go raid a dungeon but there was no fast spawning and once a party had gone and raided the dungeon it didn't repopulate for a while.

Result - everyone levelled up at a similar rate, no grinding and a bigger focus on RP/achieving goals. You also didn't have to try and RP fast spawning, which, lets face it, is completely immersion breaking when we try to .

Sadly to note the relevant servers are no more, which tells you something )

[Velaris]

Hmm....ok, let me see if I can get through this sans rant...

Erik Sofge - seems to be a bit of a diva. Not the kind of guy you invite to a party where open minded individuals gather.
*also...yes, monsters horde coins and shiny things (see dragon, in any game lore). So do many people. Look at the mantle or china cabinet in so many homes and you'll see all kinds of shiny, but useless to the individual, garbage. Is there someone out there who might come along and want to steal it? Sure. Why? Because it's shiny, and they don't have it. (also, adventurers are greedy)

Ok, so a little ranting already.

Mark Morrison - sounds like a cool guy. Hey Mark, you can have Erik's spot at this week's tabletop session! Outside the box thinking ftw
*I once found a sleeping goblin and convinced him the only way to stay safe from the rest of my party was for him to hide in a sack, which I carried the better part of the adventure.
(came in super handy, I'd throw food in the sack, and the odd coin, in exchange for the use of the gobbo's handy rogue skills)
*side note - eventually gobbo in question stole a dagger, slit the sack and effected his own freedom, but it kept everyone baffled as to how a warrior got that trapped chest or door open...?

Lastly, in a session with a good dm, realistic campaign setting,(or a party with me), what's-his-name's 3200 year old psycho wouldn't make it to 3201. Blatant stupidity like that deserves a proper, and fitting reward. (insert dagger. twist. remove. repeat if necessary)
Ruin my place of drinking will you! (and I hate sleepy outside)