A recent link by ixwin to a comment by ewin on a post byursulav's journal got me to thinking about the nature of Good and Evil, and in particular how good and evil relate to fantasy genres and RPGs
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Your 'evil' characters sound like what is classed as 'aberrant' in the Palladium (Rifts / Heroes Unlimited etc. etc.) alignment system, which is less silly than the D&D one but clearly still a very rough and ready substitute for complex development of a character's moral perspective. It is also, of course, a fairly similar outlook to that of the fellow in my icon. ;)
I presume you've also taken a look at the various World of Darkness attempts at quantifying moral outlooks? They have the interesting merit that you can be anywhere from weak and back-sliding to fanatically certain within your specific 'path', whatever it might be. Being stronger in your convictions sharpens your self-control and determination but also puts you under progressively more severe moral strictures - though of course, the 'morality' of these strictures from a human point of view depends on the path in question, some being very alien and twisted indeed.
I'm not really into having systems for these things myself, unless the character is a follower of a strict religion or whatever. The Call of Cthulhu approach is to deal with the psychiatric, legal and social consequences of characters committing atrocities, and leave the individual character's conscience to be a matter of characterisation and role-playing rather than rules.
Just to extrapolate a little on the Call of Cthulhu way of handling things. Killing and maiming other humans tends to cause sanity loss - though you can become 'hardened' to this, which in itself reflects mental damage and affects social functioning. There is extensive literature on the experience and treatment of combat veterans in this regard.
Participating in an actual massacre will tend to result in serious post-traumatic stress - the introduction by the Nazis of gas vans and gas chambers in camps was partly the result of the rate of mental collapse and alcoholism in the SD-Einsatzgruppen who had been carrying out extermination of 'undesirable' civilians through mass shootings (one of their commanders, Bach-Zelewski, was hospitalised for a lengthy period suffering from hallucinations). Empty bottles were also found in large numbers at NKVD execution grounds in the Baltic states after the 1940-41 Soviet occupation, even though the NKVD had its own orphanages where it moulded children from infancy to be remorseless killers.
With D&D I would confront players with e.g. Orc civilians...
Of course in Call of Cthulhu you do actually regain some sanity for destroying monsters - but these are mostly truly alien things which cause sanity damage by their mere presence and which pose an overwhelming danger to humanity. There are some grey areas with beings that are partially (or ex-) human, and with the human dupes who worship the great abominations - which thoughtful scenario writers for the game have explored.
First, just a slight correction, the Einsatzgruppen were Waffen SS, rather than SD. By the time Einsatzgruppen were used the SD had been reduced to being a rather rough police force when the SS arrested a lot of the senior members and had them shot.
As for Call of Cthulhu, the group I was in tended to be quite patient and thus didn't tend to cause large numbers of casualties amoung innocent people. Well, not on purpose and generally trying to avoid it if possible. As such we tended to avoid san loss for killing people except occasionally, in exceptional circumstances.
And then, regarding the evil/good power question, I don't believe evil is intrinsically more or less powerful than good, not least because in many cases what is evil from one perspective might be good from another. What I do feel, however, is that strength (in a group) tends to be built on unity and trust. Those who are traditionally viewed as good tend to end up being trusted more because they are more honest, but if, within a group, there is honour and trust (or at least something close) then the group can become strong even it the group as a whole is evil. There are plenty of examples of groups that have survived and prospered even though their attitude towards those outside the group could easily be called evil (at least at times). The Roman Empire springs to mind, as does the Catholic church.
You are confusing the SD (security police under Reinhard Heydrich's RSHA) and the SA (brownshirt stormtroopers). The Einsatzgruppen were 'security' units under nominal SD command and were lead by members of SD, Gestapo and Kripo in SD uniform.
It is also, of course, a fairly similar outlook to that of the fellow in my icon. ;)
The guy in your icon is both effective and evil :-) Megatron, for instance, is evil but not terribly effective.
I presume you've also taken a look at the various World of Darkness attempts at quantifying moral outlooks?
Post-modernist nihilism? No thanks. (Being more accurate, this comes under the heading of religion sharpening but of itself not being an answer I mentioned earlier).
I'm not really into having systems for these things myself
In RPG terms, I might be in favour of them if they worked - but none seem to. I don't like Cthulu, but the consequence based approach (or the GURPS one of just attaching advantages, disadvantages and reputation to taste) appear to work best.
GURPS does seem to handle these things quite well, but I (like you I suspect) have never gone beyond looting its supplements for material to use under rules systems with which I am more comfortable (which basically amounts to Chaosium's BRP rules in my case, because I can handle the game mechanics from memory without cribbing from the book).
From a purely mechanical point of view, WOD's use of 'paths' really is worth looking at, as it allows for complexity and 'moral' rigour even in 'evil' or very alien codes of behaviour beyond mere amoral pragmatism - for instance, severe warrior-elite codes of honour and self-discipline which are indifferent to the value of life. The resultant behaviour could readily be described as evil but has its own moral logic which is worth addressing for role-playing purposes.
Bludgeon, for instance, clearly has a severe and demanding personal ethos related to his mystical martial arts beliefs which makes him intrinsically different to Megatron (a traditional megalomaniac) or Straxus (an uncomplicated sadist). He has no scruples about destroying his enemies and plundering weaker civilisations indiscriminately, but his behaviour is not dictated purely by pragmatism and ego.
I presume you've also taken a look at the various World of Darkness attempts at quantifying moral outlooks? They have the interesting merit that you can be anywhere from weak and back-sliding to fanatically certain within your specific 'path', whatever it might be. Being stronger in your convictions sharpens your self-control and determination but also puts you under progressively more severe moral strictures - though of course, the 'morality' of these strictures from a human point of view depends on the path in question, some being very alien and twisted indeed.
I'm not really into having systems for these things myself, unless the character is a follower of a strict religion or whatever. The Call of Cthulhu approach is to deal with the psychiatric, legal and social consequences of characters committing atrocities, and leave the individual character's conscience to be a matter of characterisation and role-playing rather than rules.
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Participating in an actual massacre will tend to result in serious post-traumatic stress - the introduction by the Nazis of gas vans and gas chambers in camps was partly the result of the rate of mental collapse and alcoholism in the SD-Einsatzgruppen who had been carrying out extermination of 'undesirable' civilians through mass shootings (one of their commanders, Bach-Zelewski, was hospitalised for a lengthy period suffering from hallucinations). Empty bottles were also found in large numbers at NKVD execution grounds in the Baltic states after the 1940-41 Soviet occupation, even though the NKVD had its own orphanages where it moulded children from infancy to be remorseless killers.
With D&D I would confront players with e.g. Orc civilians...
Of course in Call of Cthulhu you do actually regain some sanity for destroying monsters - but these are mostly truly alien things which cause sanity damage by their mere presence and which pose an overwhelming danger to humanity. There are some grey areas with beings that are partially (or ex-) human, and with the human dupes who worship the great abominations - which thoughtful scenario writers for the game have explored.
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As for Call of Cthulhu, the group I was in tended to be quite patient and thus didn't tend to cause large numbers of casualties amoung innocent people. Well, not on purpose and generally trying to avoid it if possible. As such we tended to avoid san loss for killing people except occasionally, in exceptional circumstances.
And then, regarding the evil/good power question, I don't believe evil is intrinsically more or less powerful than good, not least because in many cases what is evil from one perspective might be good from another. What I do feel, however, is that strength (in a group) tends to be built on unity and trust. Those who are traditionally viewed as good tend to end up being trusted more because they are more honest, but if, within a group, there is honour and trust (or at least something close) then the group can become strong even it the group as a whole is evil. There are plenty of examples of groups that have survived and prospered even though their attitude towards those outside the group could easily be called evil (at least at times). The Roman Empire springs to mind, as does the Catholic church.
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The guy in your icon is both effective and evil :-) Megatron, for instance, is evil but not terribly effective.
I presume you've also taken a look at the various World of Darkness attempts at quantifying moral outlooks?
Post-modernist nihilism? No thanks. (Being more accurate, this comes under the heading of religion sharpening but of itself not being an answer I mentioned earlier).
I'm not really into having systems for these things myself
In RPG terms, I might be in favour of them if they worked - but none seem to. I don't like Cthulu, but the consequence based approach (or the GURPS one of just attaching advantages, disadvantages and reputation to taste) appear to work best.
Reply
From a purely mechanical point of view, WOD's use of 'paths' really is worth looking at, as it allows for complexity and 'moral' rigour even in 'evil' or very alien codes of behaviour beyond mere amoral pragmatism - for instance, severe warrior-elite codes of honour and self-discipline which are indifferent to the value of life. The resultant behaviour could readily be described as evil but has its own moral logic which is worth addressing for role-playing purposes.
Bludgeon, for instance, clearly has a severe and demanding personal ethos related to his mystical martial arts beliefs which makes him intrinsically different to Megatron (a traditional megalomaniac) or Straxus (an uncomplicated sadist). He has no scruples about destroying his enemies and plundering weaker civilisations indiscriminately, but his behaviour is not dictated purely by pragmatism and ego.
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