Good and Evil

[tashiro]

Thought:  I wonder when we'll grow out of the idea of 'evil for evil's sake' in fiction and RPGs.  Especially in RPGs.  I mean, sure, there's something pure about knowing your opposition is an irredeemable monster - it makes it that much simpler to just try to kill them, knowing you're doing "good".  But why on earth should anything be just... evil

Comments

[brother_dour]

That has mystified me as well. I can understand how it became a D&D trope, but like you said- haven't we outgrown it by now?

It -is- fun sometimes to play a good old-fashioned 'kill the evil necromancer and his undead minions' or 'keep the Zhentarim from conquering Cormyr' campaign once in awhile. But it's more fun IMHO to play a character who is a person, in conflict with other people who all have a different idea about what is right and wrong.

I know a LJ user who is a HUGE nut about World War II, to the point that she writes historical fiction about it. And she gets criticism for the fact that her main character, a Luftwaffe pilot, is a good guy. Heaven forbid that a WWII-era German should be portrayed as anything but an evil, puppy-kicking monster! I mean, really? Are people THAT stuck on seeing everything in black and white?!

[tashiro]

Now, admittedly, the evil necromancer with his undead minions can be an evil necromancer, but the question then becomes -- why? That should be part and parcel of trying to take him down. As for the Zhentarim, sure, they're trying to conquer Cormyr, but the reason shouldn't be 'because they're evil'. That would actually more likely be pressures on Zhentarim society from some factor - famine, for example. An emperor rarely just goes 'I want that place' - because the logistics involved in waging war, and the resources you have to spend...

And yeah, I once had a similar discussion with Cat, involving fiction with WWII as the backdrop, and using Germans as something other than the bad guys.

[tashiro]

By the way: Measure twice, cut once. Every time you edit your post, I get another e-mail. Four emails for one reply is a bit much. ;)

Point taken

[brother_dour]

Guh. I didn't realize that. Sorry!

[kyn_elwynn]

1) In RPGs, enemies and conflict are walking sacks of experience points.
2) To justify the acquisition of these experience points (i.e. slaying them outright) the PCs have to be heroes and good guys.
3) Thus, to justify good guys committing genocide, what they cide against must be evil.

Morality isn't allowed because it muddies the waters in what is essentially power play and wish fulfillment. We're not spell-flinging wizards and muscley barbarian nomads in reality so when we play one we don't want restrictions on what we "should" or "should not" do.
Granted, times have changed, not everyone plays the same game and many people (such as yourself) want morality to play into games. You want there to be grays. You want the world to not have universal evil. You want there to not be beings evil from birth because the rules in the textbook say so.
I am surprised that you seem so surprised.

[tashiro]

1) Depends on the RPG. Enemies and Conflict do not provide XP in Shadowrun, for example. The adventure itself, and how difficult it was, provides 1-4 XP. There's nothing special about 'killing enemies' or anything like that. Actually, come to think of it, only D&D / Pathfinder provides XP for killing things these days. (I give XP for 'overcoming the encounter' not for 'killing the enemy')

2-3) This doesn't necessarily follow. 'Death' doesn't have to be the only outcome, and the bad guys can be evil without being Evil. IE, if you're dealing with a raiding band of orcs, you can try to stop the orcs, and even go to war against them. The orcs don't have to be evil, they're raiding your kingdom. Or, what about a rival kingdom and an ongoing war? Neither side has to be evil, this is a political thing.

[marinredwolf]

Eh, it's mostly been addressed already. It's a convention that simplifies things to the point where you can have a story of Good and Evil. In reality, such concepts are much more subjective than people seem to realize or accept.

Of course, I find amusement in this post simply because you have, yourself, previously expressed a preference for stories where good is Good and evil is Evil and the conflict is clear cut. So the you-specific answer to your initial question may actually be "sometime in the last couple years."

[tashiro]

I just like people sticking to their moral character, is all. ;)

[marinredwolf]

That too, but different topic. ;) I know I've heard you make the argument for simple, straightforward, Good versus Evil fantasy plots as well.

[tashiro]

Oh, I'm pretty sure of that. That doesn't mean it shouldn't make sense. ;) Hell, that's what I was doing with my Pathfinder game. The Dark Gods of Chaos wanted to take over the "underworld" because this new region has no gods. They figured they would be able to claim it more or less uncontested, allowing them an entirely new group of followers

[mikepictor]

The only antagonists that should be purely evil for evil's sake are denizens of the lower planes (devils and demons). Being purely evil, for no reason, is a defining characteristic.

Any other antagonist is entitled to more depth. Yes, the evil necromancer might truly enjoy skinning puppies just to see them twitch, because he is that sadistic, but even then, he apparent utter psycopathic insanity can itself be an interesting plot hook that you can build from. Can he be saved, cured, is there something pulling his strings, is he under a compulsion, or an illusion, etc...

[brother_dour]

I've become rather fond of the sympathetic villain. Like, that puppy-skinning necromancer would be that much more interesting as a character is he also had a daughter that he loved and doted over.

[tashiro]

Actually, I remember reading something involving the monkey-sphere. Basically, people who are firmly entrenched in the idea of an evil person being 'evil' get upset when we show any sympathetic side to the person in question.

Case in point. Let's take Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler. Now, what of a documentary was made for either of these people, showing them as human beings - examining their lives and and showing their more mundane side. The things they enjoyed, their pass-times, the people they cared for, and basically did not cover the evil things they have done (since everyone and their dog knows most of these things by now).

How much would you bet people would explode over such a thing - even though this is a facet of these people almost never touched upon?

[kyn_elwynn]

Hitler wanted to be an artist and was terrible at it.
Fidel Castro tried out for a Triple-A minor league baseball team, but was thrown off of it.
How history would have been different if they were accepted for those less dictatorial things.

[tashiro]

Actually, that's a pretty interesting response on your part. I'd never have just considered the kingdom and the church to be under the same body in a fantasy campaign. I'd presume the paladin worked for the church, but that this would be separate from the kingdom. A lot of fantasy settings have that division, but I think maybe shouldn't be the universal case. I mean, in the middle ages, the church was a Power, after all.

As for Eberron, yeah I know about the thing about 'any member of the faith gets powers' regardless of alignment. What's Takumi's beef? Accountability comes from the body of the church, not from the divine. It means that if you want a 'pure' church, you'll need to take steps to ensure it's purity. And the fun thing is, some LE worshipper of a LG god might firmly believe he's doing the Right Thing by slaughtering all those humanoids out in the countryside, because They're Not Like Him.

I find it an interesting approach, leaving the gods more 'hands off' in matters of faith.

So, sue me Takumi. ;)

[shiftercat]

"This guy can't have done anything problematic because he's On Our Team" is exactly how accountability gets thrown out the window.