Good Morning, One and All.
Campaign and setting design can be looked at through many different lenses. And these perspectives change as we change, mature as we mature. Many of us can look back fondly at setings we designed and the games played therein fondly, while simultaneously knowing we do things much differently today. We tinker, changing subtly and shifting focus, but when we look back, the differences can be stark.
One such lense was brought into focus a few months ago, in an earlier thread. There was a small skirmish dealing with monsters and how they are percieved, versus fun and simplicity.
I make no secret that my current setting is messy and complicated. One such complication is racial issues due to a lack of racial alignment. Orcash (orcs) are thinking creatures, and while they were created to be one of the servant races of Anthraxus (the Ogrillite races), that was millenia ago. Orcs are not born any more evil than humans, in Celtricia. But are they born Chaotic-Evil in your setting?
my version (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/races)
SO how does alignment and race affect your setting? Can a group of adventures attack a pack of orcs just because they are orcs? How do tribes of humanoids operate, alone or together? How do the folk in the cities look at those who live in tribes? DO the Ogres live in towns?
How do you do it and why? Or have you thought about it in this light?
Personally then I like and use the Eberron approach. things are not colour coded for your convinientcy.
I tend to assign aligment to races based on thier motive, ambition, and how they go around attaining those. goblins are not neccesarely considered evil because they are goblins. but a tribe or nation of goblins whose culture revolves around raiding and taking slaves would be considered evil. but so would an elven or a human nation with the same culture. In short. sapient races are by default not evil by birth, assuming no special circumstances, since it simple doesn't make sense to me.
The difficulty in deciding whether or not you can fight someone when there isn't a simple system of alignment is one of the reasons I prefer to play all my games non-lethal except for the really obviously bad (aka "the Nazi effect").
Agreed with the above posters. I've stopped having things conveniently color coded in my games for awhile now. That said, there are still things that can be killed pretty much on-sight. In my setting, full-blooded orcs have that distinction, as their entire culture revolves around taking slaves and doing unspeakable acts to them.
Granted, no party should be off the hook for killing someone or something that is obviously either a) not a typical member of their race or b) actively attempting to surrender or make diplomatic overtures.
Quote from: Stargate525I've stopped having things conveniently color coded in my games for awhile now. That said, there are still things that can be killed pretty much on-sight. In my setting, full-blooded orcs have that distinction, as their entire culture revolves around taking slaves and doing unspeakable acts to them.
Granted, no party should be off the hook for killing someone or something that is obviously either a) not a typical member of their race or b) actively attempting to surrender or make diplomatic overtures.
So it's okay to kill the adults, but you spare the babies.
Personally I'm just such a contrarian that I keep wanting to make the most evil creatures of normal fantasy into the main (not-evil) races of my settings. So now I've got a fantasy setting populated by demons and whatnot. (It doesn't hurt that Evil often gets cooler designs than Good.)
I tend to go for the "hive of scum and villainy" effect. So races might not be born evil, and everyone tolerates one another on that level, but personal conflicts result in violence all the time and no one bats an eye. So no to racism but yes to killing and mayhem, and good and evil aren't particularly prevalent themes. There's still prejudice, but not a kill-on-sight policy.
An exception, though, are leechkin outside of the Twilight Cities in CE, who are usually attacked on sight, frankly because they're usually dangerous. Non-duergar dwarves in my current goblin campaign would probably be treated the same way in most places the player has visited so far. Actually in that campaign, I am going for a more "born evil" approach, but I'm trying to make it so grandiose and overblown that it becomes comical. And, of course, the player is a stereotypical "bad guy," albeit of the cannon fodder variety.
Quote from: TillumniPersonally then I like and use the Eberron approach. things are not colour coded for your convinientcy.
I tend to assign aligment to races based on thier motive, ambition, and how they go around attaining those. goblins are not neccesarely considered evil because they are goblins. but a tribe or nation of goblins whose culture revolves around raiding and taking slaves would be considered evil. but so would an elven or a human nation with the same culture. In short. sapient races are by default not evil by birth, assuming no special circumstances, since it simple doesn't make sense to me.
I assign alignment to races based on motive, ambition...So a race as a whole will have racial motivations? Are you describing cultural motivations? Your comment about elves sounds that way...this is another part of the same conversation, race vs. culture....Thank you for bringing it up.
A potentially pertinent question: would a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, even anthropomorphic wolves preying on a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, humanoid deer be evil by birth? Let's say there's not much other meat available; the wolf-people are carnivorous and can't switch to vegetarianism; their culture is a direct ougrowth of the pack mentality/alpha-male/strongest rules society already evident among wolves. If they refuse to eat the deer-people, they and their young will starve. In other words: is an action evil only if the evildoer, and/or the object of that action, can reflect on it?
Quote from: SteerpikeA potentially pertinent question: would a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, even anthropomorphic wolves preying on a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, humanoid deer be evil by birth? Let's say there's not much other meat available; the wolf-people are carnivorous and can't switch to vegetarianism; their culture is a direct ougrowth of the pack mentality/alpha-male/strongest rules society already evident among wolves. If they refuse to eat the deer-people, they and their young will starve. In other words: is an action evil only if the evildoer, and/or the object of that action, can reflect on it?
Depends on the ethos of the setting, in terms of setting design. Steerpike, I can give you pages of moral Conundrums, and LC could give you more. I'll tell you now that the Deerfolk's religion is all about the evilness or injustice of the Wolf people.
One of the implicit questions here is if there IS an overarching morality in a setting, and if not, what the consequences are. Many alignent systems would say that the wolf folk are only evil if they have a choice. Others would say they they are evil anyways.
I'd say it all depends on the gods of the Lupine Curse World...
Quote from: SteerpikeIn other words: is an action evil only if the evildoer, and/or the object of that action, can reflect on it?
Do the wolves realize the deer to be sentient, intelligent, and awakened? This is something explored very well in the Ender series, in my opinion.
Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawSo it's okay to kill the adults, but you spare the babies.
Well, now they have no parents...
Spare them, take them in and try to conform them society, sure.
Quote from: Lord VreegI assign alignment to races based on motive, ambition...So a race as a whole will have racial motivations? Are you describing cultural motivations? Your comment about elves sounds that way...this is another part of the same conversation, race vs. culture....Thank you for bringing it up.
ya, Cultural motivation. perhaps using the phrase "I assing aligment to race" in my first reply might not had been the best wording. with that said, then culture and race can be very closely related, due to natural fear and distancing from other races, or racial traits that will end up affecting the culture.
Using the Elves as an example. then thier lifespan might lead to a culture reflecting that things doesn't need to be rushed, but that same lifespan might also develiope a culture where elves see themself as the only proper ruler of the world, thier long life span allowing them to ensure stability in the goverment and adminstration and essentially going roman on the other nations, for thier own good offcourse, where ever or not the current generation of humans likes it.
In short, Cultural motivation, but the culture have to believeable reflect the traits of the races that's part of it.
Alright, interesting topic. However this seems to pre-suppose a couple things. First that evil exists (easily debatable) and it also seems to imply that evil isn't relative (to a lesser extent). However, those are not the core issues of this post. Disregarding that here is what I have to say.
Quote from: SteerpikeA potentially pertinent question: would a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, even anthropomorphic wolves preying on a race of sentient, awakened, intelligent, humanoid deer be evil by birth? Let's say there's not much other meat available; the wolf-people are carnivorous and can't switch to vegetarianism; their culture is a direct ougrowth of the pack mentality/alpha-male/strongest rules society already evident among wolves. If they refuse to eat the deer-people, they and their young will starve. In other words: is an action evil only if the evildoer, and/or the object of that action, can reflect on it?
Simple answer, no they aren't.
Longer answer, yes and no. Depending on tech level, they could find alternate ways of acquiring flesh (cloning, vat meat, etc). However this situation seems highly unlikely, no other possible sources of edible meat? How does that function? So depending on the variables how they go about acquiring the flesh could be "evil", or it could just be part of nature (this being seen as not "evil" by most people).
Now as to how it works in settings, usually I forgo alignment/good and evil altogether. This is most likely because I don't play tabletops, and have no reason for need an "evil race" or bad guys. Usually conflict come from inter-cultural clashes or political machinations.
There are two notable exceptions (that spring to mind). The first is the Black Bloodline from Prismatic. These things are straight up evil, but there's a reason. They're basically the equivalent of demons/devils/evil incarnate. Tainted by the Dark Splinter they live to cause suffering (causing suffering = bad thing) and destruction (destruction = usually/often a bad thing). So yes, there was a right out evil "race" (or multiple races) but its because of this taint that caused them to do these things. So even though the Black Bloodline was evil, it was due to their actions (the root cause of wich is the taint).
Now the second case is more interesting. It revolves around The Calm in the Eye of the Realmstorm (henceforth know as The Calm and/or The Eye). I made this setting because it was going to be used in a game (video game) by myself and a friend. I needed two sides and said, hey lets divide by Good and Evil. Now as I was fleshing out these races I noticed that for the evil ones I was making their cultures rather brutish, or revolved around something evil (slavery, pillaging, moral indiference) so once again it came down to culture.
So, to conclude I think that you can't have an evil "race" just races that have "evil cultures".
I guess what I was trying to interrogate in th wolf example a bit was the idea that culture and biology are 100% distinct. If your customs are based in part around your biology, are they justified on the basis of good/evil, or does your biology itself acquire a moralistic slant? It's not an arguement for racism per se (human races have negiligible genetic differences, so our cultural variation can't be blamed on biology), but it could be for a kind of "speciesism."
Quote from: SteerpikeI guess what I was trying to interrogate in th wolf example a bit was the idea that culture and biology are 100% distinct. If your customs are based in part around your biology, are they justified on the basis of good/evil, or does your biology itself acquire a moralistic slant? It's not an arguement for racism per se (human races have negiligible genetic differences, so our cultural variation can't be blamed on biology), but it could be for a kind of "speciesism."
But it missed one possible element:
If the deer have always been eaten by the wolves then might the deer culture have evolved to accept that fact.
The way you set it up assumes that the deer will place morality upon the eating of their kind.
Either that or there is some objective standard of evil that can be applied regardless of the views of the participants. This latter is one of the reasons I really detest the establishment of objective Good and Evil.
Right, so the deer could be set up to provide the wolves with periodic sacrifices in return for, say, protection from other predators. A long-standing, formalized tradition of reciprocal assistance and symbiosis.
Of course, tell that to the deer about to be sacrificed. Even given the right upbringing that emphasizes sacrifice as part of a rich cultural heritage, I think some of those deer aren't going to be too happy about the situation. Utilitarian logic might seem to justify things, but on an individual level the arrangement would still seem abhorrent from the deer's perspective, I suspect. Any way you slice it (bad pun), that's going to be one terrified deer come sacrifice day, and it's an intelligent, living thing about to be sacrficied not because it chose to, but because its culture and family have essentially sold it to the lesser of two evils.
It's like the old Mayan sacrifices - at the end of the day, even if human sacrifice was part of a rich religious tradition, it's still murder. Or like the burqa - even though the women wearing burqas may do so voluntarily, they're still going to be malnourished and sun-deprived, and they're still participating in a system that most of the rest of the world recognzies as oppressive and patriarchal.
With my settings Dystopian Universe and Haveneast this sort of thing is handled in different ways. DU, which is my flagship setting, is a setting that mostly sees alignment as relative, although you might also say it has "good", "neutral", and then several kinds of "evil". There are definitely moral and ethical atrocities committed, but generally good can be attributed best to happiness and security. That doesn't mean the terms won't be used; any of the Alliance cultures might peg M.O.T.H. as an evil group, and while they certainly have a horrific way of doing some things, a lot of the people and actions undertaken by the organization aren't any more evil than those in others.
Haveneast, on the other hand, has clearly defined good and evil, but as I said in a thread a few days ago, one's faction is almost always more important. Conveniently sometimes these factions will have strong alignment tendencies, and the use of magic and aligned artifacts has almost total effect on alignments compared to factions (there are only a few spells that target followers of specific organizations/beliefs). While individuals and groups can certainly peg other such groups as evil, you'll find more often than not that they're pegged as enemies of Justahn or his parallels/perpendiculars at the same time.
Doesn't racism stem from societies that developed apart and then clashed? If black people had been common in western society from the stone age and up would they still have been treated as inhuman when Africa was discovered and exploited?
Not to say that they wouldn't be treated differently; much in the same way that albinos were always treated differently. But if skin colors hadn't been tied to places seen as "less civilized" by western society we would never have had the same foundation to build our oppressive views on.
In accordance with this, any cosmopolitan setting with several races would have trouble developing overt racism/speciesism. Yes, they would be perceived as different and strange, but if you are just as likely to end up working for an orc as another human it is difficult to develop actual racism. Sure, stereotypes will develop but just because danes joke with swedes being dumb (no offense meant :p ) doesn't mean that we'll treat swedes as inferiors.
and yes, in our globalized world a nazi could end up working for a black man while still being a racist, but his views have the necessary foundation and history to exist and are more of a result of the past than the present.
This might sound slightly naïve, but i reckon there is an actual point if you look close enough :)
Quote from: SteerpikeRight, so the deer could be set up to provide the wolves with periodic sacrifices in return for, say, protection from other predators. A long-standing, formalized tradition of reciprocal assistance and symbiosis.
Actually I'm thinking more of the idea that if a wolf can take down a deer who can't defend themselves then the other deer might instead of deciding the wolf has done murder just see this as a natural part of nature. They don't have to like it, just not tie morality to it.
Quote from: SteerpikeIt's like the old Mayan sacrifices - at the end of the day, even if human sacrifice was part of a rich religious tradition, it's still murder. Or like the burqa - even though the women wearing burqas may do so voluntarily, they're still going to be malnourished and sun-deprived, and they're still participating in a system that most of the rest of the world recognzies as oppressive and patriarchal.
But you're using your own system of morality to judge these systems. "It's still murder": that's because that's what
you judge it to be. To them it isn't. Who knows what their sacrifices thought, but maybe they didn't think of it as murder but just as something to be avoided highly but not tied into judgment.
My point is that you are assuming
your system of judging on people who are not you.
[blockquote=Llum]Now as to how it works in settings, usually I forgo alignment/good and evil altogether. This is most likely because I don't play tabletops, and have no reason for need an "evil race" or bad guys. Usually conflict come from inter-cultural clashes or political machinations.[/blockquote]
This brings up the 'Game Utility' issue, albeit from the backwards perspective. Sometimes, especially when the world is created to run games in, it's fun to have something you don't have to worry about attacking. Different setting might have different percentages of "Automatic Badguys", but I think that the issue of fun is realted to this, for many settings. Even my convoluted mess has a few, in that 99% of undead will be mindless servants or evil, and I know my PCs love running into them.
Personally, the thread I see that Sentience seems to be the delineator for many of us. If it can think for itself, in many settings, you need to check context before starting the bloodbath.
How do our players feel about this?
I think that Steerpike means that it falls under the definition of murder: the premeditated taking of a life that isn't your own.
I'm quite sure Steerpike is a person who has a good grasp on the fact that ethics are human creations. (based on his settings and his education).
Of course, sacrifice might sometimes differ by the fact that the sacrificed person would do it voluntarily. Of course, most aztec human sacrifices were PoW taken in flower wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_wars)...
Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowI think that Steerpike means that it falls under the definition of murder: the premeditated taking of a life that isn't your own.
But the implication I got was that murder should be objectively seen as bad in every situation. And to the human-sacrificing cultures of Central America it might not be in certain contexts. That ties in to how in the context of a discussion on "evil": how do you take into account differing views on the same action?
When I go with the default Tolkienesque races. I generally run things as "Orcs are an Always Chaotic Evil race; an orc can be whatever he wants." Basically, if you see an orc wandering towards your village, he could be anything from a mercenary to a wandering peddler...but chances are if you see a hundred of them, look out, it's going to get ugly. Sometimes it's because the leaders are evil, sometimes it's because orcs tend to be selfish and violent, sometimes it's something else; it's a twisted sort of emergent complexity in that whenever you throw a bunch of orcs together, the whole is more evil than the sum of its parts.
And the same goes for all the other races, and not just for alignment--any given elf is probably a nice guy, quick on his feet, funny, and so on...but put a bunch of elves in the same room, and they'll probably act like stuck-up, too-conservative, overly-formal jerks (to keep up appearances, you know). Individual dwarves don't really drink to excess in general, but if you have a bunch of them in a tavern, someone's going to challenge another one to a drinking contest to prove who's hardier.
This also helps me explain the multiracial nature of adventuring parties: adventuring elves get to let their hair down and not worry about protocol, adventuring dwarves don't have to keep proving themselves to their fellows, adventuring orcs don't have to feel guilty all the time about doing bad things to good people, etc.
@Pair-O-Dice Lost: That's actually something I never considered, but it could work. I wonder if you could actually justify even some of the more stringent alignments that way, like all demons being evil. Certainly creatures that generally go it alone like dragons you'd have to either work out another reason or drop alignment assignments.
hehe, demonic peer pressure.
In response to Silvercat: essentially what I'm trying to get at is that I'm sometimes frustrated by the inability to make any value-judgements that arises out of purely relativistic morality. Certain facts cannot be denied in the Mayan sacrifice example: a life was extinguished. Now, why was that life extinguished? To appease the gods, in order to reap benefits for the rest of the community; prominently to have a good harvest.
Fact: it can be scientifically, demonstrably, and uncategorically proven that there is no causal relation whatsoever between sacrificing humans and obtaining a good harvest. That was there belief, but it was a mistaken one. I don't care that it's part of a beautiful cultural tradition blah blah blah; human sacrifices don't generate good harvests. If this was made abundantly clear to the people in question, and the sacrifices-to-be, then the belief and the practice should be immediately abandoned.
Now, of course the Mayans didn't realize that their sacrifices were ineffective, so that goes a long way to mitigating their behavior; but it doesn't mean, for example, that another civilization that realizes the folly of human sacrifice should simply allow the Mayans to continue sacrificing humans, because their perspective is, quite frankly, superior. Just as tolerating the concentration camps of the third reich would have been unacceptable: they were founded on the scientifically false belief system of eugenics.
However, in the specific example I'm using, colonial forces obviously did a lot more harm than good, and did a lot more damage than the Mayans were doing with their human sacrifices (small-pox, slavery, rampant assimilation, etc). I'm not trying to justify Imperialism or anything of the sort. I'm just saying that it's possible to still make value-judgements and progress as a species even starting from the principle that all morality is a human construct. We shouldn't just stop intervening in any and all cultural affairs simply because we recognize that they're justified from the limited perspective of a given culture.
We have senses, we have brains, and relativistic morality doesn't negate all human reasoning.
Quote from: SteerpikeIn response to Silvercat: essentially what I'm trying to get at is that I'm sometimes frustrated by the inability to make any value-judgements that arises out of purely relativistic morality.
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I'm just saying that it's possible to still make value-judgements and progress as a species even starting from the principle that all morality is a human construct. We shouldn't just stop intervening in any and all cultural affairs simply because we recognize that they're justified from the limited perspective of a given culture.
We have senses, we have brains, and relativistic morality doesn't negate all human reasoning.
And our decision to create morality does not negate the need to think about whether that construct is the right one in each situation we choose to employ it. Because it is just that: a construct, something made-up. I just feel that too many times when I read someone's thoughts on morality that they consider it a real thing, separate from human belief, and they take that to mean they don't have to think about it and are not responsible for the application of. But it isn't separate, so therefore morality is not something you can apply without thought. And not something you can later deny personal responsibility for.
Quote from: SteerpikeIf this was made abundantly clear to the people in question, and the sacrifices-to-be, then the belief and the practice should be immediately abandoned.
An argument could be made for saying this is evil. You're essentially tearing their religion and culture to shreds.
Also, it's isn't like they would believe you (little things like fact and logic/reason can at times be of little consequence to religious folk (or any folk) when they don't want to change).
Fair enough, Silvercat; I'm just saying that relativism doesn't (or shouldn't) equate to "anything goes," and an abandonment of critical judgement, or criticism. If all moralities and ethical systems are constructs, we should be striving to build better ones, as best as we can define "better." We should struggle to improve our own structures even as we realize they have no essential meaning.[blockquote=Llum]An argument could be made for saying this is evil. You're essentially tearing their religion and culture to shreds.
Also, it's isn't like they would believe you (little things like fact and logic/reason can at times be of little consequence to religious folk (or any folk) when they don't want to change).[/blockquote]This might sound conservative, but too bad so sad; I refuse to shed a tear for a religion that arbitrates abhorrent behavior for no real reason. If human sacrifice worked, it might be a different story. But it doesn't so the religion needs to change; perhaps not forcibly (this could cause way more damage than the human sacrifices did in the first place - see my point above about Imperialism), but that doesn't mean it should be ignored, or perpetuated, when empirical facts undermine the crux of its theology (that teh gods interven when presented with human sacrifice).
Religions change. We no longer stone people to death for adultery, or for talking back to their parents. I think almost everyone can agree this is a good thing. Maybe an arbitrary, human-constructed, artifical one, but we've got a better construct now: less needless suffering, less needless pain, less rampant oppression. I'll argue tooth and nail against anyone who suggests that a system with an abundance of suffering, pain, and oppression is really the same as (or isn't worse than) one without those things, even if the difference isn't absolute, divine, or essential.
EDIT: sorry if I'm coming off as cantankerous or unpleasant... I just really get into these debates... seriously Llum, Silvercat, I respect your guys opinions immensely, and I'm enjoying this very much.
Quote from: SteerpikeFair enough, Silvercat; I'm just saying that relativism doesn't (or shouldn't) equate to "anything goes," and an abandonment of critical judgement, or criticism. If all moralities and ethical systems are constructs, we should be striving to build better ones, as best as we can define "better." We should struggle to improve our own structures even as we realize they have no essential meaning.[blockquote=Llum]An argument could be made for saying this is evil. You're essentially tearing their religion and culture to shreds.
Heck, I agree with you, that's what I'm saying. I just want our critical thought to be subjected to critical thought.
In other words, if the Mayans were a created culture (not a race) in a setting, Ritual human sacrifice would not be an evil act to them..But PC's outside it who felt differently would be acting eveily not to try to show the Mayans that they were, in fact, just painfully killing people for no reason...
Heh, exactly!
Man that's convoluted...
Couldn't the Mayans (or Aztecs, since they really did this much more often) just argue that their sacrifices were not of the right "quality"? That would be hard to disprove if no one really knows what qualifies as quality for the God... (I think)
Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowCouldn't the Mayans (or Aztecs, since they really did this much more often) just argue that their sacrifices were not of the right "quality"? That would be hard to disprove if no one really knows what qualifies as quality for the God... (I think)
Of course they would. Leasders of religions say anything to stay in power.
But the point was good vs evil in terms of a race or a culture in a setting. In many settings, npcs and pcs acting in a way they believe is helping people is a good act, even if in actuality, it is not helping people. Our Aztecs aer a very good example.
Other setting have absolutes, where a PC or NPC can truly believe they are promoting weal, but are evil becaue their belief DOES NOT MATTER.
So good and evil then, Vreeg, would be tied principally to intention. But what if someone has good intentions, but lacks the wisdom and the knowledge to make a proper decision? And what if, from a more enlightened perspective, the decisions this well-intentioend but misguided person makes are the wrong decisions? Do good intentions utterly absolve a person of all responsability? Sometimes someone with all the best intentions can realize their own ignorance; if they still act, they might be culpable. Of course, if inaction would do as much (or, they might believe, more) damage, then that would go a long way to mitigating their potential culpability. And if as a species we never made decisions aboutn which we weren't adequately informed, we'd probably never progress or develop the very scientific/epistemological frameworks that we can use to make informde decisions. Necessary evils, or all part of a greater good?
Maybe it's because I've been rereading Salacious Angel's Concordance (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?8092.post), but this almost seems to slip into a Law/Chaos debate as much as a Good/Evil one (or as he would put it, ethics versus morality): stasis versus potential, inaction versus action, restraint versus liberation (though not necessarily "freedom").
Yeah, but I am trying to avoid the Law/Chaos side, as I actually find it more interesting but less applicable, racially and culturally.
Good and Evil can be tied to intention in a non-absolute morality system setting. And potential has a weight all it's own, but this is rarely made at the cultural level.
Though I suppose it would be interesting to create a patient race that beleived acting out of ignorance was immature and bad, or a race that believed in the potential weight of inaction would be counted against them in the afterlife. Where they can see all the consequences of moral inertia...