The Gaming Den

angelfromanotherpin wrote: No, they are fucking not. 'Orc' is not a word used in the Beowulf poem. 'Orcneas' is, it occurs exactly once (on line 112), and that word is usually translated as 'evil spirit.' Even that is only as part of a list of examples of beings forsaken by God. No such creatures appear in the actual story.

Forest -> Trees:

ACOS wrote: My point being, this shit is deeply rooted in ancient mythology from the Before Time, and has fuck all to do with modern-ish day racism.

I'm inclined to belittle you for this being your specific point of contention; but I'll digress for the now.

deaddmwalking wrote: That is not the line of argument.

As DSM has reminded me, you are technically right.
However, it is the thought process that is serving as the underlying premise for the argument.
The premise is horribly flawed; thus I reject the argument.

DSMatticus wrote: I'm just going to quote myself in entirety everytime some stupid fuck tries to describe what the argument is and it is not in fact the argument.

See above.
Also ...
Yes, there does seem to have been a concerted effort to humanize orcs; but that's a function of people saying "orcs are badass - I want to play an orc character, but I don't want to have to be shackled with all the cultural baggage". And then this post-modernism set-in, which opens the door for us to rub orcs up against racist propaganda, and now all of a sudden orc hate = RL racism. It's fucking stupid.

---

Labeling individual members of a species as being inherently evil is something that has always bothered me for anything that is not extraplanar or undead. But that isn't because RACISM!; it's because of the lazy-ass logical disconnect. Alternatively, you can have a culture that has elements that are inherently evil, and the members of that culture are evil by extension - which is the way I view orcs. And yes, if an orc baby is raised in a not-evil culture, he's not necessarily going to be evil. He may certainly have instinctual proclivities towards behaviors that are not fit for civilized society; but not necessarily evil. But left to their own devices in isolation, orc instincts are going to produce a culture that other humaniods will recognize as being evil.

I wish the Key and Peele country music skit was on YouTube so I could link it directly.

Chamomile wrote:I wish the Key and Peele country music skit was on YouTube so I could link it directly.

I can only assume that you're talking about THIS.

Cute.

Vimeo has the same skit in full and with better quality, but I can't link it directly.

Occluded Sun wrote:1) The reason racial supremacists are offensive is that they're so out of touch with reality. In a hypothetical where they're right, they're... right.

Yes, if you create a setting in which racists are right, then the racists are right in that setting. In what possible way does this boring tautology address the argument of whether or not you ought to create such a setting?

Occluded Sun wrote:2) Weird fantasy interbreeding aside, we're not talking about different subgroups of human beings, but different species.

Half-orcs are not infertile. Humans and orcs are the same species, insofar as species means anything at all. This is actually an irrelevant argument for either of our sides, but irrelevant or not you are technically wrong.

Occluded Sun wrote:If D&D were in reality, there'd probably be a Yuan-ti Anti-defamation League. Because even if they are infiltrating our societies in an effort to destroy all warm-bloods... it's racist to say so!

The yuan-ti get their blackhats from their society, like the drow. The yuan-ti that worship Merrshaulk and want to destroy the world are blackhats because they worship Merrshaulk and want to destroy the world, and you are justified in stabbing them in the face because they want to do bad things. If you found a yuan-ti who did not worship Merrshaulk and did not want to destroy the world and was basically an all around swell dude, you would not be ethically justified in stabbing him simply because he is a yuan-ti.

Occluded Sun wrote:Meanwhile, think of the poor plight of the discriminated-against undead. People consider them 'evil', and form parties to hunt them down and exterminate them, merely because they hunger for the flesh, blood, and spirit of the living.

Being undead is just a condition people acquire. It doesn't even begin to fit a racist narrative, because undead are not a race.

Stinktopus wrote:Basically, having intelligent creatures listed in something called the "Monster Manual" reveals D&D to be Hitler's final plan to enshrine racism in the hearts and minds of nerds.

Jack Chick was right, for all the wrong reasons!

I think you can just go on ignore. I've called you on too much bullshit already, and you're obviously not going to stop being a dishonest twat anytime soon.

ACOS wrote:However, it is the thought process that is serving as the underlying premise for the argument.

No, it very much isn't, because the argument in its entirety is in that post and stands completely on its own, and you can either attack that argument or go on ignore for being a dishonest twat or fuck off. There is no fourth option where you pretend to argue with me by beating up a strawman and claiming that the strawman is supersecretly my actual argument even if I won't admit it and produce my actual argument in its entirety for you to poke holes in.

deaddmwalking wrote:

ACOS wrote:The line of argument here (which is perfectly in line with SJW drivel) is that just because some racists are able to contort propaganda from something, then <that thing> must be inherently racist - which is bullshit on its face.

That is not the line of argument.

ACOS wrote: [As DSM has reminded me, you are technically right.
However, it is the thought process that is serving as the underlying premise for the argument.
The premise is horribly flawed; thus I reject the argument.

Are you now claiming to be a mind reader? You are refusing to address the argument as it has been presented because you believe that you know the 'real thinking' behind it.

Wouldn't it make sense that if that were the 'real thinking', that would be the argument?

I'll take your refusal to address the argument as inability to do so. Thank you for conceding the point.

So has anybody compared D&D alignment to R. Scott Bakker's world yet? Its really the only other fantasy I can think of where a truely objective morality has been strictly enforced. Bakkers reason for objective evil would probably be a little beyond typical D&D though.

Occluded Sun wrote:

ishy wrote:Why limit it to humanoids? And why limit it to creatures raised in human fashion?
Don't all creatures capable of rational thought deserve the same treatment?

If D&D were in reality, there'd probably be a Yuan-ti Anti-defamation League. Because even if they are infiltrating our societies in an effort to destroy all warm-bloods... it's racist to say so!

Meanwhile, think of the poor plight of the discriminated-against undead. People consider them 'evil', and form parties to hunt them down and exterminate them, merely because they hunger for the flesh, blood, and spirit of the living.

Clearly you've never played in my games.

I've got a lot of sympathy for the devil, so to speak, because I'm a non-christian in a family full of catholics (also a liberal in a family shit-full with conservatives), so I've actually been called evil, by my family, however indirectly. So my perspective on evil is that usually it's just a level of pragmatism that society doesn't like, or worse, something perfectly innocent that goes against society's groupthink*, like worshiping the wrong guy.

Let's be frank here- most D&D societies are honestly going to act indistinguishably from orcs when they're at war. History shows that humans are just as murder and rape happy when you dehumanise the enemy and say "go get'em boys!" Now, humanity is getting better. It's now newsworthy when someone in the military rapes an enemy combatant/civilian, rather than expected, as it was in the Iron Age:

Agamemnon, The Iliad wrote: 'Still I am willing to give her back, if such is the best way.
I myself desire that my people be safe, not perish.
Find me then some prize that shall be my own, lest I only
among the Argives go without, since that were unfitting.' (1.116-119)

Given that D&D's moral tenor is best likened to the Iron Age, and that in the Iron Age, even the "good guys" seriously took women from the cities they conquered as literal "prizes," I think it's safe to assume that humans in D&D do the same, and not just the ones that are from the Pomarj. Hell, the only real difference in D&D warfare and real Iron Age warfare is probably the fact that there may be some women in the army, but even then, they're probably a minority. A minority that terrify all the men, but still a minority. Elves and dwarves probably act fairly similarly, and gnomes and halflings may when they are physically able to (killing some literally two to three times your size is much different from raping them).

My point to this is that in the Iron Age milieu of D&D, while the books call out orcs as the evil raiding, despoiling savages who mix some rapin' in with their pillagin', there is literally no reason to believe that the "civilized" races don't do the fucking exact same damned thing**.

So taking the main savage race, which you actually expect a non-zero number of players to play members of (or at least children of), and saying that they are evil vicious savages who rape and murder and are despicable and hate our civilization and crave our women... when the "civilized" races are seriously more than likely exactly the same in demeanor, just with better resources, is in itself a racist concept, and when you take into account that there are real groups of people who were described exactly the same way by people who pretended that they themselves were not in some percentage despicably evil fucks who made toppling civilizations and raping the womenfolk a hobby, which their religion actually fucking justified...

You know? I recant. Orcs are not an unfortunate unintentional "mandingo negro" stereotype pastiche.

They're this guy: (spoilered for artistic boobs. Also hanging and feeding children to dogs)

*no, I'm not a complete morally disgusting etho-hipster, I recognize some things that people call evil or heinous as being actually evil and dispicable. I'm just, well, pragmatic on things like undead, eating sapient corpses that you didn't kill specifically to eat, and worshipping demons.

**there is the possibility, and likelihood, depending on how grimderp a setting is, that characters attached to a good aligned organization, such as the church of Heironeous, don't do this shit. On the other hand, the soldiers of the Church of the Silver Flame in Eberron are probably pretty much split between "war bride takers" and "actually decent people."

deaddmwalking wrote: If you have normal humanoids that are born and raised in the human fashion, but are 'inherently evil', then your world is justified in having racists.

You are actively encouraging a world where racial supremacists are right.

Well racism in a fantasy world is fine. It's fine that people acknowledge that beholders and devils are damn evil creatures and wreck the world.

The only problem comes when one of your fantasy races is so similar to a real race that it seems to be making a racial statement about real people in the real world.

Nobody is going to feel anything wrong with being racist against gibbering mouthers and killing them. But when you've got a race that seems dangerously similar to black people and the game is spreading a negative racial stereotype, that's bad. It doesn't matter if that stereotype is that they're inherently evil or just inherently stupid. Either way it's pretty offensive.

Occluded Sun wrote:1) The reason racial supremacists are offensive is that they're so out of touch with reality. In a hypothetical where they're right, they're... right.

Yeah, and designing the game world so that racism is a good, justifiable, and the most reasonable position to hold is a bad thing.

Occluded Sun wrote:2) Weird fantasy interbreeding aside, we're not talking about different subgroups of human beings, but different species.

We're talking more about breeding between subspecies than different species. Furthermore, some species exhibit massive genetic diversity within the species (dart frogs, domestic canines) and some exhibit almost none (cheetahs, bald eagles).

Occluded Sun wrote:If D&D were in reality, there'd probably be a Yuan-ti Anti-defamation League. Because even if they are infiltrating our societies in an effort to destroy all warm-bloods... it's racist to say so!

Except that there is no international Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, and the people who suggest so IRl are almost always insane; furthermore, Jews are human beings, not magic snake men. Your comparison is about as absurd as can be.

souran wrote:So has anybody compared D&D alignment to R. Scott Bakker's world yet? Its really the only other fantasy I can think of where a truely objective morality has been strictly enforced. Bakkers reason for objective evil would probably be a little beyond typical D&D though.

Certainly, one would want to design a DND system that can work with objective morality, as well as other systems.

Cyberzombie wrote: Nobody is going to feel anything wrong with being racist against gibbering mouthers and killing them.

Actually, this is still missing the point. It isn't that its OK to be racist against gibbering mouthers, which is a phrase that feels fucking ridiculous to say. It is that gibbering mothers wander around specifically looking for intelligent people to eat, so you're doing yourself, yours and the local towns a service by killing a (near-mindless) predator that is literally out to get them. If you encounter a band of orcs, on the other hand, there is a non-zero chance that they're trying to chase down some caribou so they can take meat home to their families. At which point, rendering them down to a steaming piles of offal is pretty much you being the evil asshole.

Since ogres are dumber and more brutish than orcs and also better at football, doesn't that mean they fit the Stormfront/TGDMB racist stereotype better than orcs?

infected slut princess wrote:Since ogres are dumber and more brutish than orcs and also better at football, doesn't that mean they fit the Stormfront/TGDMB racist stereotype better than orcs?

Ogres also produce viable offspring with humans, making them another subtype of human in the racist Denner paradigm where less intelligent subraces of humanity are a valid concept.

Also human under this paradigm:

Horses
Cows
Spiders
All Outsiders

Voss wrote: Actually, this is still missing the point. It isn't that its OK to be racist against gibbering mouthers, which is a phrase that feels fucking ridiculous to say. It is that gibbering mothers wander around specifically looking for intelligent people to eat, so you're doing yourself, yours and the local towns a service by killing a (near-mindless) predator that is literally out to get them. If you encounter a band of orcs, on the other hand, there is a non-zero chance that they're trying to chase down some caribou so they can take meat home to their families. At which point, rendering them down to a steaming piles of offal is pretty much you being the evil asshole.

Well if orcs are inhuman evil monsters, then it's generally okay to kill them, because they'd kill you too if they could. Just because they give you a pass because you're dressed in plate armor and look tough doesn't mean they're not a threat. Had you been some passing villagers instead of heavily armed adventurers, you'd probably get attacked and killed. Because when they're innately evil you save yourself from a lot of moral debates.

Innately evil Orcs (or Ogres, for that matter) solves no moral debates. It simply creates new ones which are disgusting. Namely, the endless discussion about murdering civilians and children. Without ranting about innate evil, you can still fight and kill all the Orc and Ogre bandits and cannibals you want, but you don't have to have any disgusting discussions about babies and original sin.

Original sin is a disgusting moral doctrine, and a world in which it was true would be sufficiently worse than one in which it was not that I can not see why you would want that level of grimdark in your light fantasy story.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote: Original sin is a disgusting moral doctrine, and a world in which it was true would be sufficiently worse than one in which it was not that I can not see why you would want that level of grimdark in your light fantasy story.

-Username17

Or, more to the point of this discussion- why would you make that the default assumption in marketing a commercial product that will be available to a large, international audience?

sarcasmoverdose wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote: Original sin is a disgusting moral doctrine, and a world in which it was true would be sufficiently worse than one in which it was not that I can not see why you would want that level of grimdark in your light fantasy story.

-Username17

Or, more to the point of this discussion- why would you make that the default assumption in marketing a commercial product that will be available to a large, international audience?

Bad advertisement is better than no advertisement?

FrankTrollman wrote:Innately evil Orcs (or Ogres, for that matter) solves no moral debates. It simply creates new ones which are disgusting. Namely, the endless discussion about murdering civilians and children. Without ranting about innate evil, you can still fight and kill all the Orc and Ogre bandits and cannibals you want, but you don't have to have any disgusting discussions about babies and original sin.

No, you really can't. The problem is that once orcs and ogres becomes humans, you now treat them as such and that raises a whole lot of questions. Not everyone who puts on a nazi uniform is evil and worthy of being killed. Sure, okay the actual raiding party may be people you want to kill for justice, but when you attack the orcs, you're the intruder, and they're just protecting their homes, something they have the right to do.
What about the guy just guarding the orc encampment that you're attacking? That orc may never have been part of a murderous raiding party and may be simply following orders and doing his job as a guard. Did he deserve to die for protecting his home from an invader?

As for women and children... Well, you've just slaughtered all their warriors who were protectors and providers for them, you've stuffed all their valuables into your backpack and now you're letting them go. You may not have directly killed them, but it's likely your actions are going to cause many, if not all of them to die. Who is going to hunt their food?

If you think too deeply about that stuff and want to do the right thing by modern standards, the game will quickly cease to be Dungeons and Dragons and will turn into Raiders and Rehabilitation. The very act of kicking down someone's door, murdering them and stealing their stuff is considered to be wrong by modern morals. Yet that's what the game is all about. So it really does make things easier if you make your opposition less human, so you don't have to treat them like human beings.

Original sin is a disgusting moral doctrine, and a world in which it was true would be sufficiently worse than one in which it was not that I can not see why you would want that level of grimdark in your light fantasy story.

It has nothing to do with original sin, since original sin is punishing all humans for their ancestor's mistakes. We're talking about actual genetic inborn evil. Conscience, compassion and all the other brain functions that make good people simply don't exist in an evil race. And you can kill orcs not because the first orcs were this way, but because all orcs are like this, save for a few very rare mutant orcs who have evolved brains capable of thinking like good people.

And that creates less moral quandaries. If you establish for certain that the orc can't be redeemed and will always end up doing evil things because that's what's hard-wired into its brain, then you no longer have to worry about having a specific reason to kill one.

I realize that's an abhorrent philosophy to apply to real people in the real world, but this isn't the real world, it's an imaginary monster in a fantasy world. And unlike the real world, these aren't just accusations made to demonize the enemy, they're the real truth.

Cyberzombie wrote:We're talking about actual genetic inborn evil. Conscience, compassion and all the other brain functions that make good people simply don't exist in an evil race.

I would argue that a lack of inborn conscience does not make you automatically evil, it just makes good less likely.

Otherwise this goes down the road of "all people with APD are inherently evil," and anyone who says that is an asshole.

That's part of the problem, here, I think. It's one thing to talk about demons and devils and shit, because they're usually presented as participating in the Platonic form of evil.

But once you move away from that and towards biological entities without weird metaphysical ties, you just get very strong biases, at best. Cultural indoctrination, and the like. I mean, sure, your biology might reward evil behavior, but just like an individual with APD does not automatically become a serial killer, just because your biology rewards doing evil shit doesn't mean you have to, or even that you will.

Hell, you could wind up with an enclave of orcs just chilling in a mountain monastery away from their home clans or whatever, meditating and doing the whole "discarding our earthly desires" thing, except in this case their earthly desires are to kill people and other unfriendly things.

stupid wrote:(and in D&D, killing evil is objectively and demonstrably good)

No. In 3e D&D, the only one that even comes close to being sensible, killing Evil things because of their alignment is Evil. Because alignment is not one of the exemptions on killing. Actively defending the innocent is Good, harming the innocent is Evil, and Evil folk are innocent by default just like everyone else is.

Noting of course that there's laws against many things which put you swiftly in the guilty bin when it's obvious. Good PCs can totally just be Judge Judy the executioner.


That's not even a particularly modern sentiment. People saw the Spanish Inquisition as a "necessary evil", the star chamber in England was roundly damned as an evil stain on the country and the king kept anyway it because it was so effective. But if you have casus belli against the Orcs and declare war you can just go kill great bunches of them without further evidence and still be Good. Humans can be at war with Drow and Illithid by default, because of their constant Evil activity, and that's OK.

Cyberzombie, everything you just said is wrong. Literally every single thing. I am forced to conclude that you are concern trolling again, as is your wont. For fuck's sake, you just came out with &#8219;concerns' about shooting Nazis. Your concern trolling has fallen into the realm of self parody.

-Username17

GnomeWorks wrote: I would argue that a lack of inborn conscience does not make you automatically evil, it just makes good less likely.

While not having a conscience alone may not necessarily make you evil, if you add on gaining pleasure from hurting others, that certainly makes someone evil.

Denying things that make you feel good is difficult. If you've got someone that feels good based on hurting others and has no conscience, at absolute best they'll stay within the law and find legal ways to hurt people, but that's still evil.

As for improving themselves, they don't really have the desire to actually fight against their nature, because no part of their nature gives them that desire. They have no conscience so don't feel bad about the things they've done, and they really have no desire to stop doing those things. The only reason they'd ever go to a temple and meditate on life is if they wanted to put on an act for other people to make it look like they're trying to improve, so they can trick idealists who believe they can change.

Cyberzombie wrote:While not having a conscience alone may not necessarily make you evil, if you add on gaining pleasure from hurting others, that certainly makes someone evil.

You... clearly do not have an awesome grasp on psychology.

Aside from a generally lower threshold for aggression response and sometimes a significantly weaker regard for safety (both for self and others), an individual with APD isn't any more - or less - likely to be actively violent.

There's also probably not enough evidence to suggest a statistically significant connection between APD and the kind of behavior you're talking about.

Denying things that make you feel good is difficult. If you've got someone that feels good based on hurting others and has no conscience, at absolute best they'll stay within the law and find legal ways to hurt people, but that's still evil.

And that's fine.

But you're conflating APD with the desire to hurt other people.

An individual with APD will just not have an inherent moral reaction to causing others pain. Just because they can do it without "really" caring, doesn't automatically mean that they will.

As for improving themselves, they don't really have the desire to actually fight against their nature, because no part of their nature gives them that desire.

So... every single thing you want has moral ramifications and/or components? Your desire to have the profession you do is a moral choice?

What the fuck am I reading?

They have no conscience so don't feel bad about the things they've done, and they really have no desire to stop doing those things.

There are plenty of non-inherent-morality reasons to change your behavior.

The only reason they'd ever go to a temple and meditate on life is if they wanted to put on an act for other people to make it look like they're trying to improve, so they can trick idealists who believe they can change.

If someone with APD who has a tendency towards violence notices that other individuals with APD who are violent suffer some super shitty consequences from society, that may encourage them to rethink that line of behavior - not because of morality, but simple enlightened self-interest.

FrankTrollman wrote: I am forced to conclude that you are concern trolling again, as is your wont.

Is Cyberzombie ever not concern trolling.

Couple of mostly-tangential things:

Cyberzombie wrote:It has nothing to do with original sin, since original sin is punishing all humans for their ancestor's mistakes.

The Doctrine of Original Sin is actually far more relevant here than you seem to think. It's not "Your ancestors did a bad thing and now you're going to hell if you die before you get baptized", it's "Your ancestors did a bad thing and therefore you are born with the innate nature to do bad things and now you're going to hell if you die before you get baptized". It's really not that different from "Your god created you with the innate nature to do bad things so adventurers will stab you before you're old enough to walk if you're unlucky."

Cyberzombie wrote:While not having a conscience alone may not necessarily make you evil, if you add on gaining pleasure from hurting others, that certainly makes someone evil.

I'm surprised you're not aware of it, but there's this social construct wherein sadists get their kicks in a totally non-evil, consensual manner, often by pairing off with masochists and having (and respecting) special code words that mean actually really stop we're done here. It's seriously like this whole big thing.