Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Badmike wrote:Playing in his game looks like it's as fun as a forced castration. Without booze.

Mike B.

Ha!!! Awesome!

Thanks Ben - I've been struggling to post on the What's Your Deal Breaker? thread --- THIS!
Someone upthread mentioned just being tired of this kind of over-analysis - me too.
google+ is giving a lot of it too. People oughta shut up and play!

DungeonDork wrote:All the straw men must die!!!

1,000 xp to DD for this post.

Yeah, the whole thing reads like "I am more enlightened than you - I am better than you."

When I started advertising X-plorers earlier this year, a blogger actually posted that I was encouraging, "race-motivated murder." I decided not to even acknowledge it and others in the OSR let him have it.

One poster wrote, "sometimes you just want to shoot space invaders" and I agree. I do not like it when folks think they have to impress others with their education. Heck, I can explain the meta-physics of evil, but who wants to hear that?

Sometimes you just want to kill orcs and demons and save the local thorp in the process. And if the farmer's daughter wants to thank us, so much the better.

And proffesional sports teams tap into our base instinct to wage war against neighboring cities--the answer isn't to say that the poster is wrong, it's that games are a healthy way of playing with these very real human-animal instincts. His post comes from a western-religious indoctrination of the shame of "sin" as are the over the top (near violent) protestations to the contrary. This thread could be about masturbation. One side telling you it's shameful, and the other swearing to god an man that he has never had a thought to do it. Both are wrong.

What reeks of PC is pretending that we all don't fear those not like us, and that human-kinds condition (especially men) isn't full of rape, murder, looting, and war. The answer, again, is that sports, war-games, shootem up video games, and d&d are healthy outlets for these real feelings.

(Imagines a scene from this guy's game table...)

"Sweet, I rolled a natural 20, I landed a critical hug!"

"Awesome! You vanquish Johnnie's inner darkness and saved his self-esteem! We're all winners here!"

If I ever see a carebear in a game, it will be the first thing to die.

I can just imagine it.

DM says, "as you come around the bend in the road, off to the right you see a carebear walking through a pasture of flowers. To your left there is a orc raiding party about to set fire to a church full of nuns and orphans." What do you do Clang?

Clang, "I pull my crossbow and waste the carebear! How many XP's do I get for it?"

Bargle wrote:And proffesional sports teams tap into our base instinct to wage war against neighboring cities--the answer isn't to say that the poster is wrong, it's that games are a healthy way of playing with these very real human-animal instincts. His post comes from a western-religious indoctrination of the shame of "sin" as are the over the top (near violent) protestations to the contrary. This thread could be about masturbation. One side telling you it's shameful, and the other swearing to god an man that he has never had a thought to do it. Both are wrong.

What reeks of PC is pretending that we all don't fear those not like us, and that human-kinds condition (especially men) isn't full of rape, murder, looting, and war. The answer, again, is that sports, war-games, shootem up video games, and d&d are healthy outlets for these real feelings.

Maybe you play wargames, rpgs, and sports as a way to sublimate your racism and your desires to commit murder and rape, but I'll appreciate you not to generalize that statement.

Bargle wrote:And proffesional sports teams tap into our base instinct to wage war against neighboring cities--the answer isn't to say that the poster is wrong, it's that games are a healthy way of playing with these very real human-animal instincts. His post comes from a western-religious indoctrination of the shame of "sin" as are the over the top (near violent) protestations to the contrary. This thread could be about masturbation. One side telling you it's shameful, and the other swearing to god an man that he has never had a thought to do it. Both are wrong.

What reeks of PC is pretending that we all don't fear those not like us, and that human-kinds condition (especially men) isn't full of rape, murder, looting, and war. The answer, again, is that sports, war-games, shootem up video games, and d&d are healthy outlets for these real feelings.

It's a hobby. A game. I don't feel the need to project our world's realities, however brutal and terrible they are, and they are indeed quite terrible, particularly the ones mentioned above (rape, murder, looting, and war), onto my game. Neither do I play up these realities in my game for the sake of 'fanning the flames' of pretend violence. That stuff happens, we all deal with it in game, and we go on to the next situation.

With all due respect, you're overthinking this game's moral & ethical dynamics almost as much as the author of the narative in the OP. Me, I just want to roll some dice, see how my players react & respond to the challenges I put in their path, and for a few hours a week not have to think about how horrible men and women are to each other in real life.

Diversion? Yup!
Compartmentalization? Check!
Escapisim?? Damn straight!


And for the record, if you knew me at all, you'd know that I'm not at all the violent type. It is very unlikely I would actually physically put a boot in the ass of a total stranger. Want to? Perhaps. Talk about it? Yup, quite likely. Show the fucker the door? Yup, prolly do that! Act upon my violent urge to throttle someone? Pretty damn unlikely.

I couldn't read all of this either.

As far as 1E AD&D I don't think I've ever gotten the impression that "genocide" was part of the game (or even thought of) "the policy of deliberately killing a nationality or ethnic group" -Nope. My impression is that there are endless orcs, endless everything and all spread out across a wide world and multiplex (where would you even start). Races of humans aren't destinguished (humans are generic when compared to the demihumans).

Anyhow, Its a game about saving your own hide (and that of your small group) while getting treasure to advance. Period. Anything else (say some stupid genocide plot) would be in the back ground...perhaps a backdrop to adventure (Kind of like the civil war setting in "The Good the Bad and the Ugly", the conflict of states wasn't the point, Eastwood getting treasure was). Morality is something best not shoved down your throat in a book and especially in a fantasy game.


Oh, I didn't realize the origin of the word:

genocide

1944, apparently coined by Polish-born U.S. jurist Raphael Lemkin in his work "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe" [p.19], in reference to Nazi extermination of Jews, lit. "killing a tribe," from Gk. genos "race, kind" (see genus) + -cide. The proper formation would be *genticide.

This is maybe a non-sequitor but I played OD&D with 3 Cambodian girls and 2 Canadians (they're everywhere) while watching the Khmer Rouge trials in PP and we had a blast. And THEN we all went to fire some Ak-47's and throw grenades at a hillside. Big fun

Kellri wrote:This is maybe a non-sequitor but I played OD&D with 3 Cambodian girls and 2 Canadians (they're everywhere) while watching the Khmer Rouge trials in PP and we had a blast. And THEN we all went to fire some Ak-47's and throw grenades at a hillside. Big fun

What the heck are you doing with grenades. You're ex-military I take it?

Clangador wrote:
What the heck are you doing with grenades. You're ex-military I take it?

Throwing them at a hillside, apparently.

godentag wrote:

Clangador wrote:
What the heck are you doing with grenades. You're ex-military I take it?

Throwing them at a hillside, apparently.

Yes, shooting and blowing stuff up. There are few things more fun.

Adam Dray wrote:Fourth, substitute mindless monsters for the tribes and nations of humanoids. Maybe not entirely, but to a large extent. I don't think anyone has a problem with the killing of a gelatinous cube or a skeleton. There's a whole class of monsters that are intelligent but solitary--that is, they aren't races of creatures that are born with parents and a culture but rather are spawned or summoned. A classic example is the undead, which are just dead creatures usurped by terrible evil forces. Similar are demons and devils, which generally aren't considered a culture or nation. Yeah, there are some ethical problems with slaying animals and animal-like monsters just for the experience and loot, but those are different problems than genocide, and frankly those problems don't bother me as much.

Who is this fool? To even suggest that the filthy existence of orcs and goblins could be construed as some form of "culture" by human standards is revolting to all who adhere to the precepts of Law and civilized religions. Let us here no more of the imagined dignities of these Chaos-spawn, but strike them down, yea, eradicate them, wherever they slink, slither, or crawl beneath the earth!