Re: (TFT) Man To Man & GURPS - hack/n/slash ethics

[Peter von Kleinsmid <pvk@oz.net>]

It is interesting that RPG games have skill 
development based not just on experience, but on roleplaying and morality.

GM's and players looking at their group contracts 
might well ask how this should work. Should 
experience be based just on actions, or be 
influenced by roleplaying, and if so, how? 
Staying in character? Advancing the GM's 
pre-arranged plotline? Doing something that has a 
good result for the party? Not violating the 
character's morality as originally written? Not 
violating the GM's morality? Rewards for 
roleplaying that entertains the group? How ok is 
it for the GM, for PC's to have a morality where 
it's ok to kill "not totally evil" people? 
Prisoners? Is it ok for players to just say their 
characters have a morality that happens to be 
convenient for gaming advantages?

Butchery of prisoners, hirelings, and random 
NPC's for experience and/or loot can become an 
interesting issue. In hindsight, I think if I 
were running my old TFT game now with TFT, I 
might have players describe their own morality, 
and then if they drift towards butchery, ask them 
if their character is turning into a butcher, or 
if they're just having a gamer's lapse. The 
consequences of becoming a butcher would be both 
reactions from other NPC's (their moral friends 
would tend to desert them or even turn on them or 
turn them in), and a shift of their character 
that would take some doing to reverse.

Or is there a major disadvantage in clashing with 
the culture of the PC's background? That was what 
I actually came up with at the time, after 
players started hunting other non-hostile 
adventuring parties, and plotting their 
hirelings' deaths so they could loot them instead 
of pay them. I wrote up a Travellers' Code of 
Honor, violation of which would get you deserted 
by most decent adventurers, though it turned out to be more grey in practice.

I think this sort of moral exploration was one of 
the more interesting aspects of gaming, actually.

At the time, I think I didn't get what I was 
setting up by filling my world with immoral NPC's 
ready to charge into deadly combat, because it 
was fun to have lots of wild battles and loot. In 
a world like that, maybe it makes sense to become 
a trigger-happy butcher of sorts. It fits a lot 
of older films - Spaghetti Westerns particularly come to mind.

Of course, Spaghetti Westerns are all about 
humans, so at least it doesn't have the "dehumanizing" racism of orcs.

One can also compare to the dehumanization in old 
Westerns where "Injuns" are the antagonists, or 
in films (or reality) about wars vs. "Japs", "Krauts", "Gooks", etc.

I'm also thinking of Emma Peel in The Avengers TV 
show, who must have scores or hundreds of people, 
with little remorse. Particularly the scene where 
she gets to the flank of a firing squad with a 
submachinegun and doesn't have them all drop 
their guns, she blows them all away. The examples 
go on and on. These were typical of "Rated G" TV reruns when I was a kid. ;-)

Another thing that comes to mind is the situation 
where the GM has characters that are basically 
designed to make the players want to kill them 
with extreme prejudice, even though they aren't 
pure evil - maybe just extreme scumbags. 
Particularly when the situation makes it imprudent to kill them. ;-)

As for Tolkien orcs(/goblins), where does the 
idea that they had no women or children come 
from? I don't think it's correct. (See discussion 
here: 
http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/26725/what-is-the-true-origin-of-the-orcs 
, for example.) Sounds like they may have 
varieties from several sources, but then they 
breed like everything else. Maybe there are even 
females in the ranks? The only place where they 
get individually made by some other process in in 
the Peter Jackson films. Because in America, 
decapitation and cannibalism are ok for films but 
sex (especially ugly or inter-racial sex) is not?

I always marvel when people talk about Dwarves 
having no women, either. Or the women having 
beards... Of course, some games actually do 
define their races in sexually interesting ways.

The link above also mentions one orc origin idea 
of Tolkien's was that (some or all of them) may 
have been created from beasts and so (according 
to another form of interesting murderous 
moralizing logic) have no souls. Oh boy, 
something we can kill without feeling bad. ;-)

An even worse situation comes up in MMORPGs, 
where in order to level up, you basically need to 
mass murder hundreds and thousands of weaker 
beings that generate out of thin air at regular 
intervals, for which there are only rewards and 
no consequences or impact on anything but your 
character's ever-increasing ability and wealth... :-P


At 08:32 AM 8/4/2014, Tapley, Mark wrote:
> "What?s the most evil creature in Tolkien?s 
> universe that has a speaking part?"

Well there was Smaug, though I rather like Smaug. 
And it seems to me the orcs do actually talk when 
not in combat, for example in the bits where they 
are discussing eating Merry and Pippin, and when Bilbo is captured.


>         Tolkien introduced into his world 
> something that doesn?t exist in ours - purely 
> evil man-like things that it?s OK to slaughter. 
> Many games and campaigns have an insidiously 
> deadly travesty of that thing - *ethically* 
> man-like things which it is *not* OK to 
> slaughter but which players are nevertheless 
> expected to slaughter, because they carry the same name, ?orc?. This is bad.

Very good point.


> ...
>         But if the world is to make sense, evil 
> and good have to be mixed, in my NPC?s as in 
> the party I?m refereeing for, because that?s 
> the way it is in the real world - always has 
> been, always will be. So, when the party muses, 
> ?What are we going to do with these prisoners? 
> Our pet wolves could save a couple of days? 
> supplies by eating them?? NPC?s are going to be 
> aghast and the experience hammer is going to be 
> out. Conversely, when they realize they could 
> dig a short irrigation ditch, quadruple the pig 
> farm output, and put an end to the orc 
> settlement?s *need* to raid, rather than simply 
> killing all of the orcs in the settlement, I?ll reward that copiously.

With experience that they can then put into 
combat ability? Seems to me this is where it 
would be nice (though of course more complex)  to 
have different sorts of intangible rewards and 
penalties for actions. Of course, there are also 
practical rewards and penalties from logical consequences.


>         This places some complexity both on me 
> as referee - I have to come up with a painful 
> situation where killing is actually the path of 
> least evil, if I want a melee (and then I have 
> to deal with orphans in the aftermath of the 
> battle) - and on my players  - what *do* they 
> do with prisoners; when do they choose 
> ?subduing blows? or ?Rope? instead of 
> ?Fireball?? If all that?s wanted is a 
> hack/n/slash, hash-marks in the XP column, 
> bloodfest, this stuff gets in the way.
>
>         I claim that?s not what a role-playing game is about.

Ya, especially when you're using the "add DX when you kill" experience system.

Seems like systems that track karma and/or inner 
personal conflict, as well as alienation by 
others, would be appropriate. And, using an alternate experience system too.





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