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Greenstorm · 05-05-2003, 05:35 PM

Ahh, this is really interesting to me. There's a big difference in the two games I'm on, in that one of them has a huge number of societies that all have their own ethos, and another is a single homogenous society predominated over by a church with specific ideas of wrong and right.

D&D rules are made to apply to a specific set of worlds, and a specific set of societies within that. Part of those societies is this specific set of morals, that this and this are good and right, and this and this are evil. That's part of the world and as such I'm certainly not going to dispute it.

I need to develop my own motivations for a character as to why they act as they do, of course: whether Dain goes around killing peasants because he enjoys it or because he's trying to rack up points with the God of Evil so that he can gain power and therefore cast a spell over the guy sleeping with his girlfriend, he has his reasons and believes he's justified. He compares himself to his society's ideas of good, and reconciles his position with that somehow, or doesn't and wanders around as a tortured soul.

So I don't find that the idea of good and evil, and a character's position amidst all that, is not a useful one. It's just more complex to me than saying this character is good, or evil. It's saying, how do they behave, does it fit into their society's ethos, how do _they think_they fit into their society's ethos, and why do they do what they do?

And I've noticed that it's not only D&D-type settings where this idea comes in handy. In my multi-world themed place, the 'general society' places a great value on tolerance. Someone who is tolerant of other races and the occasional mistakes they might make, therefore, is generally 'good'. So I can take that and apply it to my characters -- are they good in this way, how does that make them think or feel about themselves? Because we all to some extent judge ourselves by the society around us.

05-05-2003, 05:35 PM	#6
Greenstorm Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 30	Ahh, this is really interesting to me. There's a big difference in the two games I'm on, in that one of them has a huge number of societies that all have their own ethos, and another is a single homogenous society predominated over by a church with specific ideas of wrong and right. D&D rules are made to apply to a specific set of worlds, and a specific set of societies within that. Part of those societies is this specific set of morals, that this and this are good and right, and this and this are evil. That's part of the world and as such I'm certainly not going to dispute it. I need to develop my own motivations for a character as to why they act as they do, of course: whether Dain goes around killing peasants because he enjoys it or because he's trying to rack up points with the God of Evil so that he can gain power and therefore cast a spell over the guy sleeping with his girlfriend, he has his reasons and believes he's justified. He compares himself to his society's ideas of good, and reconciles his position with that somehow, or doesn't and wanders around as a tortured soul. So I don't find that the idea of good and evil, and a character's position amidst all that, is not a useful one. It's just more complex to me than saying this character is good, or evil. It's saying, how do they behave, does it fit into their society's ethos, how do _they think_they fit into their society's ethos, and why do they do what they do? And I've noticed that it's not only D&D-type settings where this idea comes in handy. In my multi-world themed place, the 'general society' places a great value on tolerance. Someone who is tolerant of other races and the occasional mistakes they might make, therefore, is generally 'good'. So I can take that and apply it to my characters -- are they good in this way, how does that make them think or feel about themselves? Because we all to some extent judge ourselves by the society around us.