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BobTheCoward wrote: Rysky wrote: Why can't we have Good racists?
Why can't we have Good homophobes?
Why can't we have Good slavers?
Why can't we have Good torturers?
Why can't we have Good rapists?
Because when you have the big G on someone who partakes in any of those horrible things in a game where objective morality is a thing you're saying they're good, they're okay, or they're so minimally bad they're okay.
Bigotry isn't good and there should be no desire to portray it as such. "Oh it's a game" is a deflection that's attempting to shut down a conversation, you're absolutely failing in trying to defend the issue when that is brought up. It doesn't make the bigotry go away, or okay.
"Oh it's okay cause they're fictional humanoids that aren't humans"
"Oh it's okay cause their skin color is different"
"Oh it's okay cause this one group of them is bad so they're all bad."
"Oh it's okay cause this other author said they were bad."
The above are all attempts used in the real world, have been used, to justify bigotry.
Drow, Goblins, and Orcs aren't unthinking monsters in P2 so trying to use any of the above to justify in-game bigotry at them is you falling in to espousing bigotry, a rather glaring dog whistle, pushing for "safe" and "accepted" bigotry.
But the objective good morality of the game setting doesn't have to align with my morality.
The objective morality of this game world is not actually good in real life? So? I'm already roleplaying a setting with objective morality when I bet many of us do not think objective morality exists. What does the contours of that fake objective morality matter? Again, this is pretty much a Thermian Argument, I'm going to suggest watching a Folding Ideas video to illuminate why people would have a problem with this line of reasoning:
Ascalaphus wrote: for convenience I promise it isn't very long
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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Master Han Del of the Web wrote: BobTheCoward wrote: Rysky wrote: Why can't we have Good racists?
Why can't we have Good homophobes?
Why can't we have Good slavers?
Why can't we have Good torturers?
Why can't we have Good rapists?
Because when you have the big G on someone who partakes in any of those horrible things in a game where objective morality is a thing you're saying they're good, they're okay, or they're so minimally bad they're okay.
Bigotry isn't good and there should be no desire to portray it as such. "Oh it's a game" is a deflection that's attempting to shut down a conversation, you're absolutely failing in trying to defend the issue when that is brought up. It doesn't make the bigotry go away, or okay.
"Oh it's okay cause they're fictional humanoids that aren't humans"
"Oh it's okay cause their skin color is different"
"Oh it's okay cause this one group of them is bad so they're all bad."
"Oh it's okay cause this other author said they were bad."
The above are all attempts used in the real world, have been used, to justify bigotry.
Drow, Goblins, and Orcs aren't unthinking monsters in P2 so trying to use any of the above to justify in-game bigotry at them is you falling in to espousing bigotry, a rather glaring dog whistle, pushing for "safe" and "accepted" bigotry.
But the objective good morality of the game setting doesn't have to align with my morality.
The objective morality of this game world is not actually good in real life? So? I'm already roleplaying a setting with objective morality when I bet many of us do not think objective morality exists. What does the contours of that fake objective morality matter? Again, this is pretty much a Thermian Argument, I'm going to suggest watching a Folding Ideas video to illuminate why people would have a problem with this line of reasoning:
Ascalaphus wrote: for convenience
I promise it isn't very long
Let me rephrase. This is occuring in the context of a story with objective morality. We have evidence that some of the creators do not ascribe to an objective morality (and some of the audience, I would bet quite a few here). At some point, people here are leveling the criticism that even though the work exists in a world of relative morality, the rules of the fictional objective morality can be perceived as the work taking a stance that they are good. How does the work convey that it is good in the relative morality context?
(as an aside, I also have no problem with a work advocating a position I disagree with and roleplaying in it)
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@Bob
Except that's not really what's happening. The objective morality they have attempted to produce and reinforce in the setting has generally been sold as following a generally moderate/left and relatively progressive bent. It's been more or less the stated goal of the creatives and of the company.
What is being called for here is greater internal consistency both to appease the customer base and to provide a higher quality product.
On top of that, not everyone is really willing to engage with media that props up objectionable material as 'good actually', especially not media that actively requires personal participation and interaction with it.
If the goal were to provoke that sort of tension between players and setting as is the case in, say, Warhammer 40k, then it would have been better signposted.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
It seems that a lawful good dwarf with vengeful hatred is not actually being put forward by the work as good.
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Master Han Del of the Web wrote: Except that's not really what's happening. The objective morality they have attempted to produce and reinforce in the setting has generally been sold as following a generally moderate/left and relatively progressive bent. It's been more or less the stated goal of the creatives and of the company. That isn't an objective standard of morality. Unless they can create a logical constant system for sorting any given action, paired with any given intent, paired with any given outcome into the boxes of lawful good, neutral good, etc. no real-world system can ever claim any kind of objective morality.
Quote: On top of that, not everyone is really willing to engage with media that props up objectionable material as 'good actually', especially not media that actively requires personal participation and interaction with it. Except that nobody is calling that particular action good. Evil can be done even by good people. Saints can be sinners. Morality is complex and painting it all in solid colours with no shades does a disservice to a setting that ostensibly tries to feel real.
I think Torag has been solved. "Enemies of your people" can be any group of people and not necessarily an entire race. The whole no mercy thing is somewhat questionable as a good deity though.
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So reality is people aren't consistent and neither are standards the behaviour of a good farmer isn't the same as the behaviour of a good solider. The rules aren't the same, the stakes aren't the same, the outcomes aren't same.
Most of the heroes in heroic fiction are mass murders and this fairly common across the world from the Legend of the Three Kingdom, Arthurian Courtly romances, even modern superhero dramas.
Remember the great Paladin Roland is great because he is killing the enemies of his nation. Alexander the Great is great because he is a conqueror who didn't lose. Caesar is great because he great a dynasty even though he betrayed the republic.
If you go back far enough and its not very far at all everyone has monstrous beliefs by modern standards, I imagine to the 1500 Christians we would all be witches using diabolical magic. Fundamentally muddiness is our reality and so I appreciate a little bit in my fiction not because its right but a none muddy world isn't very believable for me.
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aobst128 wrote: I think Torag has been solved. "Enemies of your people" can be any group of people and not necessarily an entire race. The whole no mercy thing is somewhat questionable as a good deity though. No mercy is something I would expect from a Lawful Good entity. Its a harsh standard, but nothing in good prevents that.
I think that mercy is generally the purview of Neutral Good. And its not like a LG can't show mercy or a NG can't be merciless, but these are tendencies.
Good can encompass a wide range of behaviors the same way that evil covers 'Merchant that rounds up to the nearest gp and pockets your money' and 'serial killer'.
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Kasoh wrote: aobst128 wrote: I think Torag has been solved. "Enemies of your people" can be any group of people and not necessarily an entire race. The whole no mercy thing is somewhat questionable as a good deity though. No mercy is something I would expect from a Lawful Good entity. Its a harsh standard, but nothing in good prevents that.
I think that mercy is generally the purview of Neutral Good. And its not like a LG can't show mercy or a NG can't be merciless, but these are tendencies.
Good can encompass a wide range of behaviors the same way that evil covers 'Merchant that rounds up to the nearest gp and pockets your money' and 'serial killer'. I guess I see "good" as a higher standard for deities. But for Torag, I think we can in good faith assume that "enemies" should be obvious and would not include some random orc you might see on the street.
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Norade wrote: Cori Marie wrote: If you didn't leave when they retconned Erastil, then why would I believe you'd leave now? Bold of you to assume I've paid for any of their work since then. I've been a user of the SRD for a long time and there are ways to get everything else easily enough. So the threat you’re making… you already did years ago?
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I find it very strange that people who have anything more than passing familiarity with the frankly expansive lore of this setting--lore which is more than big enough to have minor self-contradictions and clarifications all over as it gets further developed--feel like the correction of such a detail as "all dwarves hate all orcs indefinitely" to something which has more nuance beneath the surface is going to be the thing that shakes the bedrock of the setting.
No one to my knowledge is going to suggest that the Five Kings dwarves don't have beef with the Belkzen orcs who captured one of the Sky Citadels (like, 8000 years ago, so I feel like the orcs honestly have better claim to it now). They clearly have beef. But dwarves and orcs both are bigger than these two groups which have been with each other. The setting is bigger than these stereotypes of each people.
If you are afraid that your character might be banned from society play because their lore is inaccurate, perhaps the antidote is to pay attention to the actual lore aside from when that lore is about bigotry. On that note, I don't play PFS, so I can only hold baffled skepticism toward the notion that incorrect background lore is an offence for which characters are banned.
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I've locked this thread for moderation. We may unlock it, we may not.
Looking at the last several posts, they were coming in very quickly, sometimes even logging within the same minute. There's value in having a place to discuss sensitive topics, but part of engaging with them is that they often require more time to read, consider, type up a response, and reread that response before hitting "post" than they would in more casual topics.
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Moderated the thread to remove personally harassing posts, baiting posts, one including hate speech, and the subsequent quotes. Have put several posters on pause until work hours tomorrow when we can look at the thread.
Leaving thread locked.
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