[D&D] Religious & Cultural Diversity in D&D's Middle East
Callan S.:
Quote from: Willow on March 22, 2010, 08:25:27 AM
Callan, that's the question I really want to answer. I want a good reason for these faiths, which should be cosmically allied, to be in extended conflict.
Well, three missed meals to revolution! Why would you be cosmically aligned when your starving and got a sword in your hand?
Or more to the point, how much are these 'good' gods funneling resources through?
Also in terms of 'good reason'...well, you know, characters do stuff and sometimes it doesn't seem to be for any good reason. I guess its harder, because were talking playing out the role of thousands/mobs, but just play out how you feel the mob would react to a hard desert life.
Of course when you play out a character you can't guarantee a result like that they will conflict. But I think the key is to not play baby fresh characters who are just facing stuff now with a fresh emotional slate and yet at the same time the intellect of an adult. Instead it's about years of slights and resentments building up, of a hurt building up over years, well before the characters intellect can even start to grasp that hurt. That's the sort of character to draw upon, I'd say.
Also the idea that 'I am good' has been a blank cheque for all sorts of deeds in real life.
There's alot of confirmation bias bullshit in 'good', where people just keep doing something, only looking for evidence that they are right (because they are 'good'), and never looking for evidence that they are wrong.
And clearly, any action without self correction eventually, even through just sheer atrophy, becomes fucked up creates evil.
Or so are some philosophical ideas, written here with some enthusiasm :)
Excalibur:
Why not treat the different religions and their respective pantheons as countries that are expanding, contracting, etc. with their followers and the reason they and their followers fight is due to invasion? I mean, if the gods of Olympus sent their followers into Egypt to convert them, you could simulate this through the normal means (missionaries, crusades, etc.) and through the gods fighting it out.
Willow:
The interesting thing is that cosmic, objective good actually exists in the setting- some wicked people will certainly call themselves "good"- but, objectively, they aren't. Whereas the gods, who actually imbue people with magic powers are truely, absolutely, really good.
So what I think I'm going to go with is a large city, where the various faiths all reside, but are in constant tension (limited resources, space, prestige).
Some more thoughts-
Kord, the god of strength, is known as the Heavenly Fist. His followers, the Consecrated Fists, are not an ethnic group, but rather converts from other groups that adhere to strict vows- most obviously allowing their hair to grow long and ungroomed, and well displayed (both in men and women.) This is popular amongst half-orcs and shifters, who have both innate strength and lots of body hair.
Melora, the River of Life, is particularly worshiped amongst halflings, who are a nomadic people, frequently tending boats that go up and down the Great River, or seeking out oasises in the desert wastes.
Callan S.:
Quote from: Willow on March 23, 2010, 10:19:12 AM
The interesting thing is that cosmic, objective good actually exists in the setting- some wicked people will certainly call themselves "good"- but, objectively, they aren't. Whereas the gods, who actually imbue people with magic powers are truely, absolutely, really good.
There's a guy called Scott Bakker who's writing a series of books called the prince of nothing series, and part of his goals are to try and depict a world of objectivist good and objectivist evil. He also happens to have been a big D&D roleplayer in his youth, said he was big into world building IIRC.
At one point in him describing it, I'll carefully note it 'had me going' for a minute in that one of the characters in the books, one I liked, actually was objectively evil (actually, objectively damned, but I'll keep it simple).
But then I snapped out of it. No, I'll decide who's good and evil - I wont be told by anyone who is good and who is evil. I decide that for myself. How he is depicted is damned, but no, I'll judge him and I see him afflicted by some malase, poor bastard.
That's the problem here - no, cosmic, objectivist good doesn't exist in the setting - all there is is you trying to convince me who's good and who's bad, by forthright assertion.
For myself, it's because of that philosophical gulf I'd say they war - because the characters allow something else to tell them what is good and evil, rather than damn well decide for themselves.
And that thing that tells them...well, as a group at the table, your not all going to have the same idea of good. Therefore your all going to be playing out characters who are being told somewhat different things on what is good and evil. The war will stem from the differences in what characters of different faiths, or hell, even what different individuals are told.
Or perhaps someone at the game table will be socially controlling and loud and will make sure 'no ones a jerk' and everyone has the same idea of good and evil 'because it's objective!', and everyone will pretend they agree. And there will be no war (it all happened in real life at the table already). But usually that only happens with all male groups (lord of the flies style).
It's on that last note that the problem may come up - people at the gaming table with different ideas of good and evil. Now if a god and faith is objectively good, but someone at the table thinks one of their acts is evil, is the very act of thinking that's evil considered cheating or breaking the social contract? Or perhaps even just being a deliberate jerk since it's objective good and he must know that real good is X and not the Y he was talking about (and he must have invented Y just to be a jerk!).
That supposed idea of objectivist good around the table - it schisming and fracturing. That could be the fodder for fantastic gameplay (looking at Ron's accounts, for example, I'm inclined to think he'd treat it as fodder, as one example). Or it could be grounds for a RL falling out amongst real people over cheating or being 'deliberately disruptive'.
When it isn't, AFAICT, people always judge for themselves what is good and evil, indipendently - we are always alone in judgement. And so by and large except for chance parralels (or heavily trained parralels) we judge in different ways to each other. Which can work out when they know that, but it really fucks up if you think objectivist good and evil can be done as much as people can determine 10+5 beats a target number of 12. Because when they say something is evil when everyone else says it's good, it'll be like them saying 5+5 beats a target number of 12 and just look like cheating, since it's supposedly as objective as the numbers are objective.
Jeez, long post. Sorry.
Anyway - 'objectivist' good? Asking for trouble, unless you and everyone at the table know it wont happen perfectly, in which case it's asking for good gameplay :)
Willow:
Short answer, Callan: That's not what my D&D games are about.
Also, the 'Unaligned' alignment exists for people who are morally ambiguous. Erathis, the goddess of civilization is Unaligned. Bahamut, God of Justice? Lawful Good. It's right there in the rules.
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