Are you good or evil? (rpg question)

[SexDwarf2250]

On 12/9/2022 at 10:45 PM, axz2 said:

 

“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”
― Simone Weil

 

Of course in a game your talking about imaginary evil and it can be interesting.  But still I almost always play good characters.  Not perfectly good, a character I've often played with has a background as a thief, but even for that character it was more a steal to survive thing, and mostly as a background not something the character did a lot of as my character.  That character is chaotic good, others might not be chaotic.

 

"Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating."
 

Ah yes, because doing the right thing requires you to be of chaotic charming alignment in the real world. And imaginary good is boring? Somebody has neither been to the cinemas nor lived in reality, it feels like to me.

[jxm]

On 12/10/2022 at 4:45 AM, axz2 said:

 

“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”
― Simone Weil

 

Of course in a game your talking about imaginary evil and it can be interesting.  But still I almost always play good characters.  Not perfectly good, a character I've often played with has a background as a thief, but even for that character it was more a steal to survive thing, and mostly as a background not something the character did a lot of as my character.  That character is chaotic good, others might not be chaotic.

 

“Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.

 

They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar

 

So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.” - Terry Prattchett, Men at arms

 

But neither good nor evil is really "bad" .... the worst are ... *shudders* ... neutrals...

 

 

[axz2]

16 hours ago, SexDwarf2250 said:

 

"Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating."
 

Ah yes, because doing the right thing requires you to be of chaotic charming alignment in the real world. And imaginary good is boring? Somebody has neither been to the cinemas nor lived in reality, it feels like to me.

 

Being a positive in other people's life is a lot more interesting then most ordinary real world evil.  Thugs and low grade thieves aren't interesting.  Neither are the functionaries of oppressive governments.  As for imaginary good, it can be interesting if done creatively but often its not done well.

[SexDwarf2250]

15 hours ago, axz2 said:

 

Being a positive in other people's life is a lot more interesting then most ordinary real world evil.  Thugs and low grade thieves aren't interesting.  Neither are the functionaries of oppressive governments.  As for imaginary good, it can be interesting if done creatively but often its not done well.

 

Not only will a quick look at the media people consume, eg criminal thrillers and documentaries about crimes and tyrants, quickly confirm that Simone is completely wrong, the premise is flawed in itself. Humanity's interest in stories is not impacted to any significant degree whatsoever by the percentage of the story which is true. It can be a small factor, but by no means is it the primary one.

 

Why do you think the news is the way it is? Even at some very mundane levels, criminals tend to generate interest. This is because very often breaking a law requires some controversial activity. However, the person who wakes up and helps somebody cross the street before making sure they do their taxes before the deadline and feeling warm at heart while watching puppes on the internet, does not generate any interest worth of a paper that needs to sell.

 

The Force Awakens outgrossed Saving Private Ryan at the box office, despite the latter being a real war against evil which was based on a true story. Downfall outgrossed Texas Chainsaw Massacre, despite the former being about a very real evil dictator. And so on, and so on. I appreciate Simone's sentimental hopes, but am not surprised a religious mystic would have some, uh, wonky views.

Edited December 16, 2022 by SexDwarf2250

[axz2]

10 hours ago, SexDwarf2250 said:

 

Not only will a quick look at the media people consume, eg criminal thrillers and documentaries about crimes and tyrants, quickly confirm that Simone is completely wrong, the premise is flawed in itself. Humanity's interest in stories is not impacted to any significant degree whatsoever by the percentage of the story which is true. It can be a small factor, but by no means is it the primary one.

 

Why do you think the news is the way it is? Even at some very mundane levels, criminals tend to generate interest. This is because very often breaking a law requires some controversial activity. However, the person who wakes up and helps somebody cross the street before making sure they do their taxes before the deadline and feeling warm at heart while watching puppes on the internet, does not generate any interest worth of a paper that needs to sell.

 

The Force Awakens outgrossed Saving Private Ryan at the box office, despite the latter being a real war against evil which was based on a true story. Downfall outgrossed Texas Chainsaw Massacre, despite the former being about a very real evil dictator. And so on, and so on. I appreciate Simone's sentimental hopes, but am not surprised a religious mystic would have some, uh, wonky views.

 

Criminal thrillers are fictional evil being interesting.  

 

If I was trying to make a similar statement myself might change Simone's statement to stories about evil people often are interesting, the stories can even be true ones, at least if the true one's focus on the most interesting evil, or the highlights of more ordinary evil.   Actually having to interact with evil people in your ordinary life much less so.  (Yes its "interesting" if someone is trying to kill  you but even serial killers don't spend most of their time killing.)

[SexDwarf2250]

On 12/16/2022 at 11:47 PM, axz2 said:

 

Criminal thrillers are fictional evil being interesting.  

 

 

/shrug. There are many popular shows and movies about real life murderers, cannibals, etc. It doesn't matter if they are real or fictional. People like to hear stories no matter the source. Simone had a very poor grasp on what makes things interesting for people. It's not the intrinsic morality of the subject or the percent of the story that's true.

 

However, Good tends to be reactive until something Evil drops in and starts shaking things up, and by nature reactive is less interesting.

Edited December 18, 2022 by SexDwarf2250

[Miauzi]

neither "good" nor "evil"

 

I'm "grey" - both in game and in real life

[DocClox]

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.

[Senator Blutarsky]

I am whatever conan the barbarian is or the chick in the last porn video I watched was.

 

it fluctuates.

[Senator Blutarsky]

Happy new years muthafukkas!

[DocClox]

Happy new year!

[KoolHndLuke]

I play a fair character as much as I can absent of moral ambiguity. That means if I have to get my hands dirty for the overall balance of things, then I do without question. If someone must die, they do. Now... the power trip comes in when I've just had enough of the "good" guy bullshit and go full tilt dark side. It's still for the overall good of things, I just decide to eliminate the cumbersome, dogmatic, limiting and often short sighted idealism of equal outcome because progress demands certain sacrifices.

[TheWilloughbian]

never. 

[Hoborat]

It's rather more interesting to play as good boy/girl in the beginning, helping everyone and be like a saint, but to betray everyone in the end and start doing very morally questionable stuff later. And eventually you will become even more insidious, depraved and evil than the main villain himself. 

[Shika749]

I'm Vengeful Good. I like to play good characters who will treat enemies like absolute trash. But when it comes to my party I get emotionally attached.

[Rorschach666]

"rolls chaotic good"

[Guest]

For me, it depends entirely what I'm in the mood for. I can be the one who helps those in need because it's the right thing to do, or the one who kills everyone because it's Sunday.

[Vexing Rabbit]

Well with mods installed in my skyrim I usually play as a arrogant badass bitch that usually sticks with lawful evil but with all the loverslab mods I tend to be taken down a peg and paying for my sins in the most degrading way possible XD

[branmakmuffin]

Easy. Good.

[beefers]

I try to do evil play-throughs in games like Fallout 4 and inevitably becoming chaotic good or straight up heroic.  It's in my wiring to be a jerk, but not to be evil.

[Kraven12]

Chaotic good. myself. 

[branmakmuffin]

On 2/23/2024 at 3:34 PM, beefers said:

I try to do evil play-throughs in games like Fallout 4 and inevitably becoming chaotic good or straight up heroic.  It's in my wiring to be a jerk, but not to be evil.

Yeah, every time I start a New Vegas game, I say "OK, this is the game I play Legion." And then I don't.

[osculim]

I would say Chaotic good. Not for the lack of trying being evil sometimes but I always find myself cringe when I go to evil.

[Kraven12]

 Chaotic good

[keitolainen]

I was always kind of turned off by the good/evil scale in games. Most games don't bother trying to define what good or evil are. Back when I was a kid reading 2nd Edition D&D books, there was a blurb talking about how evil could be defined as hurting the majority to benefit a minority (like yourself), and good would be the opposite. It also said that a lot of people liked playing with good and evil as physical, literal forces you could measure or access, instead. How utilitarian or religious you go is just a messy, ugly decision, so it makes complete sense that a game would ignore it completely. Games are trying to be fun, I guess.

 

My favourite way of handling this is in games like Tactics Ogre, which uses a Law/Chaos system, and not Good/Evil. Law/Chaos being order vs freedom, etc. Joining a corrupt regime to change it from within, or burn it down from outside.

 

My least favourite are games that have a burning building and prompt you to: A) Save babies from fire; or B) Add more babies to fire.

 

If the game isn't entirely about how you define good and evil, then they shouldn't be a gameplay element. I'm just really not interested in what a committee at a dev studio decided is evil, I guess.