The Nuances of Evil

[Darth Trethon]

 

 

 

I think I'm beginning to lose sight of the point certain people are trying to make in this thread... Are we trying to argue that there is no such thing as good and evil, or that we can never know what true good and evil are?

We're only expecting the devs to resolve issues where we as a species haven't resolved yet. Nothing more difficult.

Devs? One already said examples weren't welcome and there have been none after....beyond that there is no further issue with the discussion afaik. Some people have been really sheltered and some of the less pleasant details of reality may be shocking. 

 

And the answer to the good and evil question is that the worst thing we can possibly do is presume we know it.

I find it interesting how you assert that "the worst thing we can possibly do is presume we know [good and evil]", when you present your own account as revelations of objective "reality". Seems legit.

Things are what they are, nothing else. We can be wrong but reality does not change and if we pay attention, use reason and avoid assuming what we do not know it's not that hard to find a reasonable course of action based on available information....I see it as practical. This is nowhere remotely close to presuming to know all about what's good and evil.....sometimes actions that people judge as "evil" are needed.....that judgement is where they fail. Circumstances should dictate decisions not some set of silly morals and invisible power figures that you fear because somebody else told you to.

[BruceVC]

 

 

 

 

I think I'm beginning to lose sight of the point certain people are trying to make in this thread... Are we trying to argue that there is no such thing as good and evil, or that we can never know what true good and evil are?

We're only expecting the devs to resolve issues where we as a species haven't resolved yet. Nothing more difficult.

Devs? One already said examples weren't welcome and there have been none after....beyond that there is no further issue with the discussion afaik. Some people have been really sheltered and some of the less pleasant details of reality may be shocking. 

 

And the answer to the good and evil question is that the worst thing we can possibly do is presume we know it.

I find it interesting how you assert that "the worst thing we can possibly do is presume we know [good and evil]", when you present your own account as revelations of objective "reality". Seems legit.

Things are what they are, nothing else. We can be wrong but reality does not change and if we pay attention, use reason and avoid assuming what we do not know it's not that hard to find a reasonable course of action based on available information....I see it as practical. This is nowhere remotely close to presuming to know all about what's good and evil.....sometimes actions that people judge as "evil" are needed.....that judgement is where they fail. Circumstances should dictate decisions not some set of silly morals and invisible power figures that you fear because somebody else told you to.

 

 

I can agree that in RL there may be no real "evil" and many definitions of evil are in fact the depraved actions of mentally unbalanced people or religions trying to characterize people and events but in the context of a fantasy RPG its not that subjective. Red Dragon is evil, bugbear is evil, succubus is evil. Wizard trying to resurrect long dead behemoth is evil. Character party needs to stop this to prevent destruction of known world, this is good. There you go, discussion over

Edited March 13, 2013 by BruceVC

[JFSOCC]

No, because "bugbear evil" just for being a bugbear makes me turn away from a game. When they said PE was going to me a more mature game, I certainly though. "Finally, no clichéd utterly evil absolutes"

[Sacred_Path]

No, because "bugbear evil" just for being a bugbear makes me turn away from a game. When they said PE was going to me a more mature game, I certainly though. "Finally, no clichéd utterly evil absolutes"

I thought the very point of having monsters in fantasy is so you can display your awsum killing skillz without having to consider any grey moral areas

[BruceVC]

No, because "bugbear evil" just for being a bugbear makes me turn away from a game. When they said PE was going to me a more mature game, I certainly though. "Finally, no clichéd utterly evil absolutes"

 

You don't seriously think or expect  that Obsidian is going to have the time to dissect every monster in the game to the point where they "may not be evil" or " lets not kill the troll because his rampage and killing spree may not be evil"

 

Most monsters you encounter you will just kill , like in any RPG. The game will offer us some moral choices that are potentially grey areas but lets not set unrealistic expectations

[JFSOCC]

Sure, but I will kill them because they are dangerous, not evil.

[BruceVC]

Sure, but I will kill them because they are dangerous, not evil.

 

Okay I agree

[Darth Trethon]

You misssed my point.

 

One has to have some sense of stability, some anchoring point, some sense of direction.

You need to have up and down, left and right, right and wrong.

We just need it to function in this world and stay sane.

 

 

If I asked you if killing children is right or wrong, what would you say? You have a stance on thing. All of us have. On on some things you will have a very strong stance, a undeniable conviction.

 

 

And yes. Do not start harping on religion. It's a recepie for doom and thread closure. And also for earning my hostility.

 

Letting go of all you have been taught to be true is painful....VERY painful. You lose sense of purpose and direction and there is no invisible man with a plan where all the horrors and monstrosities have a purpose that is somehow meant to all end up good, your childhood heroes become parodies of the denial everyone is content to live in....it takes time to get over but when you do you can make your own path. It's hard to question something when everyone you know has believed without question since you were born and all you've ever been taught is blind belief.....have faith. The more you look the more questions there are and even fewer answers.....facing reality is perhaps one of the most brutally painful things someone can suffer emotionally.....to know and understand the details of the horrors people inflict on each other with most wars being fought over some belief or another because neither side could cope with reality, so they blindly wanted to believe but some part of them had been touched, shaken by some knowledge they could no longer suppress....that all they knew was a lie. So they threw themselves into combat in the belief that killing the perceived "enemy" would somehow make things right again....that it would please their deity. What makes things even harder is social retribution.....offend someone and there can be legal punishment, in some societies you can face being disowned by your family or worse. Reminds me of how people who didn't believe the earth was flat used to be treated....mentally unstable, dangerous to society.

 

We have developed a pattern that suffocates critical thinking....a species that refuses to own up and grow up....this may be well why we are so insanely troubled and destructive. We don't reason and let go of the lies....we get violent and ego takes over because we feel our sense of identity....that which we believe ourselves to be...is threatened. Basically we get violent because our sensitive feelings get so very hurt. And it only gets harder with time because you've spent more time blindly believing which has made the beliefs plant even deeper and stronger roots on one's sense of identity.

 

Reminds me of a childhood story....something to do with a young duck that was afraid of drowning that ultimately overcame the fear by holding a hook which it believed anchored it to the sky....now imagine that it never learned otherwise and grew old and passed that belief to future generations and everyone accepted it on faith. Trying to explain to them the hook did nothing and was merely extra weight would be met with hostility....because how could everyone be wrong?? You must surely intent to get them killed. That's more or less where people are....thousands upon thousands of blind beliefs all trying to distance themselves from the bad actions of the others while teaching the same thing and reading from the same book.

Edited March 13, 2013 by Darth Trethon

[TrashMan]

I see it as practical. This is nowhere remotely close to presuming to know all about what's good and evil.....sometimes actions that people judge as "evil" are needed.....that judgement is where they fail. Circumstances should dictate decisions not some set of silly morals and invisible power figures that you fear because somebody else told you to.

 

 

Moraly reprehensible actions can be the "right" ones logicly. Deos that make them evil? Not necessarily. Not if the person regrets it.  But they are still morally repugnant.

 

As for what is good or evil... why would a decree from a power figure be any less valid than your own? Especially if we assume that that power figure is WAy, WAAAAAY more knowledgabe about everything than you.

 

 

 

Letting go of all you have been taught to be true is painful....VERY painful. You lose sense of purpose and direction and there is no invisible man with a plan where all the horrors and monstrosities have a purpose that is somehow meant to all end up good, your childhood heroes

become parodies of the denial everyone is content to live in....it takes time to get over but when you do you can make your own path.

 

And you just replace belief X with belief Y.

The same friggin thing. You still have some core belief, core moral compass that you cling too.

 

Even something simple as "I know I know nothing" and "Murdering babies in their sleep is bad" are basicly core, unshakable fundaments.

 

 

 

It's hard to question something when everyone you know has believed without question since you were born and all you've ever been taught is blind belief.....have faith. The more you look the more questions there are and even fewer answers.....facing reality is perhaps one of the most brutally painful things someone can suffer emotionally.....to know and understand the details of the horrors people inflict on each other with most wars being fought over some belief or another because neither side could cope with reality, so they blindly wanted to believe but some part of them had been touched, shaken by some knowledge they could no longer suppress....that all they knew was a lie. So they threw themselves into combat in the belief that killing the perceived "enemy" would somehow make things right again....that it would please their deity. What makes

things even harder is social retribution.....offend someone and there can be legal punishment, in some societies you can face being disowned by your family or worse. Reminds me of how people who didn't believe the earth was flat used to be treated....mentally unstable, dangerous to

society.

 

 

Again with your anti-religion speech.

I have faced reality - thank you very much - and it's telling me you are full of BS.

 

Wars caused by belief? Only if you refer to belief in the boradest possible sense (not only religious).

 

Belief in your self. In your course of action. In your leader.

Greed, avarice, jelaousy, fear - human emotions are the spark of conflict. Even positive emotions can be turned into fuel for war - like the desire to protect your loved ones.

 

Religion is not the cause of all wars. It is one of MANY excuses used to wage one.

 

And everyone - EVERYONE - has beliefs.

So unless you plan to turn the entire humantiy into autonomus, emotionless, brainless drones, I don't see how you plan to change that.

[Darth Trethon]

I think you're completely missing what I'm talking about.....you're seeing a lot more religion that I actually referenced....sure religion is the most handy example of blind belief and certainly encompassed by what I was saying but there's a lot more to that topic than you seem to see. It surrounds all things people accept on faith....such as that your clinic and doctors mean you well or the rather large issue of customs and behaviors......in fact one of the prime examples that came to mind when I mentioned people being disowned by their families and social retribution is a friend who lives in an area where it's very dangerous to mention you support a different political party than the status quo....as in an issue of life and death dangerous. But since you took the focus to religion, yes, religious faith has been and remains a key manipulator of people in the extremely poor and more desperate areas of the world where education is scarce and in many cases even suppressed....it's easy to forget there's a lot more to the world than the countries where people can afford computers. When life is a living hell and you are at the mercy of the ruthless there's no future or goal to hope for than what happens when you die.

 

But my goal isn't to eliminate beliefs but rather to encourage that such beliefs be developed through extensive critical thinking and the facts available at hand.....and above all being open to new but solid and conclusive information. I don't even see how you missed this since reasoning has been my key focus since I started posting. I'd give plenty of wonderful examples of what happens when you accept things on blind faith(not just religious) but such things are frowned upon. All in all a lot less faith and a whole lot more reasoning would be an enormous improvement along with a lot more questioning of motivations and increased self understanding of ourselves and our species.

 

And I see no point to living in regret and self criticism....if something is correct logically and leads to a more favorable outcome(and not just for the self) than the non "morally repugnant" there is something wrong with the morals. These thought patterns that are just about hardwired into us since infancy are difficult and painful to overcome but they are also at the very root of most of our problems because they teach one thing, imply many unpleasant and fear inducing(not to mention contradicting) things without much of a logical reconciliation that makes any kind of sense. Hence why regret and heavy self criticizing and punishment are highly encouraged.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Darth Trethon

[Jarmo]

Firstly, characters who loudly identify themselves with the forces of 'evil'. E.G - T'anarii and Baatezu  from Planescape, worshippers of evil gods, or whole races (Drow, for example) who essentially walk around proclaiming 'I am evil' with their every word and deed. 

 

Secondly, characters who are consciously amoral, motivated by greed or lust for power, and who again openly revel in their own perfidy. Edwin from Baldur's Gate would be a good example.

 

Thirdly, outright sociopathic characters, who will happily kill, butcher and steal without any underlying morality or motivation.

 

Fourthly, characters that are motivated by greed or lust for power, but do not openly revel in their depravity.

Ie, ready to do evil deeds when opportunity rises, as long as they believe they can get away with it and maintain their goody good appearance.

 

Let's take an adventurer / rogue knight.

When finding a merchant party harassed by bandits, he would rush to the aid of merchants in hope of fame and rewards.

When finding a lone merchant in the woods, he'd have no problem doing the necessary murder and blaming bandits.

Later when a reward is posted, he'd murder a convenient peasant, provide some personal items of the dead merchant as proof and claim the reward and fame.

 

Maybe even give half of the reward to the grieving widow to further gain the good graces of the community,

maybe the graces of the widow as well and the rest of the merchants fortunes through marriage.

[TrashMan]

And I see no point to living in regret and self criticism....if something is correct logically and leads to a more favorable outcome(and not just for the self) than the non "morally repugnant" there is something wrong with the morals. These thought patterns that are just about hardwired into us since infancy are difficult and painful to overcome but they are also at the very root of most of our problems because they teach one thing, imply many unpleasant and fear inducing(not to mention contradicting) things without much of a logical reconciliation that makes any kind of sense. Hence why regret and heavy self criticizing and punishment are highly encouraged.

 

 

Everything is belief in the end. We all take some things at face value, without actual proof.

 

As for morally repugnant - the action remains as such regarless of logic. It doesn't make it "go away" and it shouldn't. Logic is not the pinnacle of everything.

[Darth Trethon]

As for morally repugnant - the action remains as such regarless of logic. It doesn't make it "go away" and it shouldn't. Logic is not the pinnacle of everything.

That's only because we are still largely ruled by animalistic feelings we do not comprehend.....the problem in large is that our "feelings" are chemicals produced by the brain and given the proper motivation your body will react. I can't detail specific examples but the adrenaline rush in certain situations can become addictive. The problem to our extreme chaos and self destructive nature is the fact that ultimately most allow their feelings to rule their lives with logic used only to excuse those feelings rather than to keep them in check. But with practice we can learn to diminish their strength and grip over our lives.

 

Ultimately we have to face and understand the mystery that is our "nature" and grow up or we may wipe ourselves out along with most if not all the rest of the life on this planet...and the worst part is that we have the means to do it.

[LadyCrimson]

 

As for morally repugnant - the action remains as such regarless of logic. It doesn't make it "go away" and it shouldn't. Logic is not the pinnacle of everything.

That's only because we are still largely ruled by animalistic feelings we do not comprehend.....the problem in large is that our "feelings" are chemicals produced by the brain and given the proper motivation your body will react. I can't detail specific examples but the adrenaline rush in certain situations can become addictive. The problem to our extreme chaos and self destructive nature is the fact that ultimately most allow their feelings to rule their lives with logic used only to excuse those feelings rather than to keep them in check. But with practice we can learn to diminish their strength and grip over our lives.

 

Ultimately we have to face and understand the mystery that is our "nature" and grow up or we may wipe ourselves out along with most if not all the rest of the life on this planet...and the worst part is that we have the means to do it.

I think you might get along well on Vulcan. I'm not sure I'd want to live in that fashion myself, however. I like my emotions. Well, most of the time.

[Madae]

I'm not a fan of being labeled good or evil in my games, and prefer to have choices that have direct consequences. Good or evil, to me, is just boring, and maybe what I find good or evil is different than what someone else thinks is good or evil.

 

A good example was a scene in Mass Effect 2 (maybe not the best example, since Paragon/Renegade wasn't really a blanket good/evil... maybe Paragon did, though) was where Shepard gets stopped by a reporter (that you know from ME1) who asks a lot of impertinent questions. Actually, that whole scene played out just how I imagined it should; 1. Counter logically and calmly, or 2. Punch that idiot in the face... I chose 2, because he/she was being an intrusive dork (in my mind). That was, obviously, the Renegade action, but I didn't really feel such a thing was "evil"; tabloid journalists have a knack for being annoying and, sometimes, I feel they deserve a little more than a simple verbal beating... I suppose this is, more or less, an argument against freedom of speech and what you should be allowed to get away with. Some things/people, to me, just deserve a nice smack in the kisser for saying/doing certain things (ie. Westboro).

 

The underlying point of all this is that making a game that is truly choice based requires that much more work on the developer side to keep me from feeling unsatisfied from my choice and the consequence. It's a lot of work to create all those varying situations and results. However, that's what makes that particular system so interesting to me. If a game starts out from the beginning saying "you're that special hero", ex. Neverwinter Nights 2, then I play the game the way it was "meant to be played" and feel rather constrained to do so because that's what the game expects me to be according to the story. There are good and evil choices, sure, but, most of the time, they just don't "fit".

 

Certain games are an exception to that, though; I love going through Knights of the Old Republic 1 as a goodly Jedi and then falling to temptation at the end all for the sake of a good story. Fallout 1/2 I would actually argue against. From a story perspective, you're meant to save your tribe/vault, and being an evil douche throughout the whole game just doesn't work, especially considering canon - the rules I feel I need to adhere too because I'm a certain type of nerd - says I did it the good way (if I do decide to be evil, I usually don't finish the game, do whatever I want to do, or finish the evil stuff, and then I'm done). Regardless if I have choice, the story will always be the same for me in a game that doesn't do choice well. Some games can pull it off, but it's a rare thing, in my experience, to see it done really well.

 

Torment and Icewind Dale 2 also had really good choice gameplay. In Torment, you just don't know who you are, so you don't feel like you need to play a certain way. Same with Icewind Dale; you're just a mercenary group with a story and ambitions you can make up on your own. Being "good" or "evil" is just up to you. Even though you ultimately end up saving everyone, your reasons for doing it can be whatever you want, so it works.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Madae

[TrashMan]

 

As for morally repugnant - the action remains as such regarless of logic. It doesn't make it "go away" and it shouldn't. Logic is not the pinnacle of everything.

That's only because we are still largely ruled by animalistic feelings we do not comprehend.....the problem in large is that our "feelings" are chemicals produced by the brain and given the proper motivation your body will react.

 

 

And thoughts are also a bio-chemical process....so your point?

 

Thse "aninmalistic feelings" are part of humanity and part of the world. Any worldview without them is limited - i'ts basicly not looking at the full picture. You may call it a whole different kind of ignorance.

[Darth Trethon]

 

 

As for morally repugnant - the action remains as such regarless of logic. It doesn't make it "go away" and it shouldn't. Logic is not the pinnacle of everything.

That's only because we are still largely ruled by animalistic feelings we do not comprehend.....the problem in large is that our "feelings" are chemicals produced by the brain and given the proper motivation your body will react.

 

 

And thoughts are also a bio-chemical process....so your point?

 

Thse "aninmalistic feelings" are part of humanity and part of the world. Any worldview without them is limited - i'ts basicly not looking at the full picture. You may call it a whole different kind of ignorance.

My point is that for as long as these feelings remain a mystery while they have a near total control of our lives the chaos and insanity will continue. Given the amount of violence and horrors in the world it's not inaccurate to say we are insane as a species....we are highly self destructive and we destroy our environment too. We need to gain understanding and control over our feelings....what we do with them next we'll find out when we get there.

[mcmanusaur]

So now that we've discussed meta-ethics, social ignorance, and the merits of feelings/emotions, where do we stand now with regard to the nuances of evil in Project Eternity?

Edited March 15, 2013 by mcmanusaur

[bojohnson82]

Some interesting posts (and some slightly disturbing ones). I think it's worth considering why evil occurs (in real life), and why there is more opportunity for evil to occur in fantasy settings.

 

Civilised society tends to have laws and conventions in place that prevent really spectacular evil occurring on too regular a basis. That's why when truly grotesque acts of evil do occur (school shootings in the USA, serial killers etc) they tend to attract a lot of attention. Other activities that could be classified as 'evil' (organised crime, political corruption, sexual abuse) are always happening behind the scenes, but only tend to attract attention when a well known figure is caught out.

 

Evil tends to happen on a larger scale when civil society breaks down. The most obvious examples are in wartime (civilians killed, raped etc) or when a country has no stable government, and a state of anarchy exists (such as in the Congo, where there are numerous 'evil' acts being committed on a wide scale every day).

 

The fantasy setting can incorporate both of these scenarios. Most fantasy rpgs contain both functioning civil societies, and locations where there is no law and order or which are afflicted by war. Players might encounter a variety of 'evil' characters in both of these settings; venal officials, corrupt power hungry politicians and organised criminals in the former, amoral mercenaries, greedy bandits, and heartless soldiers in the latter.

 

The main difference between the fantasy setting and real life is that in reality (or certainly in my opinion) there are no 'dark forces' that are meddling in human existence. In the fantasy setting, truly spectacular evil is more likely because of the influence of the supernatural. Demons possessions, vengeful gods, dark magic rituals steeped in the blood of innocents... all of these are staples of the fantasy world, and I'd certainly expect a number of these familiar fantasy tropes to appear in PE.

 

To link this back to my initial post - I would like to see all of these types of evil appear in PE, and for them to be done well. Certainly, some characters will be evil because 'The Dark Lord of Sacrifice made me do it', but others should be evil because they are human (or mortal, given the setting), and because all mortals are fallible, weak, and given to temptation.

[Sacred_Path]

So now that we've discussed meta-ethics, social ignorance, and the merits of feelings/emotions, where do we stand now with regard to the nuances of evil in Project Eternity?

I hope [expect] that in P:E our character will be so retarded that they neither have an idea of ethics nor grasp the concept of legality. That's the only way to ensure madshure players' freedom of choice.

[JFSOCC]

So now that we've discussed meta-ethics, social ignorance, and the merits of feelings/emotions, where do we stand now with regard to the nuances of evil in Project Eternity?

thank you for your subtly brought point

[Ieo]

Thank goodness P:E won't have "good/evil" in the classic D&D alignment sense. I'd rather the terminology not even taint the P:E philosophical infrastructure. No "evil." No "good." Just a person's motivations.

 

Thus, moral relativism. (I'm not a fan of the purest relativism, but it's interesting and requisite for understanding our world anyway, since we have groups like Judeo-Christians and Muslims believing very much that they're in the absolute moral right and not the other guys.)

[TrashMan]

The other thing you seem to forget regarding fantasy is that fantasy in 99% of all cases doesn't have the social, technological and cultural system and prequisites in place to facilitate modern morals and sensibilities.

Since nothing exist in vacuum, neither do these thing.

 

For a simple example: Templars and Mages in Dragon Age setting.

Mages don't exist in our world - and if individuals with vast, tempting and very abusable powers (that can also become possesed by demons) existed, it is very likely the modern government of today would react the same way as TheDas did - lock them up.

Of course, the question of oversight an abuse immediately pops up, but modern norms, standards and techniques don't exist. There is no CSI, no cammeras or DNA, no extensive communication or oversight network. The the problem of policing becomes huge - especially when you consider large kingdoms with hunderds of small villages in remote areas. Communication, travel and transport are slow.

There's no effective way to police mages if they were free - so they are segregated.

The lack of communication also means that field officers have a lot of executive power - if a group is sent to catch a mage, they can kill him if he resist or is deemed to dangerous by the commander. Yet this can also be abused, in that a innocent mage could be killed in cold blood.

 

It's a fascinating settting for me, because the current setup brings in so many problems, and yet every possible alternate solution seems either unworkable or worse.

[Nonek]

Then again the vast majority of the populace in Thedas would be slaves to the agrarian feudal monarchy, peasants and serfs etcetera, whose working and living conditions are far more harsh than the mages living conditions. So would the mages really want to live amongst their brethren, worked to exhaustion, bound to the lords lands, and judged as chattel to be sold with the land they work. It certainly wouldn't be freedom, just a harsher and more exhausting form of slavery.

[TrashMan]

Where Bioware dropped the ball is with totaly insane mages and templars.

 

Instead of showing the danger of mages inherent in their possesion of magic and in normal life, they make crazed idiots. Then they throw dozens of abominations (which are capable of wiping out armies according to lore) at you that you kill with ease.

And they make templars mostly incompetent, abusive or insane d***.

 

The portraly is incosistent and shizophrenic and there are some plot holes in place.