The Nuances of Evil

[Giantevilhead]

It is just easy to portray the most extremes of a certain position. It's like how all the anti-mutant villains in X-Men are genocidal maniacs bent on the complete obliteration of all mutants. Plus it doesn't help that mages in Dragon Age are kind of based off of psykers from Warhammer 40K, which is just meant to be completely over the top.

 

As for "evil" in terms of wars and large scale conflicts, so much of the world's conflicts are a result of either a clinging to (possibly over-exaggerated) history or an ignorance or willful denial of history. Take China and Japan for example. The root of most of their conflicts today is the unresolved tension over WWII. Japan ignores most of the atrocities their country committed during WWII, their children barely learn anything about it and there are a lot of people who deny those atrocities ever happened. China on the other hand, exaggerates the atrocities, making the Japanese out to be like super villains, and uses the emotionally charged subject to inspire nationalistic pride and hatred against the Japanese. Most Japanese people see China's actions as unwarranted acts of aggression while most Chinese people believe that China is well within its rights to seek reparation for the atrocities committed against them during WWII. If they go to war, which (hopefully) is pretty unlikely, then who can you really blame? Neither side is in the right and they both deserve a share of the blame. Sure, maybe you can make an argument about which side is more at fault but that's all pointless in the end if you have a war that could kill millions, which then can lead to even more bad blood, more hatred, and more wars in the future.

 

If you're looking for "evil" within a society, you have to look at more ambiguous issues like neglect, apathy, and unintended consequences. For example, people who do nothing while someone is being harassed/bullied/attacked are not bad people. They're not directly contributing to the problem and no one should be obligated to help others. Yet, a society in which people don't help others who are in trouble can lead to many undesired consequences such as the victims feeling helpless and not bothering to report incidents of harassment/bullying/crimes and perpetrators of such acts to behaving more brazenly. So there is the thorny question of how you can instill empathy and compassion in a society. On one hand, people don't want the government to intervene too much, just in the punishment of people who commit such acts, because of the risks inherent in state sponsored social engineering. Yet, what happens when private charity/organizations and community based efforts to build a more compassionate society isn't enough or fails? You can easily end up with two groups of well intentioned people coming into conflict with each other, getting bogged down in gridlock, and pointlessly demonizing and attacking each other's ideas/positions.

[Lephys]

In a way, I think "good" and "evil" are a bit logical. I mean, they pertain directly to sentience. A thornbush can't be evil, no matter how much blood it draws from someone who falls into it. It cannot desire to harm something, nor can it decide to harm something, or even alter its ability or effectiveness at harming things.

 

Good and evil are two things relative to the same mean, which is nothing. No change. Evil seeks to push things backward, toward nothing, and good seeks to push things forward, toward something. That's why it is often perceived as evil to kill for no reason, yet it is sometimes perceived as good to kill, if there is a "good enough" reason. Evil seeks not only a lack of reasonable moderation or order, but also the complete opposite of reasonable moderation or order. And good seeks reasonable moderation and order.

 

I know it's all "up for interpretation," but there are absolutes in this world, and I believe they are at the root of all such pondrances. They're simply not what we tend to think they are. We like to know things, and we arrive at our conclusions before we get to the actual absolute.

 

But, like I said, in a way...

 

It is a very complicated thing. There aren't really good words for conveying such ideas. If we all had telepathy, this topic would probably be a lot easier to "discuss,"

[TrashMan]

It is just easy to portray the most extremes of a certain position. It's like how all the anti-mutant villains in X-Men are genocidal maniacs bent on the complete obliteration of all mutants. Plus it doesn't help that mages in Dragon Age are kind of based off of psykers from Warhammer 40K, which is just meant to be completely over the top.

 

Well, 40K psykers are a LOT more powerfull. IIRC, lore-wise, a powerfull psyker that becomes possesed can doom a PLANET.

But in 40K there are training regimes and devices and wards that help fight demonic influence. Dragon Age doesn't have that.

 

 

And you are right - it's easier to portray extreemes. But they did a good job in DA:O, why have they frakked it up so much?

You had Connor -a child that almost destroyed an entire town - that was an excellent example of the danger mages present. Yeah, power-hungry mages that abuse blood-magic left and right ARE a danger and problen, but the bigger danger comes from normal, good mages, since they can abuse their power, fall to temptation or possesion too. That is what DA2 failed to show properly.

It also failed to show abominations as dangerous.

Also, DA:O had a better portrayl of templars too. Gregoir was good example of a fair templar, even if he did call for Annulment.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Also, DA:O had a better portrayl of templars too. Gregoir was good example of a fair templar, even if he did call for Annulment.

 

Let's not forget the whole "possession by demonic artifact" thing going on in the background. Kinda hard to be fair and just while a glowing red sword goes all Reaper on your brain  (As an aside, am I the only one who thinks it was a mistake to bring this kind of stuff into the DA franchise, too?)

Edited March 20, 2013 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Amberion]

Calling someone 'good' or 'evil' isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it should never ONLY be what that character is. I mean, Irenicus(Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn) is basically an evil character. But his motivations are more interesting. I don't think i'm spoiling too much by saying that his sin was basically pride and ego. He reached too high, got slapped down, refused to accept his punishment as just, defied his punishers and got slapped down again. In a very real sense, he's like that computer hacker that breaks into the DoD's most secure servers and gets caught, tried, punished, imprisoned, and then gets out 10 years later and hasn't learned a thing from being locked up.(I'm pulling the 10 year thing out of my ass, i have no idea what the punishment is for hacking a DoD server). Irenicus was also manipulated by his sister. He's really quite stupid in a lot of ways. So it's more than just 'muhahaha I'm evil so i want to kill all the good people'.

 

I have no idea where my verbal blather is going. If I'm making sense, great, if not, I blame fatigue and substance abuse.

[Giantevilhead]

I think a lot of times what we consider to be "evil" arises when our conceptions of fairness or rights either cannot resolve a conflict or actually creates a conflict.

 

For example, let's say that my ancestors did something horrible to your ancestors, maybe they poisoned your farm and the land will be barren for centuries, so your family is still suffering from the effects of that crime even today and they will continue to suffer for generations to come. Well, you have every right to hate me and my family for what my ancestors did to you. However, I personally didn't do anything to your family so it's not fair for me to have to pay for the crimes of my ancestors. We believe that no child should be punished for the crimes of their parents. So you have a conflict that cannot be resolved by our sense of fairness or perhaps even justice. In order to solve the problem, there has to be unfairness. Either you have to give up your hatred of my family despite the fact that you're still suffering because of my family or I have to do something to compensate for crimes that I had nothing to do with. It's an injustice that can only be resolved by another kind of injustice. Since most people are not willing to make that kind of sacrifice (and it's perfectly reasonable to argue that they shouldn't have to make that sacrifice), you end up with generational feuds, civil unrest among people who still suffer from past oppression, and wars of retaliation between nations.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Giantevilhead

[Chairchucker]

Morality is a bit of a weird one because, as has been noted, it can be difficult to get people to agree on which things are naughty and which are nice.

 

In fact, if one was to reject the notion of an absolute moral authority (with the most mainstream examples being some form of supreme deity) I would suggest that one would logically have to reject the concept of absolute morality. There are a number of things that most tend to agree are naughty rather than nice, such as murdering babies, raping people or farting in elevators, but if pressed on why these things must necessarily be wrong, it would be hard to articulate. Most people wouldn't even bother to think about it, but would instead ask incredulously 'What, you want me to explain why killing babies is wrong? What are you some kind of twisted baby killer?' which makes it difficult to have serious conversations on the nuances of subjective morality, sometimes.

 

Often we would probably narrow it down to being the protection of rights for humans, (Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness or whatever) which of course are things that humans decided should be human rights, and not any kind of law of nature at all unless there is an absolute authority who decreed that it was thus.

 

All of which is why I think instead of morality systems, RPGs should stick to reputation systems, so you don't get good karma for murdering evil people and bad karma for robbing them, but instead have nearby people like you more or less depending on how your actions line up with their own personal values.

[cleric Nemir]

Wow. I certainly had fun reading all this. Which made me see just how much can people yank endlessly around the topic thinking they contribute,both to their online image and the matter at hand. 

 

So I summed up the relevant things and saw this: 

You all are mostly interested in alignment characteristics be made more profane,so NPCs that can change their alignment throughout the game is plausible to most.

 

So is to me. There,this wasn't hard was it..

[Mr. Magniloquent]

D&D's alignment system

 

Morality is a bit of a weird one because, as has been noted, it can be difficult to get people to agree on which things are naughty and which are nice.

 

In fact, if one was to reject the notion of an absolute moral authority (with the most mainstream examples being some form of supreme deity) I would suggest that one would logically have to reject the concept of absolute morality. There are a number of things that most tend to agree are naughty rather than nice, such as murdering babies, raping people or farting in elevators, but if pressed on why these things must necessarily be wrong, it would be hard to articulate. Most people wouldn't even bother to think about it, but would instead ask incredulously 'What, you want me to explain why killing babies is wrong? What are you some kind of twisted baby killer?' which makes it difficult to have serious conversations on the nuances of subjective morality, sometimes.

 

Often we would probably narrow it down to being the protection of rights for humans, (Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness or whatever) which of course are things that humans decided should be human rights, and not any kind of law of nature at all unless there is an absolute authority who decreed that it was thus.

 

All of which is why I think instead of morality systems, RPGs should stick to reputation systems, so you don't get good karma for murdering evil people and bad karma for robbing them, but instead have nearby people like you more or less depending on how your actions line up with their own personal values.

 

Your observations have much truth, though I do believe absolute morality is possible without a singular authority. The Golden Rule, as it were, prevades all things. It deals with aggression against free will and self ownership. Anyone who feels that "The Golden Rule" can be proven untrue, is likely a hypocritical egotist not fully investigating or understanding the depth of the moral.

 

That aside, I completely agree with RPGs relying on a factional mechanic for positive/negetive reinforcement. It gives the maximal amount of flexibility and freedom to design choices and paths, while still delivering a response structure to a player's actions.

Edited May 20, 2013 by Mr. Magniloquent

[Micamo]

And you are right - it's easier to portray extreemes. But they did a good job in DA:O, why have they frakked it up so much?

 

You had Connor -a child that almost destroyed an entire town - that was an excellent example of the danger mages present. Yeah, power-hungry mages that abuse blood-magic left and right ARE a danger and problen, but the bigger danger comes from normal, good mages, since they can abuse their power, fall to temptation or possesion too. That is what DA2 failed to show properly.

It also failed to show abominations as dangerous.

Also, DA:O had a better portrayl of templars too. Gregoir was good example of a fair templar, even if he did call for Annulment.

 

To be fair, Dragon Age 2 was basically made by one developer who was kidnapped, locked in a basement, and told to make a 60-hour RPG in the span of one weekend or his family gets thrown into the wood chipper (essentially the same conditions in which the Mass Effect 3 ending was developed after the the Dark Energy leak). Given the extreme development crunch it was under, it's a miracle it came out as well as it did. It genuinely has some cool ideas in it and, for what it's worth, it could have easily been way, way worse.

 

Now that I'm done being a Bioware apologist, I'd like to derail the thread to talk about something only tangentially related: I think Inquisitor has a really interesting interpretation of the idea of playing an "evil" PC.

 

(For those who haven't played it, Inquisitor's an interesting game. It has a lot of rough spots but it's a game made by people with incredible passion for old school RPGs, and when it fails it does so because it tries something radically different that just doesn't work. Noble failures, as it were. I can't in good faith say that it's a good game, but I can say that it's a unique game. Personally, I ate it up, but it's definitely not for everyone.)

 

In Inquisitor the world is ending due to a demonic invasion that people believe is caused by the rise of Heresy. You, the player, are part of the Inquisition and your job is to find, torture, and execute any heretics you can find to turn people back to the Faith.

 

However, the game makes it perfectly clear right out of the gate that the demonic invasion has absolutely nothing to do with heresy and your nominal job is completely and utterly pointless. Furthermore, even if it wasn't pointless, doing your job correctly is impossible because everyone accuses their enemies of Heresy for their own gain, and there's usually no evidence as to who's actually a demon-worshiper and who isn't except the accuser's say so.

 

The thing is the game lets you defy this and be a legitimate good guy. You're forced into the role of Inquisitor by circumstance and thus don't necessarily have any loyalty to the cause, so this is a perfectly valid way to play. Except that the game actively rewards being a bad guy. And not in the stupid Bethesda puppy-kicking way, either. In this world when someone sees a person trying to help them, they react with either suspicion or opportunism. If you try to go around helping people, they will take advantage of your kindness, compassion, and generosity for their own gain at your expense. On the other hand, using violence, extortion, and blackmail to get people to do what you want usually works out pretty well for you with no real downsides. Arresting people you know to be innocent just so you can torture useful information out of them is not only a valid tactic in this game, but it's rewarded.

 

This dynamic is reinforced everywhere in the game, even in the very first conversation you have with an NPC: The guards outside the first town will refuse to let you in unless you go on a stupid quest to kill 5 bats outside the city walls, unless you just threaten to kill them in which case they'll open the gates with no further argument. (You should go kill the bats anyway though cause you'll need every drop of XP you can get: Yep, it's THAT kind of game...)

 

Everything about the game points to one thing: Existential dread. You're a worthless, faceless, nameless nobody doing a futile, pointless, impossible task to try to save a world that neither wants nor deserves salvation. It lets you explore the mind of a cold, thoroughly evil sociopath from within because it temporarily makes you become one: You start to see the NPCs (who are actually really well-written and flavorful) as things you can manipulate rather than people. It's not even the fun kind of sociopathy where you run around mass-murdering random people like in Grand Theft Auto or something, at best it's depressing and at worst it's so overwhelming as to be emotionally numbing. And when you step away from the game you walk away with not only a deeper understanding of human nature but also a deeper understanding of yourself.

 

And more relevantly it made me rethink the nature of "evil" choices in video games: The problem isn't that they aren't "nuanced" enough or that they're too cartoonish or whatever. The problem is most games don't bother to properly contextualize the choices they present and give them meaning. Take the (particularly bad) example of Neverwinter Nights 2: You can play a Chaotic Evil character in that game, but at far as the narrative is concerned you're Lawful Good (until the very end where you can side with the King of Shadows for the lulz) in terms of actions, Chaotic Evil characters just get to throw a tantrum now and then which accomplishes nothing but have a powerful NPC slap down the rails on you. The developers were clearly not thinking of what the choices they presented actually meant or the kinds of conflicts they set up in the mind of the player, they just put them in because, hey, this is a D&D game and D&D has alignment, so we have to put this in here because the players expect it. It's choice for choice's sake at the expense of ludonarrative coherence. (That the story is crayon-and-drool-on-construction-paper quality even when you do make the Lawful Good choices the designers assumed you would make doesn't help matters.)

[Aldereth]

I think the AD&D alignment system couple with our society to label things is part of if not most of the problem here. It is not about building a good, evil or overly sought after grey/gritty/ practical/ badass play through.

 

It should be about characters (pc/npc) with depth and how they act/ react to world events and each other. The morality of it all is up to the player's interpretation and the amount of information the player gathered .

 

I think Alpha Protocol has done some pioneer work here wherein how the player perceive some of the characters could vary a lot depending on the PC action, which side the PC is on and the branching plot. So some of the characters could came off as a backstabbing villain in a play thru where the player speed thru everything. But if the player invest the time in finding out more, one may sympathize with the same character and view him/her as some one who was put in a difficult situation and reacted to in a way that is less than friendly to the PC.

 

It is unfortunate that the length of the game and resource that was budgeted at that time has limited its potential. If only a RPG dev. has the will and resource to pursue this further, they could build a game that does not have a good, evil or grey play thru but a game plot that has varying degree of depth. And just like the real world, the game plot could be a simple good vs evil story for those who just power thru it. But if one were to invest the time to look at the characters more closely, there is the depth there to satisfy the gamers who prefer nuances.

[Chairchucker]

D&D's alignment system

 

Morality is a bit of a weird one because, as has been noted, it can be difficult to get people to agree on which things are naughty and which are nice.

 

In fact, if one was to reject the notion of an absolute moral authority (with the most mainstream examples being some form of supreme deity) I would suggest that one would logically have to reject the concept of absolute morality. There are a number of things that most tend to agree are naughty rather than nice, such as murdering babies, raping people or farting in elevators, but if pressed on why these things must necessarily be wrong, it would be hard to articulate. Most people wouldn't even bother to think about it, but would instead ask incredulously 'What, you want me to explain why killing babies is wrong? What are you some kind of twisted baby killer?' which makes it difficult to have serious conversations on the nuances of subjective morality, sometimes.

 

Often we would probably narrow it down to being the protection of rights for humans, (Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness or whatever) which of course are things that humans decided should be human rights, and not any kind of law of nature at all unless there is an absolute authority who decreed that it was thus.

 

All of which is why I think instead of morality systems, RPGs should stick to reputation systems, so you don't get good karma for murdering evil people and bad karma for robbing them, but instead have nearby people like you more or less depending on how your actions line up with their own personal values.

 

Your observations have much truth, though I do believe absolute morality is possible without a singular authority. The Golden Rule, as it were, prevades all things. It deals with aggression against free will and self ownership. Anyone who feels that "The Golden Rule" can be proven untrue, is likely a hypocritical egotist not fully investigating or understanding the depth of the moral.

 

That aside, I completely agree with RPGs relying on a factional mechanic for positive/negetive reinforcement. It gives the maximal amount of flexibility and freedom to design choices and paths, while still delivering a response structure to a player's actions.

 

 

The thing is, one cannot 'prove untrue' something which does not purport to be a statement of fact. Having said that, one can easily subvert this 'rule' by introducing into a situation people with different desires and wants. For example, a rapist might state that because he wants people to have sex with him, it is OK for him to have sex with other people, even though they might not necessarily want that.

 

Even leaving aside extreme examples such as the aforementioned hypothetical rapist, modern society tends to set limits on free will and self ownership based on certain conditions. For example, a child may want to go out joyriding with his mates, but society dictates that he is not permitted to do this without a certain laminated card bearing his photo. He also may not exercise his free will to have a few fermented beverages beforehand.

 

Then again, there is the school of thought that places humans as just another animal in the animal kingdom, with no more significance given to someone offing a neighbour who irritates him by driving a noisy car than one would attribute to a lion eating a gazelle.

 

Wow. I certainly had fun reading all this. Which made me see just how much can people yank endlessly around the topic thinking they contribute,both to their online image and the matter at hand. 

 

So I summed up the relevant things and saw this: 

You all are mostly interested in alignment characteristics be made more profane,so NPCs that can change their alignment throughout the game is plausible to most.

 

So is to me. There,this wasn't hard was it..

 

I guess I'm not sure how hard it was or how well you summed it up because I'm actually not sure what you're saying. I don't mean to insult you, because I understand that people from many different countries contribute to discussions here so English may not be your first language, but your post is difficult to understand.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Your observations have much truth, though I do believe absolute morality is possible without a singular authority. The Golden Rule, as it were, prevades all things. It deals with aggression against free will and self ownership. Anyone who feels that "The Golden Rule" can be proven untrue, is likely a hypocritical egotist not fully investigating or understanding the depth of the moral.

 

That aside, I completely agree with RPGs relying on a factional mechanic for positive/negetive reinforcement. It gives the maximal amount of flexibility and freedom to design choices and paths, while still delivering a response structure to a player's actions.

 

 

The thing is, one cannot 'prove untrue' something which does not purport to be a statement of fact. Having said that, one can easily subvert this 'rule' by introducing into a situation people with different desires and wants. For example, a rapist might state that because he wants people to have sex with him, it is OK for him to have sex with other people, even though they might not necessarily want that.

 

Even leaving aside extreme examples such as the aforementioned hypothetical rapist, modern society tends to set limits on free will and self ownership based on certain conditions. For example, a child may want to go out joyriding with his mates, but society dictates that he is not permitted to do this without a certain laminated card bearing his photo. He also may not exercise his free will to have a few fermented beverages beforehand.

 

Then again, there is the school of thought that places humans as just another animal in the animal kingdom, with no more significance given to someone offing a neighbour who irritates him by driving a noisy car than one would attribute to a lion eating a gazelle.

 

That was exactly my point though. With your example of a rapist, they are displaying a form of hypocritical egotism. While they might welcome sex, and force it on others--they will not likely approve of their victim killing them in self-defence. Refusing to allow someone to kill you, yet not acknowledging another's right to refuse your "advances" is a contradiction. Society has very little to do with what is morally right and wrong. Laws are about control, not good or evil. That being said, we might want to continue this exchange though PM. While I'm late to the thread, it doesn't need my help staying derailed.

[Chairchucker]

 

Your observations have much truth, though I do believe absolute morality is possible without a singular authority. The Golden Rule, as it were, prevades all things. It deals with aggression against free will and self ownership. Anyone who feels that "The Golden Rule" can be proven untrue, is likely a hypocritical egotist not fully investigating or understanding the depth of the moral.

 

That aside, I completely agree with RPGs relying on a factional mechanic for positive/negetive reinforcement. It gives the maximal amount of flexibility and freedom to design choices and paths, while still delivering a response structure to a player's actions.

 

 

The thing is, one cannot 'prove untrue' something which does not purport to be a statement of fact. Having said that, one can easily subvert this 'rule' by introducing into a situation people with different desires and wants. For example, a rapist might state that because he wants people to have sex with him, it is OK for him to have sex with other people, even though they might not necessarily want that.

 

Even leaving aside extreme examples such as the aforementioned hypothetical rapist, modern society tends to set limits on free will and self ownership based on certain conditions. For example, a child may want to go out joyriding with his mates, but society dictates that he is not permitted to do this without a certain laminated card bearing his photo. He also may not exercise his free will to have a few fermented beverages beforehand.

 

Then again, there is the school of thought that places humans as just another animal in the animal kingdom, with no more significance given to someone offing a neighbour who irritates him by driving a noisy car than one would attribute to a lion eating a gazelle.

 

That was exactly my point though. With your example of a rapist, they are displaying a form of hypocritical egotism. While they might welcome sex, and force it on others--they will not likely approve of their victim killing them in self-defence. Refusing to allow someone to kill you, yet not acknowledging another's right to refuse your "advances" is a contradiction. Society has very little to do with what is morally right and wrong. Laws are about control, not good or evil. That being said, we might want to continue this exchange though PM. While I'm late to the thread, it doesn't need my help staying derailed.

 

 

But the rapist is actually following the Golden Rule, it's the person killing him who's not.

[Lephys]

But the rapist is actually following the Golden Rule, it's the person killing him who's not.

Last time I checked, people who expect other people to subject themselves to forcible sex do not, themselves, welcome sex to be forced upon them. Just like serial killers don't welcome being murdered.

[mcmanusaur]

 

 

Your observations have much truth, though I do believe absolute morality is possible without a singular authority. The Golden Rule, as it were, prevades all things. It deals with aggression against free will and self ownership. Anyone who feels that "The Golden Rule" can be proven untrue, is likely a hypocritical egotist not fully investigating or understanding the depth of the moral.

 

That aside, I completely agree with RPGs relying on a factional mechanic for positive/negetive reinforcement. It gives the maximal amount of flexibility and freedom to design choices and paths, while still delivering a response structure to a player's actions.

 

 

The thing is, one cannot 'prove untrue' something which does not purport to be a statement of fact. Having said that, one can easily subvert this 'rule' by introducing into a situation people with different desires and wants. For example, a rapist might state that because he wants people to have sex with him, it is OK for him to have sex with other people, even though they might not necessarily want that.

 

Even leaving aside extreme examples such as the aforementioned hypothetical rapist, modern society tends to set limits on free will and self ownership based on certain conditions. For example, a child may want to go out joyriding with his mates, but society dictates that he is not permitted to do this without a certain laminated card bearing his photo. He also may not exercise his free will to have a few fermented beverages beforehand.

 

Then again, there is the school of thought that places humans as just another animal in the animal kingdom, with no more significance given to someone offing a neighbour who irritates him by driving a noisy car than one would attribute to a lion eating a gazelle.

 

That was exactly my point though. With your example of a rapist, they are displaying a form of hypocritical egotism. While they might welcome sex, and force it on others--they will not likely approve of their victim killing them in self-defence. Refusing to allow someone to kill you, yet not acknowledging another's right to refuse your "advances" is a contradiction. Society has very little to do with what is morally right and wrong. Laws are about control, not good or evil. That being said, we might want to continue this exchange though PM. While I'm late to the thread, it doesn't need my help staying derailed.

 

 

But the rapist is actually following the Golden Rule, it's the person killing him who's not.

 

I'm familiar with the point you're trying to make, but...

[Chairchucker]

Last time I checked, people who expect other people to subject themselves to forcible sex do not, themselves, welcome sex to be forced upon them. Just like serial killers don't welcome being murdered.

 

 

To be fair, my knowledge of the mind of a rapist is imperfect, so you may be correct on this point. That being said, I would still argue that it's OK to break the golden rule when, for example, you're killing someone to stop them from raping you even though you wouldn't like it if someone were to kill you. Given that this topic belongs to a game in a genre which often has a lot of 'morally justifiable' killing, this seems relevant.

[JFSOCC]

If there are differences in opinion over what is evil and good, then you can't use them as effective labels to describe characters. The discussion could end there.