Evil - how far should PE go?

[KillerClowns]

 

It's so curious how people view rape on this board. It is logically the lesser of crimes mention here, but everyone is disturbed by it the most. Would be interesting to see the male/female percentages in this thread.

 

In what sense it is any lesser crime than any other mentioned here?

 

Slavery, one of the popular evil choices, implies a certain amount of rape -- even when the slave isn't explicitly sold into prostitution, there's a real chance they'll be taken advantage of if they're even somewhat attractive. And even if raping one's slaves is illegal, enforcing such laws is difficult at best, and when it's a slave's word against a free person, the slave's got pretty much no chance.

 

Genocide as well, unless maybe the species is completely non-humanoid. It's hard to imagine someone brainwashed into treating a certain class of people as objects not taking advantage of their victims before slaughtering them, for the dead tell no tales.

 

And yet, in both cases, because these consequences are abstracted away... I'm sure you all know that old saw. "One is a tragedy, a million is a statistic."

Edited August 7, 2013 by KillerClowns

[Guest Servant of ASMADI]

@ Elrond

 

Logically speaking it is. Murder/Death is permanent(typically speaking). Theoretically killing is the ultimate as you are extinguishing a life. Whereas with rape, though you are likely emotionally traumatized you still have a life to live. (I will leave PTSD discussions for another).

[Elerond]

 

 

It's so curious how people view rape on this board. It is logically the lesser of crimes mention here, but everyone is disturbed by it the most. Would be interesting to see the male/female percentages in this thread.

 

In what sense it is any lesser crime than any other mentioned here?

 

Slavery, one of the popular evil choices, implies a certain amount of rape -- even when the slave isn't explicitly sold into prostitution, they're likely to be taken advantage of if they're attractive. And even if raping one's slaves is illegal, enforcing such laws is difficult at best, and when it's a slave's word against a free person, the slave's got pretty much no chance.

 

Genocide as well, unless maybe the species is completely non-humanoid. It's hard to imagine someone brainwashed into treating a certain class of people as objects not taking advantage of their victims before slaughtering them, for the dead tell no tales. And yet, because these consequences are abstracted away... I'm sure you all know that old saw. "One is a tragedy, a million is a statistic."

 

 

But in other note when slavery was legal, rape was not (although definition what is rape has changed also during the time, but in this thread people have been talking about act that has been seen as rape through most of the history).

 

And through history discriminate against and even killing person different religions and cultures (even genociding them) has seen as acceptable and even legal thing to do, but raping your fellow citizen was not.

 

And is use of rape as weapon of war any less bad than killing people? Because both things can destroy civilizations and terrorize people in submission.

[Sarex]

When I said crime, I meant it in the general way, as in death and torture are worse then rape, not a time sentence it carries. One is permanent and the other can (and often does) leave you with a ruined body and mind. Rape while being terrible, is nothing more then a loss of control. Lot's of situations cause that, but I think that rape holds a special place for people because it involves intercourse and can cause pregnancies. I am not trivializing rape, but it's strange to me how it has become ok to murder people in games in the most gruesome of ways, but rape is somehow a taboo. It paints an interesting picture of us a people.

[Elerond]

When I said crime, I meant it in the general way, as in death and torture are worse then rape, not a time sentence it carries. One is permanent and the other can (and often does) leave you with a ruined body and mind. Rape while being terrible, is nothing more then a loss of control. Lot's of situations cause that, but I think that rape holds a special place for people because it involves intercourse and can cause pregnancies. I am not trivializing rape, but it's strange to me how it has become ok to murder people in games in the most gruesome of ways, but rape is somehow a taboo. It paints an interesting picture of us a people.

 

How they are worse? And aren't torture and rape even somewhat comparable as one is physical or/and mental abuse and second is physical and mental abuse? And rape can easily leave you with broken body and mind, and even lead to your death.

 

And is killing in self-defence worse crime than rape, as you did kill someone?

 

And is torturing information from sadistic phedofile kidnapper, worse crime than said phedofile raping his/her victims?

Edited August 7, 2013 by Elerond

[Malcador]

 

It's so curious how people view rape on this board. It is logically the lesser of crimes mention here, but everyone is disturbed by it the most. Would be interesting to see the male/female percentages in this thread.

 

In what sense it is any lesser crime than any other mentioned here?

 

Well, raping one person is lesser than me murdering 500 people or worse just from a numbers point of view. Most people would agree that Pol Pot is a worse human being than a rapist.

[Sarex]

How they are worse? And aren't torture and rape even somewhat comparable as one is physical or/and mental abuse and second is physical and mental abuse?

 

Are you joking? Do you know what torture is? Most rape is just nonconsensual intercourse, where sometimes the sex organs can be bruised. Torture causes people to lose various parts of their bodies. So no they are not comparable.

 

 

And is killing in self-defence worse crime than rape, as you did kill someone?

 

And is torturing information from sadistic phedofile kidnapper, worse crime than said phedofile raping his/her victims?

 

Who said anything about self defense. I don't think that anywhere in this whole thread there was a mention of it.

 

Why stop there, let's torture people to learn any information we need. Not just pedophiles. regular rapist too, we mustn't forget the pesky terrorist, and while we are at it, why not torture anyone that is accused of anything until they confess. Sound familiar?

Edited August 7, 2013 by Sarex

[Elerond]

 

 

It's so curious how people view rape on this board. It is logically the lesser of crimes mention here, but everyone is disturbed by it the most. Would be interesting to see the male/female percentages in this thread.

 

In what sense it is any lesser crime than any other mentioned here?

 

Well, raping one person is lesser than me murdering 500 people or worse just from a numbers point of view. Most people would agree that Pol Pot is a worse human being than a rapist.

 

 

But is raping million people lesser crime than murdering 500 people? Because you can also do raping in massive scale it is not only for murder and torture.

[Elerond]

 

How they are worse? And aren't torture and rape even somewhat comparable as one is physical or/and mental abuse and second is physical and mental abuse?

 

Are you joking? Do you know what torture is? Most rape is just nonconsensual intercourse, where sometimes the sex organs can be bruised. Torture causes people to lose various parts of their bodies. So no they are not comparable.

 

 

And is killing in self-defence worse crime than rape, as you did kill someone?

 

And is torturing information from sadistic phedofile kidnapper, worse crime than said phedofile raping his/her victims?

 

Who said anything about self defense. I don't think that anywhere in this whole thread there was a mention of it.

 

Why stop there, let's torture people to learn any information we need. Not just pedophiles. regular rapist too, we mustn't forget the pesky terrorist, and while we are at it, why not torture anyone that is accused of anything until they confess. Sound familiar?

 

 

Yes I know what torture is, but do you? Torture can be anything from causing sleep deprivation (what most torture is today at least) to removing limps and organs from person. Rape can be only taking person freedom of choice away to causing great bodily harm by using iron rod, for example, to rape someone (Indian bus gang rape case). Even lightest form of rape and torture can cause severe psychological harm and in worst case the lead in painful death.

 

You didn't exclude any killings in your orginal post, which was reason why I gave context where I see that killing another person is more acceptable than raping someone.

 

And questions were to show that order which is worst and which is lightest crime changes depending on context where crimes are commited.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Elerond

[Sarex]

Yes I know what torture is, but do you? Torture can be anything from causing sleep deprivation (what most torture is today at least) to removing limps and organs from person. Rape can be only taking person freedom of choice away to causing great bodily harm by using iron rod, for example, to rape someone (Indian bus gang rape case). Even lightest form of rape and torture can cause severe psychological harm and in worst case the lead in painful death.

 

The torture you describe is the torture you hear about and see in the movies. What armies and militias around the world use is much more severe then that. As for the rapes you describe, well that goes in to the realm of torture (torture can include raping too).

 

 

You didn't exclude any killings in your orginal post, which was reason why I gave context where I see that killing another person is more acceptable than raping someone.

 

And questions were to give context to show that you can't put crimes in black and white order to tell which is baddest and which is lightest.

 

That is just you twisting my words, you know very well what I meant. The simple fact is if you look at them rationally, murder and torture are far worse then rape.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Sarex

[Elerond]

 

Yes I know what torture is, but do you? Torture can be anything from causing sleep deprivation (what most torture is today at least) to removing limps and organs from person. Rape can be only taking person freedom of choice away to causing great bodily harm by using iron rod, for example, to rape someone (Indian bus gang rape case). Even lightest form of rape and torture can cause severe psychological harm and in worst case the lead in painful death.

 

The torture you describe is the torture you hear about and see in the movies. What armies and militias around the world use is much more severe then that. As for the rapes you describe, well that goes in to the realm of torture (torture can include raping too).

 

 

You didn't exclude any killings in your orginal post, which was reason why I gave context where I see that killing another person is more acceptable than raping someone.

 

And questions were to give context to show that you can't put crimes in black and white order to tell which is baddest and which is lightest.

 

That is just you twisting my words, you know very well what I meant. The simple fact is if you look at them rationally, murder and torture are far worse then rape.

 

 

If you look crimes rationally you need always context in which crimes where comited to say that something is worse than other. It is just arrogance say otherwise.

[Malcador]

But is raping million people lesser crime than murdering 500 people? Because you can also do raping in massive scale it is not only for murder and torture.

Ah, right, bad comparison on my part. Hm, toss up whether raping an entire village's worth of people is a lesser evil than killing those people. Minor difference I suppose, once you start committing vile acts that need to prefixed with 'mass' it's all about the same.

[Aoyagi]

Maybe two should define the word rape first, because the general definition "forced intercourse" is very broad. Some might even say that rape is a kind of torture. Some might say that what the Russian prison guards did some time ago was "rape by bottle" even though there was no intercourse. Then of course there are people who claim that "I wasn't in the mood but I did give in after he/she touched my butt" is still rape. 

 

However, as it was concluded (or so I believe) earlier it all comes down on how one perceives each kind of villainy. For example, a lot of people are mostly apathetic when it comes to animated gore thanks to its vast presence in popular culture. And turns out views on these kinds of things are difficult to change, heh.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

It's so curious how people view rape on this board. It is logically the lesser of crimes mention here, but everyone is disturbed by it the most. Would be interesting to see the male/female percentages in this thread.

 

In general, the offensiveness of rape has less to do with how serious it is (personally, as horrible as rape is, I'd still prefer being raped over being tortured to death or even simply being simply killed) and more to do with class and taste. Is it irrational to be more offended by rape than, say, someone's head being blown off or someone being tortured? Possibly.

 

Yet there simply isn't any denying it; when you explicitly introduce rape into a story, you have to walk on eggshells in a way you wouldn't with just about any other crime. Allow the PC to do it and you've pretty much crossed well beyond the lines of good taste, even if the PC is allowed to do any number of other horrific things and no one blinks.

 

My guess is that it's because, in comparison to people who have been tortured or people who have had their heads blown off, there are actually quite a lot of rape victims out there. They could be friends or family or neighbors. They could be people playing the game. It's a horrific crime without reasonable justification, without adding any 'badass' credentials to a character, that leaves the victim still alive and lingering on what happened to them. And unlike exploding into ludicrous gibs, it's common enough that it's possible it hits home a lot harder than exaggerated violence of other sorts.

[Naurgalen]

This thread is an example of why evil decisions are so good in RPG (when they are well thought): they make you think.

 

And thinking makes you involve with the situations in the game, enhancing the narrative and bonds you make with your character and other npcs...  think about what are your characters limits in extreme situations or temptations. Will you character give all for gold? for power? for revenge? for love? Will he let other do those things? What will he sacrifice? (yes, don't make all good choices the better ones!) And what is good? Is killing a few of good people the right thing if you make more people live even if you don't know those?  Those things can make you *hate* your nemesis or even end sympathizing with him. Child killing, torture, or even the most depraved things CAN be made grey in some situations. They CAN be subtle and respectful in a text based communication. And thought provoking. That is the real point.

 

Let obsidian give us a "thought" challenging game, a game that we remember, don't make it a black vs white thing. We are all grown up people and we know that there are many colors than that. Sometimes we win, sometimes we loose, and sometimes... we don't even know.

[moridin84]

Discussing whether rape is worse than torture or death? This is getting pretty off-topic. 

[Death Machine Miyagi]

Discussing whether rape is worse than torture or death? This is getting pretty off-topic. 

 

It is? The topic is how evil P:E should go. Deciding which evil is an evil too far, and where evil acts fall on the spectrum of horribleness, is exactly spot on topic. 

[DCParry]

I am going to put my serious hat on for a second and enter in the off topic discussion on muder/rape/torture -

 

Central to the development of democratic institutions (even in their very origins, where they resembled modern democratic expressions very little) is the premise that a citizen's body, for lack of a better word, is sacrosanct. The most basic and obvious exercise of dominance and power over another individual is through control (or inscription, but when I write this I envision a giant Foucault with giant quill pen chasing a naked me around) over the physical body. In Classical Athens, the ideal citizen was in complete control of his body and he was protected from torture (and from execution in all but the most serious of offenses, say treason or just being a general smart ass). 

 

Now why was this such an important thing? In an Athenian democratic context, each individual had, if not substantial, actual influence upon policy decisions and governmental actions (remember, many of the political institutions were compulsory, meaning you didn't so much run for office as were selected by lot to serve certain political instances; that is not to say there were not offices that were ran for in the way we view it). The thinking was, if a man (and they were all men of course) is not able to control and protect his own physical body, then he is not in control of his own opinions and thoughts. As such, any influence he wields in the polis is suspect, as it maybe coerced and can't be trusted to be in the best interests of the state. This was so important that there was even a legal case in which someone argued that a fellow citizen's could not be trusted with political power because he had acted as prostitute in his youth, and if someone was willing to sell THAT, then they would most certainly sell their vote (I believe it is a fragmentary Aeschines speech, but it has been years and I could be wrong). Control over the body became the basis political and legal legitimacy (so much so that as a slave, who had not control over anything and therefore could not be trusted, your testimony was only admissible in court if it was obtained under torture).

 

This is part of the reason why rape and torture are considered, in many ways, worse than murder/killing, as it is so deeply ingrained into a democratic ethos. Of course this is one of the problems with using torture in "extraordinary circumstances" and so on. As for looking at rape as somehow worse than torture, it seems something of a silly argument. The framers of the U.S. Constitution felt strongly enough about torture (as used upon citizens) to mention it in the document, and its (attempted?) removal as punitive measure was an element in the development of an idea of modern human rights. Unfortunately, the prevalence of sexual assault (at least in the US) and the resistance to facing the problem has created a divisive environment (when, you know, there shouldn't be). 

 

Also, I am not sure how useful it is to create a "hierarchy of heinousness" here. It is arbitrary and misses the point of the argument. These acts are terrible transgressions of another's individuality and rights. I would also argue, that besides any reputation side effects, there should be personal ones. Unless the PC is sociopath, repeated assaults of this nature (random murder outside of combat, rape, torture for the sake of torture, arson and so on) are going to damage his/her psyche, and should have ramifications in real game terms on their access to soul inspired powers. 

[TMZuk]

 

 

I think that RPGs that have unkillable NPC's feel plastic and fake. The game can always tell the player if they triggered a fail-state by killing an essential NPC, Morrowind-style, or the game could have no essential NPC's at all, and simply make the end-game something like "get the water chip from the Master".

I will defend the use of unkillable NPCs on Skyrim because of the dragon/vampire attacks, it would be annoying if you were cut from the game through no actions of your own.

 

 

Honestly, that's just bad design.  NPCs should have been unkillable by other NPCs; it sucked to see a town wiped out by a dragon because you was just in the general area.

 

I disagree. That was/is one of the BEST features of Skyrim. It was great to see how wanton destruction would happen, just because your character was present. The same in New Vegas, where Legion assassins would attack my character, and random bystanders would be caught up in the crossfire. Collateral damage. It's one of the things that make a world believable.

Edited August 8, 2013 by TMZuk

[motorizer]

Evil in real life comes from greed, intolerance, lust for power over others, or from a mistaken belief that what you are doing is the right thing...as well as plain maliciousness

 

Evil in games is usually purely maliciousness along with a little "I wonder what happens if..."  and from letting off a little steam by destroying things.

 

I'd like to see actual believable reasons for evil acts, both from the player and from enemies/NPCs ..and for evil to be believable there usually has to be something to be gained

 

Nice guys have to sometimes finish last.....

[Giantevilhead]

Societal/cultural standards and rules have to be taken into account.

 

We do make certain exceptions in how we view heinous crimes. For example, for a very long time, homosexuality was considered to be as bad as rape and people didn't even care when homosexuals were raped. However, a homosexual raping a heterosexual was seen as especially perverse. That has changed in more recent times due to changes in our attitudes towards homosexuals.

 

And even in today's society, prison rape is not considered to be nearly as bad as rape in other contexts. In fact, people make jokes about prison rape in primetime television shows and on late night talk shows. They even make "dropping the soap in the prison shower" jokes in PG-13 comedies where a lot of kids go to see.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Giantevilhead

[Orogun01]

Societal/cultural standards and rules have to be taken into account.

 

This is a strange point in games since we cannot but project our modern ideals into the game world. So in a world where slavery is perfectly normal and even considered to be a virtue (such as Ancient Rome)  it wouldn't be evil to have a positive stance towards slavery but the option will most likely present itself as an evil one.

On the other hand there is only so much that  a game can immerse you without a cultural clash, so its really up to the writers to plan ahead and anticipate how will it be perceived by the player. With the proper in game context slavery could pass as a neutral or positive choice.

[bonarbill]

Societal/cultural standards and rules have to be taken into account.

 

We do make certain exceptions in how we view heinous crimes. For example, for a very long time, homosexuality was considered to be as bad as rape and people didn't even care when homosexuals were raped. However, a homosexual raping a heterosexual was seen as especially perverse. That has changed in more recent times due to changes in our attitudes towards homosexuals.

 

And even in today's society, prison rape is not considered to be nearly as bad as rape in other contexts. In fact, people make jokes about prison rape in primetime television shows and on late night talk shows. They even make "dropping the soap in the prison shower" jokes in PG-13 comedies where a lot of kids go to see.

 

Reminds me of this Boondocks episode http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_wWdTryqLY (some offensive material).  Male prison rape was pretty much the whole joke of the episodes.  I think male on male rape is seen as less offensive because generally men are seen as "less weak" and "independent".

[mcmanusaur]

I'm just going to politely suggest that we return on-topic here, since it seems that most of the people participating in this conversation like myself lack any real knowledge or experience regarding rape (which is something that we might consider ourselves thankful for). Seriously, I'm all for discussion of any range of topics we might consider ourselves experts in (gaming presumably being foremost among them), but I think this sort of directionless discussion has a lot of potential to just result in people sticking their foot in their mouth and possibly even offending those whose lives unfortunately have been affected by rape. If we must continue along this road, let's at least avoid too much hypothetical conjecture and try to reign things in a bit.

 

Regarding what separates rape and child abuse from other evil acts, all I have to say is that it involves shattering the delicate trust that must exist in relationships of asymmetric power dynamics. This can have serious and long-lasting psychological consequences on an individual, which is something that I wouldn't think most games feel ready to present (and thus they probably shouldn't consider themselves ready to present rape or child abuse in the first place).

Edited August 9, 2013 by mcmanusaur

[Sarex]

I'm just going to politely suggest that we return on-topic here, since it seems that most of the people participating in this conversation like myself lack any real knowledge or experience regarding rape (which is something that we might consider ourselves thankful for). Seriously, I'm all for discussion of any range of topics we might consider ourselves experts in (gaming presumably being foremost among them), but I think this sort of directionless discussion has a lot of potential to just result in people sticking their foot in their mouth and possibly even offending those whose lives unfortunately have been affected by rape. If we must continue along this road, let's at least avoid too much hypothetical conjecture and try to reign things in a bit.

 

Regarding what separates rape and child abuse from other evil acts, all I have to say is that it involves shattering the delicate trust that must exist in relationships of asymmetric power dynamics. This can have serious and long-lasting psychological consequences on an individual, which is something that I wouldn't think most games feel ready to present (and thus they probably shouldn't consider themselves ready to present rape or child abuse in the first place).

 

You just offended every person who has experienced torture on this board. As far as going off topic, this is spot on topic. We are discussing human psychology and ascertaining what is going too far and what is acceptable in games. If you and all those who liked your post have too weak of a stomach for these kind of discussions then, I would kindly ask you to leave this thread. Rape, torture, child killing, etc. is not something that should be avoided in a discussion, unfortunately all those things are part of the human condition and as such should be discussed and understood.

 

As for your take on rape, power is an illusion (women rape men), there is no trust between strangers of the opposite or same gender. Rape is not locked to the opposite gender (men rape men, women rape women). Torture leaves physical and psychological long turn damage, death leaves nothing, what exactly was your point here?

 

To add one more thing, everyone thinks that they have it the worst when something bad happens to them, people are egoistical creatures. But the fact is that how bad something is, is in the eye of the beholder, ie. not everyone would react the same to every scenario.

Edited August 9, 2013 by Sarex