Mere moments before death, John Morrow <morrow@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> hastily
scrawled:
>On Wed, 9 May 2007, Ed Chauvin IV wrote:
>> Then let's just assume for the sake of argument that there is one
>> acceptable reason.
>
>Again, I think that assumption is pretty central to the whole debate,
>isn't it?
Not in my opinion. There's a more core issue here, and that is
whether it's even worth exploring the possibility of finding an
acceptable reason.
>> The point is, that it's not the activity itself
>> that's immoral, imo. It's the motivation for partaking in it.
>
>I would qualify my acceptance of that statement by saying that I think
the
>activity, itself, can be immoral, at least in some cases.
Oh, I certainly do agree with that. But, it certainly doesn't need to
be. It would depend entirely on the motivations and reasons of the
player. If, as in Brian's original example (let's rape all the girls'
PCs), it is merely a tool for harassing other players, then it would
be despicably wrong. If however, it were as part of a There's a
Murderer Amongst Us, style of campaign then it's certainly benign.
>> If it is, as Brian says, merely an outlet for personal twisted
>> fantasies, then I don't think it's a good idea. I still don't
>> necessarily think it then becomes a morality problem, though it could
>> certainly be one and in most cir***stances probably would be.
>
>The problem with personal twisted fantasies is that reinforcement and
>encouragement can not only strengthen them but make them more twisted.
Agreed, and as I said, it's not something that I'd recommend doing,
but not on moral grounds.
>> Then why allow anyone to drink in the first place?
>
>Because it's so deeply embedded in our society that it's not practical to
>stop right now. It was tried with Prohibition (my church has an old
>stained glass window donated by the Women's Temperence League) and the
>cost and social disruption was high enough that it was abandoned. But
>please note that I'm not calling for the banning of alcohol nor the
>banning of playing Evil characters. Saying that something should be
>frowned upon or disapproved of is not the same thing as saying that it
>shouldn't be allowed.
>
>> This is the same reasoning being used to describe playing Evil
>> characters as BadWrongFun. If it's OK to drink, but not OK to become
an
>> alcoholic, why isn't it OK to play an Evil character without causing
>> problems outside the game? Assuming, of course, that that's even
>> possible.
>
>There have been various anecdotal examples here where playing an Evil
>character either failed to be a sustainable activity or did cause
problems
>inside and/or outside of the game. Do you have any anectodal examples of
>people playing sustained games with evil characters that had no problems?
>
>> Good luck, and congratulations on making a brave decision. I know
>> personally just how difficult it can be to break the cycle of
>> addiction when it runs in a family.
>
>It's no big deal. Never liked the taste of alcohol, don't like the way
>people behave when drunk, have no reason to drink, and don't.
I figured that would be the case, and so I'll just leave it at that.
>> No, that's not what I mean. If you rely on internet anecdotes of
>> "creepy messed up gamers" you will almost certainly find that the
>> author thinks the game is the cause of, and not merely a correlation
>> to the creepy messed up behavior. Sometimes this is because the
>> author has an axe to grind, but usually it's just because they simply
>> aren't aware of all the facts.
>
>The anecdotes vary by degree, but I've also seen it myself. Role-playing
>is a hobby that deals with fulfilling fantasies. As such, it can be a
>sort of poor man's Fantasy Island where they can be anything and do
>anything. And people can and do use it to escape from real life, just as
>they use video games, television, internet chat rooms, etc. to do so. You
>seem to want to blame the person's desire for escape for the problem, but
>I think that temptations deserve at least some of the credit.
I can certainly agree with that, I just don't see blaming the symptoms
to be useful.
>See the article I posted on the Columbine killings from Slate. It says:
>
>"Klebold, they agree, would never have pulled off Columbine without
>Harris. He might have gotten caught for some petty crime, gotten help in
>the process, and conceivably could have gone on to live a normal life."
It might not be very likely, but that certainly could have happened.
>So, do we put any blame on the probable psychopath Harris for encouraging
>his friend Klebold toward mass murder or put the blame fully on Klebold
>and assume he always had that murderer hiding inside of him? And if we
>do that, doesn't that ignore the point that if it weren't for the
>influence of Harris, Klebold might have had a very normal life and never
>murdered anyone?
There's a lot of if's there, but I don't really think it makes much
difference. Harris likely would have eventually done something
terrible, maybe not on the scale of Columbine, and maybe not something
we ever would have heard about. But he was the psychopathic one, and
I don't think there's much to be gained by trying to figure out what
made Klebold tick. Certainly it's worth looking at how someone who's
otherwise normal can get caught up in a relation****p like he had with
Harris.
>In your eyes, is anyone or anything ever responsible
>for leading people astray, even in part?
Absolutely, there's just far too many examples from history to think
otherwise. The problem is you can't just allow whoever or whatever
leads someone astray to remove the moral responsibility from those
being led.
It's like saying Hitler made the guards at the concentration camps to
do the terrible things he did, so they're not morally responsible.
While it's certainly true that they were largely "following orders",
it's also true that they were following some terrible orders and
should have refused. Some did, and most were punished harshly and
someone else stepped in and followed the order anyway, but the fact
that someone else would just do it anyway doesn't excuse such
behavior.
I hate using Hitler and the Nazis as examples on Usenet, and must
insist that you and other readers don't infer that I'm comparing you
or anyone here to Hitler, Nazis or their sympathizers.
>> So would I. I would also have the same answer for someone who asked
>> me if they should play a vicious baby-eating rapist. That doesn't
>> mean that I don't think some people can drink without having a
>> problem, nor does it mean that some people couldn't play a vicious
>> baby-eating rapist without having a problem.
>
>I think that a person can try to play a baby-eating rapist without having
>a problem. But I think once that person really enjoys it or wants to
come
>back for more, there is most likely a problem. Brian has tried playing
an
>evil character and I've run a few of them. The result was that the
>players didn't enjoy the taste of real evil and that was that.
>Experiment over. I think I'd say that's not BadWrongFun because,
frankly,
>it's not a lot of fun. Where it becomes BadWrongFun is when the players
>do think it's fun and want more.
I think we've got a bit more common ground than it would first have
appeared. I just don't think you necessarily need to enjoy being a
vicious baby-eating rapist in order to enjoy playing one.
--
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11.
"I always feel left out when someone *else* gets killfiled."
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