On Fri, 10 May 2007, psychohist wrote:
> It's not completely clear to me why it makes a difference whether the
> victim is a player character. It strikes me that it's more im****tant
> whether it's a consensual or nonconsensual situation.
I believe that corresponds with the combatant/civilian distinction in
warfare, a distinction that I haven't denied, nor does the D&D alignment
system. But please bear in mind that "evil" is not simply killing. See
Brian's point about the use and abuse of the 6th Commandment.
> Where is the line between what's okay and what's not okay? How much
> does it have to do with consensuality, how much with the behavior
> ****trayed, and how much with the player's enjoyment or nonenjoyment of
> it?
I think it can have something to do with all of those things. But you can
spot the main issue, which is this. Suppose the situation is consentual,
the behavior cruel and gruesome, and the players are getting a thrilling
enjoyment out of instigating and describing the cruel and gruesome
behavior. Does that seem harmless to you?
> Why is this an improvement? It strikes me that in the situation from
> a few weeks ago where someone shot and killed a whole bunch of people
> with a sniper rifle, with surgical precision from a distance,
> sometimes when they were mere silhouettes in windows, the culprit was
> very much as culpable as a mass murderer who uses a knife from up
> close. In fact, I worry more about the sniper more, since it's much
> less amenable to a victim's defusing the situation.
What makes you assume that such a killer would be amenable to a victim
defusing the situation, no matter how close or far they are?
> This seems valid to me, and it applies to battlegrounds in online
> roleplaying games as well. I think it's another aspect of
> consensuality: it's consensual on the character level, as well as on
> the player level.
I don't think it has as much to do with consent as it does in a change of
status to a combatant. If aj player who exploits a game hack to kill
other characters non-consentually has their own character killed
non-consentually, I don't think most people would consider that unfair
because in killing another's characters non-consentually, they had made
their own character fair game and a combatant.
> I don't think computer gaming is any different from tabletop gaming in
> this regard.
Fair enough, but bear in mind that I'd personally find raping someone
elses character in an MMORPG or first-person shooter just as problematic
as doing so in a tabletop RPG.
John Morrow
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