Wallowing in my Crapulence

[Blue]

Ever surprised yourself by your actions in an RPG?

Played Exalted last night. It's a Dragon-Blooded campaign. While "Good" and "Evil" are relative terms, in the Exalted Universe, if you had to pin these titles on someone, the Solars would most likely be the Good Guys and the Dragon Blooded would be the evil empire.

Of course when it comes down to playing them there's a wide range of characters within each. You can play a terrestrial (Dragon blood) with a moral compass. And typically I would. But my character, a magistrate, last night became the epitome of hanging judges.

We brought our soldiers through a town and gave them water. Upon leaving the town the troops were struck ill. Returning, we discovered that no one in town had gotten ill. After a prolonged investigation, secret-police-like searches of buildings, and my use of a charm that reveals hidden clues, we discovered that the town knew we'd get ill and they did not tell us because they were paying fealthy to a disease god to keep themselves alive and such would be an afront to the Immaculate Dragons.

But since we lost a great many troops (the resource of another player), I sentenced the town to death and ordered the buildings razed. Only one player present objected.

The sad thing is, it was the most in-character I've felt in the 6 game sessions we've had with these characters. I only feel sorry for the one guy who disliked the move; He's quite the moralist in real life and tries not to play games where you are evil (In other words he won't play Vampire with us).

I guess I'm glad I'm not always in charge of the group. The guy with the higher social standing was out this week, so I took the reigns. And boy did we go to the dark side!

I had fun, I guess. But what a dark place to visit.

[Vondy]

You blame this on being sodden with food and drink?

[Super Squirrel]

I can't say much other than to note that my character is contemplating his options which includes, unfortunately, conducting a very dark deed.

[teh bunneh]

The lack of a "good guy" option in so many White Wolf games is the reason I tend to dislike them so much.

I've played dark, even evil, characters before, but it wasn't because there was a lack of other options. Remember the Question from the DCAU Justice League Unlimited? "I'm going to kill Luthor and take the heat for my deed, so that Superman can remain a shining exemplar of everything good in the world." That's the kind of bad guy I like to play.

[Blue]

Well, it's an interesting group.

An Immaculate Monk: The monk is a fanatic, as most are, and thus would never allow worship of a pagan god to harm our group.

A very cruel, multi-armed archer: She's got a flaw that makes her deliberately cruel, but then the player (the only female) has a dark side anyway. Ironically, her "mortal" character is pretty opposite in demeanor, as is mine.

An earth sorceror: He's our moralist. He didn't like anything we did. Good thing my mortal works for him because he didn't like it either.

A "roman" general: This is probably the guy voted "most likely to burn and raze a village". He has a Caesar complex.

A winged explorer: This guy would have been opposed but wasn't present. He thinks he indy jones.

A corrupt and decadent trader: This is the defacto leader due to social status. I suspect he'd have been in favor of the destruction, as this is the "Player" most likely to burn and raze a village.


I've played evil in vampire, but that character now suddenly feels faux evil. To quote Dr. Evil: The "Margarine" of evil.

This character isn't supposed to be evil, and in fact I designed him as a guy who is so obsessed with the law because of how lawless his corner of the world was. Seems now he's as bad as those he suffered as a child. Should be interesting when he finally confronts this fact.

In Exalted there isn't really a lack of Good Guy options if you're playing Solars. Dragon Blooded are another story. You've got to strecth a little to make them something other than drunk with power.

[Vondy]

I don't know if the deed was definitively immoral. Ugly and hard to stomach, certainly - but morally its complex. One could argue their corporate silence was tantamount to murder - that it was collussion. Collective punishment for collective guilt. Or deterrence - obligation to your men, and those for whom they go to war. A message must be sent. Even inaction that harms my men will cost you in direct proportion. Or tribal ethics - they were "other" and they betrayed "kind" - justice demanded it.

The thing that is difficult is the slaughter of those not old enough to make moral choices, or who were incapable of influencing the corporate decision. From a simple western view - an individualist America view - its hard to reconcile with the modern conception of justice. At the same time, the distance between good and evil is the razors edge.

For instance: David destoyed the Gibeonites by "laying them under iron saws and axes, dragging them in the streets, and throwing them into brick kilns" - and he did so to send a message to the other nations on behalf of the community he represented: "if you act treacherously with my people when we have pursued peace with you - this is your fate." It was deterrence. For a King, in the fertile crescent 3,000 years ago - in a very viseral, savage, unhappy world - what was his ultimate ethical duty? Some would say it was to his people.

Some would say a general's ultimate duty is to his men. Its uncomfortable and complex. It is not easy, palatable, or simple. Its shadows and motes in the human soul: "he who is kind to those to whom he should be cruel will ultimately be cruel to those whom he should be kind." The thing about being moral is that its not arithmatic - its calculus. The moralist cannot rest in his armchair doing ethical arithmatic. His equations are seldom binary. Nor can he object and then go along with the group....

More importantly, however:

I still don't get what being sodden with food and drink has to do with it... :D

[FenrisUlf]

Some would say a general's ultimate duty is to his men. Its uncomfortable and complex. It is not easy, palatable, or simple. Its shadows and motes in the human soul: "he who is kind to those to whom he should be cruel will ultimately be cruel to those whom he should be kind."


I like the quote. Where did you get it from?

[Vondy]

I like the quote. Where did you get it from?

Kohelet Rabba 7:33. Its a midrashic commentary on Ecclesiastes. On the surface it is in contradiction to various midrashic and talmudic maxims lauding mercy and kindness as being among the "cardinal" mitzvot (commandments), but it really just serves to temper the concept, and remind people that everything has limits of application. Essentially - there can be too much of a good thing. Ecclesiastes is the same book that contains "a time for peace and a time for war..." (listing several choices that are both contradictory and correct depending on time and place).

[CrosshairCollie]

Yyup ... not gonna play Exalted. Ever.

Sometimes, characters just take on a life of their own. I've read interviews with writers who have said that it felt like the characters were just acting of their own accord and he was merely reporting rather than controlling the characters. You don't even realize it ... the character just does stuff, then later you look back and think 'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was I doing?"

[Blue]

One thing's for sure: I'm dying to see how the next game in two weeks goes, when the other moralist and the normal leader return.

As much a bastard as I was, I really hit my stride. I wasn't just cruel, I was funny cruel. Wish I'd written down all the stuff I said.

[Badger]

Given the circumstances, I am not sure I would consider the act out and out evil. Friggin' ruthless, yes. But, given the deaths of the one guys' troops.....it might go under "terrible things happen in war" list.

[Sean Waters]

Morality has a lot to do with consistency. If what the character did was the consistent approach for him in applying the law as he saw it and interpreted it (being a Magistrate and all) then he was probably being moral by his own lights. Being moral does not imply being 'good' in the DnD sense.

Arguably this was a 'good' act - the villagers were acting this way today and had presumably done so yesterday and would again tomorrow: how many would die over the years in agony from the infected water?

Was death and razing the right approach? Well, maybe. When creating any applying law there has to be a point to it all, otherwise it is purely arbitrary. The point of 'sentencing' can be deterrence, prevention, rehabilitation, revenge or punishment (well that and plenty of other things, but they tend to be the biggies). IMO sentencing should never be about revenge, or just about punishment - unless the aim of the sentence is PRIMARILY deterrence, prevention (not necessarily for the perpetrator/s - a particularly harsh sentence may deter others) or rehabilitation then it is personal, and law is a creature of society not the individual.

So, my assessment of your character's actions, given the limited information, would really come down to that one line:

But since we lost a great many troops (the resource of another player), I sentenced the town to death and ordered the buildings razed.

If it was just vengeance, or punishment, then IMO you did indeed vist the dark side. If, however, it was applying a law, or right to judgement, to prevent others from suffering the same fate, then, whilst not condoning the approach, it is almost certainly 'moral'. It might also be 'evil' but morality is just about 'right and wrong' not 'good and evil', which are similar but different qualities.

[Vondy]

The morality angle I get. I'm still chewing on the food and drink angle. Crapulence?

[Sean Waters]

Possibly as in 'excessive indulgence': just not in comestibles :)

[John T]

The morality angle I get. I'm still chewing on the food and drink angle. Crapulence?

Possibly as in 'excessive indulgence': just not in comestibles :)Don't think anyone else gets it (http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/crapulent?view=uk), guys. :p

[Blue]

An unfortunate choice of words.

As to the sequal to last game's evil deeds:

This go 'round, we came across a village full of evil idols, but since none of them tried to kill us, I didn't do anything crazy to the citizens. However, last game's Karma may have caught up with me when we at last encountered someone who didn't appreciate our bring "law" to the outback. In the first "tick" of the fight (Their term for round number Zero), our fastest guy swung at their fastest guy, and whatever charm he had up caused the blade to miss, hitting me and taking me down immediately. My dragon-blooded got no actions at all in the two hour fight.

So I settled into play my "good guy", a mortal with an actual conscience. He's smart enough to NOT approach that bad guy, who would clean his clock. So what happens? Another of our guys swings at that guy and his attack is deflected, taking out my mortal who is 3 yards away. That's a hell of a deflection if you can make a sword swing hit a guy 12 feet away, but sure enough, there it is in the rules for that charm. So he insta-killed my mortal character.

So, much like the mass combat earlier in the night where I did not have the appropriate skills, here I didn't have a conscious or living character.

So maybe there is such a thing as a cosmic balance.

Funny thing is that I considered despite the vile (and necessary) actions of last game that it had been my best game in 8 years with these guys, roleplaying-wise. This week, I just got to watch things happen.

Well, now I need to go think up a new mortal.

[Overthrower]

Sounds like a fun game.

[Blue]

Sounds like a fun game.
The session before was a blast. This one, by contrast, was probably the third-worst game session I'd had.

(The worst was by another GM, who created a session that was all mass combat in D&D and I didn't take an action or roll dice for 8 hours; The second worst was by that same GM, in the same D&D campaign, where he pulped my PC. In his defense, I was playing a little reckless; In my defense, his villains WAY overpowered our heroes in size and ferocity, it's just that normally we find a way to succeed anyway. In that game another guy lost BOTH his characters.)

I make it sound like killing characters is common in our games; It really isn't. I think there were maybe 3 other character deaths in 8 years of play.

[John T]

An unfortunate choice of words.Nah, some of us just read too much.

On a related note, I've played some pretty morally "diverse" characters, even played a serial killer in a Mechwarrior game once. It was an... interesting game.

[Robyn]

I've read interviews with writers who have said that it felt like the characters were just acting of their own accord and he was merely reporting rather than controlling the characters. You don't even realize it ... the character just does stuff, then later you look back and think 'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was I doing?"

Some of the mental resources go into you, and some of them go into your character. There's a compulsion to hold some in reserve, keep an awareness of yourself, to confirm the feeling that it's you; but when the mind bypasses this limit, and pours more resources than that into the character, the sense of consciousness and "I'm the one doing this" isn't present.

[zornwil]

Although it provided lots of funny comments, I went too far in a pulp game, playing an over-the-top "great white hunter" type. While interrogating an honorable enemy who would not give any details up, my character took a page from one of the few Sopranos I'd seen (not even so fond of the show, actually), and decided to threaten the man with loss of testicles if some sort of details weren't given. I figured the hunter was accustomed to "savages" and their tortures. so had heard of this, and "knew" this was one that so long as he didn't ask for much info any man would comply with. Well, he didn't, but in character I couldn't back down, and so it got ugly...

It was mostly sanitized in the write-up...but I'll never make that mistake again, sheesh... :sick: ...in-character, my PC decided that he could never be party to such a revolting thing again (I'm not sure how much was in-character or metagaming but either way it was the right thing to abandon).

But it's funny how these things can get out of hand...

[Blue]

I guess one of the players in our game decided we'd gone too far on that particular game. He was thoroughly unhappy that we killed the village and hasn't shown up for two games since. Rather than saying, "Hey, that aint fun!" he decided to stay silent and not show. Being one of three truly effective characters that leaves quite a hole.

It's a shame. No one intended to drive him out. And I feel bad that my best roleplaying was done in a game that a player just couldn't handle.

[zornwil]

I guess one of the players in our game decided we'd gone too far on that particular game. He was thoroughly unhappy that we killed the village and hasn't shown up for two games since. Rather than saying, "Hey, that aint fun!" he decided to stay silent and not show. Being one of three truly effective characters that leaves quite a hole.

It's a shame. No one intended to drive him out. And I feel bad that my best roleplaying was done in a game that a player just couldn't handle.
Communication is 2-ways. Is the person someone inexperienced with your group and not realizing this isn't the norm? If so I could see reaching out. Well, even if not I probably would, too, though if he knows your group he's just being rather petulant right now.

[zornwil]

PS - importantly, Blue, also realize it might not be the real issue - there may be something else and this has become the mask for it. I had a player get all freaked out and upset once and then indicated it wasn't really the game (although it was good the person said something - some things were said that I needed to hear and take care of), but rather other issues interacting with the game. My point not being the specifics of this case, but rather that gamers are like anyone and often the troubling problem isn't the apparent one. I know I've been that way. And too often people get locked into or embarrassed by their issue and feel they can't say anything, that they've already made a big mistake and alienated others.

So if it's a friend, maybe a "how you doing" call is good....

Just a thought. You obviously know the person better.

[Blue]

It does seem to be the game. When the subject of "the next campaign" came up I agreed to e-mail all the core players for suggestions. Only two of us seem available to run. They seem to be leaning toward me. When I asked what everyone would prefer, he got very explicit about how it wasn't fun and felt like work when he had to try and convince us we were doing the wrong thing, which I found funny since he didn't even try except at a bare minimum.

We've done evil things before, I'm just usually not involved. I think he didn't like being the lone voice of reason that game. Even funnier, a player that missed that game has attended the past two games and he has been the voice of reason to good effect.

I'm willing to take him at face value here; That since he eschews most evil games (Vampire: TM, most notably) that he didn't find it "fun" to do something dastardly. I didn't find it "fun", I found it "in character", which is par for the course of having fun. It wasn't being a bastard that was fun; It was nailing my character for once.

[John T]

Some folks simply aren't comortable with the notion of examining parts of themselves that they'd rather ignore, and this can carry over into someone ELSE doing so, as well.

[Killer Shrike]

Not sure what the problem is. You might have spared the children, but otherwise sounds like a perfectly in-character course of action.

I guess the real question would be, how did you put them to death? By the sword and quick, or did you impale the entire village on stakes around the blighted water hole and recite their sins / crimes to them for two days until the last of them finally expired, or something in between.

I mean, was it relatively clean or cruel and unusual? Once you cross over into "the grey area", its all about the distinct shades.

[Blue]

It was expedient. Problem was an out-of-character one for another player, it turns out.

[archermoo]

The lack of a "good guy" option in so many White Wolf games is the reason I tend to dislike them so much.

I've played dark, even evil, characters before, but it wasn't because there was a lack of other options. Remember the Question from the DCAU Justice League Unlimited? "I'm going to kill Luthor and take the heat for my deed, so that Superman can remain a shining exemplar of everything good in the world." That's the kind of bad guy I like to play.

To paraphrase Corwin of Amber:

I am an evil that exists to destroy other evils. When that day comes that all evil is thrown into the pit, there I will go, kicking and screaming. But until that day I will not let my hands sit idle.

Personally, I'm not fond of playing evil PCs. It has never had any draw for me. I can only remember two times being in "villain" campaigns. In one I played a former Ronin bound to an evil lord. Having an evil lord was a better option to his mind than having no lord at all, though he himself was good.

In the other one I played an undercover cop. :D