Friday, June 10, 2011

LotFP 'Nihilist'?

Over in the comments of Grognardia's post about the DCC game (here), there were several bits from THOMAS:

I read the back cover and hated the rejection of the concept of "hero" ala LotFP. It deliberately discourages the ideas of nobility, self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, honor, etc. Better to be non-committal philosophically, and let DMs create the tone they want. Game designers are trying to give their games a nihilistic bent, which I think is a mistake.

Sure, not purely for nihilism's sake, but the section on alignment demonstrates that good/evil are merely ideas or opinions. This makes all ethical ideals baseless, including valuing life and respecting others. The cosmology chosen in the alignment section leads to nihilism, which leads to the mercenary spirit, contra honor, nobility, heroism. Honor and nobility become opinions without base, no more intrinsically good than dishonor and evil. That cosmology stinks, and it is too bad that it is accepted by default.

I think this game, and LotFP, are both trying to make their games more unambiguously conformed to the nihilistic sorts of literary inspirations (e.g. Lovecraft). In other words, they are "purging" so to speak other works from Appendix N (Tolkien). AD&D was less committed to this nihilism than these two newer games.

So... is this true?

I declare that LotFP is non-committal philosophically, but it's not the Ref's job to create the tone they want - it should be the players'.

Look at A Stranger Storm, the intro adventure found in the Grindhouse Edition.

You can argue that saving nuns and children is the true goal of the adventure. If they're smart and/or heroic, the PCs can save a lot of innocent lives.

But if they're greedy and/or stupid, they can end up slaughtering innocent people (including babies) and each other for the sake of treasure.

And it's all up to the PCs. The adventure presents some situations and then lets the players decide what kind of game they're playing. I guess you can say it requires the players to decide what kind of game they're playing.

Is it nihilistic to allow them that choice?

Look at No Dignity in Death: The Three Brides. Nothing requires the PCs to get involved in the murder mystery beyond their own sense of justice. They can ignore it entirely with no bother. But that first portion of the adventure is all about seeing justice done and saving innocent lives.

The second part of the adventure (admittedly the weakest) is also about saving the innocent - but the opportunity is there to ignore the situation or even to be greedy and uncaring about life.

It's a choice that can be freely made with no enforced mechanical consequences. It's not a rigged game, it is a true choice to be decided entirely as one wishes.

(the third part's stance is a lot more open, depending on what the Ref decides happens as a result of trying to put O'Shaunnessy's spirit to rest, but I don't think requiring the PCs to choose between XP/wealth and Doing the Right Thing creates nihilism... to me, being good is entirely about sacrificing personal gain in lieu of more important things. The adventure asks "What's more important to you, game points or your sense of justice?" If it's always like that, there's an argument that it's nihilistic, but this is 1/3rd of an adventure where the other 2/3rds reward having that sense of justice)

Then there's this:

"Sure, not purely for nihilism's sake, but the section on alignment demonstrates that good/evil are merely ideas or opinions. This makes all ethical ideals baseless, including valuing life and respecting others."

I believe that good and evil really are merely ideas and opinions in real life. I don't believe in the supernatural or the divine in real life, and I do believe we're just animals whose brains and bodies and ability to organize work at a higher level than everything else on this planet.

This rather does make all ethical ideas baseless (we entirely made them up in order for society to function) but not necessarily foolish (each idea should be evaluated individually, but on the whole what's considered "good" and "ethical" are things that make our lives better by allowing us to trust our fellow man and therefore escape the constant paranoid survival mode of most animals).

I think the concept of "good" is much more powerful having been made up than if "good" really was defined for us and enforced from on high.

But it is undeniable that people we are supposed to trust (clergy, our elected representatives) can and do perform horrible acts, sometimes on their own in secret, sometimes openly as part of their jobs.

LotFP doesn't require you to put that sort of thing in your game. All your priests of the Happy Good Deity could indeed be Happy Good People and the game runs just fine as written.

But I think a game that enforces such things through establishing an objective good and evil in mechanical terms is childish and naive. It shuts down options. It dictates a two-dimensional world regardless of the wishes of its participants. What sort of thing is that to impose on a game design level?

... and by the by, Lovecraft isn't even as nihilistic as people like to think. One of my favorite Lovecraft stories is The Shunned House, which is all about combating a force hostile to mankind and winning. Though it pains ST Joshi and his ilk, The Dunwich Horror is a major Lovecraft work, I'd estimate top 5 in overall popularity and influence. That again is all about combating a force hostile to mankind and winning.

(the other four: Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness, Shadow Over Innsmouth, Whisperer in Darkness)

That the universe is vast and humanity is unimportant in the grand scheme? Completely irrelevant to your life and mine in the real world. We can make our lives and the lives of others happier and better through our deeds if we so choose.

That the LotFP game's "cosmology" has nothing to do with good or evil? Completely irrelevant to your players's choice whether or not to play a character as a hero or an enormous cocksmock or whether the Referee creates no-win situations for that character.

61 comments:

  1. I think a game that enforces such things through establishing an objective good and evil in mechanical terms is childish and naive.

    Objective good and evil is a pretty strong theme in a lot of horror literature and film. It's hard to have devils in your fantasy world without thinking about what that implies.

    I think it's childish and naive to be okay with fantasy roleplaying in general (magic, monsters, supernatural) but suddenly take a hard line that including objective good and evil in your fantasy world somehow crosses the line and is too hard to suspend your disbelief for. :)

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  2. One of my favorite bits in Death Frost Doom was the bit describing what Zeke does if the players draw steel on him...he just says something to the effect of "I know what happens to the souls of men who murder men...do you?"

    If the characters murder him, there are no consequences. I can see how some would consider that nihilistic, but I find Zeke's potential last words to be anything but. No, the characters don't immediately get a righteous smackdown for being a band of murdering assholes, but I know that if I were a player, those words, properly conveyed by a DM, would bother me as a player for a long fucking time.

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  3. I'll put here what I put there, since it seems to be a behemoth-sized, monstrous elephant in the room no-one is addressing:

    "
    @THOMAS

    "That cosmology stinks, and it is too bad that it is accepted by default."

    The strangest and most distrubing thing about your comments is the easy equivalence between the moral universe in the GAME and the moral universe of REAL LIFE?

    Is this really what we're all doing here? Is this how we're playing games? As dry runs for what we'd do in real life?

    When we play chess should we just go "Oh wait, white player, why are we even fighting?" and shake hands instead of playing?

    When we play WW2 games, can we only ever play the allies?

    What the hell? What planet are you from?"

    Again people:

    How is it ok for grown-ups in 2011 to claim that art/entertainment is supposed to teach or reflect our values? Why would we let someone dumb enough to copy what their halfling antipakadin did in real life even walk around anywhere outside a lunatic asylum? What in holy fuck is going on here?

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  4. My personal takes is that LOTFP is pretty nihilistic and encourages anti-heroes. That's not "bad" in my view, I actually like being an anti-hero. The current game I am designing myself is about anti-heroes. I like Vampire games, vampires are definitely anti-heroes.

    But I do think LOTFP is structurally set up to encourage anti-hero play without strong moral anchorage.

    This is different from what Ryan pointed out about DFD. That scene with Zeke definitely has a moral bent. But that is not LOTFP, that is DFD.

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  5. @ Zak

    No Grand Theft Auto reference? You disappoint me. :)

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  6. There are roughly 30 authors in the original Appendix N. JRRT is one of those. I think invoking JRRT as a representation of what DnD is about is overplaying that card more than a little.

    Gygax hiself says Howard, deCamp & Pratt, Leiber, Vance, Merritt, and, yes, Lovecraft, were the most immediate influences on DnD.

    Gygax repeatedly downplayed JRRT as a major influence.

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  7. A game where a spell description reads

    People that were decent, honest, innocent, or will be anxious to answer
    questions and remain on Earth for as long as
    possible. They have learned that the afterlife is
    nothing, simply a void with no effective consciousness and no sensation but for the
    numbing awareness of passing time. They know
    that being alive, even inside a rotting corpse for
    the briefest sliver of time that leaves them in
    agony as the decay of their physical form leaves
    every nerve transmitting unrelenting pain, is
    better than being dead.
    Cads, scoundrels, and heretics, on the other
    hand, were pleasantly surprised to not find
    eternal torture waiting for them in death. Only
    the vicious and undeserving find this peace in
    death, and they will be furious about this peace
    being disturbed. This allows them a saving
    throw versus magic to resist answering questions.


    The game rules directly say its actually worse for you to be good and decent and that sociopaths and the most wicked have it better than decent people do.

    LOTFP is most certainly nihilist.

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  8. Of course it's nihilistic. It has to be. The only way to be more nihilistic is to create a game called "Pollyannas & Pedophiles" and let the players figure out which side they're on.

    Cops & Robbers, Cowboys & Indians, Conservatives & Liberals, Islamists & Terrorists (or are they still seen as the same?), etc.

    Everything comes down to what side you choose. What do you make out of the world around you? What does the world make out of you?

    Good. Evil. Heroes. Villains. Concepts for building a world, for better or for worse. That's all any of this is. It's a game. Play. It isn't going to change anything with what's real.

    Make your choice.

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  9. First, I'd just like to say that I don't understand why you care what some random on Jamesnardia's comment section says.

    That being said, I've played where the PCs are assumed to be "good guys", and I've played where no such assumption is made, and I much prefer the latter. That way, if the players want to explore morally questionable actions, you don't get into a "you can't do that" situation. Furthermore, if they decide to be good guys, it's a lot more meaningful - it's not being jammed down their throat.

    And since the word nihilism was used, it made me think about The Big Lebowski. Thus, my response to THOMAS would have been, "Well, that's like, your opinion, man."

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  10. That's right.

    Respect the style of play. Role-players know what their characters would do in any situation. It's their choice to be mindful of the character's moral code and not the player's moral code. The two shouldn't be confused.

    Or assumed to be the same.

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  12. Let me do my best Carl Sagan impression here:

    We Homo sapiens are a rather egotistical breed! Ptolemy's astrology put us in the center of the universe with the stars and planets spiraling about humanity's affairs, an assumption that Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler put their lives on the line to shatter. The Abrahamic religions proclaimed that man (and I do mean man, women were merely an afterthought in the divine plan) had been created in the image of their deity, and even after 200 years of dependable biology many of their followers become irrationally indignant at the mention that humans are just another species of ape.

    Why? Because as factually incorrect, arrogant, and destructive our hubris can be, we humans feel frightened, naked, and alone without it. We need to feel that our lives have "purpose" and "meaning", that all "good" will be rewarded and every "evil" ultimately punished, and that life doesn't truly end after taking our last breath. In Lovecraft's time, the Earth was found to be far older than Bishop Usher's 6000 year estimate, Darwin's theory was gaining acceptance (at least outside of Dayton, Tenn.) and Einstein had our minds to the mysteries of time and space. Once again, people began to fear our presumed importance in this universe was being challenged.

    Therefore It is not only the tentacled abominations of Lovecraft's mythos that scare us, it's the realization (if somewhat exaggerated) that "the piecing together or dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality..." that threaten to strip us of our pretty illusions of cosmically-ordaned "purpose" and "meaning" and force us to take a long, hard gaze into the abyss. While some of us have come to grips with that reality and make our own meaning for ourselves (and even have a little fun with it), others are not so willing or able.

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  13. I'm not afraid of our human existence having no meaning, outside of any given moment. What is frightening is if it all did mean something. That there was a great "PURPOSE". Better to be a puppet without strings than some celestial hand's yo-yo.

    We'd be in a Matrix world depending on Keanu Reeves to save us. Oh, the horror...

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  14. Greg Christopher-

    This is different from what Ryan pointed out about DFD. That scene with Zeke definitely has a moral bent. But that is not LOTFP, that is DFD.

    Well, that is true. I don't have the LotFP "Core" game, but I always thought that all of Raggi's stuff was sort of in the same conceptual universe, since it all comes under the Lamentations label. I suppose that makes Death Frost Doom a moral tale in an immoral universe. (But hey, I view the real life universe as immoral, so it's not much of a stretch for me.)

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  15. Some people seem to get their ideas about morality and behaviour from media or use media as a scapegoat for their own moronic actions. "The record told me to to kill myself." etc etc.

    If this guys, or anyone else, believes that his outlook on how a game should be played is anyone's hands but his own, well, make sure you keep him away from your dog Sam, cuz he'll get ideas there too.

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  16. In Sandman there was an epic contest of wits with a Devil for Dream's helm.

    At its climax this exchange occurs

    http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y143/jksterup/Sandman04-19.jpg

    If there is the slightest shred of hope in Raggi's world then it is not nihilistic.

    I am with Zak on this... When did one's gaming become a litmus test for their morality. Gives me Monsters and Mazes flashbacks...or maybe it was becuase I was watching Philadelphia again.

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  17. >>The game rules directly say its actually worse for you to be good and decent and that sociopaths and the most wicked have it better than decent people do.

    If you scour the spell list (and the magic system itself - where do cleric spells come from?) you will find contradictory information on this subject, complicated further by the alignment system and how that affects certain spells.

    This was intentionally done to prevent there from being a canon cosmology in the game. If you want it to make sense in your campaign, you have to make the big decisions yourself and modify the dissenting bits to match.

    >>I view the real life universe as immoral

    I'd say amoral.

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  18. It's only a shred of hope if the player characters acknowledge it. Otherwise, it doesn't stand a chance. Nihilism rules!

    Can you really say otherwise if even Raggi says he's being non-committal philosophically? It's like Lord of the Flies with dice!

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  19. Stuart: "Objective good and evil is a pretty strong theme in a lot of horror literature and film. It's hard to have devils in your fantasy world without thinking about what that implies."

    It isn't that hard at all. One must simply look to cultural frameworks that include "devil" analogues but also have no conception of an objective, absolute good and evil. I'm most familiar with Celtic (Irish Gaelic pre- and non-Christian) and Japanese cultures in this context, but they aren't the only ones.

    As for the wider question, articulated by Zak, why shouldn't we depict other ways of conceptualizing morality? Why should we be stuck by default with the very simplistic version derived from a worn-down Christianity?

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  20. This is the kind of discussion I just don't join, because it never will change anything. But:

    @Jim:
    The second part of The Three Brides ist not the weakest part of the adventure, it's the best part, I think.

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  21. I believe I will repost my comment from Dreams in the Lich House:

    The great moral dividing line in sword&sorcery stories lies not between altruism and egoism, law and lawlessness, or hero and antihero, but humanity and inhumanity. This may not be universal (CAS can walk a very fine line), but if you take a look at it, it applies to Ffahrd and the Grey Mouser, to Jirel of Joiry, to John Eric Stark, to Conan, to Northwest Smith, Corum, Elric or even Cugel. A roguish protagonist is not fundamentally different from one who respects law and order when we compare them to inhumane cultists and sanity-blasting horrors from beyond.

    The way the LOTFP RPG revels in blood and gore is, in my opinion, mainly a matter of bad taste, not an erroneous moral compass. In that respect, it is faithful to its sources of inspiration, which do not really come from "Appendix N", but metal album covers, giallo, and bottom-of-the-barrel 70s movies.

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  22. Morals, as well as taste is a matter of opinion.

    This is my opinion: The universe doesn't care. There is no objective good and evil. There is no God. There is just people, who do what people do.

    I feel that LotFP takes the same stance on this.

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  23. I've never thought of your work as nihilistic. Rather I find them existential in the best possible way.

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  24. I can't imagine that a true 'nihilist' would bother to do something as optimistic and hopeful as publishing a fantasy rpg.

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  25. Hear, hear! Player choice is good game design as long as the referee gives the players meaningful choices to make—and I think LotFP is better than most rules in pointing-out the necessity of that element.

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  26. Let's say we're playing a game set in Ancient Egypt and there are animal headed Gods kicking around and when your character dies his heart is weighed against a feather and fed to a monster if it's too heavy. That game is no more or less mature than the one where the 40-something Christian guy overlays "Monotheism is true in real life SO IT SHALL BE IN THE GAME" on top of the egyptian theme. Or the game where the 20-something Atheist guy overlays "Religion is the man keeping us down and a big lie SO IT SHALL BE IN THE GAME" on the game.

    If we're playing in ancient egypt I'd rather play it with the egyptian stuff than have the DM sermonize at me.

    How is it ok for grown-ups in 2011 to claim that art/entertainment is supposed to teach or reflect our values

    Right. I don't believe in Ra the Sun God. Playing in a game where he's real would be fun though. If you're a Atheist / Christian / Jew / Muslim try and avoid preaching that at your players -- unless you know everyone is into that.

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  27. I've said it before, and will say it again. Alignment turns everyone into mindless idiots. No sane conversation can happen after that word is mentioned.

    That junk should have been buried and forgotten.

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  28. Gaming is our religion. We are god here. We create the world in our own image. Or at least see it through self-colored glasses.

    That's why PCs have "Alignment". This is your PCs attitude. Like it, or change it. All will be Aligned!

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  29. I think Zak's point above is well observed. These are games. My players regularly portray people who would complete monsters in the real world, and we all have fun anyway.

    Besides, School Master point out above this goes beyond James' game. Shouldn't Thomas be debating this with the ghosts of Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft? Isn't that where LOTFP's "moral" conception of the universe comes from? Isn't this (to some degree) about genre emulation?

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  30. The freaky necromancy thing just makes me think of the necromancy scene in the Odyssey. The Greeks definitely had strong ideas about heroism and virtue, but it sucked bad to be dead, even if you were Achilles, the greatest hero of all. (Odyssey, book 11.)

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  31. @JimLotFP I mostly agree with you. That's why I posted this...

    "In the case of LotFP, that's true only with regard to the game's implied setting, not how characters are expected to act in that setting. And, in fact, the LotFP modules actually tend to punish characters who act nihilistically."

    ...in response to THOMAS at Grognardia.


    "I think it's childish and naive to be okay with fantasy roleplaying in general (magic, monsters, supernatural) but suddenly take a hard line that including objective good and evil in your fantasy world somehow crosses the line and is too hard to suspend your disbelief for."--Stuart

    I agree.


    "I'll put here what I put there...Is this really what we're all doing here? Is this how we're playing games? As dry runs for what we'd do in real life?"--Zak S

    I'll put here what I put there too...

    "Some people, yes. Others just try to play how they imagine that they, personally, would really act in the game world if it was really real. And others play to explore ways of thinking and acting that differ from their own. And still others just explore dungeons. And every one of those approaches, and every other approach that results in the participants having fun, is a good and valid way to play these games."


    "How is it ok for grown-ups in 2011 to claim that art/entertainment is supposed to teach or reflect our values?"--Zak S

    Huh? Art and entertainment do reflect and teach our values -- because everything we do reflects our values, and everything we do with anybody else teaches them our values. Do you really not understand that, or do you just not want to believe it?


    @School Master Well said! And, having just recently rewatched Cosmos, I easily imagined Carl Sagan saying to too.


    "As for the wider question, articulated by Zak, why shouldn't we depict other ways of conceptualizing morality? Why should we be stuck by default with the very simplistic version derived from a worn-down Christianity?"--faoladh

    Did Zak articulate that? If so, I didn't catch it. I thought he was just deriding anybody who sees any connection at all between game morality and real world morality. But I do agree with the rhetorical implication of the question -- that we should depict alternative ways of conceptualizing morality -- because that's one of the most effective ways to examine and evaluate the validity of our own morality.


    "The great moral dividing line in sword&sorcery stories lies not between altruism and egoism, law and lawlessness, or hero and antihero, but humanity and inhumanity...A roguish protagonist is not fundamentally different from one who respects law and order when we compare them to inhumane cultists and sanity-blasting horrors from beyond."--Melan

    Great insight and great point! Essentially, it says that morally gray is more like morally white than it is like morally black. But not everybody shares that view though. Some people see anything that's not morally white as just different shades of morally black.


    "Morals, as well as taste is a matter of opinion. This is my opinion: The universe doesn't care. There is no objective good and evil. There is no God. There is just people, who do what people do. I feel that LotFP takes the same stance on this."--navdi

    Well, that's like, your opinion, man.


    "I've never thought of your work as nihilistic. Rather I find them existential in the best possible way."--Jeff Rients

    Me too.


    "Alignment turns everyone into mindless idiots. No sane conversation can happen after that word is mentioned. That junk should have been buried and forgotten."--Andreas Davour

    I disagree completely. Alignment leads to interesting discussions like this.

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  32. Ed Dove: "Did Zak articulate that?"

    Well, yeah. You answered the same question that he posed. Both sections of it, actually. And you quoted them.

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  33. @faoladh Ahhh. Thanks for explaining. I see what you mean now. But Zak's questions didn't, and still don't, come across to me as anything even remotely like the genuinely inquisitive ones you posed though. Instead, they just seem like nothing more than mere narrow-minded, mean-spirited, rhetorical barbs with no purpose beyond trying to stifle any further expression of some ways of thinking he doesn't like by ridiculing anybody who thinks those ways. In other words, assholish attempts at intellectual bullying. Do they not come across to you that way at all? Anybody?

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  34. To quote the great Norm from Cheers, "Does this affect the price of beer in any way?"

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  35. Ed Dove: Rule #2 for a happy, healthy internet life is, "If you have to argue with someone on the internet, assume good faith".

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  36. @faoladh Thanks again. I really do appreciate it. And I do know that. And I do try to do it too. But I just don't see any reasonable way to assume that this...

    "The strangest and most distrubing thing about your comments is the easy equivalence between the moral universe in the GAME and the moral universe of REAL LIFE?

    "Is this really what we're all doing here? Is this how we're playing games? As dry runs for what we'd do in real life?

    "When we play chess should we just go "Oh wait, white player, why are we even fighting?" and shake hands instead of playing?

    "When we play WW2 games, can we only ever play the allies?

    "What the hell? What planet are you from?"

    "Again people:

    "How is it ok for grown-ups in 2011 to claim that art/entertainment is supposed to teach or reflect our values? Why would we let someone dumb enough to copy what their halfling antipakadin did in real life even walk around anywhere outside a lunatic asylum? What in holy fuck is going on here?"


    ...was posted in good faith.

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  37. Ed Dove: Just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean that they are not arguing in good faith. It's clear to me that Zak, at least at the time he wrote that, held a vision of "games" which he separated sharply from his vision of "real life", specifically separating moral assumptions in each. He may or may not still hold to that metaphysical distinction, but either way he was, to me, clearly arguing that position in good faith. His first paragraph illustrates his central argument, the rest is colorful exposition that expands on that (notably the chess analogy). You (and I) may disagree with aspects of his argument (I am specifically in forceful opposition to his argument that art/entertainment should, or even can, not reflect our values), but why does that mean that he can't be making it honestly?

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  38. Of course I mean what I said and said it in good faith. What the fuck would be the point otherwise?

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  39. @faoladh I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying and why. And I even agree with most of it too. But my impressions of Zak's motives, which come from my critical analyses of his arguments, actually have nothing to do with me, personally, disagreeing with him -- because, in most cases, I don't. So I'm not arguing with him just because he said some things I disagree with. I'm arguing with him because of how he's treated, and continues to treat, other people. Because this is what I see...

    "The strangest and most distrubing thing about your comments..."

    Starting off by insulting someone's comments with vaguely, and therefore undisputably, disparaging terms like 'strange' and 'disturbing' seems distinctly not in good faith to me. Instead, it just seems like the beginning of an attempt to shut them up and discourage anybody else from saying anything else like they did.

    "Is this really what we're all doing here? Is this how we're playing games? As dry runs for what we'd do in real life?"

    Rhetorical questions with no purpose other than to ridicule anyone who might answer "Yes" to them, not good faith attempts to solicit responses. And the word "all" in the first question makes it a straw-man argument too -- which is definitely not in good faith.

    "When we play chess should we just go 'Oh wait, white player, why are we even fighting?' and shake hands instead of playing?"

    Another straw-man argument -- one that misrepresents the position he's arguing against by exaggerating it to absurdity -- in the form of another ridiculing rhetorical question. All definitely not in good faith.

    "What planet are you from?"

    Another insulting rhetorical question. Not in good faith.

    "How is it ok for grown-ups in 2011 to claim...?"

    Yet another rhetorical question that preemptively ridicules anyone who might answer it with anything but the answer he wants, not a good faith attempt to solicit any response.

    "Why would we let someone dumb enough to copy what their halfling antipakadin did in real life even walk around anywhere outside a lunatic asylum?"

    And yet another insulting rhetorical question that's yet another straw-man argument that yet again misrepresents the position that he's arguing against. Yet again not in good faith.

    So, what did he say that we can reasonably assume was actually in good faith? This...

    "...is the easy equivalence between the moral universe in the GAME and the moral universe of REAL LIFE?

    ...


    "When we play WW2 games, can we only ever play the allies?


    "What the hell?...


    "Again people:


    "...that art/entertainment is supposed to teach or reflect our values? ... What in holy fuck is going on here?"

    Looks to me like his attempts at intellectual bullying clearly outweigh his good faith efforts to discuss anything.

    But I can see how you managed to distill what little good faith he did put forward into your paraphrasing of his position. That was quite an impressive achievement.

    Do you see what I'm saying and why now?

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  40. @Zak S I know you mean what you said. I always assume you do, because, from what I've seen, that is what you do.

    But meaning what you say and saying it in good faith are not the same thing.

    Saying something in good faith includes saying it without trying to advance any conscious and intentional, but ulterior and unstated agenda.

    So, for instance, even though you absolutely mean what you say when you tell someone you disagree with them and why, if you say it in any ways that you consciously intend to advance any ulterior agenda that you haven't explicitly stated, such as to ridicule them into shutting up and discourage anybody else from saying anything either in agreement with them or even just in their defense, then you haven't spoken in good faith.

    Can you honestly say that's not what you've been doing in this case?

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  41. @ed dove

    Nope, you're still full of it.

    "The strangest and most distrubing thing about your comments..."

    "Starting off by insulting someone's comments with vaguely, and therefore undisputably, disparaging terms like 'strange' and 'disturbing' seems distinctly not in good faith to me."

    Well you're wrong. The casual assumption that everyone reading a given post shares the (extremely conservative) position that morality in art=morality in life IS LITERALLY disturbing. Speaking as someone who works in the arts and sees
    censorship destroying good artists all the time, I am not going to back down and say this is not a thoroughly fucking disturbing thing to hear ESPECIALLY as a proposition which is blandly assumed to be shared by everyone. Because if it is--I am totally screwed forever in my chosen profession(s) and so are all my friends and that IS disturbing. I am allowed to be disturbed by that.

    "Is this really what we're all doing here? Is this how we're playing games? As dry runs for what we'd do in real life?"

    "Rhetorical questions with no purpose other than to ridicule anyone who might answer "Yes""

    I honestly think that this is what THOMAS was attempting to say, if I straw-manned him, I didn't know it. What else could he possibly mean?
    No-one is telling me.

    "When we play chess should we just go 'Oh wait, white player, why are we even fighting?' and shake hands instead of playing?"
    "
    Another straw-man argument"

    AGAIN: If there is a line between this and the dude's actual position I am not intellectually equipped to see where it is. You can come up and draw the line for him but he may not agree. I wanna know where the line is.

    I don't see a moderate position here and don't know how one decides to draw the line between his (to me) ridiculous position that he stated and the (to me) ridiculous position that I restated in another way.

    Also, and maybe this isn't clear enough: saying "things that happen in art should reflect things that should happen in real life" is like basically saying to me and everyone I know and every artist I value "You guys should all stop what you do forever and it has no value". If it makes me angry or causes me to make what you see as unnecessarily provocative statements,see what'd happen if you got up and said that to a crowd full of Slayer fans. You'd get eaten alive and you'd deserve it. This is a profound moral issue to me that directly affects real life and work of millions of artists every day.

    I want it explained--honestly--how an adult can take this position. To me saying art should only reflect our moral values is like saying movies should only ever feature Meryl Streep. It seems to me a -literally- insane statement. I need an explanation -literally- of how a human can go around thinking this and not want to destroy nearly every book, movie, video game or song they come into contact with. All human culture argues against this. It's not "slightly off" to me, it's really "Are you actually making a joke, explain this?"

    "Looks to me like his attempts at intellectual bullying clearly outweigh his good faith efforts to discuss anything."

    No. I keep asking for an explanation. You're not offering one. How does a guy who thinks art should reflect morality manage to sit through even a fucking Tom and Jerry Cartoon? (much less ANY game of D&D.) This Lefty elitist wants to know and cannot comprehend it. I want it explained.

    I don't want to make fun of this position, I want it explained, simply. And if the only way to get anyone to realize how much it needs to be explained to me is to point out how, on the face of it, it seems totally incompatible with functioning in society in even the most basic way, then so be it.

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  42. @Zak: Are you hoping for discussion, the other person to shut up, or people to be swayed to your point of view?

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  43. Ed Dove: Well, that's interesting, and I guess I can see that reaction. I just don't share it. Perhaps I am too used to the vigorous debate I've experienced in the punk rock community, which seems to be Zak's style (actually, he seems to be pretty easy-going to me).

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  44. @Zak S Okay. Thanks for explaining. I'm sorry I so badly misinterpreted the intent of so many things you said.

    Now, to address the issue that brought us here...

    I've never gotten the impression that anything THOMAS has ever said during this discussion has ever been intended as anything even nearly as extreme as any of the things you've suggested they're analogous to, let alone as insane as many of those things are.

    From the very beginning, it's always seemed abundantly clear to me that none of his value judgments have been of the 'I think this is so wrong that nobody should be allowed to do it' type.

    In fact, it's always seemed abundantly clear to me that none of his value judgments have even been of just the 'I think this is wrong, so nobody should do it' type.

    It's always seemed abundantly clear to me that all of his value judgments have been of merely either the 'I'm not comfortable with this' or the 'I think this is unfortunate' or, at most, the 'I think this is unwise' type.

    That's why your reactions to his statements have seemed to me like, at best, wild overreactions.

    And that's why I thought your questions were merely rhetorical and, so, never answered most of them.

    And I'd be quite surprised if that's not how THOMAS saw your reactions and questions too, and so why he hasn't responded to any of them either.

    But I'll go through all of them now and tell you what my response is to each of them.

    (There's lots of them, so please let me know if I miss any.)

    "The strangest and most distrubing thing about your comments is the easy equivalence between the moral universe in the GAME and the moral universe of REAL LIFE?"

    I don't see anything either strange or disturbing about that. It's just the way almost everybody thought until very recently. It's people like us, who can and do make distinctions between imaginary moralities and real morality, who are new and strange and disturbing to the people who haven't adopted this new way of thinking.

    "Is this really what we're all doing here? Is this how we're playing games? As dry runs for what we'd do in real life?"

    Not all of us. But some of us, yes.

    "When we play chess should we just go 'Oh wait, white player, why are we even fighting?' and shake hands instead of playing?"

    No. And nobody here has said anything that even just suggests anything as extreme as that. The closest that anybody has gotten to that is just that they're not comfortable with having their character in an RPG do anything that they wouldn't do themselves if the RPG world was real and they were really in it because they think it might, possibly, maybe, be unwise to let oneself think that way, so they don't want to take that chance. And that's so far away from your chess thing that it's closer to the other end of the spectrum.

    "When we play WW2 games, can we only ever play the allies?"

    Not all of us. But some of us, yes. Because some of us would be at least uncomfortable imagining, even just abstractly, being Nazis or Fascists or Imperialists.

    "What the hell?"

    I don't know!

    "What planet are you from?"

    Earth.

    "How is it ok for grown-ups in 2011 to claim that art/entertainment is supposed to teach or reflect our values?"

    It's okay because it acknowledges the reality that they do. It's just based on the belief that if something is so, then we have a moral obligation to act in accordance with that reality.

    Continued...

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  45. Continuing...

    "Why would we let someone dumb enough to copy what their halfling antipakadin did in real life even walk around anywhere outside a lunatic asylum?"

    We wouldn't. And nobody here has said anything that even just suggests anything even remotely as crazy as that. The closest that anybody has gotten to that is just that they're not comfortable with having their character in an RPG do anything that they wouldn't do themselves if the RPG world was real and they were really in it because they think it might, possibly, maybe, be unwise to let oneself think that way, so they don't want to take that chance. And that's actually sort of the opposite of your halfling antipaladin thing because, rather than thinking that they should act in the real world like their character does in the game world, they think their character in the game world should should be limited by their real world morality.

    "What in holy fuck is going on here?"

    I don't know!

    "Of course I mean what I said and said it in good faith. What the fuck would be the point otherwise?"

    Well, for one thing, a common reason why some people don't say what they mean and don't say things in good faith is because they're not really trying to communicate what they're saying. They're actually just saying whatever they think will most effectively manipulate people to act the way they want them to. So that'd be one point.

    "I honestly think that this is what THOMAS was attempting to say, if I straw-manned him, I didn't know it. What else could he possibly mean?"

    Just that he's not comfortable with having his character in an RPG do anything that he wouldn't do himself if the RPG world was real and he was really in it. That's all.

    "If there is a line between this and the dude's actual position I am not intellectually equipped to see where it is. You can come up and draw the line for him but he may not agree. I wanna know where the line is."

    I don't see a mere line between the things he said and the things that you said you see as analogous to the things he said. I see a vast, gaping chasm between them. His position seems to me to be closer to your own than to the things you say you see his position as being indistinguishable from. If we were to represent your position as white and the opposite of your position as black, then I'd see his position as a very light gray.

    "I don't see a moderate position here and don't know how one decides to draw the line between his (to me) ridiculous position that he stated and the (to me) ridiculous position that I restated in another way."

    That's easy. His position expressed merely his feeling that something is unfortunate, that he's uncomfortable with it, that he thinks it might be unwise. The positions that you stated for him express the opinions that everyone should be required to do some things and everyone should be forbidden from doing other things. The reason why you can't see the line between his position and the ones you stated for him is because they're nowhere near each other. They're on opposite sides of the spectrum.

    Continued...

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  46. Continuing...

    "...saying 'things that happen in art should reflect things that should happen in real life' is like basically saying to me and everyone I know and every artist I value 'You guys should all stop what you do forever and it has no value'."

    I don't see how that's actually so. But, even assuming that it actually is, it's not really relevant to what we're discussing here because nobody here has even implied anything even remotely like that. The closest that anybody's gotten to that is just that they, personally, just themselves, aren't comfortable with doing anything inside art that they wouldn't do outside art. I haven't picked up on any judgment of others doing that. Just people saying that they, personally, themselves, aren't comfortable with it. That's all.

    "I want it explained--honestly--how an adult can take this position. To me saying art should only reflect our moral values is like saying movies should only ever feature Meryl Streep. It seems to me a -literally- insane statement. I need an explanation -literally- of how a human can go around thinking this and not want to destroy nearly every book, movie, video game or song they come into contact with. All human culture argues against this. It's not 'slightly off' to me, it's really 'Are you actually making a joke, explain this?'"

    First, the position that you find so immature, so insane, so threatening, is actually how almost everybody thought until very recently. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if, worldwide, that's still how most people think. And they find us immature, insane and threatening because we think in this new way that's different from them. But, that aside...

    Second, nobody here has said anything even remotely like that they think art should only reflect our moral values. Some people have said things that could reasonably be paraphrased as that they think their own art should reflect their own moral values. And I've said that I think art inherently can't not reflect our moral values. But that's it. No value judgments about the morality of anybody else's art.

    "How does a guy who thinks art should reflect morality manage to sit through even a fucking Tom and Jerry Cartoon? (much less ANY game of D&D.)"

    That depends on whose morality he thinks art should reflect and, possibly, what his own morality is.

    If he thinks that art should reflect its creator's morality, then he shouldn't have any problem with anything. Even stuff that panders for profit reflects its creator's morality.

    If he thinks that art should reflect the morality of whatever he sees as the social norm, then that could result in him either embracing or rejecting either Tom & Jerry or D&D or both. But he probably wouldn't do anything more than just avoid whatever he rejects, because that's what most social norms say to do.

    But if he thinks that all art should reflect his own morality, then, unless he lives in an extremely homogeneous and isolated society thats morality he shares, he'll almost certainly be a very unhappy fellow, probably very angry to, and possibly dangerously so.

    But, luckily, though, there doesn't seem to be anybody like that here.

    How'd I do? Any more questions?

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  47. "...I guess I can see that reaction. I just don't share it."--faoladh

    That's reasonable. And Zak says my reaction was mistaken anyway.


    "Perhaps I am too used to the vigorous debate I've experienced in the punk rock community, which seems to be Zak's style (actually, he seems to be pretty easy-going to me)."--faoladh

    I can see that.

    To me, though, Zak seems like he thinks he's better than other people in ways and to degrees that are only partially justified by how and how much he really is better than other people.

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  48. Jim-

    How embarrassing... I meant to type amoral.

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  49. Unsubscribed. This is pretty much the worst comment thread of any blog, ever, and it is doing much harm to my inbox and my sanity.

    P.S. - What the fuck is the "punk rock community"? Nevermind, I don't care.

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  50. Back on the original subject of nihilism . . .

    Nietzsche spent his philosophical career criticizing the modern world for its nihilism, and ever since then has been the target of accusations of nihilism. See, that's irony.

    If you depict nihilism, study nihilism, allow people to play in a nihilistic fashion if they want, then you will be accused of nihilism. It's like taboo, or cooties, or girl germs - touch it and you become it.

    "Nihilism" has become the sophisticated version of "poo-poo head," an insult disguised as a description. The number of people who have done the necessary work on their own beliefs to fully understand their own nihilism well enough to be qualified to describe someone else as nihilistic is vanishingly small.

    The proper response to an accusation of nihilism is to insist that the reviewer explain in short, clear words a coherent account of what they think nihilism is, why they think you are a nihilist, and why they are not. Almost any user of the word will generally refute himself with the incoherence of his explanation.

    "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." --Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

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  51. @Ed

    That was better. But you're still talking shit there at the end for no reason.

    However:

    Saying that a certain way of pretending to be an elf is--in effect--morally bad EVEN IF YOU GO AND SAY THAT IT'S OK IF SOMEONE ELSE PLAYS IT THAT WAY is an extreme position.

    It puts a tremendous burden of proof on the person, even if "until recently most people thought that way".

    Until recently, most people thought my people were all hairy, hooknosed and greedy--it doesn't make anyone who thinks that -not- a total dipshit. And an extremist.

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  52. In response to James's original post, I just compared Thomas's comments to the parts of DCCRPG he critiqued and found that Thomas misrepresented it dramatically. Although the back cover of DCCRPG is anti-hero, as he said, the section on alignment makes it clear that Lawful characters are essentially heroic, and further that their heroism is no mere idea but rather represents one of the great contending cosmic forces - i.e., that Law is a real force with real implications both personally and cosmically. This is the opposite of what he wrote about it. DCCRPG is not remotely a nihilistic game.

    Likewise, I just reread LOTFPWFRPDE (my grindhouse edition has not yet arrived, so I read the deluxe edition instead), and nowhere do the rules deny that meaning or morality exist or are possible. Instead, the rules clearly state that alignment is only used to reflect cosmic orientation with respect to magic and related rules. Otherwise, the booklets are silent on the subject, which allows a DM to create a moral cosmos or an immoral one, allows players to play moral, immoral, or amoral characters as they see fit.

    To be nihilistic, the game would have to take the position that there is no meaning in the cosmos or in human behavior. It does not take that position, so the game is adaptable, not nihilistic. In that respect, both games are close to original D&D.

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  53. You know what I love? Aplus, in this thread. Without dramatic flounces and "nevermind, I don't want to know" non-questions there would be less laughter in my life.

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  54. @Rick Marshall I think everything you've written here is correct. And I think I, myself, made exactly the sort of mistake you described like this...

    "If you depict nihilism, study nihilism, allow people to play in a nihilistic fashion if they want, then you will be accused of nihilism. It's like taboo, or cooties, or girl germs - touch it and you become it."

    So, in light of my new, better understanding of this issue, I retract my statement that LotFP is in any way nihilistic -- because I now see that even its implied setting isn't really nihilistic itself. It just depicts nihilism, studies nihilism, and allows people to play in a nihilistic fashion if they want.

    Thanks, Rick, for helping me see more clearly and understand more correctly!

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  55. "@Ed That was better."--Zak S

    Good. I'm glad.


    "But you're still talking shit there at the end for no reason."--Zak S

    Really? How so? Please explain.


    "Saying that a certain way of pretending to be an elf is--in effect--morally bad EVEN IF YOU GO AND SAY THAT IT'S OK IF SOMEONE ELSE PLAYS IT THAT WAY is an extreme position."--Zak S

    I don't think it's at all extreme.

    The most extreme would be saying that it's morally bad for anybody to pretend to be anything. And it's not even close to that.

    Next most extreme would be saying that it's morally bad either for anybody to pretend to be an elf or for just oneself to pretend to be anything. And it's not even close to those either.

    Next most extreme would be saying that it's morally bad either for anybody to pretend to be an elf in a certain way or for just oneself to pretend to be an elf at all. Now we're finally getting close.

    So merely saying that it's morally bad for just oneself to pretend to be just an elf and only in a certain way is so many steps away from the most extreme position that it doesn't seem extreme to me at all.


    "It puts a tremendous burden of proof on the person, even if 'until recently most people thought that way'."--Zak S

    No it doesn't. Nobody has any obligation to prove to anybody, not even to themselves, that the moral or ethical limitations they choose to place on just themselves make any sense at all. There's a burden of proof only if somebody wants to justify placing any moral or ethical limitations on anybody other than themselves.


    "Until recently, most people thought my people were all hairy, hooknosed and greedy--it doesn't make anyone who thinks that -not- a total dipshit. And an extremist."--Zak S

    Was it really most? Certainly many. Either way, everybody who did think that was a dipshit. Maybe, possibly, not a total dipshit, back then. And quite possibly, back then, not an extremist either. But now -- yeah. Total dipshit extremists.

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  56. @Ed
    I really have no desire to continue this conversation but you asked me a question and anybody who doesn't answer a question asked in a moral debate is a dickhead. So here's your answer:

    Where are you talking shit?

    "Zak seems like he thinks he's better than other people"

    That's called "talking shit" Ed.

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  57. @Zak S That's not me talking shit. That's just me replying to faoladh telling me his impression of you by telling him my impression of you. That's all. No shit, just impression.

    Because my impression of you is based on how I've witnessed you treating people and what you've said about that, if you don't like it, then you can change it by treating people differently.

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  58. @Ed Dove

    Nah. I'm going to stick to treating dumbshit motherfuckers like dumbshit motherfuckers. I am better than dumbshit motherfuckers. So are most people around here.

    You dumbshit motherfucker.

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  59. @Zak S I'm going to stick with treating other people like they treat other people. It assumes that everybody's following The Golden Rule -- so, if they're doing that unto others, then they must want others to to that unto them.

    For all I know, I might be a dumbshit. After all, wouldn't a dumbshit be too dumb to know that they're a dumbshit.

    But, as far as I know, I've never fucked a mother. I might've fucked women who later became mothers. But I've never fucked anybody who already was a mother. So get your facts straight before you go talking shit!

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  60. Keep on angrily sucking his cock!

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  61. "To be nihilistic, the game would have to take the position that there is no meaning in the cosmos or in human behavior. It does not take that position, so the game is adaptable, not nihilistic. In that respect, both games are close to original D&D."

    Exactly, and also above when you quoted the Princess Bride. People are using the term Nihilism as an even more derogatory synonym for 'amoral.'

    Nihilism is as much about the meaninglessness of *any* human striving as it is about cosmic importance, morality, or ethics.

    LotFP argues that much can be accomplished by the characters... just not necessarily what others would label as admirable.

    A ironically Nihilistic game would be one where you create a character and then roll to see how many years you live before realizing that nothing you ever did made any difference and maybe another roll to see how your meaningless existence is ended.

    A *truly* Nihilistic game would be one page with one paragraph explaining that playing the game is pointless so don't even make a character. ;-)

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