Redcloak's failed characterization, and what it means for the comic as a whole.

[RickGriffin]

Also (just to expand my answer):

In a game set in something similar to the real world, I would probably play characters who apply a "real" or "realistic" set of moral guidelines.

In a setting where almost everybody knows that Evil and Good are not philosophical or cultural categories, but powerful forces that helped shape the very Existence, and where entities of Pure Good and Pure Evil are like, TOTALLY real... well, in that setting I would find a "Shoot first, ask later" attitude far less disturbing than in a "realistic setting".

A "shoot first, ask later" attitude in a realistic setting is dangerous, unmotivated, and probably psychotic. In a setting like D&d... you can agree or disagree with it, but it does make a LOT more sense, because zealots would have a point. I mean, it wouldn't be "just all in their head"...

In the real world, the notion that very little is black and very little is white is probably the first, biggest and more important lesson you can ever learn.
In a fantasy setting where Chaos, Law, Evil and Good DO shape reality, and it's proven, and everybody knows it... seriously, if you still see the world in shades of grey, more power to you, but you can't honestly say that fundamentalists do not have a point. Because they do.

That's why expecting people to be consistent when they transport themselves through imagination to a world of magic, danger, monsters and glory is silly.

That's my take on it, at least. :-(

I get what you're driving at. I think though that a question arises from it: is it really possible to have a setting where Good and Evil are primal forces and be entirely consistent on all counts (that is, where the force itself and the morality it represents always coincide) including all the ambiguous scenarios which people on this board have posited time and time again?

EDIT: And if so, how do you make all the DMs play it like that?

[Math_Mage]

In your eagerness to contradict N_P, you've just told an anecdote that perfectly illustrates his point. You've given us another data point where the players don't feel it's okay to kill things just because they've got scaly skin.

And you're not the only one - there are a whole bunch of such anecdotes in this thread. Which tends to reinforce N_P's point, that Rich's caricature is not really how the game is commonly played.

While it's true that all the examples of complex roleplaying being given can serve as weak anecdotal evidence against Rich's impression about how the game is often played simplistically, you're missing the specific contention N_P has made repeatedly: that a campaign where LG Paladins slaughtering Usually NE goblin children is not morally justifiable, yet we see LG Paladins slaughtering Usually NE goblin children, is self-contradictory and unrealistic. Thus Anarion's anecdote (where we see a player decide on his own initiative to make his Good character question the morality of killing kobolds because they're kobolds) is merely unrelated to the point under dispute. On the other hand, a world like the one AutomatedTeller describes, where it's OK to employ detect-Smite tactics even though everyone recognizes it's sociopathic if they think about it, greatly weakens N_P's claim.

This is far-fetched. The Twelve Gods don't put on a complete son et lumiere for every paladin that falls, but it's still fairly evident - per Miko, all their special holy paladin equipment stops working, as well as their special paladin powers. It's highly implausible that they wouldn't notice, and fairly quickly too. And surely the SG would institute a pretty thorough inquiry into such events, and they would use magical aid to divine what happened. It would take monumental levels of incompetence on their part to fail to realise what was happening.

And even if you assume that the SG really was that stupid, you'd have to attribute the same levels of indifference or incompetence to the Twelve Gods themselves. What kind of employer fires someone for breaking the rules and then doesn't tell anyone, including the individual concerned, what rule they broke?

Somewhere along the line you got the impression that I said the Sapphire Guard might not realize they had fallen. Since I never said that, I'm not sure where you got that impression. What I said was, at most, that the paladins might not understand or accept their fall. Miko's behavior even after receiving an incredibly direct and obvious message from the Twelve Gods gives us a good case study of how this might happen. I'd like to note that at no point in the comics surrounding Miko's fall do the Twelve Gods up and tell Miko why she fell.

As for the rest, I'll just note that I try not to underestimate the stupidity of organizations--and also that, as factotum said, there's no particular reason this HAD to be an ongoing slaughter of children with Paladins falling left and right. That's just what's required to give N_P's objection even minimal weight.

Let's not forget, this conversation started out with N_P asserting that the problem was a fundamental break between Redcloak's characterization and the supposed direction of the comic. Now the only real argument he can make in this direction is "well, there's a minor plot hole where the Sapphire Guard maybe shouldn't be able to repeatedly do what they did to Redcloak's village, assuming they DID repeatedly do that to begin with."

[Bastian]

There's a succubus paladin statted on the WotC site.

On the other side of the coin, there are celestials in some splatbooks that have gained an evil alignment, yet are still celestials- they retain their Good subtype, and other subtypes like Angel.

Elder Evils has one, the servant of Sertruous, one of the Eldar Evils.

I commend your knowledge - the Succubus Paladin looks cool!

[Baelzar]

There's a lot of people around here injecting modern, real world ethics and rights into the D&D world that simply are not supported in the 3.5e RAW.

Just because you play as an exception to the rule doesn't change the rule. Stop using it to support your argument, please.

[Jan Mattys]

I get what you're driving at. I think though that a question arises from it: is it really possible to have a setting where Good and Evil are primal forces and be entirely consistent on all counts (that is, where the force itself and the morality it represents always coincide) including all the ambiguous scenarios which people on this board have posited time and time again?

EDIT: And if so, how do you make all the DMs play it like that?

Probably not. Heck, it's not like we don't know that D&D RAW doesn't make sense.

That's why I found Rich's "clear cut" stance on racism uncalled for.

[RickGriffin]

There's a lot of people around here injecting modern, real world ethics and rights into the D&D world that simply are not supported in the 3.5e RAW.

Just because you play as an exception to the rule doesn't change the rule. Stop using it to support your argument, please.

Refer you to Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, etc.

Probably not. Heck, it's not like we don't know that D&D RAW doesn't make sense.

That's why I found Rich's "clear cut" stance on racism uncalled for.

I don't think the problem is that D&D TRIES to have an absolute moral divide, even so far as to have game mechanics dependent upon it. But any in-game attempt to determine what's right and wrong within the grey area falls to DM fiat, and when the DM is making a decision on whether something done constitutes as Good or Evil, he is actually making something fairly close to a decision on real-world morality IF he has not codified the rules of Good and Evil beforehand.

This is why things like the Honor system end up making more sense: all the rules are laid out beforehand instead of leaving it to the DM to decide what "good" and "evil" mean.

[Jan Mattys]

I don't think the problem is that D&D TRIES to have an absolute moral divide, even so far as to have game mechanics dependent upon it. But any in-game attempt to determine what's right and wrong within the grey area falls to DM fiat, and when the DM is making a decision on whether something done constitutes as Good or Evil, he is actually making something fairly close to a decision on real-world morality IF he has not codified the rules of Good and Evil beforehand.

Also known as the "Feed the DM with snacks regularly or your Paladin will fall no matter what you do" problem.

[RickGriffin]

Also known as the "Feed the DM with snacks regularly or your Paladin will fall no matter what you do" problem.

Ah yes, the ever-popular "God Needs Pizza Badly" standard of moral decision-making, having saved characters in many a game by participating in meta-sacrifice.

[Bastian]

But just because your method for living-vicariously-through-the-game grounds you within the game's story does not mean that all people make the same consideration.

For any conflict within the setting the players enjoy it in one of three ways:

1) it is a game and they are your enemy (tactical simulation approach)
2) you are seeing through the eyes of your character, who perceives them as his enemy (roleplaying approach)
3) they are fictional beings and who cares let's kill stuff (escapist approach)

While most people assume they play from 1, you absolutely must decide between 2 or 3 any time you are forced to make a decision about whether the group you are fighting is really your enemy or not.

If you are always making the consideration from 2 it probably means you have a good DM who makes the world real and gives you interesting situations to consider, but within that situation you would also have a character who may choose to not kill indiscriminately for any number of reasons.

But most DMs don't go that deep; they are there to provide a setting in which the players are given little bloodbags of XP to pop. If it can remain in 1, maybe, but if the game is going to be any more than a shallow consideration of battlefield tactics, if it's going to have a story, then 2 and 3 must be taken into account.

Excellent point.
Allow me to cut to the chase:
Players displaying approaches 1) and 3) while playing D&D or any other game, are necessarily prone to racism? Because that was the crux of the issue.

[RickGriffin]

Excellent point.
Allow me to cut to the chase:
Players displaying approaches 1) and 3) while playing D&D or any other game, are necessarily prone to racism? Because that was the crux of the issue.

Not racist, just . . . more shallow?* When the player does not consider the situation into which he is thrust, he is unwittingly a participant in a particular statement. Whether that affects him personally maybe true, maybe false, maybe only on a subconscious level.

But to say it has no effect is like when media-makers try to defend their decision to only cast foreigners as badguys: they claim it's what the people want and the people want shallow entertainment that pushes easy buttons. Does the entertainment make the people racist, or are they just shallow and do not consider what is occurring critically? And whose fault is that--the author or the audience?

But the point that Rich wanted to make is that he wanted to breach the subject and not approach it from a shallow evil-because-the-plot-says-so perspective.

*This is not to say that shallowness when consuming media is always bad, but I always find it to be like gorging on candy bars. Yay explosion--urk, need to go puke

[Baelzar]

So D&D makes you racist.

Oh boy, just wait til Jack Chick gets ahold of that one.

[veti]

Somewhere along the line you got the impression that I said the Sapphire Guard might not realize they had fallen. Since I never said that, I'm not sure where you got that impression.

I think it may have been the line: "The Sapphire Guard may not be aware of their fellows' falls". Am I overinterpreting? If so, I apologise.

What I said was, at most, that the paladins might not understand or accept their fall. Miko's behavior even after receiving an incredibly direct and obvious message from the Twelve Gods gives us a good case study of how this might happen. I'd like to note that at no point in the comics surrounding Miko's fall do the Twelve Gods up and tell Miko why she fell.

The paladins concerned may not "accept" it, but even Miko couldn't deny the plain fact that she had Fallen. And I have serious trouble with the idea that Mikoan levels of denial are the norm for the Sapphire Guard. Miko was consistently portrayed as an outlier, not the standard case. And even in her case - absent the intervention of Team Evil, there was supposed to be a trial, which would surely have come to some conclusions.

Let's not forget, this conversation started out with N_P asserting that the problem was a fundamental break between Redcloak's characterization and the supposed direction of the comic. Now the only real argument he can make in this direction is "well, there's a minor plot hole where the Sapphire Guard maybe shouldn't be able to repeatedly do what they did to Redcloak's village, assuming they DID repeatedly do that to begin with."

No, this conversation started about six years ago, the moment Miko's identity was revealed. It's a parasitic organism that sooner or later attaches itself to every alignment-related discussion on this board, it's only tangentially (at best) related to N_P's original point.

[Bastian]

Not racist, just . . . more shallow?* When the player does not consider the situation into which he is thrust, he is unwittingly a participant in a particular statement. Whether that affects him personally maybe true, maybe false, maybe only on a subconscious level.

But to say it has no effect is like when media-makers try to defend their decision to only cast foreigners as badguys: they claim it's what the people want and the people want shallow entertainment that pushes easy buttons. Does the entertainment make the people racist, or are they just shallow and do not consider what is occurring critically? And whose fault is that--the author or the audience?

But the point that Rich wanted to make is that he wanted to breach the subject and not approach it from a shallow evil-because-the-plot-says-so perspective.

*This is not to say that shallowness when consuming media is always bad, but I always find it to be like gorging on candy bars. Yay explosion--urk, need to go puke

Then we are on the same wavelenght, I guess. Candyriffic I guess

[Omergideon]

So D&D makes you racist.

Oh boy, just wait til Jack Chick gets ahold of that one.

More that a certain kind of attitude, that people claim is justified or even essential to DnD, is indicative of a certain susceptability to something such as racism. Or the general attitudes that can support it.

I think Rick-Griffins suggestion about the "evil foreigner" concept is a pretty good one to see the issue with. It is very easy to, when trying to identfiy the villain, give them an obvious trait such as a foreign nationality. And when this is coupled with a simple tale it can lead to problems. What once was a shorthand for character identification leads to the effect of "just cast a foreign part. No need to add more explaining why this guy is evil". The risk of doing this may be small for some. But for others with a specific attitude it provides a harmful validation of that. Much as Dwarves in Tolkien were given a certain specific (and at times nuanced) character, but in modern fantasy we have "the dwarf" as a stock character. Once a character is made a dwarf we stop needing to think. If this happens with an evil character, once nuanced but progressivley simplified over time, we run a risk. And the closer to real life the fiction is the greater the risk of there being a validation of the idea that "group x is always a villain" and not the hoped for original "character y, who happens to be group x, is the villain for z and g reasons".

[Math_Mage]

I think it may have been the line: "The Sapphire Guard may not be aware of their fellows' falls". Am I overinterpreting? If so, I apologise.

That is supposed to represent the SG organization becoming aware of the fall of its members, not the members themselves being aware of their own fall. Granted, it may take mind-numbing stupidity to accomplish that.

The paladins concerned may not "accept" it, but even Miko couldn't deny the plain fact that she had Fallen. And I have serious trouble with the idea that Mikoan levels of denial are the norm for the Sapphire Guard. Miko was consistently portrayed as an outlier, not the standard case. And even in her case - absent the intervention of Team Evil, there was supposed to be a trial, which would surely have come to some conclusions.

It may not take Mikoan levels of denial if the paladin is not subject to a case as obvious as Miko's.

No, this conversation started about six years ago, the moment Miko's identity was revealed. It's a parasitic organism that sooner or later attaches itself to every alignment-related discussion on this board, it's only tangentially (at best) related to N_P's original point.

Uh...you're free to think I'm jumping on a Miko alignment bandwagon here, and ignoring N_P's points, but a cursory perusal of the back-and-forth between him and me will show that I am in fact responding directly to his original points. To point out that Rich intentionally made Miko a great example of an overzealous paladin after the manner of 'party policeman LG' paladins in actual gaming groups (indisputable) is not to embroil oneself in a Miko alignment debate.

The fundamental point was, is, and remains that OotS not only handles a complex and nuanced world deftly within the alignment system, but demonstrates numerous times how a complex and nuanced view of D&D alignment is vastly superior to the black-and-white view N_P erroneously thinks is the only way D&D alignment really works at the game table.

[Kish]

There's a lot of people around here injecting modern, real world ethics and rights into the D&D world that simply are not supported in the 3.5e RAW.

Just because you play as an exception to the rule doesn't change the rule. Stop using it to support your argument, please.

Are you seriously under the impression you can convince everyone that you're right and they're wrong by assertion?

Hint: You can't, and besides, you're not right.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

What I said was that it works best a certain way and was plainly designed with that way in mind; as a game of noble heroes, vile monsters, wicked villains, and incredible fantasy. I know this, because the game material says so, and because it provides us with things like categorized alignment and hundreds and hundreds of monsters who are largely a pack of fiends designed to be dispatched in glorious combat. I also know this because I've read "The Order of the Stick", which shows us how the conventions of the game fare poorly in a more realistic setting (something we all probably knew anyway.

Well, you said that. Then you provided absolutely no convincing proof, except by misunderstanding the comic and then arguing a bunch of writers who weren't writing Dungeons and Dragons stuff didn't have to explore moral complexity, which is unrelated. I'd argue that Order of the Stick's success actually proves you can tell a morally nuanced story while being true to the source material. It's not the only such thing out there, either, whether we discuss book adaptions of Dungeons and Dragons or role-playing modules. For that matter, it's possible for me to have my cake and eat it, too, in this discussion, because Order of the Stick is a tale of "noble heroes and wicked villains and incredible fantasy". Just because some of the characters and events are more nuanced doesn't preclude those things. Xykon and Tarquin are wicked, Roy is noble, if sometimes pragmatic, and fantasy abounds. For that matter, just because Redcloak thinks he has a good cause doesn't mean he isn't wicked. He's a ruthless, cruel fanatic who not only will do anything for his cause but often engages in harmful acts that aren't absolutely necessary to advance it.

That bit about the monster manuals mostly being unrepentant fiends is the first actual argument related to Dungeons and Dragons material you've made since this thread started. Maintaining "it's clear" in the face of people insisting it's not without attempting to provide supplementary information is a poor way to inform anyone of anything. Now as for the point itself... Firstly, since you've proven pretty bad at being able to read alignment entries accurately, I'm pretty sure it's less full than you think it is. Secondly, it does provide a large quantity of "unrepentant fiends". So what? That using the other types of antagonists provided and treating them as other types of antagonists is therefore not how to best use the game is skipping quite a few steps in your chain of logic. I already said it provides for a variety of play styles. Proving it provides for one does not exclude the others. For that matter "There's more stuff for play style A" does not prove "play style B doesn't work as well". You're confusing quantity and quality, much like you confuse the words usually and always.

Of course, simply showing you can't prove your point isn't enough to prove mine. That's why I quoted actual 3/3.5 (because that's the edition the comic uses) rule books earlier to show the game design is more complex and robust than you paint it.

As for the the thread, going this far... Have you read it? It's primarily A) people who disagree with you or B) people who disagree with those people over tangential points but still don't agree with you. Well, let's not forget C) people arguing still more tangential points with group B.

but that then is the fault of the gamer, not the game.

And here's one the ways you misunderstand the comic. Some of the criticisms you see as unfair are actually of gamers not the the game. And when people point out they see those types of gamers frequently... you still insist on seeing them as criticisms of the game.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Sorry, I forgot to say "the only Dungeons and Dragons related argument other than consistently making false statements about goblins and then ignoring the fact they don't match the rulebooks." That's technically related, I suppose.

[Bastian]

Are you seriously under the impression you can convince everyone that you're right and they're wrong by assertion?

Hint: You can't, and besides, you're not right.

Well, I can.

[ThePhantasm]

Sorry, I forgot to say "the only Dungeons and Dragons related argument other than consistently making false statements about goblins and then ignoring the fact they don't match the rulebooks." That's technically related, I suppose.

There's an edit button under your post that you can use for second thoughts, rather than double-posting.

[Bastian]

There's an edit button under your post that you can use for second thoughts, rather than double-posting.

Don't! It's a booby trap! You'll get cooties!

[Helgraf]

Oddly relevant to the alignment part of the discussion web...

Spoiler

Show

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0282.html

[ShikomeKidoMi]

There's an edit button under your post that you can use for second thoughts, rather than double-posting.

You know, I've used that button before, but for some reason I cannot seem to find it in this browser today.

EDIT: Wait, never mind, found it. There was something weird going on with one of my security programs and firefox earlier, though. I figured out part of problem. For some reason it was having trouble remembering I was logged in, so when I viewed my own comments I couldn't edit them. The fact it still treated me as logged in when I went to post new ones is the odd part.

[Math_Mage]

Oddly relevant to the alignment part of the discussion web...

Spoiler

Show

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0282.html

Glad someone posted this. It's probably THE most relevant strip that hasn't already been linked. The basic fact is that if D&D alignment did not lend itself to complex and nuanced interpretation, then this scene would not be possible.

[Soylent Dave]

Oddly relevant to the alignment part of the discussion web...

Spoiler

Show

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0282.html

Glad someone posted this. It's probably THE most relevant strip that hasn't already been linked. The basic fact is that if D&D alignment did not lend itself to complex and nuanced interpretation, then this scene would not be possible.

Also worth noting that this was 550 strips and six years ago - which underlines that this is a concept Rich has been examining and playing with as part of the comic for quite some time now.

[factotum]

It may not take Mikoan levels of denial if the paladin is not subject to a case as obvious as Miko's.

I'm pretty sure the Giant himself said that those paladins who Fell at the village might not have even noticed until the next time they tried to Smite Evil or Lay on Hands and found it didn't work...

[Oeep Snaec]

The trees are Evil.

Why are we debating the sensibility of the alignment system again?

[The Extinguisher]

I'm sure no one really meant "D&D makes you a racist" (if that was ever said at all). Most people who play the game, even those who only play it as a "kick in the door and kill the green humans*" game are not and never be racist or see that behavior like that is acceptable outside that world. But the question is less on the players and the game system itself, but the culture and environment that spawned the game. We need to ask why this style of game is represented, and what does it say about the society it was made in.


The same is true of violent video games, and in the adult film industry as well. Not everyone who plays violent video games or watches adult movies is a sociopath or a sexist, I'd say the vast majority of them are not. But these are things we need to look at critically. Why do we as a society accept this? Is it good for us, is it dangerous. Realistically, these should be questions we're asking about all art and entertainment. "What does this piece say about the culture it was created in?" It's just that we tend to focus on the more negative ones because they're more interesting studies.


So D&D players aren't racist. The game system doesn't promote racist ideas. But the key part of many players experience is that monsters are evil because they are monsters. And you can tell they are monsters because they look different from you. Once again, this is not a promotion of racist beliefs. It's a reflection of society. Obviously we don't believe that you can go around slaughtering people because they look different, but time and time again we see themes of "these people are bad because they look different, or the look different because they are bad" and those ideas are where things like racism come from, that we can judge on appearances alone.

Play the goblin slaughtering paladin all you want. Have fun with it, go. I have no worries about you, or any one person at all. Just please think critically about what it has to say about society. Do this all the time, and things will be better off in the long run.


*And really, D&D monster races are green humans. Even the most "unhuman" like in appearance is still very much a human in different skin. They think and feel like humans, because yes that's what most authors know, but it still makes them human, and makes critical thinking even more important. These things are written as green skinned humans because that's all they can be written as (we don't know anything else), and they still encourage the idea that "different = evil." If you replaced all the monster races with humans of different skin colour and race, you see the point. Think of the paladain attack on Redcloak's village, except now instead of green skin and pointy ears, they have white or black skin. Imagine Redcloak's callous disregard for his own people's lives because he doesn't like they're skin colour.

This shouldn't change because they have green or orange skin or look like a dragon. People are still people.

[Bastian]

I'm sure no one really meant "D&D makes you a racist" (if that was ever said at all). Most people who play the game, even those who only play it as a "kick in the door and kill the green humans*" game are not and never be racist or see that behavior like that is acceptable outside that world. But the question is less on the players and the game system itself, but the culture and environment that spawned the game. We need to ask why this style of game is represented, and what does it say about the society it was made in.


The same is true of violent video games, and in the adult film industry as well. Not everyone who plays violent video games or watches adult movies is a sociopath or a sexist, I'd say the vast majority of them are not. But these are things we need to look at critically. Why do we as a society accept this? Is it good for us, is it dangerous. Realistically, these should be questions we're asking about all art and entertainment. "What does this piece say about the culture it was created in?" It's just that we tend to focus on the more negative ones because they're more interesting studies.


So D&D players aren't racist. The game system doesn't promote racist ideas. But the key part of many players experience is that monsters are evil because they are monsters. And you can tell they are monsters because they look different from you. Once again, this is not a promotion of racist beliefs. It's a reflection of society. Obviously we don't believe that you can go around slaughtering people because they look different, but time and time again we see themes of "these people are bad because they look different, or the look different because they are bad" and those ideas are where things like racism come from, that we can judge on appearances alone.

Play the goblin slaughtering paladin all you want. Have fun with it, go. I have no worries about you, or any one person at all. Just please think critically about what it has to say about society. Do this all the time, and things will be better off in the long run.


*And really, D&D monster races are green humans. Even the most "unhuman" like in appearance is still very much a human in different skin. They think and feel like humans, because yes that's what most authors know, but it still makes them human, and makes critical thinking even more important. These things are written as green skinned humans because that's all they can be written as (we don't know anything else), and they still encourage the idea that "different = evil." If you replaced all the monster races with humans of different skin colour and race, you see the point. Think of the paladain attack on Redcloak's village, except now instead of green skin and pointy ears, they have white or black skin. Imagine Redcloak's callous disregard for his own people's lives because he doesn't like they're skin colour.

This shouldn't change because they have green or orange skin or look like a dragon. People are still people.

This.
Bravo! You have made the point I failed to convey with more eloquence and elegance.

Apart from that one oversimplification and provocation, no one said that. However, it has been implied more than one poster got the idea that playing the game was promoting the development of racism in the outside world.

And yes, pre-Tolkien Orcs and Trolls were meant to be ugly humans with fangs and a bad skin. They were developed to educate children of dangers. After all, even the Boogeyman is a man.

[Anarion]

Theatre, Role-Playing Games, Masquerades, etc. gives people the possibility to explore other polarities when made in full awareness and acceptance. So Jan, if you play a ruthless Tzimisce and you play it well, you are actually showing the opposite about yourself.

Bolded part of this quote, because I think this is absolutely correct. Role-playing a character in full awareness can be extremely valuable. The difficulty is that not everyone role-plays in full awareness and there might be a point at which there is so little awareness that unspoken assumptions in the game are indicative of a person's manner of thinking outside the game.

Thus Anarion's anecdote (where we see a player decide on his own initiative to make his Good character question the morality of killing kobolds because they're kobolds) is merely unrelated to the point under dispute. On the other hand, a world like the one AutomatedTeller describes, where it's OK to employ detect-Smite tactics even though everyone recognizes it's sociopathic if they think about it, greatly weakens N_P's claim.

You're right I didn't present it that well. I was trying to show that a world that was presented like the one N_P talks about and in which the players rejected the simplistic premise allows the game to continue functioning perfectly (since there has been an ongoing argument that the game breaks down when infused with moral complexity). You're also right that AutomatedTeller's example is much better.

This.
Bravo! You have made the point I failed to convey with more eloquence and elegance.

Apart from that one oversimplification and provocation, no one said that. However, it has been implied more than one poster got the idea that playing the game was promoting the development of racism in the outside world.

And yes, pre-Tolkien Orcs and Trolls were meant to be ugly humans with fangs and a bad skin. They were developed to educate children of dangers. After all, even the Boogeyman is a man.

I don't think it was promoting racism, that's a step too far. Rather, it might be indicative of existing tendencies to stereotype. The hope is that critical consideration of the game can make us better people as a society than we would be without that critical consideration. That's my interpretation of the Giant's point: if even one person approaches the game or this comic with a new level of critical thinking and examines the willingness of human beings to stereotype, that will help improve society. And frankly, this whole thread is a testament to the fact that people DO think about this stuff, so I'd say the comic has been quite successful.