Impact of Modern Morality and Philosophy IG

[Arwenth]

The concept of how much morality and modern philosophy come into play in the world of Geas, has been weighing kind of heavily on my mind recently. As I was explaining Geas to someone and by association the religions of the game they looked at me and went, "You know...this makes me wonder...When in the real world did it become socially unacceptable to murder and pillage in the name of one's religion..." My answer was, "You should consult a philosophy or theology major lol..."

But in seriousness the thought that this spawned in my head was, "Why does it seem that it's becoming unacceptable in the world of Geas to murder and pillage in the name of one's religion?" As I thought about it, it seemed to me and this is just my perception that the acts of murder, burning people at the stake, and brutal tactics of any sort are just becoming frowned upon. And I wondered why, is it possibly because people are uncomfortable with role-playing from a I suppose one could call it, less enlightened perspective? Or are people actually wanting the game to move out of a medieval approach?

I can completely understand that there's a huge fantasy element to the game thus deviation from reality, but some of those elements to me would seem that they'd re-enforce some of the less elevated less pacifistic ways of thinking. I'm not a philosophy major but from what I've studied of several schools of past thought is that doing what it takes to win and survive are what's important not the weighing out of if it's ethically appropriate to handle a situation in a particular way.

The example that sticks out in my mind is execution/punishment in general. I think I've seen Arborea's gallows used once, and as far as I know while having an executioner, Elvandar has no forum of public execution. To contrast against Modern thought, it hasn't even been 100 years in the US since people were no longer hung on the court house lawn and there are other countries that continue to use public execution. However in Geas, death in actual hand to hand combat seems to be the only non-frowned upon way to kill someone. I question why this is, in a medieval-esque setting unless you were motivated otherwise by the doctrine of your religion wouldn't it make sense to make an example out of people that do things that offend common morality such as thievery, attempted murder and just breaking the law?

[Zehren]

IT IS ZEHREN'S FAULT.
HE HAS TURNED THE WORLD TOWARDS PEACE.

To paraphrase a song:
"With the power of cheese, he could not fail."

*will update with serious thoughts in the morning*

[lanyara]

The capital punishment for eating cheese should become public decapitation.

The question is - which law would declare eating cheese warranting decapitation as punishment? Cheese is not even affiliated with any religion per se. You have the dark cheese Sathonys appreciates, the worm ridden one for Lilith, the heart shaped one for Gwen, the glowing white one for Taniel and so on and so forth.

*will update with serious thoughts after @Zehren did so*

[isengoo]

My recommendation is to not think about it too much.

[Ritor]

A great portion of the religion roleplay in Geas, in my observation is all about verbal sparring. Call it a theological discussion, polemics, debates, or mudslinging, it's all the same. In verbal sparring you hit any buttons that you can. What ill can you really accuse Crusaders in? They're the paragons of good and gentleness supposedly (or thereabouts). You accuse them of torture, regardless of the reasons for it. And in return, you can accuse Asralites in extreme agnostic tendencies, or whatever.

I wouldnt worry about it. You're all evil. Especially Zhakrin and Gwen, since his followers are devoid of the inner need to defeat evil.

[Blizt]

Modern philosophy has no place here. Like Isengoo said, just don't think about it.

Keep burning people alive.
Keep forcing them to eat their own body parts.
Whip the flesh off of them.
Hang them at the gallows.

Those things used to happen frequently in the MUD.
Conflict is good, and violence is neccassary in the world of GEAS

[lanyara]

I am not quite seeing the need to connect it to "modern morality".

It's conflict due to different reasons and that's it. It has a lot more to do with a struggle for political influence (or influence for guilds).

You should however also keep in mind that there are certain features and methods available only to a few guilds. For instance, if shackles etc... would be commonly available in shops or somewhere else, you would see players picking it up on their own and roleplay with that. Same with gallows - a custom shop to buy mobile gallows on a cart or guillotines. If this were more readily available, it would be used more regularly as well.

[Arwenth]

Modern philosophy has no place here. Like Isengoo said, just don't think about it.

The problem I'm attempting to bring up is that imho, there are clearly people thinking about it, and engaging in it in game. Since I've been playing Geas, I've only seen one person hung at the gallows. I've only heard of two accounts of people whipping each other and my character was whipped once as punishment.

In short.

I have not seen or heard the things you have listed to any great or truly extent.

In fact the point I'm making is that instead of seeing conduct, thought and philosophy we are instead reaching a state more like the quote below that sums up the age of reason:

"In this time period, man’s previously held concepts of conduct and thought could now be challenged verbally and in written form; fears of being labeled a heretic or being burned at the stake were done away with."

I've have two characters that I play currently and they definitely don't see anything of this sort happening.

When I played Arwenth however, there were sometimes that non-gwenite people actually fussed at her for the hunting of sathonites using the basis that we could talk to them and reform them. That is definitely not medieval thinking. I don't care if you hate the Crusade more than life itself...These are people have the reputation of kidnapping, murdering, torturing and eating everyone including followers of your god...

So, allow me to rephrase what I'm getting at:

Is it just me or are other people noticing this?

Are people actively aware that they're having modern reactions and responses influenced by modern ideaology?

Lastly, If the answers are yes and yes I'm supposing I'm want to know is why your character would think outside the box in such a drastic way?

I'm not OOCly bashing anyone who wants to make a more contentious character I'm just curious about the reason behind it and how everyone views the effects it's having IG . IG I'll proably think 'You sir or madam are insane and I should not associate with you because you'll get me killed'

[Skragna]

I've noticed it. More and more times, we (the Crusade) either don't actively chase down people we know are about or chasing darkpriests to their hideyholes and broasting them. Skragna, however, has still tried to punish those he catches, like Tetran recently. I'd rather have burned him for RP purposes, but because he was 1: a newbie and 2: technically a first offender, I let him off with a beating. In the future, I'll not be holding back, because now that @Arwenth's mentioned it, I'm breaking RP by doing so.

[Urik]

skragna wrote:
I've noticed it. More and more times, we (the Crusade) either don't actively chase down people we know are about or chasing darkpriests to their hideyholes and broasting them. Skragna, however, has still tried to punish those he catches, like Tetran recently. I'd rather have burned him for RP purposes, but because he was 1: a newbie and 2: technically a first offender, I let him off with a beating. In the future, I'll not be holding back, because now that @Arwenth's mentioned it, I'm breaking RP by doing so.

If the character is under 10 days of playing he is considered a noob and shouldn't be killed according to "fair play." Therefore you should have stuned him, which was the correct thing to do. Period. End of story. If I took Urik around bashing noobies heads in for being stupid and not following the law perfectly, then a lot of people would be turned off by that. I remember in 2010 Tanriel (I think, it was a while ago so i forget know but it was some elf) was being shot at by watchtowers. Instinct told Urik to stun the person then question. (stood no chance for facing me.) Instead of bashing the characters skull in, i told the character to mail the judge, and get their karma back to good. Also to talk to the lord marshall yata yata yata. The character did that and situation averted. The only people the Crusade should knock out or kill are true enemies
True enemies=
1. Deathpriests
2. Order members (now)
3. Anyone who has left the Crusade.
It is quite useless to track down knock out newbies. Crusades job is to protect the south from evils, not to show strength by knocking newbies out.
IMO If a Crusader isn't hunting down an evil or running a raid, then he should be training or RPing with people.
Also older players outside the Crusade find it annoying that we just knock people out at the Crossing. (which happens quite often)

[luminier]

I might be biased, but, I think all the Crusaders do a fine job of their work. We aren't as harsh as Blizt was during his reign as Lord Marshall, but we don't have the pure muscle to back that up anymore either.

I rarely hear about situations where I think "that was the wrong thing to do".

[Blizt]

Arwenth, I notice what you are talking about.

Just handle it in the MUD.
There are plenty of people who do not think that way.

[Desiderea]

Well, my chars have their own reasons for not liking certain things, due to past experiences and being a peace-loving Gwenite.

[Amaleth]

I normally do not post on a topic that has not had someone say something for a few weeks, but this issue was brought up to me last night and someone pointed this post out to me so here we go.


Something I was thinking about this morning is that much as we should not be using Modern Morality/Philosophy IG, I think it is a mistake to assume that Geas will follow the social pattern of our RL medieval period.

The idea of murder/rape/pillage for god "X" is based heavily on the idea that your god is the one true god, while the others are demon worshipping heretics/heathens and therefore denied the rights granted to the Faithful. But on Geas, ALL of the gods are true gods. You can not say "You have no rights, your god is not real" to someone.

If Geas had a strict God vs Satan, White vs Black dual deity system, I think you would have the Us vs Them mindset of the original medieval time period. Currently, however, out of respect (and shared goal of survival) most people have to learn to be more tolerant of each others beliefs, within limits. We each start to respect, even if we do not like, each other's faith in other gods, so long as it is not Sathos or Lilith.

Also, I have never once seen a cleric preaching to the people the virtues of raping/pillaging/murdering someone in name of god 'x', though a lot of people /do/ accuse Sathos and Lilith's people of doing those acts. Those two are the 'evil gods', so it makes sense that people would over time see such acts as 'evil'.

The moment you start being tolerant of each other, the less acceptable it is to punish those people for their wrong, heathen, warped ways.


(Side note: Burning someone at the stake, removing their head on the chopping block, or hanging is not murder if it is in answer to a crime, IMHO.)

[lanyara]

There is another big reason for the "respect" or an anti-fanatism approach, not only for the fact that all gods are real in Geas.

Permadeath does not exist in Geas so you can kill people but this won't solve a problem as they can normally come back. So when they are back, the very same situation exists usually, at least when it is a cleric character.

The whole help fairplay content is at odds with the in-game world - why should fanatics show mercy with what they want to or seek to destroy? Doesn't make a lot of IC sense for such a character concept. It's a bit difficult to bend the character concept of a fanatic due to OOC reasons (i.e. being nice to other PLAYERS while the CHARACTERS want to kill each other all the time)

So on the topic of permadeath, in medieval times, when you get only one life you will definitely want to not lose it, whereas in Geas, death isn't really severe at all. A bit vitality loss, which will come back eventually anyway and that was it.

The dichotomy of Lilith and Sathonys as evil deities is, in my opinion, a heavily cliched and overused pattern nowadays. I really dislike the whole "good" vs. "evil" separation that seems to have happened since 2006/2007.

The old "evil" characters weren't as insane as today's "evil" characters are.
I am blaming the whole karma system as the main culprit behind it (the balance situation as the second culprit, but balance was often derived from massive PvP. I'd rather only focus on the roleplaying aspect than on balance).

What is especially problematic with the karma system is that it is disconnected from the religion, meaning you can play with the karma system to your leisure, without incurring any problem. Tying karma to religion would be a misdesign though because the whole karma system removes more roleplaying options than it offers new options, leading to very cliche-laden stereotypical roleplay patterns. Yadda yadda me wants to worship Sathonys me goes and be cannibal yadda yadda ...

It leads to actions which don't make a lot of sense to me. Evil character dies? Go and butcher a corpse for no IC reason at all - for the sole reason that it affects your aura. I think that really sucks... IC reasons should come first, not game mechanics.

Anyway.

One should also not forget something else, which is the availability of certain objects and options to certain guilds. Imagine if everyone would have access to game features which are exclusively given to certain guilds. A cart with torture tools for sale ...

Last but not least, and this concerns the punishments. It is interesting to point out that neither Elvandar nor Arborea really has a public punishment system - the gallows are outside Arborea and there is no way to see public torture in Elvandar either.

On the question of societies, and in medieval times, one should not forget that there was often an outside threat. The Roman Empire always had to
fight someone or something, and of course it expanded heavily. Sometimes religion played a role too.

What I am trying to say here is that it was always common to portray the threat as "evil" one has to fight off, otherwise they would invade your homeland. (Reminds me of the movie Braveheart too and the torture end scene).

The deeper notion of this thread, as far as I take it, is the question of the moral values one would like to see in the MUD. If you want to see more bloody societies then I think there need to be some code changes - and let's not forget the whole law system which kind of works a lot against bloody societies.

The whole voting mechanics isn't fitting much to medieval times.

[isengoo]

Not to completely overshadow and thus lead to the ignoring of the two well thought out and insightful posts above mine, which will probably happen anyways, but I would love to see the shivers brought back to vitality loss. Something that actually bothers people IRL would probably dissuade them from dying like an idiot all the time.

[Cuetlachtli]

Let's also keep in mind that 'modern philosophy' is really very subjective.

Buddhism is not a new thing (older than a lot of religions isn't it?), and those that follow 'balance' can pretty much be said to be following something like that, just like the 'good' religions follow something similar to Abrahamic religions.

Philosophy in general is certainly not a new thing, just consider Rome or Greece and their thinkers.

Personally I don't think, especially in a fantasy setting, showing concern about certain actions to be expressed. Especially with a pantheon of gods that represent wildly different ideals.

To conclude, I think that 'modern' ideas in our eyes shouldn't even really be considered that modern. There has been progressive as well as conservative thought throughout history. (okay well I'm not a history major, so I guess I could be really wrong, but this is my semi-informed conclusion, deal with it)

[Nyst]

Fun stuff to think about.

1: Logically, if all gods are true then truth and morality are relative. Right and wrong, good and evil depends almost completely on which god you follow - well, if you're going to play a fairly linearly thinking person on Geas anyway.
If we were to follow things completely to their logical conclusions, we'd likely find that the game would stall for some of us. True relativism just doesn't work out in reality. So there has to be some suspension of reality for the game to be fun for people.

2: That in-game cities recognize that certain behaviors are beneficial to society and some are not, humanism definitely plays a part in Geas. This might seem to fly in the face of the first point, except that the laws seem to be influenced at least a little by whatever god/morality is dominant in a given city.

3: What we have on Geas is a group of players - influenced by a variety of ages, maturity levels, various levels of education, and national and local cultures. Not to mention that the in-game philosophies are only given brief descriptions in any documentation (even in the in-game books)... it makes a lot of sense that total integrity of reason is not the main naim of the gaim.

Unless you're very good at disassociation, it can be very difficult to completely dedicate yourself to a different morality, values system, or set of behaviors - especially for the sake of a text game. In fact, what this says about certain behaviors in-game often makes me glad I've never met some of you in back alleys in real life (I tend to avoid back alleys anyway).

In the end, it turns out that it's all just a game. It IS interesting to notice the various ways the dynamics of the game affect the way people think in-game. On some level I'm sure somewhere it's an interesting social experiment.

[adanath]

A post-modern pluralistic approach certainly is evident, but then I don't think anyone is capable of truly severing a creation from the creator in the aspect of roleplaying the created, the creator is going to show through. Although, it is nice to make a genuine effort at separation and immersion into the politics of the time of the game, and morality throughout. Just for an example, being agnostic in this world can certainly be an acceptable position for the sake of tolerance and understanding of science etc. However, it is not the option for anyone in Geas other than someone that has completely lost their mind, or comes up with some equally fanciful tale to explain the regular divine interactions.

[Sairina]

Last but not least, and this concerns the punishments. It is interesting to point out that neither Elvandar nor Arborea really has a public punishment system - the gallows are outside Arborea and there is no way to see public torture in Elvandar either.

Not quite true, I'm not certain what the situation is in Elvandar, but the gallows is definitely on Arborean soil. Which is completely in line with medieval reality, gallows (unlike a pillory, which would likely be found on the marketplace) where usually placed outside the city, preferably on high ground and somewhere close by, so that newcomers would pass them on their way to the city gates (a perfectly good deterrent - if they were planning anything illegal, now they knew that the laws are enforced mercilessly in this place).