Conflicting political views and ethics - Is this a problem to you too?

[E-mail]

Last weekend something happened in the game, that caused the game to come to a grinding stop as the DM and me got ourselves into a heated debate on politics. My DM is an idealistic socialist, and I am a right-libertarian, and though we get along nicely on a day to day basis, some topics will explode like gasoline on a campfire if we for some reason have to discuss them. And, as you can probably imagine, a game in which a socialist decides exactly how the actions of a libertarian character impacts the world around him, misunderstandings and disagreements are bound to flare up once in a while.

In this session, two episodes came up. I was playing a paladin of Tyr, a hard but fair person with a heart of gold, but criminals and other people who are degrading society with their lack of moral and discipline fills her with disgust. As the party was walking down the street, the DM asked us to make spot checks, which revealed that the party was being targeted by a filthy, malnourished would-be pickpocket, and I decided that my characters reaction would be to smack the guy upside the head twice. My DMs jaw dropped. "Holy ****! Don't you see that the guy is POOR!?" he asked. I didn't quite get where he was going at this point, so I took the bait. "Possibly, but he was trying to steal me. I needed to stop him, and hopefully teach him that crime doesn't pay along the way." I replied, to which he responded by declaring that my character had now fallen, because she was rich and should have realized that the filthy pickpocket might have had a greater need for her money than herself.

But it didn't end there. Oh no. On my quest for atonement, I had to protect a small village from goblin raiders, and things went bunkers once again. The village was a lot larger than the party could cover, so I thought, why not teach the commoners how to protect themselves? I brought a wagonload of light crossbows, instructed the commoners on how to use them (they DO have a simple weapon proficiency after all..), and handed a crossbow to everyone capable of operating one. Mission accomplished I thought. Because in the instant people got home with their weapons, they started shooting them at everything and anyone everywhere, kind of like how an armed population behave according to the most dedicated anti-gun mind imaginable. Everyone started murdering other people because to was too easy and to convenient not to do so with a crossbow at ones disposal, and accidents due to people not using backstops when practicing their shooting almost wiped out the town! We never agreed on how to get on from there, so we had to agree to restart the campaign in the next session.

So.. Does problems regarding politics and ethics ever come up in any of your games?

EDIT: This post was written from my iPad, and the autocorrect errors are numerous. I would have fixed them, but Im lazy, so Im just going to inform you that Im not a tard instead.

[EjoThims]

I have to say two things.

One: I would normally be siding with your DM on this.

Two: Except that he seems to be one of those that make us look bad.

Seriously... Your DM was simply being ridiculous. Especially since, because Tyr is a LG god of Justice, a person's situation would likely be less important to him than upholding the laws and customs and the region.

And unless all of the commoners in that village had a -4 Int mod, the vast majority of them would wait to settle personal vendettas until after the goblins had been routed. Then they would have fallen on each other (if that was their intent). Not to mention, though, that a crossbow is far less easy to go on a killing spree with than a gun, even if you were so stupid as to keep it laying around loaded.

I'd say that the best path would be to just swallow that his NPCs are going to be idiotic, but try to make him understand that as a divine being meant to uphold Law, Order, and Justice, Tyr's sentiments are, by necessity, not going to be the GM's own. That way you at least have the freedom to play your Paladin as you see fir without 'zomg code' getting in the way over piddly things.

And I must say, similar issues have been preset before in my games, including a CG god that condoned assisted suicide that caused the Cleric to turn away from said god, but it's never became a lasting character issue.

[archangel.arcanis]

To put it bluntly, your GM is being an idiot. Either he really believes that is the way the world works, which is pretty stupid, or he thinks he can use the game to teach you the way things should be, an even stupider and dickish move. If the GM can't separate their personal views from the game enough to be able to let the game play correctly then they shouldn't be running.

Based on what you have mentioned I likely have very similar political views to yours. That hasn't prevented me from having a game in which there were totalitarian dictatorships for good and evil, there was a Utopian communistic society, and a true democracy based on ancient Greek city-states. The GM needs to put what fits in the game not what fits in their mind. As long as the players are fine with some satire and it isn't over done he could even make political jokes in the game and it be entertaining.

[weenog]

I tend to get zapped at karma moments for thinking results are more important than maintaining the appearance of blamelessness.  For the example of the trolley problem, I feel that to personally murder one is preferable to allowing five to die through knowing, willful inaction.  Sure your hands are bloody, but the alternative is much more death.  It seems incredibly hypocritical and wrong to prefer keeping the moral high ground over ensuring as good an outcome as possible.

I'd rather avoid writing out a novel of examples, but yes, I've collided with DMs over mismatched ideas of correct behavior more than once.

[veekie]

Well, to begin with, I keep politics out of my fantasy for the most part. No system can be truly superior, etc, particularly with magic and resources tipping the scales. I like communist dwarves for example(with King being sorta Chief Engineer), Nature worshipping theocratic elves etc, whether or not I agree with the concept. Its fantasy.

In this session, two episodes came up. I was playing a paladin of Tyr, a hard but fair person with a heart of gold, but criminals and other people who are degrading society with their lack of moral and discipline fills her with disgust. As the party was walking down the street, the DM asked us to make spot checks, which revealed that the party was being targeted by a filthy, malnourished would-be pickpocket, and I decided that my characters reaction would be to smack the guy upside the head twice. My DMs jaw dropped. "Holy ****! Don't you see that the guy is POOR!?" he asked. I didn't quite get where he was going at this point, so I took the bait. "Possibly, but he was trying to steal me. I needed to stop him, and hopefully teach him that crime doesn't pay along the way." I replied, to which he responded by declaring that my character had now fallen, because she was rich and should have realized that the filthy pickpocket might have had a greater need for her money than herself.

You smacked the thief upside the head and told him off right? You didn't shank the thief?
A paladin is forbidden from evil acts.
He is encouraged to perform Lawful and Good acts, but not compelled to.
Smacking a thief is a Lawful act.  Its not evil unless you went on to do something like cut his hand off.
So unless not helping everyone 24/7 is Evil, the DM is just being a jerk.
Now you could of course, in a fit of pique just sell off all your gear, open a soup kitchen and operate it instead of smiting evil. But as a paladin, you're the fist of the divine, so you work for the good where you do best.

Theres lots of ways to fall, but that one's a retarded one.

But it didn't end there. Oh no. On my quest for atonement, I had to protect a small village from goblin raiders, and things went bunkers once again. The village was a lot larger than the party could cover, so I thought, why not teach the commoners how to protect themselves? I brought a wagonload of light crossbows, instructed the commoners on how to use them (they DO have a simple weapon proficiency after all..), and handed a crossbow to everyone capable of operating one. Mission accomplished I thought. Because in the instant people got home with their weapons, they started shooting them at everything and anyone everywhere, kind of like how an armed population behave according to the most dedicated anti-gun mind imaginable. Everyone started murdering other people because to was too easy and to convenient not to do so with a crossbow at ones disposal, and accidents due to people not using backstops when practicing their shooting almost wiped out the town! We never agreed on how to get on from there, so we had to agree to restart the campaign in the next session.

This is practically strawman retarded. I'm all for gun control personally for example, but theres a difference between a relatively peaceful society and one with literally monsters around the corner. I would have expected such a town to radiate strong chaos, evil and insanity!
That guy is making socialists look bad. I mean you could expect a strongly socialistic spellcaster to at least solve things like sheer crushing poverty already.

Anyway, more to topic, politics rarely clash, most games I'm in. Characters in an RPG setting are concerned with:
-Food
-Not being food
-Luxuries(which include things like hot baths etc)
-Religion
The social level just doesn't occur to anyone except aristocrats and nobility with the time and money to debate and nothing better to do.

Ethically, mostly the biggest exception is that killing things as a solution is A-OK. Its the whole game premise after all. Other than that, I personally assume people have motivations beyond their alignment, and its just how they go about it. You don't do something just because mwahaha unless you're criminally insane.

[oslecamo]

Remember however that in D&D the afterlife is a real thing and pretty much everybody knows it, so killing probably isn't seen as that bad of a thing. The soul will go to some other realm to serve a god/get rewarded/punished and possibly reincarnate in due time.

Destroying the souls themselves however is always considered one of the vilest acts in D&D.

[Lycanthromancer]

Remember however that in D&D the afterlife is a real thing and pretty much everybody knows it, so killing probably isn't seen as that bad of a thing. The soul will go to some other realm to serve a god/get rewarded/punished and possibly reincarnate in due time.

Destroying the souls themselves however is always considered one of the vilest acts in D&D.

Aw, man! And here I wanted fillet of soul for dinner.

[Sinfire Titan]

And unless all of the commoners in that village had a -4 Int mod, the vast majority of them would wait to settle personal vendettas until after the goblins had been routed. Then they would have fallen on each other (if that was their intent). Not to mention, though, that a crossbow is far less easy to go on a killing spree with than a gun, even if you were so stupid as to keep it laying around loaded.

Even worse: Every single one of those commoners was CE, with a heavy dose of Stupid in the alignment. The DM is being spiteful, and sounds like the kind who hates Paladins.

[Lycanthromancer]

And unless all of the commoners in that village had a -4 Int mod, the vast majority of them would wait to settle personal vendettas until after the goblins had been routed. Then they would have fallen on each other (if that was their intent). Not to mention, though, that a crossbow is far less easy to go on a killing spree with than a gun, even if you were so stupid as to keep it laying around loaded.

Even worse: Every single one of those commoners was CE, with a heavy dose of Stupid in the alignment. The DM is being spiteful, and sounds like the kind who hates Paladins.

Yeah. Definitely Evil. If the paladin had helped them, he would've fallen again.

[Flay Crimsonwind]

And unless all of the commoners in that village had a -4 Int mod, the vast majority of them would wait to settle personal vendettas until after the goblins had been routed. Then they would have fallen on each other (if that was their intent). Not to mention, though, that a crossbow is far less easy to go on a killing spree with than a gun, even if you were so stupid as to keep it laying around loaded.

Even worse: Every single one of those commoners was CE, with a heavy dose of Stupid in the alignment. The DM is being spiteful, and sounds like the kind who hates Paladins.

Yeah. Definitely Evil. If the paladin had helped them, he would've fallen again.

Well, he did supply them with the necessary weapons and drill them in their useage. He should have been more mindful of how some people shouldn't be given firearms, because firearms are always a present danger and unnecessary in the home environment. As far as I'm concerned, he should fall for inciting rioting and murder, and supplying murderers with weapons.[/sarcasm]

[E-mail]

I never really thought about how the knowledge of the assured afterlife would affect peoples thoughts on death. I remember reading a book about the death sentence in medieval ages, that claimed that historical evidence showed that prisoners convicted to death rarely, if ever, tried to escape in spite of the gruesome torture that most convicts had to go through before their execution. They firmly believed that submitting themselves to the torture and the violent execution would save their souls, as god would pity them before their end, and forgive them of their actions. To think, willfully submitting one self to torture and a slow execution, only because you actually believe that it would improve your chances for a good afterlife, thats food for thought.

Also, after having blown of the steam I needed to get rid off here, I talked things over with him. Because we cannot agree what the concepts of 'good' and 'evil' are, I should not play a character that is built around the concept of promoting good and fighting evil. The paladin will travel to a monastery and pray for forgiveness for whatever she may and may not have done wrong, and I will reenter play as a lawful neutral wizard. That way, whether he perceives my characters actions as good or evil will not matter at all.

The commoners in the city we were trying to save is doomed though, as they will continue to act with great impulsive recklessness, and there is not much to do about that now. My new character will not care much for them, and I will never again try to solve an in-game problem by arming the civilian population and teach them to take care of it themselves.

Your comments have been most entertaining to read, as always ^^ Thanks.

[RobbyPants]

In this session, two episodes came up.<snip>

Like Ejo said, I'd normally agree with your DM, but the way he handled this was pretty crazy.  The whole everyone killing each other with crossbows thing was some pretty obvious hyperbole.

So.. Does problems regarding politics and ethics ever come up in any of your games?

Some times. Now, the guy I play with and I might get into debates, but never because of actual IG events, but rather form side discussions.

That being said, I can think of one time I actually did that myself about a decade ago. Back when I was still religious, I tried to put my own world views into the paladin's code of conduct.  I seriously remember arguing that the player couldn't play a gay paladin. Looking back on in, I feel pretty stupid. Oh well. I suppose it counts for something that I learned from this.

[weenog]

I say you quietly Enervation a handful of those lunatic peasants to death, then quickly leave town, neglecting to mention that death by negative levels results in a wight tomorrow night.  Let the problem take care of itself.  Then you can come back later and kill the whole ravening lot for the XP.

[PhaedrusXY]

It's pretty amazing that your DM views "the unwashed masses" as so incompetent, malicious, and vicious. If he thinks human villages would behave like this if armed, then why don't all the villages of evil humanoids similarly implode? They should be far more likely to turn on each other "en masse", as they are explicitly noted to be evil and vicious even in the rulebooks, and since they regularly raid human settlements, are also most assuredly armed.

He's just being a complete and utterly unreasonable douche, in my opinion.

[Lycanthromancer]

It's pretty amazing that your DM views "the unwashed masses" as so incompetent, malicious, and vicious. If he thinks human villages would behave like this if armed, then why don't all the villages of evil humanoids similarly implode? They should be far more likely to turn on each other "en masse", as they are explicitly noted to be evil and vicious even in the rulebooks, and since they regularly raid human settlements, are also most assuredly armed.

He's just being a complete and utterly unreasonable douche, in my opinion.

+1.

Oh, and +2.

Hell. +50.

[Sinfire Titan]

It's pretty amazing that your DM views "the unwashed masses" as so incompetent, malicious, and vicious. If he thinks human villages would behave like this if armed, then why don't all the villages of evil humanoids similarly implode? They should be far more likely to turn on each other "en masse", as they are explicitly noted to be evil and vicious even in the rulebooks, and since they regularly raid human settlements, are also most assuredly armed.

He's just being a complete and utterly unreasonable douche, in my opinion.

+1.

Oh, and +2.

Hell. +50.

What Lycan said.


Seriously, those people built a village?

[archangel.arcanis]

It's pretty amazing that your DM views "the unwashed masses" as so incompetent, malicious, and vicious. If he thinks human villages would behave like this if armed, then why don't all the villages of evil humanoids similarly implode? They should be far more likely to turn on each other "en masse", as they are explicitly noted to be evil and vicious even in the rulebooks, and since they regularly raid human settlements, are also most assuredly armed.

He's just being a complete and utterly unreasonable douche, in my opinion.

+1.

Oh, and +2.

Hell. +50.

What Lycan said.


Seriously, those people built a village?

I'm pretty sure they just murdered the shit out of the people who were there before, but ran out of bullets bolts. Being too lazy to bother moving on they just settled in until some more came along. The town's history is obviously littered with attempted murders by frying pan, sadly their lacking BaB and strength combined with improvised weapons and non-proficiency made it impossible for any of them to successfully hit each other. 

[dither]

I think your DM is forgetting that while people may well have reasons (even good ones) for doing things, they're still responsible for their actions -- but that's okay, because libertarians and socialists alike have problems with this concept.

The pickpocket was taking something that didn't belong to him, and he had the absence of mind to steal from someone who could just as well murder him as look at him. The pickpocket was clearly an idiot. He should've chosen a better target, and your paladin was just defending his stuff, which was under attack. Unless your paladin took a vow of nonviolence, there's no reason he should have fallen under the circumstances as you explained them. How can he destroy evil if someone deprives him of the means to do so?

In the second instance, it's entirely possible that a little bit of stress and ignorance caused the entire village to self-destruct once they had a straightforward means of dispatching one another, but again, it's the villagers who pulled the trigger on the crossbow. Could your character have trained them better? Possibly. Neither the intent to murder, nor the action of committing murder came from your character. You may have put the weapons in their hands, but you didn't compel them to kill each other.

I don't suppose you considered using Detect Evil on the village before arming them?

...
edit

I totally forgot to mention the situation at the game I run. I'm sort of "Stoic Liberal," however that works out, and two of the guys in our group are foam-at-the-mouth Tea Party supporters. Not only do I disagree with their political stance, we might as well come from different planets.

In play, I prefer to spare every sentient life we encounter unless it goes out of its way to murder us, and they tend toward the "Kill 'Em All" approach, citing that the fact that their enemies are evil justifies their actions. And I don't care, really. The game facilitates that kind of behavior.

But whenever politics come up at the table, I just ignore them until they run out of steam. As long as I don't argue, they eventually shut up. As a DM, I get to pummel them with monsters for the griefing I have to put up with, so it's ultimately win-win.

And it gives me the opportunity to practice my stoicism. "If I don't let it offend me, it doesn't offend me."

[Solo]

I don't suppose you considered using Detect Evil on the village before arming them?

If he caused a village of Evil people to destroy itself, isn't that Good?

[Lycanthromancer]

I don't suppose you considered using Detect Evil on the village before arming them?

If he caused a village of Evil people to destroy itself, isn't that Good?

I think the same applies to stupid people, as shown here.