View Single Post
Old 08-17-2009, 10:34 AM   #2
rknop
 
rknop's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: New Castle, PA (north of Pittsburgh)
Default Re: Sociopaths in In Nomine

I think the Destiny of a sociopath would be to rationally come to understand that most of society values empathy for your fellow man. While they can't *feel* it, they could understand it, at least on some abstract level, and they could rationally learn how to emulate it.

(Not to equate Aspergers with sociopathy, for sociopathy really is a sort of "evil by nature" trait whereas Aspergers very much is not, but one might draw a parallel to people with Aspergers who train themselves to cognitively recognize the social cues they don't "just pick up" the way that people without Aspergers do.)

Re: the Shedite, a creative Shedite may still be able to find some ways to corrupt a sociopath, depending on GM interpretations in the game in question. While the sociopath may be incapable of having empathy for his fellow man, you can still ruin his life. There are probably some kinds of harm *to himself* that would revolt him, that the Shedite might take advantage of. Also, if the sociopath *has* managed to come up with a rational set of moral strictures, that he doesn't fell but has come to understand that he must abide by so as to remain in good standing in society, the Shedite can easily violate those. It will be harder-- none of the secret, small, "nobody knows about this" corruptions are going to work with such a sociopath. Even the smallest corruption is going to have to be something that a number of people know about, for the sociopath who has rationalized a form of morality will have done so because he has come to understand other people's perceptions, so the perception of other people will be central to it.
rknop is offline   Reply With Quote