08-23-2012, 04:39 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: I love America. America has made my fortune.
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__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! |
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08-23-2012, 05:23 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: May 2007
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Icelander is right --
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The author's conclusions (which, to me, seemed well-researched and rational) were that such "taking the law into your own hands" led to widespread violence, a breakdown in social order, and in extreme cases measurable impact on the population figures of certain Texas counties. |
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08-24-2012, 08:41 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Huntington, West Virginia
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Re: I love America. America has made my fortune.
I'd give it -15 in any society where justice is expected to come from an agent other than the character. Truly adhering to this code would make the average modern person's life very difficult and very dangerous. As a GM I would be a little hesitant to let someone take such a code unless the game was intended to be extremely violent.
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08-24-2012, 08:58 PM | #14 | |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: I love America. America has made my fortune.
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__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check. |
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08-24-2012, 09:37 PM | #15 |
Computer Scientist
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dallas, Texas
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Re: I love America. America has made my fortune.
I think he is referring to the immature decision-making that leads to offending people sufficiently to motivate revenge, but the inability to let offenses go unrevenged without thought to the consequences is likewise a juvenille behavior.
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08-24-2012, 09:41 PM | #16 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: I love America. America has made my fortune.
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The almost universal way of preventing feuds is blood-money. Ending them is much harder. Renaissance Italy used to have formal traditions for ending a vendetta. I don't have all the details what they were but they involved a ritual feast, and a contract marking the offenses to be negotiated. The most important part of a negotiation ending a feud is to maintain each tribes reputation as vengeance-seekers. There might have to be a rough parity of casualties before negotiations could commence unless victory was so obvious that one tribe has to become the other's client, or pay tribute or something of the kind. At least each tribe will be concerned about it's future fearfulness ratio, and that would have to factor into the arrangement. Marriages, fosterage, and adoptions might be used to seal the deal(or to "carry on the feud just like before" as some ballad about the Hatfields and McCoys has it). I once had an imaginary feud settled by having a wise-woman tell the two tribes to go up to the mountains to see who could find the best eagle for a local noble's aviary. The point, as she well knew from her experience as a local diplomatist was to ensure that each tribe could do something obviously heroic without shedding blood thus making sure it was understood that neither were to be triffled with.
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
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08-24-2012, 09:43 PM | #17 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
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Re: I love America. America has made my fortune.
Should there be a Secret involved with this? To be made in the Mafia requires a hit, which helps enforce the code: start talking, and you could be on trial for a capital crime.
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08-27-2012, 08:25 PM | #18 | |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: I love America. America has made my fortune.
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That said, this code of honor would probably tend to be unstable in a situation where a functional, and halfway effective, law-enforcement system operated. The temptation to make use of the latter would tend to undercut the former, and those who wanted to follow it would find themselves undermined by that. Variations on it might be stabler than the pure form. |
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08-28-2012, 06:38 AM | #19 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: I love America. America has made my fortune.
Quote:
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo |
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08-28-2012, 04:50 PM | #20 |
Join Date: May 2007
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Another reference - to ending blood feuds --
IIRC it was Edward Muir (Mad Blood Stirring -- Vendetta and Factions in Friuli during the Renaissance, 1993, Johns Hopkins U. Press) who noted that very often it was the women of the family who both perpetuated the vendettas for generations ["Child! Hear me! It was the al-Fulan who killed your father and uncles; when you are grown to manhood you must kill them -- else you are no son of mine."] and who acted as the negotiators to end the same when the costs grew too high.
So for conservative societies it would be an interesting role for a female PC or PCs to use non-combat skills (see Diplomacy) to enter into negotiations. |
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code of honor, rules |
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