[DF] Why not have some pure "bad guy" races in DF?

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I don't understand the question.

I was asking for your examples of evil cultures from the real world. I suspect most cultures are evil by your definitions, or that your definitions are not all that consistent.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Xenarthral

Or non-humans that while perfectly understandable (technically not alien at
all) for reasons of biology/biobabble can at best co-exist with non-them if
safely separated by geography.
Consider a species that pretty much amount to humanoid shrews, with a
metabolism that means they need to eat maybe half their weight or more
each day. Add young that are pretty much just smaller and stupider/less
experienced adults, fully independent days after being born, and a pretty high
birthrate. And a short-ish attention span (probably as in "But then I got
hungry...").

The problem here is that you would have rampant cannibalism. They would be more like mormon crickets or locusts(I don't think locusts cannibalize each each other like mormon crickets). You have made a monster but not really a race, they are going to deplete their resources so fast that they are not going to be stable anywere.

This is rather like the Poslean in John Ringo's books.

Their view of non-them (and not-their-tribe-them) when not hungry is still
debated by the sages and possibly irrelevant since sooner or later they will
become desperately hungry. And since they are not cannibals and can't eat
their weapons and armour...

Why aren't they cannibals? They are going to rapidly out strip any food source and deplete it so that eating each other is the only food source. Cannibalism is needed to keep their population in check.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

I was asking for your examples of evil cultures from the real world. I suspect most cultures are evil by your definitions, t.

Only if you only pay attention to the elements of cruelty and mercilessness within them.

[zorg]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Maybe more back on topic, in DF there is a force of evil that is real and I feel that races like orcs, trolls, ogres, goblins, hobgoblins, etc. would be aligned with this force. Good vs. evil has been part of DF since it started.

So? Why not play it that way?

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Maybe more back on topic, in DF there is a force of evil that is real and I feel that races like orcs, trolls, ogres, goblins, hobgoblins, etc. would be aligned with this force. Good vs. evil has been part of DF since it started.

Okay. And?

What do you want from us? Do you want us to say we all agree with you, give you lots of validation and then promise that we will play our games that way as well? Do you want Kromm to come in and tell you that you are right?

You have stated your feelings. No one is stopping you from playing how you want to play. Play how you like. Others will play how they like.

GURPS doesn't have a one true way.

[trooper6]

ahem...this comic seems very relevant to our current discussion

http://badgods.com/images/orc.png

[Xenarthral]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

I was asking for your examples of evil cultures from the real world.

Well, there is at least one culture whose most significant belief was/is
something along the lines of "All the cattle in the world is ours. Anybody else
who owns cattle is a filthy thief and deserves anything that happens to him
in the process of us reclaiming our property". If I remember correctly reports
from the time also mentions things like killing passing caravan porters for the
lulz (and, by implication, for not being a real man like them).
Some of it may have been slander and they appear to have mellowed a bit,
but going from older descriptions they come across as pretty evil.

Of course, much depends on how you describe things. Polyandry sounds
much nicer (and empowering) than "each band of young warriors picks a sex slave from among the young girls".

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Why aren't they cannibals? They are going to rapidly out strip any food source and deplete it so that eating each other is the only food source. Cannibalism is needed to keep their population in check.

Yes, that is a problem (as is them managing to become a tool-using culture in the first place).
The frenetic handwaving involve such as elements as them being Dungeons &
Dragons kobolds (with all that implies regarding size, squishiness and place in
the food chain - consider all the jokes about 0-level commoners and domestic
cats), short lifespans, high infant mortality rate under normal conditions, a
creative definition of cannibalism (Killing a fellow kobold for food?
Inconceivable. Eating an already dead fellow kobold? Funerary rite.) and
A Wizard Did It.

I like to think that it is mostly a case of fine-tuning the metabolic rate, so
that smaller groups can exist without disrupting the system but an
exceptional leader/decrease in predators/increase in food production (own or
raid target's) can lead to a population explosion. (E.g. rapidly going from D&D basic "found in lair" numbers to ADD numbers. Interestingly enough, the former is 6-60 total and the latter is 40-400 males + half as many females.)

[tg_ambro]

Originally Posted by trooper6

ahem...this comic seems very relevant to our current discussion

http://badgods.com/images/orc.png

Didn't this show up really early on in the discussion? I don't like repeats.

[Evil Roy Slade]

Originally Posted by trooper6

ahem...this comic seems very relevant to our current discussion

http://badgods.com/images/orc.png

I wish I'd said that.

Two days ago.

[nik1979]

Originally Posted by davidtmoore

Evil races are predicated on a setting where there is such a thing as objective evil. Questions about moral relativity, intention and casuistry are relevant in an ethical debate, but in a "Good vs. Evil" fantasy world, there are wholly objectively defined good and evil actions, and wholly objectively defined good and evil factions endorsing the two codes. To some extent, the setting's authors and the campaign's GM decide what those actions are, and in that setting, that's what good and evil is.

So the Setting Author has to make it explicit what constitutes as evil and good, since they are the "Objective" perspective relative to the game universe. Does the Authors have to make all those Rules Explicit because it seems that there is no point in making any Ethical problem solving if an Objective Perspective will have to say what's black or white.

Ex.
Author: This Ogre here will delight in the feasting of human flesh and its cries of pain and anguish. He gets such a huge kick doing it that there is nothing else it would rather do.

The Ogre is then evil, as to being that does what it is told by the Author and not because the Ogre will it? Where does the Author influence end and the Ogres motivation begin?

If an Ogre were to can't stop doing "evil", and exercise a will that is beyond the author's programing wouldnt that prove that it the ogre is just a automaton? If they can exert their will beyond the Author's design and make their own choice, then they can stop doing "evil"? If they some can just stop then they stop being an Evil race?

If an Ogre makes an ethical choice to do something of the least harm, within the limits of his bounded rationality, like eating slugs (which have no means of communicating) would the Ogre then not be evil despite his programing?

Where is sentience or freewill if the Author is programs one race to be "evil" and another race to be "good". So if elves get a whole lot of pleasure doing Good, like protecting the forest, where does the inlfuence of the Author end and that of the will of the elf begin?

In this sense, isn't what the Players do: Killing Evil Creatures Considered Good because they are good not really a choice but just they are just following the objective definition of what is Good or Evil?

I guess a pure evil race, in a setting that has an objective good and evil defined is kinda encourages turning off your empathy. Empathy (not the advantage but basic human empathy) is useless when you have objective morals, since everyone just follows programing and their is no real will or freedom to choose. Since there is no empathy, there is no Role to play. How can you get into the perspective of something that predictably follows a narrow set of motivation and programing.

What is the pay off when gathering a bunch of friends to play a game which a MMO provides the same range of experience without the work?