[MUD-Dev] Logical MUD Areas

[Brad Triem]

John Buehler wrote:
> Brad Triem writes:
>> John Buehler wrote:

>>> While I completely agree that goblins should be defending their
>>> homes or actively trying to push away competing populations, I
>>> disagree about the whole empathy thing.  I believe that things
>>> that we kill must either be non-sentient or they must be
>>> inherently and immutably evil.  That means that they are not
>>> misguided beings just doing their thing and that works out to be
>>> something that the player characters don't like.  It means that
>>> they are soulless beings that exist in order to destroy that which
>>> is good.

>> One could easily start the discussion on the philosophy of what is
>> evil to whom.  Oops, I think I just started it.

> If you want to talk about relative moralism, feel free to contact me
> directly.

No thanks.  No one is right, and everyone is wrong.

> I do not want to encourage players - particularly our younger
> players - to be killing authority figures in their own social
> structure (e.g. the mayor or his guards).  In EverQuest, there is a
> quest to kill a corrupt guard of Freeport (I believe that's the
> theory).  Corrupt or not, it's the wrong message to send to kids.
> There's also a quest where a Paladin's three daughters should be
> killed - at the father's behest, I believe.  Again, a bad idea.

> Keep the cannon fodder restricted to evil races that have no overlap
> with the player races or the player social structure.  In a
> technological world, I'd make all the bad guys robots.  Battlestar
> Galactica had the right idea until they started to investigate the
> Cylon mindset and we found that they could be good guys after all.
> Then why are we slaughtering them right and left?

> We need immutable bad guys because we need something that can be
> killed without any downside to our conscience.  And if you're not
> worried about yours, consider the kids' consciences.

I was a kid once...I think so anyway, less I was spawned in some
atypical fashion.  But if my memory serves me correctly, I grew up
with the same thoughtless slaughter(hack n slash) games that everyone
else did.  It's an electronic game.  In most likelyhood I am killing
things that are merely only in my imagination and not something I can
even relate to being real.  It hasn't affected my psych in a negative
way.  Do games really have that much affect on our children?  I really
don't think so.  Does bad parenting along with a child(who has pent up
frustrations at home) playing violent games have an affect.  Probably,
but indirectly.  The focus should not be on the game, it should be on
the parenting (by some parentel figure if no parent is available).  A
friend of mine quoted "If you impart good morale fiber and the kid
gets a good base to operate from, the kid won't be affected by violent
games."

I am not saying I agree with all types of violence.  I don't.  But the
buck stops at the child's parental guidance.  Heh, I would be very
interested to see what people have to say about the game Black & White
in relation to this topic.

Brad


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