The Morality Of Adventuring

The more I play WoW, the more I wonder what kind of character I'm actually playing. You start out playing the game fresh-faced and ready to fight the Scourge, but what you wind up doing is clearing some scorpids out that are threatening travellers. Boring, but innocuous enough. Then, as the game progresses a bit, you'll get some quests where some quilboars are bothering people in the Crossroads, and you need to go thin their numbers. Now we're talking about killing sentient humanoid creatures. Dirty work, for sure, but it's saving the lives of the citizens of the Horde, right? Well, as they say, "War is Hell". You do what you have to.

Just Following Orders

I don't know whether it's just me, or if I'm noticing it more now, but it feels like the further I get in the game, the more morally questionable the things I have to do for quest become. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, I seem to remember there being a big controversy brewing about a quest involving torture about the time I bought the WotLK expansion. But I do find myself getting the occasional quest where my gut reaction is "you know, I really want the XP, but I'm not crazy about what's going on here".

There's a quest where you have to steal Wolvar pups and give them to the Kalu'ak walrus people. The walrus dudes want you to do this because they want to raise these pups to be peaceful. I found myself wishing there was a quest for the Wolvar tribe so I could go steal their pups back and maybe kill all the walrus guys in the process (skinning them, of course, and making them into quivers).

This issue is, of course, much more complicated than it initially seems. Yes, the walrus dudes think it'd be great to raise all the wolvar pups in the way they think is right and if they do it enough then everybody gets along, right? Except they're stealing babies (ok, well, technically I guess it's me). A quest that goes with that one also has me murder their parents (because they stole stuff from the walruses). And all that murderin' and stealin' aside, they're still trying to erase the entire Wolvar culture. Sure, I can understand them wanting to get rid of it seeing as they get "chewed on" by "powerful Wolvar jaws" occasionally, but the point is, do they really get to make that call? Well, as history shows us now and then, whoever is stronger frequently does make that call. But is it moral?

Consequences

I am not, of course, worried that America's youth is going to turn to torture and genocide. At least, not because of WoW. (American Idol, maybe.) My interest in the topic is purely for roleplaying purposes (on both sides of the table). As a player, I've got to figure out what to do with myself when presented with that situation. In a game like WoW, the consequences (good or bad) frequently take the form of Reputation. I must say I'm happy they sometimes make your actions affect one faction positively and another negatively. While it makes it hard to do everything in the game (at least on one character), I think it makes a vaguely realistic stab as to how your actions affect the opinions of those you interact with.

In D&D, of course, how your character is perceived is up to the capricious whim of real people. I see the most effect from this between players. Especially if there's a Dudley Do-Right in the group, a character stealing a bunch of kids (even with the best of intentions) may find himself at swordpoint if another player disagrees. DM's can set morally questionable situations up in advance to stir up some roleplaying -- but be aware of the above effect of doing so on your players. You want to make things fun, try not to make the powderkeg too large.

Look Both Ways Before You Justify

The largest question in my mind about all this is, "how would my character deal with all this?". People do some crazy things under duress, and under the influence of powerful leadership. There's enough cognitive dissonance floating around in an entire world torn apart by war to rationalize goddamn near anything. So while I, as a pasty white Perl coder with a doughy middle and big screen TV, think these things are questionably moral -- my shaman might feel differently. Before you draw a line in the sand with your character about something, take a few seconds to consider how they might see it. And keep an eye on the paladin when you tell the party what you've decided in case you need to duck.

An Announcement for our Friends in the UK

For those of you out there joining us from the UK, I have a short announcement for you.  Our friends over at 6d6 Fireball are having a little get-together.  The UK Bloggers & Readers Meet-Up will be held Feb 28.  Enjoy! :)

Short account of my Genghiscon visit

Friday afternoon, I went to Genghiscon XXX.  It was a good experience, and I plan to go back next year.

My con experience has, admittedly, been very limited... to Gencon.  But from our previous house back in Illinois, Gencon was at least a 4 hour drive; from Colorado, we'll be flying.  Genghiscon was a 30 minute drive (45 going home because of rush-hour traffic on the Interstate).  There's a lot of charm to a convention that doesn't require advance travel preparation.

I arrived at the hotel (which was just off the Interstate -- really easy to find) around 2:00 on Friday afternoon.  The biggest problem I had was that there wasn't much signage to direct me to registration.  I eventually found a very nice guy in a con security shirt, and he told me where to go.  I waited in line at registration for about a half an hour.  I only wanted a Visitor's badge so I could visit the Dealer's Room/sales floor, but all the registration windows handled both badge and event registration, so they were very busy, especially has they had just re-opened registration at 2:00.

This was the only down-side to my trip... the waiting in line at registration.  I realize that a) they had just opened the windows, so there was a backlog of people waiting to register for events, and b) the volunteers were getting used to a new registration system.  The general morale of those in line was positive, and all-in-all, it wasn't too bad.  I got to hear a great story about Leonard Nimoy and his clam-shell cell phone being mistaken for Spock and a communicator.

After getting my little badge, I had to wait just a little bit for the sales floor opened at 3:00.  The friendly security guy, David, showed me around.   There were dedicated rooms for Warhammer, Catan, Puffing Billy, board games, minis painting, as well as RPG and RPGA events.

After my brief tour, I entered the sales floor.  It was a lot of fun; there's nothing quite like roaming around a sales floor, even if you don't buy anything.  Not that I left empty-handed, because I, of course, have no will power.  I did only make two purchases... none of them from Chessex, and I count my ability to resist that urge to buy dice among my greatest achievements.  I'm sure that's used up my "not buying dice" ability for this year, though, so I hold no expectations of similar achievements in August.

My first purchase was from Gifts & Blessings, who had many great dragon- & fairy-related items for sale.  They were all very friendly gamers.  One of the girls there, Mindy, recognized my A is for Atlas woot shirt, and we chatted for several minutes.  My second purchase was from a small jewelry booth that had some really lovely hand-made items.

All in all, it was a good time.  Next year, Dante & I plan to preregister so we can get in some of the game sessions.