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Isn't that sort of how 40k Orks work? They sort of spread more by all the fungal junk the spread as they conquer? Then again, they just like fighting and don't give a single gently caress about you or what you think about them, so it's obviously a bit different.
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Feb 13, 2015 04:39
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Isn't that literally the 40K Orkz? ^efb  Mors Rattus posted:Look, if you think it's okay to randomly slaughter people because they're Vikings, I don't know what to tell you. Besides, it's a hell of a lot creepier this way, haha; if you're not fighting "for the good of all" why are you fighting? "Do you enjoy hurting other people?"
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Feb 13, 2015 04:41
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Well, presumably you are fighting for some very human reason, such as 'I am defending my home' or 'our nations are in conflict' or 'I need to get somewhere but you violently oppose my decision to go there' or something. I mean, why do you think people fight in the real world? People in the real world are not horrible monsters that must be slaughtered for the good of all and we still do violence.
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Feb 13, 2015 04:45
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Davin Valkri posted:So you turned them into self replicating gray too constructs? Interesting... Had not considered the sci-fi angle!
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Feb 13, 2015 04:45
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Other reasons to fight: 'my tribe needs your tribe's cows to live', 'you and i are forced into conflict because you are a member of the ruling class that I am rebelling against', 'you slept with my sister,' 'i wish to be king and you are stopping me'. None of these motives preclude the other side from being a person!
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Feb 13, 2015 04:51
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There's even 'I need your cows because I want to have all the cows', if you need a villainous version.
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Feb 13, 2015 05:07
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Rockopolis posted:"Do you enjoy hurting other people?" This is a good reason, within limits! Joy in battle is a very real motivator (in stories at least), and it doesn't preclude the character from fighting for the right thing and not committing atrocities. I mean, sure, at some point it implies a cavalier attitude towards human life and you can nitpick the realism for ages. But if it's a glorious fight to the death between willing participants there's nothing necessarily wrong with that as a concept. If there's an afterlife that makes things even easier.
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Feb 13, 2015 05:20
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Bendigeidfran posted:This is a good reason, within limits! Joy in battle is a very real motivator (in stories at least), and it doesn't preclude the character from fighting for the right thing and not committing atrocities. I mean, sure, at some point it implies a cavalier attitude towards human life and you can nitpick the realism for ages. But if it's a glorious fight to the death between willing participants there's nothing necessarily wrong with that as a concept. If there's an afterlife that makes things even easier. Yeah the verifiable existence of an afterlife kind of takes some of the sting out of dying in battle.
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Feb 13, 2015 05:26
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You know what, I'm gonna sleep on it. I'm sure this will make sense in the morning. Cause right now it's like, killing people because it's fun is a loving awful reason to fight, or fighting back is for evil people, or I don't even know what the gently caress. This is such a confusing mess for me. 
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Feb 13, 2015 05:33
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Other reasons you could be killing people: "I was told my sins will be forgiven and I can build a new life." "I was told these people are occupying our holy land and need to be driven out." "God is on our side." "We gave their Gods a better offer and there's no way we'll lose." (I love that that used to happen). People kill each other for all kinds of reasons beyond I Am Evil or I Am Good.
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Feb 13, 2015 05:48
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There are lots of reasons why you might want to fight someone. There are even reasons that completely preclude the ability to negotiate or solve your differences peaceably. The important part is that there is a reason, and not just "they are evil because they were born that way". The enemy in your campaign could be literally Fantasy Hitler and that's still better than D&D's presentation of Orcs or Goblins or whatever as being evil and everything they do is evil because that's their alignment. Not only is it better from a rhetorical and philosophical standpoint, it's also easier to adjudicate because you don't get into lovely arguments about the morality of killing an Orc baby.
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Feb 13, 2015 05:58
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It's also a less boring. One of the best experiences I ever had in D&D back in high school was when I was playing a city guard captain who, when the BBEG showed up, had to go risk his life to parley with the goblin tribes he'd been fighting all game to make peace with them and work out what decent farmland his people could give up in return for their help because it turns out the Goblins were fighting primarily because they didn't want to live in a lovely swamp. Getting drunk at the after negotiation party and talking with a Goblin Captain and realizing the two of them had been through much the same poo poo as commanders was awesome. Basically, having extra plots available like 'Make peace and fight the real evil' or 'Hard negotiations for prisoner exchanges' and stuff is a Good Thing, as is being able to realize that if you were in the other guy's position you might be doing the same thing.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:08
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All games should have Feng Shui's "At the final blow, choose whether you've killed or just incapacitated a foe". I've started doing that for games I run, and at least a few of my players leave most bad guys alive. Games can be fun and violent without having the stakes always on life or death. This goes both ways, and I often give players outs if their characters "die". Usually they'll elect to eat the death if it's dramatically appropriate.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:18
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I've been doing the same in 13th Age because I'm basically running a dark fantasy cop drama and so they want to bring people in to have trial scenes, but also want to have awesome fights where they sling around lightning and buckle swash.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:19
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I also like systems where at 0 HP, or the equivalent, a character is considered incapacitated, and a deliberate, additional action has to be taken to actually kill the character. It doesn't work for every genre or narrative, but it makes the decision to kill more of a choice, especially since you have to use resources from the action economy to accomplish it.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:37
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Loki_XLII posted:All games should have Feng Shui's "At the final blow, choose whether you've killed or just incapacitated a foe". I've started doing that for games I run, and at least a few of my players leave most bad guys alive. Games can be fun and violent without having the stakes always on life or death. Huh. That's a cool idea. I think I'll try that.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:51
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Rockopolis posted:You know what, I'm gonna sleep on it. I'm sure this will make sense in the morning. It's really not that hard. Any reason for fighting and/or killing someone is "better" (better as a noble justification, better as "I had no choice," better as a villainous motive, better as more interesting, better for whatever value of better you're looking for) than "I'm killing them because they all have Chaotic Evil stamped on their souls, even the babies but only after I've raised them to a life of Lawful Good so they can go to heaven, it's okay, I can do this because I have Lawful Good on my character sheet and there's nothing hosed up or stupid about this." Re: choice of death or incapacitated at 0 HP, D&D 4E does this too, doesn't matter what brought them to 0 HP. Airburst a fireball over peoples' heads and knock them out with the pressure wave, go nuts.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:53
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ProfessorCirno posted:I more or less "solved" it by making orcs actually alien. Not aliens, but very distinctly Not Human, and pretty close to Not Alive at that. They aren't even born; they crawl out of the dirt in areas of sufficient desolation and destruction, and exist to spread it. They don't have a primitive culture because they don't have a culture; there is no orc art or music. They exist to destroy, and in turn are created by their own destruction. At best they have a vague hierarchy, but it's one without any titles. They were made to be a weapon. See i don't like this because that makes them even more the "Other" and really just seems kinda creepy to me i mean it's the same way people use Zombies as thing it's okay to kill just because. If i'm going to have a game where i kill orcs then the orcs are probably bandits that have been outcast from whatever kingdom/village/city just like any other bandit of any other race.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:55
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Elfgames posted:See i don't like this because that makes them even more the "Other" and really just seems kinda creepy to me i mean it's the same way people use Zombies as thing it's okay to kill just because. Well zombies aren't really sapient is the thing. I mean, if we're talking traditional interpretations and not some kind of Discworld-esque thing. Otherwise zombies are a pretty guiltless thing to kill because they're basically nothing but a soulless, mindless husk of meat staggering around like a puppet.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:58
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Right now all I'm seeing is orcs as Afghan Mujahideen engaged in guerilla over their tribal grounds against the Union of Dwarven Soviet Republics, maybe covertly sponsored by the United States of Humanity, with the PCs as Black Lagoon-esque mercs caught in the middle. This may not be because I find the idea of an orc hip-firing a KPV or PTRS surprisingly nice.
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Feb 13, 2015 07:00
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Davin Valkri posted:Right now all I'm seeing is orcs as Afghan Mujahideen engaged in guerilla over their tribal grounds against the Union of Dwarven Soviet Republics, maybe covertly sponsored by the United States of Humanity, with the PCs as Black Lagoon-esque mercs caught in the middle. This may not be because I find the idea of an orc hip-firing a KPV or PTRS surprisingly nice. Wehrmaboo
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Feb 13, 2015 07:04
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Error 404 posted:Wehrmaboo I...do not understand. Germany isn't anywhere in there.
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Feb 13, 2015 07:04
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Simian_Prime posted:Ravenloft done well is basically Castlevania: the RPG. It's meant to be fantasy dressed in the tropes of Universal Monsters, Hammer Horror, and Edgar Allen Poe. It's not meant to be a game that really unnerves you, like Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and that's fine. For what it tries to emulate, I think it does really well. quote:And what exactly makes FR so "inspired?" The thousands of years of history where nothing ever changes and it's all at the same RenFaire tech level? The obstensibly "medieval" setting where all the characters strangely have 20th century, neoliberal, progressive values ala "Dr. Quinn?" MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Feb 13, 2015 |
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Feb 13, 2015 07:06
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Kai Tave posted:Well zombies aren't really sapient is the thing. I mean, if we're talking traditional interpretations and not some kind of Discworld-esque thing. Otherwise zombies are a pretty guiltless thing to kill because they're basically nothing but a soulless, mindless husk of meat staggering around like a puppet. Yeah that's true but i tend to associate the whole Zombies thing with racist rednecks.
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Feb 13, 2015 07:06
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Rockopolis posted:You know what, I'm gonna sleep on it. I'm sure this will make sense in the morning. look, the thing is, people have killed and continue to kill each other for all kinds of reasons. this is not a good thing in real life. if it happens in a story, this does not mean the story is bad. however, a story that includes the element of a sapient race/species that is always evil and the killing of whom is always acceptable is not a good story. this is because that kind of story sounds a lot like actual attempts at justification given in the past (and the present, because we haven't changed) for horrible things like genocide.
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Feb 13, 2015 07:12
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Elfgames posted:Yeah that's true but i tend to associate the whole Zombies thing with racist rednecks. Zombies are a pretty flexible metaphor. George Romero made a whole movie with zombies standing in for consumerist obsession, for example. It's certainly possible to use them as a veneer to drape over someone's unsavory "survival of the fittest" masturbatory power fantasy, which they often are, but it's also a lot more feasible to simply make use of them "as-is" without abutting the same unfortunate territory as Totally Sapient But Always Morally Justifiable to Murder orcs.
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Feb 13, 2015 07:19
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Feb 13, 2015 07:38
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Zombies work best as a predictable obstacle you have to avoid, trick, and run from, anyway.
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Feb 13, 2015 08:29
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Elfgames posted:See i don't like this because that makes them even more the "Other" and really just seems kinda creepy to me i mean it's the same way people use Zombies as thing it's okay to kill just because. Er, no, because the main thing about zombies is that they're still "people" to a certain extent. The terrible part of zombie fiction comes from all the creeps who just really want to gun down people in the city and barely go "OK BUT THEY'RE ZOMBIES" as their excuse. It's this poo poo. The whole point of those orcs is that they actually are an Other. They pretty much have no relation or similarities to any real life culture or people outside of "bipedal."
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Feb 13, 2015 08:35
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WARNING: following post contains wanking about homemade setting. Procede with caution. In my (still very much WIP) fantasy setting I've based the orcs on the name Orcus, one of the names of the god of the underworld in Roman mythology; they have made, in the very far past, a race-wide magical oath to make sure that the spirits of the dead that live in certain underground passages stay there. However, because of their strong association with death (and possibly the fact that they were made by a chthonian underworld god) they have difficulty fostering life; their crops die, their herds do not mate and a scarily high number of orc women die of childbirth. Because of this, and the fact that they needed to keep the fortresses near the gates to the underworld staffed and fed, they have had an history of raiding and pillaging neighboring countries. However this was not sustainable and the orc nation crumbled. This last part happened some 300 years ago. Nowadays most orcs work as artisans and mercenaries in their ex-targets countries and still send tribute to their fortresses. There are still plenty of people that don't trust them, or at the very least are uncomfortable in their presence, but they are for the most part model citizens, and boast some of the greatest tragedy writers of the modern era. paradoxGentleman fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Feb 13, 2015 |
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Feb 13, 2015 09:49
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Going from the Orcus->orcs connection, I kind of like the idea of making orcs death spirits made flesh. It immediately eliminates questions of "Orc babies, wat do?" and also makes the orcs something other than "just like humans but green and evil" so players shouldn't question whether it's okay to fight them. That said, in settings which develop the character of orcs in interesting ways (like Eberron) I'm okay with them being basically a kind of people with green skin, but when I want to have them just be the evil horde without arousing moral issues like "Well their culture is just evil" or "They are born evil" I like to go the route of 13th Age (where orcs are something of a disease that just pops up) or some of Tolkien's writings (where they're unborn, created creatures programmed to be evil by dark gods).
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Feb 13, 2015 10:31
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i thought tolkien's orcs were the end-result of morgoth experimenting on elf captives
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Feb 13, 2015 10:35
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I think my favorite orc spin I've seen (It may even have been here) was "Orcs -were- a world-destroying threat years ago....and then they found out that other races don't reincarnate shortly after death with all memories intact. So have spent the last several decades being really, really sorry because they thought they were just temporarily inconveniencing people with all the murder."
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Feb 13, 2015 10:38
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Yeah, that's a good one right there. Cultural misunderstanding   
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Feb 13, 2015 10:40
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ProfessorCirno posted:Er, no, because the main thing about zombies is that they're still "people" to a certain extent. The terrible part of zombie fiction comes from all the creeps who just really want to gun down people in the city and barely go "OK BUT THEY'RE ZOMBIES" as their excuse. "Flanders was a zombie?"
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Feb 13, 2015 10:40
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i never understood why in a magical setting animating a dead body requires a different magic than animating some other body-shaped thing
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Feb 13, 2015 10:43
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Obviously different animating spirits like different kinds of houses, you have to learn how to properly call the weird spirits that specifically like shacking up in some gross corpse rather than a rad metal body. If you make an iron golem look cool enough, it'd probably just hop right to life on its own.
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Feb 13, 2015 10:51
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Tollymain posted:i never understood why in a magical setting animating a dead body requires a different magic than animating some other body-shaped thing I'd imagine it's a question of complexity.
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Feb 13, 2015 10:51
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PublicOpinion posted:If you make an iron golem look cool enough, it'd probably just hop right to life on its own. i like this idea
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Feb 13, 2015 10:58
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Tollymain posted:i thought tolkien's orcs were the end-result of morgoth experimenting on elf captives It depends on which source you take as canon. Tolkien himself went back and forth on it. Sometimes they were corrupted elves, sometimes corrupted humans, sometimes they were made in special pits.
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Feb 13, 2015 11:20
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