199 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

But I think the system for writing laws, voting on them, is very very wrong. Popularity does not lend justification.

I agree entirely with this.  I suspect we disagree as to why this is true, but I agree entirely that seeking approval from the general public is a lousy way to justify laws.

[Eveangaline]

Here's an easy reason: Hawkes family has apostate mages, Hawke loves her family, Hawke wants to keep them save, Hawke becomes the champion in order to influence laws on mages.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Eveangaline wrote...

Hawke loves her family

We've been expressly told that Hawke is not required to love her family.

[FieryDove]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Eveangaline wrote...

Hawke loves her family

We've been expressly told that Hawke is not required to love her family.

Then why do we have to drag them around with us?

Maybe it's only for awhile, maybe it won't be annoying...we'll see I guess.

[the_one_54321]

FieryDove wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Eveangaline wrote...
Hawke loves her family

We've been expressly told that Hawke is not required to love her family.

Then why do we have to drag them around with us?

Maybe it's only for awhile, maybe it won't be annoying...we'll see I guess.

Habe you been lurking?

[FieryDove]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Habe you been lurking?

I am not telling...

[iguanas]

u know i bet thats exactly how flemeth feels about the world XD

[lunarknightmage]

^ most likely because the Chantry and Templars in Lothering were too busy caring for the refugees than hunting down a family of apostates.........

Modifié par lunarknightmage, 23 novembre 2010 - 07:36 .

[Nerevar-as]

----9----- wrote...

I'd say Thedas sounds typically feudalistic with a continual power struggle. So how did Hawk, son/daughter of an apostate mage survive in Lothering with the Chantry?

Avoiding using magic in public? Or at all? I´m more interested on how an apostate Hawke became Champion in a Chantry heavy controlled zone. No one thought of checking his/her background before Cassandra came around?

[Wulfram]

Ferelden Templars couldn't catch a cold

[jhawke]

I have a feeling that Hawke will become Champion of Kirkwall in part by helping to drive off the invading Quanari.



So, even if Hawke's an apostate and/or has an apostate sister and father, the Templars and Chantry might be more inclined to kneel before Hawke cuz she just saved their a**........



at least........that's how I want it to play out...........

[Shadow Warior]

The point in becoming the Champion of the Kirkvall, the same reason Flemeth wanted the warden to kill the archdemon, the Qunari invasion will have an impact on everyone, including Hawke, but since we dont have enough info we cannot know for sure,maybe champion it's more of a political rank rather than a hero rank

[darrylzero]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

Just to add onto this, consider that a system of "morality" is precisely the reason that someone hasn't designated you and your family for immediate removal to incarceration and likely execution, or why some group of marauders hasn't randomly raided your home for your women and all your possesions. Hyperbole, yes, but not by much.

I see where you're going, now.  You want to use this as a basis for legal systems.

I'll agree that I benefit from other people adhering to a consistent and desireable system of morality.  I was more asking whether an individual would have any reason to adhere to that moral system himself or to agree with it.

That the extant moral system benefits me is not a reason why I should agree with or obey that moral system.  It is only a reason why I should want that moral system to persist and be used consistently by others.

Well, we might consider that you are better able to help ensure a given moral code is followed if you follow it -- better still if you follow it publicly and visibly.  You might be able to trick everyone, but that carries risk.  If your promotion of the norm comes to be seen as hypocritical, you could be damaging its continued force.  This performance of the norm (whether genuine or not) is probably more important on smaller scales than it is on larger ones, but I think we see enough moral posturing out there in the world to suggest that plenty of people still find it at least somewhat important, even on a global scale. 

However, well could look at the ways it may be in your interest, broadly defined.  Maybe I'm missing something here, but I think the point is that morals are inherently social.  In this, they are sort of informal rules that regulate access to social rewards.  They might become the basis for law, but more likely they're an effort by either:

1) Rulers/leaders, in order to diminish the need for active policing.

2) People who cannot change the laws (like minority religious or community leaders), in order to attempt to promote or discourage certain behaviors that are not currently regulated by law.

In this framing, morality is a kind of informal, cultural source of power, one that frequently overlaps with the coercive power of states (or perhaps warlords or rebel groups) but need not always.  Using the broader definition of "in your interest," we could then imagine that you follow the norm for a couple of reasons:

1) You might derive personal satisfaction from your self-perception as a moral being.

2) You might receive social rewards for behaving in a moral way.

I am sure both of those things occur.  However, my argument is that this underestimates the power of things like ideology, religion, and morality.  At the very least, I think we should acknowledge that human beings are also very much creatures of habit, prone to following routines, which moral codes help to regulate in ways that laws could never fully flesh out.

In fact, I think our interest in confronting moral questions in a video game may actually be pretty good evidence that morality exceeds any non-tautological definition of interest.  We have an interest in being entertainment, sure, but that doesn't explain very much, in the end.  How does moral experimentation in an imaginary world become entertaining?  It has nothing to do with either social rewards or the performance of norms for the sake of reproducing them.  It feels pretty personal, and it doesn't feel entirely compatible with valuing our self-perception as moral beings, to me.  I think it has everything to do with valuing morality, in one way or another, for its own sake.  That's what makes it interesting to experiment with moral choices-- or to reaffirm them, for those who consistently make the same ones -- in a virtual setting.

As others have pointed out, I think we can assume that Bioware will permit some relatively immoral rationales for becoming the Champion of Kirkwall.  I guess, for the OP's purposes, you just have to hope that some of them are selfish enough for you?  If part of what you enjoy working through, in your engagement with this kind of moral experimentation, is what it would be like to refuse to help entirely, maybe you'll just have to enjoy spurning little requests for help along the way.  If instead you're working through what it would be like to really let the world burn, Bioware has made it pretty clear that their games may not ultimately be what you're looking for. 

Unless, of course, part of the fun is performing for all of us here your desire to have to let the whole world burn, for some kind of personal satisfaction or sense of social reward.  In that case, a series of Bioware games that don't let you actually do so may be just the thing...

[darrylzero]

----9----- wrote...

All this discussion about morals and ethics (and Ayn Rand?) in Thedas. Does this mean we can expect lawyers and briefcases filled with gold?

I really hope so.  Well, I don't know about lawyers per se, but I am really hoping that there are significant opportunities to resolve some important issues (though obviously not all) without resorting to violence -- and that non-combat skills are important and interesting.  That's why I always play rogues, and why I will in DA even though I'm leery of the changes to rogues' combat skills and visuals.  Hopefully, it'll be worth it -- not that I could resist either way.

[AlexXIV]

Despite the rest of the OP the title does have merit. What is the point?

I guess we can find out in DA2.

Modifié par AlexXIV, 23 novembre 2010 - 09:50 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

darrylzero wrote...

Well, we might consider that you are better able to help ensure a given moral code is followed if you follow it -- better still if you follow it publicly and visibly.  You might be able to trick everyone, but that carries risk.  If your promotion of the norm comes to be seen as hypocritical, you could be damaging its continued force.

The marginal impact of my hypocrisy is effectively zero.  Look at all the people who already ignore the so-called moral rules.  What difference am I going to make?

[Harcken]

Wtf writers, my Warden was a lazy, antisocial drunkard that hated all humans. Why couldn't I let the archdemon kill everyone?

Step 1: Turn on game.
Step 2: Create a character.
Step 3: Find a tavern and exit game.
Step 4: profit???

Modifié par Harcken, 24 novembre 2010 - 02:26 .

[Khayness]

Harcken wrote...

Wtf writers, my Warden was a lazy, antisocial drunkard that hated all humans. Why couldn't I let the archdemon kill everyone?

Step 1: Turn on game.
Step 2: Create a character.
Step 3: Find a tavern and exit game.
Step 4: profit???

Yay to the action RPG Bard's Tale for a third option.

Let's go party with the undead while the world burns

[darrylzero]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

darrylzero wrote...

Well, we might consider that you are better able to help ensure a given moral code is followed if you follow it -- better still if you follow it publicly and visibly.  You might be able to trick everyone, but that carries risk.  If your promotion of the norm comes to be seen as hypocritical, you could be damaging its continued force.

The marginal impact of my hypocrisy is effectively zero.  Look at all the people who already ignore the so-called moral rules.  What difference am I going to make?

Well, at large scales.  In smaller, tight knit communities, you might not find the same dynamic.  I think it has to be contextual.  It would also matter how significant of a public or cultural figure you are.  But you're right that I'd argue that performances of morality are probably more aimed at social rewards than at maintaining a norm, most of the time.

Anyway, my main point is that morality can't be reduced to interest, so I'm happy to concede that it may not be much of a motivation much of the time.  But I see a lot of anecdotal evidence that people think, or at least claim, that this is why they behave morally.  That may be neither here nor there, though, as we're not always the best judges of our motivations.

[asaiasai]

Aldandil wrote...

Isn't it in some part the responsibility of the player to create a character that has some form of ambition? If I pick up a game that's called "DA2:Rise to Power" and the first thing I read on the back is that my character will become the Champion of Kirkwall, then my reaction wouldn't be to create a buddhist character who spends his time meditating over the reality of sensory perception. You ask why we should care about becoming Champions. I say: You decide.

You have pretty much endless freedom in determining why you should do something. The game definitely should acknowledge different types of characters and allowing for different outcomes - that is of course partly why we play - but if the game is to have any sort of a main plot, our characters have to play along for a bit. If you don't want to be a Champion of Kirkwall, I guess not playing the game is a good way around it.

You raise a valid point, to be forced to be the Champion of Kirkwall should not be the only outcome. Perhaps it should be feasable that like your warden you can choose to refuse any boon upon the completion of the game and walk off in the sunset. You should also have some sort of acknowledgment of a complete **** or daisy dropper type of character. You know like i am the champion of Kirkwall because i am kick ass and all the rest of you worms should be kissing my pinkey ring in thanks for the fact i do not have you burned alive for my dinner time entertainment. Or the type of character who turns the royal palace into a lepers colony and spends the rest of thier time trying to alleviate suffering. Both characters are viable as well as the middle of the road, so it should be interesting to see just what kinds of motivational factors Bioware has come up with to drive me to an outcome but most importantly how i will react to those factors and the choices i will make.

Asai

[Xewaka]

Khayness wrote...

Yay to the action RPG Bard's Tale for a third option.
Let's go party with the undead while the world burns

"Who said the Undead don't know how to party?"

Fun times.

[darrylzero]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

darrylzero wrote...

Well, we might consider that you are better able to help ensure a given moral code is followed if you follow it -- better still if you follow it publicly and visibly.  You might be able to trick everyone, but that carries risk.  If your promotion of the norm comes to be seen as hypocritical, you could be damaging its continued force.

The marginal impact of my hypocrisy is effectively zero.  Look at all the people who already ignore the so-called moral rules.  What difference am I going to make?

If anyone still cares about this, the more I think about this the more important locality becomes.  Hypothetically, if someone were to follow a norm or moral guideline so as to help ensure that others do the same, what would be the appropriate audience for that?  I think it would not be global, but local, and I think that's normal.  It matters most if those close to you and those part of the various small communities you belong to (whether a neighborhood, a particular church perhaps, or the even bioware forums) follow a given code of behavior.  I think those concerns are inevitably primarily local, which I think raises the potential cost of hypocrisy.

People have global concerns as well, of course, and I personally struggle to identify with any local communities, so that's not universal.  But I think it's an important tendency to take into account.

[nijnij]

I really hope there's more to the plot than the "be the champion" aspect that's been marketed so far ; to me, that's a little too "Fable". In Origins, the very last moment of the game (walking out to be cheered by the crowd) is one of those I didn't like ; the whole megalomania trip is fun in a combat game where rounds last two minutes, but in RPGs, frankly, it's not my cup of tea. I prefer a cool universe, interesting characters and a deep story. Which we will have, hopefully !

Modifié par nijnij, 29 novembre 2010 - 09:14 .