A moral dilemma that pertains to Sorcerer: Explore your PC's depravities vs.

[thespiderprince]

A moral dilemma that pertains to Sorcerer: Explore your PC's depravities vs. finding and/or standing up for your PC's humanity.

Many gamers, regardless of genre or game, seem to think that exploring evil through, let's say, a Lawful Evil or Chaotic Evil type of character is inherently wrong. Committing rape, incest, stealing, and killing in cold blood is all fine and good and allows one to "blow off some steam." But does this effect one in subtle ways so that it may skew one's perceptions on reality with detrimental results? It may even build up incrementally until one encounters tragic results by way of neglect or just sheer maliciousness. Some would argue yes and that even in an imaginary world one must always uphold what is right and value humanity.

On the other hand is the opinion that one may explore anything one wants to in the gaming world with no consequence. One can play the blackest of sorcerers and carry on as if life had no consequences: they do what they please with no regard for others.

A third view is that after one has explored all depravities and is left with nothing (on their knees in the rain with no where to go) they may come to know regret and the errors of their ways and set off in a new direction; perhaps even going back to right old wrongs. So in this sense there is the idea of "Live and let live" or the concept of Taoist non-interference. Let one do as they may and they will come know the error of their ways as they are out of alignment with God and the Universe (Divine Intelligence). Will retribution and remorse finally set the PC off to a better appreciation for humanity? Have they learned anything or will they continue their evil ways?

At the heart of this lies the core theme of sorcerer.

If you notice on page 123 of the Sorcerer rule book Ron brings these themes to the fore: the story: Retribution, Remorse, The Outlaw Prevails, Redemption With that being said, these are great segues into the future campaign/life of the PC. More importantly, they give one pause to think about how it all turned out. (Someone is trying to tell you something.) Where am I now? How did I get here? Have I lost my humanity in the process? Have I lost all I loved and cared for in the process? It had also been noted that how one comes to be a sorcerer: intentional (she's the hottest babe in school and I'll do anything to have her... anything) or unintentional (while exploring the attic Phil picked up grandpa's WW II sword that he took off of a deceased Japanese military officer.) This is also important to gameplay and outcome of story. But the results are what make it interesting. One PC could start out good, but become evil while one with nothing but evil on the mind can change overnight.

Ultimately, it comes to freedom of choice but would you (or your PC) have done things differently if you could somehow have known the outcome? Was it necessary to kill, rape, steal? What was gained from it? Was it worth it? Is revenge truly worth it or is one still left empty?

Summoning and binding demons is like messing with the nitroglycerin of the spirit/metaphysical world. Ron has captured the idea of playing with this metaphysical fire and made it prevalent and relevant to the story. A real eye opener. Great themes.

Thanks Ron for opening our eyes and allowing us to see an old thing in a new way. A tip of the hat to you sir.

By the way, would love to hear your gaming group's opinion on the above conundrum as it is quite controversial with mine.

Thanks

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I think you'll like these older threads:

Two [censored] at once!
Violence Future: Disgusting! And only myself to blame
More depravity and Violence Future
Real-life partners, in-game depravity
Drawing the line, drawing the veil

That experience among others led to Chapter 1 of Sex & Sorcery.

Best, Ron