Blood and death are waiting

[pete_darby]

Supposing it worked: supposing a minority of people wielded supreme power, and, with the best will to improve the lot of humanity, magically engineered away hunger, disease, and all practically detrimental effects of poverty...

Sounds like the Bilderberg group, or what some World Federalists argue for in the Real World. And the problems would be the same as the ruling groups of the real world have: Your good is not my good (How do you magically improve a society that has an anti-magical religion?). Your power is not my power (Can the non-magic users ever become anything more than benevolently guided children?). The dramatic possibilities are fantastic, and relatively untapped.

But the idea of a high magic game where the PC's are working for the common good in a way that doesn't exclusively centre on kicking the crap out of bad guys definitely appeals. Perhaps set in the aftermath of the fantasy cliche of the defeat of evil.

Sauron's gone, the elves have gone, the shire's in tatters... what now? The PC's are surounded by grubby faced hobbits with a lost, pleading expression... "What do we do now, Mr Gamgee?"

Civil virtue as a theme in FRP? I've got the seeds of an idea to run a high-fantasy version of the Berlin airlift now, damn you. On to the ideas pile it goes...

(edit: Still working on ER the RPG, so I'm biased about the possibility of civil virtue FRP...)

[Stephen]

So a REAL person in a real world actually has quite a lot of reasons to try to make the world a better place and reap the social kudos thereof.

But this seldom happens in games because games pretty much require conflict of the violent sort.

Ricks initial question has merit - but I don't think that RPG is ever going to be a vehicle for people to play out their fantasies of civil virtue.

Maybe not, but it is possible to set up nice conflict-heavy situations based around the idea of improving the world at a cost....

Historically, for example, one of the big drives for the shift between feudal Middle Ages and the Renaissance was the labour shortage, with consequent rise in prices, wages and decline of serfdom, caused by the Black Death.  Suppose some Weyrthian sorcerer with an intuitive grasp of economics and a plague ritual figures this out?  You could very well have a party of PCs out to stop the Terrible Sorcerer Who Wants to Slay Millions With His Necromantic Plague only to run into all kinds of moral dilemmas when the players realize what historical event, and consequences, this is set up to parallel....

Or it could be something subtler.  A sorcerer comes up with a way to build a magic engine that doesn't age its wielder horribly and appears to have no side effects whatsoever, but it takes a PC sorcerer's lucky roll to realize that the engine is actually drawing its power from the life-force of Weyrth itself, and if the engine succeeds as it might, a Technomantic Revolution could liberate the population of Weyrth -- but only for a generation or two, until the sicknesses, plagues, stillbirths, mutations and malformities caused by the engine's widespread use begin to become apparent....  How do you convince a populace not to use a solution to all their problems, when the horrible price won't be visible for twenty to forty years?  Do you go for an atrocity-style pogrom in the name of preventing even worse consequences that nobody but you believes will happen?

The greatest and most interesting villains have always been the ones who believed they were acting for the best.

[mrgrimm]

You all raise good points, but I still would defer back to the following quote

"Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887. 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men'."

Sorcerers are EXTREMELY powerful. Imagine a Sorcerer who realizes  the power he has. He would have complete control over his enviroment and any lifeform he wishes. By nature humans are greedy. Sure there are exceptions to this rule with Mother Theresa and Ghandi, but they are just that, exceptions to the rule. As a general rule Humans are ruled by greed, lust and power. Humans are destructive. Society dictates that, but that is in real life.

The question then is can it be done in a fantasy setting? I think the answer is.....maybe. There are several ways you can go with a storyline and a campaign to subtlely coerce the players to act the way you want. In my opinion, to have the players act as the good guys/gals you would have to create a world that is oppressive and torturous for the PC's to live in. To force them to change the world as a better place. Knowing that ...what follows is a rough (real rough) outline of a possible world where fighting for a better world might work.  Keep in mind this is just my opinion.

The world would have to be overly dark and brooding. People are oppressed daily, atrocities against all men and women are commonplace and the sun shines only rarely because the world is affected by the oppression of the creatures living on it. It Rains almost daily and dead forests are commonplace. The PC's are banded together to stop the oppression. To make this world a better place. This, in no way, dictates that they are your atypical heroes. They have secrets. They are dark. They have their own agendas, but they are a dim light in a dark world. Destiny awaits them as they take the first steps to fufilling their fate.

Sorcerers are extremely rare. In fact only if there are sorcerers in the player group will characters know about Sorcerers. Maybe a PC recently discovered his power, discovered it's cost. Decided that it was his destiny to die helping those who could not help themselves.

That is how I would try to accomplish this. Whether it is right or wrong is yet to be determined, but the way I see it the PC's are good of character and are attempting to better the world, but the setting allows for more conflict.  Maybe the sorcerer is also part healer (actual healing as opposed to magical). The Sorcerer would have to be a strong character. One that drives the group. Maybe he or she decides that they must travel from town to town and work to free the oppressed. Maybe they only use Sorcery in defense or in extreme conditions.

Ok, I just realized I am rambling again.  I'm stopping that now. Just hard to stop when ideas flow.

Sorry about the long rambling post. I hope you can pick up my point somewhere in there.

[Mike Holmes]

However, there has yet to be one real discussion on how sorcery can assist humanity in its struggle for a better tomorrow

I refer my McCann to the comments that I made in this post:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=3834

and the subsequent conversation. Indeed, it's hard to get people thinking in these terms at all.

But there's at least one guy trying.

Mike

[Lxndr]

In the game I'll be playing shortly, I've got a Sorcerer who's Destiny is to free a land and be its legitimate ruler (he's Stahlnish, the land in question is Angharad, and I'm pretty sure I spelled one or both wrong).  I like to believe he's a fairly nice guy, but we'll see how that works out in play.

(btw, an "F" in attributes bites, totally.  I mean, completely.  ouch.)

[Brian Leybourne]

"Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887. 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men'."

Sorcerers are EXTREMELY powerful. Imagine a Sorcerer who realizes  the power he has. He would have complete control over his enviroment and any lifeform he wishes. By nature humans are greedy. Sure there are exceptions to this rule with Mother Theresa and Ghandi, but they are just that, exceptions to the rule. As a general rule Humans are ruled by greed, lust and power. Humans are destructive.

That was the point I was trying to make :-)

Brian.

[Stephen]

As a general rule Humans are ruled by greed, lust and power. Humans are destructive.

Strongly influenced by, certainly.  Ruled?  I don't think you can go that far.  Altruism, compassion, and the urge to help our fellows (or at least those we've identified with as part of our tribe) are just as powerful, and have just as much impact on human history.

And given that sorcerers are so rare to begin with, each and every one of them has to be treated as an individual.  Not to mention that if sorcery requires great self-discipline, control, training and intelligence -- in addition to a profound emotional investment or two in order to be used with genuine safety -- then petty impulse is hardly likely to bring about sorcerous smackdowns.  As Ron Edwards pointed out in his essay about sorcery, the majority of sorcerers will only use their power for the big things, the things that matter, because the risk and price are too high for anything else to be sustainable.

The biggest temptation for a sorcerer who wanted to change the world for the better would be falling victim to the hubris of believing he knew what was best for people better than they did.  Or being so desperate to come up with some solution he settled for a short-term fix rather than a long-term one, with concomitant consequences....

[mrgrimm]

I beg to differ on that. In my opinion we are ruled by lust, greed and power as an example look at all the people killed in the name of religion. That is being ruled by power, albiet it's their interpretation of power, but nonetheless they are ruled by power. Look at the majority of men and to some extent women that cheat on their significant others because of lust. Then there is greed. That is too easy to justify, so I'll let it alone. All those people that I mentioned had choices. They chose to be ruled by the power they follow, the lust in their loins and the greed in their hearts. That is being ruled by it, not Strongly Influenced by it and that is more the rule than the exception. Humans are destructive by nature and violent by willing choice.

Again this is just my opinion. It may not be anybody elses. Take it as you will, with a grain of salt and some crackers.

[Jake Norwood]

I think we're ruled by what we allow ourselves to be ruled by. Some would say that that's greed, lust, etc. They're right. Others are ruled by fear. They're right. Others by a wish to do well that has actually overcome those other instincts. They're right. To say that people are ruled by anything says more about one's self then about people. "People" isn't a thing, but an individual is.

Jake

[Kaare_Berg]

pete_darby wrote:

Your good is not my good

If one accepts that a group of basically good intentioned sorcerers had siezed world control and created their vision of utopia. And the majority of the people were happy with this (suprise). What would the rules be?

Would this be an medival version of Big Brother (the book, not the show) or Brave New World?

How would the ruling elite deal with dissidents?

Aside from the philosophical aspects of this, there is much wonderful conflict material in Ricks original idea.

What if the players are the ruling elite?

It is possible to turn this entire "are humans inherently evil or are inherently good" discussion into wonderful roleplaying oppertunities (not to mention a social experiment about absolute power).

[Rick]

So it is agreed then that while the power of sorcery may be used for a good purpose, free will ultimately directs the course of humanity.  To a point, magic is a fulcrum for desire.  It allows things to happen that would otherwise be impossible.  But it's guided by the imaginations and intentions of those using it.  In this case of this RPG, it's the players.  My premise is that it would be the ultimate challenge to any role player to take on the impossible.  However it gets justified, the ability to defy thousands of years of quotes and improbability lies in the minds of someone out there.  I'm curious to see who it is.  Even if it is just pretend.  Theoretically, it should be easy if all that really need be overcome is something as well contemporized as desire.

[Irmo]

pete_darby wrote:

Your good is not my good

If one accepts that a group of basically good intentioned sorcerers had siezed world control and created their vision of utopia. And the majority of the people were happy with this (suprise). What would the rules be?

Would this be an medival version of Big Brother (the book, not the show) or Brave New World?

How would the ruling elite deal with dissidents?

What about a coven of sorcerers creating their own little nightmare of an utopia somewhere with the mother of all Conquer rituals: Happiness is mandatory, dissent is impossible.

[pete_darby]

I'm reading through all of this, and trying not to get flashbacks to Zardoz...

(I spend a lot of time trying not to get flashbacks to Zardoz...)

[contracycle]

Hmm, Zardoz is not too bad a thought here.  I'd have trouble understanding why wizards as powerful as these DON'T got out and set themselves up as god-kings.  that would seem to me the safest coiurse of action, becuase it obviates many of their menial needs and thus preserves their power as much as possible.  An occassional demonstration to keep everyone in line should be all thats needed.

[Stephen]

I'd have trouble understanding why wizards as powerful as these DON'T got out and set themselves up as god-kings.

Isn't that exactly what Uglub's doing in Gelure right now?

But my guess is, again, individuality.  Just because a sorcerer can kill with a word and wreck a city with a few hours' work doesn't mean this particular sorcerer necessarily wants to.  I'm reminded of a quote from Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, the ruler of a mad-science (much the same as sorcery, in this regard) empire in the comic book Girl Genius:

Othar Tryggvassen, a Self-Proclaimed Hero, to Klaus:  "What, tyrant?  Does your empire give you no pleasure?"
Klaus:  "No.  It gives me no pleasure.  Politics always annoyed me.  Now I do it every day.  I haven't seen my wife in years... It's just send in the Jagermonsters, then the regulars to mop up.  At least with the Heterodynes I had adventures... the occasional fight...."

Or a wizard from a Christopher Stasheff novel, when asked why he hadn't considered trying to set himself up as a king:  "Well, I thought about it -- but I'm the creative type.  Administrative work is dead boring."

What thrill is there in wielding social power when you can already command the forces of the very universe themselves?

Not to mention that TROS sorcerers, hideously powerful as they are, are still subject to Vlad Taltos' old Jhereg dictum:  "No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between his shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style."