Post originally by woodelf at 2004-01-14 09:32:28
Converted from Phorums BB System

> Cannibalism, like drugs, is a dangerous act. There are many deadly diseases that are
> only transmitted this way (like Mad Cow or the human equivalent, Cruesfeld(?)-Jakob
> Disease). Cannibalism also breaks down the food chain which can lead to ecological
> damage. While murder by itself is wrong Cannibalism adds an extra dash of ickyness to
> an already-wrong act and thus it goes in the 'Evil' pile.

Who says you need to murder to engage in cannibalism? What about the consenting consumption of an ancestor's body parts to carry on the family spirit? Or eating portions of fallen enemies (killed in honorable combat) to gain strength? Or drinking of each others' blood to show camaraderie? Motives, context, circumstances--very few acts are in and of themselves evil in any culture, much less in all cultures.

>
> And sex with dead things is Evil. I don't need a whole chapter to tell me that. Nor
> does it need to tell me why. If I couldn't do it at gunpoint it's gotta be wrong.

Well, i do. Why is it evil to have sex with a corpse? Icky and creepy? Sure. Unsanitary? I don't know, but i suspect after the first few hours, yes. But evil? Who or what is being harmed?

Now, in a fantasy world, this one can easily be justified--the spirit lives on, and still has some sort of jurisdiction over the body, so it's basically rape, unless you get the consent of the deceased. But such justification needs to be put forth, and is dependent on other things (like whether or not spirits live on, and whether or not they are in any way still connected to the body).

>
> As a final note, it's been my experience that RPGs that invest heavily in examining
> the reasoning behind the villains' actions invariably lose focus on the point of why
> they are villains. WoD is the perfect example where every single opposition group
> (the Sabbat, the Wyrm, the Technocracy) is analyzed to the point where their positions
> are justified and the supplements begin to work counter to the themes of the core game
> itself. Yes, it's great to have shades of grey but too much makes the image murky;
> sometimes it's best to remind the Players that the bad guys are bad 'just because'.

Tomato, Tomahto. IMHO, it's precisely having bad guys who are bad "just because" that ruins the focus and undermines the point of villains. If what the villain is doing can't be analyzed, or doesn't make sense, i lose all sense of realism. Now, for some genres (Flash Gordon), that's fine. But if i want realistic villainy, it needs to make sense. Just because i don't agree with something doesn't mean it isn't perfectly sensible [from the villain's POV].