Sup

Sup.

As a GM, I was thinking of interesting social conundrums, and stumbled upon a very interesting one.

You, the player, are having a public conversation with a public personality (a king, a news anchor, a political activist, etc). You are from one nation, the public personality is from another. You are to discuss a variety of political topics, with the end goal being to win as many debates as possible, and represent your nation/faction/employer/whoever-made-you-go-to-this-thing in the best light possible, to everyone listening to the conversation.

This conversation is very important in a political/diplomatic sense.

The topic of conversation meanders toward a certain 'war hero'. To the audience watching you, and indeed the nation of the public personality, this person was a valiant hero, sacrificing their life for their nation during a battle.

But you, and most people in the other nations of world, know his actions were questionable at best, and outright war crimes at worst.

The people of the speaker's nation, however, believe he is a national hero with fervour. They will not listen to reason on this, especially from a foreigner.

This is important: the 'hero' in question is objectively a bad person, a pawn for a tyrannical government, and a poster-boy for the nationalist sentiments of the nation.

As the topic is discussed, the public personality asks you: "Do you think X is a hero?"

Now, as stated previously, it is important that the outcome of this conversation be positive to -everyone- listening, including the people of the speaker's nation. Being honest, and pointing out that he wasn't such a good guy, will draw outrage from the speaker's nation. "How dare this foreigner insult our glorious hero, that filthy imperialist pig-dog!", they would say. But, agreeing that he is a hero would alienate the people from your own nation. "Why is that moron praising a war criminal?!" they would say.

The only real option is to dance around the question. So, what do?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=Uwlsd8RAoqI
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Julu#Live_burial_of_Qin_soldiers
youtu.be/ALBwaO-rAsE
youtu.be/lCc8IEvh70w
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

>> inb4 'I roll to dance around the question'

Lets assume you can't do that here.

Alternatively, post interesting roleplaying scenarios.

Question who hates me enough in the foreign relations department to set me up in this shitty situation.

I suck at dancing sober
and I doubt my drunk dancing skills will save me

It's entirely possible someone either deliberately set you up in this terrible scenario, or it was a stupid decision to put you up to this task. Perhaps they briefed you as much as they could, but didn't anticipate this question.

I remind the GM that these interviews are never shot live, and always preceded by a formal agreement describing exactly which questions will be asked.

Then I roll to ask her to dance.

I affirm that he was a hero, of course, and then I double-down and attack the interviewer for even posing the question. I use whatever other fuel I have to besmirch the interviewer's character in the eyes of his own people. Whether I actually agree with anything I say is, of course, completely irrelevant, as it always is where rhetoric is concerned. Rhetoric is a sport, one where the rules and the outcome are judged by the audience. If you're playing softball and you think the rule against throwing overhand is stupid, that's nice for you, but you'd better play by the rules if you want to win.

The way to beat dogmatists is not to appeal to precepts of reason that they don't care about, but to beat them at their own game.

Yeah, I would assume the speaker I'm debating was making a hostile maneuver here. Regardless, college education has prepared me well for saying a lot about nothing. ACTIVATE BULLSHIT MODE.

"What is a hero? Can a man be a hero if nobody praises his actions? No. Someone is a hero because the society in which they live values and praises their actions. There is no hero without adoration. Conversely, the adored are necessarily a hero to their fans. So it is clear that X is a hero his people- that of course is beyond dispute!"

>but user, do YOU think X is a hero?

"I just said that is obvious."

>who set me up
This is the correct question.
They wouldn't even ask this is they didn't know your country had a differing view.
The obvious guess is that the figure is either testing you, in which case you need to know where you should best fall, or they are deliberately intending for you fail.
The second option makes it easier and more fun.
In that case I make as many comparisons and parallels as possible to the figure I'm speaking with to the "hero", at the end asserting the figure is as much of hero as the "hero" is.

The more diplomatic route is to sidle up to the nature of a hero, desscribe the heroic acts the "hero" has allegedly done, and assert that:
"Any man who has done x, y, z good things and resisted the shameful acts of men who do a, b, c bad things (that we know he did), can truly be called a hero."

I can think of several interviews that have gone off script.
Technically, not with anyone we'd call important though.

"I find it shocking you could consider him anything but a hero!"
An excellent tactic, and properly phrased, neither a lie or a betrayal.

You can start by going on the topic of war and how badly it is for all the parties involve. Mention the event in broad strokes and finish by stating that is is a good thing that this event is now over and that all are at peace, that everyone who fought in this war was brave and a true patriot.

You essentially just tell platitude, things that are obvious about whatever war transpired and end up by saying "It's in the past, this is what I think."

"Before I answer that, I'll ask you. What do you see the people he killed as? To us, many of them could have been called heroes. So my answer is that to me, personally, he is not a hero, but neither is he a villain for fighting for his country."

Wow, brilliant answers. I wasn't expecting such good responses.

This is essentially the same as answering 'no'. The speaker would then just repeat "So, just to be clear, you don't think X is a hero?"

This is the trap. Answering honestly to this will alienate you from the people of this nation.

Sometimes you just need to win a battle, so much that you can't retreat or try to angle for a different location or arena. You don't have to get set up to end up in a rock and a hard place. Sometimes you just have to fight, political or physical doesn't matter because some victories are non-negotiable.

YFW the player has the charisma of a rock and is an escapist with a 20 CHA character. Or god help you that player in the hot-seat is a troll that sees this as an opportunity to start a war.

The only answer is "Roll Diplomacy".

Seriously stop trying to push your gameplay style on others.

Is pic related?

Because Susan fucking Ivanova did absolutely NOTHING wrong.

t. Hillary

Playing with you must be fun.

"No, I do not believe in heroes."
>I pull up my cloak and brood in the corner.

There are a few aspects missing here that make the interview important.

Namely there is nothing to gain by not just answering "yes" if the crowd cannot be swayed. Or more importantly, as the GM, saying the crowd or the viewers cannot be swayed indicates to the player for them to just answer the question rather than dodge it.

If the character in the seat is the kind to simply say whatever another wants to hear then the engagement is over after "yes"

if the character typically sticks to their morals and is opposed, then you are just asking for a "but that's what my character would do" scenario.

The importance of the response has to come from the character's inability to have their cake and eat it too, not the consequences the "world" will have for them

youtube.com/watch?v=Uwlsd8RAoqI

That's when you start destroying the television studio calling everyone infidels
Plot twist: you're on memri TV so everyone goes fucking nuts for it

Jeeze... I kinda want context. Without context I am impressed with the resistance to a leading question. The actual answer seems to be kinda, but not in an illegal way. He couldn't order it, but he could threaten to order it in a round about sort of way. His answer seems fairly precise, and the question would make it seem simpler. Damn, now I am seeing character assassination everywhere.

whoa ooooooooooooooh

I was just thinking of the great Robert Downey Jr interview or either of the Gordon Ramsay ones I've seen.
I liked the one where they tried to ambush him with a picture of an overcooked steak from his restaurant. He turned it into a teachable moment: You don't order high quality steak "well done" and expect good steak.
The other one, the interviewer kept to the letter of what they had agreed to while violating spirit with gusto, so he acted like an ass and spoke inappropriately about her on the air and apparently the rest of the day in public.

Of course, my favorite off script pop culture interview of all time quote:
>"I can't believe the frog's running circles around me!"
>"I can't believe it either, Jon."

Have you never watched a modern debate?

Dancing around the question is ALWAYS an option.

But for the sake of argument: I pull an Obama

"X certainly was a hero to many people, who remember him for the good his actions did for his nation. To others, he was not, and is remembered more for the substance of his actions, the whats instead of the whys. One mans hero becomes another villain. Their feelings on this matter are no less valid, and neither are those that see X as a hero!. But what is important now, isn't whether or not we agree with what X did: it's that we take the results, and use them to forge a brighter tomorrow, based on peace and understanding. We of nation Z have great respect for the culture of the people of Nation Y, and look forward to leaving past disputes behind us in the interest of universal brotherhood."

He's saying "I ROLL TO dance around the question" isn't an option. He wants to hear examples of how to roleplay dancing around it.

I remember a RDJ interview where the interviewer tried to play at hardball and RDJ's handler who was in the room IMMEDIATELY jumped in and shut things down and RDJ effectively grinned and shrugged, absolving him of any need to answer.

That's a pretty good impression, now do the Trump. And Hillary.

That's a bogus question, how dare you, I don't hear you asking any of the other participants questions like that. The real questionable thing here is you, real low energy and bogus debate. You wanna have a good debate come to Nation Z, we'll have the greatest debate you've ever seen, completely fair. But you won't of course because your scared to meet me on neutral ground. That's alright though, when we make Nation Z great again, you'll have to. I wanna talk about the issues, I wanna talk about our border with nation M, and the wall we're going to build on it, not this bogus nonsense.

Well first of all, thank you, user, for hosting us here tonight. Ahhh... you know, my opponent, Mr. T, has said a lot of things, but he won't talk about issues like 'A Certain Hero'. He'd probably just dodge the question, like he always does, and start his chants about 'Make Z great again', without explaining how. As for 'a certain hero', thats a complicated issue, and during my time as secretary of state I dealt with many of A Certain's interactions with our country on a professional, as well as personal level. What's important now is that we not get bogged down in labels, and instead focus, on what we can do as partners, to make the world a better place. It is our time to make Herstory.

Let me try

Now, this war - a great war, by the way, a war that wasn't our fault, but we still won tremendously anyway; amazing generals, great leaders, appointed by me, people said that my generals would be bad, but they ended up being great - and our war heroes, tremendous soldiers, very good, fought very bravely - and it would've been so easy for us to not take care of them when they came home, but we did anyway, something a lot of countries don't do, in fact before I came to power we were one of those countries - but this war, great war, was tremendous, many people come up to me and tell me how proud they are of this war, and so I'm proud of our military strength.

That's a real good one too

I PITY THE FOOL WHO DOESN'T WANT TO MAKE Z GREAT AGAIN

I was thinking of one that's possibly same one, but RDJ just pointed out reality to him "You get the same 15 minutes as everybody else." smiling and shrugging in reply to inappropriate questions and so on until it was clear the guy wouldn't stop (probably when the handler came broke it up) and he left saying something about it getting a little too Diane Sawyer.
He later found her and hugged her when some idiots tried to spin that the wrong way.
I liked his response from start to finish.
When you get 15 min with a star to talk about the latest Iron Man movie, you don't try to corner them on their relationship with their father.
It was funny to see the guy try and fail so hard to rattle him.

This is more of a thought exercise for a roleplaying encounter. I don't think rolling for social encounters is bad at all. Whether a game is about roleplaying, roll-playing, or roleplaying to give bonuses to your roll, is up to the GM and their table.

In this particular scenario, just rolling for it is not an option, because then we wouldn't have a thread, silly.

I feel like, if the character was known to not be much of a diplomat, that this response would actually end up working. Just giving a trite, moody response, walking up, and leaving the interview.

There is nothing to gain, but there is something to lose. The people from one's home nation will be pissed at them, as will anyone else who had a stake in this interview. And it also makes the other country look diplomatically stronger. It would be like an American and Russian official having an interview, where the American praises a Russian soldier for holding out against a mob of Ukrainian citizens. . . a mob the Russians were previously launching rockets into. It would make the American look like an easily-swayed buffoon, and the Russians like clever diplomats.

That said, I don't disagree with you. More details to the scenario could be added, so that the PC has a more personal stake in the outcome. The political and diplomatic situation of the region might not matter to the player at all, and they might take joy in messing it up, just because they can.

Also, could you please elaborate on 'having their cake, and eating it too'? What would that look like?

What a great interview. I love how he's able to spin things to make something that's obviously true suddenly questionable.

What said. Good Obama impression, though.

Solid gold. How about Bernie?

Well, let me just say first of all, regardless of whether X was a hero, the Y-Z war was a mistake. It was a failure of diplomacy, of leadership. Neither Y nor Z is better off now than they were before. In fact, there is greater instability now in both countries than ever before.

Certainly, we can say that X was a man who sacrificed everything for his country. But who benefited from this sacrifice? It was not the hardworking men and women of nation Y. They lost sons, fathers, brothers. They were told that the war would make them safe. But after paying that terrible cost in blood, the sun has risen again on the same world as before.

It is the same in nation Y as in nation Z, or any other country. When soldiers sell their lives, who profits? It is the wealthy, the nobles, the aristocrats. Their coffers are full of blood money. Did X die to pay for another palace? Another harem? I think not. If his deeds can be called heroic, it is only because they were the necessary prelude to a new way of governance. One in which the common commoner has an equal share in the future.

There are no heroes in war, only victims.

>so user, you mean to say 'x' is NOT a hero?

No. He is the victim of a corrupt system that played good men agains each other.

Depends on the specific outcome of the war, but could still be applicable. Accusations of the upper-class are common enough in today's politics that I doubt it would get a stir, but in a medieval society, decrying the aristos might ruffle some feathers.

Short, sweet, and moody. I'd expect to see the PC light a smoke after saying that in a gravelly voice, with a thousand yard stare all the while.

I only assume they used a picture of Ivanova as she did a lot of political maneuvers in a sci-fi setting, first at the orders of her superior officer to help prepare her for inter-galactic treaties and to pad her resume, and when shit hit the fan, asked her to deal with the non-human races on the station while her CO fought a war against literal space demons.

Babylon 5 still holds up to this day, both in terms of plot and visuals, as Strazinski filmed it in 720p, which was fucking expensive at the time.

>The only answer is "Roll Diplomacy".
Worst playstyle. Rolling is for when your argument leaves the discussion partner on the fence, but complete substitution robs the entire world of substance.

I praise the hero's positive qualities, those that his nation most embodies; his bravery/cleverness/whatever. I then go on to link these details to his war crimes, establishing the horrible acts as demonstrations of these virtues, sounding as genuine as possible in my praise. And then I offer a toast, if in an appropriate setting. Whether the other guy drinks is on them.

This will probably alienate this nation but, but y'know what? Fuck 'em. Humiliate them in grand fashion, for being so arrogant to think they could ask me that question.

It won't earn points with them, but it should earn points with literally everyone else.

>Oh, he's definitely a hero. Just like I'm a hero. Heroes are willing to embody the best and the worst of their cause, after all. You all hate me for what I've done and we all hate him for what he's done. We both has a lot more horrible things to embody back then, don't you think?

If the interviewer tries to deflect said question, bring up the facts of why both sides were a lot worse back then and why things are much better, by bringing up extreme events that frame things as such.

Considering I don't force my players into situations they are uncomfortable with and let them play what they want, I'm a blast. Your point, NFA?

>In this particular scenario, just rolling for it is not an option, because then we wouldn't have a thread, silly.

Considering that most people here have the social skill of a cockroach, (and I've not even noticed anything good in this thread) I think you should be looking to ask professional actors, not fedora-tipping scrubs.

So you ask players to lift 200 pounds for strength tests?

>So you ask players to lift 200 pounds for strength tests?
No, because that has no possible story- or roleplay-relevant content that is missed by rolling. Don't be facetious.

>well, that just opens up the question on what being a "hero" means.

I think I'd say something along the lines of
>He is undeniably a war hero. Emphasis on hero, but also emphasis on war. X saved the people of [nation] and we must not forget this, but neither must we forget he did it during a time of war, using war tactics. And war is always, always dirty and bloody, and it will tarnish the name of even the greatest heroes.

"One only need listen to the stories of his deeds to be sure of his character."

Interviewer, meet the XOR gate; XOR gate, interviewer.

This.
"The interviewer asked you [question]."
"I roll for diplomacy"
is the equivalent of
"The guard spots you in the light of his torch! What do you do?"
"I roll for stealth"
Um, okay, but are you retreating? Running past him? Jumping into the river?
Action resolution always need an intent and a method, and in conversation these are even less obvious.

This is much better:
"I attempt diplomacy. I want to bring up X and Y argument so I don't look too bad on both sides."
"Okay, roll the diplomacy skill."
And the result of the roll is how good you are at organically bringing up the argument, how firm your voice is, how natural your body language is, how little stress you show, how confident and well-informed you seem.

If the merchant's shop is closed at midnight and there are rumors of undead sightings and you knock at the door, you can say "Please let us in! Pretty please? We really need to buy something" or you can say "We saw an army of zombies coming, if you don't open shop right now so we can buy supplies we'll die stopping them and then they'll kill your family too so LET US IN."
Of course you don't have to SAY it like you're in drama class. You can just go "I ask the merchant nicely." or "I bring up the undead army we saw and mention it'll kill his family if we can't get supplies." It might be a DC 15 roll vs. a DC 10 roll.
So in the end Diplomacy (skill) isn't what you say, it's how you say it. It's the bonus, and your shitty argument might work if you can come off as knowing what you're doing.

OH FOR GOD'S SAKE! MUST YOU GO AROUND FLASHING YOUR PETTY PRIVATE LITTLE INDIVIDUAL CONSCIENCE? DO YOU THINK NO ONE ELSE HAS GOT ONE?

"That's an interesting question, after all, you obviously know how fraught with tension this question is depending on where you're from don't you? The fact of the matter is he was a mortal being, like any of us, there were actions of his, facets of his person, that are worth emulating and looking up too, and likewise, there are cautionary tales to be taken from his example as well. I could sit here all day talking about who this man was, but the fact of the matter is that we're not really here to talk about him are we? We're here to discuss modern political issues. This means discussing the things that are important in the here and now, not to be sidetracked dissecting the history of a patriot of your nation."

I'd need to know more about the actual history of this figure, so I could pull out some objectively questionable examples, and some objectively heroic examples of his actions. I sincerely doubt whoever this guy was is some kind of mad butcher called out just to kill loads of people, he'd likely have done heroic things in in his time, and even if he was some kind of butcher, there would have been battles he turned around for his own side that were actually not morally objectionable, and I could call on those.

Basically, I'd need more information before I could go full speaker for the dead mode on this guy.

You know, I’m glad you asked me that question. Because it’s a question a lot of people are asking. And why? Because a lot of people want to know the answer to it. And let’s be quite clear about this, without beating about the bush. The plain fact of the matter is, it’s a very important question indeed, and people have a right to know.

A good speech isn't one where we can prove he's telling the truth. It's one in which nobody else can prove he's lying!

I state that he's a hero who did what he had to to accomplish his mission.

>objectively bad person
Committing an unspecified war crime in a fight for a nation's cause does not make you an "objectively bad" person. Ordering the atomic bomb to be dropped on Japan is not "objectively bad."

To suggest otherwise makes you a self righteous faggot. To endorse those actions is controversial but people are also idiots, and I'm struggling to think of what so called war crime you came up with that would be detested in D&D or whatever game your'e playing.

So yeah, I'd simply offer my support for that country's hero. If someone tried to berate me for it I'd call them a child who doesn't understand the concept of war.

You guys got links to those?

I’m a good European. I believe in Europe. I believe in the European ideal! Never again shall we repeat the bloodshed of two world wars. Europe is here to stay.

But this does not mean that we have to bow the knee to every directive from every bureaucratic Bonaparte in Brussels. We are a sovereign nation still and proud of it.

We have made enough concessions to the European commissar for agriculture. And when I say commissar, I use the word advisedly. We have swallowed the wine lake, we have swallowed the butter mountain, we have watched our French friends beating up British lorry drivers carrying good British lamb to the French public. We have bowed and scraped, doffed our caps, tugged our forelocks and turned the other cheek. But I say enough is enough!

The Europeans have gone too far. They are now threatening the British sausage. They want to standardize it, by which they mean they’ll force the British people to eat salami and bratwurst and other garlic-ridden greasy foods that are totally alien to the British way of life.

Do you want to eat salami for breakfast with your egg and bacon? I don’t. And I won’t!

They’ve turned our pints into litres and our yards into metres, we gave up the tanner and the threepenny bit, the two bob and the half-crown. But they cannot and will not destroy the British sausage! Not while I’m here.

In the words of Martin Luther: Here I stand, I can do no other.

Well no, you can be objectively bad and still be considered a hero in your time and era.

Think of the guy SS officers for Hitler. I'm sorry, but it's objectively evil to kill off defenseless civilians, that's been a common thread throughout -a lot- of history, even in some of the most bloody periods of time it was considered to be a wrong act to kill someone who could not defend themselves, doesn't mean it wasn't done, and it doesn't mean the folks who did it were not considered heroes by their own side, but it was still, even by their own morality, objectively evil.

Dropping the bomb on hiroshima wasn't objectively bad because of the situation the USA found itself in after the invasion of Okinawa, where they had inflicted nearly 100% casualties not only on the military population, but unprecedentedly, on the Civilian population as well, because the civilians had -refused- to be captured, and committed mass suicide rather than live on an occupied island when it was clear the battle was lost.

That information gave the theory that there would be several MILLION casualties, just establishing the beachhead on the main islands of Japan. Dropping the bomb cannot be considered a warcrime in that situation because of the -context- of the situation.

But the actions of the SS officers and Nazis, and hell, the "Heroes" of Nanking, cannot be characterized as anything but evil acts.

Those officers likely did heroic things -too- but saying "He's a hero who did what needed to be done to get the job done" is not praise, and not an excuse, and cannot be used as one. There are too many potential variables and too many examples where "the job that had to be done" was objectively evil, and participating in them MADE those people evil. Good people would not do those things.

>He turned it into a teachable moment: You don't order high quality steak "well done" and expect good steak.

So because the cook doesn't approve of your tastes, he has a right to do a shit job?

also, the argument that "The SS officers thought that killing all the jews was necessary to save the world" doesn't hold water given that the Jews they were killing lived in -ghettos- and no reasonable being would believe they were part of some massive conspiracy to rule the world.

Where as in the case of the first atomic detonations, the USA had a massive body of evidence from the entire pacific theater, with the capstone that was Okinawa, that they had to find a way to break the fighting spirit of the entire japanese population in one go, or they would have to commit genocide at horrendous cost to end the war.

Just murder the interviewer.

>in a medieval society, decrying the aristos might ruffle some feathers.
That's why you work for a merchant city state. All the benefits of nobility with only 9/10 of the drawbacks (and also 9/10 of the drawbacks of a democracy, but what can you do).

The assumption that conclusions can be made on actions in a war is the type of shit that led to people berating vietnam veterans for "videos of killing children" when there were children being used as suicide bombers.

Your entire premise that war can be divided into good and bad is flawed. People aren't fighting for what is "good" they're fighting for their armies, whether they be their own country or whatever.

You're referring to events in the modern world with actions that are and aren't allowed in war. If someone razes a village you just say "oh these peasants wouldn't form a militia" because you have no fucking idea if they will, and chances are the exact details of what occurs are only going to be known by the side who wins.

As another example en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Julu#Live_burial_of_Qin_soldiers

There's an "objectively evil" act by your standards, but there's 200k people worth of food rations, 200k people who could rebel, etc. To sit there and try to claim black and white morality in war makes you a child or a naive idiot.

Or, you can accept that what you are doing is in fact evil and senselessly cruel, or that there is actual degrees of what is and isn't necessary.
Tell me Nanking was entirely necessary for the progression of a sound military campaign, user.
Have a care about throwing around "muh morality" knowing that it's logical conclusion is to be used as an excuse for any atrocity because "war time".

No, just because there's also a scale of gray doesn't mean there aren't also objectively evil actions.

The whole 'killing children' thing for vietnam vets isn't a case of the soldiers being evil, the evil is on the end of the viet kong who strapped bombs to children. The soldiers in that case had no choice, those children were -already- dead, one way or another. All they could do is limit the collatoral damage. That's the hiroshima problem on small again.

The thing with the Qin soldiers? Absolutely that was objectively evil, that one act was used as a rallying call for further war in that period that shattered the entire freaking place into the 18 kingdoms until the Han could finally pull it all back together again!

Black and white exist, but they're sure as -hell- not the only colors involved in war, and there were plenty of times in Chinese history both before that point and after it where such actions did not take place and they still held the territories in question without issue.

Whatever the justification given, that action was one to attempt to break the moral of the people Chu fought in that war, and all it really did was obliterate any chance of peaceful assimilation.

You always have a choice. They just valued their lives and their mission over the lives of those children.

You're right, they can chose to fail and permit everyone around them to suffer the consequences.

If circumstances force a strong person and a weak person to fight to the death, you don't get to say it's a moral failing of the strong to chose to win. Even further, if the weak person will always die in the scenario, there is no high ground in choosing to die with him.

We shoot suicide bombers because they have committed (willingly or not) their lives to our deaths. We are under no obligation to die so their deaths had purpose.

user, this isn't even a subjective question. When you cook a steak to well done, you have physically destroyed the compounds responsible for the steak's flavor. By definition, a good well done steak is impossible.

Having no choice is something specific, though. You can argue they had no superior moral choice, but not that they had no choice.

Actually you're sort of incorrect on your implication. All that is needed for the player to state their intent before rolling. If they wanna role-play for it sure... but I'm not going to force a player to do something they're not comfortable with when all I'd need is the gist of what they want to do.

So go ahead and play the straw man.
What most imply is that you SHOULD lift all that weight or do what their character is doing.

I'd love to see those playing a wizard sweat...

To argue for the inferior moral choice is to advocate evil.

Given a wrong choice, and a choice that is even worse, it is only acceptable to take the wrong choice, and there can be no fault in making it.

To argue for an inferior moral choice is different from arguing that it exists.

A man can always look for a way to be lesser, doesn't mean he needs to BE lesser.

You are projecting a lot of opinions on me that aren't there. I may not be who you think I am. A man who aspires to a life as more than a self-reproducing meat battery needs to be able to discern what is, in order to make proper decisions. Shying away from the truth for the sake of hyperbole or in order to preserve your fragile mental compromises is simply unnecessary.

And you are getting mightily insulted for having it pointed out that yes, there is unpleasantness in the world, but a person can choose to not be a part of it.
Your faux "redpilled" philosophy can be debunked by a college level ethics course, user, so don't think you are greater than what you are.

>We shoot suicide bombers because they have committed (willingly or not) their lives to our deaths. We are under no obligation to die so their deaths had purpose.
and no one is suggesting that we should. Shooting children strapped with bombs isn't a good act, but it's superior to allowing them to come into the arms of your squad and killing everyone.

Then there's raping, murdering, and torturing the entire populace of a city in an attempt to break the spirits of their home nation against further resistance.

That's unquestionably, and objectively, evil. It is not saving lives, it is not preventing death, the method has been proven throughout history to fail every single time, the only guys who ever were willing to go far enough with it were the Assyrians and it was their undoing in the end -as well-

There is no moral justification for acts like that. So yes, it is possible to be objectively evil by doing the thing that benefits -no one- not your side, not their side, but simply to cause suffering.

Again, you are projecting statuses onto me that just aren't there.

>redpilling
Honestly, you are way off base here. The only ethical viewpoint I've put forward is the usefulness of discerning things as they are, and not as we wish them to be. Go ahead and tell me how college ethics debunks this stance.

We could have explored how we agree and enriched ourselves, but instead you want to identify me with people you've argued with previously and have become focused on "winning" despite not really disagreeing with anything I've said. Get over yourself for a second and listen to what I'm actually saying, and respond to that. Can you manage this?

I don't think he's going to get it no matter how much you explain.

That's to be expected, considering how interested they are in countering things I've never said. But you have to give people a chance to live up to their opinion of themselves. In response they can run away, demonstrate their ineptitude for all to see, or teach us all something new. Not quite a win-win, but it's more constructive than passing judgement and patting yourself on the back on your way out.

>college ethics tells us we can ignore difficult truths in favor of convenient lies
Sounds about right to me.

"He is a hero to his people, and I have no doubt that he sacrificed much for them."

The former is a matter of fact (he is seen as a hero by those people) and the latter may or may not be true but does not actually suggest that I like him even if it is.

>a pawn for a tyrannical government, and a poster-boy for the nationalist sentiments of the nation
Hold on, if the government is so shitty, why am I trying to curry favour with it?

Committing an unspecified war crime in a fight for a nation's cause does not necessarily make you an "objectively bad" person.
But it might make you an objectively bad person.
It depends entirely upon the war crime in question.
It is difficult to identify exactly what is or is not "objectively evil", but that hardly means it can't exist.
A generally accepted set of "objectivity evil" acts can certainly be agreed upon between nations.
Just because you cannot think of an act that would be detested in setting doesn't mean there can't be one.

>If someone tried to berate me for it I'd call them a child who doesn't understand the concept of war.
The idea that you might consider this to be the mature, reasoned response is humorous.

Just because there is sometimes no good option doesn't make the least bad option suddenly good.

The same reason you would curry favour with a decent one.

Just because you agree on an opinion doesn't make it objective. Learn the meaning of words, fuckwad.


>Just because there is sometimes no good option doesn't make the least bad option suddenly good.
This is what I've been trying to tell people about democracy, but so few people listen.

Objective values like true and false can arise from subjective or arbitrary values, you know.

>democracy
Least bad is still the best. That's all that matters in most contexts.

>Expecting something good to come out of "Hey, can you cook this until it's just shy of burnt?"

The problem is that some people identify "well done" with being cooked well, ie. not raw. That and a human being can be conditioned by environment to like some pretty nasty shit really easily.

Okay if you've seriously been arguing that 'nothing is objectively evil because it's all relative' then you're kinda off base here.

Given the topic of discussion it's pretty obvious that we are probably working in a DnD-esque setting, at least most RPG questions on this board do, and objective good and evil -do- exist in those settings.

Secondly, you're ignoring the IMPLIED meaning of the word, the literary shorthand of saying 'objectively evil' rather than explaining in great detail what the guy has done, and taking on the LITERAL meaning.

The philosophical question allows for absolutes to exist for the purposes of making an argument that do not necessarily need to be expounded upon and backed because we don't have a goddamn 50,000 word space to write down this guy's history to explain why he's a bad person. For the purposes of the question, he is objectively evil for anyone who has all the facts, but not obviously so, which is a state that can exist obviously in at least the DnD universes otherwise we'd not be having villains at all.

Here's the RDJ one.
It starts going south after about 5 and half minutes.
In the short, edited clips, he seems much more impatient but can see how the interviewer keeps pressing despite obviously pissing him off.
youtu.be/ALBwaO-rAsE

...

>The only hero I can personally attest to is your chef Alejandro, who prepared this delightful menu of Chilean sea bass for us.

>he is objectively evil for anyone who has all the facts, but not obviously so, which is a state that can exist
Well put.

>Just because you agree on an opinion doesn't make it objective.
>ignoring the rest of the post and it's point to myopicly single out one improper use of a phrase in quotation marks.
Learn the multiple meanings of words in quotation marks, fuckwad.

I'm not them, but to be fair you did use the phrase outside of quotation marks so that's not much of a defense.

"To your people, he is a hero, a man who conquered over many other men, who protected your land and fought for what was right. Unfortunately it was time where I was your enemy and you were my enemy, thus, in our culture he is a war-criminal, a butcher. Just as my kinsmen were to you. Would you personally see the people I call heroes, heroes? This man, like my kinsmen are both heroes and murders. It all depends if you are following the sword hand, or the one receiving it.

However this is now peace time, why talk of war, of heroes or butchers, when we can talk of friends instead and the potential benefits for both nations for years to come?"

The proper response ties in with how you are planning to play the rest of the situation. No description of personal response is complete unless it explains and explores this.

The reason for this is that to respond effectively isn't merely to fend off an attack, but to establish a new frame or line of reasoning. If you merely parry blows without countering, you are always on your back foot and are losing.

For instance, you wouldn't want to respond with unless you were playing the role of an esteemed personage whose status is too ponderous to question and feels like playing a little dumb. There are many instances where this would not work, or would even hinder your credibility and agenda.

>I'm not them, but to be fair you did use the phrase outside of quotation marks so that's not much of a defense.
I used it once outside of quotation marks and not in the sentence discussing the possibility of "agreeing to opinion".
I stand by it and still think that reply was asinine.

Here's the steak interview clip.

youtu.be/lCc8IEvh70w

It's the perfect response.

You acknowledge the question, answer it in a round about way, and deflect it onto a new topic. If they press the issue then they're obviously seeking confrontation in which case 1. you're not the initiator. 2. your response is irrelevant because they're seeking a confrontation.

YOU FUCK.