I don't know a lot of kids/teens that would get lots of entertainment from chess TBH.
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DD#16 disgusting
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Okay, bad example. ( my youngest son does, though) But there are a lot of fun games out there than do not involve graphical violence. I carefully select which ones they can play one the computer, and I have never felt there weren't enough. Plus there are hundreds of very good boardgames that are fun, intelligent and instructive.
As a vague children-friendly equivalent for CK2, I let them play Civilization on PC. Anyone that would argue that it is equivalent in terms of quality of entertainment, intellectual stimulation and development to playing GTA is not being very lucid.
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At the risk of straying to far off topic: I think both have their place. Something creative to stimulate the mind, and some action the just blow off steam.
Civ is probably a good one yes, though most RPGs would probably work
Civ is probably a good one yes, though most RPGs would probably work
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I wonder, what problems do you think violent games cause to kids? GTA is obviously not a game intended for kids, but as far as I know studies have shown action games to be great at improving coordination between the eyes and hands and concentration for example. Sirrobert makes a good point, though it should be noted that all games stimulate the brains in different ways, and playing all sorts of games is a very effective way to improve one's self.
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I'mma put my post in spoiler tags cuz it kiiinda ran away from me.
The first, and biggest, thing for me is this selective (from my perspective) interpretation of acceptable abstraction, this isn't aimed specifically or solely at you it's to the idea that seems to be floating around in this thread. Simulated war is okay because they're just numbers. They don't show you the bodies or describe cleaving people apart. Simulated torture is not okay because it's more explicit. Now if this was a purely taste based thing then sure why not, I don't like rough surfaces across my nails, some people don't like hearing celery sticks break, it's whatever.
But. When a moral element comes into is when I get a bit lost. You used war in this game as an example, now I'm gonna be talking about declaring war and not defensive wars because even tho if you wanted to get really weird about it you could say if you REALLY valued human life you'd just let the enemy kill you instead of fighting back cuz less people'd probably die in the grand scheme of things but that's weird so we're not doing that.
Offensive wars right? Okay from a meta-perspective the goal is almost always gain. You are warring for gain be that land or prestige or because you want that king title or what have you. From an RP perspective this action could be justified for a lot of reasons be they religious, legal, player character's ambition etc. Torture from a meta perspective can be cuz of a revenge for perceived slights (that can be meta and RPing depending on how much people play self-inserts) or cuz the person gets their jollies over the idea of torturing people, which, funnily enough also can count for an RPing perspective. Other RP perspectives can be justice or info.
Now I dunno if it's just me but when there's a particularly big battle that leaves like ten thousand people dead I can't help but picture that in my mind's eye. Corpses aren't fun, person before, meat now. They're a very eloquent answer to why people might wanna believe in an afterlife. So imaging ten thousand corpses bearing marks of violence I am responsible for giving them stretching in all directions as far as the eye can see usually leaves me feeling kinda queasy. On the plus side, I have Antioch now. I don't really care ofc beyond imaging how this would affect the ruler I'm playing, I compartmentalize my own reaction at such an imagined sight and it's easy and guilt free because it's a game. I didn't really snuff out 10 000 people.
I find it very, very hard to draw a moral line between me who just 'killed' so many people for what amounts to personal gain (which rests at the core of every rationalization both meta and RP) and the person who gets some sense of vicarious titillation from torturing fictional people. If we wanna get technical I am indubitably the bigger monster in the equation anyway.
To me tying morals into this levels of abstraction thing seems to be tacitly endorsing an "out of sight is out of mind" take on morality which is something I find kinda appalling really. Earlier in this thread someone was making an example and asking "Which is worse, 1 million people being killed on another continent or the person next to you getting a paper-cut?" Now I can pretty definitively state that the million people dying is worse, like on every level for me. The immediacy of our exposure to Bad Thing should not be the thing defining our level of outrage at Bad Thing.
Which is why I chuck the entirety of this game in the abstraction bin, no one is being hurt and while the proclivities of certain players might leave a bad taste in ones mouth their actions are exactly as reflective of their moral fiber as yours (general you) are. Whether it's voyeuristic joy at smashing a rival's balls or perfunctory satisfaction at gaining that last duchy you need to create the empire we're all awful people if this mattered, it's just the specific shade that'd differ.
ANYWAY next thing I disagree with is your view on (some of the) people who are into the torture aspect and/or play FPS, it comes across as infantilizing and parochial to me. Like, this person has a interests that bore me, it must be objectively inferior and they must be less morally developed. I see no merit in the perspective. I play CK2 yet I have no desire to topple democracy or marry my sister nor do I think most CK2 players do, why assume most/some/any-amount-not-on-the-edges-of-the-bell-curve inhabit hobbies and interests dissimilar from mine?
And lastly I don't understand why you seem to conflate intellectual with dignified. But then the very idea of dignity, as a measure of worthiness, or as a concept on its own makes me want to make fart noises with my hand so maybe that's understandable. It's especially off topic tho so meh.
But. When a moral element comes into is when I get a bit lost. You used war in this game as an example, now I'm gonna be talking about declaring war and not defensive wars because even tho if you wanted to get really weird about it you could say if you REALLY valued human life you'd just let the enemy kill you instead of fighting back cuz less people'd probably die in the grand scheme of things but that's weird so we're not doing that.
Offensive wars right? Okay from a meta-perspective the goal is almost always gain. You are warring for gain be that land or prestige or because you want that king title or what have you. From an RP perspective this action could be justified for a lot of reasons be they religious, legal, player character's ambition etc. Torture from a meta perspective can be cuz of a revenge for perceived slights (that can be meta and RPing depending on how much people play self-inserts) or cuz the person gets their jollies over the idea of torturing people, which, funnily enough also can count for an RPing perspective. Other RP perspectives can be justice or info.
Now I dunno if it's just me but when there's a particularly big battle that leaves like ten thousand people dead I can't help but picture that in my mind's eye. Corpses aren't fun, person before, meat now. They're a very eloquent answer to why people might wanna believe in an afterlife. So imaging ten thousand corpses bearing marks of violence I am responsible for giving them stretching in all directions as far as the eye can see usually leaves me feeling kinda queasy. On the plus side, I have Antioch now. I don't really care ofc beyond imaging how this would affect the ruler I'm playing, I compartmentalize my own reaction at such an imagined sight and it's easy and guilt free because it's a game. I didn't really snuff out 10 000 people.
I find it very, very hard to draw a moral line between me who just 'killed' so many people for what amounts to personal gain (which rests at the core of every rationalization both meta and RP) and the person who gets some sense of vicarious titillation from torturing fictional people. If we wanna get technical I am indubitably the bigger monster in the equation anyway.
To me tying morals into this levels of abstraction thing seems to be tacitly endorsing an "out of sight is out of mind" take on morality which is something I find kinda appalling really. Earlier in this thread someone was making an example and asking "Which is worse, 1 million people being killed on another continent or the person next to you getting a paper-cut?" Now I can pretty definitively state that the million people dying is worse, like on every level for me. The immediacy of our exposure to Bad Thing should not be the thing defining our level of outrage at Bad Thing.
Which is why I chuck the entirety of this game in the abstraction bin, no one is being hurt and while the proclivities of certain players might leave a bad taste in ones mouth their actions are exactly as reflective of their moral fiber as yours (general you) are. Whether it's voyeuristic joy at smashing a rival's balls or perfunctory satisfaction at gaining that last duchy you need to create the empire we're all awful people if this mattered, it's just the specific shade that'd differ.
ANYWAY next thing I disagree with is your view on (some of the) people who are into the torture aspect and/or play FPS, it comes across as infantilizing and parochial to me. Like, this person has a interests that bore me, it must be objectively inferior and they must be less morally developed. I see no merit in the perspective. I play CK2 yet I have no desire to topple democracy or marry my sister nor do I think most CK2 players do, why assume most/some/any-amount-not-on-the-edges-of-the-bell-curve inhabit hobbies and interests dissimilar from mine?
And lastly I don't understand why you seem to conflate intellectual with dignified. But then the very idea of dignity, as a measure of worthiness, or as a concept on its own makes me want to make fart noises with my hand so maybe that's understandable. It's especially off topic tho so meh.
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I'm fine with it the new options will make killing all the prisoners i get after a big conquering spree funner.
Sirrobbert1:
I would seriously suggest sports or any outdoor activity as a means for kids to blow off steam rather than sitting in front of a screen brutalising people. But also, you mention "action" to blow off steam... I don't have anything against action, I was talking about violence.
Rh'llor:
The most comprehensive studies have been made regarding violence on TV, but all researchers agree that all the conclusions apply all the more to violent PC games, because in them you are an actor of the violence, rather than a spectator. The correlation is established beyond doubt between the absorption of virtual violence and the chances to develop violent behaviours. That does not mean grabbing a gun and shooting people indiscriminately, of course, it just means an increase in the general level of aggressiveness perceived as acceptable in one's everyday life. It also correlates more marginally to cognitive disorders, among others the ability to focus during extended periods of time.
To praise the physiological merits of violent games does not strike me as relevant. First because it is hardly a justification for something inappropriate, or you could argue that chopping off people's heads can develop precision and musculature. But most of all, because the benefits are not related to the violent theme, and can be obtained with any average arcade/platform game with a more neutral theme.
Knotz:
Thanks for your answer. I wish I was as articulate, and you'll have to forgive my approximative English, I'm not a native speaker. I don't see any fundamental disagreement really. As I mentioned on an earlier, the virtual act of waging war is certainly not more moral than the virtual act of torturing some bloke. and I agree with you that because it's all virtual and nobody gets hurt it can all safely be categorised as harmless abstraction - or we wouldn't really be discussing this, really. But where I make a difference is in the objective of this abstraction. I see virtual war as a means to resolve some sort of challenge, some sort of goal ( territory aggrandisement being the most common one). This challenge must be resolved intellectually by optimising your resources and assets, planning ahead, etc. ... and therefore not waging war will sometimes ( and more often than not) be an equally valid way of achieving your goal, with the same satisfaction. Now, if some players in CK2 wage war with the sole intention of inflicting virtual casualties and imagine piles of corpses, I'll seriously question their sanity.
You point out that torture can also have an objective, and you're right. This is why I said I did not object at all to the inclusion of torture in this medieval game, and I don't even mind resorting to it if it is serves the meta-objective. But I don't see any interest in insisting in the details. Expressing choices as to which kind of torture you are going to inflict, and being offered graphical and sound support for your torture acts adds nothing but, as you said yourself, a kind of bad taste in the mouth.
In the same way, when I wage a war, I'm interested in the result, and enemy casualties only interest me as a means of assessing the surviving strength of my enemy. I am not interested in having to determine how the soldiers kill, maim, burn or rape, and pictures of mutilated bodies, severed heads and sounds of moans of agony are not going to enhance my gaming pleasure or contribute more distinctively to my objective.
Making a DLC where you can roleplay the details of your tortures explicitly makes the simulation of torture an end in itself. There is no intellectual challenge to overcome, no "optimal" decision. And if you don't draw the line anywhere because it's all abstraction, well I do. Maybe next thing we'll have is rape simulations of underaged kids (I'm sure a lot of that happened in the Middle-Ages) with screams and pictures. As long as nobody gets hurt in reality and you can justify it as RP...
And regarding the roleplay element, you're right again. It can be. But as I said, personally, I don't really want to roleplay a sadist, and I don't look admiringly towards anyone who does.
So yes, I'm more than a little disappointed that with a theme so rich that the possibilities of exploration are virtually endless, and therefore with so many interesting aspects that will remain unexplored, the CK2 folks chose to devote time and energy to produce... this.
I would seriously suggest sports or any outdoor activity as a means for kids to blow off steam rather than sitting in front of a screen brutalising people. But also, you mention "action" to blow off steam... I don't have anything against action, I was talking about violence.
Rh'llor:
The most comprehensive studies have been made regarding violence on TV, but all researchers agree that all the conclusions apply all the more to violent PC games, because in them you are an actor of the violence, rather than a spectator. The correlation is established beyond doubt between the absorption of virtual violence and the chances to develop violent behaviours. That does not mean grabbing a gun and shooting people indiscriminately, of course, it just means an increase in the general level of aggressiveness perceived as acceptable in one's everyday life. It also correlates more marginally to cognitive disorders, among others the ability to focus during extended periods of time.
To praise the physiological merits of violent games does not strike me as relevant. First because it is hardly a justification for something inappropriate, or you could argue that chopping off people's heads can develop precision and musculature. But most of all, because the benefits are not related to the violent theme, and can be obtained with any average arcade/platform game with a more neutral theme.
Knotz:
Thanks for your answer. I wish I was as articulate, and you'll have to forgive my approximative English, I'm not a native speaker. I don't see any fundamental disagreement really. As I mentioned on an earlier, the virtual act of waging war is certainly not more moral than the virtual act of torturing some bloke. and I agree with you that because it's all virtual and nobody gets hurt it can all safely be categorised as harmless abstraction - or we wouldn't really be discussing this, really. But where I make a difference is in the objective of this abstraction. I see virtual war as a means to resolve some sort of challenge, some sort of goal ( territory aggrandisement being the most common one). This challenge must be resolved intellectually by optimising your resources and assets, planning ahead, etc. ... and therefore not waging war will sometimes ( and more often than not) be an equally valid way of achieving your goal, with the same satisfaction. Now, if some players in CK2 wage war with the sole intention of inflicting virtual casualties and imagine piles of corpses, I'll seriously question their sanity.
You point out that torture can also have an objective, and you're right. This is why I said I did not object at all to the inclusion of torture in this medieval game, and I don't even mind resorting to it if it is serves the meta-objective. But I don't see any interest in insisting in the details. Expressing choices as to which kind of torture you are going to inflict, and being offered graphical and sound support for your torture acts adds nothing but, as you said yourself, a kind of bad taste in the mouth.
In the same way, when I wage a war, I'm interested in the result, and enemy casualties only interest me as a means of assessing the surviving strength of my enemy. I am not interested in having to determine how the soldiers kill, maim, burn or rape, and pictures of mutilated bodies, severed heads and sounds of moans of agony are not going to enhance my gaming pleasure or contribute more distinctively to my objective.
Making a DLC where you can roleplay the details of your tortures explicitly makes the simulation of torture an end in itself. There is no intellectual challenge to overcome, no "optimal" decision. And if you don't draw the line anywhere because it's all abstraction, well I do. Maybe next thing we'll have is rape simulations of underaged kids (I'm sure a lot of that happened in the Middle-Ages) with screams and pictures. As long as nobody gets hurt in reality and you can justify it as RP...
And regarding the roleplay element, you're right again. It can be. But as I said, personally, I don't really want to roleplay a sadist, and I don't look admiringly towards anyone who does.
So yes, I'm more than a little disappointed that with a theme so rich that the possibilities of exploration are virtually endless, and therefore with so many interesting aspects that will remain unexplored, the CK2 folks chose to devote time and energy to produce... this.
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So your in a forum where incest and child murder are the two most popular subjects and you are, just now, drawing the line at torture?
Took you long enough.
Took you long enough.
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Seems like your arguments against including detailed torture in CK2 boil down to "I don't enjoy this so no one else should enjoy it either".
For the argument against violent games, could you link some sources? I'm not at all sold at the idea of violence in games increasing aggressiveness. If anything, it's exactly the other way around and I get rid of aggression by unleashing it onto some virtual characters.
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Concerning this sentence, but also to your posts in general, I just want to point out that using torture in a game doesn't mean you appreciate doing it, be it in an imaginary world. You don't (hopefully) torture people in a game because you're excited by it, nor do you to 'evacuate the steam'.
See Ramsay Bolton in GoT, Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, see every fucked-up villain in TV series or movies : they're pointlessly evil, and yet make a story so much more fascinating. I loathe Ramsay Bolton, this character leaves a sour taste in my mouth and yet, he's on of the main reasons I got into the show. Because evil is a great (and maybe the oldest) trigger for cool stories.
Well, I would see these torture features as the Ramsay Bolton of CK2. I wouldn't feel great using them : my RP story would be great using them.
(These are just my 2 cents in a debate you significantly contributed to elevate)
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they definitely are NOT my most popular subject (Jeezes, are they really the most popular subject? 'cause that would be... disturbing...)
To be honest, I don't post here anymore, I generally follow the HIP mod sub-forum, and I can assure you incest and child murder are not popular themes there, if they are even discussed at all.
But again, (I'm repeating myself) I am not against the inclusion of child murder, incest, or torture as elements ( among other elements) of a game of medieval dynasty building. I responded to this thread because there seems to be a whole DLC devoted to torture, hence my concern. The day they start making DLC's about the details of child murder and incest, I guess I'll be long gone...
No. It doesn't boil down to that at all, and in fact, I never even said anything like that. This is a forum where people express their personal opinion, to contribute to a general debate. The OP posted his opinion, which caused him to be instantly crucified by the community. A lot of people took the liberty to express a personal contrary opinion, and I'm just expressing mine. I don't think that not liking something equates to asserting that others shouldn't either.
I wish you were right, but sadly, your intuition here is 100% counterfactual. I mentioned before the works of Michel Desmurget, PhD in neuroscience and director of research at the French National Institute of health and Medical Reseach (INSERM) . He has compiled a few hundred academic studies on the effects of violence on TV and video games on children and young adolescents. (He has also, btw, produced a remarkable series of studies on the encouraging effects of exposure to smoking and drinking on TV, which is not as unrelated with our topic as it may seem). Recently the APA ( American Psychological Association) produced a comprehensive study that corroborates this thesis.
Well, you see, Ramsay Bolton is indeed evil. What makes him such a great character is the revulsion his deeds are supposed to inspire. Because everybody loves to hate a great villain. So basically he embodies what we want to combat, to remove, to combat. Note that in spite of GoT being a rather amoral tale, which makes for its delightful unpredictability, Ramsay Bolton ends up being punished in the most classical and traditional way: killed by the very one he used to torture. They didn't dare let him get away with it.
So, if I rejoice at the idea of roleplaying a story opposing me to a character who enjoys torture, and the more evil the better, I don't want to be put in a position where I am supposed to enjoy it myself, or find it in anyway interesting, stimulating, fun, or whatever.
Again, I only wanted to express my disappointment at the fact that a whole DLC seems to have been devoted to such unappealing details, when there is so much more to explore to improve the grand, epic, convoluted and Shakespearean aspects of the game.
Okay, I've learned my lesson, I'm out of here
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SPOILERS!!!! T_T
I've been avoiding GoT spoilers up until now, don't have HBO and I was going to watch when it was released on DVD T_T
This implies you roleplay in a way where you consider your character as an extension of yourself. That's perfectly fine. I do it differently, playing differently for each of them, according to their traits. In this context, this means my evil characters will be slightly more consistent. I like that. Still, I don't think I'm disturbed.
You are misrepresenting the facts here. There's been one DD about torture. I'll let you check all the other DDs : you should be quite relieved to see that this isn't event the most consistent feature of TRD.
Also spoiler tags are a thing.
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Damn, I feel really sorry for you. That must be worse than any torture.
About the roleplaying, I think being able to be the evil villain yourself is one of the best aspects of the game, since so few games let you play like that. I don't know why you don't enjoy it, but for those of us who like to play this game as the villain every now and then, adding more evil options is always better. And it's not like the DLC is only about torture.
I won't be bothering to discuss violence in video games further since it's really off topic as this game only shows it via text. But I will say that no matter what, games aren't the only problem that violent people have. And as most people generally have quite nice lives, it doesn't matter if they play violent games or not.
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There was this one game where you could play as a god called Black & White. Would you call anybody who chose to be an evil god amoral then, The Guru?
It can sometimes be fun to pretend to be evil, and to commit genocidal and repulsive acts. That's why a lot of RPGs have evil options for characters. It doesn't say anything about us as a person because it is simply fiction, and a bit of fun, disconnected from ourselves. I would never go out and kill anybody - hell, I went out of my to avoid being put in my country's military reserve - but I have no trouble playing Battlefield or GTA. The sterotype with the newest GTA especially is that the players quite often just load up Trevor and go on a murderous rampage, killing indiscriminately without much purpose. The crux of the matter is that it is inconsequential, it doesn't say anything about the player as a person, as there is that disconnect between fiction and reality.
Having more descriptive torture adds to the immersion of playing as an evil character. That's it.
Also, in regards to your first question on the latest post: child murdering and incest are incredibly popular topics in the CK2 community, to the point of becoming memes. Have you ever been to the CK2 subreddit?
It can sometimes be fun to pretend to be evil, and to commit genocidal and repulsive acts. That's why a lot of RPGs have evil options for characters. It doesn't say anything about us as a person because it is simply fiction, and a bit of fun, disconnected from ourselves. I would never go out and kill anybody - hell, I went out of my to avoid being put in my country's military reserve - but I have no trouble playing Battlefield or GTA. The sterotype with the newest GTA especially is that the players quite often just load up Trevor and go on a murderous rampage, killing indiscriminately without much purpose. The crux of the matter is that it is inconsequential, it doesn't say anything about the player as a person, as there is that disconnect between fiction and reality.
Having more descriptive torture adds to the immersion of playing as an evil character. That's it.
Also, in regards to your first question on the latest post: child murdering and incest are incredibly popular topics in the CK2 community, to the point of becoming memes. Have you ever been to the CK2 subreddit?
Longstory short, people like to roleplay weird stuff they would never do in real life, years ago I had a character on a WoW RP server that was genuinely feared for messing people up and torturing them (was in an evil cult, fun times, quality rp...bit dark at times xD), equally i've roleplayed as a religious zealot (I think organised religion is nonsense in real life, still fun to do in rp). Hell, I've played a voodoo practicing female cannibal witch-doctor, im neither a cannibal, a troll, a witchdoctor nor a woman.... Where was I going with this I forgot, its late and im not sober. My point is, roleplaying is precisely there to explore things other than that which you have a personal proclivity for. Moralistic judgements don't really enter into it. Sadistic torture was part and parcel of the dark ages and middle-ages. Therefore one naturally wants to explore it in a semi realistic depth.
My point is, roleplaying is precisely there to explore things other than that which you have a personal proclivity for. Moralistic judgements don't really enter into it. Sadistic torture was part and parcel of the dark ages and middle-ages. Therefore one naturally wants to explore it in a semi realistic depth.
You know how some people say "the book was better than the movie"?
Well, they just proved you wrong.
What? I don't get it. Are you trying to make a point?
Are you trying to say that all people have same reaction to particular form of media?
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Yes, I am "trying" to make a point**. I'm making the exact point that you, somehow, managed to contradict while making it.
For some odd reason you start by equating the written medium to be less powerful [read as "immersive"] than other mediums.
Then you go on saying it depends on the person in question [but reading is still less good].
Unless I've misunderstood your original post, in which case, feel free to educate me.
**I get my kicks off by reading.