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[lallara zhuul]

It is quite understandable that a player wants to romanticize his/her character so that they can pretend that the character is a hero instead of a monster.

Things are quite simple in New Eden.

There are no heroes. Nor villains.

Anyone who deludes themselves to thinking that they are a heroes are just that, deluded. Just like with your moustache twirling villains, both ends of the spectrum are insane.

EVE is about the shades of grey, it is about taking a character from an alien culture, finding out what makes it tick and making best choices from that characters perspective to create a narrative that is interesting to the player and those that the character interacts with.

Then there are the others... but that would go to the urdoinitrong so not on these forums.

[Wanoah]

My stance for Wanoah was approximately that he was an intelligent (esp. with those nice implants plugged in!) and thoughtful rabble-rouser. He had (has) nothing but contempt for all things Amarrian, not least the religious underpinnings for the entire Amarrian society. He wanted nothing more than to see all of it burn. So yes, he would be fervently atheist and the primary tool of atheism is rational thought. It's a pretty good rationale for a Minmatar character opposed to the Empire. Not original, and not unique, but I never bought into the RP-as-special-snowflake stuff that a lot of people aspire to. I was more than happy to be a grunt in one established bit of the provided lore or other.

Now, it's right to point out the spiritual angles outside of the Amarrian hegemony. Wanoah's stance on the Minmatar mumbo jumbo was just that: it's mumbo jumbo. Mumbo jumbo designed to bind the people together. As such, he'd view it as a quaint tradition that is useful. A bunch of "ancient" traditions designed to create some kind of mystique are not the same things as millennia of ancient religion providing a driving purpose behind a whole empire, however. I never really got any particular sense of the Minmatar traditions ever amounting to anything as solid as a religion. If anything, the idea of a deity would be anathema to a people struggling to shrug off the oppression of a fanatical monotheistic society. Besides, it's more than possible to be an atheist, but still have some sense of the spiritual. I see no contradictions here.

OOC, I am far more militant than Wanoah. I would like to see the world's monotheistic religions utterly destroyed, their accumulated wealth distributed to the poor, and those evil institutions consigned to the history books forever. One can dream. Perversely, then, I would probably have had way more fun playing an Amarrian religious-type.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

Ghost, I would altogether rather not progress further into the direction of "YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG", so I am probably not going to answer anything further than this, but to be fair to you:

1) I don't remember having a discussion specifically with you about the Sansha stuff OOC, so I cannot really comment whether you fit into what I have a problem with.

2) I do absolutely not have a problem with Sansha supporters who actually have more complex motives for it than "my implants made me do it" and/or "rawr I am an evil baby-eating monster".

3) What I do have an issue with is people who argue not only that their characters can and do have more complex and even benevolent motives for supporting Kuvakei, and push propaganda IC, but also OOCly push the view that actually most of the people abducted are going voluntarily, Sansha is creating a paradise for them instead of using most of them to his borg-like purposes, and even if he does do that, being converted to part of his hive-mind is actually a pretty ok thing to do to a person.

I should probably add that what I have an issue with is not limited to Sansha. There's also a bunch of Minmatar players who attack civilian installations to blow them up and get upset if you OOCly call it "terrorism", a couple of Amarr players who ICly hold slaves but OOCly claim it's just fine to do that because they provide for them nicely, etc. It has lately come up most strongly with the Sansha but that's probably more due to the storyline in general being on the top than the faction itself.

[Ghost Hunter]

Ah, ok. It's not so much I'm concerned about "ur doing it wrong", it's just I can't think of any Sansha people who have been doing that OOC.

I'll bugger off now so the thread gets back on topic.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

Ah, ok. It's not so much I'm concerned about "ur doing it wrong", it's just I can't think of any Sansha people who have been doing that OOC.

Yea well. I could show logs and name names but I am too concerned of "ur doing it wrong" there to do it (even in private). In any case I think it's a problem for me that'll fix itself as soon as the Sansha craze blows over and people who want to be omgrawrsansha because it is the current in thing go do something else. At which point the Sansha loyalists should be no more and no less annoying with it than any other faction. (And the current FOTM omgrawr become the pet peeve, I suppose.)

I'll bugger off now so the thread gets back on topic.

Likewise.

[Silas Vitalia]

Difficult issue.

Seems a common thing with Rpers to bring their own morality and upbringing into their characters, which can cause some weirdness when mashed against established PF, etc.

While there is always room for a variety of viewpoints and different spectrums within each and every faction, there does seem to be quite a lot of the examples posted previously, such as the anti-slaver Amarrians or athiest/non spiritual Matari, or the Sansha followers acting as previously mentioned.

Granted capsuleers would be more free to think independently and speak independently than most rank-and-file civilians, but it just seems odd to me the extensive number of non-spiritual Matari players and anti-slavery, or "I have some slaves but it's not that bad and I treat them really well" sorts of Amarrians.  *shrug*

It's to the point where I find it very refreshing to see Matari players embracing their more spiritual sides IC and posting accordingly, etc.

[Merdaneth]

We work with what other players can understand OOCly.

Merdaneth uses the term 'terrorist' for Matari freedom fighters precisely because of the impact I perceive it to have on an OOC level. We can't turn off our emotions instantly when we play characters. Words carry a lot of emotional content. The same thing with slavery. From my point of view many people equate slavery in the way it tends to be framed in our populair culture: 'cruel and immoral power-hungry whip wielding sadists' mostly.

The Atheist argument against religious fanatics is simply better understood and expressed by most players.

[Rodj Blake]

Granted capsuleers would be more free to think independently and speak independently than most rank-and-file civilians, but it just seems odd to me the extensive number of non-spiritual Matari players and anti-slavery, or "I have some slaves but it's not that bad and I treat them really well" sorts of Amarrians.  *shrug*

Most abusers don't see themselves as abusers, so it's not at all unlikely that many slavers would see themselves as doing their slaves a favour.

Indeed, back in the days when the British Empire was involved in slavery that was precisely the attitude of many people, and even after slavery was abolished the idea of the "White Man's Burden" was prevalent.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

Granted capsuleers would be more free to think independently and speak independently than most rank-and-file civilians, but it just seems odd to me the extensive number of non-spiritual Matari players and anti-slavery, or "I have some slaves but it's not that bad and I treat them really well" sorts of Amarrians.  *shrug*

Most abusers don't see themselves as abusers, so it's not at all unlikely that many slavers would see themselves as doing their slaves a favour.

This holds IC, definitely.

The problematic cases (for me) are those who go around claiming OOC that we should not think them as bad guys (IC or OOC), because really they are quite fluffy and don't mean harm and have good justifications for what they are doing.

[Seriphyn]

Seems a common thing with Rpers to bring their own morality and upbringing into their characters, which can cause some weirdness when mashed against established PF, etc.

Seriphyn got lots of moral flack for being a womanizer, from other capsuleers, particularly pirates.

Sex is worse than violence, kids 

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

It would make sense that pirates would not consider violence such a big crime, no?

[BloodBird]

It would make sense that pirates would not consider violence such a big crime, no?

I think that was more about the absurdity of pirates claiming the right to moralizing towards nationalist pilots. It's hilarious.

Still, while I feel that would drop more off-topic I don't think there is more to be said about this issue. RL-morality will be dragged into EVE-RP and there is nothing we can do about it. Players will apologize for their character's actions if it suits their IC-morals to do so. Everyone wants their characters to be cool or bad-ass but no-one wants to be 'evil' unless they consider that to be cool. And in most minds 'religious slavers' are un-cool, while for instance, pirates... well, we have covered this before.

My only advice to myself is, if I feel someone is being a bit of a two-faced ass about the whole moral-Ic/moral-OOC thing, to grill them about it OOC. Or even better - offer them a flaming and perfectly valid and legit IC response. Some pirate is telling you your morals are weak? Well, spit in their faces IC and let them know how absurd that kind of thing is, coming from them. This can be applied to nearly every situation.

Minmatar tribals telling you Imperial religion is fake and that your god don't exist? Respond in kind by insulting their spiritual heritage and point out how one can't deny the possible existence of one spiritual being/god and enforcing belief in another at the same time. Let's see how many Minmatar we have left in the end who are not self-proclaimed atheists.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

It would make sense that pirates would not consider violence such a big crime, no?

I think that was more about the absurdity of pirates claiming the right to moralizing towards nationalist pilots. It's hilarious.

I don't think it is, actually. Thinking that nationalism is immoral in itself is not very bizarre to me, and I do not think that it follows from considering violent piracy a valid action that you have no morals whatsoever.

My only advice to myself is, if I feel someone is being a bit of a two-faced ass about the whole moral-Ic/moral-OOC thing, to grill them about it OOC.

My advice to myself is to just ignore the OOC parts. But I am bad at taking it...

Minmatar tribals telling you Imperial religion is fake and that your god don't exist? Respond in kind by insulting their spiritual heritage and point out how one can't deny the possible existence of one spiritual being/god and enforcing belief in another at the same time.

Yes, please.

[Senn Typhos]

Seems a common thing with Rpers to bring their own morality and upbringing into their characters, which can cause some weirdness when mashed against established PF, etc.

Seriphyn got lots of moral flack for being a womanizer, from other capsuleers, particularly pirates.

Sex is worse than violence, kids 

Is it really any better of a representation of character to say "I might do [x evil deed], but at least I don't [x evil deed]"?

[Louella Dougans]

the whole thing with the voluval and the outcasts on Vo-shun is now IC as well. there was an ISD news report referencing the chronicle.

which would give people some things to think about.

Exiling people to a grim existence because their mystic tattoo thing is "an evil mark" ?

Grim

also means Gallente people should be protesting about it, and about how the Minmatar are doing things wrong.