[HoneyBadger]

That's very true. You do what you do, and people are going to take impressions away from that. But, please let's keep in mind that this is a game.

I could murder every man, woman, and child in EA Ulm, face to face with my teeth, and guess what? That would mean I was doing exactly what I'm supposed to do in the game.

Our society's mores don't apply, don't even enter into the universe Dom3 is played in, so the worst, most hurtfelt thing you can ultimately do to another player is to betray his good intentions-when he has them.

One of the things this game is lacking in-and which ultimately causes some amount of emotional harm in MP games-is context. We usually have a handle on what our own personal nation does and believes-because we decide that ourselves, on the spot, and we have a clue what the other nations are about, but how do they interact? Who are the neutral parties? Where are things black and white, and written in stone? What's the history behind the world?

Dominions 3 has some of that, but it's incomplete and haphazard at best, rumors and guesses at worst.

Mictlan kills children, by the score, messily, but that's alright. EA Ermor doesn't care, other than the fact that Mictlan is ENEMY. Pangaea steals hundreds of womenfolk from other nations and turns them into naked beasts, then unleashes them on their foes in battle, to kill and be killed. Marverni doesn't care, other than the fact that Pangaea is ENEMY. R'lyeh summons evil beyond human comprehension into the world on a regular basis, through a gate that is unstable at best. Ulm doesn't care, other than the fact that R'lyeh is ENEMY.

Why do Aboleths want to conquer the world? Why not just conquer the muddy parts really well? Why does Agartha want supreme power? so they can live in caves and catch fish? Maybe if they don't, humans might come along and conquer them first-and they do, but which humans, and why? Are their rumors that Mictlan's cities are made of gold? Does Marverni want to convert the pagans? Are they using that as an excuse to rob and enslave and slaughter the Mictlanese? In this world, *everyone* wants to convert the pagans! so where's the meat in that argument?

That to me is a big problem. It should be a big problem for other nations that you're doing these things, and it should be a big problem for independents too. Proving that your way-however vile it might appear to other cultures-is the right way, should be a challenge to meet and accomplish and force upon the world, but it's not. The only thing you have to do, ultimately, is conquer the world by whatever means necessary, because the world of Dominions is incomplete. Those gaps-the gaps that distinguish between what is right and what is wrong, for the party that's interpreting them, and the party that's performing the action in question-are missing, which renders this thread completely useless, since one really *can* use the argument "I was only roleplaying", because the distinction between "good" roleplaying and "bad" roleplaying hasn't been made.

Now yes, one of the major themes of the game is that when you play Dominions, you're playing as a would-be god, desiring to be the only One True God, but gods are cultural things-they come from somewhere, and one of the major driving forces behind a religion is to teach morality, culture, and one's place in the universe. The world of Dominions is incomplete in exactly those areas, and that makes roleplaying potentially very plastic.