Since I keep being late to the party on discord, I bring the title question for debate.
IMO the tuning on Corruption gain is fine as a metric for personality like the other game, but it feels WAY off as a tool for explaining what corruption is said to be, even for the early game. It comes off as weak to not use your morality meter to reinforce the game's big theme. You don't even have to be absolute, you have thresholds, a Champion can be held to a higher standard then a Tainted one here. What's to gain from being coy with it?
Yea, took a closer look at the doc/wiki: https://wiki.smutosaur.us/CoC2/Corruption
It looks like I'd like it if there were more acts that just nudged you into low Tainted/neutral territory. Stuff like not cuddling after intimacy, undermining your companions for free stuff, even engaging in sex after a winning a battle (some of it reads as uncomfortable for you and all of it reads like you're just giving in), etc.
Still, I'm worried if one writer sees an action as fine and another defines it as corrupt, and since morality meters tend to be absolute, then the game could result in a confusing mess ethically. To be consistent, I thought it would be helpful for the team to outline and proof their judgments here.
Yea, took a closer look at the doc/wiki: https://wiki.smutosaur.us/CoC2/Corruption
To be consistent, I thought it would be helpful for the team to outline and proof their judgments here.
There have been arguments about this on Discord so i have to ask, do you consider Brint's transformation to Brienne to be a form of corruption for Brint or the PC or both?
There have been arguments about this on Discord so i have to ask, do you consider Brint's transformation to Brienne to be a form of corruption for Brint or the PC or both?
Let me refer you to a psychological conundrum named the trolley problem...
But seriously you could feasibly argue that a champion would not know what to do about the armor. There's a big bold prompt telling you to check Sanders because it's a really big deal if your companion gets changed when you don't want them to, not because the PC intrinsically knows that Sanders can help them. Therefore having him change into Brienne is not by necessity a corrupt action by the PC. I can't actually quite tell the meaning of corruption for Brint, though. It's not his "corrupt path" if that's what you mean, but if you're asking "Is Brienne corrupt?" then no comment.
I definitely don't want to set off a minefield here and I understand it's in the game and not going away, but I've always disliked the concept of empathy as a universal purity thing, and a lack of it as evidence of corruption. IRL I know many, many people who lack empathy because it just...requires being able to feel other people's emotions. Hell, I'm autistic, I have trouble with it at times: I'm just not as attuned to other people, and that's okay. It doesn't mean that I don't try to be a good person and extend compassion.
The people I know who lack empathy completely are some of the kindest people I know, because they want to be: it's just that they don't depend on empathy to do it. They don't understand other people's emotional states on that level, but they often still feel sympathy, and they do their best to be compassionate. I've found some extremely empathic people actively use their empathy to do serious harm to others. It's an automatic emotional response, not an indicator of goodness.
Again, I understand it's in the game, and it's not going away, and I'm not asking people to start changing the way they discuss it NOR am I trying to insinuate that you're all bad people or are targeting me specifically or something ridiculous like that. It's just that empathy always seems to come up when we discuss corruption, and so I've had these thoughts on my mind for a while. I've got more thoughts on empathy in general, but meh. Just wanted to give my two cents; please feel free to ignore.
I can't actually quite tell the meaning of corruption for Brint, though. It's not his "corrupt path" if that's what you mean, but if you're asking "Is Brienne corrupt?" then no comment.
It was the latter sorry i should have made that more clear.
Also if Brienne is really corrupt i guess that would be the explanation for the personality shift.
I definitely don't want to set off a minefield here and I understand it's in the game and not going away, but I've always disliked the concept of empathy as a universal purity thing, and a lack of it as evidence of corruption. IRL I know many, many people who lack empathy because it just...requires being able to feel other people's emotions. Hell, I'm autistic, I have trouble with it at times: I'm just not as attuned to other people, and that's okay. It doesn't mean that I don't try to be a good person and extend compassion.
The people I know who lack empathy completely are some of the kindest people I know, because they want to be: it's just that they don't depend on empathy to do it. They don't understand other people's emotional states on that level, but they often still feel sympathy, and they do their best to be compassionate. I've found some extremely empathic people actively use their empathy to do serious harm to others. It's an automatic emotional response, not an indicator of goodness.
Again, I understand it's in the game, and it's not going away, and I'm not asking people to start changing the way they discuss it NOR am I trying to insinuate that you're all bad people or are targeting me specifically or something ridiculous like that. It's just that empathy always seems to come up when we discuss corruption, and so I've had these thoughts on my mind for a while. I've got more thoughts on empathy in general, but meh. Just wanted to give my two cents; please feel free to ignore.
That's a component of empathy, not the totality of it. But you're right -- a lack of empathy does not make someone evil, nor does having empathy necessarily safeguard one from being evil. And I hope, as the game progresses, that we'll see some genuinely not-evil demons that don't let their lack of empathy necessarily turn them into monsters... and we've already seen people capable of empathic understanding commit evil. Tollus, Alissa, Arona.
Now, when writing for demons I often keep this quote in mind:
In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trials) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.
However, I don't think it's necessarily that simple. We were just talking about this on our Discord this morning, actually, so I'll just copy over some of that discussion with regards to my thoughts on the matter:
TheObserver said:
when you become a demon, essentially what you were obsessed with before is turned up to eleven because you don't have a moral compass anymore to caution against taking extreme actions to pursue that obsession.
Marethian ones have obsessions. Like Tobs said, usually sex. Sometimes not -- like the demon mechanic in the Factory just wanted to dick around with machines, and the merchant outside the imp cave just wanted to make money. They're capable of doing other stuff than just mindlessly pursuing their obsession(s), but what makes them (potentially) evil is the complete lack of moral stopsigns in their pursuit of whatever it is they want to do.
Empathy is probably the strongest instinctive safeguard we have against random anti-social behaviors, but lacking it isn't an excuse for being evil, nor the reason for the behavior -- it is the reason many demons don't stop themselves from whatever evil bullshit they want to get up to. They have things they are compelled to do (usually I WANT TO MAKE FUCK) and they no longer have their strongest safeguard in place to prevent them from doing anything to get that fix. That's a dangerous combination. But clearly some demons are capable of maintaining self control: we see that with Kasyrra refraining from at any point forcing herself on the PC when that would surely expedite her plans. Whether that's moral philosophy at work or pragmatism I'll leave to your interpretations.
Basically, "Evil people lack empathy, therefore people that lack empathy are evil" is the same as saying "All collies are dogs, therefore all dogs are collies".
Another important thing is that empathy doesn't necessarily make you good -- there is an old saying around these parts that the best torturer is the one who cries along with his victims. Being able to understand what makes others tick and understanding others' thoughts and feelings is just as important to the confidence man.
Let me refer you to a psychological conundrum named the trolley problem...
But seriously you could feasibly argue that a champion would not know what to do about the armor. There's a big bold prompt telling you to check Sanders because it's a really big deal if your companion gets changed when you don't want them to, not because the PC intrinsically knows that Sanders can help them. Therefore having him change into Brienne is not by necessity a corrupt action by the PC. I can't actually quite tell the meaning of corruption for Brint, though. It's not his "corrupt path" if that's what you mean, but if you're asking "Is Brienne corrupt?" then no comment.
And this, I think, is why the idea of a unified morality scale for corruption for all the writers in the game is impossible. Not just because of the granularity of each situation (is stealing okay? Stealing to feed yourself? Stealing to feed others? Stealing from another poor person to feed yourself? Stealing from thieves? Stealing from demons?) but also the differing standards everyone personally has and likely can't be detached from. I think the transformation of Brint into Brienne is a masterful piece of writing in depicting the insidious corruption of the PC -- weird dreams and armour that can't be removed warrant an immediate, serious investigation in my book, and that the PC failing to do something serious about it is at least gross negligence in the service of whatever reason players have given for their choice -- horniness, curiosity, so on and forth.
Wsan himself doesn't think so, of course, because he views it as that the PC wouldn't know what to do. And that's why the idea of an absolute moral meter is hardly possible with multiple writers. Even the results of that morality meter vary in peoples' interpretation of the champion, dark knight and bimbo personalities; I personally cannot for the life of me write any kind of bimbo content convincingly and that's going to cause some dissonance. Some people think being a dark knight just means being more selfish and abrasive, others want to be Agoresh the Reaver Of Corpses. Unfortunate, but them's the breaks. That's why only a general guideline is possible, and we can't say "okay, theft is worth 5 points of corruption, murder 10", etc, etc. It just doesn't work.
There have been arguments about this on Discord so i have to ask, do you consider Brint's transformation to Brienne to be a form of corruption for Brint or the PC or both?
Yea, I'll admit responding to those arguments are low-key what motivated me to start this thread, but got more constructive when I started thinking of the problem more broadly.
I definitely don't want to set off a minefield here and I understand it's in the game and not going away, but I've always disliked the concept of empathy as a universal purity thing, and a lack of it as evidence of corruption. IRL I know many, many people who lack empathy because it just...requires being able to feel other people's emotions. Hell, I'm autistic, I have trouble with it at times: I'm just not as attuned to other people, and that's okay. It doesn't mean that I don't try to be a good person and extend compassion.
The people I know who lack empathy completely are some of the kindest people I know, because they want to be: it's just that they don't depend on empathy to do it. They don't understand other people's emotional states on that level, but they often still feel sympathy, and they do their best to be compassionate. I've found some extremely empathic people actively use their empathy to do serious harm to others. It's an automatic emotional response, not an indicator of goodness.
Again, I understand it's in the game, and it's not going away, and I'm not asking people to start changing the way they discuss it NOR am I trying to insinuate that you're all bad people or are targeting me specifically or something ridiculous like that. It's just that empathy always seems to come up when we discuss corruption, and so I've had these thoughts on my mind for a while. I've got more thoughts on empathy in general, but meh. Just wanted to give my two cents; please feel free to ignore.
As much as I agree with you, I do think there is a fast and a slow way of thinking when in comes to empathy. I'd guess that your "unempathic" friends are an example of the latter.
Still, I feel you man, I do not want to think about the times my autistic ass accidently sat on other people feelings. For what it's worth, it's likely that there are more autistic people here than in the average population. We tend to be attracted to these kinds of games, don't we?
And this, I think, is why the idea of a unified morality scale for corruption for all the writers in the game is impossible. Not just because of the granularity of each situation (is stealing okay? Stealing to feed yourself? Stealing to feed others? Stealing from another poor person to feed yourself? Stealing from thieves? Stealing from demons?) but also the differing standards everyone personally has and likely can't be detached from. I think the transformation of Brint into Brienne is a masterful piece of writing in depicting the insidious corruption of the PC -- weird dreams and armour that can't be removed warrant an immediate, serious investigation in my book, and that the PC failing to do something serious about it is at least gross negligence in the service of whatever reason players have given for their choice -- horniness, curiosity, so on and forth.
Wsan himself doesn't think so, of course, because he views it as that the PC wouldn't know what to do. And that's why the idea of an absolute moral meter is hardly possible with multiple writers. Even the results of that morality meter vary in peoples' interpretation of the champion, dark knight and bimbo personalities; I personally cannot for the life of me write any kind of bimbo content convincingly and that's going to cause some dissonance. Some people think being a dark knight just means being more selfish and abrasive, others want to be Agoresh the Reaver Of Corpses. Unfortunate, but them's the breaks. That's why only a general guideline is possible, and we can't say "okay, theft is worth 5 points of corruption, murder 10", etc, etc. It just doesn't work.
I think part of the problem is assuming a game's morality scale is universally applicable to begin with. If it stops being generic good/evil, it can point to a game's themes, or can show a setting's differing morals. I keep thinking of the Chaos system from Dishonored 1, which both inherently fits a story about vengance and lets you do some iffy stuff without raising a blip, because it's relatively normal for the messed up setting.
Also, it looks like you're assuming the player would take the time limit seriously and wouldn't get distracted from the super important quest to do other shiny stuff. It's been known to happen.
Look, you are right to draw parallels between corruptive influence and molding companions to player desire. But right now, you are conflating player and character (as managed by the game) to make the point. And if there's nothing in the text to draw parallels between that player's desire to turn Brint>Brienne and a corruptive antagonist doing something similar, even when it's an accident by your character, it's just headcannon for now.
Empathy is probably the strongest instinctive safeguard we have against random anti-social behaviors, but lacking it isn't an excuse for being evil, nor the reason for the behavior -- it is the reason many demons don't stop themselves from whatever evil bullshit they want to get up to. They have things they are compelled to do (usually I WANT TO MAKE FUCK) and they no longer have their strongest safeguard in place to prevent them from doing anything to get that fix. That's a dangerous combination. But clearly some demons are capable of maintaining self control: we see that with Kasyrra refraining from at any point forcing herself on the PC when that would surely expedite her plans. Whether that's moral philosophy at work or pragmatism I'll leave to your interpretations.
Thinking less broadly, Corruption as defined in the wiki isn't just linked to general empathy but sexual empathy, which I interpret as being able to feel for any person you sleep with.
If I may make a suggestion, an easy check for low Taint would be asking if you still care for a companion after having sex, everytime. I think it shows what enthusiastic consent can look like, or conversely shows an actual problem hedonists run into.
When playing the original game my first impression was that all demons being sex demons was a contrivance for the setting (and it probably was) but by the end I regarded it differently. There's an element of irony in what the demons did to themselves; all of them seemed to think that becoming demonic made them stronger but by and large it was the opposite: it might have granted them some new power, sure, but ultimately it exposed their character flaws and made them wholly incapable of dealing with them. It made them wanton in pursuing any goal but also removed that deeper sense of spiritual or psychological satisfaction that comes with getting it. Demons struggled to find purpose and largely ended up chasing dopamine.
The Champion manages to end Lethice's reign largely due to being the right person coming along at the right time. By this point the demons themselves lacked cohesion or any sort of long term goals and most of their early efforts are falling apart. Lethice herself came off as slothful - or just someone who was very, very tired. Bored of all the immediate pleasures, no longer capable of looking to the future or even mustering the wherewithal to put a real empire together. I got the impression that the Champion's intrusion snapped her out of a listless fog that could have lasted years for all she knew.
Based on how CoC2 is shaping up I think the Living Gods would regard the demons as clever for thinking up a method to turn souls into lethicite but fools for using it on themselves.
Anyway, the idea I wanted to convey is that corruption is not necessarily a morality system. Rather than strict virtue judgments it's something more along the lines of a repressed teenager going off to uni, coming into contact with many of the things they were told to stay away from, and indulging to excess because the fundamental issue was not that those things were right or wrong in and of themselves but that the teenager was never given the chance to indulge their curiosity, learn of moderation, or develop a context for them. That curiosity ended up controlling them.
Demons lack empathy but I don't think that can be said to be exactly what corruption is. Ultimately it's the manifestation and twisting of a desire, like the teenager's curiosity, from a healthy pursuit to a debauched one.
I'm putting together some content for a tamable tentacle beast and my excitement in outlining the concept is in offering something that's equally interesting to play from both a corrupt and pure perspective. The game largely lacking corruption content has a classic writer's plus/minus: there aren't many precedents (it's less restrictive) but there aren't many precedents (there are a lot of blanks to fill in). What corruption would look like in the Champion was one of the first I wanted to pin down. According to the design documents the dark knight personality is more selfish but not evil, fundamentally they should still be a hero or at least capable of heroic acts, so the answer I came up with and have been writing under is that a purer Champion would find corruption to be more of a compulsion that's hard to resist, like that teenager encountering all the drugs, sex, and devil music their parents warned them about:
This wasn’t the plan – not <i>exactly</i> – but the sight of her, bound, helpless, dress strategically shredded, is the very picture of temptation. So long as you do the right thing in the end surely a brief and wicked flirtation can be forgiven.
For just a moment a pang of fear overtakes you – fear that you’re losing the ability to push these desires aside, fear that these desires aren’t yours to begin with – but it passes through and past you like a chilling winter breeze, leaving you with the warmth of your lust, pure and honest, and something in you knows this is right.
Your glazed expression, for all the fogginess it reflects in your head, announces your intentions with such pellucidity that any words she might conjure to placate you die in her throat; squashed by the primal <b>need</b> that confronts her.
May your jubilation bring a blush to Mallach’s cheeks.
Thinking along the lines of what would make a dark knight fun to play and what they might look like I settled on the idea that a dark knight is past this phase, where these desires are more instinctual and hard for the Champion to contextualize with their rational mind, and has now begun to not only justify them but view them as something they're entitled to. Now that I've got a firm image, a cross between a vain knight and a controlling boy/girlfriend, I'm having a lot of fun coming up with situations that showcase corrupt behaviors like subtly or overtly undercutting companions' opinions, planting ideas in their heads, and generally approaching the situation like everyone in the game owes them something:
[Cait & Ryn, takes priority over individual variants]A pair of ornery rainclouds threaten a downpour to wash away your forward enthusiasm.
“Don’t tease the poor girl, [playername], can’t you see she’s at her wit’s end? Help her out before you go making those goo-goo eye-“something in her demeanor is visibly shaken when Cait sees the look on your face; it’s enough to send her verbally stumbling, “L-look, if you need relief that badly you can always come see me. And if you’re in the mood for a bit of rope play I’ve got some-“
“You can’t seriously be considering this!” Emboldened by the fact that she didn’t have to speak up first Etheryn piggybacks her own objection, “She’s still in the clutches of a monster! It’s…it’s not…um, taking advantage of the c-corrupt creatures is one thing, but…I don’t think…should…” but quickly deflates under the weight of your gaze.
[pc is dark knight]”Oh? If you two are of a mind to make an ethics question of this rescue then I assume that one or both of you have the strength to handle this yourselves?”
It’s a cinch; the moment you pose the challenge you’re treated to the sight you were hoping for. First their eyes dart toward the captive lass. There they are, the little whimpers as they project themselves onto her, imagine themselves in her place, the sidelong glances at their weapons – a flunked-out temple whore dabbling in half-remembered white magic and a “princess” whose closest view of any throne was from a footstool’s perspective making a go of it on their own? who are they trying to fool? – and the sunken expressions as they realize exactly where they’d end up without their champion’s protection. Then, finally, that last drop of sweet honey at the bottom of the pot: the fidgeting, the nervous shuffling as they try to shake off how the imagined powerlessness made them feel. Try as they might to hide it you see it clearly; no, they’re <i>displaying</i> it for you, you decide, else Cait would cover her erect nubs and Ryn the drip drip drip of her little pecker. Your sluts are so <i>predictable</i>.
“Don’t you worry your sweet little heads. She’ll be all the better for it once she’s shown the proper deference. Leaving her to that <i>thing</i> never even crossed my mind. We’re the good guys here! Run along, now, I’ll give you a shout if I have need of you.”/
[Cait]An ornery raincloud threatens a downpour to wash away your forward enthusiasm.
“Don’t tease the poor girl, [playername], can’t you see she’s at her wit’s end? Help her out before you go making those goo-goo eye-“something in her demeanor is visibly shaken when Cait sees the look on your face; it’s enough to send her verbally stumbling, “L-look, if you need relief that badly you can always come see me. And if you’re in the mood for a bit of rope play I’ve got some spider-silk threads that haven’t been used for their intended purpose in quite a while. Wonderful stuff, ties your hair every bit as well as your wrists and plugs holes in a wagon cover well enough to keep the damp out.”
[pc is dark knight]What a pure girl she is!
“Oh no no no, kitten, your mind’s strayed into the gutter again,” with a tap to her forehead, “and you’re all mixed up. This is very much a rescue; you know better than anyone that I’m always willing to answer a call of distress. This is a simple matter of propriety. I put my life on the line protecting those like her – and you – from this demon-filth and the only thing I ask in return is the proper gratitude. You show yours through deference to my will out here on the battlefield[pc has fucked cait],” you curl your finger under her chin to turn her head for a whisper, “and behind closed doors,” bringing a blush to the cute catslut’s cheeks, “/and she shall show hers this way. That’s all this is.”
Just one more push and this silly objection will be brushed aside.
“I didn’t know the Temple of Mallach taught the spider-folks’ arts. You wouldn’t happen to know any of those complex weaves that can be worn under your clothing…?”
There it is: the flush in her cheeks, an outward sign of the rush of excitement taking its course through her as her mind drifts off to distant shores, inlets of willing constriction, sweet-smelling bays filled with the physical proof of the joys of submission. And now that you’ve planted the idea in her head – who better to show it to, to share it with, than her champion? The roots bury themselves.
“…You goof, it’d show in this outfit.”
“I know.”
In your mind’s eye, where you can see her true face, little hearts light up in your sex kitten’s pupils.
“…I’ll just be digging through my things if you need me.” /
What makes this setting's idea of corruption fun to read and fun to write, in my eyes, is that it's not strictly a measure of how depraved a character is, it's not a uniform sense of perversion but something that'll hit each person differently. Becoming corrupt won't necessarily open someone to any form of debauchery but instead creep in through cracks that were already there. The question isn't "what is corruption?" but "what about this character's pursuits can -be- corrupted?".
