The Tavern

...until I read up on evil gods and I stumbled upon this:

"Ambiguity in the Crawl notion of 'Evil'

Although the good gods in Crawl are portrayed as adhering invariably to moral absolutes, to the extent that even the unwitting use by the player's character of items tagged 'evil' is cause for divine punishment, there is a certain degree of ambiguity in the notion of evil in Stone Soup. Consider that the ordinary practice of an adventurer is to kill and in many cases eat an entire dungeon full of living beings, many of them sapient. In other words, a player can expect, even in low-rune runs, to perform actions constitutive of genocide. Devotion to one of the good gods hardly alters this. It would not be unusual for a favored worshipper of The Shining One, for example, an ostensibly “good” god who frowns on indiscriminate slaughter, to nevertheless kill all, and eat many, of the elves, orcs and nagas in the entire dungeon.

It is unclear what if anything the various societies of dungeon denizens, who, judging by the absence of intra-monster violence within the dungeon, are wholly peaceful, have done to deserve this horrific retribution. On the face of it, the adventurer is simply seeking the Orb. Since “evil”-aligned adventurers act in essentially the same way that “good” ones do in pursuit of this goal, it is unlikely that the finding of this orb is a sufficiently good act in itself to justify the avalanche of butchery.

In the final analysis, it seems that Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is the story of a peaceful, multi-cultural and multi-species society falling victim to a single adventurer's avarice and quest for glory. By the time the worshiper of Zin has waded through the rivers of blood he must spill in order to claim the Orb, it is more than a little difficult to distinguish him from a devotee of Makhleb.

Against the background of the game's overarching narrative, namely murder, cannibalism, genocide and theft on an industrial scale introduced to utopia, the Necromantic spell “Regeneration”, a spell anathematised as “evil” by the “good” gods, hardly compares."

How the hell did this psuedo-philosophical nonsense get past the radar? There is so much wrong with this passage I don't even know where to start. First, I really, really don't think that a wiki is the right place to put your own, personal view of the terms good and evil in it. Even if it where, it casually ignores the fact that 99% of the dungeon's denizens try to kill you on sight and are everything but peaceful. I strongly suggest that this paragraph should be removed.

Merge all 3 good gods into Elyvilon and spread the peace!

How do I lacked any hsense of humor?


Guys, this is evidently for shits and giggles.

My guess is someone didn't notice they tabbed away from goddamn TVTropes, that's how.

Also haha you regged to post this? That's awesome.

I got the nerd rage!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBeAjISBb2U

jk

TvTropes will ruin your life and your vocabulary.

Besides that, I pretty much worship it

I thought it was pretty good satire... made me laugh. We should postmodernize more of the wiki.

Do wikis have some sort of neutral philosophical starting point that is protected from altering? Do you hold wikis in some kind of high regard, above, say, the video games they detail? What then, if anything, should philosophical viewpoints be rendered upon? This is a video game. The wiki describes the video game. Nothing here is sacred, and nothing here is damaged by that viewpoint. Holy shit who cares? I swear you mountain dwarf mourners have some seriously odd thought processes

I don`t even think that is a wiki-exclusive document, it is in the documents folder if I`m not mistaken.

Well that would explain a lot. Because yes, I think that a video game wiki should describe said game and not render philosophical views that are pulled out of thin air; it should be neutral. But if that's what's actually written in the game files - fine, then it does it's job of describing the game.

the article is canon

obligatory 'honestly, the bigger question is how the hell you thought the wiki was good before reading that'

The terrible posters and their creepiness sure will, I agree

Your problem lies within the title of this thread.

caus wen my char is ded fur no resun teh wikie telle meh wut is happenz

really the worst part about that paragraph is that it's just pointing out the obvious.

tangentially, i've always thought it was cool that nethack textually calls the player as some sort of turbo-evil.

My favorite thing on the wiki is how the glaive article calls them useless because "battleaxes do more damage."

My favorite thing on the wiki is in the Mennas article when it tells you to plan ahead; a wand of teleportation should be one of your first purchases...

Actually I find this advice useful to new players who are unaware of silence. Initially I neglected to buy a wand of teleportation when I had conservation and many scrolls of teleportation, timed bazaars with little money felt disappointing.

Even if it is correct to buy a wand of Teleportation as soon as possible (which is at least an oversimplification) that bit of advice does not belong on the Mennas article.

When I read wiki for the first time, Mennas was the only monster who could cast Silence so it was very comfortable to see that information in his article. At least that's what I remember.

Suggesting using a wand of teleportation to get away from Mennas is useful. Implying that not having a wand of teleportation is your fault is disingenuous. There are very few reliable sources of anything in the game. While I often have a wand by the time I meet Mennas, I rarely see one for purchase within a shop, and shops themselves are highly variable in their frequency and stock. The advice is good; it's the attitude behind it that annoyed me.

That being said, I have always really enjoyed the articles about good an evil.