Inconsistency with griffons?

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chaoticwanderer
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Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by chaoticwanderer »

I recently started playing the sceptre of fire; the campaign itself is fun, but there appears to be a problem with the character of Krawg, the griffon. He appears to be a fully sapient creature and is treated like one; didn't Dave himself say that griffons were supposed to be more comparable to animals like dolphins or apes when it came their intelligence, as opposed to humans (or Wesnoth's other races)?

If griffons are sentient creatures, it can raise a few problems in Wesnoth canon, e.g. Konrad killing griffons to steal their eggs. How is this going to be adressed?
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A-Red
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by A-Red »

chaoticwanderer wrote: If griffons are sentient creatures, it can raise a few problems in Wesnoth canon, e.g. Konrad killing griffons to steal their eggs. How is this going to be adressed?
It's worth noting that Konrad kills a lot of other sentient beings too. But overall, I think you're right--Krawg is inconsistent.
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Araja
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by Araja »

chaoticwanderer wrote:He appears to be a fully sapient creature
Does he develop things? :P
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Midnight_Carnival
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by Midnight_Carnival »

Last time I checked, the campign had all these big warnings attached telling people that it was not part of the whole official Wesnoth thing, but just for fun, or something to that effect.

Other than that, we are dealing with fantasy here. Talking foxes, horses, lions and other creatures are quite common. I don't remember anything in the campign which explicitly stated that Krawg's ability to talk was common to other Gryphons, it may be that he was exceptional in some way. Adding one of the Dwarves commenting "A talking Gryphon!" or "By the mountains, what was in that ale, methought I heard that Gryphon speak!" would entirely remove the aledged inconsistency.

I found the campaign fun to play, but the Grypon highly annoying. As for Konrad killing things, hey, give the guy a break, he had a tough childhood!
...apparenly we can't go with it or something.
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Icarusvogel
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by Icarusvogel »

A-Red wrote:
chaoticwanderer wrote: If griffons are sentient creatures, it can raise a few problems in Wesnoth canon, e.g. Konrad killing griffons to steal their eggs. How is this going to be adressed?
It's worth noting that Konrad kills a lot of other sentient beings too. But overall, I think you're right--Krawg is inconsistent.
Also, there is actually no difference in the ethical faults in killing gryphons to get their eggs, even if they were no "sentient beings".
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Araja
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by Araja »

I'm not so sure about that. As far as I know, killing a sentient creature is considered worse ethically.
If you have to kill a random deer or a random human, which one do you pick?

While I'm close to the topic, how come I don't remember this Gryphon? Is he in one of the branch-off maps?
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boru
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by boru »

Krawg wrote:"Kwill yooo spakkk wit uuus?!?"
I think there ought to be at least one ground rule on talking animals: if an animal must talk, his words ought to be comprehensible. If the author has a sudden need to make the knight's horse talk, let him at least speak in plain english, not tap out important plot details in morse code with his hoofs. I hope we can at least agree to that.

As for killing gryphons, Konrad killed lots of sentient creatures in 20 someodd scenarios so I don't see the inconsistency there.
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Icarusvogel
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by Icarusvogel »

Araja wrote:I'm not so sure about that. As far as I know, killing a sentient creature is considered worse ethically.
If you have to kill a random deer or a random human, which one do you pick?

While I'm close to the topic, how come I don't remember this Gryphon? Is he in one of the branch-off maps?
1) Honestly, I wouldn't care.
2) No, he isn't. If I remember right, he comes in in that map where you have to get that runesmith out of his hut. Remember, the one who didn't like griffins. :P
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by Dixie »

boru wrote:
Krawg wrote:"Kwill yooo spakkk wit uuus?!?"
I think there ought to be at least one ground rule on talking animals: if an animal must talk, his words ought to be comprehensible. If the author has a sudden need to make the knight's horse talk, let him at least speak in plain english, not tap out important plot details in morse code with his hoofs. I hope we can at least agree to that.

As for killing gryphons, Konrad killed lots of sentient creatures in 20 someodd scenarios so I don't see the inconsistency there.
Well, the difference would probably be that in (most?) scenarios, Konrad kills "bad guys", people opposed to him, or aggressing him in the first place. Not just random neutral guys because he needs their babies. If gryphons were really sentient, he could probably have made a deal with them so they fight with him in exchange for... something, instead of just slaughtering everyone last one of them and stealing their eggs...

Note that there is also a speaking gryphon in The Sojournings of Grog (although it is not mainline, so it may matter less)

ANyway, I agree that the simplest way out is probably to have just some comment about the unusual nature of the talking gryphon... and/or have them attack on first sight, so Konrad is not the aggressor, I guess.
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Darkmage
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by Darkmage »

Hum, i think this is a bump, but hope it helps.

What about Konrad not being that always-good-doing character? I mean, we are looking for a way to "tweak" the story and force it to make Konrad's actions not evil, thus making him not "attack" the gryphs but beign that "self-defense"; I propose to le it be, and let that be an evil action Konrad makes, as it's beign said, he killed a bunch of sentient beigns, such as orcs, humans, nagas, trolls and drakes. And he's still one hero and good-doing-man, but wait he kills a gryph and he's a murderer not fitting the story, ok, the gryphs were neutral while the orcs, humans, etc were enemies, but, for example, at the "Test of the clans" they kill humans that state the are neither against rebels, nor the crown, so they are neutral then, but he's still a hero. (Delfador's argument is a falacy, the if you are not my friend you are my enemy, is quite debatable.)

Still in this game everybody kills everybody, and always killind because the others are the enemy.



Edit: Also the coment about a speaking gryphon is a quick way to solve it.
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boru
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by boru »

Dixie wrote:ANyway, I agree that the simplest way out is probably to have just some comment about the unusual nature of the talking gryphon... and/or have them attack on first sight, so Konrad is not the aggressor, I guess.
When I last played this, the gryphons attacked my guys when we went for the nest.

Maybe the magical presence of the Runecrafter magically effects the gryphons in a magical way.
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Zarel
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by Zarel »

Midnight_Carnival wrote:Last time I checked, the campign had all these big warnings attached telling people that it was not part of the whole official Wesnoth thing, but just for fun, or something to that effect.
Erm, SoF (the one with Krawg) is a mainline campaign and canon. Are you thinking of IftU or something?
boru wrote:I think there ought to be at least one ground rule on talking animals: if an animal must talk, his words ought to be comprehensible. If the author has a sudden need to make the knight's horse talk, let him at least speak in plain english, not tap out important plot details in morse code with his hoofs. I hope we can at least agree to that.
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boru
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by boru »

hoofs = hooves
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My campaign: Swamplings - Four centuries before the founding of Wesnoth, the first wolf rider emerges from a tribe of lowly swamp goblins.
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TheBladeRoden
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by TheBladeRoden »

The thing I dislike about that scenaro is that I took the noble humanitarian route and my only reward was not being able to recruit griffons :(
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chaoticwanderer
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Re: Inconsistency with griffons?

Post by chaoticwanderer »

Araja wrote:
chaoticwanderer wrote:He appears to be a fully sapient creature
Does he develop things? :P

I lol'd at that. :lol2:
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