PCs who kill everyone that attacks them

[Elf Witch]

Spoken like a not too bright DM.


Hong "I hear there's a vaccine for that" Ooi

All actions have consquences for both good and bad. Are you telling me most players are not bright enough to figure out that if they behave in certain manner then they will get the same treatment? That they would expect if they surrendered to have it taken and be treated fairly and have all their equipment returned when they have never behved like this?

If the players want to play hardasses and take no prisoners because this is the game they want to play why would they think that the NPCs would not be the same?

 

[Templetroll]

Perhaps this means that I've outgrown comic books, or at least standard superhero comic books, but Superman and Batman seem stupid by that definition. Sure, Superman has to hold back because he's so poewrful, and he doesn't want to risk becoming evil, but Batman? The Joker always escapes. And he always kills people. The Joker deserves to die. It'll never really happen, because the Joker is a comic-book franchise in and of himself, but really.

That was what made the first Batman movie so excellent; Joker had to die. Movie reality won't work so well with Comic reality. There was plenty of ambiguity in that final scene as to who caused the Joker's hand to be released. I see Batman as a hero so I saw Joker hindered by the things that happened during the fight, especially that chunk of stone hung on him with the batarang. Batman tried to stop his escape but then tried to save him, but the Joker brought about his own demise and it was appropriate.

 

[Black Omega]

That was what made the first Batman movie so excellent; Joker had to die. Movie reality won't work so well with Comic reality. There was plenty of ambiguity in that final scene as to who caused the Joker's hand to be released. I see Batman as a hero so I saw Joker hindered by the things that happened during the fight, especially that chunk of stone hung on him with the batarang. Batman tried to stop his escape but then tried to save him, but the Joker brought about his own demise and it was appropriate.

If Batman made any attempt at all to save The Joker in the first movie, I admit I've missed it every time I've seen the movie. From what I recall he simply watched the Joker fall. No reaching out to him. No firing another batarang to try and attach Napier to something more secure. What makes you think he tried to save The Joker?

 

[Celtavian]

re

You also have to take into account that the majority of the time adventurers are actually invaders in someone else's territory. I would say nine times out of ten the opposition isn't really that interested in capturing you anyway. That is why most adventurers kill whatever they fight. They are in enemy territorty without the resources of a town constable or city watch to take the bad guys into custody.

I've spared a few folks from the sword. It is rare because I usually don't have the luxury of jailing them. I don't plan to let servants of evil gods or masters, mercernary or no, off scott free. I give them a chance to make peace with the gods before I put them to the sword. They deserve no more the majority of the time.

"Kill'em all and let the gods sort them out."

 

[Silver Moon]

Our group also tends to take the "kill them all" route far too often. The current module that I am running is "Beast of Burden" from Dungeon Magazine #100, which involves a 100 foot tall and 500 foot long monster - and I can honestly say this is the first foe they've ever come up against where they realize from the onset that a direct assault of brute force will not work. It's interesting seeing them have to come up with new strategies to deal with it.

Their usual approach is just "Get'em'. A few years back I had a module where the party's high level characters were away and a villain then invaded their home island and took all lower level characters and hirelings hostage. It was set that this was a bad guy contest, with ten separate groups of bad guys competing against each other to defeat the good guys. Once the party found this out they were expected to use this knowledge to divide and conquer, turning each enemy team of bad guys against each other while negotiating truces with some. Instead, they just attacked group after group one at a time without ever trying to negotiate. This got rather boring by the fifth group or so, as I didn't mean for the module to just be a hack'n'slash.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Hyp, I may not always agree with you, but that was a great quote.

Never too much Steven Brust in a thread, I always say.

I actually prefer the anecdote that describes Sethra Lavode, though...

Allow us, for the purposes of illustration, to pick one of the accurate stories to express Sethra's character. She was Warlord under the Lyorn Emperor Tiska during the Thirteenth Cycle, when rebellion broke out along the coast to the southwest, in response to the combination of wheat shortages from the north and the interdiction on shipping that Tiska had declared in response to piracy from the Longburry Islands. It seemed to Sethra, who was aware of all the circumstances of the rebellion, that it would certainly continue to spread unless put down at once, so she set out at the head of the army just as it was - without waiting for additional conscripts or negotiating with mercenaries.

This quick mode of acting placed her, some few months later, at the head of some eight hundred cavalry and two thousand foot soldiers, facing seven thousand rebellious, heavily armed, and well-commanded Dragonlords, Orca, and Teckla on Bernen's Field. Sethra rode up alone to the enemy lines and, in full sight of her own troops, took from her brow the Warlord's Headdress, which had been the symbol of ultimate command since the First Cycle, and threw it into the enemy's line. The first reaction, of course, was great joy on the part of the enemy, and despair in Sethra's own army, but then she returned to her own lines and declaimed, "The enemy seems to have acquired a holy relic of the Empire. We cannot expect them to return it from kindness or duty, wherefore, my loves, I am about to order a charge, and if you care about my honor and the traditions of the Empire, you must not think of holding back or retreating until this relic is in our hands once more."

Three hours later the Warlord's Headdress was again upon Sethra's brow, and the rebellion was broken and scattered. While we would hesitate to say precisely what this anecdote expresses about Sethra's character, we are certain at any rate, that it ought to tell the reader something.

Steven Brust, Five Hundred Years After.

-Hyp.

 

[mmu1]

Maybe in your game that is how they like to play. But I don't like games like this it takes the role playing out of it. I enjoy dilemas and trying to figure out the best way to solve them. And one big dilema is what to do with prisoners. If you are lucky you have a paladin who can cast a spell that puts them in a pocket of interdimensional space sort of like sticking them in a haversack that is what our paladin does he's got three prisoners in one now.

Who cares what games you like? (and please, drop the internet clairvoyant BS, you have no idea what I like or what my players like)

I'm talking about the practical issues involved in the mechanics D&D has been set up around - average combats per session, number of opponents defeated per level, etc. This number is generally so high it completely precludes using the same approach to prisoners a character in a work of fiction might use - unless you don't mind being trailed by your own personal POW camp, and spending most of your time deciding the fate of prisoners. Most people without a lot of pretentions about their role-playing don't find that particularly interesting.

 

[Elf Witch]

Who cares what games you like? (and please, drop the internet clairvoyant BS, you have no idea what I like or what my players like)

I'm talking about the practical issues involved in the mechanics D&D has been set up around - average combats per session, number of opponents defeated per level, etc. This number is generally so high it completely precludes using the same approach to prisoners a character in a work of fiction might use - unless you don't mind being trailed by your own personal POW camp, and spending most of your time deciding the fate of prisoners. Most people without a lot of pretentions about their role-playing don't find that particularly interesting.

I care what games I like. From your post I inferred what you and your players play like. One of the problems with internet communication is that you cannot see or hear the person you are talking to and since the person is not there you can not ask a question and get an immediate clclarification.

I was not making a judgement against you or your players on how you choose to play the game. So I really don't think there is any call to be so bent out of shape or to respond so rudely.

I play in three different games and I have never seen that many prisoners as to fill a POW camp. It just has never happpened. Now it is possible that my groups don't have as many combats as the norm. But then maybe we are pretension role player times.

 

[Endur]

hmmm, I've never had an problem with it.

Oh, sure, there have been times our party fought 100+ Orcs and Giants on the battlefield, but its assumed that the monsters that survived are taken care of somehow after the battle is over.

For adversary's in a typical adventure, there usually is not a real reason to kill an enemy if they survived the combat. Almost all survivors can be taken prisoner in one fashion or another (even the really big survivors).

I think that one thing that's being missed in all these comparisons to ficitonal heroes is practicality.

The sheer volume of combat most parties go through (and where the combat usually takes place) makes it impossible to approach taking prisoners in anything resembling a "real world" fashion. What are the PCs supposed to do, leave neatly tied bundles of enemies along their trail for later collection and shipping back to the town prison?
Depending on the enemy, that amounts to a)Letting them go, for all intents of purposes (those with decent Escape Artist or associates that can help) and b)Letting them starve to death or be mauled by monsters (anyone who can't readily break out of bonds).

Small wonder many people try to simplify matters and get on with the game - they want to play adventurers, not cops.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

I was in a game where we were constantly dealing with the moral issues of killing people. We also had to deal with prisoners a lot. Needless to say, after a while, we avoided fighting at all, just because it was too much of a hassle. And for some reason, that surprized the DM.