PCs who kill everyone that attacks them

[DragonLancer]

My players are an odd bunch. For the most part they do not take prisoners and on occasion even surrended prisoners have been killed following a fight. This has led to some great RP between characters but ultimately the prevelent POV is that these guys will only go back and warn others, and the party will get into more fights and possibly be killed. Killing opponents is the only appropriate course of action.

 

[Elf Witch]

My players are an odd bunch. For the most part they do not take prisoners and on occasion even surrended prisoners have been killed following a fight. This has led to some great RP between characters but ultimately the prevelent POV is that these guys will only go back and warn others, and the party will get into more fights and possibly be killed. Killing opponents is the only appropriate course of action.

Last night in our game after a heated battle we took several prisoners. Some of them detected evil. Now the paladin in our group has a dilemma he wants to see them brought to justice although he feels the city we are in makes that impossiable because it is so corrupt.

He may try to use the stuff out of the BOXD to change the alingment of the prisoners. Or he may judge them and execute them.

Whatever happens it shall make some great role playing.

 

[Henry]

The discussion is fascinating, but it could really do without the hostility and inferences toward denigrating other people, or their styles of play. Let's please keep an eye toward being more civil to one another, please.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

My characters generally kill disabled and captured foes.


Reasons why:

1) Anyone who is coming at me with a pointy stick with the intent to cause bodily harm deserves to die, regardless of whether or not I relieve them of the pointy stick. (This is one of the reasons why abstract hit points in DnD are sometimes silly: A bandit with a crossbow just shot a quarrel in me for 6 hit points. I knock him unconscious. I DO NOT let him go, now that I have his crossbow. That is dumb.)


2) Gods, heaven, and hell absolutely exist in DnD. Killing someone means their spirit goes somewhere in line with their alignment. It is nothing like the real world, because we (you and me) have no idea where we go when we die.

(Please don't flame me for this one. I don't want to argue religion here. I'm just trying to point out that DnD is more concrete than the real world on this issue.)


3) Murdering someone is evil, regardless of alignment. If a lawful neutral mercenary (who works for a LE lich) attacks me with the intent to kill (namely by charging forward with his greatsword), I am within my rights to kill him. Circumstances do not matter (as long as the circumstances aren't that I'm charging him with MY greatsword first.)

"Just business" is a silly phrase that evil characters use to justify their atrocities. That's why the Assassin PrC is evil. Killing people for money is evil.


4) Bandits generally deserve to die, not get taken prisoner, even if they are human. (I'm talking about the raping, murdering and pillaging bandits.) How would this change if they were orc bandits or troll bandits or pixie bandits?



Those are my opinions anyway.

 

[hong]

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?

Nobody ever said that PCs shouldn't expect actions to have consequences. Of course they'll have consequences. However, if you expect "actions have consequences" to be a good enough reason on its own to compel hardcase players to stop being hardcases, then you're almost certainly going to be disappointed.

 

[Kestrel]

Interesting

Its interesting to see the replies about the situation that happened in my game. The different POVs are interesting and pretty much sum up the different views of the players. I sent them out an email today to explain how I was seeing things as a DM and so on. I explained the laws of the land they are in and how people take thier actions. I tried not to be judgemental, as I don't really care all that much about what they do, but I just wanted them to know the consequences of thier actions.

 

[Elf Witch]

Nobody ever said that PCs shouldn't expect actions to have consequences. Of course they'll have consequences. However, if you expect "actions have consequences" to be a good enough reason on its own to compel hardcase players to stop being hardcases, then you're almost certainly going to be disappointed.

Well then what do you do after you have talked to them and tried the consquence approach? I think this is why it is important for DMs and players to be on the same page. If the players wnat to be hardasses with no consquences then so be it. If as a DM you don't enjoy DMing a game like that then don't.

I will admit that the consquence thing only works if the players are into it.

 

[hong]

Well then what do you do after you have talked to them and tried the consquence approach? I think this is why it is important for DMs and players to be on the same page. If the players wnat to be hardasses with no consquences then so be it. If as a DM you don't enjoy DMing a game like that then don't.

I will admit that the consquence thing only works if the players are into it.

Yep. In that situation, you really have 3 options: 1) accept it and play a game that's more cynical and hardboiled; 2) kick the recalcitrant players out, or 3) let someone else DM.

Personally, I'd rather play a game with fewer people where everyone was on the same page, than have a big group where people are arguing all the time. I've been in a big group before and it wasn't much fun.

 

[eXodus]

i am playing in a very cool game where everyone is playing a rogue/something else. we are all part of the same guild who is in the middle of a brutal guild war. because of this war and also because of the dm's lack of use of alignments we kill pretty much everyone. we have taken our prisoners. there have been torturing for information. but in the end everyone dies.

is it the lack of alignment restrictions? doubtful. i see it more as the bloody truth of this war. every body left in our wake is one less dagger in the back from a defeated foe.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

It's funny, this exact issue came up a couple of months ago with a newbie DM during the second game session:

She had three evil foes teleport in and attack our group. We slew two of them, and disabled the third, who we promptly tied up. Then we healed him, interrogated him, and quickly slew him.

The DM ruled that the act was evil. (Regardless of the fact that the guy detected strong evil and attacked our party for no reason.) We all argued that the act was neither good nor evil, but definitely chaotic and neutral. Chaotic because we, not tradition or a government or a code decided his fate, and neutral with respect to good or evil because it fulfills none of the criteria for good or evil out of the PHB (or even a loose interpretation of such.)

(Hence the reason why St. Cuthbert is LN instead of LE.)

She then had a bunch of 15th level arcane archers appear and demand that we surrender to them. When we resisted (we were not within their jurisdiction), these CHAOTIC GOOD elves slaughtered the GOOD party because they were under orders to do so. (And they knew we were good because they had previously cast detect good.)

We argued that the elves were being LAWFUL EVIL.


Needless to say the campaign ended right there.

.
.
.
.
.
My other group actually talked about this tonight and we managed to come to a consensus that there are six types of actions:

lawful
neutral
chaotic

good
neutral
evil

(Just in case this wasn't obvious, I am talking about DnD morality, not real world morality.)

The PHB implicitly says that there are actions that are neither good nor evil. (Such as eating some rations or taking a leak.) These are morally neutral actions. Defending oneself is a morally neutral action. Interrogating someone is morally neutral. Killing someone after they attempt to take your life is neutral.

Whereas torture is evil. Hacking off someone's limbs, casting cure light wounds to staunch the bleeding, and then leaving their mauled body to slowly die of starvation is evil.

The problem arose when a PC chose to take a morally neutral action into their own hands. In the example above, our characters chose whether the prisoner deserved to die, not some independent arbiter (or tradition or code or what have you). Our characters were being chaotic, not evil.

Hence the reason that an executioner tends to be LN. If interigation and execution were evil, then all governments (and the individuals employed within) in DnD would be evil.


Anyway, my opinions (again).