Ethics of Killing POWs

Okay. I've seeking advice on what my character's reaction should be to a character who killed a POW last night in game.

Background: The POW was a lizardfolk who we had captured and healed. We were raiding their compound during a time of war to rescue our prisoners. The lizardfolk agreed drew us a map of their compound and to take us to the shaman, who cared for the prisoners. He took us in a direction in which we knew there was a trap, but which he insisted wasn't a trap. Our scout took off his gag to argue with him about it, at which point he started screaming our location to any guards who might overhear. We knock him out. The guards are coming. Then our CN warlock blasts the unconscious prisoner with an eldritch blast.

Deep background: This isn't the first time he's killed a helpless foe. In an early session of the campaign, his character splattered an unconscious ambusher. He got brought up on murder charges, but beat the rap.

My character: When his PC switched from cleric to warlock after being raised from the dead, my LG Urban Ranger turned him in to his religion's authorities. He'd already left the church, though, so their advice was to keep him away from children. (They dislike arcane casters on general principles.)

I've already turned in our Paladin to her religious authorities when she came back from the dead without a spell and started espousing a new saint's creed awfully close to tyranny. (She had become a Paladin/Binder. They couldn't find anything wrong as she hadn't made a bad pact... yet.) When this Paladin/Binder did make a bad pact in front of the party and grew horns and used a devilish voice, I argued that we needed to abort our mission and take the Paladin/Binder back to be treated for her illness/possession/curse/whatever. I got out-voted.

So. Any suggestions for what a LG character should do in response to killing the prisoner who gave us away?

If I were the LG character, I'd find another band of 'heroes' to associate myself with because. . . ah. . . making pacts with demons for infernal power, forsaking a good deity and the principles of law, and killing the helpless are not the acts of heroes. Or at least not any heroes that I have ever read about.

Sounds like you need to have a mature conversation with the other players and the GM about how the campaign is progressing and the direction you all intend to take. And frankly, your character's actions don't sound too LG either - more LN.

Nothing. The lizard was, with its attempts to draw guards down upon you, actively a threat. It's no different than it trying to take a weapon and fight its way out. He signed his own death warrant.

Now, if the lizard had cooperated fully and hadn't tried to do you harm by leading you into a trap and rousing the guard, then you might have a case for some righteous indignation.

We don't really play alignments, each player plays by their own accepted code of what they feels is right, according to personal tastes, religious affiliation, moral compass, and whatnot.

Personally I would have never argued with any POW. You just don't argue with POWs, they can either be a source of information and intelligence, good or bad depending on what you think their reliability to be, and how motivated. But you just have to realistically expect disinformation, misinformation, and craftiness out of any POW and so degree of cooperation is always circumstance-dependent. I would have instead employed a simple head nod or shake (or some other very basic means of communication) to verify anything I wanted to know and addressed all information in the form of simplistic, "yes or no" questions. So I think both the method of interrogation and the method of how prisoners are approached as to their real nature, could be worked on as functional matter for future team interactions. This doesn't mean all prisoners are evil, simply that they cannot be trusted and so argument is pointless.

As for general treatment of POWs I'm with you. You don't mistreat them, but if one or more became real and lethal dangers to either innocents or my own team, I would kill them if necessary.

I think though that you guys could probably work out some arrangement. Such as, "best possible treatment for all POWs, unless they do something dangerous or engage in sabotage, and then a sliding scale of responses would follow, depending upon the threat posed."

A call for help, a good a$$ whoopin and a beating to the extremities will calm most situations without the need for real harm. Intentional and serious sabotage, the inflicting of casualties, might result in summary execution.

Of course, two basic points with all POWs. Spell out in advance what their responsibilities are and what your response will be if they fail those responsibilities. And never ever, just on principle, trust a POW on any matter, per se. The duty of most enemy combatants and prisoners is to make your job harder, not easier, and so expect opposition, subterfuge, and sabotage if they can arrange it. Keep those two points in mind and it will be hard for them to take advantage of you, because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Also as I said, spell out consequences, both for yourself and your party, so that disputes are handled prior to in-field actions, not afterwards. Forewarned is forearmed, and that goes both for your own team and for those enemies who might suffer from their ignorance of your intentions. I hate to call this a policy matter, cause it ain't really. It's more just general behavioral guidelines and common sense. But common sense always works best when everybody recognizes it from the start, not after you have to explain it later.

However if you feel you have a rogue player, then that might lead, like it or not, to an eventual confrontation between your ideals and ways of doing things, and theirs. And if you feel that you can't modify your values to some compromise agreement with the rest of your team, then maybe you need a new team of comrades who more closely match your own morality. That being said though, unless I had good reason to suspect real malignancy on their part, I think that personally as both a matter of law and of good I would trust the descisions of my own team-mates over the actions of an enemy combatant. That is, in situations like these the benefit of the doubt would go to my comrades, and not the enemy.

In either case prepare ahead for what that means. Because a prepared head is always better than a slack a$$.

roguerouge said:

When his PC switched from cleric to warlock after being raised from the dead, my LG Urban Ranger turned him in to his religion's authorities.

Click to expand...

roguerouge said:

I've already turned in our Paladin to her religious authorities when she came back from the dead without a spell and started espousing a new saint's creed awfully close to tyranny.

Click to expand...

Man...are you going for the Snitch prestige class?

Tiberius said:

Nothing. The lizard was, with its attempts to draw guards down upon you, actively a threat. It's no different than it trying to take a weapon and fight its way out. He signed his own death warrant.

Now, if the lizard had cooperated fully and hadn't tried to do you harm by leading you into a trap and rousing the guard, then you might have a case for some righteous indignation.

Click to expand...

QFT, twice

Tewligan said:

Man...are you going for the Snitch prestige class?

Click to expand...

He's Lawful and Good -- concealing acts of overt evil or transgressions against the law would not befit either of those alignments. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Killing a POW, in a modern sense, is wrong in every example. In my military training, killing someone who has been captured was never an option(then again, I wasn't trained as an officer.) You've healed the guy, accepted his surrender, and in doing so made him your responsibility. He was resisting you, but not with his own body, he was trying to get his buddies to free him. When he became your POW, this was an assumed risk. That's why I was trained to keep them well behind the lines of combat and to separate the officers from the enlisted. So I'd say that it would be against the conscience of any LG character to kill a POW.

So what should you do in response? Take the warlock prisoner. Have him judged by the party, and deal out punishment. If you are out voted, deal with it, but keep up a tally of these moral losses you are suffering.

Or change your alignment. You're a ranger, it doesn't matter.

Tiberius said:

Nothing. The lizard was, with its attempts to draw guards down upon you, actively a threat. It's no different than it trying to take a weapon and fight its way out. He signed his own death warrant.

Click to expand...

That is complete and utter crap. The lizardman had been subdued and was unconscious. He's helpless. What the warlock did was murder a helpless individual.

Now if the lizardman had a weapon and was fighting his way out when he died, completely different story. He had a duty to resist his captors and try to break free, which explains why he cried out for his nearby allies.