Moral Dilemma: Killing and Deaths in RPGs

[MGibster]

I don't really think too much about this kind of ethics when it comes to RPGs. Real life is one thing, RPGs are another, and I'm happy to keep them separate. Much like reading a whole lot of Stephen King doesn't make me a psycho killer. Anyway, I'm sure this isn't a popular take, but I'm ok with that.

I don't usually think about it either which is why I'm fine with always evil orcs, mowing down storm troopers in Star Wars, or blowing up fascist while digging for biblical loot in 1930s Egypt. Just like I don't think of the lives of all the little white pieces I crush in chess, the damage my armies must be doing to the countries I invade in Risk, or the diseases my incompetence allows to turn into a pandemic in, uh, Pandemic. I don't think anyone is a psychopath because they like horror movies or play RPGs.

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't usually think about it either which is why I'm fine with always evil orcs, mowing down storm troopers in Star Wars, or blowing up fascist while digging for biblical loot in 1930s Egypt. Just like I don't think of the lives of all the little white pieces I crush in chess, the damage my armies must be doing to the countries I invade in Risk, or the diseases my incompetence allows to turn into a pandemic in, uh, Pandemic. I don't think anyone is a psychopath because they like horror movies or play RPGs.

I have enough grey moral morass in real life, I don't want it in my elf games.

 

[MGibster]

A lot of people think I'm joking when I say this but I'm serious. One of the problems I have with the way violence is portrayed for young people is that it's not realistic enough. As a wee mgibster, shows like Knight Rider, The A-Team, The Transformers, and GI Joe were staples. On these shows, there were copious amounts of violent acts but rarely were there any meaningful consequences attached to them. The A-Team was particularly egregious with multiple people firing fully automatic weapons at one another and nobody being hurt. What I'm getting at is that violence has a cost. When you shoot someone they don't just slump over quietly they very often take a few minutes to die.

So maybe violence as entertainment for younger people should be a bit more realistic. When someone is shot or stabbed they don't just keel over a die quietly. They die over the course of a few moments with the rattle of their breathing growing louder as their lungs fill with blood and the hole in their chest makes a weird wheezing noise. Or perhaps they bleed out while crying for their mothers. Maybe players would be less apt to opt for violence in D&D if that dying elf prayed for his god to watch over his son who would now no longer have a father.

Like I said earlier, maybe I was a weird kid. I do know there were some shows I watched aimed at children that did show the consequences of violence. In the original Robotech series, I remember quite clearly the deaths of Roy Fokker and Ben Dixon. Admittedly I had to look up the name of Ben Dixon because it's been a long time. But it was one of the few cartoons I watched that actually showed the consequences of war. I'm also a proponent of characters being at risk of dying partially on the grounds that violence isn't safe.

 

[Umbran]

Hiya!

(Didn't read every page of this thread, only first...gotta hit the sack, really tired!)

To the OP:
Don't hang up your dice.
Go find a Super Hero RPG System.

Not a bad suggestion. Character death is usually kind of hard to come by in supers games.

I can suggest Sentinels Comics RPG (based on the Sentinels of the Multiverse cooperative card game). In SCRPG, PC death only happens if the player decides it is appropriate. There is no way for the GM to kill a character without the player's consent. The game also has some interesting dice mechanics (Cortex-like, but there is no standard set of stats), and some unique scene pacing mechanics.

There is a downloadable starter kit that's a whopping $10 (it was free up to a couple of weeks ago) on the Greater Than Games website, that includes pregenerated characters, six-part adventure series, and gameplay guide that covers the play mechanics (but not character generation, or how to build the bad guys - for that you need to buy the full rulebook).

Our Games

Our Games

store.greaterthangames.com

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't agree with this. I think it's mostly because in many RPGs, victory in combat is the only way for the players to obtain finality of resolution. This is also often related to combat being the most mechanically interesting or dynamic part of the game.

That's the main reason on the DM side, but since the OP is the DM, I assumed he has already decided not to make killing enemies required.

 

[pemerton]

That's the main reason on the DM side, but since the OP is the DM, I assumed he has already decided not to make killing enemies required.

I think it's the main reason on the player side - victory in combat achieves finality by establishing binding fiction (ie the enemies are dead); whereas there is a tendency in many RPGs for other sorts of victory (eg persuasion, evasion) to be treated as non-binding by the GM/referee.

My experience is that if there are mechanics that permit those other sorts of victory to be established, and the GM treats them as binding, then players may be less likely to resort to killing as a problem-solving method.

 

[S'mon]

I think it's the main reason on the player side - victory in combat achieves finality by establishing binding fiction (ie the enemies are dead); whereas there is a tendency in many RPGs for other sorts of victory (eg persuasion, evasion) to be treated as non-binding by the GM/referee.

Maybe too many Millennials grew up with Saving Private Ryan, where the released German soldier comes back and kills tons of Americans.

I've done that once, with a particularly nasty ogre; but normally IMCs enemies who flee aren't keen on a rematch, and surrendered enemies are often recruitable - my son is particularly keen on doing this, and it's extremely Gygax/Arneson Old School, much moreso than always killing everything IMO. There are various ways to make enemies worth more alive than dead, eg ransom, which is standard in Runequest and should be standard in medievalesque settings with feuding nobles. The more you get away from 'hostile races locked in a war of extermination', the more not-killing can be normalised.

Edit: Killing is ubiquitous in computer games because it's a lot easier to code than enemies who surrender. This is definitely an advantage of TTRPGs.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I think it's the main reason on the player side - victory in combat achieves finality by establishing binding fiction (ie the enemies are dead); whereas there is a tendency in many RPGs for other sorts of victory (eg persuasion, evasion) to be treated as non-binding by the GM/referee.

My experience is that if there are mechanics that permit those other sorts of victory to be established, and the GM treats them as binding, then players may be less likely to resort to killing as a problem-solving method.

Yeah, in almost all of the games I've been in player-side, the vast majority of conflicts that ended without death were treated by the GM as soft victories at best. If we let enemies escape, then they'd rouse the alarm, or come back to attack us later. If we took them alive, we'd be hampered by having to drag them around with us, with them usually attempting to cause us trouble whenever they could. Talking our enemies down rarely allowed us to actually progress past them peacefully. Our ability to manipulate the fiction in our favour heavily relied on the GM going along with what we wanted. But force a fight and kill them? We have half a book of rules to enforce our desired outcome.

I know for me, personally, I'm just BORED with fighting being the only truly mechanically supported option. I play to engage with both the fiction and the rules, and outside of combat, there's very little game in my elf games for me to play with.

 

[aramis erak]

Yes.

Do you know why most players choose to fight and kill the enemies? Because they know they are going to win. The game is rigged in favour of the PC, particularly in battle. It's not so much a matter of rules (even though the newer the edition, the more generous the death/dying rules) but a matter of assuming that the PCs MUST encounter killable monsters, and most of them should be EASY to kill so that you can have lots of encounters.

in my current T2K game, they were annoyed they couldn't stop the POW march by the KGB... they did snipe the Polkovnik (=Colonel) dead, but bailed before counter-sniper fire.

Well, they found the KGB holding site...
And realized that there were at least a dozen guards.
And 5 PC, 3 combat effective NPCs, and not much ammo.

So they went and sought out the ammo, and found some troops along the way, and went in 20-strong... plus the 155 Hwtz...

and tonight, they did go back with superior force.
Cost an arm and a throat... and 4 POWs.

It cost the NPC KGB 12 of 15...

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, in almost all of the games I've been in player-side, the vast majority of conflicts that ended without death were treated by the GM as soft victories at best. If we let enemies escape, then they'd rouse the alarm, or come back to attack us later. If we took them alive, we'd be hampered by having to drag them around with us, with them usually attempting to cause us trouble whenever they could. Talking our enemies down rarely allowed us to actually progress past them peacefully. Our ability to manipulate the fiction in our favour heavily relied on the GM going along with what we wanted.

One thing I'll do in 5e is give (free/unrequested) Insight checks to PCs to help the players understand likely NPC motivations and behaviour. One in particular I remember was a dwarf PC who wanted to cut the head off a dead enemy mercenary leader and wave it at his men. I gave him an Insight check to understand that these veteran mercenaries were not orcs and this was a really bad idea. Treat their leader's body with respect and allow them to leave with pride intact and they'd probably cause no more trouble. Try to humiliate them and he'd end up with a (very tough) fight to the death. It was still the player's choice of course; the mercs had just killed his previous PC so I'd understand if he'd wanted revenge!