Moral Dilemma: Killing and Deaths in RPGs

[Grendel_Khan]

The short answer to this question is that I would expect the players to handle the situation within the context of their characters, whatever that looks like. If the players are doing their jobs what happens next will flow naturally, whatever that thing is. What I don't do is go out of my way to insert this sort of situation into a game, nor try to manage what the characters' response might be outside of what the players decide to do within the confines of the established fiction. I have no interest in examining larger moral issues as a specific part of my gaming experience, although I'll freely admit that it does come up with some regularity regardless.

That makes sense to me. So would you tend to try to avoid a situation where surrender is an option?

This isn’t a trap, I swear. I’m just curious, since this is an RPG issue (lethality and NPC morale) that fascinates me, and I often wonder how different people handle it.

 

[Fenris-77]

That makes sense to me. So would you tend to try to avoid a situation where surrender is an option?

This isn’t a trap, I swear. I’m just curious, since this is an RPG issue (lethality and NPC morale) that fascinates me, and I often wonder how different people handle it.

Not at all, I'm very PbtA in my GMing style, even for other games, and hold fast to framing outcomes and consequences that put the emerging fiction first. If surrender is what follows naturally then that's what happens and the players will have to make a hard choice. What I don't do is put any kind of special preference on those sorts of situations. It's a decision that is in the hands of the players, not me, which is how it should be IMO.

 

[payn]

A schtick I've used with younger players (usually elementary age for this) when I want to run a traditional D&D-style dungeon crawl is to assume that the PCs are agents of the law. Their job is to capture any ne'er-do-wells that they defeat and deliver them to the authorities. Combat ends with arrest rather than death. This leads to changing the descriptions of combat somewhat. We usually apply this to sentient foes; non-sentient slimes and whatnot might be slain or simply driven off.

This certainly doesn't address the concern that @MGibster raised about violence for kids having no consequences. But it also allows for a more humane approach to their foes who may have just made bad choices rather than being Inherently Evil.

I could imagine a variation of this being palatable for older players. In a world with magic, perhaps there are ways to teleport incapacitated foes to the local jail. This wouldn't be compatible with a gritty GoT-style world but I don't think most people would bat an eye if this is how things worked around Waterdeep or Neverwinter. There might even be magically enforced equivalents of the Geneva Conventions.

Yeah that could be very problematic. Authorities can just trespass where ever they choose and violently subdue the occupants. Its right and ok because they are the police. I didn't have much compunction about running D&D for kids before this thread, but none of these postings make me feel good about ever trying to.

 

[uzirath]

Yeah that could be very problematic. Authorities can just trespass where ever they choose and violently subdue the occupants. Its right and ok because they are the police. I didn't have much compunction about running D&D for kids before this thread, but none of these postings make me feel good about ever trying to.

Whew. Yeah. There's always another angle, isn't there?

Still, if I were actually playing with kids, I could see starting off with very clear lines of morality. The "good authorities" would never overstep their bounds. But I would absolutely problematize that as they continued exploring the world. Could make for a great campaign.

Playing with kids is great fun. I mean, I wouldn't trade them for my adult groups, but it is awesome to introduce young folks to imaginary worlds. They never fail to surprise me. I think about these sorts of moral/philosophical issues outside of the game, but at the game table, it's all about having fun.

 

[S'mon]

It actually wasn't the same soldier but so many people think it was I suppose it might as well have been.

I've never seen that claim before! :-O Did you just see the film & decide this or did you read it somewhere? Seems very odd - the translator guy was personally angry at the German soldier because he'd advocated for sparing him.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I've never seen that claim before! :-O Did you just see the film & decide this or did you read it somewhere? Seems very odd - the translator guy was personally angry at the German soldier because he'd advocated for sparing him.

I thought those two characters were the same for years, but after @MGibster casually dropped that bomb I went down the rabbit hole.

"Steamboat Willy" (the unit's nickname for the German soldier they released) and the SS guy who infamously stabs the American soldier aren't the same actor, or character. They just kinda look the same from certain angles.

But to confuse matters further, Steamboat Willy does show up in that last battle and kills two of the main characters.

So yeah, he does come back to punish them for their foolish mercy, but not in the exact way some of us believed.

 

[pemerton]

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.

<snip>

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 think a lot of us have had somewhat formative experiences with the kind of GM (or at least session) that @BrokenTwin recounted, where something like letting enemies go is seen is a lack of proper grit, which must be conditioned out of us silly, naive players.

<snip>

I'd also propose a couple more factors that make capture/surrender unappealing at lots of tables:

-So many prisoners

<snip>

-Don't talk to the prisoners: In addition to stuff like figuring out how to secure and maybe transport prisoners, you kind of have to talk to them. And if they're just one of many, many enemies you're going to fight in this situation, or if you're just getting in fights all the time, this could start to be a real roleplaying chore for everyone, PCs and GM included.

<snip>

To me, the obvious solution to all of this is the same thing that I think improves most games, which is way, way fewer total fights

<snip>

if I were running something with one or more fights every session, I'd probably wind up making every enemy a mindless drone or total fanatic. Otherwise, that prisoner small talk would be lethal

Grendel_Khan, is there a tension between your second factor ("Don't talk to the prisoners") and your proposed solution ("Fewer total fights")? If we substitute X for fights in our RPG sessions, what is X? At least some of it will be talking to NPCs, won't it - which potentially reintroduces the roleplaying problem.

I don't have an obvious solution to propose, only a thought that also picks up on what BrokenTwin said: if the system has something a bit more robustly mechanical for social interaction, then that can shift play away from "free roleplaying" small talk - which I take to be what you're flagging could be a problem (and I'm treating your concern as literal, not ironic - which makes sense to me - but if you did intend it ironically I apologise for my failure of uptake!), and turn it towards more consequence-laden interaction, whether that be persuading prisoner to honour their parole if released, or conversion to the PCs' cause, or other things that downplay the tedious small talk and keep the stakes/goals of play in focus.

 

[pemerton]

Here's an honest question for you, though: What happens in the game if the Nazis surrender, and now the PCs have to deal with that?

Would that be the GM, in this case, derailing things by killing everyone's buzz with a moral and ethical dilemma? Should they instead play the Nazis fully cartoonish, fighting to the death even when the last of them is completely alone and outgunned? Or is it a potentially interesting moment and decision?

If this is a game where people are mowing down Nazis left and right I'm guessing the immediate solution would be equally pulpy or cinematic--knock out the prisoner(s) with a swift rifle butt to the head (no need to roll to hit and such), and press on, trusting that the GM isn't the punitive, petty type. But not all GMs or games are that clear about tone and genre, and the dreaded specter of realism (as interpreted by whomever) can creep into a session at any time, without warning. Well, actually some people regain consciousness very quickly, and so forth.

I think the change-of-tone issue is a real one, and maybe the biggest way that problems around killing, prisoners and the like arise at tables even if everyone is playing with good will.

 

[billd91]

I thought those two characters were the same for years, but after @MGibster casually dropped that bomb I went down the rabbit hole.

"Steamboat Willy" (the unit's nickname for the German soldier they released) and the SS guy who infamously stabs the American soldier aren't the same actor, or character. They just kinda look the same from certain angles.

But to confuse matters further, Steamboat Willy does show up in that last battle and kills two of the main characters.

So yeah, he does come back to punish them for their foolish mercy, but not in the exact way some of us believed.

I had thought it was Steamboat Willy too!

 

[MGibster]

I've never seen that claim before! :-O Did you just see the film & decide this or did you read it somewhere? Seems very odd - the translator guy was personally angry at the German soldier because he'd advocated for sparing him.

No, that's not why the translator killed him. In an earlier scene, the German soldier killed, I want to say Mellish, by slowly stabbing him after they engaged in a melee. Translator guy sat that fight out paralyzed by fear. He could have saved Mellish but he sat by and did nothing.

I had thought it was Steamboat Willy too!

For some reason, the Germans all had their hair chopped off which makes it harder to figure out who is who. I've heard criticism that this actually dehumanizes the German soldiers.