A moral dilemma amidst ice and snow--what would you have done?

[Steverooo]

Um, I wrote "2000 AD", y'know the comic that Judge Dredd and Psi-Judge Anderson appear in? *rolls eyes*

Nevah hoid o'it! (My mistake!) *rolls eyes*

 

[Sigg]

The fact that time was mentioned as a factor means, that even thought they may not have a given date as a deadline, they may have to find the gnomish city before all the gnomes sufficate from being Buried under the ice.

As good players the main quest is important because you will be saving the lives of everone in the city. (a lot of 'innocent' people) Presumably more people than a village of vitlings.

As a good player, I would allow the boy to sacrifice himself, and explain to the WW's that everything is the fault of some adventurers. This will save the Village of vitlings as long as they continue to sacrifice one to two (or less) children every year. The majority of them are saved. (the majority of those saved are 'innocent')

And it's already been said that on the closer look the boy wants to be sacrificed, and wheather chaotic or lawful, the characters are not going against their alignment by letting him sacrifice himself.

But also, 'saving' this boy could be seen as an evil act. If you are meerly going to kidnap him to keep him alive, you are holding him against his will. Definitly evil right there. If you try to convince him to come with you, or that you will protect the village he may become uncooperative, but maybe that would be worth the try, if you are ultimately trying to destroy their system of mutual survival.

As a player I usually try to follow this: Save the world? Sure Make a species extinct? No, sorry man. Save a princess? Heck yea.

Edit: As a player I might decide to come back later to save the vitlings, because most campaigns I play wouldn't end after saveing a gnomish city. (maybe the campaign would end after it is somehow destroyed despite our efforts though)

The only reference to time I saw was that they had suffered "numerous delays". Also, the gnomish city was described as "ancient", so unless I'm told to the contrary I'm assuming it's uninhabited...at least by the living (heck, maybe the city is where the Cold Ones are coming from in the first place). I have always interpreted the good alignment as being concerned with the sanctity of life. As a good person, my PC would never allow a child to come to harm....the law or chaos aspect would only determine what methods I would use to save the child. Now my LE fighter would have gladly allowed the child to perform his role in his tribe's society by sacrificing himself for his obvious betters. My good PCs would have considered the whole system of sacrificing children to be evil and repulsive...the difference would be that my CG PCs would be less concerned about preserving the tribe as a whole and would be more concerned with the children and their innocent parents, where LGs would be most likely to want save both the child and the tribe (they would view it as saving the tribe's lives AND delivering them spiritually from having to make such an evil choice). Heck....my CG PCs might even consider the tribal leadership evil and work to change the leadership structure to a "better" system once time and opportunity allowed. The NG of the deacon IMO would only mean more options in how to go about saving the tribe and preventing future sacrifices, but if I were playing him there would be no choice about whether to save the child's life...that would be a given. As to the child "wanting" to sacrifice himself "for the tribe", my answer (and hence the attitude of my PC) would be that the child didn't specifically want to sacrifice himself (read that as die), what he wanted was to save his people. I present as evidence that fact that he was fleeing as a lack of suicidal ideations. Therefore, my PC would reason that if the dual threat of the WWs and the Cold Ones were to be removed/neutralized then the child's wish to save his people would be fulfilled AND his life preserved. IMO any good character, whether lawful or chaotic, is definitely going against his alignment by not saving the child at least. My good PCs would be righteously outraged at the system of sacrificing children and although LGs might work to remove the true villians who demand the sacrifice, my CGs would do that plus take action against those in the tribe who promoted and maintained such a corrupt practice in the first place. If I were Dm I would be handing out xp penalties and alignment adjustments for any good characters (and especially the NG holy man) who allowed the horror to continue. If it turns out, however, that the "ancient gnomish city" is indeed inhabited and in imminent danger then all of this is changed of course

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

I haven't read yet what your players did. I have to say that it would depend heavily on the group and its motives. As for ME. . . I don't want to have to make decisions like that. That's why I stay at home and play D&D instead of adventuring. I don't imagine that adventuring would be nearly as satisfying without a DM to look out for you.

 

[monboesen]

I don't want to have to make decisions like that. That's why I stay at home and play D&D instead of adventuring. I don't imagine that adventuring would be nearly as satisfying without a DM to look out for you.

Funny. To me those decisions ARE the game.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

My character would have talked to the kid, and tried to convince him to stay with us as we go kick the cold ones in the rear. Most of the rest of the party would follow my lead. If the child refused, we'd let him go. But we'd still go kick the cold ones in the rear.

As far as the party goes, I'm running a LG (occasionally not so good) wizard, and the rest of the party is chaotics (CG, CG, and CN). Generally this means that I'm looking out for everyone, they tolerate it, and we kick evil wherever we find it. So while I'd be interested in helping the town, everyone but the CN guy would be interested in helping the kid and killing the evil.

Now, in the game I run, two of the characters would not let the kid sacrifice himself (2x NG), while the other two characters would sigh and humor them (LN and CN).

I think that this is as much a character/player thing as it is an alignment one though. Players have quirks. I have a hard time dealing with people who don't want to do something, so holding someone against their will is out unless I have a character who is strong in that area.

Now, one question. Do you reward heroics?
I ask because I complained about the same thing, but I tended to make the right path the hard one. So while my players were nice guys, and their charcters were a good bunch they never were really heroic. I taught them not to be.

 

[Arravis]

The DM for last weekend's game (we take turns on DM'ing) ran this encounter, which btw was a ton of fun , but we definately got some odd and interesting results...

Our high level party (18th) is traveling across a vast glacier (the Great Glacier, on our way to Sossal, for you FR fans) to lands north. We came across an inuit boy and the winter wolf, as described in the original post. Our party springs to action, of course, and slays the winter wolf. We question the boy, he tells us about the relationship between his people and the Winter King. After much debate, we rig the scene with magic (polymorph and dust of tracelesness) to make it look like a white dragon attacked the winter wolf and snatched the boy. At best the winter king would blame local white dragons for the attack, at worst it'll only delay the inevitable.

Feeling we need to know more about the situation, we return the boy to his village. The villagers are pretty upset that we've interfered in their lives, but they take no direct actions against us. We find out that in return for the sacrifices, the Winter King protects the village from local giants and goblin tribes. We ask if they could simply move, why stay in a place that requires they sacrifice their children? To our disappointment, they respond that they had only been there for five years or so and it has allowed them to prosper for the first time. They felt the sacrifice is not that great compared to the rewards.

Later that day a winter wolf approaches the village and speaks with the elders. We make our way there and demand an audience with the Winter King, so that we may strike a deal of some sort. He leaves, saying that he'll bring back word the next day.

That morning three winter wolves show up, they are to escort us to speak with the Winter King. We make our way to the meeting and the gargantuan Winter King shows himself. We ask to speak to him in a language his fellow winter wolves do not understand. In draconic we explain the following proposal:

"We understand that he provides a valuable service to the village by keeping the giants and goblins at bay; and we understand his need to show dominance over the village by asking for sacrifices. It seems unworthy of him to hunt children, why not ask for adult sacrifices that would provide more sport? Additionally, wouldn't it be more in his favor to not ask for sacrifices, but for the village to train soldiers that swear fealty to him and provide direct control over the village in his name?"

The Winter King brought up the particular deliciousness of the young humans and his general unwillingness to agree to such a deal. We put it in blunter terms at that point:

"Agree to the deal or we will slay you."

As you can imagine, he didn't believe our claims. Over two dozen winter wolves, a hidden Gelugon (Ice Devil, who was there for as yet unknown reasons), and the Winter King attacked. True to our word, we slew the retinue (though the gelugon proved quite difficult).

We have a problem though, the Winter King did play a valuable role and the village may not be able to exist without him. Not only that, another nearby village might also be in danger from the goblins and giants that the winter wolves kept in check. So now, we're imagining the unimaginable...
We're considering casting Raise Dead on the Winter King.

What a twist. Any thoughts on this turn of events?

 

[John Morrow]

Listen, I'm all for helping people as much as the next guy, but you want me to get involved in the relations between two sides (villagers and WW), NEITHER of whom likes me, both of whom would probably attack me on sight. I've already pissed off the WW, and if I screw up the sacrifice I piss off the vitlings too. Add onto the fact that these cold one undead are out there, and frankly I have a deadline to meet, I see no reason to stop and muck about in something that isn't any of my business.

"Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others." If you are Good, the well being of innocents is your business. "Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships."

Regardless of alignment, you have to have some amount of pragmatism. There are 4+ good reasons to just avoid it and move on.

D&D has an alignment for pragmatism -- Neutral. "People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others." In fact, my one word definition for Neutral in either direction is "pragmatic".

 

[Raven Crowking]

Freeze frame. Before I announce what they did, let me ask you, given the information you know about the PCs, the world, and the mission, what would you have done here? I'm very curious to know.

I would be awfully tempted to turn aside and deal with the Cold Ones. I'm not sure that this is a possibility, though. If the Winter Wolves can handle the Cold Ones, I would reason, perhaps we can too....


Then, twenty minutes later, I would start rolling up my new character.....

 

[ThirdWizard]

Then, twenty minutes later, I would start rolling up my new character.....

Some DMs always have the PCs run into problems that they can solve, never having an unbeatable scenario in front of them so that the PCs never have to guage whether or not something is beyond them.

I have never met one of these DMs.

[Case in point - two sessions ago, my PCs found themselves face to face with a lich 6 levels above them. He needed someone to deliver a message to a local city state to stay away from his territory or else, and the PCs were handy. Had they stepped out of line, they would have gone to the undead side themselves. (They also brought him some very ancient and interesting books, so he decided to let them all live instead of just one.)]

What a twist. Any thoughts on this turn of events?

That is truly awesome. I say raise the sucker. He knows you can kill him and his little doggies, too. He won't cross you a second time, and you have a bit more leverage than before. At the very least, you should get a +2 circumstance bonus to Diplomacy this time.

The trick is making him stick to his word after you're gone.

 

[Abstraction]

This is why I do not play with The Great Club of Alignment. I tell my players up front that there is no alignment in my game, but that I am running a heroic campaign. Find a way to be heroes or roll up new characters.

As DM, I would totally throw this situation at a group of players. If my players decided as ForceUser's had, I wouldn't be all that upset. I would, however, be upset that they hadn't really discussed it. The encounter is there for an interesting moral dilemma, so dilemminate already, damn you!