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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7066258" data-attributes="member: 42582">Well, they're fighting at least partly in self-defence - ie they were happily taking the artefacts to the rendezvous point as agreed, and the others attack them and try to stop them.Some players might also be pacifists in real life, and so worry even about using violence against villains. But how big is either set?I don't say this to be snide. If the players are worried that fighting in self-defence, against NPC assailants trying to take the artefacts to the person those NPCs are sworn to, is evil; then are they going to think it's all OK if the defensive violence is against evil villains? Are that many players wary of defensive violence but sympathetic to retributive violence?To me, the worry doesn't seem that great. Which is why I don't feel the issue is one of moral quandry. Rather, I feel it's about cheapening and flattening out the fiction. The fiction is more interesting if the rival viking clan, or rival samurai, are themselves parallels of the PC, but owing duties to a different family or lord. This needn't lessen the intensity of the rivalry; and - for the reasons I've given - needn't be seen as changing the permissibility of violence (which is about self-defence in both cases); but it makes the enemies more realistic and comprehensible as characters, which opens up richer possibilities (eg social interactions during the conflict or following defeat/surrender etc) without otherwise damaging the general thrust of the modules.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7066258, member: 42582"] Well, they're fighting at least partly in self-defence - ie they were happily taking the artefacts to the rendezvous point as agreed, and the others attack them and try to stop them. Some players might also be pacifists in real life, and so worry even about using violence against villains. But how big is either set? I don't say this to be snide. If the players are worried that fighting in self-defence, against NPC assailants trying to take the artefacts to the person those NPCs are sworn to, is evil; then are they going to think it's all OK if the defensive violence is against evil villains? Are that many players wary of defensive violence but sympathetic to retributive violence? To me, the worry doesn't seem that great. Which is why I don't feel the issue is one of moral quandry. Rather, I feel it's about cheapening and flattening out the fiction. The fiction is more interesting if the rival viking clan, or rival samurai, are themselves parallels of the PC, but owing duties to a different family or lord. This needn't lessen the intensity of the rivalry; and - for the reasons I've given - needn't be seen as changing the permissibility of violence (which is about self-defence in both cases); but it makes the enemies more realistic and comprehensible as characters, which opens up richer possibilities (eg social interactions during the conflict or following defeat/surrender etc) without otherwise damaging the general thrust of the modules. [/QUOTE]

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