Alignment shift for intra-party murder?

[SnowHeart]

Why does it matter that the murder was inter-party?

It might not, but when one kills another person there could be many different motivations. E.g., self-defense, greed, lust, act of war, negligent operation of a machine, etc. Just because you killed someone doesn't mean the act is evil (or that you are). However, I think it's more likely to be "evil" when it's someone you're close to, such as an ally or friend.

Aside from that, just as a purely practical matter, inter-party killings are, to my mind, to be discouraged "with extreme prejudice". I think it's very inappropriate conduct for players except under exceptional circumstances (e.g., the party member has been dominated or confused and the last blow just went completely from positive hitpoints to -10, or you fired into a grapple in desperation and accidently hit the party member).

P.S., What Jack said.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I have opinions on whether this is evil, chaotic, justified, reasonable, etc. But what do you think about their actions?

I think it sounds like D&D as I used to play it in the Auld Dayes. Great fun. But to be picky this is INTRA- not INTER-party violence.

Oh, and I think the barbarian player should have been stopped and made fully aware that it would be perfectly acceptable for other players to interpret his characters actions as not just boys-will-be-boys macho behavior but an attempt at murder, mayhem, etc. The players whose characters killed the barbarian should have been stopped and made aware that their characters behavior might be questionable even though they might think the barbarian had it coming.

Nothing wrong with alignments changing as a result of in-game actions and motivations, but changes should NEVER come as a surprise to the players who are having their characters take those actions. Alignment is a guide for roleplaying. It is not a stone and iron wall intended to prevent players from choosing to have thier characters act in whatever way they want. I'm just saying that if this incident is causing arguments (as they always seem to) there is no reason I have ever been able to fathom that they really should.

Remember, we're using the standard 3.5 edition alignment grid. Do you think this one scene is controversial enough to move alignments? On which axis?

With respect, everyone who already answered this is hopelessly off base. You have provided no indication what the PC alignments were PRIOR to this incident and thus nobody can POSSIBLY make good judgements on whether the behavior is inappropriate in the first place. In the second place this sounds much less a matter of CHARACTER reaction as it is PLAYER reaction and it should be dealt with on that basis.

Also, despite the description of the actions taken we don't know much at all about the motivations of the characters involved, or the players. I mean, was this all a continuous, single battle where the barbarian is killed in the heat of the moment? Were these fights distinct, deliberate escalations of violence? Were the PLAYERS as worked up as the characters seemed to be?

Do you think there are mitigating circumstances that diminish the severity of the consequences?

Insufficient data for ANYONE to give you a meaningful answer.

Do you think that all party members are equal participants?

A little hard to tell from your description, but...

There should not have really been an issue with the halfling clerics initial "bump". The barbarians open-combat response seems excessive unless his alignment was already evil, he had already established a behavior pattern of excessive over-reaction, etc. Anyone who turned away AFTER the barbarian began to attack the halfling effectively indicated that they either approved of, or simply did not care about the barbarians actions. The two characters who killed the barbarian mostly get a pass for that. It is perfectly acceptible that the barbarians actions be viewed as insanity or at least attempted murder. If they decided that the barbarian HAD attempted to actually kill the halfling there is no reason they should let him live and thus ensuring that he was truly dead even after being beaten into unconsciousness is reasonable.

As a side note, it is my opinion that when one PC takes actions that can actually do points of damage to another PC we are talking LETHAL violence. I don't care if both PC's are 18th level fighters. The ability of their hit points to soak up lots of damage is irrelevant to the fact that the man next to you needs to swing his sword with the intent to CAUSE physical harm - and that ranges right up to killing you in one blow. Just because the players have meta-game knowledge that the opponent won't die from the attack does NOT mean the characters share that knowledge. Unless the PLAYERS involved are explaining their characters motivations, their motivations as players, and their intent to META-GAME the system and inflict damage without REAL threat to the character, there is no reason to assume that a mere 1 point of damage doesn't require the same intent to kill as 100 points.

Now the act of chopping up the barbarians corpse so that they can flush it down the crapper demonstrates a shocking disregard for the dead over and above what he deserved for his actions toward the halfling. There are very few cultures where that would be acceptible. However, this is still something that might be driven by PLAYERS being gleefully juvenile and that is something that needs to be kept seperate from CHARACTER-driven motivations.

Throughout this entire incident I see a number of points where the DM should have brought the game to a screeching halt, warned players that their characters actions would have consequences, and only after that allowing them to proceed. The bit about chopping the body up to flush it in the toilet I'd have said that the PLAYERS should either knock it off right then or their CHARACTERS would have to be interpreted as suddenly reverting to particularly brutal and savage actions that would have severe implications for their alignment. If those alignment changes would have disruptive repurcussions to the game (beyond what had already happened) then I'd flatly forbid it for that reason.

 

[SnowHeart]

I think the barbarian player should have been stopped and made fully aware that it would be perfectly acceptable for other players to interpret his characters actions as ... an attempt at murder, mayhem, etc. The players whose characters killed the barbarian should have been stopped and made aware that their characters behavior might be questionable even though they might think the barbarian had it coming...changes should NEVER come as a surprise to the players ... I'm just saying that if this incident is causing arguments (as they always seem to) there is no reason I have ever been able to fathom that they really should.

Completely 100% agreed.

With respect, everyone who already answered this is hopelessly off base. You have provided no indication what the PC alignments were PRIOR to this incident and thus nobody can POSSIBLY make good judgements on whether the behavior is inappropriate in the first place.

With respect, that's somewhat condescending and not entirely true. In fact, I explicitly said it'd be nice to know what the existing alignments are but, regardless, it's helpful but not necessary. You do not need to know the alignment of the PC to discuss the "alignment" of the action. You can discuss the alignment of the action without determining whether it is appropriate or not. Example: I said the two characters who walked off behaved in a neutral fashion. Consequence: If they're already neutral nothing happens, but if they're good, there's a little bit of a shift.

Also, despite the description of the actions taken we don't know much at all about the motivations of the characters involved, or the players. I mean, was this all a continuous, single battle where the barbarian is killed in the heat of the moment? Were these fights distinct, deliberate escalations of violence? Were the PLAYERS as worked up as the characters seemed to be?

Very true, and this is why I think the OP needs to discuss the matter with his players before he does anything. Observable actions are only part of the equation, IMO. You also need to understand what the motivation of the PCs (and the players) were at the time.

P.S.

But to be picky this is INTRA- not INTER-party violence.

You're right! One of the great perverse facts is that Hawai'i has an interstate, despite the fact no other state touches it. But, yes! It is intra-party violence.

 

[moritheil]

Disrespect is an excuse for lethal violence only for psychopaths and sociopaths.

Given the context, I don't agree with this in the least. Many tribal, barbaric societies might well demand that honor be immediately defended. As late as the 1800s in the USA, we had gentlemen dueling each other over affronts to their honor - even trivial things like refusing to give someone time for an appointment over an urgent matter. Students of history will recall that even prominent politicians such as the Secretary of the Treasury were dueling. If a "civilized" post-Enlightenment country produced that kind of behavior in its most educated citizens, should you really expect more restraint from an illiterate killer produced by the equivalent of a culture a thousand years before that time?

Certainly, it's chaotic - but he's a barbarian. That's his character concept to the core. I'm not saying I wouldn't watch closely to see if he was being a jerk as a player, but it's possible that he saw the character as reacting that way.

Now, the OP knows best because this is his game. If he says the player was a jerk, fine. But I would never assume that someone is a jerk just because his attempt to stay in-character is horribly inconvenient for a party.

 

[Jack Simth]

Given the context, I don't agree with this in the least. Many tribal, barbaric societies might well demand that honor be immediately defended. As late as the 1800s in the USA, we had gentlemen dueling each other over affronts to their honor - even trivial things like refusing to give someone time for an appointment over an urgent matter. Students of history will recall that even prominent politicians such as the Secretary of the Treasury were dueling. If a "civilized" post-Enlightenment country produced that kind of behavior in its most educated citizens, should you really expect more restraint from an illiterate killer produced by the equivalent of a culture a thousand years before that time?

Certainly, it's chaotic - but he's a barbarian. That's his character concept to the core. I'm not saying I wouldn't watch closely to see if he was being a jerk as a player, but it's possible that he saw the character as reacting that way.

Now, the OP knows best because this is his game. If he says the player was a jerk, fine. But I would never assume that someone is a jerk just because his attempt to stay in-character is horribly inconvenient for a party.

You don't call "jerk" for following through on a character concept - you call "jerk" for creating a character concept that's bound to cause PVP violence on a very light excuse (just like you call "jerk" on someone that creates a "klepto" rogue who steals other party member's stuff, or a Haley-esque rogue who snitches loot while handling scouting tasks and doesn't include that in party distribution, and so on).

 

[aboyd]

Thank you to everyone for the opinions. That is precisely what I was looking for. I have a few replies, though I'm trying not to over-multiquote.

As a little bit of backstory, the game has players from age 10 to 40. This barbarian is run by a 10 year-old who is exploring power & manliness as most young boys do. This is the 2nd character he's made that has died, in just 7 sessions of game play.

His first character died after running ahead of the group, triggering a trap, running ahead again even though there was clear danger, and eventually being eaten by a land squid. There were no party members around to rescue him.

In addition, another player had previously engaged in a fist-fight with the cleric. The cleric had punched that player, for disappearing in a dungeon and reappearing in disguise as a drow. None of us could understand the logic of appearing as a drow -- the module was nothing drow-ish. None of us could understand the logic of applying any disguise in the first place. But anyway, the point is that the party has a history of:

1. cleric reprimanding
2. party fights
3. 10 year-old's characters doing reckless things

The two girls who are playing are unimpressed by this boyish stuff. As you might imagine, they play the two characters that walked down the beach uninterested. In real life, they got up from the table and left to play a board game the moment the cleric & barbarian appeared at odds.

The murder is the evil action; the chaotic action is in attempting to evade the law by hiding the body.

Thanks for this. This is a clear distinction that was fuzzy for me.

In the end I decided that the attempted murder by the barbarian was just the younger crowd tiring of the older cleric player acting like a parent. Also, that kid comes to play a super-powerful warrior, something he is not in real life. I can see how he would react badly to anyone not treating his character as an awesome powerful adult who is capable and above reproach. So I kinda left his barbarian's alignment out of this.

However, he asked that his next character be a lawful good sorcerer. Aside from playing against type, I told him that if he plays anything good, I will no longer allow him to attack his own party.

As for the successful murder of the barbarian, I decided it was actually partly good, but only for meta-gamey reasons. I mean, it's good partly because the kid is overconfident to the point of detriment for the other players, and a little bit of "reign it in" might be in order. As for the characters themselves, their act of killing the barbarian can't be just a defense of the cleric, so I'd call it evil if I wasn't allowing some real-life player interaction to influence it.

However, the act of body disposal is the part I care about. I thought that was too much both for the players around the table as well as the characters in the game. It felt like chaos to me, so it's good to see you & others calling it that as well. One of the two characters was chaotic neutral, and I felt I could live with a chaotic neutral character doing what he did. But the other character had a neutral alignment, and I've just emailed him to let him know that he's now chaotic neutral too.

You do not need to know the alignment of the PC to discuss the "alignment" of the action.

Yes, thanks. That was what I hoped for, and got. I appreciate it from all.

It is intra-party violence.

OK. Intra. Got it. Title of the thread corrected.

Many tribal, barbaric societies might well demand that honor be immediately defended.

I would say that's exactly what the kid was doing. It's not that he was role-playing a barbarian, it was that he was role-playing someone with strength and independence, and having that dream interrupted was insulting.

Anyway, I started the game precisely for this stuff. I wanted the kids to be able to explore things in-game that they wouldn't normally do in real life. I'd rather someone learn restraint or cooperation from a game than from experiencing natural consequences in real life. So the 19 year-old ended up having his alignment shift (again... his previous Dragon Shaman shifted alignment and lost powers). The 10 year-old lost his character. (And in order to prevent character churn, I require new characters come in a level below the previous one, similar to the "price you'd pay" for doing a Raise Dead spell.)

What I hope is that they start picking up on how to do well in the world & flourish. It might not happen, though.

Also, I think the constant fighting is only partly their fault. The other part is that I've clearly not given them a decent nemesis to ally against. They're flailing around because I gave them a sandbox world to play in, dipping into modules as they come across them, when what they need is something with more railroading and pushed plot. So I'll have to get on that.

 

[moritheil]

You don't call "jerk" for following through on a character concept - you call "jerk" for creating a character concept that's bound to cause PVP violence on a very light excuse (just like you call "jerk" on someone that creates a "klepto" rogue who steals other party member's stuff, or a Haley-esque rogue who snitches loot while handling scouting tasks and doesn't include that in party distribution, and so on).

Which should, rightly, be vetted and vetoed at creation.

Though the OP's note that this is a ten-year-old player with dreams of Conan-style machismo explains much.

aboyd -

It's a bind, actually: you want to teach the kid that people who are powerful cannot walk around expecting subservience and politeness from others, and yet power is the means by which you teach this lesson.

 

[irdeggman]

I hope that you did not award any xp or other "rewards" to the characters for this episode.

For one it goes against the intenet of 3.5 (which is cooperateive play) and two it promotes such behaviour (which I believe is something you are trying to avoid).

If players start to see that they gain more rewards by working together than apart then they will start to play as a group instead of individuals.

 

[roguerouge]

Given the context, I don't agree with this in the least. Many tribal, barbaric societies might well demand that honor be immediately defended. As late as the 1800s in the USA, we had gentlemen dueling each other over affronts to their honor - even trivial things like refusing to give someone time for an appointment over an urgent matter. Students of history will recall that even prominent politicians such as the Secretary of the Treasury were dueling. If a "civilized" post-Enlightenment country produced that kind of behavior in its most educated citizens, should you really expect more restraint from an illiterate killer produced by the equivalent of a culture a thousand years before that time?

Certainly, it's chaotic - but he's a barbarian. That's his character concept to the core. I'm not saying I wouldn't watch closely to see if he was being a jerk as a player, but it's possible that he saw the character as reacting that way.

Now, the OP knows best because this is his game. If he says the player was a jerk, fine. But I would never assume that someone is a jerk just because his attempt to stay in-character is horribly inconvenient for a party.

Nice history, but duels were with strangers and enemies, not "guy who's saved my life several times." Old army buddies didn't shoot each other over a haircut appointment. Burr and Hamilton had hated each other for years. If there was a woman, money, or political power involved, that might complicate things, but it's irrelevant for these purposes.

The key difference here is the Player vs. Player. In my experience is that barbarian + chaotic alignment + PvP + trivial incitement = player wants to play a sociopath or psychopath. YMMV, but for me, that makes all back story and legitimate history a cover for his real goals: game disruption and getting attention, even negative attention.

As with all children, you have to put them in the time out corner until they calm down, explain to them what they've done wrong, and then tell them the exact consequences if they push you again. They may dislike you for a while, but they'll respect your strength and abide by your decisions. And, eventually, they'll start to be their better selves.

Edit: above metaphor was written with the assumption of adult players. That the barbarian is ACTUALLY a child makes the advice even more appropriate. The time out corner, of course, is having to watch until his new character can be introduced to the game.

 

[Jack Simth]

Which should, rightly, be vetted and vetoed at creation.

Was this level of "honor sensitivity" listed on the character sheet? It's very much possible this wasn't on the sheet at all, and would be VERY difficult to vet out.

Though the OP's note that this is a ten-year-old player with dreams of Conan-style machismo explains much.

Yup.

aboyd -

It's a bind, actually: you want to teach the kid that people who are powerful cannot walk around expecting subservience and politeness from others, and yet power is the means by which you teach this lesson.

Trick:
Do it the same way police do. They've got a certain set of rules they're required to go by. When forces is required and they're following that set of rules, they're permitted to call on backup (who are also required to follow a certain set of rules). If more force is required, they can call on progressively more backup until sufficient force is in place (up to and including calling out a few tanks from a SWAT team, and any local military if push REALLY comes to shove).