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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverName" data-source="post: 1258568" data-attributes="member: 2591">Yeah, It's tough adjudicating stuff like that. I don't like putting PCs in moral dilemnas that are as "off the cuff" as that. That is, I don't mind it at all, and in fact, enjoy it when it is a structured part of an overall story. It does bother me somewhat when I feel obliged to have an NPC act so ruthelessly and 'kinda rub the PC's noses in it. That was not my plan, but I could not play Vycos any other way. (Palaestra is meant to have plenty of gray between the black and white moral poles.)The PCs actually had rather lenghty arguements as to the disputation of the slaves when they encountered them. In the end the PCs decided maintain their ruse as slavers and use the slaves as props and release them later. They even sold off the goblin slaves.But, I found it interesting that this rather hard-line mollified as time went on. When they got to town and used their prentense as slavers to get a meeting with Vycos (to determine what he might know of the goings on in the area). They were rightfully repulsed when he wanted to buy the Alfar slaves off of them for dinner. This meeting, of course, scared the hell out of the slaves and an 8 ft. half ogre with small army at his back impressed the PCs as well.  Afterword they assured the slaves that they would be freed after the PCs finished their business in town -- the PCs even used their money to buy weapons, clothing and armor for them, gifts for when they got out of town.Getting jumped by Bethas and Cryda outside the barn where the slaves were kept was not part of their plan. Bethas' power scared the heck out of them(Gudlag went from 90+ HPs to about 10 in a round in a half.) I personally believe that the party was willing to risk that some of these slaves might have had to have been sold into slavery when they went to Medoc, due to circumstances that they could not control, in order for the PCs to maintian their ruse as slavers. I do not think the PCs really considered the fact that the slaves could be killed because of the slaves association with the party. Of course I say that as the DM who knew the players were being hunted by Cryda and Bethas (and some others) -- there were a lot of factors that were beyond their control. For instance, Copoc did slip up and give Cryda his real name -- that was a genuine, honest mistake that really made her question just who these strange "slavers" were. OTOH, the PCs decided to interrogate a couple of the slaves who they thought had some info on them. They did this in the stable, where I had decided Bethas, with improved invisibility was spying on them (tipped off by Cryda). Then, as part of the interrogation Copoc dropped the alter self spell  (via hat of disguse) and revealed his true, scaly visage to Bethas. Quick villian (DM) mathematics:NPCs looking for Malcomb the Cimbri, and Copoc the Lizardfolk. Meet weird slavers in town, and a human named Copoc (not a common name) + find out "Copoc" is lizardfolk = party is disgused = we ambush them and try to kill a couple of them. They had no way of knowing that happened of course.I personally feel that the "good" PCs should be pretty upset about what happened and realize that putting the slaves at risk was the wrong thing to do in the long run, even if the PCs did not directly kill them. After all was said and done, I remember more than one of the PCs saying, "Never again." I think that was learned.</blockquote>

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