how ignorant can you be?

[Wicht]

I never "punish" players in that way. I only give a logical action on all information that I got (thats as GM more then the players). So killing the slave was in intrest of the owner (he gets more money from her death then keeping a troublesome slave alive, he can now put anything on the bill).

You know better than anyone how the player is treating the situation. But your insistance that the death of the slave was logical from the standpoint of the owner is, as many have pointed out, simply not true.

The cost of owning a slave includes many of the same costs that employers of paid workers have. Not only do you have the cost of buying the slave, but one must also pay to train the slave so that they are able to intelligently do their appointed tasks. And while one can argue that the owner can always charge the customer, the majority of customers are not going to be willing to pay the full price of training and buying a slave for a simple moment of privacy. If such a situation arises the traditional (and in some ways logical) means of insuring that the slaves will keep quiet is to buy and train a mute. One that was illiterate and who understood that communicating anything seen would result in heavy punishment.

There is also the added fact that even evil people recognize that eventually, a man who kills his slaves arbitrarily and often will die in his sleep (violently).

 

[laiyna]

There is also the added fact that even evil people recognize that eventually, a man who kills his slaves arbitrarily and often will die in his sleep (violently).

*grin*

You can't guess how true this is gone be

 

[Will]

It sounds to me like a DM trying to screw with a player, frankly.

I think the consensus is that no, most people would not have assumed the merchant was going to kill the slave and so no, no alignment loss should occur.

 

[Pyske]

Would it be fun for the player to have her alignment changed as a result? Would it be fun for you? Would it break your suspension of disbelief in the world to have this character remain "good"? What advantages do you see to changing the alignment?

. . . . . . . -- Eric

 

[Oni]

I don't think this has anything to do with ignorance on the players part. An unfair assumption was made in regards to what the player should know and do in that situation. In fact the Topic line of the post is so caustic that I opened this thread assuming it was going to be about fundamentalist redneck zealots that gathered up all the gaming material in their town and burned it or something to that effect, not a miscommunication between DM and player. It doesn't sound like you have a lot of respect for the player in question

 

[Leopold]

i think this is IMHO a bad call on both ends. The player demands privacy and gets it.

Now why in the name of all the planes of hell is a slave girl THERE!?!?! WhY?!? Why is the whole bath not closed off, sealed, doors locked and people outside waiting to hear from the occupants. When I ask for a PRIVATE session, i want a PRIVATE session, and that means NOONE. Why was the slave STILL there?

This makes no sense to me reading the above post and then reading the rebuttles. I sense that somehow, someway this slave was there even though the request for privacy was made. If the slave snuck in she deserves the punishment she gets, as the town is LN, and IF the punishment for disobediance is death than neither the player nor the shopkeeper deserve an alignment change..

my .02 in the matter.

 

[Hatchling Dragon]

I'm with Oni in his opinion about the Subject line (which you can change *hint* ), it's missleading. My reply does sorta pertain to both Subject Line and the 'question' itself as well.

It's easy to see how the Swanmaiden didn't see the death of the servant coming. I and my roomate often have these sorts of conflicts. He thinks things should be one way and I'm of a totaly different opinion, all based on the same set of facts interpreted differently.

As to 'how ignorant can you be?' I've met a disturbingly large number of people that own cars, some of them very expensive machines, that don't even know how to check the air pressure in thier own tires. This task takes a cheap tool (gauge, $2) and about 6 functional brain cells, yet people driving $60,000+ cars (Mercadies SUV) have to have someone else check it for them. I can almost understand people having trouble with anything that involves diving under the hood, every engine seems to have the various check-points in different (and often hard-to-find) places, but tires are pretty standard.

So there you have it, ignorance knows no bounds, and opinions and perceptions can only be taken on a person-by-person basis.

Hatchling Dragon

 

[Tsyr]

To answer one of your original questions...

In no way, shape, or form does the player deserve an alignment change... the player doesn't even deserve an alignment audit, do borrow a Hackmaster term.

Your innkeeper, and society in general however, do.

First: The innkeeper is not Lawfull Evil. Anyone who will do something as stupid as kill at the request of a customer (Who, btw, did not even REQUEST the slave be killed), is not lawful. Neutral Evil at best, strongly recomend Chaotic Evil.

Second, your SOCIETY doesn't seem LN either.

To begin with, its a slave society. That's bad enough. It doesn't make it evil right off the bat (There have been a number of discussions of non-evil slave societies on this board in the past), but, IMO, it's already a mark against it.

Next, and most damning, you have a society that doesn't condem the muder of a sentient human being (I'm assuming the society is human, insert elven/dwarven/etc as needed). Slave or not, it's still a sentient being that was murdered. Not put to sleep. Not executed (which would involve having a legal cause). Murdered. For no reason whatsoever.

And lastly, you don't go into how the slaves come about... it's not enough to say a society has slaves... Where do the slaves come from? Is it a caste, born into society? Are they conquests of war? Are they indentured servants? Are they purchased from other cultures? What? Each of these has its own moral problems, some less than others... But the lesser ones have more strings attached. For example, a society that had indentured servitude would probably have restrictions or rights for said servants.

 

[Terwox]

Hm.
If the character, regardless of expecting the death or the girl or not, doesn't care that he got her killed indirectly -- and possibly doesn't, as you say he's not investigated or anything... well, that's something.

But like everyone said, this act alone isn't worth a change.

 

[Lizard]

IAfter the player had a nice swim she leaves the swimming pool and just hears before he leaves a death-cry of a girl....

The player is NG (atleast the player claims she is), does this ask for an alignment change (and to what?), and could the player claim she did not know this would happen?

Laiyna

I think this is a lot closer to CE than LN. Casual killing, even of a slave, is not a function of most societies. The 'privacy' issue is not relevant; since slaves were seen as less than human, who would care what they saw? It's like having your dog watch you bathe. (I am not defending or condoning this attitude, merely noting that it unfortunately existed)

IMO, the only way to salvage this would be for the killer to have had some other, personal, reason to wish to kill the slave, and needed some excuse that might be *technically* legal. (While laws varied from culture to culture, in most slaveholding societies, you couldn't randomly kill your slaves at whim. Slavery as practiced in the US (where you de facto *could* kill a slave at whim; the total number of slaveowners ever actually jailed for violating such laws as did exist was very, very, low) was among the most inhumane in human history; it's a poor model for slavery in most societies. (Not that slavery was ever PLEASANT, mind you, but most slaveholding societies granted slaves some minimal right.))