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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7971159" data-attributes="member: 6785785">So, my most recent gaming session made me think of this thread.We’re playing a short D&D adventure meant to be a few sessions long and then complete. It ties into our ongoing campaign, but is very much a side story. It involves one PC going on what is essentially a suicide mission. So rather than risk his friends, he assembles a crew of criminals to do the job. Think Suicide Squad or The Dirty Dozen.So the PCs are all pregens made by the DM, and they’re all varying shades of “evil”. They’re mostly pirates of one sort or another. People who steal and pillage for a living. So in the first session, we fought some evil priests (of Orcus, I believe) near a crossing of the River Styx in the Shadowfell. In doing so, we liberated a small group of prisoners they had. These were all priests and/or paladins of benevolent deities. They’d all faced some kind of hardship and were in bad shape. So one of the players says “Let’s get rid of them” and another agrees. “We’re evil, right?” he says. My character is a rogue, and has been designed to be a negotiator. Why throw away a commodity? Why do something vile without gain? It made no sense to me. At worst, why wouldn't we just sail away on the Styx and leave them to fend for themselves?So I spoke up. I said my character unchains them, gives them some rations and water, and some basic comfort. Some first aid to bandage wounds and so on. No healing magic or other meaningful resources, but enough to get them comfortable. Then I got what information I could from them. They shared a couple of details that may come in handy, and were more willing to do so because I showed some kindness. So then the Ferryman showed up and we needed to go. We had enough funds to buy passage for our party plus two. So I gauged which two of the prisoners might be the most help, and we brought them with us. We left the others there with the gear from the defeated cultists. Now we have a couple of hireling/henchmen types to help us on our mission. What happens to them is not really something I see my character caring about beyond their usefulness. This seemed relevant to me as an example of the caricature of evil that we often see in play (“let’s kill these good guys cause we’re eeeevil”) and a more nuanced approach (“what can I get from these people”).</blockquote>

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