D&D 5E Killing is bad: how to establish morality

[Fanaelialae]

Which gives me an idea for a new background, raised by trents. Doesn't eat plants, only meat. Has real emotional term oil about farmers who help plants just to kill them.

Save vs gout.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There's a thing I notice in fiction that I feel falls away in rpgs sometimes. The heroes don't kill outside of the heat of battle, and even then, they still try to not kill. Countless times I've seen heroes put themselves in bad situations because they let someone go or they take them to prison instead of just snapping their neck early.

Yeah, and it doesn't always make sense. Especially that odd reluctance to kill the BBEG, especially after blithely murdering a horde of his minions - possibly all-un-witting hirelings - or even though it'll mean a lot more people getting killed as a result.

Sometimes I think part of the appeal of RPGs is that it lets us questionably-socialized nerds thumb our noses at societal and literary conventions and 'do it right' (logically/pragmatically/whatever - if amorally) - including ruthlessly & dishonorably murdering the 'bad' guys, nuking the site from orbit, or whatever. F 'heroism' there's usually a safer, more effective way. Often involving creative abuse of a spell.

Part of it, in classic D&D, specifically, is the 'life is cheap' message of fragile first level characters. When it takes you a number of dead PCs to finally get a decent character going, you've learned that living vs dying is not that big a deal in context.

Are inspiration points a good enough mechanic to reward players making in character decisions that aren't the best from a strict stand point? Taking a prisoner instead of just killing them, for instance.

In 5e, Inspiration. I don't much care for it (or any other carrot/stick RP-enforcement), but it's there.

Developing NPCs and making the players care about them is a lot harder, but could also work - you have to engage their empathy (and they have to have it to begin with - and there's that gamers-are-unempathic stereotype). Nothing much to do with mechanics, though.

 

[Shasarak]

And he doesn't even kill the Wampa in the snow cave even when it's trying to eat him! He just cuts off its arm and runs away.

Thats even worse because then the Wampa just dies slowly from starvation.

Too cruel.

 

[AtomicPope]

I bet you could use a chit system like dark side points in Star Wars that would scare players into avoiding really unlawful or wholesale killing. I imagine you could tell them that each time they kill for no reason, or when killing can be avoided, they will attain a "stain". (like negative reputation). When they get to 3 "stain" (or whatever you decide), they will suffer (perhaps losing their souls, or gains disadvantage on charisma checks when interacting within lawful society, or some other punishment that would make it interesting). Of course, this type of game, should be agreed upon by all players because it sets up a number of limitations. You could even have the Gods they worship speak with them or take away some powers as they progress with more and more "stain."

I've run two different Star Wars Saga campaigns (total of 3 years) and played in five. The Dark Side score is probably one of the best morality scales ever devised. For those of you who haven't played, it's possible to get a Dark Side point (like a 'chit' mentioned) for using the Force with anger. In one of my campaigns the PCs were searching the ruins of Raxus Prime (an industrial world dating back to the Old Republic where Darth Revan built a series of deadly Jedi hunter droids; later it fell into the hands of Count Dooku of Serenno and then the Empire). The players were fighting in a ramshackle stronghold during a dust storm. One of the players was attacked by a beast that was set free. I rolled a Nat20. He used Force Grip to choke it and said a bunch of swears. TBF, I did roll almost max damage. So he got two Dark Side points: one for using the force to directly cause deadly harm another living creature (he killed it with the Force), and another for using the Force in anger. He didn't need to kill it.

The Dark Side of Star Wars Saga went hand-in-glove with roleplaying. If you were playing in character, you may not get a Dark Side point. As a Force Witch, I wouldn't have given him a Dark Side point for using the Force to harm another living creature when he was under attack. If a Jedi did the same thing I would because their Code, and training, lies with the Light Saber. A Jedi would use a Light Saber instead of the Force. So there is wiggle room, but it can never be malicious, angry, or gleefully destructive.

The best part: when he was swearing I said in my best Emperor voice, "Good! Good! I can feel your hate."

Which only pissed him off even more LOL.

 

[Flamestrike]

There's a thing I notice in fiction that I feel falls away in rpgs sometimes. The heroes don't kill outside of the heat of battle, and even then, they still try to not kill. Countless times I've seen heroes put themselves in bad situations because they let someone go or they take them to prison instead of just snapping their neck early. From Luke Cage to Fin and Han to whoever.

Are inspiration points a good enough mechanic to reward players making in character decisions that aren't the best from a strict stand point? Taking a prisoner instead of just killing them, for instance.


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Killing shouldnt be the best option. It only usually is if you're a bad DM.

If my PCs kill out of convenience or whathave you, I change their alignment to Evil. Without getting too far into that little topic, Evil in my games is defined as: killing, harming or opressing others outside of strict self or collective defence when no other option is reasonably open to you.

I also ensure that such killings have repercussions. Wealthy family member who tracks down the PCs. A NPC later on knows the victim and refuses to help the PCs complicating the mission. Word of their evil spreads, and good aligned NPCs start turning up to thwart them, and people refuse to assist them or trust them and so forth.

Unless youre running an existentialist game, in a game that features cosmic good and evil and Gods of both, good deeds should generally be rewarded, and bad deeds should generally be punished.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

With D&D I tend to think WWCD. What would Conan do? He can be a reaver but also show mercy and nobility when appropriate.

 

[Ganymede81]

There are any number of ways to address this.

Murder might spoil the relationships with good-aligned NPCs that witness or hear of it.

It might be punishable by the laws of a sovereign or nearby city-state.

It could attract the attention of vengeance seekers.

Heck, spilled blood might attract ghouls or other scavengers.


Other than that, I like to remind players that their Alignment is basically an addendum to their Traits/Ideal/Bond/Flaw. It is there to help them roleplay a memorable and fun character, and doesn't do anything if you ignore it in favor of "kill monster + take treasure."

 

[pemerton]

You could put in mechanical constraints to reward certain behavior, but D&D overall is a violent game.

Superhero comics are very violent, and yet killing is not a prominent feature in them. (Or, at least, wasn't when I was reading them regularly - 70s, 80s, 90s.)

I think that it is hard to rid D&D of violence - there aren't mechanics for a whole lot else - but that doesn't mean that it has to involve killing.

if this is what you want, then D&D is the wrong system for you. D&D is about killing things and taking their stuff.

With 5e, I noticed an interesting shift in player attitudes towards killing or not killing. Older editions penalized you for trying to keep someone alive (usually by making it harder to hit or something), but 5e just lets you choose to do nonlethal damage.

The same mechanical change is present in 4e. Some 1st ed AD&D supplements - UA, OA - also had rules for vanquishing/subduing that were applicable to most foes and didn't lead to penalties to attack or damage.

There are also approaches to D&D that break from the "kill things and take their stuff" paradigm. In 4e treasure is linked to "treasure parcels", not looting. Jame Wyatt put forward a similar idea in his 3E OA book. And given that treasure is not a huge part of 5e (not needed for XP or character development), 5e likewise doesn't require this approach. It was really only essential to classic D&D (B/X, OD&D, Gygaxian AD&D), where the whole focus of the game was on scouting out dungeons and then taking the best loot from the dungeon occupants.

when the players/PCs know that any type of combat will be deadly, they tend to avoid combat and try to find other ways to solve problems.

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using objectives that require other skills helps a lot too. Why kill when you can sneak, talk, disguise, cause diversions, use tricks, etc. If the objective is to gather information, explore, find missing items, retrieve items, broker deals with rivals or allies, then fighting becomes a last resort.

<snip>

Another way to make combat less attractive, especially in civilized areas, is to populate the area with peacekeeping forces that have real power.

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I bet you could use a chit system like dark side points in Star Wars that would scare players into avoiding really unlawful or wholesale killing.

Murder might spoil the relationships with good-aligned NPCs that witness or hear of it.

It might be punishable by the laws of a sovereign or nearby city-state.

It could attract the attention of vengeance seekers.

Heck, spilled blood might attract ghouls or other scavengers.

This is the kind of thing that actually has me desiring a setting utilizing taint and madness rules.

<snip>

This creates a setting where the players don't want to do evil, as it will drive them mad.

Super deadly fights also does it.

I don't think this gets to the core of the issue.

If you make it hard or dangerous to fight and kill, then choosing not to fight and kill doesn't tell us anything about the morality of the PCs except that they are expedient.

If you want the conduct of the heroes to show moral character, then you want them to choose not to kill even when that would be as easy as any other choice.

Are inspiration points a good enough mechanic to reward players making in character decisions that aren't the best from a strict stand point? Taking a prisoner instead of just killing them, for instance.

Two responses.

The quick one: perhaps. Depending how hard it is to get Advantage in your game, and how much the players value it.

The longer one: why is taking someone prisoner not the best from a strict standpoint? Why, in your game, is it a disadvantage to spare the lives of enemies? Once you can answer that question you'll probably have a better idea of what you might want to do to change the tone of the game (assuming that's what you want to do).

I think an important point to keep in mind is that it is possible to separate the PC and the player perspective. For instance, from the PCs' point of view sparing enemies creates the risk of treachery, retribution etc. But as a GM, those NPCs are under your control. You get to choose whether or not they keep their oaths if released on parole. If, in fact, you play those NPCs in a way that rewards the players for not killing or murdering them then the players may develop a sense that playing their PCs as merciful won't hurt them as far as "winning" the game is concerned.

 

[Ganymede81]

I don't think this gets to the core of the issue.

If you make it hard or dangerous to fight and kill, then choosing not to fight and kill doesn't tell us anything about the morality of the PCs except that they are expedient.

If you want the conduct of the heroes to show moral character, then you want them to choose not to kill even when that would be as easy as any other choice.

That is kinda tough to do in-game. I mean, maybe you could go through the hard work of showing penalty-free moral ripples of their actions (maybe the characters find the starved corpses of some goblin infants who died because their parent was slain by the PCs), but why would that move the players to more immersive roleplaying when everything else in the game-world didn't?

I think the only way to get the result you want is to sit the players themselves down and talk to them about playing the game in a different fashion.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Easy change: there is no death except as a deliberate act of murder.

Characters and opponents surrender/ run away/ fall unconscious at 0 hit points. If a PC then kills an opponent, it's a deliberate act to murder a defenseless/surrendered foe. There are then lots of ways to deal with that sort of behavior in game (to include opponents willing to do the same to PCs, alignment impacts, "proper" authorities, hits to reputation, and the like).