Moral Dilemma - What should I do? [Long][My players please keep out]

[Savage Wombat]

How about this:

While the actions in question were not inherently evil, though probably not lawful - the thing that characterizes them is that these actions were not heroic. Characters intending to act as bright, shining heroes should not be doing this sort of thing; characters in a grim & gritty setting probably would.

Could be worse - a character in one of my games cut the thumb off of a prisoner to make him talk. He was supposed to be CG. Not to mention that they only later found out that the people who had attacked them were charmed into doing so by their real enemy. As DM, though, I felt the rest of the party gave him enough hell for this that no game-rules punishment was required.

 

[Dimwhit]

1) Was it right for the rogue to imply that the Dwarf could keep his Crossbow when the party had not agreed to this?

Absolutely. It's a common interrogation technique to lie. And for a Rogue of any alignment, I think it's fine. Well, maybe not Lawful Good, but anything else.

2) Was it right for the Wizard to just take the Crossbow back saying that he had already laid claim to it? Was this stealing anwyay?

I don't see why not. It's common the get the items off defeated enemies. Part of the booty. I suppose it's stealing, but in D&D, that's how parties get their stuff!

3) Was it effectively a case of "murder" by the fighter who released the captive knowing that he would find his doom below (The dwarf was unarmoured and unarmed at this stage)?

Not at all. The fighter basically put the Dwarf's fate in his own hands. The Dwarf chose to go ballistic. The fighter gave him a fighting chance, so to speak. Would it have been better to just kill him while he was tied up? Leave him there tied up to starve to death? I like what the fighter did. I didn't think it was chaotic or evil, or necessarily neutral for that matter. A good character could have done that.

4) Was it murder by the Aristocrat, "killing" the defenceless body on the ground (He did not know that the Dwarf was aready dead but was obviously assuming that he was still alive if barely)?

This is the only gray area. The Aristocrat should have checked the guy to see if he was alive. That would have been the end of that. Probably not a good act, though maybe CG.

Or maybe I just have a whacked out sense of alignment.

 

[billd91]

Here`s another one for you all ; COTSQ (a real meatgrinder!) and the party are nearing the city of Maerymidra,having lost friends to the drow along the way. They defeat an illithid & it`s allies inc. 2 dominated female drow . The 2 drow are knocked out during the fight, all other nasties are slain. The drow are tied up,revived & dispel magic used to remove any lasting effects of the domination spell. So far so good ,but............
After finding out what we could about the layout of the city & anything else useful (which wasn`t much ; the 2 dark elves having been illithid-slaves since before the upheavals in the city ), we had to decide their fate.
Silke (priestess of Eilistraee ) advocated keeping them with us to try to convert them to goodness.Celysse (female bard & devotee of Sharess ) agreed,feeling she could learn about drow culture from them in "intimate" detail (she could have been a consultant on BOEF !).Kalin the sorcerer said they must be slain painlessly ,whereas Zeon the warrior monk argued they should be released into the underdark to find their own fate . Thorgrim Bloodaxe, the party`s one-dwarf ravening horde said he didn`t give a ****.
Who`s right ?

I don't see this as much as a question about being right or wrong, as much as it is about being foolish. Good characters shouldn't kill people just for being evil unless they are somehow evil incarnate (like evil outsiders are). If the sorcerer is good, he should think a little more long and hard about what he's saying.
The cleric, however, needs her head examined. You're adventuring in hostile territory and want to take along a couple of natives on the outside chance you might convert them from a long life of moral decay to the side of the angels? NOT a smart plan. The bard also needs to straighten out her priorities. Learning about cultural sexual practices is one thing, keeping potential trouble that close to you in a very hostile region is silly.
Now, if you wanted to try to pay them off as guides, that's another thing. They might have a little lasting gratitude for saving them, but you'd better supplement that with more pay/wealth than they'd get for turning you in. That's about the only justification I can think of for keeping those drow anywhere near the party.
Letting them go has risks, but, again, they might have just enough passing gratitude and old scores to settle against former friends that they'd let the party have its way for a while before heading in the same direction back home. They might even be CE, but that doesn't mean they can't be convinced to wait out a while for when the pickings will be easier (after the party has wreaked its havoc).

 

[Xeriar]

The only problem I see is with the aristocrat at the end.

The Rogue is free to lie, as long as he wasn't lawful - he's a freaking rogue.

Sometimes you have to let a person decide their own fate. The fighter performed a neutral act, but not really an evil one.

In a lawless society you don't give weapons to your enemies - that's just stupid. I don't really see where the wizard was in the wrong here.

Should they have done subdual damage? Is that kind of humiliation a 'good' act? I don't really see either option being a good one.

Running the dwarf through was unnecessary though. That can only be justifiably good if allowing one to survive is garaunteeing the death of another.

 

[Graf]

My group considers me harsh on the alignment thing but I'm confused as to why you would think anyone would alignment shift over this (maybe the aristocrat if they were really really heartless about the life they were taking).

The dwarf was an assassin, a hired killer who takes peoples lives for money. He -should- spend the rest of his life in prison, or at least until he's been rehabilitiated.
He's also obviously seriously mentally deranged (unless the crossbow is a cursed magical item which forced him to aquire it to the point of obviously suicidal acts).

Frankly he has no right to the weapon, anything people say to him about giving him back his crossbow with an eye toward finding out about other evil creatures is fine. I would have difficulty shifting even a paladin over what happened.

The fighter was not responcible for the dwarf's death. He was very intelligent about how he handled it. He freed the dwarf and gave him a choice. The situation was "if the dwarf is in fact an insane killer who can't comprehend the world around him then he will be killed. Otherwise he'll probably be captured and tied up and we'll have a better idea about his character".

The dwarf was a a demented psycotic who berserkly attacks people. In the real world you would put him maximum security mental institution. In a lawless pirate city, in D&D you give him a couple of chances and then you either kill him or you let him kill others.

 

[jmucchiello]

In short order he was left a bleeding mess on the ground by both the Wizard (who has a sword) and the Aristocrat. [At this stage, the Dwarf is on -8]. The Cleric in sheer horror leaves the building.

What's the cleric's alignment/deity? Why did the cleric leave the wounded dwarf to die?

 

[reapersaurus]

I'm with Takyris.

I don't see any problem with your group, UNLESS you are playing:
1) a "heroic" game, where the PC's are supposed to be better than the world they live in (close to Lawful Good).
2) where they are all supposed to be getting along. In which case, their communication problems will cause difficulties out-of-game and in-game.

And I'm guessing that it's a cursed Crossbow. That's about the only thing that explains that suicidal of reaction in the Dwarf. Either that, or he had to hold onto it to get his family back, or something as equally heavy-handed.