Murder in D&D...

[garyh]

Or we might see a business that makes it's money through loaning gold for raise dead costs with HIGH interest rates the offender pays...

In Living 4th Edition, we've modeled our god of death after Hades, so he has both death and wealth in his portfolio. His church is happy to raise the dead, including loaning the raised person money to be raised at high interest rates.

Of course, if you default on your loan, the church repossess what it paid for. In fact, we've already had one adventure where the Church hired the PC's to go repossess an orc shaman.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I just don't think it would be quite the same.

Look at our own world, and the difference betwen how people view a murderer and say, a theif.

The theif might have taken everything you have, and left you pretty much unable to recover, but when was the last time you heard people arguing in favor of a death penalty for thievery?

It's a crime yes, and veiwed seriously yes, but not to the degree of murder.

I'm thinking a similar thing might happen in a world where murder wasn't always permanent.

It's similar to how I feel that murder in a race that was technically imortal would probably carry a greater taboo then even in our own world.

In much the same way, the death penalty might be seen as a less undesirable sentence for various crimes. After all, your death sentence could be only temporary...

 

[Rechan]

I just don't think it would be quite the same.

Look at our own world, and the difference betwen how people view a murderer and say, a theif.

The theif might have taken everything you have, and left you pretty much unable to recover, but when was the last time you heard people arguing in favor of a death penalty for thievery?

It's a crime yes, and veiwed seriously yes, but not to the degree of murder.

I'm thinking a similar thing might happen in a world where murder wasn't always permanent.

It's similar to how I feel that murder in a race that was technically imortal would probably carry a greater taboo then even in our own world.

Depends on what country or time period we're talking here.

In the American West, they would hang horse thieves.

In some countries, you steal something, they cut your limbs off.

And in some of those countries, if a woman does something to dishonor your family, you're expected to kill her.

The views about crimes of passion might also be different (i.e. you find someone in bed with your wife/you catch a burglar in your house, you kill him, well, it was justified.)

Also you have one problem: unless truth or thought detecting magic is admissable in court, then getting evidence is very challenging in a medieval setting.

 

[Rechan]

However, Scribble does have one point: Raise Dead is an element of the world. For people who have money, it is a reasonable possibility.

Because of this, and because rich people have influence:

Destroying a Body = SEVERE PUNISHMENT. Because you need a piece of the body to use the ritual/spell.

Merely having the disintegration spell might be a punishment in and of itself.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

Merely having the disintegration spell might be a punishment in and of itself.

Do you mean a crime?

 

[Scribble]

In the American West, they would hang horse thieves.

Hah That reminds me... I read somewhere that it's still technically the law on the books in NJ.

However, Scribble does have one point: Raise Dead is an element of the world. For people who have money, it is a reasonable possibility.

Because of this, and because rich people have influence:

Destroying a Body = SEVERE PUNISHMENT. Because you need a piece of the body to use the ritual/spell.

Merely having the disintegration spell might be a punishment in and of itself.

I think thats really what I was getting at with the post. Sometimes we see people talk about how magic would effect the world physicaly but I wonder how stuff like that would effect the psychology of the people.

Could you imagine a riot starting because the people are starving due to a poor crop season, and the local lord being too cheap to hire a druid to cast a few spells?

People angry because the clerics have an ability to heal the sick with a few words, but it's way too expensive for the common person to afford... We need affordable Cleric care NOW!

The death hing to me is just a big one because it's SO alien to even our world of scientific ability.

How different would a person's life be if the possibility of coming back to life after being dead existed. (Despite whether you could imediately afford it.)

Can you imagine if the technology for that existed now? Maybe someone sets up an investment account with the idea of killing himself, and being "raised" later when his investments payout just to see what the world is like 300 years later?

 

[Rechan]

Do you mean a crime?

You say tomato, I say round red thing you make ketchup with.

 

[Rechan]

Can you imagine if the technology for that existed now? Maybe someone sets up an investment account with the idea of killing himself, and being "raised" later when his investments payout just to see what the world is like 300 years later?

Reminds me of a sci-fi novel called "Hard Carbon".

It takes place in the future where a body is merely a meat puppet. Your mind, memory, everything is on basically a chip that is plugged into a body's brain stem.

Jail consists of "We put you on ice, then plug you into a new body". Rich people can rent bodies (especially if you're say, telecommuting, you could just "telecomute" to a planet and get plugged into a body. In one instance, a woman who was in jail had a businessperson riding around in their old body).

The very, very rich? They lived forever because they always bought new bodies/had clones that grew in little vats.

 

[aurance]

I started thinking about this issue fairly early in my D&D career, and I'm glad I'm not the only one.

One possible outcome is that, to an average family that just suffered an accidental death of a member, it would produce an enormous collective guilt. I.E., there are means to bring your brother back, but you can't afford it. It may spur other members of the family to drastic yet ultimately fruitless efforts to raise enough money for resurrection.

This may be ameliorated a bit, depending on just how common the knowledge about afterlife is. If you know for a fact that you will eventually end up at the same happy place that your brother is, it may not be such a great emotional strain to wait out the 20-30 years before you see him again. However, the existence of no fewer mal-adjusted or evil individuals in D&D world than in our world seems to indicate that either 1) eternal damnation is just not that big of a threat for some reason, or more likely 2) knowledge of the afterlife is still extremely fuzzy.

 

[Scribble]

One possible outcome is that, to an average family that just suffered an accidental death of a member, it would produce an enormous collective guilt. I.E., there are means to bring your brother back, but you can't afford it. It may spur other members of the family to drastic yet ultimately fruitless efforts to raise enough money for resurrection.

That would make an interesting character motivation... I became an adventurer to save up enough money to raise my brother whom I accidently killed when we were kids.