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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chrisling" data-source="post: 438362" data-attributes="member: 6816">SHARK,The Geneva Conventions aren't ideals.  They are laws -- we are signatories to it and it has been ratified by Congress; it is as binding as any other treaty we've signed and I would hope moreso than many.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Because there is, effectively, no enforcement mechanism for them they are laws that are easily ignored and discarded, but they are nevertheless laws.That aside, you brought up World War II.  There are definitely some interesting points there -- one of them being that the savagery of the Allies increased as the Axis weakened.  So, in February of 1944 -- when it was clear Germany was defeated -- you had the firebombing of Dresden.  Likewise, the firebombings in Tokyo not to mention the atomic bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened when Japan was whipped.  As I've said elsewhere, war is evil.My memory of many of the details of WWII is sketchy because I haven't read anything on it in about a decade, but I furthermore get the impression that there is considerable argument over whether bombing essentially civilian targets helped or hindered the war effort -- because it gave Hitler additional gist for his propaganda mills.  When bombs fall on civilian heads, it became easier to convince the German people that they were fighting for survival against a foe that would use any tactic, no matter how vile.  I wonder how much easier it would have been to persuade the Germany people to end the war sooner if we hadn't provided Hilter with that ammunition.  Furthermore, as I said elsewhere, it is Germany's refusal to follow common decency in their conquest of Russia that gave the Russian people back into the hands of Stalin -- the idea that fighting a war using dirty tactics works isn't something I'm sold on.  Evil backfires in a big way and Hitler's refusal to follow "the laws of war" cost him very, very dearly in Russia.  Every time someone says they've got to "get dirty" to fight a war I get the distinct impression that they loose as much as they gain, at the very minimum, in many ways.However, I brought up the Laws of Land War and the Geneva Convention to answer a question about where I got the idea that it's illegal to destroy civilian infrastructures.However, these sorts of extrapolations aren't useful in fantasy settings.  As you've noted, plot protection doesn't apply to people of high moral standards.  While I do not think this is sufficient reason to abandon high moral standards (it leads to complete moral relativism, which I don't think is real useful to anyone, much less coherent intellectually), I can see how it can be used as a justification.  "Well," one might say, "you can't be good if you're dead."  However, in a fantasy setting, as I've also said, the heroes do get compensation for exemplary moral behavior.  People in a D&Desque fantasy game have more, not less, reasons to maintain high moral standards in the face of atrocity -- because they get something for it.  I mean, what would you rather have as a military commander?  A few dead gnolls or being abandoned by your paladins and clerics because continued association with you as a commander compromises their morals and religion and would deprive them and you of their power?  I couldn't imagine driving away guys that heal wounds and cure diseases would be real popular amongst the troops, either . . . .</blockquote>

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