Role playing moral dilemma, what would you do?

[aliensex]

I'd just sabotage the boat before it leaves and force it to stay in the harbour a few more days. Then you have plenty of time to tie up loose ends.


Not very honourable I suppose, but if you don't get blamed, and then kindly offer to pay for damages...


... Then again, with 8 people, there must be a rogue in the party willing to do a little sabotage work without a guilty conscience

 

[Sanackranib]

lawfull evil folowers

I for one would LOVE to see a paladin make use of lawfull evil underlings. There is nothing so sweet as watching the "Good" in their fall from grace.

 

[Sejs]

I'm kinda with E-B on this one. Sometimes there are no right answers. Just because they're children doesn't make them capable of all kinda of horrible things totally on their own. And it doesn't mean they're not a threat.



Besides, what do they ping as on your Super Holy Paladin Radar of Love and Justice(tm)?

 

[Celebrim]

I agree with the stay behind scenario. Someone has to stay behind until they can get the children situated. It doesn't matter now whether the rest of the world falls into the abyss. This has become your personal responcibility. You are just going to have to have faith that whatever it was that you should have been doing when you decided that this whole community deserved death gets taken care of by someone else.

You went in and butchered thier parents, teachers, and gaurdians. Rightly or wrongly, that is what has happened. There is no reason now to suspect that the children are going to see you as good guys because you haven't really acted like good guys, and you certainly haven't acted any differently than evil would have done. There is no reason to suspect that you are going to accomplish any good at all by staying. But its too late for that. You made the decision to take full responcibility for the lives of everyone you killed, and now you have to live with that responcibility.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

This characterization of the PCs' actions isn't reasonable based on the information given to us. These are the children of jungle tribesmen captured and indoctrinated into the worship of Nerull.

As such, the PCs butchered their kidnappers not their parents. It is also difficult to see in what sense the slavers that the PCs killed were guardians or teachers rather than slavemasters and commisars. (Sure, it amounts to a similar thing but the words with which one frames a debate do a great deal to color it so it's essential to use the right words). If the young cultists are fully indoctrinated, they probably see the death of their overlords as an unfortunate blow to their power structure but one which opens up new opportunities for advancement--not as a bunch of invaders slaughtering their beloved parents and teachers.

Also, it makes little sense to see the group of 40 young warriors who attacked the PCs with their training spears as children as if they spent their time playing tag on the playground of some union-run school. These "children" spend their time learning how to kill and sacrifice men to earn favor with their dark god. Consequently it is not merely a matter of "situating" them as if they were the wards of a 20th century welfare state. They need to be detained and re-educated if they are to become anything other than grown-up Nerull cultists. There is reason to believe that, if taken to an orphanage or home as a group, they would set up their own 40 member Nerull cult there.

(The situation of the non-combatant children is probably different).

While I agree that the PCs ought to take responsibility for their actions, I don't think that it is reasonable to suppose that the situation could have necessarily been anticipated (the PCs may have supposed that the children were treated as slaves rather than recruits and that their parents would take them back rather than hide in the forest. What is to be done now is an open question but the PCs don't really have many good options.

You went in and butchered thier parents, teachers, and gaurdians. Rightly or wrongly, that is what has happened. There is no reason now to suspect that the children are going to see you as good guys because you haven't really acted like good guys, and you certainly haven't acted any differently than evil would have done. There is no reason to suspect that you are going to accomplish any good at all by staying. But its too late for that. You made the decision to take full responcibility for the lives of everyone you killed, and now you have to live with that responcibility.

 

[Conaill]

Do you have anyone that can cast Animal Messenger or similar in the party? The very least you should do is to send a message to that "good aligned group". Ideally to a temple that is likely to follow up on it.

If you absolutely *have* to leave, and can't take anyone with you on the ship, destroy all their evil parapharnalia, Consecrate all the holy places, and round up all the weapons. That will at least give a head start to whomever comes to clean up the place after you're gone.

If it fits with your religion/oath, playing judge, jury and executioner may be an option, especially for the adults.

My preferred solution however would be to take as many of the children with you on the ship. Use whatever means necessary to bribe the captain into doing this. Including any magic items your paladin owns, promise of a years' service after your current mission is fulfilled, whatever riches your familiy or temple may be able to scrounge up, etc.

 

[jdavis]

I'm of the opinion that you should take them with you, at 6th level you are strong enough to do a little standing up and pushing around, get the kids together get them restrained (you don't want a small people revolt at sea) get them on the ship any way possible (example: buy all the cargo in the hold and dump it overboard, put the kids in the cargo hold.) Get enough food for them for the trip for everybody, and set sail. If it is a little rats nest of a pirate town then you should have no problem paying off or bulling your way through to get what you want. As a Paladin it is your duty to protect and attempt to save the children, of course if you feel any are too far gone down the path of evil......well that's another story. Few commoners would want to stand in the way of a determined Paladin with his mind set on a holy mission, not to mention money always talks, Threaten, bribe, beg...do what it takes to see this to the end.

Or kill the dirty little pains in the butt, it'd probably be a good start to getting that all important 1st level in Blackguard.

 

[Celebrim]

Elder-Basalisk: I stand corrected. I did not fully understand the description of the situation.

Then the situation is not so entirely bleak as I suggest. If they have been kidnapped, indoctrinated or not, they probably can be un-indoctrinated, and it probably wouldn't be all that hard given the fact that they _were_ kidnapped, and life with good hearted people very quickly becomes infinately preferable to life under vile people to the vast majority of people. Also, children are highly impressionable, so its just as possible that they will 'convert' back now that the social situation has so rapidly changed (with alot of weeping and shaking) very quickly. To many, this whole thing probably seemed like some sort of elaborate game - and the arrival of the PC's definately upset many of their new belief systems easily as much as getting kidnapped upset thier old ones.

Clearly they are dangerous 'kids'. Clearly you don't want to just dump them or leave them some place. But I don't think it unreasonable to suggest that a good portion of the children could be salvaged after some time. Those that can't be, probably need to be locked away for a very long time.

There are some pretty complex RP oppurtunities here.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

I would round up the children. Take them all as prisoners back to the mainland. Bring them to the church of Heironeus for retraining.

First and foremost, you're a Paladin of Heironeus. You must ensure the well-being of the children before catching a boat to sail away. I would think you would make their well-being a priority.

Let us know what you do.

P.S.: If your Paladin butchers those children, I hope you lose your Paladin status. You don't deserve it.

 

[Sanackranib]

children

In the earlier posts I noticed a disturbing pattern. SO these kids were kidnaped and indoctrineated into some religion. and now your PALADIN is proposing to do the SAME thing as these EVIL cultists. very disturbing trend the bluring of light and dark. you have been presented with several viable options. though I suspect that you have already dismissed mine. So I will ask the obvious qusetion: Why don't you just take them back to their parents? If you kidnap them and put them on a boat to go to YOUR temple for re-education then you really have done nothing to fix all the broken homes and ease the suffering of all these parents and families who are worried about THEIR OWN CHILDREN. these kids have parents who are responcible for them. THEY ARE NOT YOUR RESPONCIBILITY TO RE-EDUCATE.

Of course you can try to make it your responcibility and in doing so become that which you seek to distroy -evil. If that is your sincere path then I'm sure I can find a sutible instructor to aid you in becoming the newest member of an elite group we evil types refer to with affectin as "Blackguards"

(you will have to excuse the rant but as this is a moral debate then both sides must have representation and the seems to be a decided lack of evil - So I must humblely be it voice in the darkness)