so, exactly how evil are we talking here? (kinda long)

[Negative Zero]

ok, a lil background info; the party has been in this area for a short time, some 4-5 months of game time. and when i say "in this area" i really mean in the neighbouring country. in that time, and country, they've assmased a decent amount of fame and notoriety as "heroes."

they've saved a village and a town from destruction on two seperate occasions each, and destroyed a threat to the capital in the form of an insane mage. they're ventured into the sunken island home of a large group of sahuagin, and destryoed the super powerful artifact that they were using to control the weather, and the subequent plan to sink one of said villages. they've also managed to broker an alliance between this human nation, and a large tribe of lizardmen. all of this has afforded them somehting of a legend status in the area.

currently, they're in a neighbouring country, who has declared war on the country that we've become heroes in, on a mission to break the connection between the oposing Baron and the real BBEG who's set up shop there. we're in "enemy territory," inside the main castle, in their capital city, trying to execute a comando style raid on the BBEG's tower.

unfortuately this doesn't leave us a whole lot of time to come up with creative ways of dealing with incapacitated opponents. having them arrested and "brough to justice" is pretty much not an option, since the current establishment is the one who hired these guys in the first place.

brining him back to his intended victim was a real nice idea, except that we're kinda on the clock ... and we knocked her out with the same sleep poison that we'd used on him (to make it look like we attacked her in case we didn't make it).

now lets get something straight, personally i really love our GM's style. and i find he's probably the fairest GM i've ever played with. i don't really think that he's the sort to save an NPC jsut coz he likes him, and that's not what i'm really here to discuss. i just wanted to get other people's ideas on the right and wrongness of the situation.

mostly, i agree with green slime. that the morality (to use Spider's term) is situational. and in the specific situation, presented at the start of this thread, there isn't a "lack of goodness" issue. indeed, while i wouldn't call it a "good" act specifically, i wouldn't call it an evil act. especially in DnD where we have that lovely grey area called "neutrality" in the middle of both.

~NegZ

 

[green slime]

Greetings Negative Zero.

It sounds like you guys have a very entertaining game going.

As to your particular predicament, there is also the issue of whether it is a premeditated act (slaughter him while he is senseless) or acted in the heat of the moment, while under pressure.

Secondly, in these kind of situations, players can loose sight of their goals while arguing the morality of what to do with the evil dudes, mean while the DM has the clock running...

I'm not certain I have this 100% clear, (as it is almost 6am here), but it strikes me that this is only a sublieutenant. So you still have bigger fish to fry. (a particular nasty one, but...)

What is wrong with trussing him up like a turkey and throwing him into a closet, after knocking unconscious? With the intention of coming to cook his goose later? With a bit of luck, he'll arm himself with a teaspoon and attack your party... It is a bit hard to determine all the possibilities available to your group while being unaware of your particulars.

One advantage to actually offering enemies the opportunity to surrender, is that, if they do, and later balk/betray that trust, you have no further reason to examine that route...and can slaughter them outright. At least in my book.

 

[Kraedin]

Kill him. Cut out his heart so he can't be raised. One evil act (very justifiable evil act, at that) does not an evil character make.

 

[ced1106]

Picked this one up from Chaimail Bikini's (!) "Call of Duty": Alignment is based on your overall behavior, not a specific incident. So, yeah, killing a defenseless being would be evil, but it shouldn't affect your alignment.

Or, in other words, a LG diety is more interested in his servants furthering his interests than subjecting them to Catch-22 morality plays.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[EdEtkin]

The DM's Point of View

Hello All,

I am the GM in Negative Zero's game who said: "your character realizes that killing a helpless opponent is an evil act" in the situation he described.

I don't post here much but its great to see such a lively discussion going on this topic. And I apologize for my long post in advance.

I want to clarify one thing right off the bat. There was no metagaming"must save the NPC!" involved on my part. I could have easily let this NPC get away in several ways with players none the wiser. I try to be as fair as I can and when the players do something smart and things go their way I let the dice fall where they may, even if it means losing an important NPC. (Although it was kind of lame for me to ask for "props" for doing so... )

Some very good points were made on both sides of the issue. However, I think that the question "is killing a helpless/unconscious opponent an evil act if the opponent is evil?" has no "right" answer. The answer that someone may give will depend on a great variety of factors -- the surrounding circumstances, what kind of moral code is in place (i.e. is this happening in the 21st century or in medieval England, or in Skyrealms of Jorune etc.), or his own personal interpretation of D&D alignments -- i.e. the points that already have been made by various fine folk of this thread.

Just to be clear: I did not say that the character in question could not kill the opponent or that he will change his alignment to evil if he did. I informed him that he is aware that doing so would be an evil act but he is free to act as he wants to.

I perfectly agree that one evil act does not make one evil. In fact, I believe that sometimes a good character committing an evil act in the name of "greater good" is a wonderful roleplaying opportunity. The real issue here was that Neg-Z argued that my statement was incorrect in the first place -- i.e. that given the circumstances, there was nothing wrong with killing an evil opponent for the "greater good".

There are certain acts that everyone agrees are either evil or good. This is one of those gray areas that can go either way depending on your personal views and other circumstances.

I believe that ultimately it is up to a GM to define where those gray areas fall in the game as long as:

1) The GM is consistent and reasonable
2) The players are well informed of this definition ahead of time and warned before commiting such an act, and
3) If the players chose to commit the act knowingly, the consequences serve to further the roleplaying experience (even if they are really bad) rather than just blatantly punish them with something like an Xp penalty.

I made it clear early on in our campaign that things such as killing helpless opponents, etc. are evil acts. The reason for that has to do with the campaign world that we play in. Here is why:

In our game, good-aligned (and good-aligned only) PCs are held to a higher moral standard than normal good-aligned characters. They are larger than life heroes and are distinguished from all NPCs (even other good aligned NPCs) by having special abilities that are available for purchase each level with XPs called "Edges" that let them do things such as add bonuses on rolls, reroll failed attacks, recall cast spells, do dazzling maneuvers, and many more etc. These Edges are powered by hero marks drawn from a character's hero pool, the size of which is determined by the hero's level and legend status.

In the campaign primer it was made clear that hero marks come from somewhere -- the powers that be or what have you. Here is a small quote from the primer:

"In Elimbor, some say that the Saints (or other powers) watch over the Heroes, subtly rewarding their heroic or selfless actions with a bit of supernatural favor. Some esteemed sages insist that after the Gods left, human heroes learned to tap their own potential to reach incredible goals. Other say that by their nature some heroes are lucky and Fortune smiles upon them. No one is certain why those heroes are able to do the things they do and survive against incredible odds. Only heroes of good alignment have access to Edges."

While characters in Elimbor are not all paladins (and may lie, kill, steal, etc to further their heroic goals), certain normally gray areas are well defined for them by their internal "moral compass" (provided by the GM of course). One way or another they are made aware if they are about to do something that violates this compass. Nothing stops them from doing so and there are no metagame penalties (such as loss of XP).

In conclusion, while the question of whether killing a helpless evil opponent is an evil act may have different answers, for a hero in Elimbor, there is only one answer -- YES.

Ed Etkin

 

[Kilmore]

So am I correct to assume that the nation that the PC's work for is at war (or at least conflict) with the nation of the bad guy, and the party was sent to deal with him?

In that case, letting him live may well be a violation of the characters' duty, which may well be far more chaotic and possibly evil than geeking him.

My two copper anyways.

 

[stevelabny]

wow, Don aka Rindar the Wizard (Negative Zero) got Ed (the DM) to post. I'm shellshocked.

my alter-ego is Silver the rogue/bard in question.

my first instinct was too NOT kill the bad guy. Silver's whole existence right now comes from the cliche street thief turned "heroic" bard mold. Oddly enough, he might be the most "good" of the whole motley crew.
Unless you consider LYING to be a bad thing

Don/Rindar yelled out to "finish him" and I wasn't sure if that was in or out of character. This was followed by Ed's warning. I was more concerned with taking the guy's MAGICAL RAPIER for myself than listeining to either of them. After that, our NPC-samurai chick went down and I jumped back into the fray.

By the time we finished up, went around the castle to rescue our other party member and returned to the sleeping baddie... more baddies were on the scene and his body had been taken away. He will be back, missing a rapier, and VERY VERY mad at me.
Then I will mock him and kill him with his own weapon in a fair fight, making this debate moot

My original reaction to Ed's warning was that it had a bit of "don't kill my npc" tone to it, and since I was actually gonna score the pretty rapier, I figured I might as well not kill his NPC.

Upon further consideration, I still say that my initial instinct before either of them gave their opinions was NOT to kill him. At the very least until the whole party decided what to do, and even then, probably having someone else deliverying the final blow. Now I'm wondering it its because I'm blurring the lines between modern life and a fantasy world. Laying in bed trying to figure what Silver would do to this dirtbag. Luckily, I just watched the new Buffy so I have something else to think about.

I aso know that Ed has always tried to be strongly consistent in his worldview. You should seen the conversation when two PCs put a good NPCs life at risk in a fight. He's made mention of not killing defenseless human foes before, I'm pretty sure. So I don't really think he was trying to talk me out of it or save the bad guy. Just countering Don's "kill him" with the other side of the coin.

Reading his response here now has me questioning just where the powers of the "edges" come from and why he nudges us along the path of good. Wonder if there's any in-game reason rather than just DM preference to run a good-aligned game. hmmm

And Don's just mad I didnt get the bracers off the bad guy too before we lost his body.
And that my new rapier is cooler than his dagger.

And for Kilmore who responding in the time its taken me to write this, our only mission was to find out how to deliver some slightly altered documents that state that the evil wizard who is controlling the "bad" country that we're infilitrating will turn on the baron soon. Thus severing the evil wizard from the baron and ending the war. (cuz its the evil wizard who controls all the monster-mercenaries) The person we've decided to trust in the enemy countires capital is the baron's son who is also against the war. And he's told us to sneak into the wizards tower to find out the source of his control over the monsters. So the baddie in question is just a random evil mercenary and not directly related to our mission at all. By removing those who pay him, we remove his threat as far as the mission is concerned. It just leaves the moral issue of do you leave this psyhcopath alive.

That kinda bounced all over the place, but I was just throwing in my two florins. (the coin in Elimbor)

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Nice.

Well, we now have the entire story, and the game seems great and everyone seems to have a lot of respect for everyone else. Still, even though there's no real "problem," the question is intriguing.


To the DM, I have to wonder: If the PCs were to all stand around the baddie with weapons draw and readied actions prepared, wait for him to wake up, and then slaughter him the moment he regained consciousness...would that be any less evil than simply killing him outright?

And does anyone cast Hold Person in the campaign world? It would seem like more of a headache than a help, under the current rules of the campaign...

 

[S'mon]

Would killing a helpless demon or devil by CGD be an evil act? Or is it because he's human?

In my game, evil is defined by known/likely consequences, in a utilitarian fashion - letting the evil guy go isn't a good act if it means he'll certainly inflict more harm & suffering in the future. It wouldn't be an evil act either - it's an abnegation of responsibility, and thus neutral. Killing him might be a good act, especially if you had some reason not to kill him, ie it's not an easy thing to do.

 

[Razuur]

I don't think this is evil via the PHB alignment system.

If a Lawful Good Paladin can be allowed to smite evil without mercy and retain being "good" then the act mentioned isn't necessarily evil.

This is a perfect exanmple of why the D&D alignemnt system is so messed up.

I say you guys do what you got to do.

Razuur