so, exactly how evil are we talking here? (kinda long)
- Thread starter Negative Zero
- Start date
Another long post...
That is a very interesting point. In our game, the party has come up against many other opponents in the past (virtualy all human -- we have a human-centric game), and through great roleplaying on their part have even managed to redeem some of them. In some cases, when learning the bad guy's story the party realized that he had certain reasons for his actions and could be perhaps eventually turned away from his path.
As I said in my previous long-winded post, heroes in Elimbor have a moral compass that gives them a feeling if something they are about to do is "evil". So far there has been no issue of getting that feeling when killing disabled inherently evil creatures. In fact on one occasion, the party finished off a disabled goros (a horrible evil race of creatures in our game) without any issues.
Steve (the other player in our game who posted above) made a very good point -- there very well may be a good in-game reason that the characters are not yet aware of for why they got the sense that act in question was labeled as evil.
There are many other things about our game besides PCs being special heroes and having edges that separate it from a stock D&D world (if there is such a thing) -- for example there are no active gods (they left ages ago, but there are those that seek their return) and thus no spell-casting clerics (i.e. no healing spells or raise dead or resurrection).
In our game, there is one wide-spread relatively good and neutral alligned church that venerates a person (Telcor) that thousands of years ago sacrificed himself to prevent the gods from destroying Elimbor before they departed. And this church has canonized other humans over the ages making them into Saints. The clerics of this church rely on their faith and oratory ability to spread the word (not on miracles, since they don't get spells). Of course the church's control of a potent alchemical healing substance called Sweetbalm does not hurt.
However, the church lost a great deal of power and influence after a series of wars started by the church a few hundred years ago aimed at wiping out magic (wizards and sorcerers in particular) since the church believed the escalating use of magic will cause the Old Gods to return and destroy humanity once and for all. The wars cost the lives of hundreds of priests and resulted in many churches and cathedrals being destroyed, leaving communities on their own.
As a result, in many parts of Elimbor people are without moral compass and have no real guidance other than their inner feelings about what is right and wrong. In some areas without the influence of the church, some nobles have taken unusual steps in allowing remote communities to govern themselves without a local lord or a garrison (and some places are discovering that not having a noble's protection and a garrison may not be worth the price of free will)
The key here is that answers to any moral questions about good and evil must inevitably be based on the specific campaign and setting that they are being asked in. There is no absolute answer.
Thus, I am not disagreeing with anyone who argues that helpless evil opponent killing is not an evil act under the PHB or in their campaign.
I am saying that it is evil in our specific game.
Ed Etkin
S'mon said:
That is a very interesting point. In our game, the party has come up against many other opponents in the past (virtualy all human -- we have a human-centric game), and through great roleplaying on their part have even managed to redeem some of them. In some cases, when learning the bad guy's story the party realized that he had certain reasons for his actions and could be perhaps eventually turned away from his path.
As I said in my previous long-winded post, heroes in Elimbor have a moral compass that gives them a feeling if something they are about to do is "evil". So far there has been no issue of getting that feeling when killing disabled inherently evil creatures. In fact on one occasion, the party finished off a disabled goros (a horrible evil race of creatures in our game) without any issues.
Steve (the other player in our game who posted above) made a very good point -- there very well may be a good in-game reason that the characters are not yet aware of for why they got the sense that act in question was labeled as evil.
There are many other things about our game besides PCs being special heroes and having edges that separate it from a stock D&D world (if there is such a thing) -- for example there are no active gods (they left ages ago, but there are those that seek their return) and thus no spell-casting clerics (i.e. no healing spells or raise dead or resurrection).
In our game, there is one wide-spread relatively good and neutral alligned church that venerates a person (Telcor) that thousands of years ago sacrificed himself to prevent the gods from destroying Elimbor before they departed. And this church has canonized other humans over the ages making them into Saints. The clerics of this church rely on their faith and oratory ability to spread the word (not on miracles, since they don't get spells). Of course the church's control of a potent alchemical healing substance called Sweetbalm does not hurt.
However, the church lost a great deal of power and influence after a series of wars started by the church a few hundred years ago aimed at wiping out magic (wizards and sorcerers in particular) since the church believed the escalating use of magic will cause the Old Gods to return and destroy humanity once and for all. The wars cost the lives of hundreds of priests and resulted in many churches and cathedrals being destroyed, leaving communities on their own.
As a result, in many parts of Elimbor people are without moral compass and have no real guidance other than their inner feelings about what is right and wrong. In some areas without the influence of the church, some nobles have taken unusual steps in allowing remote communities to govern themselves without a local lord or a garrison (and some places are discovering that not having a noble's protection and a garrison may not be worth the price of free will)
The key here is that answers to any moral questions about good and evil must inevitably be based on the specific campaign and setting that they are being asked in. There is no absolute answer.
Thus, I am not disagreeing with anyone who argues that helpless evil opponent killing is not an evil act under the PHB or in their campaign.
I am saying that it is evil in our specific game.
Ed Etkin
Re: Re: The DM's Point of View
I already explained at great length that the determination of evil acts is different in our game to some degree from D&D alignment definitions.
But here is my personal take on this question. I do believe that there is a difference between killing your opponent during the battle and killing him as a deliberate act once he has been rendered helpless.
I try to run a heroic game. And yes I draw my inspiration from heroes from movies, not from brutal legal codes of medieval England (where what is "good" was pretty much defined by who was in power).
In most movies with heroic characters (whether they are fantasy, historical, western, or sci-fi) when the hero faces down the main villain, either they kill them outright during the battle (i.e. the villain falls into a pit, gets impaled on convenient ice crystals or some such) OR they defeat the villain who is then thrown to the floor as the hero towers over him.
At this point, the hero does not take the easy way out by shooting the villain or slicing off his head to finish him off.
The hero (or his ally) only kills the villain when he tries to take advantage of the hero's mercy by pulling out a hidden weapon or by lunging at the hero's turned back.
Thats the feel I am going for in our game.
On the subject of the NPC's body being gone some time later -- the party is infiltrating a huge active castle where the alarm has been raised. It would be silly for an unconscious body of a relatively important personage to remain in a high traffic area long after the characters left it there.
Ed Etkin
Quinn said:
I already explained at great length that the determination of evil acts is different in our game to some degree from D&D alignment definitions.
But here is my personal take on this question. I do believe that there is a difference between killing your opponent during the battle and killing him as a deliberate act once he has been rendered helpless.
I try to run a heroic game. And yes I draw my inspiration from heroes from movies, not from brutal legal codes of medieval England (where what is "good" was pretty much defined by who was in power).
In most movies with heroic characters (whether they are fantasy, historical, western, or sci-fi) when the hero faces down the main villain, either they kill them outright during the battle (i.e. the villain falls into a pit, gets impaled on convenient ice crystals or some such) OR they defeat the villain who is then thrown to the floor as the hero towers over him.
At this point, the hero does not take the easy way out by shooting the villain or slicing off his head to finish him off.
The hero (or his ally) only kills the villain when he tries to take advantage of the hero's mercy by pulling out a hidden weapon or by lunging at the hero's turned back.
Thats the feel I am going for in our game.
On the subject of the NPC's body being gone some time later -- the party is infiltrating a huge active castle where the alarm has been raised. It would be silly for an unconscious body of a relatively important personage to remain in a high traffic area long after the characters left it there.
Ed Etkin
Valiantheart
First Post
People put way too much stock in alignment restrictions even in a black&white world like D&D.
Alignment is not meant to be a straight jacket unless you are a paladin. A character/player should never be restricted in their actions cause the dm says so. They are a guide post that should reflect the characters over all actions and philosophy but not restricts them to a very narrow and predictable behavioral pattern.
I give an excerpt from d20 modern:
"Russel Whitfield chooses the following allegiences in the following order: good, lawful, and department-7. Now Russel can choose to act as the situation demands and according to his own conscience, but when all else fails he tries to adhere to decisions that promote the greater good, stick to the law and serve the interests of department-7 in that order."
This description could be applied to any D&D character by replacing 'department-7' with an organization, church, or their party.
The killing of a character you knocked unconscious my not be nice or even good, but it isnt a deliberate or planned act of evil. You are merely finishing what you started. Whats next not killing someone trapped by a hold spell?
Alignment is not meant to be a straight jacket unless you are a paladin. A character/player should never be restricted in their actions cause the dm says so. They are a guide post that should reflect the characters over all actions and philosophy but not restricts them to a very narrow and predictable behavioral pattern.
I give an excerpt from d20 modern:
"Russel Whitfield chooses the following allegiences in the following order: good, lawful, and department-7. Now Russel can choose to act as the situation demands and according to his own conscience, but when all else fails he tries to adhere to decisions that promote the greater good, stick to the law and serve the interests of department-7 in that order."
This description could be applied to any D&D character by replacing 'department-7' with an organization, church, or their party.
The killing of a character you knocked unconscious my not be nice or even good, but it isnt a deliberate or planned act of evil. You are merely finishing what you started. Whats next not killing someone trapped by a hold spell?
Bendris Noulg
First Post
Re: The DM's Point of View
Absolutely!EdEtkin said:
Indeed, it could be said that Evil's greatest accomplishment was to place those of Good into the position of having to sacrifice for its goals (protecting the "innocents" so that the "innocent" may remain so).
Negative Zero
First Post
Re: The DM's Point of View
to add to what Steve said ... wow; Ed posted??? lol
i agree totally. and this is the point i was trying to make. that the answer to this question cannot be absolute and incontestable. it must take into account the situation and circumstances.
yep, that's it specifically: "given the circumstances". you can't take the issue independently of the situation. if you'd never seen this person before, and some person you didn't know had simply just told you that they were evil; and you went out, found them asleep and chose to kill them, then sure, i can agree that it's an evil act. (though there would be the other issues of your own stupidity and gullibility at work, but that's another issue.)
but in this case, things were different, we'd had proof of his evil nature, and we were in combat. in fact, the combat didn't end when he failed his save, as the rest of the group was still fighting some 30 feet away in the same room.
"goodness", especially in DnD isn't an absolute. it's divided into three forms, which are supposed to encompass the totality of morality; i.e. lawful, chaotic and neutral. even among the various facets of "good" there are differing opinions and approaches to what is acceptable as a "good" act. so to apply a carte blanche statement to any one act, is misinformed at best. at worst, well we won't go there.
what may be conscionable for a neutral good character, may be wholly inappropriate for a lawful good one. and for that matter, in this instance i think a lawful good character, who is supposed to be the paragon of goodness, would have been justified in killing him, as Henry pointed out.
with all due respect, i think that the reason has more to do with a game mechanic that you like from 7th Sea, than anything else. (the rest of it just happens to be a convenient excuse.) but in that game, there is no alignment mechanic, so you have to be very careful about importing it into another system.
seriously tho, there doesn't seem to me to be more reason than, "i'm the GM and i say so", for this ruling. but of course, i'm sure you will say that "there may be a good reason in game, buy you just haven't found out what it is yet."
yeah? well all i have to say about that is check out this quote from PirateCat's game:
well i suppose that this could have been the case. heaven knows that i'm just contrary like that often, but i'm certain that there was more to it than that.
and you're still peeved that your character is a pretend spellcaster. sheesh, i wasn't the one who told you to multiclass with bard! hopefully you'll be useful after the RPHB comes out.
(as an aside to everyone else, Steve and i throw insults/jokes back and forth like this all the time, s'no big deal)
very good point. this isn't the standard kill-everything-that-opposes-us kind of group. you think we'd get a lil slack and consideration for past good behaviour. personally, i'm beginning to think that our mistake was using the sleep poison. had he not lost 80% of his hitpoints in the surprise round, he more than likely would have stayed and fought rather than trying to run away like a lil girl. and then we could have just whomped him the old fashion way.
now personally, this strikes me as very hypocritical. it's OK to kill helpless non-humans, but not humans? humans have the capacity to do even more evil than a demon. simply because of the fact that with humans, they have to choose voluntarily to do evil. with a demon, it's just in his nature. humans who do evil to other humans, i daresay, are worse than any demon who does what's in his nature, to what he undoubtedly considers an inferior race.
we've met members of the so-called evil races, who weren't evil. one of them we even found unconscious and almost dead. are you saying that there would have been no ill consequences for killing him? where is the internal consistency then? no. it has to be adjudicated on a case-by-case basis. some members of evil races should be saved/spared, and some humans should be put down like the dogs they are and given no quarter.
i knew this was coming
seriously tho, fine, there may be and there may as well should be, i dunno. but in this instance, they were asleep at the wheel, woke up, and overreacted to the headlights 200 feet down the freeway. bad call ref.
hoooooold up! say what??? so, people need a church or other governing body to tell them what's right and what's wrong??? wow ... that's really [insert dictator name here] of you. (political reference deleted)
*sigh* oh well. i've probably put way too many personal references up there, so i prolly won't add anything more to this. i really think that a one-size-fits-all answer to the question is wrong. but since the GM is determined to run with this premise, and he is the GM after all, [Gump] that's all i have to say about that. [/Gump]
~NegZ
to add to what Steve said ... wow; Ed posted??? lol
i just wanna add my support to this sentiment. we've seen evidence of this, in game, many a time. and like i said before that shouldn't be the focus of this discussion ... or at least, it's not the focus i intended.EdEtkin said:
i agree totally. and this is the point i was trying to make. that the answer to this question cannot be absolute and incontestable. it must take into account the situation and circumstances.
yep, that's it specifically: "given the circumstances". you can't take the issue independently of the situation. if you'd never seen this person before, and some person you didn't know had simply just told you that they were evil; and you went out, found them asleep and chose to kill them, then sure, i can agree that it's an evil act. (though there would be the other issues of your own stupidity and gullibility at work, but that's another issue.)
but in this case, things were different, we'd had proof of his evil nature, and we were in combat. in fact, the combat didn't end when he failed his save, as the rest of the group was still fighting some 30 feet away in the same room.
"goodness", especially in DnD isn't an absolute. it's divided into three forms, which are supposed to encompass the totality of morality; i.e. lawful, chaotic and neutral. even among the various facets of "good" there are differing opinions and approaches to what is acceptable as a "good" act. so to apply a carte blanche statement to any one act, is misinformed at best. at worst, well we won't go there.
what may be conscionable for a neutral good character, may be wholly inappropriate for a lawful good one. and for that matter, in this instance i think a lawful good character, who is supposed to be the paragon of goodness, would have been justified in killing him, as Henry pointed out.
with all due respect, i think that the reason has more to do with a game mechanic that you like from 7th Sea, than anything else. (the rest of it just happens to be a convenient excuse.) but in that game, there is no alignment mechanic, so you have to be very careful about importing it into another system.
well i have only one answer to that: you suck!
seriously tho, there doesn't seem to me to be more reason than, "i'm the GM and i say so", for this ruling. but of course, i'm sure you will say that "there may be a good reason in game, buy you just haven't found out what it is yet."stevelabny said:...Unless you consider LYING to be a bad thing...
yeah? well all i have to say about that is check out this quote from PirateCat's game:
well i suppose that this could have been the case. heaven knows that i'm just contrary like that often, but i'm certain that there was more to it than that.
yeah you damned right i'm pissed you didn't take the bracers! that's just what we need, is for him to show up later and run us through with his back-up weapon, AFTER he has one of us helplessly tied up by those magical chains from the bracers!...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 you're still peeved that your character is a pretend spellcaster. sheesh, i wasn't the one who told you to multiclass with bard! hopefully you'll be useful after the RPHB comes out.
(as an aside to everyone else, Steve and i throw insults/jokes back and forth like this all the time, s'no big deal)
EdEtkin said:
very good point. this isn't the standard kill-everything-that-opposes-us kind of group. you think we'd get a lil slack and consideration for past good behaviour. personally, i'm beginning to think that our mistake was using the sleep poison. had he not lost 80% of his hitpoints in the surprise round, he more than likely would have stayed and fought rather than trying to run away like a lil girl. and then we could have just whomped him the old fashion way.
now personally, this strikes me as very hypocritical. it's OK to kill helpless non-humans, but not humans? humans have the capacity to do even more evil than a demon. simply because of the fact that with humans, they have to choose voluntarily to do evil. with a demon, it's just in his nature. humans who do evil to other humans, i daresay, are worse than any demon who does what's in his nature, to what he undoubtedly considers an inferior race.
we've met members of the so-called evil races, who weren't evil. one of them we even found unconscious and almost dead. are you saying that there would have been no ill consequences for killing him? where is the internal consistency then? no. it has to be adjudicated on a case-by-case basis. some members of evil races should be saved/spared, and some humans should be put down like the dogs they are and given no quarter.
i knew this was coming
seriously tho, fine, there may be and there may as well should be, i dunno. but in this instance, they were asleep at the wheel, woke up, and overreacted to the headlights 200 feet down the freeway. bad call ref.hoooooold up! say what??? so, people need a church or other governing body to tell them what's right and what's wrong??? wow ... that's really [insert dictator name here] of you. (political reference deleted)
*sigh* oh well. i've probably put way too many personal references up there, so i prolly won't add anything more to this. i really think that a one-size-fits-all answer to the question is wrong. but since the GM is determined to run with this premise, and he is the GM after all, [Gump] that's all i have to say about that. [/Gump]
~NegZ
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