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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EdEtkin" data-source="post: 845824" data-attributes="member: 4644">The DM's Point of ViewHello 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... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" /> )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 reasonable2) The players are well informed of this definition ahead of time and warned before commiting such an act, and3) 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</blockquote>

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