So I hit the PCs with a whammy last night, a morally ambiguous moment that was designed to make them think a bit. I ended up being somewhat surprised by their reactions.
The Story: The PCs are a special forces team in the town guard for Twingate. The town of Twingate is home to a Duke who is in charge of the area.
The towns, not including Twingate itself, that the Duke rules include towns managed by an LN theocracy, and towns managed by an LE theocracy (these towns have moderate autonomy, and as long as they send tribute to Twingate, they are left alone).
The PCs' commander recently ordered them to hit the world-famous library in one of the LE towns. They did, killing several evil guards in the process, and found information about some world politics that was really important for them to get.
Later, the PCs' commander is brought up on charges by the heads of the LE town -- the PCs accidentally left enough information for it to be traced back to the commander.
The commander admits his crime to the Duke, but tells the Duke that the LE towns are conspiring to take over the area. He says that the current political unrest in the LN towns is due to the leaders of the LE towns.
The LE leader denies this. The commander doesn't have proof -- the documents the PCs got don't relate to that. The Duke banishes the commander.
The PCs go to visit the commander at his home, and find him packing a bigass bomb -- a minor artifact that we call "The Prismatic Bomb" for short. It basically creates a prismatic sphere about a mile in diameter, utterly destroying anything within. The commander tells the PCs that because he is no longer in a position to stop the LE town from taking over the area through politics, he's gonna blow up their main town. What's left of the LE forces will attack their neighbors, and the neighbors will have to respond, and the LN forces will most likely win.
So essentially, this guy is firmly against the LE forces coming into a rulership position. He's against it enough to pre-emptively start a war in order to keep it from happening. And he's willing to blow up a town ruled by LE people but full of mostly Neutral people to do it.
(whew -- thanks, backstory)
There were three PCs in the room with him when he did this. Two of them were CG, and one was NG.
CG sorcerer: Can we do anything to help? No? Okay, good luck.
CG bard: Isn't there another way to do this? That's a lot of innocent people.
NG cleric: I attempt to plane-shift the bomb to hell.
The commander attacked the cleric, the bard and sorcerer attempted to use nonviolent means to stop their commander from whomping on the cleric, and the commander unleashed his full fury. The cleric was rendered unconscious -- True Strike plus Power Attack, striking for subdual damage. The bard and sorcerer were badly injured. The sorcerer agreed to teleport away with the cleric, and the bard left.
Later, the bard and cleric got most of the rest of the party together, and attacked the commander again before he was able to leave town with this bomb (they also got someone to dimensionally anchor his home). This time, the cleric was able to send the bomb to hell before getting clobbered. The commander stopped fighting, fell to his knees, and sobbed. The party left him.
The sorcerer didn't go with the rest of the party. He stayed in his room.
So -- what do you think, morally, should be the repercussions of all that? Shifts on the alignment scale? I use a 0-90 system for Law/Chaos and Good/Evil, which is easier than 100 because it allows you to evenly divide things at 30 and 60.
The sorcerer and bard were both at 10,75 -- pretty chaotic, pretty good. The cleric was at 45,80 -- strong neutral good.
One potential side fact: The party has evidence that the political machinations in the LN towns are being done by malginant outsiders, and NOT by the leaders of the LE towns. So, in essence, they knew that at least some of what the commander thought was incorrect, though they've been unable to convince him of that (he's always had an axe to grind for the LE towns).
I deliberately made it ethically murky, but I'm not sure whether people should slide any which way on the alignment spectrum. I'm wondering if the sorcerer should dip toward neutral at all. Or if the bard should get a couple more points on good.
And another side note: The LE god is a socially acceptible one. He is the iron fist of righteous fury. His clerics turn undead and his knights attack demons and devils. They just happen to do so in a ruthless, militaristic, totalitarian fashion with no room for pity or mercy or individual thought.
-Tacky
The Story: The PCs are a special forces team in the town guard for Twingate. The town of Twingate is home to a Duke who is in charge of the area.
The towns, not including Twingate itself, that the Duke rules include towns managed by an LN theocracy, and towns managed by an LE theocracy (these towns have moderate autonomy, and as long as they send tribute to Twingate, they are left alone).
The PCs' commander recently ordered them to hit the world-famous library in one of the LE towns. They did, killing several evil guards in the process, and found information about some world politics that was really important for them to get.
Later, the PCs' commander is brought up on charges by the heads of the LE town -- the PCs accidentally left enough information for it to be traced back to the commander.
The commander admits his crime to the Duke, but tells the Duke that the LE towns are conspiring to take over the area. He says that the current political unrest in the LN towns is due to the leaders of the LE towns.
The LE leader denies this. The commander doesn't have proof -- the documents the PCs got don't relate to that. The Duke banishes the commander.
The PCs go to visit the commander at his home, and find him packing a bigass bomb -- a minor artifact that we call "The Prismatic Bomb" for short. It basically creates a prismatic sphere about a mile in diameter, utterly destroying anything within. The commander tells the PCs that because he is no longer in a position to stop the LE town from taking over the area through politics, he's gonna blow up their main town. What's left of the LE forces will attack their neighbors, and the neighbors will have to respond, and the LN forces will most likely win.
So essentially, this guy is firmly against the LE forces coming into a rulership position. He's against it enough to pre-emptively start a war in order to keep it from happening. And he's willing to blow up a town ruled by LE people but full of mostly Neutral people to do it.
(whew -- thanks, backstory)
There were three PCs in the room with him when he did this. Two of them were CG, and one was NG.
CG sorcerer: Can we do anything to help? No? Okay, good luck.
CG bard: Isn't there another way to do this? That's a lot of innocent people.
NG cleric: I attempt to plane-shift the bomb to hell.
The commander attacked the cleric, the bard and sorcerer attempted to use nonviolent means to stop their commander from whomping on the cleric, and the commander unleashed his full fury. The cleric was rendered unconscious -- True Strike plus Power Attack, striking for subdual damage. The bard and sorcerer were badly injured. The sorcerer agreed to teleport away with the cleric, and the bard left.
Later, the bard and cleric got most of the rest of the party together, and attacked the commander again before he was able to leave town with this bomb (they also got someone to dimensionally anchor his home). This time, the cleric was able to send the bomb to hell before getting clobbered. The commander stopped fighting, fell to his knees, and sobbed. The party left him.
The sorcerer didn't go with the rest of the party. He stayed in his room.
So -- what do you think, morally, should be the repercussions of all that? Shifts on the alignment scale? I use a 0-90 system for Law/Chaos and Good/Evil, which is easier than 100 because it allows you to evenly divide things at 30 and 60.
The sorcerer and bard were both at 10,75 -- pretty chaotic, pretty good. The cleric was at 45,80 -- strong neutral good.
One potential side fact: The party has evidence that the political machinations in the LN towns are being done by malginant outsiders, and NOT by the leaders of the LE towns. So, in essence, they knew that at least some of what the commander thought was incorrect, though they've been unable to convince him of that (he's always had an axe to grind for the LE towns).
I deliberately made it ethically murky, but I'm not sure whether people should slide any which way on the alignment spectrum. I'm wondering if the sorcerer should dip toward neutral at all. Or if the bard should get a couple more points on good.
And another side note: The LE god is a socially acceptible one. He is the iron fist of righteous fury. His clerics turn undead and his knights attack demons and devils. They just happen to do so in a ruthless, militaristic, totalitarian fashion with no room for pity or mercy or individual thought.
-Tacky
