What would you have done?

[Rel]

But it was only unusual and exciting because according to the normal genre conventions, he wouldn't have done it. In an episode of Star Trek, or in a classic western, or some other similar show, the "good guy" would never have kicked a guy into certain death just to intimidate someone.

But see, if I'm interpreting the scene correctly (and somebody tell me if I'm not because I haven't actually seen it - yet), he didn't do it to intimidate anybody. He kicked the guy into the engine because the dude being kicked was unrepentantly evil. He flat out told the good guy that he intended to hunt him down and kill him when he was offered a chance to go free.

That seems to me to be the underlying lynchpin of this entire discussion. Much has been made of the issue of the captive being "helpless" or "no threat to the PC's" (or protagonist in this case). But that isn't really true. The bad guy IS a threat to the protagonist in this case. What he is essentially conveying by his words is that "I will not kill you right now because you have the upper hand. I WILL kill you later when I get the upper hand." In my opinion, only an idiot would allow someone like that to live.

It's a bit of a different story if the bad guy repents and says, "now that you've shown me the light I promise that I will change my ways." But if he's actively telling you his intentions to bring about your death in the future then booting his ass into the engine is simply smart.

If Good requires that you let guys like that go on their merry way then Good is pretty soon going to be an Endangered Alignment. And good riddance.

"Think of it as evolution in action."

 

[John Morrow]

Good points all. I suppose we all think of "good" as the ideal to aspire to, so it is harder to maintain, but as you say, the same standards in reverse should apply to evil, and probably some sort of equally demanding neutral requirements.

If you hold players to playing their Evil characters as Evil and the players aren't Evil or aren't sympathetic to it, it's been my experience that they can have just as rough of a time maintaining an Evil alignment as a Good one. In fact I had one player in a role-playing game go through a split personality and alignment shift over his character's internal conflict between doing the Good thing and doing the Evil thing. What made that particular story so interesting was that the character's brother, another PC, didn't undergo a similar alignment shift and he was quite surprised when his brother switched sides and blurted out what they really were. It's one of the few times that I've had PCs actively trying to kill each other.

 

[John Morrow]

Did they interpret it as "evil" or "good" in the D&D sense? Probably not, because most people watching probably have never opened a D&D bopok in their lives. But in a strict D&D defined sense, what he did was evil.

I think the broader question that I'm trying to ask (related to the context of this thread) is do you think that doing this made the people watching the episode think of Mal as Evil? Do you think that people watching the episode considered the other characters standing around to be Evil because they didn't stop him?

Now, do I think most people were surprised by the outcome because it violated genre conventions of what "good guys" do? Sure. That's the whole point of the scene. If kicking a captive into a jet engine didn't violate genre conventions, then it wouldn't have been a memorable scene. It would have been a routine scene.

I'm not sure that bending genre conventions was the only point, though it was probably one of them. I think it was also a matter of letting the character do something that probably crosses people's minds from time to time (including the PCs in this thread's example), which is why I think a lot of people cheered.

 

[Storm Raven]

But see, if I'm interpreting the scene correctly (and somebody tell me if I'm not because I haven't actually seen it - yet), he didn't do it to intimidate anybody. He kicked the guy into the engine because the dude being kicked was unrepentantly evil. He flat out told the good guy that he intended to hunt him down and kill him when he was offered a chance to go free.

And the classic genre conventions would indicate that despite that the good guy would not kill the bad guy under those circumstances. You need to go back and watch more John Wayne movies, or non-Eastwood westerns, because that's exactly the genre convention that is being turned on its head in that scene in Firefly. The convention is that the good guy, being a good guy, will not kill the bad guy when he is tied up, no matter what the bad guy plans to do in the future.

 

[Storm Raven]

I think the broader question that I'm trying to ask (related to the context of this thread) is do you think that doing this made the people watching the episode think of Mal as Evil? Do you think that people watching the episode considered the other characters standing around to be Evil because they didn't stop him?

Much of the purpose of this discussion isn't "what is evil in the broad sense", but rather "what is evil as defined by D&D". By D&D definitions, what Mal did was evil. In a "grim and gritty" world, it was expedient, which may or may not be considered evil depending on how you look at things.

 

[John Morrow]

Much of the purpose of this discussion isn't "what is evil in the broad sense", but rather "what is evil as defined by D&D". By D&D definitions, what Mal did was evil. In a "grim and gritty" world, it was expedient, which may or may not be considered evil depending on how you look at things.

Well, the real problem the group had in the original example of this thread was between GM and players, which was very much a real world issues. So I do think that matters.

But I'm also not convinced that in D&D 3.5, which demands only that a Neutral character have "compunctions against killing the innocent" (not a prohibition) and states that Neutral characters "lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others" that this act could not be considered Neutral.

And I think that the requirement that Good characters "protect innocent life" and that Good simply have a "respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings" leaves quite a bit of wiggle room depending on how the players interpreted the captive soldiers. In fact, I think that if the alignment system didn't allow distinctions between "innocent" and "guilty" and didn't allow Good characters to act as vigilantes that true Good characters would be nearly impossible to play in a traditional D&D adventuring environment.

That D&D explicitly contemplates Lawful Good warriors who dispense divine smackdowns on the bad guys, I find it difficult to imagine that the ideal for Good would be universal mercy and forgiveness. I'm having a difficult time imagining how a Paladin could work.

Yes, I understand the genre conventions of Westerns and such that you are talking about. But those movies are often carefully crafted to avoid putting the protagonist into a bind with no escape. For example, most bad guys die from a single gunshot rather than lying there wounded, never confronting the hero with how to deal with a half-dozen wonded bad guys in the middle of nowhere. And the badguys often fight to the death. Put a Paladin with your definition of Good in Han Solo's shoes across the table from Greedo and we are left with a captured and probably dead hero (Jabba wasn't interesting in having Han Solo over for tea) or the pre-revisionist Han Solo solution, which was essentially an execution. (EDIT: If Greedo holding a gun on Han Solo was an active threat that justified a violent response, then just how much of a threat does a bad guy have to pose before they can be killed? I'm curious what the lines are.)

 

[Storm Raven]

Yes, I understand the genre conventions of Westerns and such that you are talking about. But those movies are often carefully crafted to avoid putting the protagonist into a bind with no escape. For example, most bad guys die from a single gunshot rather than lying there wounded, never confronting the hero with how to deal with a half-dozen wonded bad guys in the middle of nowhere. And the badguys often fight to the death.

There are lots of westerns that have the good guys having to deal with captured or wounded bad guys. Hang 'Em High, for example. True Grit is another. There are dozens that fit this. Saying "it doesn't happen in those stories" ignores many in which it does.

Put a Paladin with your definition of Good in Han Solo's shoes across the table from Greedo and we are left with a captured and probably dead hero (Jabba wasn't interesting in having Han Solo over for tea) or the pre-revisionist Han Solo solution, which was essentially an execution. (EDIT: If Greedo holding a gun on Han Solo was an active threat that justified a violent response, then just how much of a threat does a bad guy have to pose before they can be killed? I'm curious what the lines are.)

That's not a very good example to use, primarily because Solo could never be considered anything remotely resembling a paladin, or lawful good. He's self-interested, and anti-authoritarian as presented in ANH, which pretty closely fits the definition of chaotic neutral if you must slap a D&D alignment on him. A paladin in Solo's situation would have handled the situation quite differently. (Like, for example, Kenobi also in the cantina scene, he lets the bad guy draw his weapon and shoot before he retaliates).

 

[Storm Raven]

Well, the real problem the group had in the original example of this thread was between GM and players, which was very much a real world issues. So I do think that matters.

And the dispute was over what was good or evil in the context of a D&D game, so real world definitions don't really matter.

 

[Seeten]

Paladin, to assembled PC Group: "This week, my friends, we are going to leave the town of Hommlet, head into the Temple of Elemental Evil, and kill every last rat Bast... in there. We will kill, maim and slaughter, and our goal is to save the world."

DM: You lose your powers and all your alignments shift to neutral. How could you even think of leaving a peaceful town to go murder a bunch of people just going about their business??

 

[John Morrow]

There are lots of westerns that have the good guys having to deal with captured or wounded bad guys. Hang 'Em High, for example. True Grit is another. There are dozens that fit this. Saying "it doesn't happen in those stories" ignores many in which it does.

Fair enough. Since you are more familiar with the classics of the genre than I am, do they often find themselves dealing with characters like the one in Firefly? If so, how does the movie resolve the situation?

That's not a very good example to use, primarily because Solo could never be considered anything remotely resembling a paladin, or lawful good. He's self-interested, and anti-authoritarian as presented in ANH, which pretty closely fits the definition of chaotic neutral if you must slap a D&D alignment on him. A paladin in Solo's situation would have handled the situation quite differently. (Like, for example, Kenobi also in the cantina scene, he lets the bad guy draw his weapon and shoot before he retaliates).

I don't remember the bad guy shooting first before Ben started chopping arms, at least not in the original (I have no idea what unspeakable things the Lucasfilm elves have done to that scene since). Unfortunately, my LD player and LDs are packed away but maybe I can take a look at the modified DVD.

I'm not trying to claim Han Solo is a Paladin. I'm trying to find out what you think a Paladin should do in situations like that. Writers and directors carefully craft stories so that characters can get away with certain things and never face other things. What happens when the hero waits for the bad guy to shoot first and the bad guy either kills the hero or, perhaps worse, some innocent? What happens when the hero lets a bad guy live and the bad guy escapes justice or comes back to hurt innocent people?

One possible answer is that Paladins don't work in a gritty setting and a GM should run a setting that can support Good heroes. But I'm more interested in what happens when a white hatted Paladin get's placed into a gritty setting (ala Last Action Hero) and waiting for the bad guy to shoot first results in a dead hero or dead innocent and letting the bad guys go means that they come back and hurt other people later. Is the sort of Paladin you envision viable in such a situation? Are they expected to accept the unfortunate consequences of their reluctance to act pragmatically as part of the cost of their alignment or should they adjust the parameters of what it means to be Good to suit their alignment?

(SOME MORE FIREFLY SPOILERS IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH.)

I'm not trying to be annoying. I'm trying to figure out how best to define Paladins in a morally complex environment without, in essence, leaving no good deed unpunished. And the reason why I don't think that's the only way to handle Good lies in the word "innocent" in the SRD. What makes action movie heroes the good guys that audiences cheer for, from James "License to Kill" Bond to Captain Mal of the Firefly is that they reserve their harse justice for the bad guys and do take risks to help the average innocent person. Mal will put himself and his crew at risk rather than keep medicine from sick townfolk but then he'll turn around and drop-kick a bad guy into his ship's engine. I'm trying to determine if it's possible for Good to maintain that distinction and still remain identifiably Good, distinct from Neutral.