What would you have done?

[MoonZar]

typically try to keep my gaming opinions to myself. And I rarely, if ever, soapbox online, because as a game designer, I have a reputation... good or bad... that I must recognize, if nothing else. Albeit, I'm still an honest person, but that doesn't mean I'm going to tell you that Room B65 in the WLD could have been better, but I just didn't want to be bothered.

Thanks you Jim for all these explaination, i have quote your message to show it to my players. This could help them understand many thing.

MoonZar

 

[Mallus]

I'm not sure he was so offended over the acts

This is what the thread-starter wrote.

I'd like to further observe that I was completely confrontational with the entire group over this event, utterly outraged, and certianly put everyone involved on the defensive. I handled it very poorly, and I've been dealing with small group politics for over 2/3 of my life. I can't explain why I was so personally affronted by this, but it struck a deep chord with me.

Its pretty clear...

If you take an action, expect consequences.

All consequences aren't created equal... A DM could say, "If a good character commits an evil act, I will smack the player across the face with a tire iron". How useful would that be?

Seriously though... I totally agree that actions should have consequences. But those consequences are more interesting when they're incorporated into the gameplay. Good PC's who commit evil acts should have their alignment shifted, their reputations ruined, their patrons and allies turned into enemies. That leads to more action, more story, more game.

Getting angry and slapping the players wrists doesn't accomplish anything but hurt feelings.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Moderator's Notes

This thread is fascinating, but we need to watch the political comments. I may be editing out some of the stuff here in the next few minutes; meanwhile, I'll ask people not to respond to political posts, and not to post anything else political here. Please try to keep the discussion firmly within the realm of the fantastic.

Daniel

Note: I think any references to real-life stuff should be removed as well. Because what I've seen can border on the political, like referring to modern-day American soldiers and their "practices with POWs" that I've seen yesterday on this thread.

I don't mind a discussion if it STAYS within the fantasy realm and don't involve real-life issues that can and usually will be inflammatory.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

Moderator's Notes

This thread is fascinating, but we need to watch the political comments. I may be editing out some of the stuff here in the next few minutes; meanwhile, I'll ask people not to respond to political posts, and not to post anything else political here. Please try to keep the discussion firmly within the realm of the fantastic.

Daniel

Guys-n-gals

My apolologies if anything was over the top in my first post I was not trying to be political. I wanted to share the information I had just had about the nature of torture in military conditions and what people are able to 'sink to' in times of need. Unfortunately the reference I had was a tv program not an article that I could post a link to, had I been able to do that I would have. My intention was not to point any fingers at any one group of people but to try and report on what the program covered, and the breadth of methods various organisations have used to get 'the enemy' to talk. The only reason I included the specific reference to what the vietnam vet said was because of the reference to the US vet in twofalls group in the original post.

 

[John Morrow]

First off, killing someone that is tied up is murder. That's it. End of story. Look up the definition if you'd like.

Murder: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

I'd argue that the label "murder" isn't very useful in many role-playing contexts, where the characters are either vigilantes or the equivalent of partisans or a commando squad attacking Nazi targets during WW2, attacking an enemy on their turf. The question of "malice aforethought" is also fairly important with respect to differentiating murder from manslaughter and other forms of homicide. So as a legal term, it's problematic. And a moral term, "murder" simply means "unjust killing", which simply begs the question.

I'll also pointed out, above, that legal court-mandated executions are generally performed on people who are tied up or are in some other way helpless. It's generally called an "execution". You may feel free to believe that all executions are murder and that all executioners are doing something Evil but I'm trying to point out that it's hardly a universal or settled opinion. If you do think that all executions are murder and insist that your good characters send any captured bad guys off to the equivalent of Arkham Asylum like a four-color superhero, then I think you should make that clear to your players up front. And I've played in enough four-color superhero games to know that this sort of morality doesn't mesh very well with any sort of real world moral problem.

But politics aside, things in wartime get brushed under the carpet of "we didn't know" or "stress" or whatever. Murder is wrong. And even if it were Hitler that was tied up, no LG character who calls himself LG, is going to sit back and let that happen. LAWFUL means adhering to laws. If the laws of his country say murder is okay, then he's fine. But, I'm guessing this paladin came from a more orderly society.

Paladins have the class ability to Detect Evil. Why? There are spells that let you Detect Thoughts, Discern Truth, and create a Zone of Truth. With all of those factors in play, it's unlikely that the demands of justice or the criminal justice system would look anything like what we are used to, since they can often determine guilt or innocence with complete accuracy and seperate the good guys from the bad guys with a sweep of their hand. Look at how things like breath tests for blood alcohol that instantly assess guilt effect the criminal justice system (i.e., you cannot refuse to take a breath test without essentially admitting guilt and you won't be able to drive away if the test says you are drunk). Why would we go through the motion of trials if we didn't need that sort of process to determine guilt?

On top of that, we can add the fact that D&D settings are usually quasi-Medieval (where justice was often swift and brutal). The Medieval world had a very different sense of justice and due proecess and I think it's easy to understand why a lot of players don't expect their D&D setting to follow modern guidelines for due process. I keep thinking of the old Woody Woodpecker cartoon, where a narrator repeats over and over, "If Woody had just gone to the police, none of this would have ever happened."

Suppose the paladin captures the NPC equivalent of Hitler. Rather than executing the villain on the spot, who the Paladin knows with 100% certainty is guilty, they cart this Hitleroid back to their home land to face a Crimes Against Humanity trial. The trial simply confirms what the paladin already knows -- the NPC is guilty. So the government takes the bound Hitleroid out to the gallows and hangs him. What's the difference? What could have changed during the trial?

What purpose do Paladins serve in a D&D society. Why are they armed, armored, and given the ability to Detect Evil?

Now, killing the mage was not only acceptable, but necessary. Who knows what spell would have gone off. But the murder of the Vet was just vindicative. It was prideful. "He called my bluff. Now I have to kill him."

What were the alternatives? Do the PCs just let them go? Do they cart them around until the adventure is over? Do they abandon their adventure and head for home and a formal legal system? And if they do keep them tied up and cart them around, isn't that unlawful imprisonment and kidnapping if they aren't the authorities?

Threatening to use torture is an acceptable Intimidation tactic. No one does it anymore, because modern interrogators know it doesn't work, but in a fantasy setting and a game table, most PCs aren't qualified Hostage Negotiators, so I can't see them doing anything but this tired old trope of waving a knife or cutting off a finger.

And there are people who would argue that such treats are torture. Where is the line and who gets to draw it?

The DM is the moral compass of the game table. He establishes, through example what CE, NE, and LE are through the villains he creates. He establishes what LN, N, and CN are through the NPCs, barkeeps, farmers, and contacts that the PCs must encounter. He establishes what LG, NG, and CG are through his holy orders, heroes, leaders, and what he does and does not punish the PCs for.

Fair enough.

The PCs are a microcosm of the rest of the game world. If they murder in cold blood and are LG, what do CE people do?

You mean if PCs execute helpless Evil prisoners, what do CE people do? They kill people wether they are innocent or not, regardless of alignment. They don't just slit their throats but torture and abuse them first, perhaps for days. Those that they don't kill, they break, humiliate, and enslave. And they enjoy every minute of it. The CE person would threaten to torture someone if they don't talk and then torture them anyway, even after they tell them everything they wanted to know.

I see plenty of room for contrast in there.

And why should they expect help from the LN peasant in the next village?

Because the PCs aren't executing innocent LN peasants. They are executing Evil soldiers working for an Evil organization that would ruin the LN peasant's whole day if they came into town. Why should the LN peasants fear the PCs?

If the PCs are not bound by ethical (law, chaos) and moral (good, evil) rules/guidelines, no one is.

Of course they are bound by ethical and moral guidelines. Were they killing random peasants for sport? Did they spend hours torturing their captives? Heck, they even let one of the evil guards go as promised.

If the PCs kill the bad guys while they are tied up, they should expect the same or worse from the villains.

Of course, unless you are talking about Saturday Morning Cartoon villains that tie the PCs up, put them in a giant Frosty-Freeze with all of their equipment, and give them an hour or two to escape before they freeze to death. But then we aren't talking about settings with any moral depth. If the bad guys don't do horrible things to the people they capture, then what makes them the bad guys? Do they just sit in the basement thinking Evil thoughts and never act on them?

Not only is an XP penalty warranted here, its the equivalent of a swat on the nose to a puppy who pooped on the rug. "Don't do it again, rosco." It let's the PCs know this is unacceptable, and it won't happen again. If it does, the rules of proper treatment go out the window.

You may role-play with players who you think so little of that you treat them like puppies in need of a smack on the nose. I role-play with friends. And frankly, if a GM treated me with the sort of contempt that you seem to have for players there, I'd find another game to play in. GMs can go excercise their delusions of grandeur with someone else.

Now, if you don't like the alignment system. Don't use it. Cut away the silly good-evil, law-chaos spells and just play a morally grey game.

Oh, I like the alignment system just fine, which is why I want both Good and Evil to mean something more than a fairly useless team label.

Yes, sometimes challenges are hard. Sometimes the answer isn't as simple as slitting a throat or rescuing a princess.

Then what is an acceptable answer? You are in the middle of the wilderness. You have three Evil captives that won't talk. What do you do with them? Can someone who thinks that what these PCs did was wrong please provide a detailed description of what they should have done instead? I offered some options above.

And if the DM is responsible for writing a story, building a world, and "entertaining" the group every weekend, he has a right to be upset when his work is trounced on.

If a DM wants full authorial control over their setting, story, and all of the characters they should be a novelist, not a GM, IMO.

PCs always believe that whatever they are doing is in the right. And everytime I hear that tired argument, I want to put them behind the screen for just one session, where I play a character as asanine as they played.

The majority of my group both plays and GMs. Many of us have been on both sides of the "screen" (when we even bother to use one) plenty of times. No, our PCs don't always believe that whatever they are doing is right. But the players do sometimes disagree with the GM over what is or isn't morally acceptable for the characters. And, no, I don't believe that a cardboard screen automatically makes someone right and everyone else at the table wrong. We work it out.

Let's see your patience threshold now.

I have pretty much infinite patience for this sort of thing because I don't take it personally. I also can and do adapt my game to what my players want.

Do paladins murder? um.... probably not.

The question, of course, is still whether executing a bound prisoner is murder. I can understand why some people (yourself included) think it is but I can also understand why others might disagree. And I can also understand why some people might get upset if they are called Evil for disagreeing.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

I think it points to the fact that people who are not trained to treat captives properly or negotiate with hostage takers at least sometimes do get frustrated by their inability to get results through negotiation and even otherwise good people will consider torture and violance as effective ways to get results, especially when the target of the interrogation or violence is considered to be a bad guy and part of the problem.

Absolutely. If the Zhents really were EVIL, then isn't it my duty to slay them? Oh but they've surrendered... but they're EVIL... Am I doing a greater evil by letting them go to commit evil again, or by killing them, thus bringing myself down to their level!

They need to train real soldiers and police officers not to do these things. It doesn't suprise me that role-players, most of whom have no such training, go down that road because plenty of real people do in the same sort of situation in the real world. If you don't want your players to do nasty things to captured bad guys, then either don't let them capture bad guys, give them an alternative to avoid the frustration that leads down the road to torture, or be ready to get into a lengthy and potentially heated debate about morality if you object.

Again agreed

Let's just say that this is an issue that is currently being debated in real world courts and while you may be certain about that (and you are entitled to your opinions), the boundaries of what is or isn't torture is hardly universal. To say any more would probably go someplace that the moderators don't want this to go.

Not sure I agree that a general discussion on what constitutes torture (without pointing fingers at specific organisations) would have to fall into the realms of politics but I won't push the point.

 

[John Morrow]

I don't mind a discussion if it STAYS within the fantasy realm and don't involve real-life issues that can and usually will be inflammatory.

Given that the original message included feelings of real world disgust and offense, mentioned the presence of a soldier in the group, and the problem wasn't simply within the fantasy realm, I'm not sure this issue can be discussed meaningfully with those limitations. I fully understand why the moderators don't want this to get political or religious but I think we've been doing a pretty good job of skirting that so far.

 

[John Morrow]

Absolutely. If the Zhents really were EVIL, then isn't it my duty to slay them? Oh but they've surrendered... but they're EVIL... Am I doing a greater evil by letting them go to commit evil again, or by killing them, thus bringing myself down to their level!

This is exactly the practical issue that I'm trying to deal with.

Not sure I agree that a general discussion on what constitutes torture (without pointing fingers at specific organisations) would have to fall into the realms of politics but I won't push the point.

The issue of how the United States is treating and interrogating prisoners in its War on Terror is something of a hot political topic that is working its way through various courts and international bodies and there are plenty of strong opinions all around on that. I'm honestly not trying to turn this tread into a debate on the morality of various current affairs. I'm mainly bringing them up to illustrate that these issues are hot-button topics in the real world because they are not settled and people hold very strong and emotional opinions both ways. Simply claiming that "X is obviously Y" isn't very useful in these cases.

 

[Rel]

This is why I don't usually try to play Good PCs. Folks seem to want to hold them to an almost impossibly high standard. I think lots of folks like to look up there on the character sheet and see the word in their alignment, but if you're expected to turn dangerous, evil people loose, fully armed and armored or put your life in dire peril by hauling them along with you as prisoners then I question how much Good your character is really doing in the world.

See, the Evil in my games is not foolin' around. You don't become Evil by stealing candy from the vending machine, missing your mortgage payment, crossing against the light and leaving your dirty socks on the floor. If you want to be evil then you're at least going to have to show a callous disregard for the lives of innocents in the pursuit of your own selfish goals. It gets worse from there.

Maybe in the views of others, Neutral is really the best alignment to go after Evil because they can behave in a way that is smart, ruthless and pragmatic. And you'd better be smart, ruthless and pragmatic if you want to erradicate Evil. Some folks seem to think that Good can sit around and think happy thoughts and Evil will suddenly say, "Oh, my bad. I shouldn't have been so Evil. Here's some cash for that orphanage you guys were wanting to build."

So in the games I run, Good folks can go after Evil with a vengeance. Evil deserves whatever it gets. And I'm perfectly fine if your Paladin wants to say:

"You, my friend, are Evil. And unfortunately for you, my job is to find Evil and destroy it. You made my job easy and came after me. Thanks.

In case you were wondering, I'm not here to redeem you. I'm not here to show you the error of your ways. You could have seen the error of your ways yesterday. That was the day you should have repented and vowed to turn your back on evil. But this morning you got up and decided to do wrong until you met me.

The guy with the sword.

I've been endowed by my god and my church to dispense justice and you're about to get yours. Ready yourself..."

But hey, that's just me. If your interpretation of the alignments works for you then go for it.

 

[Pielorinho]

I've been endowed by my god and my church to dispense justice and you're about to get yours. Ready yourself..."

"Nice coat."

Daniel