Why is it evil to kill the prisoners?

[ninthcouncil]

I'm surprised no one has brought up orc babies yet.

We haven't eaten any yet.

But, to go back to the original question, part of being good must be "do as you would be done by". So, when you are looking at the prisoners, you should be saying - what would I want to be done if the positions were reversed?

Right.

Killing unarmed prisoners is Evil - it's based on a lack of respect for the lives of others coupled with a surrender to base desires for revenge, or a valuation of expediency over moral action. Any other argument is flannel. Go to the back of the class.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Re: Re: Re

Probably not, but thats because the alignment system is flawed in this regard. It was built with a modern Christian outlook, and thus applying it to much older social orders just doesnt work. IMO.

you mean like the ancient greeks? Read the history of the peloponesian (sp) war and then come back to this.

Boy, does it irk me when people throw out the "no rules of warfare before the geneva convention" strawman. The reason your do not slaughter the surrendered troops/noncombatants is that next time no one will surrender or stay out of the combat. they settled this, what 400 bc? (and the cool part is, that even then they were calling it outmoded sentiment or somesuch.) While the whole "total war" or "inherently evil" myths make a difference, those are generally myths, and I don't allow my players to short circuit basic ethics and more importantly inteligent conduct with those sort of absudrities...

Ethics is of course based on options. there will be situation where no option will make people comfortable and they'll have to choose between several bad ideas. But, hey, the lesser evil is still evil and all that.

Kahuna Burger

 

[mythago]

Then again, there's a possiblity the orc baby will one day "escape" human captivity and lead its orc brothers in a newer, smarter conquest.

As they say in court, "Anything's possible."

I believe Fourecks has the right of it.

For creatures like black dragons or demons, I'd argue that Evil is part of their very being. They could choose to stop being evil--but if they did, they would cease to be what they are. (It's interesting to contemplate what might happen...a black dragon slowly turning silver? A demon morphing into an Ethereal creature?) Mind you, it's not terror of a transformation that keeps them evil. They *like* it.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

They could choose to stop being evil--but if they did, they would cease to be what they are. (It's interesting to contemplate what might happen...a black dragon slowly turning silver? A demon morphing into an Ethereal creature?)

minions has a template for an outsider who has been 'cast out' of its respective plane due to 'falling'. its pretty straighforward mythologically - angles fall, why shouldn't demons rise?

kahuna burger

 

[Left-handed Hummingbird]

There is nothing terribly complicated about it.

Is it what a hero would do? Then it's good.

Is it what a villain would do? Then it's evil.

Don't look for absolutes where there isn't any.

 

[Nifft]

Killing unarmed prisoners is Evil - it's based on a lack of respect for the lives of others coupled with a surrender to base desires for revenge, or a valuation of expediency over moral action. Any other argument is flannel. Go to the back of the class.

It is wrong to kill someone who is not, and will not become, a threat. In D&D, "unarmed" can still be a threat.

-- Nifft

 

[Celtavian]

Re

I thought I mentioned orc babies? Maybe I wasn't clear enough.

I played a Chaotic Neutral Barbarian. He was raised in an area where orcs were their greatest enemy.

We attacked an orc settlement. He killed every orc down the last baby and could not be dissuaded by his companions.

The DM ruled that it was not evil because of the long history this character had with orcs. His own family and people were destroyed by orc hordes down to the last child.

The reason most kill orcs on-site is because they have earned such a death. Orcs kill or enslave any creatures they fight against. They eat them and treat them in an inhumane manner.

The very gods of the orcs encourage this so that any given orc, child or adult, will probably grow up to be a vicious, savage, evil creature with no thought for the well-being of another.

Orcs earn their deaths. They expect them. Show an orc mercy, and you can bet that 9 times out of 10 they will not return the favor...)

 

[sword-dancer]

It seems highly suspect to me. It smacks of a lack of a proper grasp of morality, or of warfare ethics -even modern ones.

-shrug-

Just doesn't seem to make sense to me.

If someone is bent on killing you, and you've just finished killing all but a few of their companions...
If you've managed to morally justify this...

Why is it then suddenly evil to kill them because you've stopped fighting long enough to question them?

The difference between self-defence, combat and murder.

If you're in a war, or any lethal conflict, you begin by justifying the murder of your opponants. Why does this suddenly stop at some point?

There is a difference between war and murder.
In war you fight, to defend your Life, your comrades and fulfill the mission you get.
Because the enemy threatens your life it is a cause of combat, it is one of both. But if you decide to kill an enemy soldier who has surrendered it is murder, because he didn`t longer endanger you or your comrades.

If you break into someone's home with the intention to killing as many of them as you can in order to improve your martial skills and take their possessions, how do manage to consider that morally superior to killing the one's you've captured for information?

It isn`t. both are cold planned murder out of egoistical selfish reasons.

Every day in our fantasy RPG campaigns the PCs play out Mai Lai on any Orc or Goblin villages they find, then insist on sparing anyone who lives past the point where the PCs decide to take a break and gather info on where they can find more people to kill and loot to steal...

Maybe .., but then they wouldn`t be good or even neutral but Evil.

 

[Dark Helmet]

WWJTKD?

Remember the Gorn?

Of course, it turned out that WE really invaded THEIR territory. I wonder what he would have done if they really had been the invaders.

--------------------------------------

WWJTKD=What Would James T. Kirk Do
::For the geek impaired::

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

So you're not of Good alignment? That's revenge, not self-defense. And presumably the assassin's contract doesn't require him to keep coming at you even if it means his own life is in danger. (Hell, if I were an assassin, that's what I'd do.)

What I don't get is the insistence that a D&D world must exactly follow the mores of vaguely medieval Western Europe, with all the stuff about peasants being worthless and preserving nobles and so forth. Remember, people, we GMs can make up anything we want.

So maybe your fantasy world is like that of the Vikings--"Don't kill the prisoners! Those are valuable thralls, you moron!" Or perhaps Good is more of a Templar viewpoint--"We don't kill prisoners until AFTER they accept the True Faith."

Or, and I realize I'm being all wacky and madcap here, you could have a slightly more modern viewpoint, with value of human life and legal prohibitions against vengeance and all that newfangled stuff.

It would, after all, be amusing to see the "good" PCs hauled into court by the dead prisoner's relatives, and ordered to pay [a sum that bankrupts the party] as blood-guilt.

Personally, I don't think a Good alignment forbids revenge, especially revenge for a contracted killer. The means you undertake in your revenge, of course, must not be evil, or you are risking your alignment-- but revenge itself is acceptable.

In this case, we have a contracted assassin. Sure, he's given up the antidote-- but that means that, by his contract, he's required to try again. He is still a threat to the character's life, and by extension, the lives of the rest of the party.

And this is leaving aside the risk that an assassin poses to any number of decent, good people who may be his targets at some future date.

No, in this case, if the character wants his revenge, it is certainly a righteous revenge, and there are several non-revenge reasons for the character and his friends to "severely curtail the actions" of this assassin. The Bard and the Paladin should both have supported him, and I cannot blame the character from walking out of that party.