would this be evil?

[Tsyr]

Darn "Players' Rights Advocates"... *grumble grumble*

If there isn't any way a subdual strike with a sword can do lethal damage, that's a rules void IMO.

I've noticed in 3e that (according to many EN World posts) many players expect to have everything spelt out to them in advance, and complain vociferously if the GM makes a judgement call that differs from the letter of the rules (or, worst case scenario, from the letter of a Sage Advice column). I think 3e has really given Rules Lawyerism a new lease of life. Thankfully in my own group I've seen almost nothing of this, I'd hate to try GMing in a group where it was common.

IMHO, it's not so much rules-lawyering as just wanting stuff to work somewhat consistantly.

In this case, there are ESTABLISHED rules for how this situation works. It's not a case of a judgement call needing to be made... the rules are already there. And the DM changed the rule on the fly. If this is/was a long-standing house rule, fine, I withdraw my statement... but it didn't sound that way to me. The way it is now is about as logical as having a longsword do double damage against innocent children "just because", but do normal damage against everything else.

 

[Numion]

Bravo, Tsyr. I second almost everything you said in this thread.

 

[Iron Sheep]

It's definitely not Lawful behaviour, the kidnapping is Evil, and the whole thing is bloody stupid on the part of the PCs.

As far of the rules question of killing the hostage with subdual damage, it's not outside the rules to have a subdual strike kill someone on a critical. If you think about it, all subdual damage above the character's hp total gets converted to actual damage, so a 2 hp commoner can be killed outright by 14 points of subdual damage, which is a far from unreasonable damage for a critical from a sword. If something like this happened, then it's unlucky for the players, but it is how the rules read.

As far as the actions of the PCs are concerned, kidnapping an innocent for the purposes of blackmail so that you can break a justly imprisoned friend out of gaol can in no way be described as Lawful. A Lawful approach to the problem would have been to approach the authorities and ask for clemency or leniency because it was a first offence; to make restitution to victims; or otherwise to work within the system.

The actions are almost certainly Evil as well. Stealing for fun is certainly not Good: you are harming another for no reason than your own amusement. How Evil it is probably depends on the circumstances of the victim. Stealing a starving family's last loaf of bread for fun is Evil, stealing a few copper pieces from the wealthiest family in town, just for the fun of it, is far less Evil, and is probably within the accepted range of behaviour for a CN character, for example.

Kidnapping an innocent for extortion is Evil. The characters seem willing to harm an innocent bystander simply for expediency (this was the quickest way to resolve the problem). That this innocent bystander was killed was not intentional, which mitigates somewhat, but at the very least it shows a callous disregard for that person's health and wellbeing (why use a sword to subdue if you care about someone's wellbeing?).

Perhaps more importantly, the death makes it far harder for the characters to atone for their actions. It's far easier to make recompense for theft and kidnapping than murder.

The only way that this could fail to be Evil in the D&D sense is if there were some extreme circumstances which the original poster didn't mention. If, for example, the town where this happened was under a tyrannical regime, and the daughter of the official was not merely benefiting from it, but was actively involved in the imposition of the tyranny; and the rogue's thievery was of a minor nature and being punished with a lack of due process and unreasonable severity; and the PCs knew all this; and the plan had some vague hope of success; then maybe in the D&D scheme of alignment it wouldn't be Evil. But if something this extreme were the case, I think that the original poster would have mentioned it.

A Good way to deal with the problem would be to make sure that anyone who the thief stole from was given restitution, and to perform "public service" acts to atone. Or perhaps simply to bribe the official (which would not be Lawful, but could be consistent with CG) to obtain their compatriot's release. Or, of course, to simply let the thief take whatever fair punishment was due and move on.

As a GM, I'd be unhappy with the roleplaying that would lead to Lawful and Good characters even consenting to going along with a scheme like this. It seems driven by metagame thinking ("we have to get out of here, so lets try and resolve this as quickly as possible"), and not by the way that an unselfish or law-abiding character would act.

I'd also be a bit peeved with the apparent lack of thought by the players when conceiving the scheme. On the face of it, the plan looks like a surefire recipe for disaster, even had it worked perfectly. I would have hinted at this if I were GMing a group which wanted to do this sort of thing; although if they'd gone ahead with anyway it I would have let the chips fall where they may.

In my experience, when players come up with this sort of plan, it smacks of player frustration at the current situation. Again, if I were GMing this situation (the justly captured thief) and the players weren't having fun with it, I'd be tempted to put things on "fast forward" and encourage the players to just let events unfold so that we could get on with the main thread of the adventure. Something like "A week passes, the rogue is convicted and sentenced to a day in the pillory for his crimes. The next morning you are met by a bruised and smelly rogue, and are free to go about your business. Although you do notice that the guards are watching you like hawks."

Of course these are just my thoughts. I don't stress alignment in my own games, and I certainly wouldn't force alignment changes. But in this sort of situation I'd be asking players if they thought that they had the right alignment for their character.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Excellent posts S'mon and Tsyr! I agree with you both fully. Here in the United States, "Kidnapping" is a special circumstance worthy of death. The fact that a kidnapped person dies while in custody of the kidnappers--regardless of how, or what their intent was--is reason enough for a charge of murder to be applied.

Thus, in addition to the rules of the game, kidnapping, and now, murder, plus extortion and robbery are all vile, evil acts that the group deserves to swing for. They deserve to be caught by the King's Rangers and strung up good! They should die, for they are evil wolfs'heads. They should be ashamed of themselves. Indeed, they should prostrate themselves before the righteous magistrates and recieve the righteous judgment that is reserved for them. Just as in real life, these people are vicious criminals, and if you don't abstract what they did as to some no-name "fictional" character, and apply it to "real" people within the story, they would be hated and reviled wherever they went, and hunted relentlessly for their crimes against society, and the King's righteous Law. They are common, vicious criminals.

Sad to see, but it is a bad start for a campaign. They should roll up new characters, and before they shoot their mouth's off and do something so wicked, selfish, evil, and yes, stupid--they should really sit down and do some thinking and reflection on what motivates their characters, what kinds of values they have, and think about the consequences to any action they take, before they do so.

It is interesting to note that some research has shown that criminals strangely have this common belief that consequences don't or shouldn't apply to *them*. That, I think, is a key ingredient psychologically, to people being evil, and others who aren't evil. Evil people think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want, and don't think they should suffer any consequences for such behaviour. Consequence-free behaviour. Good people recognize that there are consequences to their actions, and when their own actions hurt or deprive others of life, security, happiness, etc, then they are going to be forced to pay the price for their actions. That price, depending on one's actions, can be steep indeed.

Your players should really think about these issues when they make up new characters, because these characters are evil, and they deserve to die.

Good luck!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Bonedagger]

Try and think of the possibility that the kidnapping was in 'selfdefence'. Like the killing PC's often do

The PC's maybe tried to get a communication going? The politican didn't give them a chance to appologise and make up for what their friend did. Instead he punnished the rogue according to 'laws' the characters maybe don't acknowledge. Maybe the kidnapping was to let the politician see what it was like to have a close one removed from you. To teach him the wrong of his ways.

To decide if it was evil what the player characters did we will have to know why they did it.

Edit: refering to the PHB about alignments doesn't help either. Only when knowing what the went through the characters heads at the time can we start using it.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Bonedagger writes:
____________________________________________________
Quote:

"To decide if it was evil what the player characters did we will have to know why they did it."
____________________________________________________
End Quote.

I fully disagree. Kidnapping, and murder, is evil, period. It doesn't matter one bit *why* the player characters did it. They kidnapped an innocent little girl, who also died by their hand while in their custody. That is evil, and they should swing high for it. *Why* they did it is irrelevant.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Bonedagger]

Greetings!

Bonedagger writes:
____________________________________________________
Quote:

"To decide if it was evil what the player characters did we will have to know why they did it."
____________________________________________________
End Quote.

I fully disagree. Kidnapping, and murder, is evil, period. It doesn't matter one bit *why* the player characters did it. They kidnapped an innocent little girl, who also died by their hand while in their custody. That is evil, and they should swing high for it. *Why* they did it is irrelevant.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Hey. I never said they shouldn't swing high for it. Stupidity is no excuse. I just wouldn't call them evil.

Your view is a bit to "black and white" to be adding realism to the game for my taste. (No jokes about fantasy and reality thanks)

 

[Tsyr]

Try and think of the possibility that the kidnapping was in 'selfdefence'. Like the killing PC's often do

No. I'm not even going to TRY to think of it that way, because it's NOT.

Furthermore, if your PCs are randomly killing innocent things, it might be time to re-examine the way your campaign is going.

The PC's maybe tried to get a communication going? The politican didn't give them a chance to appologise and make up for what their friend did. Instead he punnished the rogue according to 'laws' the characters maybe don't acknowledge. Maybe the kidnapping was to let the politician see what it was like to have a close one removed from you. To teach him the wrong of his ways.

A) I think the poster would have mentioned SOMETHING like that.

B) EVEN if this was true, every bit of it, to the word, it does not matter in any way, shape, or form. The act in and of itself was evil. And I'll expand on this just a touch in my next point.

To decide if it was evil what the player characters did we will have to know why they did it.

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong . In DnD, evil is a concrete force. It is not abstract. Good and Evil are with a capital letter. Then can be manifested in sentient form, used as a weapon against their opposition, bound into steel, and many other things. An evil act can be justified, but it's always evil. And in this case, we have been given no indication (and plenty to the contrary) that this was justified, not that I can think of a good justification for it even if I was so inclined to try to put a good spin on said events

Edit: refering to the PHB about alignments doesn't help either. Only when knowing what the went through the characters heads at the time can we start using it.

See above.

*note: This applies only if using something similar to a default DnD cosmology, true. But the poster has said nothing to indicate otherwise, so that's the only basis I have for discussion.

 

[Apok]

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong . In DnD, evil is a concrete force. It is not abstract. Good and Evil are with a capital letter. Then can be manifested in sentient form, used as a weapon against their opposition, bound into steel, and many other things. An evil act can be justified, but it's always evil. And in this case, we have been given no indication (and plenty to the contrary) that this was justified, not that I can think of a good justification for it even if I was so inclined to try to put a good spin on said events

In this, Tsyr is completely correct. Absoulte and 100%.

However, I think the concept is a load of bollocks and represents everything that is fundamentally wrong with the D&D alignment system, but that's what the 3e designers decided to use as the standard. How unfortuanate for us. In my games, good and evil have no distinct, concrete forms unless you count Celestials and Demons/Devils. The evil (or good) that mortals do is dictated by their actions and, perhaps more importantly, their motivations. A person doesn't do evil things because some all powerful concrete force makes him do it (well, okay sometimes that is the case but only under special circumstances ), he does them because they fulfill some kind of need weather it be money, power, blood-lust or sheer malevolence. This is how my games are run but as Tsyr pointed out it's not the standard.

Just wanted to give a differing perspective on the matter.

 

[bensei]

One Question to the Thread Starter

Puting aside that you now have to deal with the law, but was that act evil? was the kidnapping evil? hitting her to shut her up?

One question: What do you need to know this for?

I ask this, because the questions you pose cannot be answered unless one knows in which context you pose them.

[EDIT: typos]