Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Nevvur Aug 09, 2015 11:49:44	This is a thought experiment, not a solicitation for advice on actual play. Also, it's an alignment discussion, so put on your seatbelts.   ----   Donvan is neutral mercenary fighter. He's less about maintaining balance and more just wishy washy in morality. He leans toward doing well by others and respects authority, but he's not the sort to suffer great internal conflict when the situation calls for a little dirty work.    Suvra is a lawful good wizard. She believes in the sanctity of life, and goes out of her way to use her magic in such a way that evildoers can be held accountable by the authorities.    Along with the rest of the party, they have been battling a large group of bandits spread across the Malachite Hills. Recently, they defeated a small group of bandits when Suvra cast a high level sleep spell on them. The party took them captive, but were far from civilization and had an urgent mission to conduct, so they disarmed the bandits and told them to get the heck out of the hills and never come back.   A week later, they come across another group of bandits picking over the spoils from an ambushed caravan. The party engages them, and Suvra once again puts a number of them to sleep. They realize one of these bandits is from the group they set free earlier, and their mission is still incomplete. Donvan, exasperated, kills the unarmed and defenseless bandit as a warning to the others, who they set free. Suvra is horrified, but the party hasn't come to blows with one another yet.    The incident repeats itself under similar circumstances, and Donvan has decided it is no longer worth giving these bandits a second chance. The next time Suvra puts the bandits to sleep, Donvan starts slitting throats. She confronts him later, "You are no better than these murderers!"   Donvan replies, "You made me this way. They could have had an honorable death in combat, or run away. But you deprived them of the choice, and the circumstances do not permit us to keep setting them free."   ---   Is Suvra (partially?) responsible for turning Donvan evil? For the purpose of this discussion, I ask that you approach the scenario from the stance that killing the unarmed bandits is an objectively evil thing to do. I know we had an in-depth alignment discussion on a similar scenario a few months ago. I don't want to repeat it, so I prefer we do not look too closely at what does or does not justify the bandits' execution. I just want to examine the question above, in light of a recent thread about pacifist characters.
#2 The_White_Sorcerer Aug 09, 2015 12:19:15	Nevvur wrote:
#3 cowleymen Aug 09, 2015 14:30:44	The_White_Sorcerer wrote:
#4 Hebitsuikaza Aug 09, 2015 15:09:37	Well, neutral does mean you do evil act sometimes...   Although I wonder why the DM even put you in this situation. What are the chances you would come across the same individuals again and again and those are always the ones that fall asleep....   I mean, granted, let's say you were a bandit-- either because it was easy or maybe even out of necessity. Someone beats you up, takes all your worldly belongings and sends you off into the wild far from civilization with no means to defend yourself... Well, unless your organization is the kind that kills its own men for failure, you are going to go to the next nearest camp of your organization-- you may well indeed have to. But what are the chances you keep finding the same individuals again and again and again?   Now, to be totally clear about this, being bandits inevitably means they are murdering people who are traveling and providing the service of supplying the towns with what they need to survive. In other words, their actions are directy and indirectly causing death-- and whether or not they ended up in this position through little fault of their own, it is clear they either will not or cannot stop and either way their activities need to be halted.   At this point, though the action itself might be labeled evil, it is the rational choice to make and thus the choice a neutral character should make.
#5 Nevvur Aug 09, 2015 15:13:17	The intent of the example is more to ask a generalized philosophical moral question... Should a person be held accountable for evil when their actions create an environment in which evil flourishes? Not a judgement on whether the well-intentioned person is evil, but whether he or she bears responsibility for the evil that follows?
(Reply to #4) Nevvur	Hebitsuikaza wrote:
#7 cowleymen Aug 09, 2015 15:41:02	Nevvur wrote:
#8 draegn Aug 09, 2015 16:05:46	Donvan wantonly took the law into his own hands, I would call this chaotic. Suvra's lenient attitude towards the bandits has nothing to do with Donvan's actions.
#9 BRJN Aug 09, 2015 17:03:32	In a slightly different form: Can you deliver progressively harsher punishments to a repeat offender - eventually including death?  If so, how quickly do you arrive at Death?   For myself, I think stripping the bandits of all equipment and leaving them behind was fully justified.  The next time I met said bandits, I'd be thinking about putting them in a bear trap and leaving them for the local monstrous wildlife (or their own desperation-inspired contingency planning) to deal with.  Third time - will be the last.
#10 BRJN Aug 09, 2015 17:07:03	cowleymen wrote:
#11 Shasarak Aug 09, 2015 17:32:31	This story reminds me of one of my favourite campaigns.   Our party too captured a Bandit, looted his equipment and let him go with the promise of reforming.  Then a little while later we encountered the same Bandit - who promptly surrended after recognising who his new group had attacked.   That Bandit not only became a recuring character but we actually hired him as a Henchman.   So in summary - you do not have to kill helpless enemies and, even if your enemies do not keep their promises, you still do not have to kill them the second time.
#12 Orethalion Aug 10, 2015 17:09:26	Hebitsuikaza wrote:
#13 Noon Aug 10, 2015 21:07:17	The answer will differ from GM to GM.   Trying to answer the ancient philosophical question of 'What is evil?' so you can assign the labels in a boardgame properly is probably just a bit putting the cart before the horse.
(Reply to #13) Nevvur	Noon wrote:
#15 Hebitsuikaza Aug 10, 2015 22:53:30	Orethalion wrote:
#16 FabioBLK Aug 11, 2015 1:03:33	The answers is that there is no "correct" answer. I feel that the fictional relationship between Batman and the Joker is a good comparison for this thought experiment. In stories like "Death in the Family" , "The Killing Joke", and " Long Halloween" you see the particularly gruesome results of the Joker's particular brand of psychotic malice. But time and time again the Batman arrives to foil the Joker's plans and throw him back into Arkham. Many times thought the bat arrives just a little too late and the clown prince's work is already done. Is the Batman more noble for continuing to incarcerate the Joker despite his mass murdering sprees and many crimes against humanity and common decency? Many would say he is, but what if you asked the Joker's victims? Now I bet they might sing a different tune. They might say that locking the same criminal up over and over again only for him to escape and inflict the same horrifying crimes on the populace is at the very least criminally negligent. It's hard to be lawful good and utilitarian. I wouldn't automatically say the fighter is in the wrong here, and I wouldn't say that the wizard's moral high ground is incredibly high either.
#17 sim-h Aug 11, 2015 2:23:21	How about handing them over to the authorities?   Cold blooded murder of sleeping men for no gain - Chaotic Evil and nothing to do with the wizard.
#18 Noon Aug 11, 2015 2:43:39	Nevvur wrote:
#19 Noon Aug 11, 2015 2:55:31	FabioBLK wrote:
#20 Imaculata Aug 11, 2015 3:18:09	This reminds me of a conversation that one of my players had with an npc slavetrader.   In my homebrew pirate campaign, the players had defeated a ship full of Kturgian pirates, near the waters of St Valenz. They killed half of them, and the rest surrendered. The country of St Valenz is at war with Kturgia, and it is clear that Kturgia is using the pirates to terrorise the waters of St Valenz, to support their war. So the pirates are a big organised threat.   So the players decided to sell the Kturgian pirates as slaves to a local slavetrader. But they had a bit of a moral argument about the matter. The npc slavetrader had a pretty strong argument in favor of slavery in this case. As he reasoned, the only other options were to either kill the Kturgians, imprison them, or set them free. But if they set them free, they would simply continue their piracy (just like those bandits), and kill more people. They probably wouldn't be treated well in prison, since everyone hates Kturgians, and they might just end up being tortured or hanged anyway. So according to the slavetrader, selling them as slaves was the merciful choice. They could be lucky enough to be bought by someone who treats them well, or not. But in the end, slavery would be the only option that would ensure that they benefit society in some way.   The players had a hard time coming up with a counter argument. The slavetrader seemed to have a pretty good point, since the country was at war with these guys. So was selling them into slavery the morally right choice?
#21 sim-h Aug 11, 2015 4:14:08	Imaculata wrote:
(Reply to #18) Nevvur	Noon wrote:
#23 Ralif_Redhammer Aug 11, 2015 8:37:53	I would say Donvan has to accept the responsibility for his actions. Were these two hypothetical people actual PCs, I would say that the player of Donvan doesn’t get to blame his actions on those of Suvra’s.   Now, were Suvra a real person, she would probably be aghast and blame herself for it, at least in part. There'd certainly be a degree of guilt there.
#24 Orethalion Aug 11, 2015 8:47:10	Hebitsuikaza wrote:
#25 shintashi Aug 11, 2015 11:50:27	Rule 0: The DM can change any rule they don't like. Rule 1: all is fair in love and war.   do people forget the war part?   I use KO + throat slit frequently in combat. It's not as efficient as automatic weapons in Cyberpunk, but it gets the job done. The theory of the honorable works something like this:   you shouldn't kill an unarmed, defenseless, or helpless man. You shouldn't kick a man while he is down. You shouldn't attack a man while his back is turned.   Now, if you shoot someone in the face, and they are armed, then they die. Wearing armor didn't change their death, nor did their weapon, nor did their direction facing you. Not being prone changed nothing.   Psychologically, when you go into battle, you decide what the outcome will be. If the goal is to kill the enemy, then casting sleep on them is the same thing as signing their death warrants. Look at it as a fireball spell. Dying in your sleep is probably less painful than dying from fireball. It is most certainly less torturous than being stabbed in the gut with a rapier and having your internal body fluids mingle and burn your other organs, or having to repeatedly scoop up your... ok, so you get the idea. Sleep + Throat Slit is your party's fireball combo.   Now mercy is where law and goodness can kick in. If you want to tie up bandits when you should be killing them, or take them prisoner, by all means, do so. That is a step up in the morality index. If you can reform some of them, all the better. But there is a powerful lesson for the naive. If you only stun your opponents, they will come back to cause problems later. The notion of killing is no more or less moral than capturing or rendering unconscious.   Here's why: Family Feuds. two neutral people get in a fight over a woman. One kills the other. Now the brother of the dead guy comes and kills someone in the enemy family. Then a small pack of family members goes and shoots up the shack of the rival. Generations later the cemetary is filled with rows of tombstones from the two families. In some cases, if they don't breed fast enough, both families could end up wiping each other out completely, down to two men who manage to stab each other before both dying.   That's why killing people is wrong, because fundamentally, it can create a chain reaction of vengeance that wipes out a whole bloodline or even a whole species. Life doesn't like that much death all at once, it is imbalanced, so we call it evil.   But recidivism is also a problem. If you slap the wrist of a band of marauders, they just laugh and kill more innocent people. They are a plague on the world. You need to recognize when it is time to either throw away the key to the prison, or end them. The Neutral guy is right. Sometimes killing them when they are "down" and "defenseless" is no morally different from killing them when they are standing up, especially when they were standing up to begin with.
#26 shintashi Aug 11, 2015 11:53:58	oh, i forgot to mention. When a cleric uses turn undead and turns, rather than destroys them, those undead are just going to spread out and kill a bunch of people later. Only the 'destroy' undead effect is good, if you delay the inevitable, you are either being naive, desperate, or evil yourself. Your cowardice will come back to do far more damage than any bandits. Something to think about for lawful good clerics and paladins.
#27 Awakened_Gazebo Aug 11, 2015 12:06:14	Heh, reminds me a bit about how the danish government is handling the situation in Afghanistan. Danish soldiers arent allowed to hand over any talibs to other fighting forces, including the afghan government, the US, the brits etc. The danish government at the same time wont have any captured enemies within their own borders. Which leaves the soldiers with few choices - release the captives and hope to kill them in the next encounter.   So yes, I think both characters in OP example are to blame
#28 edwin_su Aug 11, 2015 12:12:15	Nevvur wrote:
(Reply to #28) Nevvur	edwin_su wrote:
(Reply to #19) FabioBLK	Noon wrote:
#31 rampant Aug 11, 2015 19:10:57	Basically the criminal justice system in DC is crap, and Gotham is where all the crap that the rest of the crap couldn't stand ends up.   Throat slitter is not wrong, the bandits are known recidivists, and will likely kill again, letting them off once was one thing, letting them go a second time is negligence. The third instance may have been a bit heavy handed, but was completely warranted, especially given that odds are they'd be executed as a matter of course if the party had had time to take them to the local town watch or whatever.   Compassion will only get you so far if you don't have the teeth to keep people from abusing it. There's a reason Justice must be tempered with mercy, not forged exclusively from it.    However throat slitter is not evil in this instance. If anyone can be said to be at fault here it's the bandits.
#32 Noon Aug 11, 2015 19:44:16	Nevvur wrote:
#33 Noon Aug 11, 2015 19:25:57	FabioBLK wrote:
#34 Noon Aug 11, 2015 19:34:03	Imaculata wrote:
#35 Noon Aug 11, 2015 19:48:55	edwin_su wrote:
#36 Imaculata Aug 12, 2015 2:42:24	Noon wrote:
#37 Shasarak Aug 12, 2015 3:12:33	Imaculata wrote:
#38 Orethalion Aug 12, 2015 6:27:29	Imaculata wrote:
#39 Imaculata Aug 13, 2015 2:28:58	Shasarak wrote:
#40 Noon Aug 13, 2015 17:47:23	Imaculata wrote: