I think you need to re-read your Arthurian Legends - Uther was a rapist. Arthur was a dead-beat father, an inattentive husband, and committed genocide across Europe and the Holy Land. Lancelot was an adulterer and murderer of children. Gawain, Kay and Modred were traitors to their King, Gawain killed innocents in blind rage, Kay was a Fratricide. Modred's evil was boundless. Bedevere would behead anyone who crossed his path who was not a knight.Sources are Le Mort de Artur, Idyls of the King, and The Once and Future King.
The Bedevere thing sounds like a gross exaggeration, but I don't remember either way. You shouldn't use Uther; he was, in the literal sense, pre-Arthurian.
But what I really want to point out is that I'm talking about Arthurian ideals. You're talking about the characters - more specifically, the worst things the characters ever did. Of course they fell short of their ideals; that happens to people and it happens to fictional characters unless they're utterly boring (I'm thinking of Superman here).
I'll restate this, because I'm not sure it's getting through: I'm not proposing a real-life world government run by the Knights of the Round Table. I'm saying on their best days, those characters exemplified a set of ideals which makes good story/game material and which might appeal to a fantasy RPG character.
As for ganging up on obviously lesser foes, I still say do it. That lowly scrub might get a lucky shot or 2 in. Be safe, and take the threat down as efficiently as possible.
Telling everyone "stand back I got this" is not heroic to me. It is just showboating, and I really don't see it as heroic if you are only doing it because you expect to prevail. If you do it when the odds are against you then you have lost sight of the main goal. In either case heroic is not the word I would be using.
I run my orcs in wanting destruction to be showboaty and prideful taking on a person in single combat to brag about the enemies they killed and captured. So are my orcs heroic even though they take prisoners?
I think you misread my statement.
Just a quick note on the "posies" thing. (I am too lazy to go back and reply to one of the individual threads...)
The "nursery rhyme" we know as "ring around the rosie" has very specific information about the plague.
"Ring around the rosie" is a reference to the specific appearance of the pustules which appeared on the skin of plague victims. Essentially it was a diagnostic device to warn observers that the infected individual was likely to actually have the plague.
"Pocket ful of posies" was a reference to the practice of stuffing the pockets of the dead bodies with aromatics to cover the stench of the plague as the victim died.
"Ashes, ashes" was a reference to the recommended disposition of the bodies, which was to burn them quickly as a way to keep the infected body from infecting grieving friends and family.
"We all fall down" was a warning that if the listener did not learn how to recognize and deal with plague victims, the plague would spread rapidly.
In effect the rhyme was actually a very effective way to communicate plague response protocol.
I haven't read every single post in this thread, so this has probably already been covered - still, I want to reply directly to the OP's original post.
As a DM, you should NEVER expect your good players to have mercy on evil NPCs in combat. Period. If it's anywhere close to a CR appropriate encounter, your good players should be allowed to use any means available to defeat their opponents. Yes, this includes beating them senseless until they stop moving. Your players are DEFENDING themselves. You should never expect them to try and knock out an opponent with a non-lethal attack just because they're good characters. They could try to do that as an optional tactic, but not because they're trying to cling to their good alignment. They're FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES.
As others have said, being "good" doesn't mean having mercy on every single soul you come across... it means doing what's RIGHT. And guess what? Defeating an enemy is the RIGHT thing for your players to do, even if the method isn't exactly "heroic". The legends and tales of your players aren't going to describe how dirty their flanking strategy was, or how they tripped the poor goblin and beat the snot out of it.
It IS evil, however, to attack an innocent unarmed commoner. This should be obvious. You don't need the Pathfinder community to tell you that attacking an innocent, helpless NPC is evil. This is true even if the NPC is evil. In real life, I know many evil people who are jerks, who hate children, and who have total disregard to other people. But is it RIGHT to kill them just because they're evil? Absolutely not. This is common sense. If a good player does something like this, it merits an alignment change as per the rules. However, attacking a commoner who is in the middle of a crime is NOT evil. For example, if a PC kicks a bully who just punched a child, or slicing a running thief who just stole an old lady's bag. This is the RIGHT thing to do (punishing an evil ACT), and therefore should be considered a good act.
Bottom line: don't be a jerk to your players and gimp them because of their alignment. It doesn't follow the rules, and it's just going to make your players mad. I played in a game once where we were all good/neutral players. We had this evil overseer tied up that we had just knocked out. He had killed countless slaves, told several lies, and even boasted that he was going to do it all again. I wanted to kill this guy, because the only jailhouse nearby was in poor condition, and the "sheriff" of the town was weaker than the criminal. The criminal would have had a good chance of escaping if we had put him in that jailhouse. Also, we couldn't just take the guy along with us. So I wanted to kill him (in my opinion, the RIGHT thing to do). The DM couldn't believe it. He said I would deal with an alignment shift if I did. Everyone else voted to put him in jail, so we did. And guess what? Later, we came back and found most of the town dead and robbed, and the criminal was gone. I was so mad... I will never play with that DM again. Please don't be that guy.
That's a very common interpretation. It's also probably wrong.
Snopes is a wonderful website, but they are not infallible. In this case I believe they are wrong. Snopes has a bias to "debunk" so they are subject to, and sometimes guilty of, "selection bias" in choosing what "evidence" to accept and cite.
That's exactly the kind of crap that drives players to be ruthless anti-heroes.
If the GM wants a heroic game, he can't punish them for being heroic. "No good deed goes unpunished" is great for a dark gritty game. It's fatal for a heroic one.
In fact, you probably have to easier on your players if you want them to be heroic. By fighting fair and not using dirty tricks and the like, they're putting themselves at a disadvantage. If you want that, you've got to let them have a good chance to win anyway. If you push them to the edge in all the hard fights, even when they use good (read unheroic) tactics, they'll know they wouldn't stand a chance if they don't.
There appears to be a difference of opinion in what the word "heroic" actually means.
My definition of "heroic" does not include behavior that falls into the realm of naive stupidity. The idea presented on this thread is that it is somehow "unheroic" to "gang up" on the bad guy. The alternative offered was to have "single combat" so that it was a "fair fight." As I pointed out above, this definition of "heroism" asserts that it is "more heroic" to potentially jeapordize the future of the world in order to satisfy the pride of a single character. This is not heroism, this is insanity.
So was Sturm Brightblade heroic or stupid?
I'm not familiar with that story.
If Sturm selflessly and nobly threw himself into single combat and near-certain death in order to allow his comrades to escape destruction to fight another day, then that would be heroic.
If sturm and his allies had fought their way into the evil BBEG's lair and at the risk of the BBEG winning and achieving his diabolical goals challenged him to single combat, then that would be stupid.
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I'm DM now for alsmost 15 years and had the same problem with some of my groups.
But it came to my attention as I talked to them and played a little bit myself that they only use dirty tricks/kill all evil guys etc. because they fear that the DM will trick them if they show mercy to an enemy.
To avoid such behaviour the best thing is to reward the player if they don't do it.
Good example for it is my Kingmaker Campaign:
The group managed to show mercy towards the stag lords man (except of the knife-guy (i played him really bad ass)).
During the campaign these spare benadits became valuable allies, Topper Red became Spy Master with very good connections. Akiros became the Rulers personal bodyguard and adviser.
They also managed to capture the
Best way to reward mercy is to give mercy back.
The player will spare the BBEG guard who were sent to kill them. Later they got imprisoned by the BBEG and exactly this guard is now the prisonkeeper (demoted because of his failure). Maybe he will look in the diffenrt direction if the players try to escape?
So was Sturm Brightblade heroic or stupid?
I think heroics turn into stupidity when you expect others to respect your heroism.
Eddard Stark comes to mind.
Also, I agree with Tryn. Maybe it's all the video games or comics they've read, but most parties i've interacted with just assume any bad guy left alive is going to eventually escape and come back to bite them.
One of the things that truly bothers me in fiction and role playing games is confusing "heroism" with misplaced pride, naivetee, arrogance and/or fanaticism.
There is nothing heroic about losing when you should have won.
I think Ed was just unlearned in the politics of court, being removed from that arena. Some might call that stupid I guess.
I am not a huge fan of those books, but I read as many as I could stomach.
Eddard Stark lost the kingdom, his head and doomed his family to death and destruction because he thought it would be "noble" to warn a known murdress and accomplished practitioner of "the game" that he intended to expose her and thwart her plans.
Stupid. Monumentally and fatally stupid. Epically stupid.
One thing that just occurred to me, rereading the thread title and recent posts, is to what degree people connect acting heroic with the word hero.
In media, we really only see what the creator wants us to see ( in general ). We don't always see what goes on behind the scens, the low points, the series of events that lead to a 'heroic' outcome.
In a roleplaying game, we do see all the underhanded or unheroic things that lead to the 'heroic' victory. In the OP's case, I would be curious how heroic the party seems to the campaign world, vs how heroic they seem to the DM?
Makes me think of the comic book series "The Boys" about how superheroes behave when they're not being viewed by the public eye, and how unheroic they can act when they're not being observed.
I think you misread my statement.
I thought I asked a rhetorical question where the answer is no.
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Part of the difference may come from the basic difference between the the source material (literature, myth, etc) and games. In fiction, we can read about heroic characters taking on impossible odds, giving up advantages for personal reasons (fairness, honor, pride, whatever) and they'll still win or lose based on the author's reasons (plot, themes, etc), not based on realism or dice. Hopefully the author maintains plausibility in the process, but that's all that's needed.
You can argue about whether that kind of behavior is "heroic" in real life, but it's a staple of heroic fiction. Call it something different if you want, but emulating that kind of fiction is something some gamers want to do. Semantics aside, this thread is trying to discuss ways of helping players do so.
There are plenty of other genres where such behavior would just get you killed and those are fun to play too. The problem comes when parts of a group thinks they're playing one way and others don't.
Somewhat agree, but only marginally.
There is still this fundamental difference of opinion about soething being "heroic" or "stupid." That is exacerbated by semantic assumptions on both sides which sidestep or ignore relevant points of refinement of the terms of the discussion.
There are plenty of examples in heroic fantasy fiction of selfless, noble and sacrificial behavior that I would absolutely agree is "heroic". And I have provded examples of such "heroic" behavior. To continully assert that I or anyone else is arguing that noble, selfless or sacrficial behavior is in and of itself "stupid" is either to misunderstand or deliberately mischaracterize the debate.
Virtually ALL of the noble, selfless and sacrificial behavior in heroic fantasy satisfies my definition of "heroic." There is only a tiny subset of such behavior that I would consider "stupid", "naive" or "arrogant."
Examples of heroic behavior would include the following:
Gandalf facing the Balrog.
Beowulf facing the dragon.
Harry Potter facing Voldemort.
Bilbo attacking the spiders.
Sam facing Shelob
Van Helsing facing Dracula
Etc
What this thread is discussing is a very specific category of behavior. That of deliberately choosing to face a potentially superior opponent in one on one combat for the specific purpose of being "fair" when the "hero" has allies available to help, and when failure to defeat the villain has drastic evil consequences.
Examples of such behavior are exceedingly rare in heroic fantasy of the past century. When such things do happen in even the oldest tales, they usually occur when the hero is alone, and/or when the hero's party is drastically outnumbered or overpowered. In most cases it also involves an antagonist who is constrained in some way to "fight fair" themselves if the challenge is thrown down.
I can't think of an example of a "hero" doing something like this in heroic fantasy when victory was assured over the villain and the challenge, if lost, would subject innocents to the despotic rule of, or enslavement by, the villain. Which is usually the sort of thing at stake in RPG final boss fights.
And if I did encounter such a situation in heroic fantasy, my reaction would be exactly the same.
"What an idiot."
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In the last chapter of STAP, the heroes face Saint Kargoth the Betrayer, the very first death knight. As a GM, I knew that a 7-person party would stomp a mudhole in poor Saint Kargoth. I also knew that the party's paladin of Heironeous would really have a shining moment if I could somehow arrange a one-on-one fight with Saint Kargoth. Now Saint Kargoth isn't the last boss of STAP--that's Demogorgon himself. I solved the problem by having Saint Kargoth tauntingly challenge the paladin to single combat. If a CE death knight can play by the code duello, a LG paladin would be forever shamed to refuse. It did turn out to be a great solo fight. I was kind of hoping the rest of the party would move on to fight Demogorgon, but they waited to watch the epic paladin/death knight showdown. Even if the paladin had lost, Kargoth was doomed--the rest of the party would have made short work of him.
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I think there is still times when ganging up on a clearly superior foe is both heroic and necessary, but what if the pc's know that their foe is clearly outmatched and that he stands no chance against them (or at least they believe it to be so). I would expect a good aligned group to say something like: "You are clearly outmatched, surrender and we will spare your life."
Clearly outmatched foe-- at least some chance of either redemption or returning the prisoner to face proper justice (or it's a 'foe' that isn't really that nasty, just on the other side in a dispute)-- I would expect a good aligned group to offer him a chance to surrender too, circumstances permitting. I wouldn't automatically expect the PCs to stop in the middle of a fight, while swords are still swinging, spells flying, danger is immediately present if you stop fighting, to offer the chance to surrender, but someone could certainly say something while swinging his weapon; and any break in the action-- someone steps back for a moment, or all those other momentary breaks seen in fiction and in real fights-- should bring up the offer for the foe to surrender.
However, if the foe refused to surrender-- I still don't expect the PCs to give single combat or some similar such "throw-away-the-advantage" move; I just expect the PCs to go ahead and take down the foe as fast (and thereby "mercifully") as possible.
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So was Sturm Brightblade heroic or stupid?
While I'm not a fan of Dragonlance, I still vaguely recall that incident.
If I'm recalling it aright-- Sturm stepped out alone, knowing that he was going to get killed to present a single-combat challenge to the enemy army in order to buy time for others to prepare a better defense. Got the enemy leader (Kitiara, I believe) to actually give him single combat... sort of-- I don't think she dismounted from her dragon.
And of course he died, but succeeded in his task.
Probably call that one heroic-- not like there were a whole lot of better options available.
So was Sturm Brightblade heroic or stupid?While I'm not a fan of Dragonlance, I still vaguely recall that incident.
** spoiler omitted **
Probably call that one heroic-- not like there were a whole lot of better options available.
Yep, seems a pretty classic case of self-sacrifice for the good of others so they could carry on the fight more effectively. Tragic, but heroic. Literature abounds with this sort of thing, not just heroic fantasy. It's common in virtually any genre which has people engaged in mortal combat.
I haven't gone through all of the posts, but as for the idea of "heroic" knights, it's noteworthy that at tournements held later in the medeival period when the wars were dying down, it was a common tactic to show up late so that the other knights were already tired from a full day of fighting, so even against other knights, "honor" and "chivalry" tended to take a back seat to practicality. That doesn't mean you can't try to run a game where such things are universal, but you have to understand that such worlds and conceits are not even remotely based in anything from real life, and were purely story telling devices, and you may have troubles if you don't fully explain this to your players from the very start.
Prisoners rules, looting rules, and and "fair" combat were always, always, always shaped by the victor. If the victor felt they would benefit from no looting, accepting prisoners, or accepting a duel challenge, they did so; otherwise, no mercy was pretty much the default rule. War is not pretty, and even the most chivalric campaign is going to have to face that unpleasant fact.
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Part of the difference may come from the basic difference between the the source material (literature, myth, etc) and games. In fiction, we can read about heroic characters taking on impossible odds, giving up advantages for personal reasons (fairness, honor, pride, whatever) and they'll still win or lose based on the author's reasons (plot, themes, etc), not based on realism or dice. Hopefully the author maintains plausibility in the process, but that's all that's needed.
You can argue about whether that kind of behavior is "heroic" in real life, but it's a staple of heroic fiction. Call it something different if you want, but emulating that kind of fiction is something some gamers want to do. Semantics aside, this thread is trying to discuss ways of helping players do so.
There are plenty of other genres where such behavior would just get you killed and those are fun to play too. The problem comes when parts of a group thinks they're playing one way and others don't.
Depends on the source material-- apparently we don't all read and enjoy the same Fantasy & SF (and other-genre) fiction. I really prefer that the author does maintain plausibility (within the confines of the fictional world-- after all, magic & different-tech changes some of the rules, so "plausibility" in fiction to me includes compensating for those changes before casting any judgement on 'plausibility'). However, I only really enjoy those stories about heroes overcoming "impossible" odds, when there are plausible reasons why the heroes have to face "impossible" odds (sometimes the situation's just that bad and you have to do your best in dealing with it and hope that that will be enough, sometimes you have to make up for an understandable mistake someone made, etc.) besides willfully and knowingly sticking their necks out when there were better ways to accomplish their purposes-- at least when lives and other really important consequences for success or failure are on the line (it's different when the outcome if you fail is "oh darn, you lost the competition/didn't get the medal/lost the bet..."-- then I understand the character deliberately taking on worse odds and/or giving up advantages to be "sporting").
As you say, some gamers like the fiction where heroes deliberately throw away advantages and take on worse odds than was necessary to do, and want to emulate it. Some of us don't. I think this thread is also legitimately discussing what is required in order to consider something "heroic" or not. However, your end statement here really nails the key problem on the head: differences in styles, expectations, and games desired-- when the people involved haven't come to an understanding of what sort of game they're actually playing (in those areas), it's going to be a source of Player & GM (not just character) conflict in the group.
There are plenty of examples in heroic fantasy fiction of selfless, noble and sacrificial behavior that I would absolutely agree is "heroic". And I have provded examples of such "heroic" behavior. To continully assert that I or anyone else is arguing that noble, selfless or sacrficial behavior is in and of itself "stupid" is either to misunderstand or deliberately mischaracterize the debate.Virtually ALL of the noble, selfless and sacrificial behavior in heroic fantasy satisfies my definition of "heroic." There is only a tiny subset of such behavior that I would consider "stupid", "naive" or "arrogant."
(more stuff cut for space)
AD--
Good post-- I'm in agreement with what you've said here on the topic in this post.|
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That's awesome. I think as long as this kind of thing doesn't become too common players will gladly give it a shot.** spoiler omitted **
Yeah, it took a lot of trust that my players would really believe in the Rule of Cool. I couldn't have pulled it off with a different group.
I'm confused by this "single challenge" idea and when it applies. What if the 4 member party fights 6 dudes. When it gets down to 3 should 1 party member stop fighting?
If the party gets down to the BBEG and offer him 1v1 combat and he accepts, and kills the party member, does a 2nd one step up and say "My turn"?
That would also be unfair because BBEG is tired now. Maybe they should agree to come back tomorrow when he's had a chance to rest up and restock/prepare.
I think one major point that people are missing is the PLOT. In heroric movies often show one on one fights because the plot focuses on the hero not the heroic ensamble.
Van Helsing is pretty much a loner, who is going to gang up with him against Drac?
Gandalf's choice of ground and actions prevent anyone from helping, further, when Gandalf says you can't help he is probably right.
Beowulf facing the dragon in the movie is quite heroic he is rushing to save his family (undo what his own bad choices unleashed). In the poem its hubris.
Bilbo while certainly heroic had no choice but to face the spiders alone his allies that would gang up on the spiders with him were stuck in the webs or already captured by elves.
Sam faced Shelob alone because they were alone, heroic certainly but if the other 9 members of the fellowhip passed through Shelob's lair do you think they would have let the gardner take front and center by himself. Would this make them more or less heroic?
All this to say perhaps what is lacking is not the players willingness to be "heroic" but the context to do something beyond tactically take down the next challenge.
Solution:
1- Look over the backstories of your players is there something that sticks out. I played in a group with a cleric of Kord in Greyhawke that was from a barbarian tribe. He left the tribe to travel and to meet the right girl. We all stopped for the night at a nice little tavern. He however met the girl of his dreams . . . on the romantic walk she revealed herself as a succubus.
2- Next time the stealthy members of the party wander off to scout ahead put them in a situation where they have to act. I had an epic fail on this just recently and dropped the heroic ball (something that really bothers my character). We were scouting out a villans lair and did not want to give up our cover before we could pick the "oportune moment" a child was pretty much fed to a monster. In hindsight in and out of character I would have preferred to blow the whole mission and killed the bad guy and rescued the kid. Not that we did not get vengence for him, we did after all know exactly where and when to strike.
3- Those moments in town where characters run off and perform their little errands exploit those moments. Perhaps they run into a danger or a situation where they need to act to save someone. Maybe they return to the rendevous point and the rest of the party was invited "lured" someplace, perhaps they need saving or are running into their own problems.
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So you try to take prisoners. But you're not the army of Rohan, you're the fellowship of the ring.
You've switched examples away from the large engagements in LotR (good choice-- the Army engagements didn't support your point at all, but apparently you missed this part of my post:
"Put a different way-- sometimes you don't have the means to take and deal with prisoners and you can't let the enemy survivors go (too great a risk that they'll be back with friends or put you through a deadly ambush later)-- then maybe it's justified to kill enemies who try to surrender."
You have all of 9 guards at most. The dunlendings can surrender because they're broken, disarmed, leaderless, and cannot coordinate action with Mordor and a large portion of Rohan's army is staying in Rohan guarding the west bank of the Anduin near enough to crush them if they break the peace. That's a luxury you probably don't have outside of maybe Kingmaker.Every other fight the orcs conveniently don't surrender but if they did the protagonists would have a choice between refusing quarter and risking the quest. The quest is more important than the Geneva conventions. Your ghost can go up to Sauron's slaves and proudly claim that you may have doomed them, but at least you never rejected surrender. They'd rightly curse you as evil.
Apparently, your GM should rightly brand your characters as neutral, or possibly evil-- because, while you'd have a point if there were no other reasonable alternative (other than killing everyone who tries to surrender as well as those who try to keep fighting), what you appear to be telling me is that you can't be bothered to even try thinking of other alternatives besides "kill them all". Now, if I'm getting that wrong-- explain yourself better.
This is not only a new example (one you didn't give before), but it seems to me by giving very sketchy details and then insisting, sight unseen, that it's kill them all or give up the quest-- that you're creating a false dichotomy. Haven't played most of the Paizo AP's (yet) but in most of the old (1st, 2nd, 3rd Ed) D&D modules, the adventure was not under such dire, world-shaking circumstances in the first place. There are always situations that make for exceptions to otherwise rigid rules... one does not, if one is actually good, simply discard all morality as a "matter of convenience", but rather, breaks principles one would otherwise follow only because it is absolutely necessary.
Now, if it's necessary and there are no other alternatives, yes I'd kill the prisoners. The thing is, I would not take such a choice as lightly as you appear to.
Since you bring up the Geneva conventions and choose to throw them back at me-- if you behaved this way in RL, and were part of my military unit-- I'd disarm you and put you under arrest and send you back to the nearest base to face military charges. Your actions would cost us far more in the current wars, through the extremely negative reactions we'd get from all of the locals whose hearts and minds we're trying to win over, than your killing of prisoners, noncombatants and enemy troops attempting to surrender could possibly do to help our cause (and that's just the practical side, let alone all the moral questions involved). Suffice it to say, if merely disarming you and getting you out of the combat zone was not possible, much more drastic actions to ensure that you were stopped and thoroughly neutralized would be taken.
Now, this is my opinion and my approach to gaming (YMMV), but I don't expect less of my characters in the area of morality, than I expect from RL Soldiers (unless I'm purposefully playing an evil SOB), and personally, I don't expect less in terms of reaction from NPCs (including all the local population) than I'd see from local populations in RL operating zones.
How about Rise of the Runelords. If you waste time you're putting your "clean" conscience ahead of preventing Karzoug from enslaving all of Varisia because there's an implied timer and if you don't respect that you're metagaming. Player Character morality cannot be based on metagame concerns. Dealing with prisoners takes time you don't know you have unless you metagame. Taking prisoners in such cases is evil. Think of the children. The ones that will grow up slaves if you fail.
Not familiar with 'Rise of the Runelords'-- but at the same time, PC morality cannot be based on excuses and making up justifications to slaughter people in cold blood without considering if there are any other ways to proceed either. Sounds like the 'metagame' here is your assumption that because their "alignment" is evil, its automatically good to kill them-- and the additional 'metagame' that even though your character is allegedly a 'good' person, he still kills everyone and excuses it by telling himself any number of excuses-- when the truth appears to be he just did it. Might have been necessary, might not-- but it still seems like you didn't even consider the possibility that there could have been other ways to proceed, regarding prisoners and non-combatants.
Now, characters who happen to have evil alignments can still serve Good ends, and may even passionately believe in the rightness and justice of those good ends they're trying to achieve (this can be true of neutral characters as well). It is definitely metagaming however, to presume that no matter what your character does to get there, it's all excused and doesn't affect your "good" alignment if the "good guys" win in the end.
The means don't justify the ends. Getting people killed or enslaved through your arrogant self righteousness is not good.
The ends do not justify the means either. To assume that one can use good means, knowing that you're going to end up with a very bad result, and still consider yourself to be doing the moral thing, is wrong. However, no matter how good the result is, if you get there by stomping innocents into the dirt and slaughtering and killing everything in your path, beyond what killing is actually necessary to achieve the good result (the necessary killing can be excused), you're not doing the moral thing either. Now I don't know where you got the idea that what I was suggesting should be done is going to inherently lead to getting more people killed, or people enslaved-- but it's probably from adding a whole lot of things into what I said that weren't there, except in your mind.
Now, if you have a choice between doing evil, or allowing an even greater evil to occur because you didn't act-- you go ahead and do evil (IMO). But you don't pretend that what you did wasn't evil, you simply observe that in a choice between evils, one should choose the lesser of the two. And that yes, lesser evils ARE justified in order to prevent greater evils from coming to pass. Thus, if the alternative on a critical mission to prevent the BBEG from taking over the world, is kill some prisoners/enemies attempting to surrender, or fail-- you do kill the prisoners-- it's clearly the lesser evil. But you can't do that and call it justified as an excuse to slaughter the prisoners because it was convenient, when there were other alternatives that would have worked that you should have seen.
When the stakes are as high as they typically are in an AP that ends past level 12 or a work of heroic fantasy anything that prevents you from getting or destroying the mcguffin as appropriate is stupid to the point of being evil.
Don't know about the APs. I know in most works of truly 'Heroic' Fantasy, the heroes don't go around killing every foe whether it's necessary or not. Your "anything that prevents you from getting or destroying the mcguffin as appropriate..." statement is overly broad. If there's more than one way to get it, more than one way to succeed in the adventure-- then choosing the most destructive and most murderous way to successfully proceed is clearly evil, if there were less murderous and destructive ways to get there. Also depends on the adventure-- there are some mcguffins and goals, for which getting/destroying them is utterly necessary, and failure condemns the world-- or some such similar disastrous outcome for failure. I've seen adventures however, where sometimes going all the way to succeed is far worse for the world than just letting the mcguffin go-- it's more situational than you think.
Which brings me back to your opening statement in the post that I'd replied to:
I'd say morality must *always* take a back seat to practicality.
If you believe that, then you are throwing away all considerations of morality-- you've already said you believe that practicality is everything. If you do believe in achieving good ends, then your statement becomes a classic "ends always justify the means" variation. Not sure what's hard to understand about that-- but you've rejected nearly every version of morality that philosophers have considered-- except for those who think that all morality is horse s*** to begin with.
Now, what I still gather from your posts (and again, correct me if I'm getting this wrong), is that you prefer your games to not trouble you with any kind of genuine moral issues or moral puzzles for your characters to deal with... you appear to want the sort of game where your characters can kill and kill to their hearts' content, and never really have to worry about whether it's wrong to keep killing all these opponents, and you like games where there's no need to consider issues like mercy and redemption for enemies.
If that's your game (so long as you don't try bringing those attitudes into RL), go for it. Do what you wish... it's still definitely not the kind of game I'm interested in, because I do like games that expect characters to deal with moral issues, and to be concerned with whether what they're doing is the right thing or not.
Don't know about the other AP's but in Jade Regent one of the wagons you can buy is a jail one for transporting prisoners.
That is one scenario that taking prisoners can work, as there are others around who can guard said prisoners while the PCs are doing other things. The key to remember is that a very typical scenario has your party of 4 to 6 PCs out and about more or less on their own initiative. Even if they do have backing from some organization or country, chances are pretty good they aren't in a place or circumstances where that affiliation can be openly used or where that affiliation will carry enough weight by itself to enable the PCs to take prisoners.
As for the example of what someone would do if someone in their military unit tried to behave this way, that's great, and entirely true for the impact they would have on the greater mission, but most adventurers aren't part of the military or any other organization. At best they tend to be independent contractors for a one time job for their current employer, and often they are acting completely on their own initiative. There often is no greater mission beyond survive and get paid. This does not preclude them from having a good alignment if they don't feel up to the task of dealing with prisoners; not every single action a person takes is going to line up perfectly with their overall alignment. Sometimes practicality needs to take precedence; not always, but definitely sometimes. This does not mean that someone who follows this suddenly loses their good alignment, unless that someone is a particularly shining example of the alignment, such as a paladin, an angel, etc. Now if they always put practicality over morality, than certainly neutral is a better choice, but especially when dealing with an issue like prisoners, there is rarely a clear moral choice anyway. If you accept the surrender, than you are responsible for their behavior afterwards, and that can muddy the morality issues very quickly.
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Sunshadow--
I think what TheJeff said applies nicely.
The key to remember is that in a lot of situations for adventurers, making it a choice between taking prisoners or killing people is often a false dichotomy. Quite often, you've got other options, like letting people go (without their weapons) or ensuring that others find them later and release them for whatever trap you've left them in, or in urban adventures, handing them over to the city guard... and probably there are some other ways beyond those to do things-- depends on the situation and the imagination of the players. Not every situation is "kill or be killed" for the adventurers.
There may be situations where you have to kill enemies who'd like to surrender to you, because you just don't have any way to take them prisoner or otherwise deal with them without seriously compromising your mission, and the mission really is that important, that it justifies such a drastic (and prima facie, evil) action. The problem I think you missed from my posts-- is that, if you're playing a "good" character, this shouldn't be your first choice-- this should be your choice of last resort, where it's "kill them, or fail and allow a greater evil to occur". This should also never be a cheap justification for what's really a choice of convenience, rather than a choice of necessity.
Now, in my first reply to Atarlost's "morality must always take a back seat to practicality" post, I did mention crimes against humanity, which IMO applies to everyone (not just military), and although the words frame a modern concept, the general idea applies to any character of "good" alignment (maybe even neutral, as well), and I also mentioned war crimes, which is a modern creation of the treaties and conventions establishing the Laws of War, but the provisions for finding someone actually guilty of a crime on the battlefield (where killing enemy combatants is a normal business practice, not a crime) takes a lot more than finding one guilty of a crime (even by medieval/renaissance standards) in peace time and/or away from the battle fields of war. Atarlost was kind enough to mention the 'Geneva Conventions' (which are one of the sources, but not the sole source of the Laws of War anyway), for which I brought out my military counter-example.
However, since the 'Laws of War' are actually quite a bit looser and apply less stringent restrictions on actions and behavior (for Soldiers involved in conflict, that is) than civil law does anywhere there's a functioning government that hasn't declared martial law... if Adventurers, acting on their own initiative for their own interests, or acting as independent contractors (or any other such 'characterization' of what they're doing out there adventuring) can't even follow, for instance, the loose guidelines of those parts of the law of war that are based on the idea of insisting on moral and honorable conduct while participating in conflict situations-- they're probably not going to meet any reasonable standard of actions in accordance with a "good" alignment either (the Laws of War may be modern-- many of the principles they embody have been around for a very long time).
No mission beyond "survive and get paid" means every kill you make just might essentially be "kill so I can rob this guy of his loot"-- and if it does boil down to that, it's clearly NOT a good act. I think any adventurer who draws his sword and uses it on someone had better have had more motivation for what he's doing than "it's just a paycheck", or he/she is acting in neutral fashion at best, not good. I'm not sure what excuse you'd use to justify it, if the adventurers were essentially acting as bandits who go out looking for trouble, but who only kill and rob other "violent people"-- getting rid of violent people who mean harm to ordinary folk isn't exactly evil, but the motivations for doing it aren't good either. Now, I agree with you (and even, to a very moderate extent, with Atarlost) that sometimes practicality must take precedence-- my point is, that's true when it's really necessary-- not simply done for convenience and then rationalized as okay with whatever excuse you want to apply. Moral choices often involve shades of grey (or no clear choices)-- that's another issue adventurers have to face and deal with (IMO).
Now, I also agree with you that "good" characters can step out of line and commit evil acts every now and then without losing their alignment-- possibly even such heinous acts as cold-blooded murder once in a very great while (which killing helpless prisoners usually is, if there were reasonable alternatives besides slitting their throats)-- but if the character keeps making choices like that all the time, the alignment is going to slip out of "good"... (which was part of the implications I drew from Atarlost's post, that he thought this sort of conduct was routine and acceptable in most adventuring situations-- not even considering if there are other alternatives before killing the prisoners? Probably evil even if turns out in the end that that was the only workable choice.).
If taking prisoners only gets between you and your paycheck, killing them is evil.
You focused solely on one aspect of what most adventurers are trying to do; to most, a paycheck is nice and helpful if they want to do silly things like eat, but the bigger issue is survival, and for that, when dealing with anything other than mooks, and sometimes even them (as mooks can provide warning to their bosses), there are a lot of questions that have to be dealt with, and often enough, the DM who is pushing them to consider this course of action doesn't want to think about them himself, making it a moot point.
If they take prisoners, how do they take care of them while they finish the primary task, and more importantly, what can they realistically expect to do with them afterwards? It's well and good to have good intentions, but the party cannot constantly be stopping their mission/goal/task to deal with prisoners, especially in a world where the general rule is "you draw a sword, you better hope you can use it better than your opponent." You are trying to apply the modern sense of "good" tactics in combat and war to a completely different type of warfare and mindset, and that simply doesn't work.
Also, while I fully respect your enlightened views on war, and treatment of people in those situations, very few DMs actually setup scenarios where those enlightened views can actually work, and that is the biggest issue I've seen in most games. In a generally lawless land, which is a fairly typical setup, why should an independent party worry about taking prisoners at all? I can see letting the random harmless mook who surrenders to feed them all the information he knows before the party lets him flee, but anyone who is going to be a genuine possible threat (or who might warn his buddies of the PCs activities/intent) down the road is another matter entirely, and the DM has to lead the way if he wants the party to consider anything other than death. DMs who want the PCs to act all "heroic" and "honorable," than make it so the only thing truly "honorable" characters end up being is dead or a catalyst to make the overall situation even worse than they found it, another fairly typical reaction I've seen when the scenario does come up, are setting themselves up for failure. Even the best intentions are only as good as the situations the DM puts them in, especially when they still have other tasks to accomplish.
Personally, I don't entirely disagree with what you are trying to say, but the PCs must have a legitimate in game reason if you expect them to actually practice it. All the Paizo APs and modules I've seen do a pretty good job of setting that kind of scenario up in a realistic manner that doesn't penalize the PCs, which is probably one reason they do so well, but most home games and adventures from other sources I've dealt with in the past don't do nearly as well in that department. So ultimately my point is, don't rail on the players unless you have specific circumstances where a party is consistently doing stupid things like killing anyone who surrenders. If you want to fix what you see to be a problem, go after the DMs; they set the tone of the game for the most part, not the players.
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There are any number of moral dilemmas that can be constructed to explore whether an act is "evil" or not. One of the classics is whether it is evil to torture a terrorist to learn the location of a nuclear bomb that is going to wipe out a city.
Balancing smashing a kneecap or lopping off a finger against the instant vaporization of several million human beings is about as stark a dilemma as you can construct.
My own conclusion is that torture is an evil act no matter why you do it.
But it is far more evil to allow millions of people to die without doing all you can to stop it.
But that doesn't make the torture a good act, even though it has stopped a greater evil.
Morality doesn't work that way. If it did then it would simply be an exercise in justifying actions by claiming an ultimate good goal.
Which is exactly what the greatest murderers and psycopaths in history have always done to justify their evil.
taking prisoners is a good idea when practical... there's generally going to be someone, somewhere who'll pay you a bounty for those captured bandits after all.
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Taking prisoners isnt that what Flesh to Stone and shrink object are for?
Not to mention they make great chess peices or for bigger ones lawn decorations.
But you're skipping the original motivation: If you're only after the mooks and their boss for the paycheck, then you don't get to claim survival as a moral high ground when you kill the prisoners.
If it's a matter of the ends justifying the means, you have to look to the ultimate end: Sure you may have to kill the prisoners to survive and beat the boss, but the only reason you're in that situation is that you have to get the boss to get your paycheck.
If you're going out looking for situations where it's kill or be killed, especially for pay, you can't claim self-defense when you kill people. (At least not morally, laws may vary.)
If you're trying to stop the boss before he finds the MacGuffin that will destroy the town or whatever, then you can weigh your evil act against the evil that will happen if you fail.
Who said the adventurers are looking for those kind of scenarios? As I said, a lot of what the adventurers are dealing with is shaped by the DM, and very often, the party doesn't look for those situations, they are put in them by the DM. Too often, the DM has the party in a "go recover this item being guarded by a zealot cult who will hunt you down once you have said item" type situation and then complain that the party isn't following their good alignment when they slaughter everyone to get what they need. I completely agree that if the party is regularly looking for that kind of scenario, they are probably not good, but most of the complaints come from scenarios the party had little control over shaping. While this does not completely absolve the party, it does put equal blame on the DM who put them in that situation to begin with.
If the DM is constantly peppering the party with forced moral dilemmas, he has to expect the party to react by saying "it's not worth the effort to worry about morality; at some point, we have to get our goals accomplished." The whole "what do we do about prisoners" scenario is fine if it's not something that comes up every single encounter and it fits with the current in game scenario, but you can't shove that kind of thing down an average party's throat, and expect them to play along for very long. The game is simply not built around that particular assumption; it assumes a much more black and white morality where killing evil because it's evil is not only normal, but expected.
If you're really concerned about that level of morality, I would probably suggest looking at other systems that focus on that much more and much better than the base D&D system ever will. The whole alignment thing is not a strong point of D&D, nor is it the focus of the system, never has been, and never will be.
If you're really concerned about that level of morality, I would probably suggest looking at other systems that focus on that much more and much better than the base D&D system ever will. The whole alignment thing is not a strong point of D&D, nor is it the focus of the system, never has been, and never will be.
I understand what you are getting at lots of people want to be able to do certain things and not want to be branded evil and lose abilities but that is not the fault the alignement system it is the fault of the players. When was the last time the GM and players ever hashed out good/evil and law/chaos prior to dillemas. Usually it comes up after the fact durring a hard moral choice and probably because there is dissagreement as to how to apply goodness to the dillema.
One of the biggest problems with the ideas of good or evil choices in the game are modern mindset verses older mindset. Lets go back a 175 years to the old west who is the hero in the gun fight. Sure he is goodish he does not steal, wouldn't shoot an unarmed man in the back but when called out he walks into the street faces off his opponnent and whoever kills first wins. The sheriff and the undertaker come the sheriff notes it looks like a clean situation of self defense. This kind of thing in the modern context is pretty much considered murder or aggrivated assault with a deadly weapon.
Take an ancient example. In the Hebrew scriptures there are listed cities of refuge which are essentially places those who are guilty of manslaughter could go and not be killed by the family of the dead. It was perfectly leagal for dad and the boys to catch this criminal and execute justice save in the jurisdiction of the cities of refuge. This is just for what we term manslaughter. If I in modern times geared up and went "Dexter" on a known murder I would still get arrested and serve time for vigilantism and murder.
Modern society benefits from a large beuracracy and professional law-enforcement. Because of this there is an entire system of jurisdiction and legal standing. In the past citizens were expected to act in situations they are not expected today.
If you're hiring yourself out to "go recover this item being guarded by a zealot cult who will hunt you down once you have said item" and you kill a bunch of them in the process, then you're thieves and murderers, unless there's some higher purpose served in the process. You don't get a free pass on killing people because they attack you while you're robbing them. Any good group should turn the job down unless there's a better reason for getting the item.
Again, that depends on the DM. If the DM is set on railroading the party to go get that item and deal with that threat, the party doesn't have a whole lot of choice. Now a good DM will give them a good reason, but not all DMs will. This is a big reason I don't care for organized play; you end up on a lot of missions simply because some NPC said so. You keep talking about the players as if their actions exist in a vacuum, but talking about the DM and what he is doing at the same time is just as important.
I understand what you are getting at lots of people want to be able to do certain things and not want to be branded evil and lose abilities but that is not the fault the alignement system it is the fault of the players. When was the last time the GM and players ever hashed out good/evil and law/chaos prior to dillemas. Usually it comes up after the fact durring a hard moral choice and probably because there is dissagreement as to how to apply goodness to the dillema.
I personally have played in a wide variety of games that handle this a variety of ways, and really have no preference as long as it clearly understood by all from the start. Its rarely just a player problem when it's a problem; it's usually a larger communication problem. If the DM doesn't clearly state his view on alignment from the start, and reinforce it in game, but expects the party to behave in a certain manner anyway, that isn't the players' fault.
I think the biggest source of disagreement we are having is where the problem lies. You keep saying the players need to change what they are doing, but keep missing the one crucial element to it all: the DM. If the DM wants an heroic campaign using modern values regarding war, crime, and respect for life, it can be done, but he must be clear about his expectations from the start, and back them up in the design of the NPCs and adventures, or it will not work. The typical adventure is not built around that particular set of assumptions, so it not what most players automatically expect. In my experience, if the DM clearly states his expectations, whether it be on morality issues or some other issue, and follows through with reasonable in game implementation, the players will follow merrily along without even thinking about it, being too busy enjoying the game to worry about it. When the DM fails to communicate, so will the players, and no one has any fun.