So I had a very interesting D&D session the other day. I host a game that has players currently in the Numeria campaign setting, but their original world is one of my own making called Verda. The main is an artifically intelligent robot called Scion who built a huge army of machines to conquer Verda in Numeria. Currently, Scion is using a small, temporary portal to pass between both worlds but is building a massive portal to link Verda and Numeria, so it bring its full army over.
The leaders of Verda has learned of Scions intentions thanks to the players and most are bringing their army to stop the construction of the portal. The players however have found a quick and dirty way of destroying the portal: essentially nuking it. There is a crystal, when overloaded, will detonate like a small nuclear warhead. (and yes, they know how it works due to other Numerian characters explaining it).
This is the delimma: the machine army is located inside a city of nearly 100 thousand lives. If they nuke it, virtuallu everyone dies, but the army and portal are stopped. If they dont, then the players need to find a way to stop Scion amd his army on Verda.
My players took 20 minutes, bouncing in and out character, decideding what action to take. Destroy an entire city for certain, killing 100 thousand people, or finding another way. They choose finding another way, but what would you do?
How many baddies are there? And what is the combined size of the armies the leaders of numeria are sending?
Verda has 150k ready fighters (this includes cavalry, wizards, and various other troops) to defend the land from the machines. Scion has 40 thousand machines plus 4 massive annihilator robots poised to conquer Verda.
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a) Death-for-certain for 100K? That's NOT a small nuclear warhead.
b) The army's in the city? The city of 100K? And they aren't aware of an army of robots capable of conquering an entire planet? I'm not sure these people are innocents.
However assuming the folk of the city ARE innocents (rather than enemy combatants) is there a reason you couldn't evacuate the city and THEN nuke it to destroy the (presumably immobile) portal?
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I would wait to see how the ammassed 150k army fares against the 40k machines. The party would probably focus on the big bots. If the ammased armys lose. Then nuke the city. Nukes are never first response.
[Edit] obviously before even sending the army in you would attempt to evacuate the city
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But how do you evacuate the city without tipping your hand to the bad guys? Heck, how do you evacuate the city at all? It'd be pretty hard to get 100k people to listen to a group of random nobodies (the adventuring party). If you explain what's going to happen to the city's leadership, you've just told the enemy what your plan is, and they'll massively beef up security around the portal as well as finding a way to stop the crystal from overloading so explosively.
Assuming that the machines have a non-trivial chance of defeating the army of Verda (since they wouldn't be trying otherwise) I think that it is correct to sacrifice 100k people to save a whole plane. Especially since it presumably kills the machine army.
It would be better if they could save those people too, but if they don't have an actual plan now, then they are just risking the lives of millions because they feel squeamish.
I'm a little dubious that an army of 40K robots could be hidden within a city of only 100K without the populace being aware. If they are aware of the existence of a massive robot army poised to invade another planet and they don't care.... then perhaps nuke is the best option.
If the people are aware and perhaps being held prisoner within their own homes by said army... then have the players create an insurrection withint the populace of the city.
Another option, wait for the robot army to make it through the portal, then nuke them on the Verda side of the portal if within a rarely unpopulated area.
nuke the city.. sacrificing 100k to save a world is a no-brainer in my book..
whether they are "innocent" or not.. which i HIGHLY doubt they are innocent they would have to know there is an army of robots poised to invade another land and be okay with that, doesn't matter...
NUKE EM ALL and let god sort em out.. (then loot the corpses) =D
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another thought (if you are truly evil).. if its possible, change the bomb to a necrotic bomb. nuke the city, changing all the people into wights/zombies/whatever. Instant fight/wightpocalypse. woo!
Just to clarify, the machine army is occupying the city. so the machines are in the walls, patrolling the streets, etc. Theybare far from hidden. the big robots flattened a part of the city center and are pretty much chilling there.
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There are a lot of variables - like just how deadly the 40k robots are and how vicious they are.
1. If the robots are vicious bastards and will use the populace as hostages/shields etc - then a big chunk of them will die anyway if the city is retaken through conventional means.
2. How hard would it be for the 150k army to retake the city? How many of them would die? Do they have a high chance of failure? Etc.
3. Many other variables which you haven't mentioned.
But - nuking certainly isn't EVIL given the circumstances. Not unless you want to argue that every army which used bombing during WWII was evil. Which was all of them. (bombing was not anywhere nearly as precise as today - even just aiming at military targets they knew that they'd kill civilians too - and it was called carpet bombing for a reason)
Yeah, looks like using the bomb as an EMP would be the best option here.
Re-read the OP. It's not an actual nuclear weapon, just a crystal within the portal can be overloaded to create an explosion on par with a nuclear warhead.
Not to mention I have no idea how a standard-ish Pathfinder party would get several hundred kilometers up in the air. I would imagine that's past the ceilings of most flight spells.
I would imagine that's past the ceilings of most flight spells.
Flight spells do not have ceilings and overland flight lasts hours
Anyway how strong are these robots? 40K might be small potatoes against an entire planet
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I would expect a GM who puts such a goblin babies "dilemna" in front of my party to have a "nuke kills everyone but for magical reason does nothing to the portal" contingency ready. Just to make the players feel bad about being evil people ready to sacrifice innocents.
Thus I choose "find another solution", based only on metagame and RL human mindset.
Also I would likely check with the other players about stopping this game (or any game with this GM) until he changes his style.
I wouldn't count on EMP pulse anyway. If it's a military-grade robotic technology it will be shielded.
Any chance of disrupting or redirecting the portal? Or refocusing the crystal so the explosion will go inside instead of outside?
How big is the portal? Any chance of creating some sort of death field on the other side? Like finding someone capable of raising a volcano, or simply bury the other side a'la Stargate?
Re-read the OP. It's not an actual nuclear weapon, just a crystal within the portal can be overloaded to create an explosion on par with a nuclear warhead."detonate like a small nuclear warhead"
I took that to mean that it would have the effects typically associated with nuclear warheads - such as an enormous explosion and radiation. If that's not the case, we would need to know more specifics about what exactly this crystal does. Anyway, if it does have effects like those of a nuclear weapon, it should give off some sort of electromagnetic pulse.Not to mention I have no idea how a standard-ish Pathfinder party would get several hundred kilometers up in the air. I would imagine that's past the ceilings of most flight spells.You know, teleportation is a thing that exists.
I wouldn't count on EMP pulse anyway. If it's a military-grade robotic technology it will be shielded.The four giant robots? Probably. But "shielding" forty thousand robots (and their power sources) against a potential electromagnetic pulse would be both quite expensive and somewhat unreliable. It seems obvious that the invading AI is not aware that this nuclear threat even exists - if they were, they would almost certainly have destroyed it, erected defenses against it, or just not put all of their robots in one place. And if they don't even know that the risk exists, it seems almost unbelievable that they would have gone to great lengths to construct a defense against it.
Anyway, this can be easily checked by stealing one of the robots and having someone who knows what they're doing it examine it and check for this sort of defenses. They should really be doing this anyway, to discover any other strengths and weaknesses of the robot.
For that matter, you could probably just find out if they're shielded against electromagnetic pulses by casting Divination, Commune, or maybe even Legend Lore.
The real question is how do you prevent the PCs from instantly dying at a height of several hundred KM. For perspective I will just point out that 400Km is the current height of the International Space Station.
Nuke it.
The historians will live long enough to debate who was right.
In a game, I'd say "find another way. That's what heroes do."
In Real Life, I'd say "Nuke 'em. The fate of the world is more important than a few thousand people."
Luckily we don't live in a world where magical portals to another world exist, or armies of robots, and even if we did I'm not likely to be the one making that decision.
Thus I choose "find another solution", based only on metagame and RL human mindset.
Yes. If both options are bad, find a third. False dilemmas are made up so often, either accidently or on purpose.
Also I would likely check with the other players about stopping this game (or any game with this GM) until he changes his style.
Well, the decision scale is over the top. But as a GM who sells items for souls and places level 20 bards in taverns, I can somewhat understand the temptation to enforce such a decision...
It is when "don't do X" covers "do W, Y or Z" on top of just "don't do X."
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The question is, what is that something else? And if you don't already know what "something else" is, how likely is it that it will end up to be "nothing," or otherwise worse than bombing the city?
If the party has some time and resources to look for a Plan C, great. If they can prepare the nuke but hold off on actually activating it until the last possible minute while looking for an alternative, fine.
If the rest of the invading army is coming through at any moment and once they arrive their first action will be to demolish the defending army of 150K and most of the city before moving on to terrorize the surrounding countryside, it's better to destroy the city now because you're probably not going to come up with a better plan. Even if you stop them eventually it'll still be at a greater cost.
Media has trained us to expect that the hero can find a third option in situations like this, but it's not reasonable to expect this will be the case when facing an imminent crisis. If you want to play to that narrative in your game, that's fine, but I wouldn't judge the players or the characters for not having that expectation.
I'm not so sure that a partial evacuation would be unfeasible, though. If the city is openly occupied and about to turn into a battleground, it makes sense that the civilian populace would want to leave, and that their defending army would want to get them out of the way - it doesn't tip your hand about the nuke.
I'm not so sure that a partial evacuation would be unfeasible, though. If the city is openly occupied and about to turn into a battleground, it makes sense that the civilian populace would want to leave, and that their defending army would want to get them out of the way - it doesn't tip your hand about the nuke.
But again we come to the question of how to evacuate a city occupied by a hostile army. Obviously none of the local authorities are going to listen to the party: they'd probably try to kill/capture them? Does the party put on fake bears and run around with "The End Is Near!" placards like a bunch of crazy hobos?
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Nobody is saying it's a choice between destroying the city and doing absolutely nothing.
Your choices are
a. Use the bomb to destroy the city.
or
b. Don't use the bomb to destroy the city, instead do something else.That's a dilemma.
The false dilemma is people saying, "Kill 100k to save a world", which somewhat implies that by not killing 100k, the world cannot be saved. As long as everyone saying "nuke 'em" understands that they are taking the safest option and not necessarily the best option, there's no false dilemma here.
You know, no one has asked what level the characters were in the OP. I would think that would be very important.
In my opinion, my group would try to save the city.
@Avoron, you have been "metagaming" most of the thread. You can't possibly know what an EMP does.
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The false dilemma is people saying, "Kill 100k to save a world", which somewhat implies that by not killing 100k, the world cannot be saved. As long as everyone saying "nuke 'em" understands that they are taking the safest option and not necessarily the best option, there's no false dilemma here.
Well, the “best” choice really comes down to the ethical system you're using. Deontologically, it's never OK to nuke a city even if you are 100% certain that if you don't, the world cannot be saved. Utilitarianism says that you have to project the expected suffering & loss of life from nuking the city vs holding out for a Plan C and choose the lesser (whether it involves the certain death of a few or a small risk of a very high number of deaths).
Even if there is a clear best result, it's not necessarily the best choice to try for that result depending on the risk of failure. I personally would not risk 1000 lives on a plan that had a very small chance of saving 5.
Of course, that's assuming that the risky option actually is risky. If we're playing the kind of game in which taking a heroic gamble pays off 'cus we're the heroes, great! Many people prefer that kind of game because it feels really good to swoop in and win big against daunting odds. If this contributed to the OP's players' decision (hopefully he can tell from the OOC part of the debate) then I hope he provides a feasible Plan C so that his players will enjoy the game.
I'm not so sure that a partial evacuation would be unfeasible, though. If the city is openly occupied and about to turn into a battleground, it makes sense that the civilian populace would want to leave, and that their defending army would want to get them out of the way - it doesn't tip your hand about the nuke.But again we come to the question of how to evacuate a city occupied by a hostile army. Obviously none of the local authorities are going to listen to the party: they'd probably try to kill/capture them? Does the party put on fake bears and run around with "The End Is Near!" placards like a bunch of crazy hobos?
Depends on how exactly the invaders are securing the area, but it would basically come down to (1) making sure there is a relatively safe route out and (2) telling as many of the citizens about it as you can.
Depends on how exactly the invaders are securing the area, but it would basically come down to (1) making sure there is a relatively safe route out and (2) telling as many of the citizens about it as you can.
So you tell them about a way out of the city. Great. That isn't going to make anyone leave. Heck, most of the locals probably know more about how to get out of the city than a bunch of random murderhobos who wandered into town five minutes ago.
Telling people how to get away accomplishes nothing. They need a reason to leave. Without a persuasive case for evacuating, most folks would just assume you're trying to con them into leaving so you can rob their house and/or shop once they're gone.
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Apologies for simplifying. Most people I have seen arguing from a Deontological point of view (especially on these forums) have "don't kill innocents" as a rule, but you are correct that not all Deontological systems would agree. Utilitarianism is also the type of teleological system I am most familiar with so I preferentially refer to it over eg hedonism.
In game, I don't worry too much about the type of ethical reasoning the players/characters are using as long as it is roleplayed consistently. I see moral quandaries like this one as an opportunity for the players to explore ethical questions rather than an opportunity to enforce my ethical ideals.
You are also correct that some players will enjoy having serious consequences and won't appreciate the GM stepping in to make sure that they will get the best result if they just hero hard enough. And some players will have different expectations for different campaigns.
Telling people how to get away accomplishes nothing. They need a reason to leave. Without a persuasive case for evacuating, most folks would just assume you're trying to con them into leaving so you can rob their house and/or shop once they're gone.
"There's about to be a really big fight here between our army and those robots occupying your city. You sure you want to be in the middle of it?"
Sure, there will be people who will be stubborn and not evacuate, the same way there will be people who refuse to evacuate in the face of massive storms. But given that there is currently a 40,000 strong army of robots in their city, and another army massing outside the gates - there is already a reason to evacuate. This should not be a particularly difficult Diplomacy check.
My choice is a far more selfish one. I wouldn't use the crystal, not because of some quasi-ethical dilemma, but because by using the crystal I'm destroying the chance to roleplay becoming the leader of a resistance movement. The number of excellent stories told throughout history, that revolve around the "heroes" actually being the leaders of a small resistance movement against greater odds and superior forces, boggles the mind. No way would I take the easy way out here. It'd destroy my chances to roleplay a long-term guerrilla warfare campaign. This is one of those rare choices where breaking the 4th wall because you love playing a character, can easily translate into an in-character decision: "my character would never sacrifice so many innocents. Not when any other choice is available. I know, let's start an underground resistance movement!"
My choice is a far more selfish one. I wouldn't use the crystal, not because of some quasi-ethical dilemma, but because by using the crystal I'm destroying the chance to roleplay becoming the leader of a resistance movement. The number of excellent stories told throughout history, that revolve around the "heroes" actually being the leaders of a small resistance movement against greater odds and superior forces, boggles the mind. No way would I take the easy way out here. It'd destroy my chances to roleplay a long-term guerrilla warfare campaign. This is one of those rare choices where breaking the 4th wall because you love playing a character, can easily translate into an in-character decision: "my character would never sacrifice so many innocents. Not when any other choice is available. I know, let's start an underground resistance movement!"
Not bad, but I'd go to negotiate with the machine collective in hopes of gaining levels in sort sort of Locutus of Borg type prestige class. (Seven of Nine? Aw man, look, I'm fine with the spandex and techno face implants, but Gnurk the Half Orc is gonna look real stupid rocking those heels.)
Nuke the game because this is a game and no one should have to feel bad about playing a game. Unless, of course, the players just like these scenarios ...
*edited
I think all "fly up high, detonate, and create an EMP" and "detonate on the other side of the portal" ideas are likely off the table as there is a crystal that is part of the device that would have to be overloaded (at least as it seems from the OP).