In-party conflict- how do we tell which player's in the right and which in the wrong? [Archive] - Page 2

Mutazoia

2020-09-16, 09:49 AM

Are you one of those people who think that since Aesop's fables have talking animals, and since talking animals don't exist, they can't teach you anything? Because you're starting to sound like one. :smalltongue: Even hardcore real life organizations such as US armed forces use counter-factual scenarios like zombie plagues as thought exercises; that there are no zombies doesn't stop people from asking "what if zombies were real?" and giving intelligent answers. And beyond that, vast majority of popular fantastic creatures "that never existed in the real world" were invented by real world ideologies for specific symbolic and allegorical purposes. Saying "it's hard to apply real-world ideologies" to them is like saying you can't apply math to Klein bottles or hypercubes; that is, it's hard if you didn't pay attention in math class.

Aesop's Fables used talking animals as a stand-in for humans. They were never actually intended to actually BE animals. And I could write a whole dissertation about why the military uses scenarios like zombie plagues as a method to further dehumanize potential targets. (It's easier to get a soldier to shoot someone who has been deamonized/dehumanized than it is get get a soldier to shoot a regular person, for example.) Klein bottles and hypercubes are pure math theory. But nobody is trying to justify a klein bottle going out into the world and get a job (or attack a group of adventurers) and then suddenly having a change of heart when it get's beaten.

We've already more or less solved the original question put forth by the OP. At this point we're all just farting around discussing moral standards in a fantasy setting vs real world applications. People have put forth the theory that an Ogre would suddenly alter it's nature after that encounter and...I don't know...go get a job at the Quicky-E-Mart? Because that's what a real world human might do? Not buying it. A feral dog won't get domesticated if you smack it's nose with a news paper.

Friv

2020-09-16, 11:42 AM

Aesop's Fables used talking animals as a stand-in for humans. They were never actually intended to actually BE animals. And I could write a whole dissertation about why the military uses scenarios like zombie plagues as a method to further dehumanize potential targets. (It's easier to get a soldier to shoot someone who has been deamonized/dehumanized than it is get get a soldier to shoot a regular person, for example.)

This is all correct, and also sort of shoots your initial point in the foot, because everything you've said about talking animals and zombies applies to demihumans.

They're stand-ins for humans, designed to be broad so that you can make assumptions about them in the same way that the animals in Aesop's fables are broad so that you can make assumptions about them. The "monstrous" ones are designed to be just slightly dehumanized because it's easier to get your party to stab a character they don't have any empathy towards. If you think of an ogre as a "feral dog" rather than as a sentient being with rights and thoughts, you don't worry about why local tribes of them are upset about humans building keeps on their territory and you can go and have a nice day killing them.

OldTrees1

2020-09-16, 01:00 PM

applies to demihumans. They're stand-ins for humans,

To be fair, sometimes they are stand-ins for non-human people. We need to shed the human centric morality eventually.

Quertus

2020-09-16, 02:32 PM

To be fair, sometimes they are stand-ins for non-human people. We need to shed the human centric morality eventually.

Run that one by me again? They're stand-ins for… aliens? AI? Kami / deities / angels / spirits? Animals that are recognized as self-aware? Am I anywhere close to the right ballpark?

ImNotTrevor

2020-09-16, 02:35 PM

Xervous

2020-09-16, 02:35 PM

Darth Credence

2020-09-16, 03:04 PM

Question:
What is inherently bad about having the OPTION to have clear-cut good guys and bad guys based on the morality just... not being that complicated?

Has anyone said that you do not have that option? It clearly exists, and a lot of people play that way.

But there are certainly ways to have clear cut options that are not that complicated that do not require people to decide that every member of a particular species is inherently evil. The easiest way, IMO, is to have the good guys live by a moral code, while the bad guys exploit that code but don't live by it. So, things like torture, summary execution, theft, slaughter of non-combatants, and so on, would all be something that a good guy just doesn't do. The powers in the world (aka GM) can create a chivalric code or the like, lining out what a good person will and will not do.

The other option, saying that all ogres are evil, is simply making teams to root for. Nothing wrong with that in your game, but there is something a bit squicky to me about then calling them good and evil sides. Let's say that there is a land where there are elves and ogres, and they have been at war since the dawn of time. In the beginning, both sides left each other alone and did their own thing. At some point, the elves decided that the ogres were evil, because they were ugly in the elves eyes, or because they used natural resources differently, or whatever. So the elves decided to drive the ogres away from their borders, and felt justified in doing so because they are the 'good guys'. The ogres get upset about this, see themselves as wronged and therefore the elves are the 'bad guys', and they attack back.

Back and forth, elves attacking ogres, ogres attacking elves, killing for thousands of years, all because one side decided they were good and the other bad.And when other species come along, they look at the two, decide which one they like more, and immediately default to their enemies being the 'bad guys'. It's simple, sure, but it's not a world where there are clear cut good and bad guys, it's a world where there are clearly sides, and both sides think they are the good guys. And that could be a fun game to play! I would find it interesting to have a party form, perhaps from outsiders to the land who have no idea why either side is considered good or bad, or perhaps a party that has some members from both sides and they have to work together and see each sides perspective. And the PCs could absolutely be good, bad, or just on a team, in such a case. But it is hardly an uncomplicated good vs evil tale - it would only seem so if everyone is willingly ignoring the implications of the system.

I just had a session on Sunday, and I think I made a couple of the players consider what they had really done. They had found a kobold cave before, but due to circumstances they had to abandon the cave for a while. Sunday, they got back to it. They found the camp where they were living, and when they were spotted, the women and children started to flee while the warriors set up a defensive line to give them time. The players hesitated at first, until one player unleashed his animal companion on them, and the fight was on. In the end, the non-combatants got away, as did most of the fighters. They captured the kobold sorcerer, and killed six regular kobolds. When they questioned the kobold sorcerer, he accused them of invading their home and killing innocent people - they had demonstrably never attacked anyone in town, as they had lived in the cave for decades without anyone in the nearby town even knowing. In the end, they let the kobold go, and I am certain that they would not attack a kobold camp without attempting to talk in the future. It wasn't complicated - the kobolds did not initiate combat, but was concerned with saving the women and children and then escaping. They would not have attacked if they hadn't been attacked. I even made it clear to the group what they knew about kobolds, and while they had all heard stories about the creatures attacking settlements, they had never had first hand experience, or even reliable second hand experience, of kobolds doing anything. In the end, I think they have changed their expectations a bit, to reacting to what various creatures actually do rather than what any given manual says they are. I believe that this is the way D&D as a whole is going, as well - I thought I read recently that they were eliminating alignments for sapient creatures.

ImNotTrevor

2020-09-16, 03:13 PM

Has anyone said that you do not have that option? It clearly exists, and a lot of people play that way.
I didn't ask why we don't have that option. I asked why having it is bad.

But there are certainly ways to have clear cut options that are not that complicated that do not require people to decide that every member of a particular species is inherently evil.
Sure. What's bad about doing that option in particular, though?

Because a lot of people seem to be indirectly insinuating that a campaign where we're shorthanding that Ogres are just Evil and we're not gonna worry about it beyond that is some vague indicator of lesser morals.

The other option, saying that all ogres are evil, is simply making teams to root for. Nothing wrong with that in your game, but there is something a bit squicky to me about then calling them good and evil sides.
Why?

Let's say that there is a land where there are elves and ogres, and they have been at war since the dawn of time. In the beginning, both sides left each other alone and did their own thing. At some point, the elves decided that the ogres were evil, because they were ugly in the elves eyes, or because they used natural resources differently, or whatever.
So we have to insert gray morality to be OK.

Why?

So the elves decided to drive the ogres away from their borders, and felt justified in doing so because they are the 'good guys'. The ogres get upset about this, see themselves as wronged and therefore the elves are the 'bad guys', and they attack back.

Back and forth, elves attacking ogres, ogres attacking elves, killing for thousands of years, all because one side decided they were good and the other bad.And when other species come along, they look at the two, decide which one they like more, and immediately default to their enemies being the 'bad guys'. It's simple, sure, but it's not a world where there are clear cut good and bad guys, it's a world where there are clearly sides, and both sides think they are the good guys. And that could be a fun game to play!

I've played in games like that. They can be fun, yes.
What's bad about *not* doing that?

I would find it interesting to have a party form, perhaps from outsiders to the land who have no idea why either side is considered good or bad, or perhaps a party that has some members from both sides and they have to work together and see each sides perspective. And the PCs could absolutely be good, bad, or just on a team, in such a case. But it is hardly an uncomplicated good vs evil tale - it would only seem so if everyone is willingly ignoring the implications of the system.

I just had a session on Sunday, and I think I made a couple of the players consider what they had really done. They had found a kobold cave before, but due to circumstances they had to abandon the cave for a while. Sunday, they got back to it. They found the camp where they were living, and when they were spotted, the women and children started to flee while the warriors set up a defensive line to give them time. The players hesitated at first, until one player unleashed his animal companion on them, and the fight was on. In the end, the non-combatants got away, as did most of the fighters. They captured the kobold sorcerer, and killed six regular kobolds. When they questioned the kobold sorcerer, he accused them of invading their home and killing innocent people - they had demonstrably never attacked anyone in town, as they had lived in the cave for decades without anyone in the nearby town even knowing. In the end, they let the kobold go, and I am certain that they would not attack a kobold camp without attempting to talk in the future. It wasn't complicated - the kobolds did not initiate combat, but was concerned with saving the women and children and then escaping. They would not have attacked if they hadn't been attacked. I even made it clear to the group what they knew about kobolds, and while they had all heard stories about the creatures attacking settlements, they had never had first hand experience, or even reliable second hand experience, of kobolds doing anything. In the end, I think they have changed their expectations a bit, to reacting to what various creatures actually do rather than what any given manual says they are. I believe that this is the way D&D as a whole is going, as well - I thought I read recently that they were eliminating alignments for sapient creatures.

So you have fun with the gray morality thing. I also do, most of the time. But having a simple game of "look, here's some monsters, let's have pretend sword fights with them while we crack wise and eat cheetos," can also be fun. Where we know the ogre is evil because, in the wise words of The Hulk, "Big monster!" And that's pretty much it. It's not that serious.

My question is:
Why is that bad and indicative of a personal moral failing on the part of the players?

Jason

2020-09-16, 04:22 PM

Both party members were wrong, at least in the sense that they were both committing evil actions.

The paladin was wrong to allow another party member to torture a helpless prisoner (no one had a Charm spell or a good Intimidate check?) and then wrong again to unilaterally kill the same helpless prisoner. If I didn't have him fall from paladinhood outright I would certainly warn him that he had committed evil actions and was on his way to falling.

The rogue might be excused from an alignment infraction for using a comparatively mild form of torture if he's not good aligned, but it was an evil act to go and kill the paladin's horse in retaliation for depriving him of a chance for further torture.

How does a paladin deal with an ogre prisoner? There are a few options. He could turn him over to local authorities, he could extract an oath of good behavior that he thinks the monster may actually keep, he could stash him tied up somewhere (with food and water) that he can come back to later to deal with the ogre, or he could untie the ogre, give him his weapon back, and say "if you can kill me (or "us" if he's not feeling very cocky) you're free to go" and kill him in a fair fight.

Darth Credence

2020-09-16, 04:25 PM

I didn't ask why we don't have that option. I asked why having it is bad.

Sure. What's bad about doing that option in particular, though?

Because a lot of people seem to be indirectly insinuating that a campaign where we're shorthanding that Ogres are just Evil and we're not gonna worry about it beyond that is some vague indicator of lesser morals.

Why?

So we have to insert gray morality to be OK.

Why?

I've played in games like that. They can be fun, yes.
What's bad about *not* doing that?

So you have fun with the gray morality thing. I also do, most of the time. But having a simple game of "look, here's some monsters, let's have pretend sword fights with them while we crack wise and eat cheetos," can also be fun. Where we know the ogre is evil because, in the wise words of The Hulk, "Big monster!" And that's pretty much it. It's not that serious.

My question is:
Why is that bad and indicative of a personal moral failing on the part of the players?

Honestly, every 'why' you have here comes down to a discussion that is not allowed on the board. There is a reason that the good guys are beautiful, and the bad guys are ugly. There is a reason that in a situation where the elves were clearly the bad guys, it comes across as gray morality since elves are traditionally 'good'. But this is not the place for a detailed response getting into those issues.

Keltest

2020-09-16, 04:39 PM

Honestly, every 'why' you have here comes down to a discussion that is not allowed on the board. There is a reason that the good guys are beautiful, and the bad guys are ugly. There is a reason that in a situation where the elves were clearly the bad guys, it comes across as gray morality since elves are traditionally 'good'. But this is not the place for a detailed response getting into those issues.

I dont think I've ever seen a scenario written where elves were behaving like orcs traditionally do that portrayed them as anything other than solidly evil. Any work that took morality remotely seriously made it clear those elves or what have you were firmly in the wrong.

hamishspence

2020-09-16, 04:51 PM

Complete Book Of Elves, back in 2e, both painted Elves as "in the right" and had them doing pretty horrible things.

Darth Credence

2020-09-16, 04:53 PM

I dont think I've ever seen a scenario written where elves were behaving like orcs traditionally do that portrayed them as anything other than solidly evil. Any work that took morality remotely seriously made it clear those elves or what have you were firmly in the wrong.

The scenario I just posited was that the elves and ogres were leaving each other alone, then the elves decided to attack them and drive them off. To that, I was told it was gray morality. It wasn't - the elves were the bad guys. This was a direct response to the previous posts being quoted.

Chogokin

2020-09-16, 05:21 PM

Keep in mind that original D&D drew a lot of inspiration from Tolkien. In Tolkien, creatures like Trolls and Orcs were merely twisted mockeries of creatures like Ents and Elves. While Elves, for example, could choose to be evil, they had free will, and thus had access to a wide range of behaviors, from good, to selfish, to evil. Its not at all clear that Orcs had any choice, as they had been created by Morgoth to be evil reflections of Elves.

The iteration of monsters that we saw in early D&D all have fixed alignments. Goblins, Orcs and Ogres are all Evil. They don't seem to have free will about their alignment: they are monsters, and that's that. Even the generic names imply a distinction: playable races (with implied free will and choice of morality) are Humans or Demihumans, whereas monsters are Humanoids. Early Paladins (and Rangers, for that matter) had to be Good. Killing an evil monster was not an inherently evil act. Torturing an evil monster definitely was debatable, more because deliberately inflicting suffering on a helpless being is seen, in most people's morality (I assume), as an inherently evil act, regardless of the nature of the target.

More recent editions of the game have certainly muddied the waters. There are no longer any particular alignment restrictions: classes are just packages of skills and abilities. Picking a class is seen more as a step along the road to achieving a certain set of game mechanics advantages, and not so much establishing the character's entire background and ethos. Likewise, the popularity of 'reformed' monster race characters, like Drizzt and Deekin. established precedents for variable alignments. The very term Demihuman more or less got dropped, now most playable races are Humanoid.

So, bringing this back to the scenario, who is in the wrong?

I tend to think that the Dwarf was more in the wrong. Here's why:

The Paladin slaying the tortured, but ultimately cooperative Ogre is certainly problematic. But how problematic depends on context. Is the Paladin Good? He might be Neutral. Does the Ogre have free will, or is it Evil by nature? If the Paladin perceives the Ogre as being irredeemably Evil, then killing it is the best choice under the circumstances. The party has a time constraint, they can't turn the Ogre over to the authorities, and if they just let it go, it is very likely to wind up committing more evil acts. I suppose that a rather pathetic middle ground would be tie it up and let Fate take over, but that's just ducking responsibility. I think the Paladin may have offended party mores by killing the Ogre without consultation, but really just saved several hours of useless yapping before the group as a whole would have to make the choice to kill it or release it. Which of those choices is really the best depends on whether, in this particular variation of D&D reality, the Ogre has free will or not. Being shown mercy might inspire it to change its ways if that is the case. We just don't have enough context. However, I will say that a Good Paladin should not have condoned torture in the first place, however valuable the potential information to be gained, and either killed it in honorable combat, offered swift merciful death, or simply let it go with a warning. If the party didn't agree with any of those options, the Paladin should probably quit the party and gone looking for more honorable companions (while the player reconsiders being part of that gaming group, and looks into rolling a more morally flexible character).

The Dwarf apparently condoned the torture. That's not really a good sign to begin with, although we don't know whether the Dwarf intended to let the Ogre go as a reward for its cooperation or to murder it himself. Based on what the Dwarf apparently said, I really feel that he wasn't as angry about the Ogre's fate as he was about not being consulted before it was killed. More telling is how the Dwarf responded to the provocation: he killed a horse. Now, true, a Horse is an animal, not a sentient organism. We generally ascribe less moral onus to murdering animals than sentients, even in fantasy settings. However, Horses are neutral, innocent, and generally serve a useful purpose. They are also weaker and easier to kill than Ogres or Paladins. Murdering the Paladin's horse is a lot like slitting tires on someone's car, in a way (although worse). It's a cowardly act of destruction aimed at hurting someone you don't think you can take face-to-face. It was cruel to the horse, and it was a cowardly act because the Dwarf is effectively hiding behind the horse's status as an animal. "I killed your horse, but it's not a person, so you don't have grounds to kill me. Nyaa nyaa, neener neener!" It's just despicable. It also hurts the party, because it condemns the Paladin to not being able to be involved in whatever scenario the party was heading to next, and deprives the party of the Paladin's strength as an ally. The Dwarf's player has found a way of hurting both the party in-game, and the players out-of-game, and it's pretty disgusting.

As a GM, I generally have a 'no torture' rule. I don't care to play games with people who want to act like outright villains. Morally gray I'm okay with, as long as it's thoughtful, but I prefer my gaming groups to be striving for heroism. I'd like to think that I wouldn't have let this situation get this far in the first place, but that may just be wishful thinking on my part. Certainly, if we did get this far, I would probably kick the Dwarf's player from the group and have a talk with the Paladin's player about respecting the play experience of the other players before making a rash roleplaying decision, even if it is in character. These are games, they are supposed to be fun for everyone, and not respecting other players' right to have fun is selfish behavior.

OldTrees1

2020-09-16, 05:42 PM

Run that one by me again? They're stand-ins for… aliens? AI? Kami / deities / angels / spirits? Animals that are recognized as self-aware? Am I anywhere close to the right ballpark?

Yes, that is the right topic and you mentioned some of the other members. They are sometimes stand-ins for "being with moral personhood that is not homo sapiens" rather than stand-ins for "fellow homo sapiens that feel like 'the other' ".

Think of it as Morality 101 (other humans) and Morality 102 (other people). Of course the lessons also feedback and reinforce each other.

Some demihumans I treat as "humans with hats" but others as "non human persons". Treatment should be the same, but it tests different intuitions.

Friv

2020-09-16, 06:26 PM

Question:
What is inherently bad about having the OPTION to have clear-cut good guys and bad guys based on the morality just... not being that complicated?

The option of clear-cut good guys and bad guys is fine! I like a good game of clear-cut good guys and bad guys. An undead horde, murder-cult, or demonic invasion is a great time. An evil wizard's tower full of constructs and elemental horrors is a lot of fun. Fighting off dire animals and predatory dinosaurs is great. I even like a great "deal with the invading evil empire", although I'd rather have situations there where you can convert or shame Imperial individuals into defecting.

Problems start when those clear-cut good guys and bad guys are determined by skin colour, especially when the clear-cut good guys use pseuo-European technology and culture and the bad guys have shamans, tribes, and raiders are are described as "primitive", "bestial", or by similar terms. I think we probably can't get into too deep of a discussion of that here because we're in danger of veering from philosophy into politics, but it normalizes a message that makes a lot of players feel unwelcome.

And there are far more problems when your clear-cut good guys are allowed to do bad-guy things on the grounds that the bad guys are bad and thus not people. Stories of heroes involve being heroic. If your heroes are doing morally questionable things, you've introduced shades of grey, and while that's fine, having shades of grey while claiming that you're just doing morally upstanding things makes it sound a lot like you think those dark acts are actually morally upstanding as long as the target is One Of Them.

I honestly think that the core of a lot of this has been that part. There are a lot of people in this thread who are uncomfortable with the expression of the idea that it's not evil to do evil to evil, and there are other people who have expressly said that they support that because some humans have forfeited their humanity. Those are not philosophical stances that can be reconciled, and they're both stances that are applying not just in-game, but in real life.

ImNotTrevor

2020-09-16, 09:21 PM

The scenario I just posited was that the elves and ogres were leaving each other alone, then the elves decided to attack them and drive them off. To that, I was told it was gray morality. It wasn't - the elves were the bad guys. This was a direct response to the previous posts being quoted.

Honestly, every 'why' you have here comes down to a discussion that is not allowed on the board. There is a reason that the good guys are beautiful, and the bad guys are ugly. There is a reason that in a situation where the elves were clearly the bad guys, it comes across as gray morality since elves are traditionally 'good'. But this is not the place for a detailed response getting into those issues.
Apologies if my speaking.of "Gray Morality" seemed to belittle the obvious villainy of the elves.
It was the phrasing that came to me, probably because it's the same general subversion of traditional fantasy expectations that I've become familiar with.

The option of clear-cut good guys and bad guys is fine! I like a good game of clear-cut good guys and bad guys. An undead horde, murder-cult, or demonic invasion is a great time. An evil wizard's tower full of constructs and elemental horrors is a lot of fun. Fighting off dire animals and predatory dinosaurs is great. I even like a great "deal with the invading evil empire", although I'd rather have situations there where you can convert or shame Imperial individuals into defecting.

Problems start when those clear-cut good guys and bad guys are determined by skin colour, especially when the clear-cut good guys use pseuo-European technology and culture and the bad guys have shamans, tribes, and raiders are are described as "primitive", "bestial", or by similar terms. I think we probably can't get into too deep of a discussion of that here because we're in danger of veering from philosophy into politics, but it normalizes a message that makes a lot of players feel unwelcome.
So long as we're being honest about what the problem is, even if we've gotta dance around this mulberry bush.

Just be aware of the accompanying accusation that comes with insisting that having ogres just be badguys is bad for this reason. It's not an accusation I'm willing to level lightly, and would be especially absurd of me given my play history.

And there are far more problems when your clear-cut good guys are allowed to do bad-guy things on the grounds that the bad guys are bad and thus not people. Stories of heroes involve being heroic. If your heroes are doing morally questionable things, you've introduced shades of grey, and while that's fine, having shades of grey while claiming that you're just doing morally upstanding things makes it sound a lot like you think those dark acts are actually morally upstanding as long as the target is One Of Them.

I honestly think that the core of a lot of this has been that part. There are a lot of people in this thread who are uncomfortable with the expression of the idea that it's not evil to do evil to evil, and there are other people who have expressly said that they support that because some humans have forfeited their humanity. Those are not philosophical stances that can be reconciled, and they're both stances that are applying not just in-game, but in real life.
Indeed. Hence why I have thusfar preferred to look at this for the OOC problem that it is.

I have not insisted that anyone else is stupid or wrong for their moral stances. I've worked in some lines of work which, by their nature, involve second-hand trauma. (You can only witness and hear about the trauma of others for so long before it affects you directly.) This is not a pity-party for me, mind. It's just facts of life. Having seen the depths of absolute horror that human beings are capable of inflicting on one another, on their own offspring, to protect themselves from punishment, etc....
Yeah. Some people lose their humanity somewhere along the way. I refuse to give specifics because not only would many of my stories violate several rules here in the telling, but normal folks don't need to carry that weight. So I'll not hand it to you. Coming back around to my point, I know I'm cynical as hell and very brusque.

I'm also pretty much fine with whatever people wanna do so long as it's not hurting anyone else. Playing your game a certain way that others find distasteful but everyone at your table is fine with it? Whatever. Even if I find it gross, dishonorable, or super sketchy, if everyone at that table is down, then I'm probably not going to say you're immoral, barring the obvious exceptions.

Playing a game where, look, Ogres are just evil, ok? We've got a stat block, nobody cares, we're going into dungeons and killing stuff and we just need meat to thwack, we're really not worried about the morality of any of this, we're here for hijinks. I'm never going to insist these people are bad because someone decided ogres are ugly. Monsters generally aren't pleasant to look at by virtue of needing to be at least a bit scary, which puts a bit of a wrinkle in the "If they're evil AND ugly then it's suddenly political."

I dunno about you, but I think Xenomorphs are pretty ugly, and I don't think there's much political messaging in that decision. (Not nearly so much as juxtaposition for the purpose of disturbing you, anyways.)

Some of the criteria I get could be iffy, but getting histrionic about the monsters being unattracive is... a stretch, I think?

In any case I've said my piece on where the conflict actually lies here, and I'm gonna leave it at that. Feel free to think of me as a bad person or morally lesser or whatever. I'm sure that's already the case, and I remembered that the opinions of randos on the internet have no bearing on my actual life or gaming, so... I can exit here.

Mutazoia

2020-09-16, 10:46 PM

This is all correct, and also sort of shoots your initial point in the foot, because everything you've said about talking animals and zombies applies to demihumans.

They're stand-ins for humans, designed to be broad so that you can make assumptions about them in the same way that the animals in Aesop's fables are broad so that you can make assumptions about them. The "monstrous" ones are designed to be just slightly dehumanized because it's easier to get your party to stab a character they don't have any empathy towards. If you think of an ogre as a "feral dog" rather than as a sentient being with rights and thoughts, you don't worry about why local tribes of them are upset about humans building keeps on their territory and you can go and have a nice day killing them.

Not really shooting my point in the foot. The animals in Aesop's fables were humans but their descriptions was that of animals. They had human emotions, thoughts, and ideas...ones that any person reading the book could understand and relate to.

An Ogre is a monster, described as a monster. It's emotions, thoughts and ideas are about as far from human as you can get without becoming totally alien. They kill because they are dumb, mean, and angry. They kill for fun. Stereotypically they eat other sentient races. Until Shrek rolled around, you would be hard-pressed to find a story about an ogre who car-pooled to his job at the bottling plant, was a member of the PTA and volunteered to read bedtime stories to orphaned kittens on the weekend.

Vahnavoi

2020-09-16, 10:50 PM

Aesop's Fables used talking animals as a stand-in for humans. They were never actually intended to actually BE animals.

And what stops players from considering an ogre as a stand-in for human? Nothing. It doesn't matter if the ogre was "never actually intended" to be a stand-in for anything, it's still trivially easy to interprete it a such. Even when and where such interpretation is wrong.

---

[Demihumans] are stand-ins for humans, designed to be broad so that you can make assumptions about them in the same way that the animals in Aesop's fables are broad so that you can make assumptions about them.

To be fair, sometimes they are stand-ins for non-human people. We need to shed the human centric morality eventually.

Run that one by me again? They're stand-ins for… aliens? AI? Kami / deities / angels / spirits? Animals that are recognized as self-aware? Am I anywhere close to the right ballpark?

They can be stand-ins for natural disasters, nation states, diseases, virtues, vices, ideologies or places. Even if you stay firmly footed in human-centric worldview, not all people-seeming things in fiction are stand-ins for people.

OldTrees1

2020-09-17, 12:32 AM

They can be stand-ins for natural disasters, nation states, diseases, virtues, vices, ideologies or places. Even if you stay firmly footed in human-centric worldview, not all people-seeming things in fiction are stand-ins for people.

This is also true. Zombies for example have been used as stand ins for ideologies.

hamishspence

2020-09-17, 12:43 AM

An Ogre is a monster, described as a monster. It's emotions, thoughts and ideas are about as far from human as you can get without becoming totally alien.

On this subject, The Giant said it best, as usual:

Because all authors are human, it is exceedingly difficult for anyone to imagine a fully realized non-human intelligence. It has been done maybe a dozen times in the history of speculative fiction, and I would venture not at all in the annals of fantasy roleplaying games. (Certainly, goblins, dwarves, and elves don't qualify, being basically green short humans, bearded greedy humans, and pointy-eared magical humans.) Therefore, it's a moot distinction and one not worth making. Statistically speaking, ALL depictions of non-human intelligence—ever—are functionally human with cosmetic differences.

In practice, ogres are "big dumb humans" not "almost totally alien".

Jorren

2020-09-17, 12:55 AM

Whenever I see these situations I always think that the game was never intended to cover these things. I don’t mean specifically that the designers didn’t envision them but that they never particularly thought deeply about them.

The alignment system, the concept of evil monsters that could be killed without much introspection, and modern notions of morality regarding the treatment of prisoners were never meant to go together. I wonder if there is any reason to actually have monsters that can be captured in the game. I know that these situations happen, but I question the ability of games, particularly D&D to appropriately handle them. I know that the default response is that the resolution should be left to the DM and the players, but I the longer I play the more I question that decision.

Things like baby orcs. I mean, why even have them unless you specifically want the characters to deal with those sorts of issues? A game about heroic adventure doesn’t really seem to me like a game that should have baby orcs. Ogre prisoners don’t seem too far off either. It’s arrived at the point where the disconnect between these elements was a bit too much for me.

And on top of it, paladins. I’ve seen paladins cause more problems in games than all the greedy treasure-stealing thieves, chaotic evil necromancers, and every other problematic character concept put together.

hamishspence

2020-09-17, 01:01 AM

Things like baby orcs. I mean, why even have them unless you specifically want the characters to deal with those sorts of issues? A game about heroic adventure doesn’t really seem to me like a game that should have baby orcs.

Verisimilitude. "Nearly all humanoids have a humanoid-type growth cycle" is the sort of thing that one would expect.

Blame Gygax if you want to blame anyone - he was the one who described orc lairs as including infant orcs, back in 1e.

the concept of evil monsters that could be killed without much introspection, and modern notions of morality regarding the treatment of prisoners were never meant to go together.

Yup. Which means in order to minimise trouble, one of these is usually discarded.

I favour discarding the "without much introspection" bit (at least outside of straight self-defence, or straight defence of an obvious victim from an obvious attack). I get the impression that The Giant feels the same way - at least regarding "What should be the default in D&D".

Others may not.

And on top of it, paladins. I’ve seen paladins cause more problems in games than all the greedy treasure-stealing thieves, chaotic evil necromancers, and every other problematic character concept put together.

That's pretty much what The Giant said in No Cure for the Paladin Blues commentary - that the class, as written, encourages party dysfunction.

NichG

2020-09-17, 01:22 AM

I think there's a subtle point here, which is that the same elements can end up being treated as stand-ins in some games but not in others even if all things about the elements themselves are identical. And often it's the OOC behavior at the table that pushes things one way or another.

If you have a bunch of warriors who only ever encounter 'I will fight you to the death, no discussion and no quarter' hostile forces and everyone leaves the field free or dead then there's an ambiguity there which is far enough away from the kind of situation that people are generally called to make moral judgments about that the action of those warriors in killing their enemies aren't really seen as being about morality at all. When someone takes that and adds a layer that asks for such actions to be explicitly judged to be moral actions, then the potential for those faceless enemies to act as stand-ins is increased.

It seems like there's always a paladin or something like that in these threads. Why? Perhaps because a paladin is constantly being judged by the cosmos, so if a paladin does something and gets away with it it's not just 'well, that person did this action, that's the kind of person they were or the kind of story this is' - it's 'the universe judges this action to be morally correct'. When 'the universe' is the setting, it starts to reflect on the moral attitudes of the author of that setting (potentially in complex ways - an author could present a world with very dystopian morality in order to highlight it, not because they want to argue for that as a moral stance). So that can still work though it starts to get potentially tangled with OOC stuff.

When the morality of the universe is decided by moralistic debate at the table - e.g. if the DM and players discuss whether the paladin should fall - then it's hard for that to not reflect or suggest OOC moral attitudes, because the participants are adding something in beyond whatever the author of the setting had put there. Similarly, if a player is supposed to feel that having their (non-mechanically-dependent on alignment) character take a step from Good to Neutral or from Neutral to Evil is a punishment rather than just an update of some character parameters, then we've already moved past the line where IC and OOC stuff is completely separated.

If a player can take their warrior fighting in defense of civilization, have them commit a heinous act they deem necessary for the good of their people, be tagged with some Corruption or Evil game mechanic, and say 'okay, that's fine' and move on, then that player has managed an IC/OOC separation and I'm not going to read into their depictions as representing any kind of real-world moral stance. If they argue OOC 'no, you all have to consider my character to be Good' then I'm going to question why that's so important to them if not for OOC considerations and norms.

hamishspence

2020-09-17, 01:25 AM

If a player can take their warrior fighting in defense of civilization, have them commit a heinous act they deem necessary for the good of their people, be tagged with some Corruption or Evil game mechanic, and say 'okay, that's fine' and move on, then that player has managed an IC/OOC separation and I'm not going to read into their depictions as representing any kind of real-world moral stance. If they argue OOC 'no, you all have to consider my character to be Good' then I'm going to question why that's so important to them if not for OOC considerations and norms.

You make a good point.

Talakeal

2020-09-17, 01:35 AM

IMO once the “Heroes” start engaging in torture* the whole idea of just playing a fun action game about consequence free battles between black and white forces has already gone out the window.

*Or similar unmentionable activities.

Vahnavoi

2020-09-17, 04:01 AM

The alignment system, the concept of evil monsters that could be killed without much introspection, and modern notions of morality regarding the treatment of prisoners were never meant to go together. I wonder if there is any reason to actually have monsters that can be captured in the game.

That's answered right in 1e AD&D monster manual: you capture monsters to rear them as loyal servants (griffins, dragons), to sell them to slavery or to skin their young and sell the pelts (giant beavers, which are actually intelligent and have a language of their own).

Or, to put it shortly:

Blame Gygax if you want to blame anyone - he was the one who described orc lairs as including infant orcs, back in 1e.

Except, don't blame Gygax. He is the cause for them being there, but he did nothing wrong by putting them there. :smalltongue:

The people who you should blame are those people after Gygax who watered the alignment system down for market appeal. They are the ones who actually created the idea that D&D has to adhere to Saturday morning cartoon morality.

hamishspence

2020-09-17, 05:04 AM

The people who you should blame are those people after Gygax who watered the alignment system down for market appeal. They are the ones who actually created the idea that D&D has to adhere to Saturday morning cartoon morality.

D&D doesn't need to. But Good, as a general rule, should at least come close to "Saturday morning cartoon" - avoiding many of the the sort of things that Gygax liked Good characters to do.

That's answered right in 1e AD&D monster manual: you capture monsters to rear them as loyal servants (griffins, dragons), to sell them to slavery or to skin their young and sell the pelts (giant beavers, which are actually intelligent and have a language of their own).

Attacking and skinning baby giant beavers for their pelts (knowing that they're intelligent - and that they haven't actually done anything to deserve being attacked and skinned for) - isn't exactly the sort of thing that belongs in a "Good aligned" character's standard repertoire.

"D&D Good" should be at least close to what the players think of as "real world Good" in order to avoid massive moral dissonance.

The more you tell me about 1e, the worse it seems.

IMO once the “Heroes” start engaging in torture* the whole idea of just playing a fun action game about consequence free battles between black and white forces has already gone out the window.

*Or similar unmentionable activities.
Skinning an intelligent baby creature, and not an evil one at that, for its pelt, springs to mind.

Vahnavoi

2020-09-17, 06:12 AM

Attacking and skinning baby giant beavers for their pelts (knowing that they're intelligent - and that they haven't actually done anything to deserve being attacked and skinned for) - isn't exactly the sort of thing that belongs in a "Good aligned" character's standard repertoire.

Heh, probably not - I'll need to check my books, but I think the beavers are Lawful Good. So a Good character shouldn't be killing them for their pelts. But that brings me back to a wider point I already touched on earlier: Gygaxian D&D doesn't disallow evil characters. So some information in the books is for the benefit of such characters - a paladin isn't going to skin a bunch of friendly beavers for their pelts, but a group of Evil assassins and thieves might.

So it isn't just about what is in-game Good or Evil - it's about how Evil you can get and still get to participate in a game.

hamishspence

2020-09-17, 07:24 AM

Gygaxian D&D doesn't disallow evil characters.

It does, however, disallow evil characters and paladins from being in the same party. At least knowingly (a paladin can be fooled, and thus be in a party with an Evil character and not Fall as long as they remain fooled).

3rd ed took the approach that playing evil characters at all, should be treated as a special option, for "mature gaming" (BOVD providing all the guidelines for playing Evil characters)- given all the troubles they tend to cause when mixed in with Good characters.

4e took the same approach, and has its own version of the BOVD.

I think 5e may have taken a similar "Don't play Evil characters unless you and the DM and the rest of the group are prepared for it" approach, but I'm not sure.

Vahnavoi

2020-09-17, 08:18 AM

It does, however, disallow evil characters and paladins from being in the same party. At least knowingly (a paladin can be fooled, and thus be in a party with an Evil character and not Fall as long as they remain fooled).

This is true, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise - I would not expect a paladin and an assassin to be in the same group. However, 1e goes as step further than that and says that general agreement exists within alignment groups only. Taking mixed-alignment groups as the norm borders on a deliberately bad take on the idea, despite the fact that it's how things came to be. If there's, say, a paladin and an assassin at the same table, the natural way to play is cops & robbers, with the characters being opponents to one another.

3rd ed took the approach that playing evil characters at all, should be treated as a special option, for "mature gaming" (BOVD providing all the guidelines for playing Evil characters)- given all the troubles they tend to cause when mixed in with Good characters.

3e inherits this from 2e - and it was hypocritical corporate moralism then and now. As noted above, I agree with the idea that mixed alignment parties can't be expected to work well - but that isn't limited to Evil versus Good. The only reason to single out Evil characters as special and "mature" choice was because of a decision to market the game to kids and avoid making moms angry.

It was a choice that not even all the workers at the time bought into, if you go and read after-the-fact interviews they've given on the subject. Indeed, some product lines, like Dark Sun, Ravenloft and Planescape, couldn't have existed if TSR had seriously stuck to their own guidelines.

For dealing with mixed parties, the game didn't need watering down alignment - it would've benefited more from an actual PvP rules guide, a codified way of playing cops & robbers. Or, for a kids' game, their best actual solution (based on units sold) was in BECMI, which omitted the Good-Evil-axis and operated on Law-Chaos.

For contrast, 1e It was largely written by an adult for adults. It was Tolkien and Poulson, but also Howard, Moore, Lovecraft etc.. It didn't cordon off a piece of the alignment grid for "mature gaming" , because by default assumption the players were already "mature".

kyoryu

2020-09-17, 11:10 AM

That's pretty much what The Giant said in No Cure for the Paladin Blues commentary - that the class, as written, encourages party dysfunction.

In the games in which the paladin was designed (Gary's game, OD&D/1e), it worked - because the presumption was that whoever showed up showed up, and they would play whatever character was appropriate to the adventure.

So the paladin wouldn't go and adventure with evil characters - that's why the alignment association rules exist!

In the assumption that "this is the party, and they stick together", the paladin as written is pretty much a landmine.

So much stuff in 1e and OD&D work in the assumption of that kind of open table structure, but totally fail outside of it. It's a shame.

Keltest

2020-09-17, 11:11 AM

In the games in which the paladin was designed (Gary's game, OD&D/1e), it worked - because the presumption was that whoever showed up showed up, and they would play whatever character was appropriate to the adventure.

So the paladin wouldn't go and adventure with evil characters - that's why the alignment association rules exist!

In the assumption that "this is the party, and they stick together", the paladin as written is pretty much a landmine.

So much stuff in 1e and OD&D work in the assumption of that kind of open table structure, but totally fail outside of it. It's a shame.

Its amazing how many alleged problems with the system are almost entirely a result of the players trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

kyoryu

2020-09-17, 11:28 AM

Its amazing how many alleged problems with the system are almost entirely a result of the players trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

In fairness, a lot of that falls on TSR and WotC.

They decided to ride the Dragonlance train, and focus on the One True Party without really looking at the rules and why they were what they were. 2e was a good streamlining for how people were playing the game, but really needed more of a rewrite I think to really fit the Dragonlance model. And 3e diverged so heavily, but kept a lot of those old rules when it would have been better off ditching them. IOW, they realized people really wanted something to go into the round hole, but only just rounded off the edges of the square peg a little rather than really committing to making a truly round peg.

I actually liked 4e for that reason - I felt it was a good design for the game that people were actually playing for the most part. Unfortunately it had a lot of presentation issues, and also really ticked off the 3e optimization crowd. I mean, look at the success of 5e which I really see almost more as a revamped 4e than anything, just with way better presentation and avoiding the uncanny valley issues of 4e.

But, meh.

Zanos

2020-09-17, 12:46 PM

So a couple things seem to be up in the air here.

First, is the Paladin in the right to execute the ogre? Remember that D&D morality is much more Medieval in this respect than modern sensibilities, LG authorities do practice executions, and an ogre is probably going to be a challenge to detain or reform long term. I don't believe that Paladin's should fall for executing prisoners who are guilty of capital crimes in general, since they're typically associated with or endorsed by a Lawful religious order and would have the just authority to carry out lawful execution of a capital criminal. However, the alignment of the act is largely immaterial to the situation. We can replace the Paladin with a LN fighter if one frays at the idea of a LG execution, and nothing really changes about the situation as far as the dwarf is concerned. The torture is kind of shady, but being hung upside down from a tree isn't really torture and the dwarf didn't seem to have a problem with that anyway.

So the dwarf, very strangely, defines the prisoner as 'his'. Honestly, it seems like the dwarf would have had a problem with anyone doing anything to the prisoner that he didn't personally approve of, even if outvoted by the rest of the party. He gets mad that the Paladin executed 'his' prisoner, and then he kills the paladins horse and threatens to kill the paladin if he interferes with 'his' prisoners again.

Should the Paladin have discussed the execution with the group? Yeah, absolutely. Although it's not like an execution is a particularly speedy act, I would think the other party members would have time to say something as the paladin was drawing his weapon and lining up an execution style swing. But it doesn't really seem like the dwarf would have been happy about it if everyone else in the party but him agreed to the execution, based on the way he defines the parties prisoner as his. Executing the prisoner does no real harm to the dwarf, and based on the tone conveyed, it doesn't seem like the dwarf is the kind of person that is against execution in general. His complaint seems to be that the paladin messed with something the dwarf unfairly considered to belong to him, not that the Paladin commited an arguably Evil action. So I'm going to say that the dwarf was significantly more out of line by retaliating to a slight of his authority with material harm to the paladin, mocking him, and then threatening to murder him. Killing someone's defenseless pet/animal and then giving them a death threat because they slighted your authority is the behavior of an Evil character, for the record.

Effectively, the Dwarf's retaliation is based on the premise that the Paladin broke one of his toys, except it wasn't his toy. Also, he is a complete lunatic. Executing a 10ft tall 650 lb musclebound meat mountain that has assaulted your countrymen and tried to kill you and your friends is something any reasonable warrior could justify, killing your own companions mount and threatening them with death is the behavior of a psychotically violent madman.

kyoryu

2020-09-17, 01:46 PM

Keltest

2020-09-17, 02:14 PM

Zanos

2020-09-17, 02:27 PM

Your post pretty much says "my assumptions line up with the paladin, therefore the paladin is right."

And the paladin is right, according to your assumptions and in a game/world that runs on them.

The issue, of course, is that your assumptions are not universal.

Personally I read the "my prisoner" less as "I own him" and more as "I took him prisoner, I gave him my word, I am responsible". So I don't think there's too much to read into that.
You're correct in that I am making some assumptions here based on the Dwarves tone, mostly because I would not expect a character with a moral objection to executing a prisoner phrase their objection as 'interfering with my prisoner', and then back it up by slitting the throat of a defenseless animal and threatening to murder someone.

I am also assuming that the entire party took the ogre prisoner, since I find it unlikely that the dwarf achieved the main objective of the adventure himself.

Is there a set of assumptions I could take where the Dwarf acted in a reasonable manner, and the Paladin did not? Sure. I just don't believe there's a high likelihood that set of assumptions is true.

icefractal

2020-09-17, 02:48 PM

The people who you should blame are those people after Gygax who watered the alignment system down for market appeal. They are the ones who actually created the idea that D&D has to adhere to Saturday morning cartoon morality.I mean, you can call this "watered down", but TBH I don't really want to play or run a game with "Discount Hannibal Lecter, Baby Skinner" in the party, any more than I'd want The Whizzard in there. Actually, much less so. If it was one or the other, bring on the magical realm.

NichG

2020-09-17, 09:45 PM

Again, it's not an in character moral question, its an OOC dispute. One player was in the middle of a scene, another player was bored and interrupted the scene by force to move things along, and the player who was interrupted retaliated so that the bored player wouldn't be able to participate in their own preferred scene. Standard escalating jerk behavior - if no one stops the first transgression, then the player whose scene was interrupted gets the message that they're on their own and that they can either let themselves be bullied or be a jerk back.

So you end up with two jerks, which is not a desirable table state regardless of who threw the first punch or who is the more eloquent at 'its what my character would do' Gygaxian moral scholarship.

Mutazoia

2020-09-17, 09:50 PM

On this subject, The Giant said it best, as usual:

{Scrubbed}

In practice, ogres are "big dumb humans" not "almost totally alien".

That's how they are played, more often than not, but that is not actually the truth of what they are. A lot of DMs fall into this "trap" and play their monsters as re-skinned humans. It's an understandable mistake, as most monsters a so totally alien (by default, as they come from a world that is not our own (even if that world is made up)) and a lot of people have trouble getting into the proper mindset to play them as they truly are. Githyanky, Illithids, Dragons...all seem to be played as if they are just humans in some form of fursuit (or scale suit as the case may be).

So it's easy to understand when someone claims that the defeated Ogre would turn over a new leaf, but the truth of the matter is, it wouldn't. It's still a murderous killing machine that will probably get even more hostile if it were to be let go. It was most likely not the chief of the Ogre tribe and had to kowtow to an ogre stronger that it was. Now, this ogre is in charge (of jack squat at this point but it's still the boss) and it's going to be sore, hungry, and pissed off. It's not turning over a new leaf and getting a day job.

hamishspence

2020-09-17, 11:33 PM

It's not turning over a new leaf and getting a day job.

Not without a great deal of help, no.

The usual approach to redeeming a villain, would involve bringing them along on the adventure - probably with some magic to ensure that they don't harm the party, and giving them plenty of opportunities to do the right thing. Talking to them, a lot, during "downtime". And so forth.

Bringing them along, ensures the mission doesn't get delayed. Magical restrictions, minimises the threat posed to the innocent.

Kind of like what the Order of the Stick do with their captured kobold in Blood Runs in the Family - use them as a porter. Only without all the mistreatment that Belkar hands out, and with lots of "conversations directed at redeeming them".

Even if you don't succeed, all those conversations will, with luck, reveal all the ogre's past history, which may make the party much less guilty about killing them, when the ogre's past reveals numerous crimes that deserve the death penalty.

That's what "having an informal trial" is based on - doing the work of a jury, (hearing the defendant's account of events) and not just a judge and executioner.

Far too many "judge, jury, and executioner" players have no interest whatsoever in doing the jury work. I'd expect a player to put the effort in, if they want to convince me that a player party can really do the same job as a real judge, jury, and executioner, equally justly.
That's how they are played, more often than not, but that is not actually the truth of what they are. A lot of DMs fall into this "trap" and play their monsters as re-skinned humans. It's an understandable mistake, as most monsters a so totally alien (by default, as they come from a world that is not our own (even if that world is made up)) and a lot of people have trouble getting into the proper mindset to play them as they truly are.

I think you're overstating how alien "monsters" are. The average DM is not going to play them as that alien. So why should we assume that they are that alien?

The limitations of DMs in general, are going to shape the game world.

Cazero

2020-09-18, 01:37 AM

That's how they are played, more often than not, but that is not actually the truth of what they are. A lot of DMs fall into this "trap" and play their monsters as re-skinned humans. It's an understandable mistake, as most monsters a so totally alien (by default, as they come from a world that is not our own (even if that world is made up)) and a lot of people have trouble getting into the proper mindset to play them as they truly are. Githyanky, Illithids, Dragons...all seem to be played as if they are just humans in some form of fursuit (or scale suit as the case may be).
What a strange hill to die on. Sapient monsters are re-skinned humans. Maybe with some unfortunate biological needs and the strange culture that would naturaly emerge from their very different situation, but humans nonetheless in the sense that they are people. Imaginary people, but as much people as Elrond of Rivendell is.

Unless you can describe one trait shared by all ogres (or dragons, or illithids) that is so completely and profoundly inhuman that it would prove me wrong?

hamishspence

2020-09-18, 01:47 AM

Unless you can name one trait shared by all ogres (or dragons, or illithids) that is so completely and profoundly inhuman that it would prove me wrong?Even when the psychology is portrayed as different, it's always starting from a human baseline.

Dragons are like humans - but with the hunting instincts dialled up to eleven, making them a bit more like superintelligent wolves, than regular humans.

Illithids are like humans - but with the positive emotions dialled down - illithids feel anger, but they don't feel joy, normally.

And so on.

A point is made in Heroes of Horror, that a great deal of the horror in an encounter with giants (and ogres are giants) is the possibility of being eaten, possibly with a knife and fork, by what is essentially just a very large person.

Rynjin

2020-09-18, 02:03 AM

Not without a great deal of help, no.

The usual approach to redeeming a villain, would involve bringing them along on the adventure - probably with some magic to ensure that they don't harm the party, and giving them plenty of opportunities to do the right thing. Talking to them, a lot, during "downtime". And so forth.

Bringing them along, ensures the mission doesn't get delayed. Magical restrictions, minimises the threat posed to the innocent.

...And what magic is that, that you just expect the party to be able to whip out on a whim? And do you expect the party to spend their entire time trying to redeem something that is likely irredeemable?

And that also raises other implications: like is redemption by duress really redemption anyway? And is slavery acceptable just because it's the good guys doing it? The idea seems completely incompatible with what you've been saying up to now.

Cazero

2020-09-18, 02:21 AM

Even when the psychology is portrayed as different, it's always starting from a human baseline.Not very surprising. We have yet to meet an other life form that qualifies as people, and even if we did, we would probably describes them in very human terms.
That's why I'm changing my question from name to describe. Because if we have a name for it it's probably not inhuman enough to be a valid answer, so it was kind of a dishonest wording.

hamishspence

2020-09-18, 02:41 AM

...And what magic is that, that you just expect the party to be able to whip out on a whim? And do you expect the party to spend their entire time trying to redeem something that is likely irredeemable?

Charm Monster and Lesser Geas are both only 4th level. For orcs, as opposed to ogres, all you need is Charm Person, which is much lower level.

Whether something is irredeemable or not, can be found out by trying it. BoED makes it clear that only fiends and sometimes "Always Evil creatures" are truly irredeemable this way, with "only the barest glimmer of hope".

It's always worth trying - and even if the process fails, you may find out who else the evildoer has wronged, and so, who may need help. If you must execute a captured evildoer, do so after you've found out all their worst deeds, and how much they deserve it. The time put in, has two possible purposes, not just one.

If the party weren't prepared to put the time in on the being (either to redeem, or to prove deserving of death), they shouldn't have captured them in the first place.

And that also raises other implications: like is redemption by duress really redemption anyway? And is slavery acceptable just because it's the good guys doing it? The idea seems completely incompatible with what you've been saying up to now.

If you're not treating them as property, and they go free as soon as they're redeemed - it's not slavery, it's a rehabilitative prison term.

The "duress" bit is to prevent them from attacking the innocent. But it's up to them whether they listen to you, and put some effort into redemption, or if they instead refuse to try.

BoED goes into more detail on the process of redeeming an evildoer through counselling.

Rynjin

2020-09-18, 03:03 AM

Charm Monster and Lesser Geas are both only 4th level. For orcs, as opposed to ogres, all you need is Charm Person, which is much lower level.

We may have some severe differences in morality if you think such severe abrogations of free will, especially long term, are morally superior to a summary execution.

hamishspence

2020-09-18, 03:06 AM

We may. BOED's approach is that use of Charm is not inherently evil, but carries a tremendous ethical responsibility.

Summary execution without trial, is always vastly morally inferior to execution with trial (even if that trial is done by a bunch of inexpert adventurers rather than a court, and worked out on the fly) for me.

Not least, because it may qualify as Cold Blooded Murder, and grant everyone involved, 6 Corruption Points.

If you're going to execute, you need to make absolutely certain that your execution is not in fact a Murder. And that, requires time and effort.

Rynjin

2020-09-18, 03:45 AM

That perhaps brings us back to campaign mismatch; in most games I've played, the player party is tacitly or implicitly empowered to legally dispense justice how they will. Adventuring parties are a lot like old west Marshals; they could do whatever they saw fit with very little oversight.

The situation in the OP seems little different. Legally, they're perhaps even more empowered to do what they will given this is some kind of wartime scenario.

But that's just legally, which is what constitutes "murder" in any case. Morally, I still think the torture (light as it was; hanging somebody upside down until they talk is mild enough to appear in kids shows) is more of a problem than the slaying of the ogre, because...it's an ogre. And, again, in most campaigns that means "not really a person". In your campaigns that may be different, and is especially a grayer area when it comes to things like orcs and goblins (which are considered viable player races these days), but in my games, ogres are just over that line.

Berenger

2020-09-18, 04:18 AM

Morally, I still think the torture (light as it was; hanging somebody upside down until they talk is mild enough to appear in kids shows).

That‘s usually because neither the showrunners nor the audience grasp how this leads to disorientation, panic and a painful death through heart failure or asphyxiation.

hamishspence

2020-09-18, 04:41 AM

That‘s usually because neither the showrunners nor the audience grasp how this leads to disorientation, panic and a painful death through heart failure or asphyxiation.

The disorientation and panic is usually the point, though the heart failure or asphyxiation is not.

Crocodile Dundee II is a classic example of "suspend them upside down and threaten to drop them, repeatedly" approach to interrogation. Done on a human, not a nonhuman. And portrayed as appropriate, rather than something that puts Dundee in "The Punisher" levels of anti-hero territory.

That perhaps brings us back to campaign mismatch; in most games I've played, the player party is tacitly or implicitly empowered to legally dispense justice how they will. Adventuring parties are a lot like old west Marshals; they could do whatever they saw fit with very little oversight.

The situation in the OP seems little different. Legally, they're perhaps even more empowered to do what they will given this is some kind of wartime scenario.

Wartime scenarios tend to be less empowered, and more "defer to superior authority".

3.5 DMG II's approach to adventuring and law enforcement is

"adventurers are entitled to kill "outlaws" who don't surrender, but are obliged to take outlaws who do surrender, to the authorities",

with the presumption that the adventurers will not be The Authorities themselves.

Adventurers can get a writ of outlawry retroactively passed if they catch evildoers in the act of wrongdoing and kill them, and convince the authorities of its necessity - which grants them the right to keep property that was on the evildoers at the time.

OldTrees1

2020-09-18, 07:25 AM

Even when the psychology is portrayed as different, it's always starting from a human baseline.

Dragons are like humans - but with the hunting instincts dialled up to eleven, making them a bit more like superintelligent wolves, than regular humans.

Odd. I normally hear Dragons as being described as "cats but". Dragons are like cats but much larger, with energetic cores (furnace like stomachs for Red Dragons), gliding based flight, and superintelligence. This results in them needing a LOT more energy and thus they hunt more. However free food (like a tithe) is very time efficient so they cultivate fear so they can demand others hunt for them. This lets them go back to their catnaps on piles of shiny stuff.

However I should stress:

Creatures like Ogres can be stand ins for Humans or Non-human people or Monsters or Curses or Disasters(Famine) or many other things. It is not unreasonable for someone to run them as unredeemable monsters. It is not how I run them, but this off topic subthread has been a bit to much like "BadWrongFun Crusade" using morality as a cudgel.

MoiMagnus

2020-09-18, 07:51 AM

That‘s usually because neither the showrunners nor the audience grasp how this leads to disorientation, panic and a painful death through heart failure or asphyxiation.

I'd say its more about "anime physics" than lack of understanding of reality.

Once you've accepted that an anvil falling on someone's head is funny (though painful) and not a murder, hanging someone by the feet is probably ok.
Not all show have physics as degenerated as this example, but most shows still have in some extend this vision of physics where that "as long as you didn't cut any part of the body, it's just temporary pain and the person will get better". [At worse, the scene will cut with the person to the hospital, as if being hospitalised with fractures everywhere was something as benign as catching a bad cold].

And in a D&D world, where HP means that you can survive absurdly high falls or other experiences that "should be deadly", it's not absurd to accept that "soft torture" as you see in kid's show is consequence-free for the subject.

Berenger

2020-09-18, 09:03 AM

I'd say its more about "anime physics" than lack of understanding of reality.

I guess that's a fair point, as long as there is a general agreement and some consistency which set of physics applies. I once had a GM who switched from "lighthearted Bud Spencer and Terence Hill western movie" to "gritty realism" during a barroom fight and suddenly I was informed that I smashed some guys skull in and splattered his brains all over the piano. Either genre convention would have been fine, but the abrupt shift kinda sucked.

Democratus

2020-09-18, 11:36 AM

We may. BOED's approach is that use of Charm is not inherently evil, but carries a tremendous ethical responsibility.

Summary execution without trial, is always vastly morally inferior to execution with trial (even if that trial is done by a bunch of inexpert adventurers rather than a court, and worked out on the fly) for me.

There was a trial. A trial by combat.

If a Paladin wins a combat, he can easily call that a judgement. Were his enemy more righteous, then the monster would have won instead.

Wherever he goes, a Paladin is a trial personified.

Xervous

2020-09-18, 11:42 AM

There was a trial. A trial by combat.

If a Paladin wins a combat, he can easily call that a judgement. Were his enemy more righteous, then the monster would have won instead.

Wherever he goes, a Paladin is a trial personified.

I am suddenly picturing a cart rolling out the gate stacked high with stolen jewels. “Sorry m’lord, it already ran over the paladin. Can’t try stopping it again, double jeopardy.”

icefractal

2020-09-18, 02:02 PM

We may have some severe differences in morality if you think such severe abrogations of free will, especially long term, are morally superior to a summary execution.
Just recently I saw a similar sentiment in a different thread about D&D morality, and again I have to seriously question it - I feel like that's vastly understating the fact that being dead sucks. Mind control takes some of your choices away? Being dead takes them all away.

Like, imagine if IRL, a bunch of weirdos with magical powers beat you up and then give you a choice:
A) They put a geas on you that you must be a hard-core animal rights follower - no animal products at all, nothing that's used animal testing, can't swat any bugs (even mosquitoes).
B) They cut off your head (as quickly/painlessly as possible).

Are you seriously saying you'd pick B? Because I sure as **** wouldn't. Even if the geas were something much worse like "no using the internet", which itself could be fatal in the future, it still beats "dead right away". And I feel like "act in a non-evil manner" in D&D is closer to the former than the latter in terms of burden/difficulty, or even less so.

OldTrees1

2020-09-18, 02:12 PM

Are you seriously saying you'd pick B? Because I sure as **** wouldn't.

I must note that they did not say B is preferred by the victim. They said something more like A is more vile than B, even if the threat of B can be used to coerce the victim to opt for A (not that the victim ever had a real choice in the matter, their captives can still do B even after the victim opts for A).

Personally I do see a geas as having more potential to be vile than an execution. There are fates worse than death. No comment on this particular geas, just highlighting how being trapped in a geas can be worse than death.

icefractal

2020-09-18, 02:14 PM

Yeah, but I don't think that "It's more moral to go against their wishes because I've decided that death is better than dishonor" makes sense as a standard either.

I guess I'm having trouble how something can be less "vile" than the thing it's scaring someone into accepting. Like, I'm inclined to take someone's own opinion on what constitutes "harm" to themselves, because the alternative goes real evil real fast. With that in mind, we'd have to conclude that the execution causes more harm. So with the Geas, where is the extra "vile" beyond the harm coming from?

OldTrees1

2020-09-18, 02:18 PM

Yeah, but I don't think that "It's more moral to go against their wishes because I've decided that death is better than dishonor" makes sense as a standard either.

Wait, where did "death is better than dishonor" come from? That seemed like a complete non sequitur. I meant to evoke an example closer to "oblivion is better than hell".

icefractal

2020-09-18, 02:22 PM

OldTrees1

2020-09-18, 02:27 PM

Oh, sure, you could certainly use mind-control to create situations worse than death, no question about that. Honestly the kobold one in OOTS probably counts.

But that's not what was being proposed or called immoral, it was either Charm Person or Lesser Geas used to make the captive:
1) Travel with the party without betraying them.
2) Follow a non-evil standard of behavior.

That's not the same as a mind-torture scenario, any more than punching someone once is the same as physical torture.

True. That poor kobold.

I am not a mind reader so I can't tell you exactly why they considered this particular abrogations of free will to be worse than death. But I was communicating that they felt it was more vile rather than claiming they would choose death.

Edit: Oh random thought. Do not geas "non-evil behaviour" if that reality uses act utilitarianism. That would be equivalent to complete mind control, and either slavery or suicide. Other moral theories should be fine. Even rule utilitarianism (its own problematic geas) would not be as severe.

Rynjin

2020-09-18, 03:29 PM

Death is preferable to removal of free will because free will is what defines personhood, in large part, to me.

The idea of making someone think you are their friend when you are not is generally considered abhorrent when it's only achieved by deception. Magically accelerated brainwashing is many steps worse.

Unless your opinion is that 1984 is a happy tale of redemption and friendship?

Keltest

2020-09-18, 03:48 PM

I would like to add that death being bad does not mean mind control is not also bad.

If nothing else, the given scenario is outright slavery, which is not great.

hamishspence

2020-09-18, 04:08 PM

If nothing else, the given scenario is outright slavery, which is not great.

Gygax seemed to like the idea of Chaotic Good characters "enslaving their noncombatant enemies so as to correct their ways"

The non-combatants in a humanoid group might be judged as worthy of death by a LG opponent force and executed or taken as prisoners to be converted to the correct way of thinking and behaving. A NG opponent would likely admonish them to change their ways before freeing them. A CG force might enslave them so as to correct their ways or else do as the NG party did. CN and LN opponents would likely slaughter the lot.

If one's going to back the Gygaxian approach to execution, how about the Gygaxian approach to slavery?

Friv

2020-09-18, 04:28 PM

Rynjin

2020-09-18, 05:01 PM

My two thoughts on the mind control aspect of things:

Charm Person/Monster as a method of getting your enemy to a place where they can be safely restrained feels very different to me than, say, Charm Person as a permanent effect on someone. It's still a violation of someone's will, but as a temporary measure (especially if the alternative is a permanent measure such as execution) that is justifiable. Permanently re-writing someone's brain is removing their free will for good, which is awful.

With all of that said, none of that applies to a Geas, because a Geas punishes you for breaking rules, it doesn't force you to believe in them. It's not an abrogation of free will any more than tying someone up is an abrogation of free will. If, as an example, you Geas an ogre not to kill, the ogre can still kill someone, they're just going to be immediately punished for it.

Geas is basically a shock collar, but worse (it's more like a wasting disease). Wouldn't that fall under "cruel and unusual punishment" scenarios?

It's also kind of worthless. So you tell the ogre "don't kill people" or whatever, fine.

So he kills someone, gets zapped, and then...just doesn't kill someone the next day. Have you really solved the problem if the ogre is now just killing and eating people every second day instead of every day?

icefractal

2020-09-18, 08:29 PM

Lesser Geas (and in Pathfinder, Geas as well) actually does force you to follow the rules. The stat damage is if you are prevented from following them, because you don't just get to choose not to.

A lesser geas places a magical command on a creature to carry out some service or to refrain from some action or course of activity, as desired by you. The creature must have 7 or fewer Hit Dice and be able to understand you. While a geas cannot compel a creature to kill itself or perform acts that would result in certain death, it can cause almost any other course of activity.

The geased creature must follow the given instructions until the geas is completed, no matter how long it takes.

If the instructions involve some open-ended task that the recipient cannot complete through his own actions the spell remains in effect for a maximum of one day per caster level. A clever recipient can subvert some instructions:

If the subject is prevented from obeying the lesser geas for 24 hours, it takes a -2 penalty to each of its ability scores. Each day, another -2 penalty accumulates, up to a total of -8. No ability score can be reduced to less than 1 by this effect. The ability score penalties are removed 24 hours after the subject resumes obeying the lesser geas.

Death is preferable to removal of free will because free will is what defines personhood, in large part, to me.So, same question - if mages showed up and gave you a choice between magically compelled veganism and being decapitated, you'd pick the latter?

Quertus

2020-09-18, 08:54 PM

Isn't putting magic on them to make them act good defeating the purpose? Isn't the point for them to be taught, and *choose* good?

Magic to make them treat their future executioners as their bestest friend that they'd never hurt or betray in the meantime, whose words they take seriously as they tell them all their inner feelings and deepest secrets? Well, I'll let y'all debate the morality of that one.

Rynjin

2020-09-18, 09:45 PM

So, same question - if mages showed up and gave you a choice between magically compelled veganism and being decapitated, you'd pick the latter?

...At what point do you think I get a "choice" if my free will is taken away?

icefractal

2020-09-18, 10:04 PM

The choice is before the geas, so you're not under any mind control at that point. I notice nobody wants to answer that question directly. :smallwink:

I'm not saying that being mind-controlled is good, I'm saying that death is worse. Under a Geas, you still have choices about 25-95% of things, depending on the details, and it also doesn't last forever. When you're dead, you get zero choices ever again.

And yeah, there's resurrection, but for the vast majority of people and creatures in D&D, it's something very far out of their grasp. You think a random Ogre is getting raised? Nope.

Rynjin

2020-09-18, 10:13 PM

The choice is before the geas, so you're not under any mind control at that point. I notice nobody wants to answer that question directly. :smallwink:

Because it's a silly question. Like you seem to think this is some ironclad "gotcha", but yes, people will choose self-preservation under threat of death. That in itself is taking away their freedom of choice because it's a non-choice; it's is a false dichotomy you have set up only for your own selfish gains. You've essentially chosen to inflict an elaborate form of mental torture on someone rather than giving them a swift and painless death. That's the issue.

Executing them is carrying out the logical conclusion OF their own choices. It is less morally reprehensible than brainwashing. Whether the subject would choose, out of abject terror of their own mortality, to endure whatever you choose to inflict on them instead or not.

hamishspence

2020-09-18, 11:03 PM

I don't think you can have it both ways.

If ogres aren't people, then "brainwashing them to conform to society's mores" (AKA using BOED redemption rules, plus charm spells where appropriate) shouldn't be something that matters much.

Conversely, if ogres are people - then there shouldn't be much issue with treating them like people.

NichG

2020-09-18, 11:20 PM

Vileness doesn't arise from something being an undesired outcome for the victim, it can also arise from the consequences it creates in a world and the societies within it where that act is commonplace. You have to look at what happens when some form of guaranteed behavioral change is cheap, easy, and normalized. Summary execution is problematic because of the standards that it sets, that life has little value over order. Similarly, summary geasing sets the standard that free will has little value over order. It's the transition from 'its not as bad to do X than Y' to 'its not bad to do X' that's a problem. Geasing a murderer not to kill rather than executing them is one thing, but then why not geas a jaywalker to not jaywalk, or even just geas everyone born in a society to follow the laws of that society exactly from birth. So there needs to be a counter-pressure so that such measures are always considered bad to use, even if sometimes a compromise with necessity is made and they're used anyhow. So that's one kind of consequence.

Another kind of consequence is wherein monstrous acts create monsters. The ogre probably isn't going to be even more creatively awful after you slap it with a geas, but in the 'randomly threatened with death by magical animal rights activists' example I'd accept the geas and then spend that new lease on life plotting vengeance. And, like the dwarf, would naturally tend to escalate. If they want to mutilate my mind for their cause, then its time to start an oil company or a cryptocurrency.

Rynjin

2020-09-18, 11:28 PM

Herbert_W

2020-09-19, 12:24 AM

The choice is before the geas, so you're not under any mind control at that point.

The crux of the matter here is that there are two different definitions of the word "choice" and you are equivocating between them.

In the narrow sense, a person may be said to "choose" something if they had other options - regardless of what those options are. This is the sense in which people could be said to "choose" to give their wallets to muggers since they technically had other options, even if those options are unacceptably dangerous.

In the broader sense, someone may be said to choose something if they had other options which are not unacceptably horrible, i.e. actual reasonable options.

A person may "choose" to have a geas cast on them under threat of death, but this is strictly a choice in the narrow and not the broad sense. It's just as much a violation of their free will (even if technically distinct from) as if you had just outright cast geas and they failed their will save. By analogy, you might "choose" to let someone take $100 if the alternative is that they take $1000. You've technically made a choice, but you really aren't being charitable and that person really is still a thief.

Now to switch sides:

Executing them is carrying out the logical conclusion OF their own choices.

What, and casting geas/charm/both on them isn't? If a person's actions can allow one thing (death) to be rightly done to them which would normally be unacceptable, then why can't it allow another thing (mind control) which would normally be unacceptable to be rightly done?

Even if we accept both your premise that free will defines a person and your implicit premise that the preservation of personhood is the most morally significant factor, it does not follow that death is preferable to mind control. Geas only takes away some of a person's free will. Out of the spectrum of all possible actions that a person might take, some are blocked off by the spell - but not all. The same holds for charm - it doesn't make people into mindless zombies. It forcefully changes their attitude on one subject but 99% of their personality remains intact. Death takes away all of a person's choices, plus everything and anything else that might contribute to defining personhood. Both are bad, but death is worse.

Vileness doesn't arise from something being an undesired outcome for the victim, it can also arise from the consequences it creates in a world and the societies within it where that act is commonplace. [...] So there needs to be a counter-pressure so that such measures are always considered bad to use [...] Another kind of consequence is wherein monstrous acts create monsters.

Both of these arguments could swing the other way too. There's no risk of geas becoming commonplace in a typical DnD campaign world. Mages that can cast it are rare and have better things to do. Summary executions, on the other hand . . . yup, we can give those out like candy.

The same holds for monstrous acts creating monsters. A failed attempt at reforming someone might make them resentful but it's more likely that they'll end up either grateful or dead. Outright killing them, on the other hand . . . yeah, that'll make their surviving fellows quite angry.

Ultimately I think that we're all missing the point. DnD is a game. Game design 101 is that you start from the player experience that you want to create and then build systems that support that. If your DM wants you to redeem orcs (which a good DM will if they see that this is what you want), they'll make a game world where that is not only possible but reasonably feasible. This in turn makes it the right thing to do. If your DM doesn't see you as interested in redeeming orcs, then they'll give you a world where all orcs that you meet are either already nonevil or completely irredeemable. The base rules of DnD can support either type of game, and which one you are in depends on you and your DM.

We aren't in a position to make moral judgements on how to proceed based on the state of the world here. It's the other way around. The facts of the world can be adjusted to support the moral judgements that make a game fun for any given group of players, and in the hands of a good DM they will be.

hamishspence

2020-09-19, 02:10 AM

What, and casting geas/charm/both on them isn't? If a person's actions can allow one thing (death) to be rightly done to them which would normally be unacceptable, then why can't it allow another thing (mind control) which would normally be unacceptable to be rightly done?
Agreed.

It's argued here:

Sorry, guy. If you've actively tried to kill me and my friends, and I have no reason to assume misunderstanding, AND you've got a confirmed past of killing innocents, AND I have no reason to believe you're planning to stop killing innocents, then your being temporarily inconvenienced by ropes is not going to sway my call on whether taking your head off is suddenly evil now. Your continued personhood privileges will be revoked by the end of this interaction either way. Literally the only question is how useful to us you're going to be before that. But I'm not going to risk you going on to kill more people after I leave. I'd rather have your evil blood on my hands than the blood of those innocents.

Literally the only consideration is "Is there something we can gain from keeping you around temporarily of greater net value than ending your continuing murderous tendencies?"

If the answer is yes, I will utilize you. If the answer is no, I will ice you. Ropes or no doesn't make a meaningful impact on the fact you do murder as a hobby. End of the day, you gotta go. Nobody owes you the resource costs required for you to have a redemption arc.

that any sufficiently criminal bandit, has basically forfeited their right to be treated like a person.

In which case, their "free will" can't be all that important any more.

"Acting in an extremely Evil fashion" is not a valid lifestyle choice that needs to be respected. As such, if changing them into a better entity is more in the best interests of the universe as a whole than killing them is - it makes logical sense to put the effort into doing the changing, via magical or mundane means, regardless of how much Free Will is abrogated.

If someone "deserves to die" then they "deserve to be changed, just as much" - and the universe may actually be better off if they are changed rather than killed.

Only when changing them is extremely impracticable, should killing them even be on the table.

Rynjin

2020-09-19, 03:39 AM

NichG

2020-09-19, 06:38 AM

Both of these arguments could swing the other way too. There's no risk of geas becoming commonplace in a typical DnD campaign world. Mages that can cast it are rare and have better things to do. Summary executions, on the other hand . . . yup, we can give those out like candy.

The same holds for monstrous acts creating monsters. A failed attempt at reforming someone might make them resentful but it's more likely that they'll end up either grateful or dead. Outright killing them, on the other hand . . . yeah, that'll make their surviving fellows quite angry.

In some sense, this is part of what the idea of having fair trials before taking extreme measures is about. People will still be resentful, but the more the situation is laid out before final actions are taken, the more that resentment can be defused. Similarly the difference in impact of someone being killed in the middle of a pitched battle, versus being executed afterwards. It makes it possible to see what happened more as 'he went off to war and got himself killed' versus 'he was captive and not a threat anymore and they executed him'.

You could say that to a large extent, a lot of these arguments center around making the same choices easily rather than giving them due weight, and that's where things start to slip. Blanket permission to take a certain approach, or making certain things standard operating procedure does more to normalize them than if every time that decision is made it's going to be questioned and only forgiven by careful judgment about the particular context.

OldTrees1

2020-09-19, 07:13 AM

So, same question - if mages showed up and gave you a choice between magically compelled veganism and being decapitated, you'd pick the latter?

Ooh funny question. Both are a death sentence for me (severe broad food allergies) so I would pick the slower death (that way I can plan for the death). Obviously this is not what the mages intended so "Be careful what you wish for" applies to casting geas on people too.

However both are immoral threats and the mind control is both more invasive and will lead to a more agonizing death. So from the mage's point of view, the mind control should be seen as a greater violation and a more vile act. They are able to successful coerce me into opting for it by using the threat of immediate death, but both are vile.

Keltest

2020-09-19, 07:18 AM

In some sense, this is part of what the idea of having fair trials before taking extreme measures is about. People will still be resentful, but the more the situation is laid out before final actions are taken, the more that resentment can be defused. Similarly the difference in impact of someone being killed in the middle of a pitched battle, versus being executed afterwards. It makes it possible to see what happened more as 'he went off to war and got himself killed' versus 'he was captive and not a threat anymore and they executed him'.

You could say that to a large extent, a lot of these arguments center around making the same choices easily rather than giving them due weight, and that's where things start to slip. Blanket permission to take a certain approach, or making certain things standard operating procedure does more to normalize them than if every time that decision is made it's going to be questioned and only forgiven by careful judgment about the particular context.

I have a question here. how is the Ogre in this example "not a threat anymore" exactly? In the immediate sense sure, but given that they lack the resources to bring him to town, which will probably refuse and/or be unable to hold him anyway, just about any resolution to the situation that doesnt result in his being maimed or killed is going to leave him more or less able to pick right back up and carry on with his banditry.

NichG

2020-09-19, 07:45 AM

I have a question here. how is the Ogre in this example "not a threat anymore" exactly? In the immediate sense sure, but given that they lack the resources to bring him to town, which will probably refuse and/or be unable to hold him anyway, just about any resolution to the situation that doesnt result in his being maimed or killed is going to leave him more or less able to pick right back up and carry on with his banditry.

Given that the quoted bit has to do with the mindset of other ogres in thinking about what they're going to do going forward, do you think this argument would change the degree of resentment or vengeful behavior going forward?

Perhaps the more convincing argument is, if I'm an Evil Necromancer and I know the forces of Good take no prisoners or perform reformative brainwashing, it makes sense for me to carry around some terrible mutually assured destruction contingency in case events find me on the ropes. If there's no quarter, I might as well prepare a Locate City Bomb or some other atrocity in case it looks like the battle is turning against me.

Keltest

2020-09-19, 08:55 AM

Given that the quoted bit has to do with the mindset of other ogres in thinking about what they're going to do going forward, do you think this argument would change the degree of resentment or vengeful behavior going forward?

Perhaps the more convincing argument is, if I'm an Evil Necromancer and I know the forces of Good take no prisoners or perform reformative brainwashing, it makes sense for me to carry around some terrible mutually assured destruction contingency in case events find me on the ropes. If there's no quarter, I might as well prepare a Locate City Bomb or some other atrocity in case it looks like the battle is turning against me.

Is leaving them enough room that they think they could plausibly get out and eventually go back to doing their own thing that much better? An Arch-necromancer's Death Contingency Bomb would at least require a significant amount of resources to invest in (system cheese not withstanding) that a regular ogre wouldnt be able to manage. Most of the time, youre only going to encourage them to fight to the death, which isnt necessarily a huge deal if you arent in a position to accept prisoners anyway.

NorthernPhoenix

2020-09-19, 09:36 AM

ImNotTrevor

2020-09-19, 09:58 AM

Agreed.

It's argued here:

that any sufficiently criminal bandit, has basically forfeited their right to be treated like a person.

In which case, their "free will" can't be all that important any more.

"Acting in an extremely Evil fashion" is not a valid lifestyle choice that needs to be respected. As such, if changing them into a better entity is more in the best interests of the universe as a whole than killing them is - it makes logical sense to put the effort into doing the changing, via magical or mundane means, regardless of how much Free Will is abrogated.

If someone "deserves to die" then they "deserve to be changed, just as much" - and the universe may actually be better off if they are changed rather than killed.

Only when changing them is extremely impracticable, should killing them even be on the table.

I'm returning ONLY to call this out {Scrubbed}

NOTICE:
The posters you're talking to ARE NOT ME.
The posters you're talking to ARE NOT ARGUING MY POINTS.

If you wanna argue my points, argue with ME. I'm available via PMs.

{Scrubbed}

Quertus

2020-09-19, 11:28 AM

Vileness doesn't arise from something being an undesired outcome for the victim, it can also arise from the consequences it creates in a world and the societies within it where that act is commonplace. You have to look at what happens when some form of guaranteed behavioral change is cheap, easy, and normalized. Summary execution is problematic because of the standards that it sets, that life has little value over order. Similarly, summary geasing sets the standard that free will has little value over order. It's the transition from 'its not as bad to do X than Y' to 'its not bad to do X' that's a problem. Geasing a murderer not to kill rather than executing them is one thing, but then why not geas a jaywalker to not jaywalk, or even just geas everyone born in a society to follow the laws of that society exactly from birth. So there needs to be a counter-pressure so that such measures are always considered bad to use, even if sometimes a compromise with necessity is made and they're used anyhow. So that's one kind of consequence.

I'm batting for team Lawful Evil, so I approve. I would happily cast such an epic spell to prevent atrocities on a global scale.

Would the world really be a worse place if your ancestors had opted in to a world with no malice?

Having skimmed through the second half of the thread, i find it rather... tragi-comic that people would rather spend 10 pages discussing the hilariously subjective nature of fantasy-morality rather than actually attempt to explore the apparently far more esoteric and unknowable topic that is real world social interaction.

You hit them with a (verbal) clue-by-four until they recognize the possibility that they've done something wrong, and are open for discussion about how to fix that?

OldTrees1

2020-09-19, 04:06 PM

Keltest

2020-09-19, 04:15 PM

Hello fellow rational observer!

Yeah I tried to mention this several times this thread. Often I get 1 person to respond agreeing that "In future the DM should pause the session when Player B objected to Player A's plan that would affect both of them. Then talk about it OOC with the whole group before resuming the action." is a good solution. They even agreed this fantasy-morality is irrelevant. But within 3 posts it is back to this violent argument (some hyperbole used).

Either the actual topic is too esoteric for them to feel comfortable addressing, or the solution is so obvious that they don't feel it worth saying. Quite a puzzle.

Personally, its the latter. 9 times out of 10 the solution is "The DM stops the game before things go too far and makes sure everybody's heads stay cool." but thats not really interesting to discuss, or particularly controversial.

HappyDaze

2020-09-19, 04:39 PM

Personally, its the latter. 9 times out of 10 the solution is "The DM stops the game before things go too far and makes sure everybody's heads stay cool." but thats not really interesting to discuss, or particularly controversial.

It's not the DM's place to dictate how adults act towards one another; that's for the site's host to decide. Often that's the DM, but not always. If I'm hosting a game, I can boot jackhole players for any reason even if I'm not the DM (and I can boot the DM too, if it comes to that). Home turf advantage is real.

Keltest

2020-09-19, 04:43 PM

It's not the DM's place to dictate how adults act towards one another; that's for the site's host to decide. Often that's the DM, but not always. If I'm hosting a game, I can boot jackhole players for any reason even if I'm not the DM (and I can boot the DM too, if it comes to that). Home turf advantage is real.

The DM has the power to unilaterally stop the game. Their participation is an absolute necessity. The host "can" to a degree, but they can be ignored up until the point where they call the police to get these people out of their house, especially if people are getting heated and ignoring the softer opinions of the people around them.

GrayDeath

2020-09-19, 05:27 PM

Not going to read the whole thread, far tooo long, but these 2 posts seem on the point.

I just want to check - Are the players OK with the conflict and you're just managing character consequences? If so, I'd generally say anyone who agreed to torture or killing of the prisoner is not good and killing the horse is not a good act.

But, if it's more a player issue, read on...

If the players aren't OK with it and the dwarf's actions were the result of an angry player declaring character actions in the moment, or the paladin's player was upset about the action, you need to manage that with player conversations, not character consequences. Have a conversation around what you want at the table. Maybe if either or both players want to undo poor choices, let them.
If the dwarf player was upset by the prisoner being killed out of hand, that might be a time to step in and ask the Paladin's player to pause for a minute. When you're playing with a group of friends, sometimes right and wrong aren't the main factors at play. Also when conflict flares up, it might be food time, or at least time to take a break for a few minutes

PvP is not for everyone. It requires everyone at the table to have high levels of separation of player and character, maturity of players and the ability of everyone in the group to be able to call a time out and have the rest of the group respect that.
And it needs everyone to be happy to play a game with PvP in it. Even groups which have the emotional skills to do it don't always want to.

This is an interesting dilemma. The paladin is probably the most out of line in character, while the dwarf appears more out of line out of character.

The paladin's act is worse because they're killing a person rather than an animal. I'd rate that as worse because while the ogre is an enemy, they're now helpless. The dwarf also has the minor excuse of acting second and out of revenge. And the paladin has the disadvantage of being a paladin, they're held to higher standards.

But the dwarf's action is worse because it's PVP. The prisoner was a prop in a scene, at best a future informant. The horse was not a class feature, but definitely an integral part of the paladin's equipment. They're also adding a threat going forward, not a good base for future adventures together. The revenge excuse also turns around here, revenge against fellow PC's is a nono. The dwarf's actions definitely go against the unwritten rules of the game.

So there are at least two competing viewpoints here. Picking which one is more wrong is kind of a choice on which aspect of the game you think is more important: having a consistent in character world, or having a fluent out of character game.

Let me add my 2 questions/Cent:

1st: Why did nobody interfere with the Paladin killin gthe Ogre?

I mean the Ogre was the DWARFS Prisonor, so I assume he was keeping an eye on him, so how`d the Paladin do it?
He cant have snuck in, cause Paladin, so why did the Dwarf do nothing until the deed was done, and THEN flip out?

To me that seems like an intentional bait by the Dwarfen Player.

2nd: Assuming that for some reason the Dawrf was not there when the Paladin did the Deed, the question remains. Why did this happen at all?
For it to work, no palyer has to protest when the Paladin palyer declares his action, then the DM ahs to say "OK, do it".

If the other player protested and the DM did nothing, he is at fault, for the whole sad problem.

Cause things like these are points where a good DM says "Stop. First off, this is not in line with the Paladin Code of Conduct, and secondly this is not your prisoner. I wont prevent you from doing it if the Dwarfs palyer does not protest, but this WILL have consequences for your Paladin, maybe even cause a fall alter on.
Are. You. Sure?!.

Zanos

2020-09-19, 08:17 PM

Having skimmed through the second half of the thread, i find it rather... tragi-comic that people would rather spend 10 pages discussing the hilariously subjective nature of fantasy-morality rather than actually attempt to explore the apparently far more esoteric and unknowable topic that is real world social interaction.
I agree that the alignment debate at least is secondary, but whether or not a character did something which is morally wrong is relevant to whether or not another player's roleplayed response to that action is justified. If someone in the party blatantly murdered an innocent in front of a Good party member, most people would not fault that party member for roleplaying a response that involves violence against a murderer. And while you can say things like it's an issue of expectations or needs to be hashed out with calm discussion, some people are just jerks. Especially in the RPG community. And being your therapist is not your DM or RPG groups job.

Let me add my 2 questions/Cent:

1st: Why did nobody interfere with the Paladin killin gthe Ogre?

I mean the Ogre was the DWARFS Prisonor, so I assume he was keeping an eye on him, so how`d the Paladin do it?
He cant have snuck in, cause Paladin, so why did the Dwarf do nothing until the deed was done, and THEN flip out?

To me that seems like an intentional bait by the Dwarfen Player.

2nd: Assuming that for some reason the Dawrf was not there when the Paladin did the Deed, the question remains. Why did this happen at all?
For it to work, no palyer has to protest when the Paladin palyer declares his action, then the DM ahs to say "OK, do it".

If the other player protested and the DM did nothing, he is at fault, for the whole sad problem.

Cause things like these are points where a good DM says "Stop. First off, this is not in line with the Paladin Code of Conduct, and secondly this is not your prisoner. I wont prevent you from doing it if the Dwarfs palyer does not protest, but this WILL have consequences for your Paladin, maybe even cause a fall alter on.
Are. You. Sure?!.
There's nothing to suggest that the Ogre is solely the Dwarf's prisoner, if anything it sounds to me like the party defeated the ogres together, which would make the Ogre the party's collective prison. I agree that the unilateral decision to execute by the paladin disrespects the typical way decisions are made in a party, and also that it is odd the Paladin was able to do so with no interjection, even if I don't agree the action is Fall worthy or even Evil.

The response, though, is ludicrously over the top.

HappyDaze

2020-09-19, 08:25 PM

The DM has the power to unilaterally stop the game. Their participation is an absolute necessity. The host "can" to a degree, but they can be ignored up until the point where they call the police to get these people out of their house, especially if people are getting heated and ignoring the softer opinions of the people around them.

Nope. That's totally wrong. A DM can easily be replaced by the players because that's the sole source of the DM's authority.

In contrast, the homeowner that hosts the game can unilaterally boot anyone out the door if they want to, nobody else can legally do a thing about it, and trying to ignore it can get those that try hurt. I have ejected jackholes a few times in the past, particularly with "friend-of-a-friend" tag-a-long players. I didn't need to wait for the police either, and only once did I have to actually use violence (the threat of violence was usually enough). You'd be surprised just how lenient the law is with removing people that refuse to comply with a command to leave your home.

Keltest

2020-09-19, 09:26 PM

Nope. That's totally wrong. A DM can easily be replaced by the players because that's the sole source of the DM's authority.

In contrast, the homeowner that hosts the game can unilaterally boot anyone out the door if they want to, nobody else can legally do a thing about it, and trying to ignore it can get those that try hurt. I have ejected jackholes a few times in the past, particularly with "friend-of-a-friend" tag-a-long players. I didn't need to wait for the police either, and only once did I have to actually use violence (the threat of violence was usually enough). You'd be surprised just how lenient the law is with removing people that refuse to comply with a command to leave your home.

Its not a legal or technical issue, its one of psychology. Nobody wants to replace the DM, its a butt load of extra work and frequent disappointment for dubiously extra fun. Certainly if the host tries to boot somebody from their house for playing the game "wrong", theyre just going to end up not being told when the group meets up anymore, whereas if the DM calls a halt to play to ask somebody WTH they think theyre doing, everybody listens.

The DM, not the host, is the one wearing the authority hat amongst players. Finding a location to play is easily the least difficult part of getting a group together. What youre describing is not the host putting a stop to conflict, what youre describing is the host quitting the game in a dramatic fashion.

HappyDaze

2020-09-19, 09:41 PM

What youre describing is not the host putting a stop to conflict, what youre describing is the host quitting the game in a dramatic fashion.

Yet that's not what happened. The game went on minus the ejected jackholes. You're still very much wrong.

icefractal

2020-09-19, 09:42 PM

Quertus

2020-09-20, 08:17 AM

Standard authorial advice is "show, don't tell".

In one group, I had a very… unusual role. Open table (or functionally so). Whenever we got a new player whose character was out of line with the group's power level, the GM would try to talk to them. When the new player didn't get the message, that's when I would step up. I would switch characters, and bring one who totally sidelined theirs. Then, after a session of them being useless, I would explain the concept of "balance to the table" to them again, and ask if they would care to bring in a character more in line with the group's power level. I never had anyone fail to get the idea once I had *shown* them the error of their ways.

Now, I consider treating people like reasonable adults, and trying to talk to them to be a reasonable first step. However, once that step has failed, I firmly believe in "show, don't tell" as a necessary technique for certain less astute individuals.

In this story, if you told me that the dwarf's player had *already* tried to address similar problems in previous sessions OOC, and the GM and Paladin were unable to comprehend the problem, I wouldn't be surprised. Because that's a pattern I've seen repeated time and again at various tables.

Yes, obviously, the correct answer is to talk about this OOC. But it's pretty obvious from the *title* of this thread, let alone the tone of the OP, that the GM is ill-equipped for such a conversation, or even to necessarily know the necessity or purpose of such discussion. Believe me, I know - I've been there. I was "raised" on "role-playing is Good, metagaming is Bad", and if "my guy" had been a known thing, it would have been considered the path to sainthood. That Me would have looked at this scenario and responded, "so what?".

So, my bias is on the side of the dwarf's player trying to teach the Paladin's player *and* the GM an important lesson. However, unless we get the background of the events leading up to this scene, that is purely conjecture and projection on my part, attempting to pattern match what can I infer about the GM & the gaming environment based on the title and tone of the OP with own (somewhat extensive) experiences.

Point is, if they have hurt one another's fun, both players are definitionally "in the wrong" - doubly so if they don't care that they've done so. Also, yes, the GM would be in the wrong for their handling of it, and possibly for their handling of the gaming environment itself. OTOH, if everyone is having a great time, considering that an excellent bit of role-playing of in-party conflict, then *neither of them* is in the wrong.

So, which is more in the wrong? The one who doesn't care how much they've hurt the other player(s). Beyond that, we're just guessing at motives and details, and telling more about ourselves than about the actual scenario.

We now return to our regularly scheduled discussions of D&D "morality" and legality, for those who want to discuss which *character* was more in the wrong.

OldTrees1

2020-09-20, 09:17 AM

Talakeal

2020-09-21, 07:18 AM

I still don't see why people are assuming that this was an OOC problem. Nothing in the OP suggests any OOC issues, and they may well have just been asking about the alignment implications of the conflict.

Also, wow, I have had a lot of dysfunctional gaming, but I have never had to threaten (let alone resort to) OOC violence to solve an issue!

OldTrees1

2020-09-21, 07:34 AM

I still don't see why people are assuming that this was an OOC problem. Nothing in the OP suggests any OOC issues, and they may well have just been asking about the alignment implications of the conflict.

It appears to be a start of very mild OOC conflict that was allowed to escalate. The players have a disagreement, it is not just the characters disagreeing.

One player had their character unilaterally attempt an action that affected both characters. Another player objected. That is the mildest of out of character conflicts. Two players with a disagreement about something they both have a stake in. A brief pause with a short OOC conversation about the disagreement will usually find 1+ solutions. Although it is possible a DM might intuit these social cues enough that they automatically pause & handle the situation and thus consider it too mild of an OOC conflict to even call an OOC conflict.

In the opening post, and the original post from 10 years ago, you can see the question is about the players' conduct, not the characters' conduct. The title is "How do we tell which player's in the right and which in the wrong?". That implies that the players are in disagreement rather than just the characters. If it was just the characters in disagreement, then the players did nothing wrong and there is no lesson the DM could learn.

Quertus

2020-09-21, 08:19 AM

---

Thank you for clarifying. I'll… whistle nonchalantly about how much of that I did or did not know/suspect/believe.

I still don't see why people are assuming that this was an OOC problem. Nothing in the OP suggests any OOC issues, and they may well have just been asking about the alignment implications of the conflict.

It is certainly easy to *infer* that this was an OOC issue; however that is not explicitly stated, thus my "if" clauses.

Also, wow, I have had a lot of dysfunctional gaming, but I have never had to threaten (let alone resort to) OOC violence to solve an issue!

"If violence isn't solving your problems, you aren't using enough of it" "That's how Dad did it , that's how America does it, and it's worked out pretty good so far," :smallwink:

Talakeal

2020-09-21, 10:13 PM

It appears to be a start of very mild OOC conflict that was allowed to escalate. The players have a disagreement, it is not just the characters disagreeing.

One player had their character unilaterally attempt an action that affected both characters. Another player objected. That is the mildest of out of character conflicts. Two players with a disagreement about something they both have a stake in. A brief pause with a short OOC conversation about the disagreement will usually find 1+ solutions. Although it is possible a DM might intuit these social cues enough that they automatically pause & handle the situation and thus consider it too mild of an OOC conflict to even call an OOC conflict.

In the opening post, and the original post from 10 years ago, you can see the question is about the players' conduct, not the characters' conduct. The title is "How do we tell which player's in the right and which in the wrong?". That implies that the players are in disagreement rather than just the characters. If it was just the characters in disagreement, then the players did nothing wrong and there is no lesson the DM could learn.

The OP here, but afaict the post he is quoting uses entirely in character language and seems to be asking about whether an alignment change is necessary rather than about any
OOC issues.

zinycor

2020-09-22, 09:18 PM

I still don't see why people are assuming that this was an OOC problem. Nothing in the OP suggests any OOC issues, and they may well have just been asking about the alignment implications of the conflict.

Also, wow, I have had a lot of dysfunctional gaming, but I have never had to threaten (let alone resort to) OOC violence to solve an issue!

I mean, in my opinion, if there isn't an OoC problem, then no player is in the wrong or right. Neither the dwarf or paladin player were jerks.

Lacco

2020-09-23, 12:19 AM

I mean, in my opinion, if there isn't an OoC problem, then no player is in the wrong or right. Neither the dwarf or paladin player were jerks.

This.

If this is pure IC conflict, and both players enjoy/agree about it, then it's pure roleplaying. Players - depending on their maturity and preferred roleplaying style - can enjoy even a healthy disagreement or playing rivalries, frenemies or even conflicting personalities. In that case, what remains is only to determine in-game mechanical result (i.e. if their actions have an effect on their alignments; something I will not go into). GM should not interfere if both players are OK with the game (they should check if they are OK) - otherwise they are encroaching on their player agency.

I could see this as IC conflict. Paladin's pragmatic action insulted Dwarf's (using capitals because I don't know character names) code of dwarven conduct, so he retaliated in purely dwarven fashion ("Decapita per Capita", so to say :smallbiggrin:). If both players are OK with the interaction (Dwarf's player was acting out anger because that's the feeling his character has), they can now explore the new party dynamic, influence of dwarven & paladin code of conduct on their interaction and the topic of prisoner handling vs. pragmatism.

If this is OOC conflict - players are having an issue with the other characters' action - that needs to be addressed OOC. Possible solutions were already discussed and proposed, not going to reiterate.