In-party conflict- how do we tell which player's in the right and which in the wrong?

[Rynjin]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[OldTrees1]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Rynjin]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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.

Right, which is why I've confirmed twice now that my stance would be exactly the same if it were human bandits involved.

[Herbert_W]

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]

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]

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?

This is unfortunately a conversation I cannot have without delving into banned topics.